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Original poster

Do you ever get over your first love?!

77 replies

lollypoplady · 12/11/2010 14:22

When I was 20 til 22 I had a boyfriend, we were engaged and although I'd had long-ish relationships before him it was the first time I'd been in love. He treated me pretty badly and we finally broke up - his decidion - I was absolutely devastated, it took me about 5 years to get over him. I am now 30 and very happily married, I love my amazing husband in ways I never loved my ex but I still think about/dream about my ex a lot and feel I am still in love with him in a strange way, is this normal?!

OP posts:
user1470296287 · 23/08/2016 08:53

Ive never forgot the guy i first fell in love with and he still feels the same.
It was such an innocent start we never got past kissing and holding hands he was 16 i was 14. He left school and wanted to spend more time with the lads so finished with me i was so upset and loved him in my teenage way.

Fast forward 36 years and we still see each other every week for a culpa and a chat, his wife left him 6 years ago and my husband has just walked out on me 5 months ago.
The spark is still there and if I'm honest i have never forgot him all through my life and i still love him.
He was single for 5 years and finally met someone last year and this is where i think it gets strange the women he is now with was my ex husbands first ever girlfriend.
We both have a very strong pull towards each other but we just remain friends as he is now (not so happy) with someone new.
So no i really don't think you ever forget your first love if it really was the real thing. x

user1470296287 · 23/08/2016 08:53

Cuppa/ not culpa

spudlike1 · 23/08/2016 09:25

I have a question here bit do you still.think of him because he treated you badly and finished with you , are the dreams about the hurt and rejection rather than still being in' love ' just asking because I have a similar longing for a first love who treated me badly . .....and it pissed me off

Branleuse · 23/08/2016 09:39

I still occasionally think about my first love and wonder how hes getting on, as he was nice and interesting and I did love him a lot but im completely over him. He didnt treat me well at all, and I fell out of love with him and dumped him and havent seen him in 20 years

inastew · 03/09/2016 22:06

If you occasionally think about your first love and wonder how he's getting on - look him up on Facebook. Far easier for a girl to find a bloke as surname wont have changed!

No harm in chatting for old times sake?

DropZoneOne · 03/09/2016 22:14

Oh goodness, yes. He messed me about and I was too naive to realise it for quite some time. We met up a couple of years after breaking up, I was a lot more confident and secure in myself by then, he was pretty much the same as he had been, and my eyes were properly opened to him being a waste of space.

BertieBotts · 03/09/2016 22:22

Yeah, I think there is harm actually. You broke up for a reason presumably and it's never quite the same when you meet them in person. Because you're both different people. Better to leave the past in the past, the memories untouched, unless you really want/need to get hurt by them in order to move on (which is not really great either!)

You keep bumping old threads inastew, are you alright? Do you want to start a new one so people can respond directly rather than getting distracted by it being an old thread?

SleepingTiger · 03/09/2016 22:30

No, but why do we need to?

Don't they just add to the palette, the rich tapestry, the persons we become?

It diminishes for sure, but it's in us somewhere. And it's OK. It's very respectful to carry someone around in us who we once loved.

Nosuchthingassleep · 03/09/2016 22:43

I've just come off the phone and am now sobbing after speaking to my first love (dcs dad). He left 3 years ago to be with ow and it still breaks my heart daily, I have never loved anyone the way I love him he was if you like the 'one' for me.
I don't know why but I look for him in every man I've met and cannot bare the thought of another man touching me because they're not him.

I know that he still loves me but so much has happened that we could never be together again and it's soul destroying,
I do hope one day I meet someone else so I can love again and move on.

Kione · 03/09/2016 22:44

I have. My first I was 17, he was 15, we lasted 2 years and went through a bike accident that left him in a coma for a few days. But we where very different. He left me and I was devastated. But my next boyfriends devotion and the fact that we where like soulmates made me get over the first one. This went pear shaped drug related and again I met a more mature professional guy that made me get over the previous. And same with the last one, who I am hoping to keep and marry next year!
NC with first one but I don't like him. Still friends with second, I went to his wedding but his life is quite shambles. Still chat if I bump to third, but I feel 0 for all of them. Just want to be happy and miss their families. That's all.

pineappleeyes · 03/09/2016 22:48

Nothing will ever come close to my first love. We shared intense love & a deep connection. We had a brief fling a few years ago but he's turned it to a complete twat (self obsessed & money obsessed) but we just have that connection. I haven't had contact with him for a year. I often think of him but I'm glad I did the dumping all those years ago.

