How did you get "over" the last person you were in "love" with?

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If you really in love, you tend to find excuses for your spouse action, even though you know the best thing is to leave. I found that there is 2 stages after a break out : the first one is a very deep depression that make difficult to function. The 2nd part is a more subtle depression where you think less and less of your ex but still feel lonely.

My first marriage was very passionate and took me 3 months to pass the first stage and with the help of a therapist. The therapist told me than in average the first stage takes 6 months to a year If you don't go to therapy. The 2nd stage was another 3-6 months I think.

My 2nd Marriage was really based on love but we became a bit like roommate after 9 years and my ex was lying to me for the most stupid things and the important things. Because I lost my respect for her from lying to me like that when I would have never done made the separation easier and after 7-10 days I was over Stage 1. I am still in Stage 3 but things easier every days.

Always keep in mind that it will pass, so heads up tomorrow is another day and hopefully a better one!
 
Interesting topic and replies.

I also agree that it is just time...
But that amount of time depends.
Just like the death of a loved one, it can take time to get over it. You may never completely get over it, but in time you can live with it.

I also agree with a lot of the strategies listed here.
Another thing too is to just realize that these things happen in life. Almost everyone on earth will go through it at some point.
 
Well, If you "love" anyone which differs person to person so let's assume the "love" as generally it is considered. If you "love" someone, you don't really forget them (him or her which ever is the case). You can't, you just can't. What happens after breaking up is you try to find fault in them, trying to convince yourself that he/she wasn't good enough for you or what ever happened between you two was a mistake, may be you weren't made for each other. You try to kill the care you had for them, ignoring your natural caring side putting it aside and trying to fill it with dislike and hatred but it doesn't work cause you can't hate them once you "love" them cause that is how love is. It's pure and comforting. Don't know about fling thing never had been in one. But love never dies, you stop ignoring your feeling about them, trying to suppress to it's full extent until it becomes the "hate" which we all feel it at one point in the life but that "hate" too is another form of "love". With passing time feelings become numb, unresponsive, your heart heals itself with support and care from others and If there is no support and care then it takes a life time to get over with it. Some never get over with it, living their life with misery, cursing and blaming themselves for "loving" someone. "love" always remains just intensity is different. but Only If it is "love".
 
Hi there Jags. I'm sorry it took me so long to reply to this thread, but I simply have not been able to face this topic for a long time.

jaguarundi said:
Uh-oh! Looks like you are going for the "it takes 2 years to get over a break-up" scenario...

Simple rules for breakup,

1) go cold turkey if possible .. no contact of any kind and no trying to be friends.It hurts too much. Maybe sometime in the future, but not while its raw.

I have indeed gone cold turkey. I know she emailed me twice in the beginning of the year, but since I was still so angry and hurt, I didn't reply. I knew I'd only add fuel to the fire. I had already gotten in fights with her about this, and it always only made things worse. I figured saying nothing was better than saying something that only further made me look worse in her eyes.

I haven't checked that email address since at least March or so. The last message I got from her was a rant. I don't know why, since I hadn't done anything to provoke her. I hadn't been talking to her at all. If I logged in to that email account and found another angry message I'd feel hurt, but if I logged in and found no new emails from her at all, it would hurt just as badly. I simply haven't had the stomach to look at it.

I haven't ruled out the possibility of trying to talk to her again. But like I said, I don't know when I will be strong enough to try to do that. I think I need to get my life in order first, because if I suffer another setback, it's just going to make me feel even more sad and unmotivated and I'll just lay around doing nothing, and I don't have time for that anymore.

jaguarundi said:
2) think about all the things that you didn't like about the person and what wasn't working in the relationship.

Well, I always was aware that she wasn't perfect.

She could be very negative, pessimistic, depressing, and spiteful about people, life, and herself.

She was an atheist. I am not a huge church person myself (as a kid, it was always just another place I was forced to go like school, when I wanted to play instead), but, I have always found atheism to be too bleak and depressing for me. I like to think there is at least some possibility that we continue after life.

She drank a lot and smoked a lot of weed and who knows what else, and also had episodes of promiscuity. She visited strip clubs many times. She also told me that she had been a thief and had stolen cars before. All of this stuff was in her past (except for the drinking), but still, I felt, how can I trust a person who has done things like that?

She was also not the healthiest person, either physically or mentally. She was prone to feeling sick, so there is the whole problem of choosing a healthy mate. She'd get into these weird states of mind sometimes, not from drugs but just from how her mind worked. She told me that for a while she used to drink cough syrup to get high because she was depressed. She had been put in the psych ward at least once.

