"Better half"

When you allow someone to become your "better half", sometimes it really does feel like half of you is gone when they leave. Where do you go from there? Do you stumble along with life, slowly trying to regenerate back, becoming whole, all the while retaining the fragments from your "better half" that did not break off like a stinging reminder of what could have and should have been? What about the fragments of you they took with them? How do you get those back? Does that mean that every time you allow someone to become your "better half" you risk losing a bit of yourself if you lose them? I know these are not easy answers to give or accept, but this once romantic young man feels the wounds from each breaking callusing his soul and diminishing his desire for romantic love.