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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you ever think of your first love? (Posting for traffic)

103 replies

Kittycattycoco · 04/03/2018 08:45

Have name changed for this - I’m curious if anyone else ever thinks of their first love, despite being happily married/settled?

I am very happily married to someone I consider my soulmate. We have 3 wonderful DDs, life is lovely.

But I sometimes find my mind wandering back to a person from my past - actually a very long time ago now - who was my first love, which ended in heartbreak (for me) and left a few wounds that I don’t think really healed.

I have no wish or desire to ever see this person again, and in fact, it would be really weird to do so, but I find myself thinking back and wondering what their life’s like etc and just, well, thinking about them I suppose. I have even found myself thinking about how life would be now if things had been different - that’s not to say I wish that. I absolutely don’t. I just, well, wonder I suppose.

Every time I do though, I feel so so guilty - to be thinking, sometimes what feels like a lot, about a person from a time before that has no place in the now and tomorrow. I find it confusing and a bit upsetting sometimes that this person can still creep into my thoughts, I suppose.

I just wondered if I was alone, or if anyone else ever thinks back? I feel like a bit of a wally asking this to be honest. But I’d be interested to see if this is fairly common or if I’m actually a bit nuts?

OP posts:
Collettegirl · 04/03/2018 08:47

I think it is natural to think back on your first love. I often think of my first boyfriend, that fact I was only 15 makes no difference, I was still in love at the time.

00alwaysbusymum · 04/03/2018 08:47

Yes - often.
I'm the same have 3 children and often wonder what happened to my first love who I assumed I would end up with. I did something silly at 18 and we ended up breaking up, Then I met my now husband.

I love my life but still wonder if it would of worked out or what his life is like ...

Thelampshadelady · 04/03/2018 08:51

I’m always reminiscing Grin
I occasionally think about my first love. We’ve been in touch over the years. He said some very flattering things, wanted to meet and made me doubt everything I have with my husband.

I didn’t meet him, he was interested in one thing. And I realised I didn’t want to throw away my happy life for 5 mins with him.

I think it’s normal to look back at past situations and often we remember them better than they actually were iyswim.
You don’t need to feel guilty for thinking back. Sounds cheesy but the past is what gets us to where we are now.

Original poster
Kittycattycoco · 04/03/2018 08:53

I find it so nuts that I can be so in love with one person though, yet another person who ONCE had my heart can still ‘appear’ in my thoughts.

I was young too - just 18 and at the time I believed this was forever, despite the fact it was awful and unhappy. I feel foolish looking back to then I suppose.

OP posts:
BarryTheKestrel · 04/03/2018 08:53

I think it's fairly common. I certainly do. I'm very happily married now with DD and DC2 on the way. However every now and then he pops into my head. We spent 4 years together throughout my late teens, we lived together for a year and made a lot of future plans. I was destroyed when we split and it took me a long time to trust anyone again.

I see him around every now and again. We only exchange quick pleasantries if we are say, in the same bar, otherwise we don't talk.

I worried about him for years as he was on a path to self destruction however I hear through the grapevine now that he is happy and working and engaged and no longer on drugs, drinking constantly.

It's normal to think about and even still care about people you have loved however it ends. I tend to think that if you don't, you probably didn't really love them in the first place.

Original poster
Kittycattycoco · 04/03/2018 08:55

thelampshadelady I totally agree, it was a part of my ‘journey’ (sorry, sick bucket) to get here, just as it is for everyone. But I do wish I could just not think back. It feels like such wasteful thoughts! X

OP posts:
Idontdowindows · 04/03/2018 08:55

Only in the "oh goodness, what was his name again?" sense :)

But then it's a very long time ago.

ClaryFray · 04/03/2018 08:56

Yes. I have two first lives I think back upon.

One was my first boyfriend. We were 15 and we really were in love.

The second was what I consider my first adult love. We got together, in an odd way. Both incompatible, but he left me better than he found me. Taught me a lot about me, and how being honest was very important. Sadly, we wanted different things and separated. But I think of him often.

Original poster
Kittycattycoco · 04/03/2018 08:56

Barry your last sentence - that’s actually a lovely way to look at it, I have never considered it like that.

OP posts:
EBearhug · 04/03/2018 08:57

Still in touch and usually meet on the rare occasions he''s back in this country. I am still fond of him, but I'm glad we didn't end up together, because I think he would drive me insane.

maras2 · 04/03/2018 08:57

Married my first love.
50 years later still here. Smile

SnackSnackEatAndCrave · 04/03/2018 08:57

I have been in love 3 times before meeting DP, and I think of all of them now and again... Doesn't mean I'm any less committed to DP and DD.
DP still has the off fb stalk of the woman he was engaged to back in the day too. I think it's natural to wonder what they're up to now, even if you're not sure why you care!

missperegrinespeculiar · 04/03/2018 08:57

yes, I do. But then, he is one of my best friends now, we speak often. But I am happily married and so is he, we have nothing to feel guilty about!

But yes, I do wonder, especially as I see him now with a young family of his own, how our life together might have been.

