This is Myke

[Myke]

Hey everyone I'm new here.

 

Nearly two years ago more like a year and a half I broke up with a girl I had dated for 4.5 years. She was my high school sweet heart. I first saw her in 10th grade but thought I could never be with a girl like her. I passed her off as the type that probably had a boyfriend in college or something.

 

Then in February of my senior year I met her and asked her out. Turns out I was her first real boyfriend. We were in the same grade so we walked down the aisle at graduation together and went to prom together and all that other fluffy crap.

 

But we broke up nealy two years ago and it still feels like yesterday some days. I've dated other girls since. About 5 of them. Never for very long.

 

My problem is love. I feel like I lost the perfect girl. I feel like I'll never find another like her. That I messed it up. Some nights I lie in bed and wish I would wake up next to her in the year 2000 knowing what I know now and not make the same mistakes twice. But I know that's not possible.

 

I've tried to convince myself that their are other girls that can impress me as much as she did. But damned if I know where they are.

 

I don't really know where I'm going with this thread... sorry. I guess I just wonder how I get her out of my head after so long.

 

The thing is I feel like I'm so behind her. She has been dating some other guy now for a year. I'm 24 and she'll be 24 in a couple months. It's getting to the point in time where she might want to marry this guy or have kids with him. There is this growing jealously in me wondering why it wasn't me. She has probably forgotten about her feeling for me long ago since she's been with this new guy for so long. But she comes back in my head as what I want in a girl. Why do I feel so behind her in life right now. Like I'm paddling but not getting anywhere and she's so far ahead?

 

This kind of thinking ran me into a panic at the beginning of last September. To the point where my heart was racing and it was hard to breathe for an entire week. The worst week in my life. My first and hopefully my last anxiety attacks.

 

Why can't I get her out of my head and why can't I feel content with my own life? Why do I feel like I have to compete against what she's doing in her life? I just want to be content with where my life is going and find someone new. But everytime I see images in my head of me succeeding at something it's her I'm looking to impress or show up somehow. To say hey look at me! Don't you wish I was still yours?

 

What's my problem?

[Tony T]

You obviously have no love or respect for her at all or for yourself either. That's sad.

 

If you loved her, you would let her go in your mind and wish her great happiness in whatever she does in the future. If you respected her, you would respect whatever course she decided upon in exercising her freedoms as a human being.

 

When you fell in love with her, you were at a much different place psychologically and developmentally. You fell at a time when emotions in a person are seething and more intense than at any other time and she was your FIRST big love. That happens to most of us and it's truly wonderful.

 

Most people are selfless enough to appreciate those wonderful memories and let the person go once the relationship has taken its course. There is some underlying psychological reason why you are holding on to her to your extreme detriment. Perhaps you are afraid of moving on or still just too sad to work through the break up, accept reality and get through it.

 

If you loved yourself, you wouldn't put yourself through this exercise in futility. What happened to you happens to people ever minute of every day yet most people feel a normal period of sadness and move on. If you had respect for your life and your feelings, you would stubbornly refuse to allow yourself to be stuck in this place emotionally with seemingly no way out.

 

If you are unable to process this lady out of your life and gladly wish her the very best with hers, see a counsellor...IMMEDIATELY. In these times, every minute counts and could be our last. I would hate to think that if something awful happened in the world today and it was destroyed, or the part of it where you are was, that you would have spent your last days in this yuky psychological state.

 

The past is gone and will never return but your mind can get stuck there. You will never, ever truly enjoy anything in the present if you allow you mind to remain in the past.

 

Each moment is to be relished and thoroughly enjoyed and will be tomorrows memory. Treasure the great times you had with this lady and move your butt on. Didn't anybody ever tell you how life works. If not, you need a good talking to.

 

If you totally live in the present and enjoy every single moment of it, you will have a wonderful life. Very few of the people who are in your life at this moment will be in it five years from now. I hope to gawd you don't try to drag them all with you regardless of the fact that they will have freely moved in other directions.

 

Understand that some relationships are forever but most are temporary...in love, friendship, acquaintanceship, business, or whatever. Some last weeks, some months, some years...but they all either end, change in intensity, change in their characteristics or just eventually fade into obscurity.

 

Getting used to this reality is part of growing up. Until you see a counsellor and get treatment for this arrested emotional development, you will never evolve into a mature human being who can enjoy life and respect that other people aren't obligated to hang around your butt forever just to make you feel good. People do what they will do so just get used to it now...and avoid the rush.

 

Love yourself and love others by allowing yourself to be happy in the present and allowing others to do the same...just like life was meant to happen.

 

Every man is the architect of his own future. Go find somebody who's idea of a future includes you in it. They are out there.

 

Thank gawd Thomas Edison didn't get stuck on his first idea of how to make a light bulb or we'd still be dark at night today. He went through 1000 pieces of material before finding Tungsten produced light. He didn't get stuck on his first experiment. So if you have to go through 1000 girls (which is doubtful) to find the right one for you, you are putting yourself way behind by obsessing about this high school sweetheart.

 

The very name high school sweatheart implies that we let them go when we graduate. You did graduate, didn't you? You don't return to high school often because you haven't been able to let it go, do you?

 

Let's get real!!!

[Dragonflys]

It seems to me you are feeding the emotional hurt by getting into the habit of thinking about it.

 

In addition to Tony's excellent advice and philosophy, whats important for you is to change you life patterns to enough of a degree so this thought pattern weakens and eventually fades away. You are creating this all in your head now, and while it's understandable for your case, you simply have to get out of this rut before you can enjoy life again.

 

Trust me, there are tons of women who can fulfil your every need like she did, but right now you cannot see it because you have created such a unique filter that you view other women through. No-one else is her, but if you learn to overcome these thought patterns your perspective will become less filtered and you will see and appreciate many more qualities in other people. It's not a particulr quality in a person that brings you joy, it's how open you are to receive it positively.

 

Wish you well..

 

Oliver