She told me she didn't finish high school, and was not in college as far as I knew. I was skeptical of her ability to make money, since that is something I have a hard time with myself.

She read non-fiction almost exclusively. This isn't a huge problem, except that it contrasts with me who really enjoys fiction. I wondered how she would feel about some of my interests.

Lastly, I always was bothered by the idea that what if I started dating her, how could I bring a wild person like her around my family and friends? I always worried how she'd treat my family, who tend to be on the nicer and more traditional side of things (which I am totally fine with). And I worried how she'd treat my friends. My friends are more modern in their beliefs and attitudes, but still, they aren't, you know, the "bad" crowd. Would she be nice to them? I just didn't know.

jaguarundi said:
3)Park what you did like until you are over them and can think about it without pain.

But there was still a lot I liked about her. Although she had all those problems, I was willing to forgive her because she was beautiful and fascinating and talking to her was so easy and free. She had a body that was just the type I like, and I've never seen anyone else with her face. She had a unique beauty to her - I have never seen another girl who looks like her. She was intelligent and artistic and cultured and we'd talk about philosophy and art and books and music. She'd say we should go to rock concerts together. She'd send me quotes she thought I would like or would inspire me. In spite of her "edgy" drinking/drugs/atheist/swearing/promiscuous side and in spite of her bouts of insanity, she also had a really sweet side that liked Disney movies and kids' books and parks and animals. She would talk to me in this really cutesy way. I asked to see her, and she uploaded a bunch of pictures of her that only I could see. It was nothing sexy, but it was just for me. She told me she wanted to hear my voice on the phone. She always wanted to know how I was doing in life and she always asked me my thoughts. She always seemed to jump at a chance to talk to me. She said she cared about me and that she believed in my dreams and wanted to see me succeed. She seemed to really understand the way I felt about life and what I wanted. She seemed to understand the things that were special to me and even told me she wanted to share in some of them with me. She would always beg me to stay up later and talk to her all night, she'd always tell me she missed me when I was gone, and that she wished I lived closer. She would tell me about all the things she wanted to show me and the things we'd do together and that she wanted to help me forget how "old" I felt. She'd tell me I was so alive. She'd tell me that I was sweet and sunny and shiny and she'd ask me if I was real. She told me that I made her feel happy. She even said she loved me and asked me what I'd do if she tried to get me to sleep with her.

I figured, she has a lot of flaws but everyone does. A lot of people these days drink, smoke weed, swear, are atheist, visit strip clubs, and have had a sexual past. It's not something I'm happy about but it's just the way the world has changed and it's getting harder and harder to find people who don't do any of those. I felt that it was worth it to overlook her flaws to try to be with a girl that I felt was uniquely beautiful and who interested and inspired me, versus a "normal" girl but less attractive and less interesting. I was willing to at least try to take the good with the bad, that's how I felt that I really did have feelings for her.

jaguarundi said:
4) use the anger to get fit/spring clean your house/de-clutter your attic.. Anything that's positive and useful and gives you a feeling f accomplishment.

That's what I did last year, and I got a lot done. I cleaned out my basement and really organized everything. I made lists, I separated things between stuff I would keep and stuff that I hadn't looked at in 20 years. I made a huge pile of everything from my past that I intended to give away.

You're right, cleaning did help for a while.

jaguarundi said:
5) if you catch yourself dwelling on it all too much, firmly but gently tell youself to STOP, and think or do something else for a while.

Some days are better than others. I keep hoping that she'll be single again one day and that we'll be able to work things out. I try to tell myself, you never know what could happen. People break up all the time, and people have changed their minds about someone they have turned down before. I haven't been talking to her so that we can have time to clean the slate and start over again. Mostly, I try to just keep going, keep cleaning and sorting and figuring out the direction I want my life to take. I know that if I open that email account and there is some kind of trouble, it's only going to knock me down again for who knows how long. I am truly tired of feeling this way because it makes me feel stuck. I haven't been drawing much or writing or playing guitar, I've been wanting to, but I've been feeling too down in the dumps over this to do it. I haven't even looked for work as much as I know I really should be. I haven't even played video games or my pencil and paper roleplaying game. I've just been in a stupor of sorts.

At least the warm seasons are here and I can get out and walk and ride my bike more.

I'm sorry if you feel blown off. I know you mean well. Thank you for lending an ear and for your kind words as always, Jaguarundi. I guess I'll just have to take it one day at a time.
 
I'm still thinking about her. It was a month ago that we met each other for the first time. She was so fair and I liked her first name. A beautiful redhead.

