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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

how do you get over someone from a decade ago?

18 replies

MissSpock · 15/01/2018 21:28

With whom you had a brief intense fling with?

You live in different countries. Talk from time to time but non-romantic - usually hi, hello, career, how's the weather stuff.

You're both not single and will never be together.

OP posts:

kaytee87 · 15/01/2018 21:29

Stop speaking to them completely, don't look at pictures, have them on social media etc. Out of sight, out of mind.

RemainOptimistic · 15/01/2018 21:33

Recognise that it's not the person you're obsessing over. It's the fantasy that they represent.

Face up to your real life. It's the only one you'll get so you have to live there or you never will.

CabbagesOnFire · 15/01/2018 23:45

I had an ex I obsessed over for years but never saw. Seeing him again ten years later made me realise that my feelings had been true, I had loved him but didn't love him any more and it wasn't going to be. Sometimes it can help to see them, if only to see that it's not going to be.
That kind of acceptance is difficult to engineer, so I don't know what to suggest. I suppose I just wanted to say I know how you feel.

Joey7t8 · 15/01/2018 23:58

Be honest, how happy are you in your current relationship? If you are then you should be well over someone that you had a fling with 10 years ago.

Joey7t8 · 16/01/2018 00:00

You're both not single and will never be together.

If it were possible, would you choose to be?

Original poster

MissSpock · 16/01/2018 00:03

If it were possible, would you choose to be?

No.

OP posts:

Joey7t8 · 16/01/2018 00:04

Sounds like you just need to cut contact then. That should help consign that relationship to memories and experiences.

Original poster

MissSpock · 16/01/2018 00:12

Be honest, how happy are you in your current relationship?

I'm with my first love, my bestfriend, and probably the best person in the world.

The fling was, well, the stereotypical fling - unpredictable, hot-and-cold, but the attraction was intense I did things I never did before and never did after.

OP posts:

BrightOranges · 16/01/2018 00:13

I think some people can be heartbroken for ever. My great great aunt (who lived to nearly 100) would always tell me a story about "the love of her life that she lost". She still got on with it, married someone else and had a child but I knew that chap was her true love. I always used to think how sad it was that she missed him for almost 80 years.

17 years later and I was in the same position. I too went on to marry and have children. And another 17 years on, I know that was the love of my life. I can get quite melancholy at times but I'm happy with my life.

Sorry that's not really answered your question. It's just to say some people don't ever get over a love.

hungryhippo90 · 16/01/2018 00:44

i have been in this situation, i never thought it would get better but it did. its been 8 years, and i can 100% tell you that the best thing I did was take a look at what my life had become, and what his life was- at this point it was about 6 years later.

At that point I realised that he and I were never really compatible, which is why it never worked for us.

I had always looked for signs that we should have been together, but when i really looked I realised that if we had stayed together I would have been as miserable as sin. He would have never been the one to give me the life or the relationship I now enjoy. I would have lived most of my life alone if id have gone back, but here I have my best friend.

please cut contact with him. It will make you think about what could have been more, but i think theres truth in the saying that there was a reason it never worked out.

it took a long time for me to see that.

user1491678180 · 16/01/2018 00:58

My friend (aged 46 and married 21 years,) told me a while back that although she cared for her husband, she had never really truly loved him deep down. She had just dated him because her best mate was dating his best mate, and before she knew it, they were engaged, living together, and married with a kid.

15 years into their marriage, (6 years ago,) she met an American guy - 7 years younger and single, who was vibrant, funny, gorgeous, tall, and solvent, and professional. Worked in media/performing arts. She had a brief intense fling with him; about 9 months long. She met him a couple of times a week for lunch, and booked afternoons off work, and rang in sick to spend time with him; going on walks, and trips to parks and stately homes and galleries, and passionate meetings in hotels.

He went back to the states 9 months into their fling - as his work took him back there, and that's where it ended. She had to cut contact with him as she knew it wasn't going to go anywhere, and as she was so besotted and deeply in love with him, it was just too painful to have contact with him.

She said she never goes a day without thinking about him, and said she has never gotten over him, and thinks about contacting him - at least once a week.

KC225 · 16/01/2018 02:25

This could have been written about me. For him I was a fling, for me it was the most intense heart felt love affair. I pined silently for years. He drifted back into my life a further three times because he was on the same continent and I was just convenient.

Eventually, I had to cut him off. We weren't friends, I was in love hoping for more and if he was a REAL friend, he would have keep me dangling, knowing his I felt.

I broke it off. Said I would never see him again. I deleted his number, adresses, got rid of things that reminded me of him and when I knew he was coming back to the UK, I made sure I was out of the country.

Soon after I moved, changed my numbers and left no forwarding address, so he had no way of contacting me. A couple of years later met my DH. I would not have met DH if I was still kidding myself my live would suddenly announced 'Oh gosh it was you all along. You are the one'

An elderly lady once told me, you don't always marry the love of your life but it doesn't mean you'll be unhappy. Wise words OP.

Original poster

MissSpock · 16/01/2018 06:29

You don't always marry the love of your life but it doesn't mean you'll be unhappy.

I honestly believe I married the love of my life, and I am not unhappy.We have a very happy marriage. We belong together.

But why do I still pine for him?

OP posts:

Ohyesiam · 16/01/2018 14:45

You don't pine for him, you pine for how you were with him.
You did things you had never done before or since, so this version of you was uninhibited, maybe passionate, attracted drama. You fill in the blanks.
It's the fantasy version of you that does unpredictable things, and follows your gut despite what your head says. A good antidote to all the adulating you have to do.

KC225 · 16/01/2018 15:33

Excellent post Ohyesiam.

cantucciniamaretto · 16/01/2018 15:34

why would you need to, if you don;t actually want them and are happy with who you are with?
I don't even understand the question. Surely you "got over it" long ago?

whiskyowl · 16/01/2018 15:35

You begin by realising that you're not in love with the person, but with the whole idea of a past time, and the whole idea of love. Look up limerance.

Original poster

MissSpock · 16/01/2018 20:07

Ohyesiam

You might be right. It was the only time in my life wherein I just went with how I felt.

OP posts:

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