Terrified of loving someone again

[emberSept]

Earlier this year I left someone I was deeply in love with. It was an amicable split but it was my first real love and I feel very deeply scarred by it all. I think I'm only just realising how scared it has left me. The thought of ever entering another relationship where I care about the person so deeply and give all of myself to them is horrifying, and yet I want to do it because ultimately I'd rather have loved and lost etc.

Does this kind of feeling fade with time or will I forever be more cautious and unable to give as much of myself? I'm doing fine on my own, but I miss loving someone. I feel a bit broken. :(

Why did you split up?

Hope you are ok

We really just weren't meant to be together. Lots of love but totally incompatible. Huge amounts of sexual chemistry and we both really wanted it to work but he had very different ideas of the kind of future we would have together and we disagreed on all the fundamentals.
There is no option to go back, it would be the wrong thing to do.

I'm okay, thank you. Just still processing everything.

That sounds so very sad OP You describe what sounds like a really loving relationship. What was so unworkable that it could never work?

It fades over time, promise. I could not have been more heartbroken than when my partner of seven years, lived with for six, left me. I felt hollowed out, peeled and dipped in salt. I lost two stone in a few weeks and was a complete distraught, inconsolable mess. I honestly feel nothing for him now and am glad it happened as I'm with someone I love and all is fine. It will get better, it's just grim taking that journey you don't want to take, on your own. Go girl!

So sorry OP, that sucks. Wish I could find some words of comfort for you. I too am going through a period of intense heartbreak, and am so fearful of ever opening my heart to anyone again. I totally trusted someone and gave them my whole heart. That person abused my trust and treated me with the most astonishing cruelty imaginable.

I think the worst of it is the feeling that your feelings are irrelevant. That you can't think about anything else, whilst they think of you rarely, if ever. My ex is now in 'lovely' relationship with someone 'bright and wonderful'. Ugh.

It does fade with time. The break-up of your first love is always horrendous. That being said, I've just left my second love which was a very loving relationship, we were planning on getting married etc. Unfortunately, we've had a very traumatic break-up and he's abused my trust in him. In some ways I feel I'm handling it emotionally better than the first time round because I'm older and been through it before but in many ways it feels worse because the relationship was so amazing and I thought it was going to be forever.

I'm not going to lie, the thought of going through it all again absolutely terrifies me. I was reluctant to enter my most recent relationship at first because of how I've been burnt in the past but he won me round. I'm sure I'll be won round by somebody again some day but I'm not sure I'll ever trust someone enough to marry them.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I'm sorry you've been through similar.
Intellectually I know that at some point I will get over this enough to let someone in again, but at the moment I just can't imagine how that would look.
I'm trying to just trust that life will guide me the way I'm meant to go. I hope this wasn't my one and only chance at love.