Mourning Lost Love: What's your style?

When I was a teenager, I had a crush on a boy. Wait, it was not a "crush." I was in love with this boy, like "Marianne Loves Willoughby."

But, my feelings for "the boy" had to be expressed like "Elinor Loves Edward."

(Which begs the question, did Elinor love Edward as much as Marianne loved Willoughby? Hmmm...)

But back to my teenage love-life (ha!): Romantic expression was not encouraged (or really allowed) in my teenage world so I had to pine in secret, only confessing my heart in secret whispers to my sisters, and best friends during slumber parties.

At times, I was sure that "the boy" liked me as well. But then he would do horrible, frustrating things (like ignore me at parties! Pish!) that made me question..."Does he really like me?"

Oh, Elinor. I get you.

However, a couple years passed, and my feelings were eventually 100%  confirmed and returned by "the boy" (though not publicly!). I was wildly (though privately!) happy.

But then...he did something that really and truly broke my heart. Really and truly.

I wished I could have mourned the way Marianne did in Chapter 16, publicly and miserably:

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby…she was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough!

When breakfast was over she walked out by herself…indulging in the recollections of past enjoyment and crying over the present reverse…

She played over every favorite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby, every air in which their voices had oftenest joined…She read nothing but what they had used to read together. 

My sensibility was "potent enough" too! But I could not publicly mourn my broken heart. My "relationship" with "the boy" was really quite tenuous and the cause of my heartache was not information that could or should be shared with others. 

So, I mourned like Elinor: 

Elinor’s feelings . . . required some trouble and time to subdue. But as it was her determination to subdue it, and to prevent herself from appearing to suffering more than what all her family suffered on his going away, she did not adopt the method so judiciously employed by Marianne on a similar occasion to augment and fix her sorrow by seeking silence, solitude, and idleness...

Elinor sat down to her drawing-table as soon as he was out of the house, busily employed herself the whole day, neither sought nor avoided the mention of his name, appeared to interest herself almost as much as ever in the general concerns of the family; and if by this conduct she did not lesson her own grief, it was at least presented from unnecessary increase, and her mother and sisters were spared much solicitude on her account. 

Both Elinor and Marianne (and me!) experienced intense love...and loss.  Both sisters grieve in different ways. But, although Elinor and Marianne have the right to grieve in their own separate ways, I think that both suffer or cause others to suffer in ways that could have been prevented. 

In my case, discussing my broken heart with someone older and wiser than me could have given me valuable insight into my "relationship" (if I could even call it that).

So...Let's Talk about it:

What do you think about the ways Marianne and Elinor grieve their broken hearts? 

While both method fit their personalities, how could their emotional expression (or lack thereof) have been more mature? 

Have you ever had a broken heart? Did you grieve like Marianne or Elinor? Or...a combination of both?