Hagothehills · 03/09/2016 22:51

I didn't for a very very long time. He lives on the opposite side of the country to me and was working in my city recently. We both still had a bit of a flame for each other and were separated by circumstance, but both happy with our respective dp/ dw.
When we met last he wasn't the same man I loved 10 years ago and any torch I might have carried has been well and truly extinguished.
We couldn't hold a conversation without it straying into dangerously flirty territory so now we are NC.
I was very sad about it at first but now it genuinely feels like a great burden has been lifted and I am finally free to live my life and not pine over him anymore.
I do still miss him sometimes but the love is definitely gone now

CRazzyyAce · 03/09/2016 22:56

I remember my ex because of he way he treated me and DS but if we had no DC I doubt he would have been in my mind I do think he was my first love but not the one. My DH is my soulmate we just click and I love him immensely.

juststoppit · 03/09/2016 23:22

Good question OP!

My answer, digging deep, is - I still don't know.

It ended unpleasantly, but we bumped into each other many years later in a professional capacity and did the polite how-are-you-and-how-do-you-do stuff, but it gave me the wobbles for a little while after.

Probably not, now you mention it!

Stewart2017 · 18/12/2016 11:26

Do may get over your first love.....
but unlikey to forget it.

QueenLizIII · 18/12/2016 11:35

Hell yes.

When I look back on it wonder why my taste was so appalling.

Therightplace9 · 18/12/2016 11:40

My first love developed cancer and I heard from a friend. I sent him a message of support on FB and it was well received. It was nice to hear from him but no romantic feelings at all.

I sometimes see another love and that one is different! There is still
A degree in simmering tension there! It was an extremely lust filled relationship though.

Mungobungo · 18/12/2016 12:06

I was with my first love for just over a year. Met DH about 8 months after the ex dumped me and for a while I did carry a torch for the ex. More of a feeling that there was a bit of residual feeling there.

Then I fell head over heels for DH very quickly and although in touch with the ex via mutual friends and Facebook, all of those feelings that I had for him have gone.

Weirdly we saw each other again at a wedding a few years ago and sat chatting for a while. It was weird and uncomfortable at the time as he was single then and stated that he felt he'd never find someone to settle down with. Eventually he went on to meeting his now DW and he seems happy.

I still think of him fondly but there's no attraction or love there.

He was my first love but DH is my best love and I'm hugely grateful for ex for being a dick and dumping me as I wouldn't have been out that night to meet DH if isn't still been with the ex.

Minivaperviper · 18/12/2016 12:31

My first kind of love was the wrong kind think 15 yr old running away from life to an abusive controlling older man. I had a dc with him and I'd never go back. It was a good few years ago now.

2nd guy was rebound and I think identified as limerance.

Think I've got the measure of what love is now as I experienced it over this past year, we split a few months ago due to him having to go back abroad to finish studies and live the life he's always intended. We still keep in touch and I'm still not over him, I'd have him back in a heartbeat. He wasn't perfect and neither am I but we came together despite our faults and had something amazing.

I'm not holding out much hope that he will and sometimes think it's worth having had something that never spoiled.

Minivaperviper · 18/12/2016 12:31

Shut just seen its a zombie

QueenLizIII · 18/12/2016 12:52

Its only August. Not that old.

sarahnova69 · 18/12/2016 13:01

Yeah, I'm most certainly over mine. I was 19 and fell totally arse over tip. Completely besotted, I cried so hard when he briefly dumped me that I couldn't drive home for a good 8 hours.

Then I had to move 5000 miles back home and we broke up and I went off to uni and one day we were chatting and I realised I not only didn't love him any more, I didn't even like him that much. I blocked him and we haven't spoken since. He tried to get back in touch a few years later on Facebook but I declined.

I'm honestly a bit Shock about the number of people who are happily married by their account but still pining. I'm not even close to being the person I was at 19 any more, so even if I did carry a torch, it would be a fantasy built around someone who no longer existed. And we all have our fantasies, but I think it's important to know that thats exactly what they are.

WynterBlossom · 18/12/2016 16:26

My ex i was absolutely in love with & wanted to spend my life with him, he left me for another woman when I was 20 years old, thought I'd die of a broken heart!

Hated him for nearly 2 years, then we had a convo on the phone & he wanted to reconnect but I was with someone who I loved more than anyone & wouldn't risk my relationship for a guy who hurt me so badly.

6 years on, I still think about him occasionally but with no feelings whatsoever, he is now a complete stranger to me.

If he called me now, I wouldn't even pick up, simply because I feel no need to speak to the past.

Stewart2017 · 13/01/2017 23:29

Meeting your first love again after 20 or 30 years break, how would you though if feelings were lust or chemistry?

fulberoo · 14/01/2017 13:58

I went out with my first serious gf for 2 years from the age of 17. I'd lost my virginity to her, loved her to pieces. She dumped me in the first year of uni (she was Oxford, I was Durham, so it was a v long distance relationship).

I had tearful reuniting dreams and explosive sex dreams of her all the way through my 20s and early 30s, and I was married to someone else for most of that time. It took at least a decade, and probably closer to 15 years, to stop loving her on some level.

I don't any more. She's not a presence in my head at all. But I still cherish what I felt for her (while admitting that I probably over idealised and romanticised her).

Though saying that, those feelings do remind me what love feels like.