How did you get over your first love?

[Quest]

First love: Your first r/ship, the first person you loved who loved you back, the first person you said "I love you to" (apart from your family members, of course). How did you move on when it ended?

Did the idea that 'your first love is likely not your true love' make you feel any better? In terms that the right person must be someone else out there?

Do you believe in the following saying?: "First love never dies, but true love buries it alive" (Author unknown).

 

[apemon]

I didn't. Slowly.

No.

No.

 

[say what]

How did you move on when it ended?

I don't think you can move on...you just keep existing until it doesn't hurt any more. I always wondered what "moving on" meant....have I moved on? I don't want to get back together or ever see them again...but it still hurts, I'm still bitter...but it doesn't encompass me. I get moments when I'm filled with rage...but then they pass.

Did the idea that 'your first love is likely not your true love' make you feel any better? In terms that the right person must be someone else out there?

I don't know. Sometimes I panic and think "was that it?" and then I get depressed - sure I had a great connection with him, but I deserved (and still do) so much more. I hope he wasn't my true love, and that they're still out there.

Do you believe in the following saying?: "First love never dies, but true love buries it alive" (Author unknown).

Hmmm....I like that. I don't think the love you hold for someone (no matter who they are) ever dies or is forgotten...it just gets buried with newer love and happier times.

 

[Sriracha]

I dumped him for someone else. Easy-peasy. LOL

 

[Lark]

Long time ago now, although it doesnt get easier with repeated experience, not really.

I guess I plough into some other interest, occupy my time with the things which, oft necessity, are a little neglected when you have a relationship taking priority instead.

Being single is a great time to work on yourself and your own interests, improving both can give you new avenues to meet other people too, either make friends or find a new love interest, both of which help when you're trying to get over someone.

 

[bamf]

It sucked for a really long time, but the only way I can really explain it is in the obvious and trite way; it just slowly hurt less and less until one day it didn't hurt anymore. I still love my first love. We'll never work, but they helped define who I am today and who I was at that point in my life. They'll always be a part of me.

I'm in a committed relationship and about to be married (three months from today), but I don't really believe in that whole "one true love" deal. Don't get me wrong, I love my partner deeply, passionately, and they are my best friend. However, I'm not naive enough to think that neither my partner nor I could never love someone else in such a way. We've built, fostered, and maintain a connection and relationship that means the world to both of us. We chose every day to partake in it, but it's nothing "special" in the sense that it is exclusive only to us.

If we were to split, I would be devastated, but I don't doubt my ability to create a similar relationship with someone else. Whether or not I'd want to is up for debate.

So, I guess my answers to your questions are the following; it sucked, I don't know, I don't know, and no.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

How did you move on when it ended?

I tracked her down 8 years later and took her life.

Do you believe in the following saying?: "First love never dies, but true love buries it alive" (Author unknown).

Yes.

 

[Gaze]

First love: Your first r/ship, the first person you loved who loved you back, the first person you said "I love you to" (apart from your family members, of course). How did you move on when it ended?
-honestly, I'm still not sure I've experienced a true mutual first love. What was true love for me may not be for the other person, and I'm not sure it can even be called true love if it's not entirely mutual. For me, moving on is tough because I don't just get attached - I hate that word, implies someone is a leech on those they love. My feelings are intense and I'm a loyal person when it comes to investing my feelings in someone. It's not something that goes away that easily, and usually takes me longer than most to get over it. That's been a consistent pattern for me. The best way to get over it most likely seems cutting ties with the person completely (if you're strong enough to not keep going back) and commit your focus to something else you are passionate about. Engross yourself in another interest. It takes my mind off thinking about the person as much. I'd love to say talking myself out of it works by explaining all the logical reasons to myself why it doesn't work or never worked or convincing myself that great a partner anyway, but rationalization oddly enough has never really worked in my case.

Did the idea that 'your first love is likely not your true love' make you feel any better? In terms that the right person must be someone else out there?
- I think it would be easier to accept if I knew that that it wasn't a true love since I'd always believed in the idea of a true love. However, experience caught up with me, and I realized that it's easier to project. I think sometimes it's easy to believe someone is that special one when you're trying to justify your feelings for them. It's easier than investing your time and energy in a relationship with them if they're just another joe or jane schmo. Feelings have always been a serious thing for me. Never casual, and never will be. I would like to think the supposedly right person is out there somewhere but I hasten to believe that. I am that point/age where I shouldn't really believe in that anymore. It's not healthy to hold on to the hope of a "one". Eventually, disappointment sets in and you find you've wasted too much time waiting for something that may never come along. Then again, if you don't believe in something special, then you're more likely to settle for whatever comes. So, catch 22. I think it's sometimes better to remain single and not go looking. That way, there's a better chance of meeting someone by accident.

 

[dragon mouse]

Two years into my second relationship, I still don't know if I can say I'm over it. I think about him daily. Sometimes I go a while without feeling sad about how much I miss him, and I think maybe I'm finally over it, but then something triggers it again. Lately I thought I'd been doing pretty well, but then I dreamed about him a few nights ago. Uuuuuuugh.

I can't even tell if I miss him romantically anymore. I just know that I loved him as a person, not just as a boyfriend, so no one is going to fill the void he left behind except him.

This describes my experience extremely accurately, though I'm a few months shy of two years in my current relationship, and my first love was probably INFJ/INTJ. It's been six years since he and I parted ways, due to the complications of long distance, miscommunication (noncommunication?), and likely immaturity. I'm wondering now if the lingering confusion about how I feel towards him today is confounded by what he said at our parting: 1) that he would be willing to date again in the future if distance were not an issue, and 2) that he would always love me. At this point, because of [basically everything Seraphim said], I'm not even sure that contacting him for closure would help me "move on" at all.

