This is what everyone says, but I'm still not over my first love, and it's been 20 years. I've also never felt love like that since.
No two loves are the same, you'll never feel the exact same way again and that's beautiful.
My first girlfriend came out as trans, and as I'm straight things didn't work out. It was incredibly painful and I still mourn the relationship of 7 years, but I also know that my current girlfriend loves me just as much, and that learning the little ways to love and be loved for each person we hold close is a journey that seldom has repeating steps.
The first time is always the hardest because you never know what's ahead. No two people are perfectly matched for each other, so after a few people you realize there's a lot of variation allowed in what you consider dating material as long as they match your core criteria.
You'll love again, and you'll be grateful in a somber way that the ones who came before helped you to be better, and showed just one more way to love. If you look for the exact same thing you'll probably never find it, but if you allow yourself to be open to new things, and to just enjoy another person's company you may find something you like just as much again.
Also, as a final note, don't go into a new relationship looking for the same feeling of security or whatever that you had with someone you dated for years, these things take time, nurture the love and communicate constantly and with the right partner you'll get it back.
I'm rooting for you folks, just take it one step at a time :)
I hope it's easier for everyone else, but for me love is over. I've come to the point that I'm just not willing to risk the pain for a chance at love, I'd rather just be lonely.
That's a damn shame, I hope you meet someone who makes you think the gamble is worth it
That'd be nice, but unlikely. I don't open myself up, or let myself into scenarios where it could happen. I actively avoid women at this point to ensure it never happens. I think I've even developed a fear of them.
Therapy sounds damn near mandatory from that response.
I'm sorry to hear that. It's cheesy, but I like the saying: don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. Because loss is inevitable and that's the only option we've got. Hope you find someone/something worth loving again, cheers. Here's a song for you if you're in the mood.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Here's a song for you if you're in the mood
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
If you let go of the feeling that you were owed something (love, friendship, etc) in a relationship and just enjoy the time you spent together and what you learned from it, loss becomes a lot easier to deal with.
Also, people change, maybe you left the relationship before that happened. The relationship you remembered is not the relationship you'd be in now. I find that helpful to remember too.
That's you're first love, they are always special. How about your latest lost love. How'd you get over that?
I honestly don't think I've ever loved anyone since. I've had relationships, one that just ended earlier this year after 5 years. I cared about her deeply, but it wasn't love, and moving on was rather easy (as every relationship since the first was).
You are most probably wrong. How old are you?
Time really cures such feelings. In 20 years you'll watch back to these events with a very different perspective
Yeah, now I'm old and, when it comes to relationships, mostly dead inside. Starting to think I may be aromantic and now pretty much consider "love" to be a more positively connotated word for codependency.
With an opinion like that you sound like a teen trying to pass for someone old and wise. Love takes many forms and does not exclusively apply to romantic relationships, or people.
In the context of my comment, it's pretty clear what I was referring to as love. I'm not sure what part of the expressing of my current experience was so threatening to a bunch of people, but that wasn't my intent.
Not sure where you got that people were threatened by your comment. If it has to do with your score, it's because it's a very narrow view, context had nothing to do with it. You shared your opinion I shared mine. Saying people feel threatened or that we didn't understand the context because we didnt agree is exactly the point I'm making when it feels like you are a young person trying to pass for an older one.
Trust me, this type of thinking is not at all exclusive to young people. I know plenty of 50-60 year olds who think the same way.
Yeah 100%. I was a starry eyed romantic in my 20s, but now in my 40s I realise it's mostly transactional, even if it's not money or things being transacted.
Have you thought asking support from a counselor? It might help to cope
You harden up with each experience. They sting less and less as time goes on
"The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal." - C. S. Lewis
Inherent in any great joy is the eventual pain of its loss. Even if we were all immortal, everything changes, nothing gold can stay. Your options are to love and grieve, or to cauterize your emotions and go through life a grey husk.
If it was true love, that heartbreak will never go away. But you're not fated to love one and only one person. Take some time to get yourself together, probably a couple years, and then put yourself back out there. You'll find someone who will love you, and whom you love, just as much and who won't break your heart.
You’re wrong for only asking the question of whether it can get better.
It can also get much, much worse. And it will get worse if you give up on love. If you give up acting as if it can get better, then it will just get worse and worse.
