Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been pining over my first love for 20 years - dream about him all the time. No one knows. I have a fantasy that one day we'll be old and widowed and get back together. There's nothing to be done about it. You can't control it. I just never contact him because I think there's too much risk.

+1.

+3 (Thats a count for me, and a bold count that first love is feeling the same way about me too)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be frozen at 22 forever.

You don't have to pay bills with him, sit up with sick kids with him, drive cross country for family emergencies with him ...

nope, he is always going to be 22.

+1 followed by a lot of zeroes.

?

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be frozen at 22 forever.

You don't have to pay bills with him, sit up with sick kids with him, drive cross country for family emergencies with him ...

nope, he is always going to be 22.

+1 followed by a lot of zeroes.

He's going to be frozen at 22 forever.

You don't have to pay bills with him, sit up with sick kids with him, drive cross country for family emergencies with him ...

nope, he is always going to be 22.

Anonymous wrote:Imagine he's dead.

Really, what you had it not there anymore - the original relationship (you're kind of a sleaze for that emotional-affair-stuff) does not exist. Most of it is wishful thinking.

Count your blessing for the here and now. Grow up

I use the 'he's dead' technique in a situation I have, where a male friend I cared much for turned on me. I visualize him as a walking corpse. This helps!

Doesn't help, but this song and music video hits you in the gut with pangs of regret and what could have been from all of our first loves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iug0X6cJDDM

Anonymous wrote:IDK I have heard stories of people being married for 20+ years, getting a divorce and then running into their high school sweetheart and getting married and living happily ever after. I think it really does happen.

Or my college roommate who ran into her first love at the funeral for a high school friend, renewed contact, divorced her fabulous husband and put her three kids through the wringer because she was reunited with "the one" only to find that when she was actually with first love full-time, he was a complete jerk. There were reasons why they didn't make it the first time around and they were just magnified two decades later once the "my one true love" blinders came off.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but anyone going into it needs to recognize that old times and fantasy only take you so far.

Anonymous wrote:OP, if it makes you feel better, he probably does think about you every once in a while. In the situations where I was serious with someone, maybe I don't think about them every day, but if their birthday comes up or a song from that time plays, yes I do reminisce a little and hope that wherever they are, things are going well.

My first love will text me a screenshot when a song comes on that we felt were "our songs".

OP, if it makes you feel better, he probably does think about you every once in a while. In the situations where I was serious with someone, maybe I don't think about them every day, but if their birthday comes up or a song from that time plays, yes I do reminisce a little and hope that wherever they are, things are going well.

I think about my first love a lot... But really what I mourn is the freedom I had at that stage of my life. I was skinnier, happier, younger, less jaded; plus I equate that relationship more with not having kids and those responsibilities and time commitments.

OP, I dream all the time about an old flame. It freaks me out sometimes until I realized that it's because he represents something that my subconscious is trying to work out. I'm only now just getting to the bottom of it and my dreams are less frequent. I guarantee if you were with this guy your fantasies and dreams would fade and the disappointment of reality would settle in. Try to get to the bottom of what's going on with you, he probably isn't even what you're dreaming about.

My first love will always be special. We had some incredible moments and really did some nice things for each other. In insight, we were a very caring, loving couple.

About five years ago we did see each other at an event and chatted for a few minutes. Both of us are married to other people and at least for me, it would be a horrible mistake if we were in each other's life even on a once-in-a while send an email basis.

The past is the past. In my situation, we are not the same people we were years ago and neither is anyone else.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that you just feel so much emotion for that first love. Everything is new and exciting and following relationships just can't measure up to the fireworks of that first committed relationship. When you're young and you haven't known loss or hurt it is so much easier to love completely. Also, for that first love many people secretly still believe in all that fairytale one true love stuff, so when that relationship doesn't work out you get a hard kick in the ass to what reality really is.

I think to not have any regrets and to get the most out of future relationships you need to concentrate on why that first relationship didn't work out. Instead of constantly remembering all the good stuff, focus on the bad stuff that went on. You also need to unfriend your exes on facebook. Being able to see only the good part of their lives, which is what is portrayed on facebook, is going to make you think "what if".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been pining over my first love for 20 years - dream about him all the time. No one knows. I have a fantasy that one day we'll be old and widowed and get back together. There's nothing to be done about it. You can't control it. I just never contact him because I think there's too much risk.

+1.

Right there with you--except mine is 30 years ago.

IDK I have heard stories of people being married for 20+ years, getting a divorce and then running into their high school sweetheart and getting married and living happily ever after. I think it really does happen.