Hello all, I'm just trying to figure out why the heartbreak from my last relationship has come back to hit me again almost a year later at a moment when everything has been going well in my life. I dated a guy 2 summers ago. We shared a beautiful connection, far stronger than I have ever had with anyone. He was by far the most kind and respectful person I have ever dated, but he had a pornography addiction and ended our relationship when he relapsed. Last spring, he recontaxted me and wanted to rekindle the relationship. Things had been going really well in his life, and he felt he had been on strong enough ground to have a healthy relationship. My instincts told me otherwise. There were a lot of red flags, so I ended things. At the time I thought I just didn't have feelings for him anymore, but I have come to realize in the past few months that I very much did love him but that I freaked out. Since then, it's been almost a year. I've moved to a different city to go back to school. I have a really strong friendship with my roommate, I've been really concentrated on my own interests and have been really involved in activities at school. My goal is to move abroad after my studies next year and so I've basically accepted to put dating on hold. But I've been really flourishing in my life. However in the past few weeks, I've become overwhelmed with doubt and grief. Yesterday, I cried all day as if it just happened... And I don't understand why all this grief had come back to hit me.
I am sorry you are going through this. I haven’t talked about my friend who threatened to out me 6 months ago. I’m older, and shared the fact I was gay with him. He was mad at me and threatened to out me. In our community it would be difficult for me to come out because I am well-known and there isn’t anyone in my life anyway, so what’s the point. You can call me a chicken shit, I know but I’m coming out slowly and It is going ok. Anyway, I haven’t spoken to my friend in six months and probably never will. It has taken a lot of time to process it because I cared for him deeply. Time has helped some, but there are always reminders of him and at times I miss the person I could share my personal thoughts with. I know if we try to resolve things, I won’t move forward in my own life and my quest to find someone. He was awesome but our relationship held me back in the area of my sexuality. I work on not dwelling on him- I change my thought process when I think of him and I tried to remove as much stuff in my life that reminds me of him. We were never in a relationship, but we were very close friends- nothing physical, we were just so comfortable with each other until I came out to him. Move forward with your life. You can love your past but don’t live in the past. Good things will happen to you and help you move on.
I'm sorry about what happened between you and your friend, man. That's a hard thing to go through. You're right, I can't live in the past. I think what was going on is that I was so focused on the present, as I should be, that I hadn't thought about the past in a while. But then I then took a step back from the present and started questioning the past and whether I would come to regret my decisions in the future and whether I would miss out on something extraordinary. I started wondering whether I really made the right choice to move to my current city... which isn't really where I want to live, but it was a compromise for a year and a half because it was the best career choice I could make. It's silly, I think I was doing really well focusing on the present. I don't know why I had to dig up the past and fret over the future. Perhaps it's this preoccupation that I'm now 26, and time seems more and more precious. I feel like I'm going to blink, and I'll already be 30 and won't have made the most of my 20s.
Actually, that's the next big thing I've got to stop worrying about. Ever since I turned 25, in my mind, I'm on the verge of turning 30. I really need to figure out a way of bringing myself back to reality, focusing on the fact that I'm only 26 and that my youth is not over and that I must stop fearing aging so much. I just don't know how to do that...
I know the feeling of suddenly missing someone from the past. But in most cases we are not friends/dating anymore because there were a lot of issues in the friendship/relationship. And what I am really missing is the connection we had more than the person. Sometimes I tend to think that I can never have close friendships or relationships with new people, like they will never be as good as the ones in the past. But I think it is because I tend to remember all the good stuff from the past and not the bad stuff that lead us to not be friends anymore or break up. Of course we shouldn't walk around dwelling on all the bad stuff of the past all the time, but consciously trying to focus on the bad stuff might be what you need in order to move on? I suppose what you really need to figure out is how much this person is worth to you? How much will you go through to be with them? If you have already gone through more than what you think is OK, then remind yourself of that when you start missing this person.