I asked her a week later about a second date and she was not interested in further communicating. She didn't want to become my girlfriend. After reading this sad email I could not function.

I'm still thinking about her, and how I can land a second chance with her. I didn't think the date went bad. I must be super ugly.
 
Time and meeting someone else. One time I had to force it, become interested in somebody I knew to 'forget' about the other one.
It worked though and the second one was easy to move on from because it wasn't so intense.
Neither was interested in me which was always the case.
 
i cut off all contact, met new people, got rid of anything to do with him and basically replaced his memory with a new person.

i spent so much time on this new person that i forgot all about him.

he came crawling back but i had been so occupied with the new person i genuinely couldn't care less anymore, and that made me see him for what he truly was in comparison.
 
The only proper cure, is having someone else to take their place. Then you associate those feel-good emotions with another person, not the one you're trying to forget.

The other cure is getting busy with life, cutting all ties, and let time pass. It'll stay there, but fade more and more into the background. This can between 1 to 2 years until everything starts to be like normal again.
 
I still miss her a lot. I miss our all-night conversations and I miss all the sweet things she'd say.

And there is another girl I miss. We didn't have a fight or anything, and in fact she talked to me last month but I didn't feel like it was a good time to reply. I never told her my feelings but the way things are now, it doesn't look good. I would have really loved to talk to her more though, and there's so much we had in common. I kick myself for having not acted fast enough when I had a window of opportunity, because I really do believe we could have been very happy together.

I've looked and I've looked, but there's no one like them around. No one even close. They looked, thought, and talked differently from most people. They weren't even the same type of person themselves. They were truly special, the kind of girl you meet once in a lifetime if you're lucky.

I try not to let this get me too down, and I don't want it to ruin the present for me, because you never know how much time you have with everyone and I don't want to waste any more of it being sad, heaven knows I've wasted enough time already being sad or upset about one thing or another. But these feelings get through sometimes.
 
Oldyoung said:
The only proper cure, is having someone else to take their place. Then you associate those feel-good emotions with another person, not the one you're trying to forget.

People often tell me before that when I do this, the new person is basically a rebound and that those feel-good emotions will only last for a little while. That if it passes a certain time or stage, it'll no longer be one. Though I have no idea when that time or stage is. Some people might think that it's selfish but I feel that if the "rebound" is aware where they stand and the possible outcomes that might occur, then it's all right.

Then again, what do I know. I almost entered this situation with a very good friend before after my first break-up of a relationship that lasted almost 5 years, but we both knew better and we didn't let it happen because we knew, someone would end up hurt and in our case, that someone would've been me. To get over a relationship that long... takes awhile.

Maybe focusing on a new person might help but somewhere along the way, I think these feel-good emotions would end up including the ex in mind, in thoughts, memories and the likes.

Maybe it's easier for some people to do this, but I've not used a new person to forget so I can't say how it'd be for someone like me. The last time I went through a break up, I went numbed for many months after. :\
 
I think it depends. If you fall hard, it can take awhile. And I don't really know if one ever truly moves on. Its like a part of you will always miss the feeling of having had it great for awhile there.
 
I haven't ever had a relationship before so if I ever "fall" for anyone they tend to be the celebrity kind, and due to me never actually being able to deal with them in RL. It keeps my fantasy of what kind of person they are alive.

Kinda off topic
 
I masturbated a lot and it ended up working to dull my attraction to her. Not a joke.
 
Thought of all the horrid things she did and the possibilities that lie ahead now I'm free and single - that feeling of freedom, of regaining control of my life and having the strength to fill my days with happiness and contentment, wonder and discovery instead of being on a treadmill operated by somebody else....it becomes addictive and so every time I miss the happiness I had with this person, I just think of how much better off I am now.
 
Cut contact,don't reply to them,avoid them if possible

Concentrate on yourself,do whatever makes you happy and things you enjoy,keep yourself occupied,make yourself a list of things that you've always wanted to do,places you want to go etc

Catch up with some friends and family you haven't seen in a while and all the things you probably neglected when you were in the relationship.
 
Wow, so many replies. Thanks all.

I made this thread 'cause most of my close friends/acquaintances tell me to forget about the girl I like. They tell me 'she lives too far', 'why don't you go out with so and so?', 'stop living in the past'', 'move on dude' etc. And it annoys the hell out of me.

And I would move on except for one thought. What if I did move on, got married, had kids, and then I finally see her single.

Then I'd be like '****! should've waited for her.'

I don't want to have that kind of regret.

But once again thanks for the replies. As of now I choose to remain single, unless of course I meet someone who does take her place.
 

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