I still feel like this about an ex after 15+ years. Hasn't dissipated one bit.

Go back to him if he was the love of your life.

Anonymous wrote:For at least a year after I fell in love with DH, I still had strong feelings (and loved) my ex. It was pretty clear he was still very attached to me too, so we remained friends (ex lived in another city, so mainly email and occasional phone calls). When I found out the ex was engaged, I was crushed and in tears (although I already was engaged to DH); I realized I had harbored visions that we might reconnect as widow(widowers). I decided I owed it to DH to make a clean break and stop being friends with the ex, to let things cool. So I changed my email address and did not send the new one to ex. He got the hint. The emotions faded. Now i only think of the ex on his birthday. When I spend time with DH and my daughter I feel like the luckiest woman alive...

I share this personal tale only to suggest that with time 'this too shall pass.' It may not seem like it now, but you will not miss him to this degree forever.

+ 1 Million.

Listen to this OP. Had a very similar experience.

Anonymous wrote:Just another reason to never get married, boys. Your fiance/wife is yearning for her ex.

There you are! I was waiting for you to show up.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I thought I was going to get attacked but you have all been great! I have kept in touch with him over the years, and I don't think that has helped. I plan to not communicate with him any more, not that it was frequent, until I am engaged and then one final goodbye lunch perhaps. As for the new guy; I am attracted to him, very much love him, have lots of fun with him, but I do not feel that our connection is as deep as it was with my ex. I can commit to him with my whole heart and I think we will last, but I hope this part of me that yearns for my ex will some day disappear.

OP! Cut contact ASAP! Until you've been out of contact for at least a year (no looking him up online either!!), it will be impossible for you to gage this relationship or any other. Please get started with that promise to yourself today!

Also, refrain from listening to sappy songs or watching sappy movings for a while also. You have been fanning the flames of this.

Have you ever noticed that a big component of these kinds of feelings is LONGING. Even when you were dating, I bet you had a sense of longing (since you never committed to each other, there was always uncertainty). That explains a lot of what you are feeling. When you subtract that out of the equation, a relationship can sometimes feel dull in comparison. But a committed relationship has it's own unique and connected feeling that is 100 times better in my view. You have to give it a chance to grow though.

Good luck OP!!

OP here. Regarding my other relationships: The first one was in high school, sophomore through senior year. Second one was with someone who is now one of my closest friends. He and I were together five years, but we never should have been. Great friends and very compatable in that way, but the romantic spark was never really there. The third one is the one I miss. He and I moved across the country together and I loved him with my whole heart. I had no doubt that we would be together forever. We were working together to live and progress in school and toward our careers. We had our five year and ten year plan that we were working toward without help from our families and with undergraduate loans piled up. He was less than two months from starting his PhD program when he left. He was scared of the future, scared that this wasn't the right career and scared that he wouldn't be a good enough father and provider. He has made it very clear that he regrets his decision and wants another chance.

My current bf is fantastic and I hope to marry him, but there is a depth/connection I had with my ex that I don't quite have with my current bf. There are a multitude of amazing things that I love about him and I do not want this relationship to end, but I still think about my ex far too often. I think a big part of love is choice. I will chose this man, if he becomes my husband, every day. I will chose him through the good and the bad, and hopefully as we start our marriage and family, my feelings for my ex will have dissipated significantly.

I still miss my ex too.

But my aim is getting better.

Anonymous wrote:I would really question the wisdom of OP getting married to her current boyfriend. Seems like she could be settling or trying to convince herself that he's enough. I'd encourage her to move on until she finds someone that makes the ex seem more insignificant than he is now.

+1 She could even get back together with the ex to let that relationship fully play out. She's lucky she has that option. It seems there is something unfinished, some lesson still to be learned. There may be a way to make it work with the ex that she hasn't yet imagined.

Ha all the insane DCUM misogynistic monster have crawled out of the woodwork to troll on this thread...