And worse. And worse.
Everyone else is saying it gets better/easier over time etc..
Tbh I don't know.. it depends on so many personal variables that aren't included your question. For some people, sure, it absolutely does get better and the move on. Others are never able to.
I hope you're in the former category.
You need to do your part too and if you're unable to get over it by yourself you might need professional help to deal with it. I've known people who never got over their divorce and all of them were making choices to intentionally make things harder and none of them had sought help even if it would have been free for them... It's sad to see your colleague still talk about "my husband" everyday when they've been divorced for 30 years and haven't seen each other in at least 20...
Time helps us get through pain, even though it often leaves a mark. For me, changing how I think about things has really made a difference.
It's great to feel good, but I don't think that needs to be the main goal of life. I try to see life as a gift where feeling all kinds of emotions is a valuable part. I hope everyone gets to feel the incredible joy of being in love and the comfort of a happy relationship, but also knows what it's like to go through a heartbreak... Because going through different feelings, good or bad, adds so much to our lives.
Heartbreak gives us strength and empathy, happiness gives us beautiful memories, and love? Love is that quiet, steady thing that makes all the tough parts worth it. So I try to welcome every feeling, every moment, and every experience, because together, they make up our unique, stories.
You start to feel less intense emotions when you get older. Same reason why you'll never get that Christmas morning excitement again.
Just get depression and you won't feel anything.
You could have double the anxiety, and bowel cancer.
If you don’t move forward, your health will fail and your nervous system will produce less and less dopamine, and your life will be a living hell as the signals being blocked by that dopamine come through stronger and stronger. Pain and suffering signals.
There’s no level ground here. It’s either uphill or downhill. The way consciousness is structured makes it this way.
As the buddhists put so eloquently and so bluntly: life is suffering. You have to transform it. If you try to just wait it out, it never stops.
It’s kinda like rain that will only stop when you walk out into it. If you resolve to stay dry, and wait until the rain stops, you will wait forever and in the meantime your roof will open and there will be no dry place anywhere. But if you go out into the rain, the rain will stop.
Things could be worse.
Tbh in a sense this is the way tho...In the way that no singular event should be a defining victimization but instead to self-determine a better future. Complaining keeps you in the past, but having hope propels you forward into a future of possibilities.
Feel sad, feel upset, but don't settle into the feeling. It is only a moment, and the way you respond will lead you down the path you choose with that response.
I was just helping you understand a difficult post.
Yep.
Thoughts create feelings.
They are impermanent.
I had my marriage fall apart and I was devastated, my friends and family had to carry me sometimes literally. I though I probably never love as intensely again, and even if i could that I couldn’t handle a breakup again.
It’s important to not just try to get over heartbreak, but to find out why it broke you so much. At least for me. I took me a while I guess to be ready to truly look into that.
So I do believe the thought is wrong, but not you for thinking it. It can get better.
That really depends on you. Some people manage to get over it quickly, some don't. Some never do.
In my experience the suffering of losing a romantic love is less intense the second time, but the falling in love and passion can also be less intense and take longer to build up as you're more guarded with your heart after being heartbroken before.
If by "it doesn't get any better" you mean that the pain doesn't go away, you're correct, in my experience. It does get different, though. I heard someone once say that the pain becomes the new normal and I've found that to be accurate. It becomes a part of who you are. Over time, you learn how to move on and live. If not, like someone said in another comment, consider finding a professional to help guide you to explore your feelings.
Your exact predicament is common to many and the topic of many poems, books, songs and movies. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind comes to mind.
I gets better, but you have to get to a point where you allow yourself to forget.
Mine happened a couple of decades ago now. I was head over heels and it just ended.
I thought my life was over. It wasn't. I met the person ten years later. Glad it ended when it did. We were very different people and I didn't know myself very well back then, in retrospect.
After you've had the Ultimate Love Affair that has broken you, leaves you certain love has been poisoned in your system, then, and only then, can you be saved and uplifted by the Post-Ultimate Love Affair. - Harlan Ellison http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0072/ERBAEN0072.htm
I'm on my phone but i just wanted to pop a comment that I've been feeling the same way as OP for about 2 years now. I'm getting better, but the scar will remain. It's a tough road built specifically for you it seems