Do you ever get over your first love?!

[lollypoplady]

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?!

Nope. I still have about 1000 love letters from my first love who I was with from 16 for 2 years. He got together with someone else almost immediately and we went from being inseparable to not speaking. I was very ill for a long time as I missed him so much. He eventually moved to Italy where the girl he got together with after we split is from and married her had children. I got married, had my own children and have a lovely DH. However, I still think about him a lot and haven''t spoken to him in about 20 years but he has an open facebook which has taken away some of the mystery.

I think that a lot of what we feel is actually remembering novel neural pathways being produced which are unique and intense and then the chemicals produced never as strong again with subsequent loves (a bit like drugs that never have the same strength as first use as your body gets used to them). But the mere thought of a first love has a pavlovian effect on the brain so you always get the same feelings/thought by thinking about your first love because the brain associates those feelings with the person rather than the novelty of the initial situation.