SleepingInYourFlowerbed · 04/03/2018 08:57

I don't think it's unusual to think about people you once knew, regardless of what your relationship was with them or what your life is like now. I sometimes reminisce about past friends, boyfriends etc, normally when something reminds me of them. It's similar (although not the same) to remembering family members who have passed away in my eyes.

SnackSnackEatAndCrave · 04/03/2018 08:58

It's normal to think about and even still care about people you have loved however it ends. I tend to think that if you don't, you probably didn't really love them in the first place
Barry you've hit the nail on the head there!

Idontbelieveinthemoon · 04/03/2018 08:59

It's normal to think about and even still care about people you have loved however it ends. I tend to think that if you don't, you probably didn't really love them in the first place.

My first love was a complete shit and behaved atrociously at the end of our relationship so I don't look back fondly upon our time; his behaviour as we broke up coloured everything that had happened before, including my love for him.

There's no question that I loved him. But seeing a person change because they can't have what they want, watching them devalue your relationship and friendship can have a huge impact on your lasting memories and feelings towards a person. I feel nothing towards him now; no care, no consideration, nothing remaining but sadness that that's who he became.

It's perfectly normal to not still have loving feelings towards someone you previously loved.

NotSureThisIsWhatIWant · 04/03/2018 09:00

I didn’t but my “first love” re appeared 10-12 years after disappearing and after I had been married for years. Once established we were not available we decided to meet for a friendly catch up coffee (with the knowledge and approval of respective OHs in case you are wondering).

I am not going to say it went great. We talked a lot but everything he said that had happened in his life had me thinking “oh yes, he was that bad back then already” or “holy cow! I have been spared of so much misery with a man like this!”.

He was far from being a looser but not the sort of man who can bring happiness into any women’s life. I remember coming out of the restaurant feeling a lot of pity for him and the life he had had but at the same thinking he deserved all the crap he did get.

It did bring closure to a unreasonable teenage “dream” though.

dottycat123 · 04/03/2018 09:01

Yes and he pops up in my dreams at times. In my dreams we are 16 again mostly but sometimes as adults. I find it unnerving, he was the love of my life.

Original poster
Kittycattycoco · 04/03/2018 09:03

dottycat unnerving is a good word for how it makes me feel too. I don’t like it!

OP posts:
AlwaysWashing · 04/03/2018 09:09

My first love almost ruined me. We met at 14/17 and he changed my whole mindset in a few months. We got back together at 18/21 and we travelled then lived together. We were on & off until I met my (ex) husband when I was 26. I had him on such a pedestal that my ex didn’t stand a chance - I left my (ex) husband for him and lost my marbles. Then I paid for lots and lots of therapy to get him straight in my head. It was always a hugely intense relationship but I know I loved harder than he did. He left me with huge issues which almost sabotaged my current relationship - very pleased to say that my DH fought for me and we’ve now been together 14 years, married for 8.
Despite all the amazing things we did together I wish I’d never met him, I wasted so much time.

AlwaysWashing · 04/03/2018 09:11

What I meant to say, after all that rambling was I used to think about him all the time but until this just jogged me, not for years now.

ButDoYouAvocado · 04/03/2018 09:12

I did. He looked like a blonde Tom Cruise. Gorgeous.

Found him on Facebook.

Hasn't aged well, massively overweight. Should have left it tbh Grin

MadMaryBoddington · 04/03/2018 09:13

Occasionally. But I generally look back through a lens of what a great feeling it was, being head over heels at seventeen, rather than feeling any regrets or wondering what could have been. He broke my heart at the time, but he would have made me far more unhappy in the long run if we’d stayed together.

If we bumped into each other in the street now I like to think we’d go for a coffee, reminisce, then part again without a backward glance.

Original poster
Kittycattycoco · 04/03/2018 09:18

I think that’s part of it for me, I would have been very very unhappy with him. I learned a lot about him after we broke up (things he had done while we were together) that really showed me he hadn’t cared at all. I foolishly gave him another chance a little while later and I learned the hard way that I was a mug.

I think part of it for me is that sometimes I want to justify why I wasted my time. In truth, I was head over heels and couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I think I feel a bit of shame and embarrassment that I was so brazenly foolish, and made a bit of a spectacle of myself by insisting He was ‘the one’.

OP posts:
munqch · 04/03/2018 09:26

I still think back to my first love at 18-20 quite a bit. We were very in love but he had to move abroad for some time and I was too young and immature to manage with the distance. I ended up meeting someone else and it all ended very badly.

It taught me a major life lesson - which should have been obviously really, but I learned it the tough way: never to leave someone I love for someone I don't (however exciting or possibly better suited they might seem).

That's kept me going through many tough times in my marriage.

My first love moved to the other side of the world after we broke up, without saying goodbye. I pined after him for a long time. For a few years we exchanged very occasional emails and it always stirred up old feelings.

Fast forward ten years and we are Facebook friends, so I know that like me he is married with kids. But we have no contact. I do wonder what my life would have been like with him and it makes me sad to think that the likelihood is I will never ever see him again.