Home › Forums › Dating and Sex Advice › I still think about my ex fiance each day, 4 years later. When will it go away?
- This topic has 5 replies and was last updated 4 years, 9 months ago by
redcurleysue.
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Lizzie
Hi,
I met my ex 12 years ago. We became friends, I went out with other people, but they didn’t quite measure up to him – and eventually we got together. He understood me like nobody else and we got engaged. However, we started arguing and I met someone else who I couldn’t stop thinking about. We took a break away from each other and I kissed the other man. Then I told him. He wanted to get back together and make it work, and so did I, but he’d told his family about the kiss, who advised him not to go out with me. He’s Indian and I couldn’t fight that.
I couldn’t forgive myself for what I did and I was still thinking about the other man, who I really liked – and why I felt that way if he was my soulmate. I also didn’t feel worthy of his love. So we split up and I eventually ended up going out with the other guy. Last year, I married him.
There are naturally times when you think about your ex, especially when he’s been a friend for so long, I think – like a soulmate. I thought I’d grow out of it over time. But I still think about him.
Last year, a few months before I got married, he messaged me to say he thought he’d reach out to let me know he just got engaged and although things didn’t work out between us he wanted to thank me for letting him move on. He couldn’t have known I myself was engaged. And part of me was jealous of the other woman, but part of me wants him to be happy with someone, even if that someone isn’t me. And that’s part of the reason I left him – because I didn’t think I was enough. Especially after what I’d done. I know the message was part meaningful and part taunting. I replied saying that I was glad we’d both found the happiness we were looking for and I hadn’t wanted things to end up how they had. It pained me to send that message.
I want to be clear: I love my husband. But I miss that part of my ex which knew me so well without having to try and I still think about him every day. I don’t have that with my husband naturally and he doesn’t really think like that. I’ve tried not to think about him (and haven’t told anyone about it), to ignore it and sometimes I think about what would happen if I speak with him again, just to hear his voice. But I know I hurt him and he’s moved on – yet I know him and I will never find that same connection or bond with anyone else.
Of course, I don’t contact him, just keep on trying to progress with my own life – because I really did love him and I want him to be happy. However, I still miss him every day. It’s been 4 years now and it still hurts. Does anyone have any advice on how to stop this?
Newbie
If he was your soulmate then why were the two of you arguing and why did you turn your eye to your current husband. So i think you are colouring in this past and also focus too much on how he always got you. There was nothing at stake back then so not much to get. Now its about being a team, making a future.
Maybe you lack love in your marriage or youre somewhat of a blind romantic driven person. I dont know. I do know what you are doing is not healty to you or your husband. Plus there is no way that old flame wants to rekindle: he thanked you for moving on
You can try to focus less on love and more on relationshipgoals you two want to accomplish. Get more sense of why you chose him. Because you did. There had to be a reason for it.
You can chose to go to therapy to find out if you are stuck on this and why. I chose another approach. I had a serious crush for a long time that was impossible. I decided to embrace it as a part of me that travels with me. You seen that movie where that professor played by Russell crowe is a schizophrenic and wants to deal with that rationally as he is a mathman. So he learns to know they are with him but he cant associate with them. Like that. Well, the feelings went away and roughly 3 years later he suddenly died. I went to the funeral without any special feeling except sorry he was gone.Ramona
I don’t think our feelings for others ever go away as we decide our own beliefs. You believe that you will never have a connection with any other man, then him. It makes me question if this is true, or if it is a decision we make based in our own beliefs. So long as you believe that he was that one ultimate connection, you are probably incapable of even being open to the idea of having that incredible connection with your husband or finding ways to obtain it…. having said that another point to ponder is this… many women I have talked to say that there is no love like there very first love. And I could say the same about my very first love. To this day I have always felt a deep connection to my very first boyfriend even though he lives a country away and is married with 4 kids! When I think of love and the other men I have had relationships with, I always go back to that feeling of what it was like to fall in love that very first time, and nothing ever seems to measure up and I am in my 40’s now and I fell In Love for the first time when I was 16!! I think it’s because we are only human and we tend to want to hold onto experiences that really made us feel “whole and good and worthy”.
What I have learned to do, is to “place” the emotional connection and memories of him and I in a compartment in my head where he and I will always remain, however all those good feelings and memories are just part of my over all memories and they don’t effect me starting new relationships or finding and holding and building new deep connections with new men…. so I think it’s partly a choice to hold on and linger in the past, and also a choice to find a “place” in your heart or your head or both, and tuck all that “goodness” in and say I accept my past for what it is and I can live knowing that I loved him, and it’s Ok to let go and focus on my husband and my relationship to get to be where I want it to be.
I wish you inner peace and health and happiness!Lizzie
Thanks for your replies.
He and I had been arguing as he seemed to be doing less to help me as I was working longer hours and he admitted he’d “got in a slump” and wanted to get out of it, but I was worried he wouldn’t. Couples do argue sometimes, but there was a lot going on for me then and I was having some health issues, so I took a route that was perhaps more dangerous.
Thanks Ramona, for your advice too. It helps to know that other people believe the same. It’s a weird thing feeling so connected to someone for so long and with him it was instant – we just totally understood each other – then I was close friends with him for a long time, so think I mourn the loss of that too as I haven’t replaced it.
My husband and I have a different relationship. He doesn’t really know me in the same way and it’s not in his nature to, so sometimes I look back with a bit of regret as I miss that part of my ex. But you’re both right, I guess I chose him for a reason. Maybe this feeling really will be with me for a long time and I can just try harder to box it away.
Lane
I think you are looking externally for happiness than internally. Trust me, I know everything about my ex husband that no future wife, if he finds one, will know about him and vice versa, and that’s not always a good thing haha!
To be honest, I think its become a habit where it started off with guilt, and then developed into a false fantasy of a man (ex fiance) who wasn’t meeting your needs because if he was you wouldn’t have thought or wanted the other guy. This has more to do with *you* than it does these men. Its sounds like you’ve built these false fantasies or of what a relationship should be like and when reality never satisfies it, you go back into the past because the current is never able to meet your needs.
I think you need to stop thinking about how this man knew you, as I’m sure your parents, friends, siblings, etc. know you pretty well too, and start thinking about the things he lacked, and you lack, that keeps leading you to want to be in another man’s arms.
redcurleysue
No one can truly know another since we are always changing. You are not the same person as you were 4 years ago and neither is this man. Reality is always in the here and now – not in the past. Get busy, maybe write some journals, find yourself as you are today and become like a rainbow. Grow yourself by learning. Stop staying stuck.
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