 

[Eric86]

I was able to look at things from a more objective perspective due to the distance her breaking up with me created, and then realized that we really were not as good of a match as I had once thought, even though we had been in a relationship for three years, and I was then glad it happened. Falling in love with someone else about half a year later helped accelerate the process of getting over my first girlfriend quite a bit as well. I still care for my ex greatly, but I have not had any romantic interest in her at all for quite some time, and I never will again. We do not even talk any more.

 

[Quest]

I read this last week. Helped me see things differently...
I still feel sad, though not as much.


YOUR FIRST LOVE ISN'T THE ONE YOU WON'T FORGET.


Source: Brianna Wiest. http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2014/02/your-first-love-isnt-the-one-you-wont-forget/



Someone recently made a comment to me in which they referred to someone as my first love, and I instinctively said “oh no, they weren’t my first love; that was so-and-so,” though as I said it, it felt like a half truth. I realized that I have referred to a few people as that, mostly because at different times, I had really believed they were each my first love. It dawned on me that maybe “first love” has little to do with the person you first fall in love with and much more to do with the first person you think you’ll never get over.


Maybe it’s what we perpetuate or maybe there’s a simple truth to it, but my guess is that it’s both: people struggle with the “first love” concept because it’s the first person you are convinced you will love more than anybody. But we shouldn’t celebrate our “first loves” as these unconquerable presences in our pasts and indefinitely in our futures, as the ones we won’t forget. They are not as remarkable as the ones who do come along and show us how someone else’s touch feels just as warm, and that though we were once convinced we’d be eternally emotionally attached to someone, even the strongest convictions pass with time. The people we really don’t forget are the ones who prove that love is not expendable. They are the ones who give us the ability to look back on how convinced we once were that we could never, ever love another person as much as we did by helping us realize that we can and we will, because we did and we do.


I think what we all figure out eventually is that love and attachment are two different beasts, and that though they somehow have little to do with one another in theory, in practice, they have everything to do with one another. When you are most convinced that you will not love another person again, it is usually because that person gives you something more than love to which you are holding on — a sense of self, purpose, certainty for the future, whatever. You hold onto what your life could be, something that they aren’t responsible for giving you, but it feels like they are.

But you eventually realize that love itself is not maniacally compelling. It does not field desperation. It does not blindside you or rip you apart. The things that rest between your person and love are the things that do. It’s so easy, when we’re taught that “happily ever after” will save us, to believe that. But eventually we learn that the happiest days are the ones that come after love comes, goes, lingers, waits, and forces you, one way or another, to confront yourself and fall into stability on your own terms. It’s then, and only then, that we realize how our “first loves” have so little to do with love, and so much to do with us.




Source: Brianna Wiest. http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2014/02/your-first-love-isnt-the-one-you-wont-forget/

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[acd]

Thought about the reasons why the breakup was justified and how things had changed.
Then dated someone else.

 

[Barnabas]

marriage

 

[blueman32]

It wasn't easy getting over her. We went to the same college, so I would try and walk by where she'd be just to catch a glimpse of her....once I made a conscious effort to stay away from her, things got easier. Also, I found out she was cheating on me and I saw her making out with one of my friends SHORTLY after we broke up, so at first, it was hard, but ultimately, it made it easier getting over her.

Vilify her. Make her a villain. Let your guy friends talk shit on her (make sure it's real though. If they are saying untrue things just to make you "feel better," it won't work), you can talk shit on her, write about her, go to forums and talk about her, write down all the AWFUL things she did to you, do NOT sleep with another girl (I did, and it made me feel worse), and find ways to distract yourself. I was taking a class that I LOVED (political philosophy), so I was constantly reading. Also, I worked out A LOT more. Then, I planned a trip to South Africa.

You eventually begin to realize that she wasn't "true love," but rather JUST love, or even lust. Once the rose-colored glasses come off, you begin to appreciate her for what she was, but realize that it really wasn't as right as you thought it was. There are DEFINITELY better girls out there (and shortly after her, I met an ENTP who, for a VERY long time, 14 months to be exact, I thought was perfect for me. Now, THOSE rose-colored glasses have been taken off and I realize she's still a child).

I'll always remember her as my first love, but yes, I do believe that true love will bury that relationship and make it almost one huge joke.

 

[jimtaylor]

I embraced the pain of it fully, let it consume me and then let it go because it is over. The reality is that though it hurt, I don’t regret any of it in the least bit. It was a great experience but there is no reason to hold onto it. What I miss about that first love wasn’t reality and there is no going back to something that didn’t exist in the first place. So I moved on and don’t miss it much because it is just another experience, another step to finding the happiness in life I seek.

 

[flower]

I want to know... Sometimes the time heals, sometimes it doesn't.

It's so hard, I just... I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't do anything else than just cry my lungs out or feel numb and just feel... So miserable.

I know that there are many fishes in the sea, so many better matches with me, who are better for me... But there's only one him, he's unique but... So is everyone else.

Sigh... It's just so hard. T^T

 

[Wolfskillian]

First love: Your first r/ship, the first person you loved who loved you back, the first person you said "I love you to" (apart from your family members, of course). How did you move on when it ended?

Did the idea that 'your first love is likely not your true love' make you feel any better? In terms that the right person must be someone else out there?

Do you believe in the following saying?: "First love never dies, but true love buries it alive" (Author unknown).

My first love. It was 3 years of emotions I'd never experienced before, physical exploration, letting someone into the deepest parts of my soul.
8 years later I thought I was over her till I saw her one day. I was jogging in the park and she was there playing with her small children and pregnant with another. I couldn't help but think, "I wish those were our kids."
Flash forward several more years, and we're sorta friends.

I think there will always be a place in someone's heart for their first love. You never forget. As for a true love, I haven't met her yet.