Anonymous wrote:This is the fourth time something like this has happened (that she's admitting to at least).

No, she said he is one of four LTRs, not that she has been unable to get over four different people. For all we know she dumped the other three and never gave them another thought. Stop projecting and read.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah--she's immature and possibly a nutjob, although not freakishly so, given how many other women out there are exactly like her. This is a person who compulsively finds a way to sabotage their existing relationships, and she's done it four times now.

There is absolutely no basis whatever to suggest the bolded part - you're making that up out of thin air. You sound like a bitter dumpee who got left by someone who seemed to have trouble committing. I think you need to get over it and move on. The OP sounds very unhappy about still thinking of this person.

I would really question the wisdom of OP getting married to her current boyfriend. Seems like she could be settling or trying to convince herself that he's enough. I'd encourage her to move on until she finds someone that makes the ex seem more insignificant than he is now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't have had 4 "significant" and "long-term" relationships and just be in your 30's.

I am sorry, but this really isn't true. I don't disagree that the OP is probably romanticizing someone from her past, and it's not the most mature thing in the world, but it is incredibly common and she's not some freakishly immature nutjob.

An LTR is probably best measured as a percentage of your dating life up to that point: therefore, assuming you start dating at, say, 15, a year long relationship at 20 is equivalent to a 3 year relationship at 30 (both are 20% of your effective dating life). Regardless, though, it seems to me that any exclusive sexual and dating relationship of over 12 months pretty reasonbly qualifies as an LTR; no, not the same as a decade+ marriage, but long term.

It's very easy to imagine that by 30, the OP has had 4 LTRs.

This is the fourth time something like this has happened (that she's admitting to at least). Yeah--she's immature and possibly a nutjob, although not freakishly so, given how many other women out there are exactly like her. This is a person who compulsively finds a way to sabotage their existing relationships, and she's done it four times now.

He obviously wasn't the love of OP's life. They were and are incompatible. The grass is always greener. OP is never satisfied with the relationship she has.

She is going to wind up in her 40's or 50's alone and not knowing why.

Or, marry this unlucky sap she's with now, or someone just like him, and neurotically wreck both their lives.

Anonymous wrote:You can't have had 4 "significant" and "long-term" relationships and just be in your 30's.

I am sorry, but this really isn't true. I don't disagree that the OP is probably romanticizing someone from her past, and it's not the most mature thing in the world, but it is incredibly common and she's not some freakishly immature nutjob.

An LTR is probably best measured as a percentage of your dating life up to that point: therefore, assuming you start dating at, say, 15, a year long relationship at 20 is equivalent to a 3 year relationship at 30 (both are 20% of your effective dating life). Regardless, though, it seems to me that any exclusive sexual and dating relationship of over 12 months pretty reasonbly qualifies as an LTR; no, not the same as a decade+ marriage, but long term.

It's very easy to imagine that by 30, the OP has had 4 LTRs.

You can't have had 4 "significant" and "long-term" relationships and just be in your 30's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have been separated for over four years. I am with someone I love and plan to marry. My ex wants different things out of life than I and I don't want to be back in that relationship, but.... I seriously miss him so much and so often think of him. I still cry over him. I am in my 30's, and he is one of 4 significant and long term relationships, but I feel that he was the love of my life. I sometimes day dream of the day that we are both widows and reunited. Is that completely F'ed up!?! Again, I don't want him back, which I could have if I wanted, but I cannot get over him. Can. Not. Will this change with more time? We've been separated longer than we've been together.and I have been with my current boyfriend as long as I was with my ex. We are talking about engagement and our future, which I do want with him. But I can not shake my ex.

How many more relationships are you going to screw up before you grow up and cut the crap?

Please get your head out of your ass and try to make your current relationship the best it can be.

Your prior relationship(s) not just with this ex but probably all the prior ones in large part failed because you're childish and immature.

Grow up.

Amen.