Tl;dr I’m not able to get over someone
In college I saw a girl and immediately had strong feelings. I was sleeping around with 2 girls and wanted to end it all for her. So I did. By a miracle, we got together. Dated for a year. She was to graduate a year before me. I went on a trip overseas. She cheated on me while I was overseas. I knew it from her eyes when I got back. We went separate ways.
A year later, my feelings were still there. I begged for her to let me back into her life. She did. I moved to a few states with her. I was nearly broke, but did anything I could to keep her happy. I guess I cared more about her than myself. And I thought we were happy together. I even thought we could manage long distance. I could. But after 3 years, it wasn’t enough for her. She cheated again, and did something much worse I cant talk about. It’s not so important what it was. I learned to understand that I wasn’t providing enough emotionally or financially. Im not a victim in this story. Cheating is undeniably wrong, but I can take responsibility for not seeing signs it was to come. Again, I misread things.
That final breakup and complete disconnection was in 2016. We haven’t talked since. We have friends in common, but i guess she doesn’t talk to them much or they dont talk to me about it. I’m blocked on her socials, which is good for me.
I’ve had several 6+ month relationships since. Happy ones. Right now, I’m very happy single. But I think about her all the time. Worse, I have vivid reoccurring nightmares about her cheating on me, and me desperately trying to get her back. I wouldn’t actually try, but the feelings haven’t disappeared. And these dreams are so much more vivid than any other dream. It’s like the go to thing for my subconscious, sometimes awkwardly during relationships.
I deleted most of our pics together. I stopped talking to people closer to her than I. I’ve tried mindfulness, acceptance of my mistakes, acceptance we weren’t perfect and my memories of happiness together missed whatever she went through to cause her to leave me. But I hope there is something else to do. Maybe maturing career wise? I dont know.
My relationships since her have been great. But not “love at first sight.” An idea that might be a farce. Part of me hopes the next time there is love at first sight, I act on it, it works out, then these feelings dissappear. Just like I stopped wanting to sleep around when I first met her. Unfortunately, love at first sight seems desperate to most. It messes up chances, since it’s not reciprocated. So the few times I think I felt it since her, had 1 or 2 dates at best before rejection. I do better when the relationship is a logical fit, and can be happy in such a case. There is a true love that grows out of those relationships. It’s even a less juvenile, chemically dependent one.
Should I just accept that some losses are felt til death? Continue what I’m doing? Has anyone experienced something similar and managed to pull through?
3 comments
I think you’re being really hard on yourself. It’s great that you want to take responsibility for your actions during the relationship, but her cheating on you was *not* your fault. It sounds like you were bending over backwards for this woman who treated you like trash, and you had some codependent tendencies and poor boundaries (“I cared more about her than myself”).
I felt like this about someone, and I often still grieve the loss of the relationship. Despite dating around a lot since the breakup, I haven’t found anyone that compares, and 4 years later I’m still single. But a lot of therapy helped me realize that the reason I continue to grieve the breakup so much is partially because it brings up childhood wounds. Abuse and neglect as a kid resulted in a fear of abandonment, and thinking “the one” would finally give me the love and care that I craved and never received when I was young. The problem is, the guy I was in love with just didn’t care about me as much as I cared about him. I did everything I could to keep him happy, and try to convince him to love me back as much as I loved him. It was a toxic situation, and frankly embarrassing in hindsight.
These days I still grieve the loss a lot, but I’m really focusing on healing, so I never lose myself in a relationship like that again. I have much higher standards now and I recognize when I’m becoming codependent or having poor boundaries in a relationship. I put my needs first. I’m confident that as time goes on and I continue to heal my childhood stuff and work on self-love, my boundaries will continue to improve, and I will eventually feel less grief. I don’t think the grief will ever truly disappear, but I also think this journey will make me a better partner when I eventually find my person. I’m just trying to be patient
Once I heard that people have tendency to idealise people we lost, and that is very true. If by any chance you two got back together you would notice how many annoying things she does, and that she is far from perfect(just like anybody else).
I know what you mean tho, I have been with someone for many years and I lost that person(cheated as well) and it was hard for me to believe I will ever find anyone close to him. I still haven’t but when I catch myself idealising him in my head I immediately think about all the nasty things he has done and that while being with him it wasn’t all great. That helps.
Maybe you haven’t really understood what that relationship and your feelings were.
Consider the idea that maybe it wasn’t “love at first sight”, but just an intense, youthful attraction to someone who wasnt actually a good match for you. If you’re looking for the same, intense feelings, it could potentially be *bad* for you to find that.
The main thing that brings this to my mind is how you frame her cheating. It also sounds like you had to convince her a lot and try to prove yourself; also not great signs that this was a good fit or “meant to be”.
People often mention that if you grow up with poor examples to model your relationships on, you’ll find the same screwed up dynamics most compelling. Not sure if this applies to you, but it’s worth spending time introspecting about whether your expectations are healthy/realistic
You might be looking for a spark that actually indicates something unhealthy, rather than a “truer” kind of love.
I think the only thing you can do is try to reframe and process it with a different perspective. You won’t get over it if you idealize it, and frame it as “if only I had done X, maybe it would have been enough”.
If it was truly something worth holding onto or aspiring toward in future relationships, it wouldn’t have been a struggle to “be enough” for her.