Things weren't perfect, of course. His overbearing mother made her nuts, while he complained that she had a lack of life experience due to her being eight years younger than him - and I thought men liked younger women. Anyway, they have broken up, and she is currently somewhere between devastation and frustration. It's not as though she's never endured disappointment before. In our society, most women her age have already survived enough traumas to put them in therapy for 10 years.
Breakups only account for a fraction of what women go through.
There's childhood baggage, grade school, middle school, high school, not to mention growing up as a woman in the wake of the feminist movement in which it's neither enough to get married and raise children or have a career - the proof of true independence is to do it all. Unlike pressures to live up to a man's expectations and the media images of skeleton thin models that can challenge a woman's sense of self security and esteem, this breakup is challenging something deeper - her belief in happily ever after. A challenge American women seem to be facing together. The scenario is common. Boy meets girl.