Help..grieving the end of relationship that ended 20 years ago 💔

[Princessmummy2]

In these surreal times there is more time for reflection and I’m think I’ve done too much! Plus..find old photos from my very first relationship and marriage has jolted me back! He was my everything, first true love, obsessive love and I felt insecure and started to get attention from others..I didn’t follow through but I was encouraged to believe that I no longer loved my husband so after 10 years and in tears, I told him so..he left, we hardly spoke and I never truly morned/recovered..he moved on..and moved away. I lived my life focusing on work and being a good friends to those around. Eventually following the death of a close family member, I started dating again (10 years after my original split)...I got married and have two beautiful children..I love my husband for giving me children and we bumble along ok together..I’ve never let my guard down enough to get to that I’m in total love phase (I think)..I don’t have a horrible life but can’t help but cry for what I had with my ex. Emotions are raw and took me by surprise as it’s now 20 years ago and he’s been with his partner for as long. Help me to believe that if it was meant to have been it would have been. I feel awful that I didn’t get the response I wanted when we spilt..I wanted him to fight for us, to tell me that he loved me that much too..but my words wounded him, he walked away and never looked back...how do get through this and how do move forward. My children are my world but this sadness is awful and I feel so guilty when I have two wonderful children to nurture. Surreal times and surreal thoughts. Please be kind ❤️

We all made mistakes in the past that we look back and regret. But you did what you thought was right at the time with the knowledge you had at that time. It is easy to think with the knowledge you have now about what could have been. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but don't berate the younger you for not having it.

This a strange and emotional time we are living in and all kinds of emotions are turning up. Maybe this new emotion about the end of your relationship is actually an expression of feelings about the current situation? In which case, just let it roll over you. When life gets back to normal, it will probably disappear.

It sounds like you have a 'grass is greener' tendency? Hankering after perfection, didn't find it when you were married to first husband so took off, now looking back wondering if that was perfection after all?

I'd get some therapy for this iiwy as it probably goes deeper than you think.

Meanwhile, park this and get in the day. It's not unusual to swing from anxiously looking forward to anxiously looking back during these weird times. Hankering after the past isn't productive because it's distorted.

I think it’s the current times OP causing this. I’ve had a frightening number of dreams over last month involving my ex husband and we’ve been divorced nearly 30 years

With all due respect, if your relationship with him was soo good you would have never paid attention to other people. You are idealising what you had with your ex, photos are not great evidence either, nobody takes photos when upset, bored or angry.

Now don’t go your very real relationship falling in love with an ideal that was not there back then and more importantly, is no longer an option to go back to.

Thanks all x

Maybe look more closely at the relationship you have now with your current DH and focus on the positives...run your mind back through time remembering all the happy lovely things that have occurred...make him feel loved and appreciated and the glow he gets will shine back on you

You very carefully make it sound as if you yourself had no active part in ending your first marriage, and that it was somebody else’s fault — ‘others’ paid you attention, you ‘were encouraged’ to believe you no longer loved him. And then you say something entirely different at the end of your post, that in fact when you told your first husband you no longer loved him, you didn’t in fact want to end your marriage, you just wanted him to ‘fight’ to keep you and tell you he loved you?

In the nicest possible way, I think you need to stop idealising your first marriage and to take responsibility for ending it — because that was you, and you clearly weren’t entirely happy, however rosy your memories of it are now.

I've felt like this for many years.
Pining for someone and missing them terribly.

It's amazing how memories get filtered and distorted though.

I have been clearing out boxes during lockdown and have found letters and postcards from this 'amazing' person.

I've been reading some of them and have been transported back ... not in a good way. He wasn't that great to me in reality.
It's been therapeutic.

I had always felt that about my ex even though it wasn't really my fault as such. He walked out and carried on as if I had never mattered. I berated myself for years, but I kept coming back to a significant point, which you have mentioned, about him fighting for you. My ex didn't fight for me. Whether the fact I met someone else made any difference, I don't know. As in, did it put him off fighting for me, or put him off me full stop. So I had to conclude he didn't care that much for me or he would have put up a fight. Sadly I did not go on to find the 'right one', but I think you have, and it's definitely not worth letting this cloud your marriage now. Also, your ex is probably happy too. If I were you I would let it go and concentrate on what you have now.

Do you still speak to him OP?

It's interesting that I read your post this morning OP, Ive been thinking of my ex-partner all the time since yesterday. It must be the times, I've not really thought of him before and it's been almost 20 years.

OP - you sound down and possibly a bit depressed. Which is understandable in the times like now.
First loves stay with us forever. They are special and are never to be repeated. And mostly they are not meant to last.
You were a different person then, barely an adult. Everything was new and first and intense.
What you are experiencing is romanticising of your youth. It happens in the midlife point, totally normal.
It’s very unrealistic to expect the same highs and intensity of teenage love to a relationship in your 30s,40s,50s.... with daily grind, and children and mortgages.

Age has a lot to do with it IMO. I'm not sure how old you were when you met your ex but the obsessive love you describe is typical of a young person in love for the first time. It's impossible to replicate when you're older and more settled and have kids etc. I adore my DH but I still remember the feelings I had for my first love.

I think you're seeing the past through rose coloured glasses.

I don't understand why you split up with him if you still loved him. You had been married for a decade. It doesn't make sense. You mustn't have been happy. Think back to how your relationship really was.

I saw my ex (was with him for 10 years and I split up with him) a few years ago. We spent a few days together in a reunion (not on our own) and he was wonderful. I was so happy spending time with him that it brought my love for him back. But I was in a controlling and unhappy relationship. Now that I'm single and seeing someone else I can see clearly that I was just reminiscing and seeing all his lovely sides, but we weren't right for each other, or at least, right at the time but there was something missing.

I think that there is strength in what @inconnu is saying. We often yearn for an earlier period in our lives, especially when we get to a certain age.

I'm no psychologist but have you thought about writing your thoughts down by way of a letter and then destroying the letter? Might help to express those thoughts in your head and then it might give you some kind of closure.

Try enjoying the moment more - I think that they call it mindfulness where you try and live in the moment rather than ruminating.

If this first marriage and love was everything you feel it is now, you wouldn't have needed attention from others, or have told him you didn't love him. You're looking at this with rose tinted glasses. It wasn't perfect or you'd still be together. Unfortunately the mental protective instinct is to forget bad things and remember good things. Think childbirth.

All you can do is stop yourself meandering through this 'perfect' past 😂

Your rose tinted glasses are showing.

what age are you? i’m guessing late 40s at least. Is this a bit of a mid life crisis? suddenly realising that you have less time to live than you have already lived. You’re not young any more with all those intense feelings & your life stretching before you with endless possibilities? lots of hormonal changes going on too.

You don’t miss your ex you miss your youth.

I found myself in a similar position a while back. Wondering about the break up of my first marriage (I walked out), if it could or should have lasted, all that stuff.

But then I reasoned that I was a very different person then. I married very young and had a lot of growing up to do. Someone should have sat me down and told me to just live with him and not get married (but it was the early 80's and 'living in sin' was still a 'thing' where I came from).

I think it's just the natural tendency to think 'what if?' It's a bit like a crush, we build up the object (a past relationship) to be perfect and unspoiled. But chances are it would have ended up being like the one you are in now, comfortable, niggly, irritating in parts. You may have found the irritations too much to live with and have left, but too late to have had your wonderful children.

The 'what ifs' can destroy happiness, but only if you let them.

Whilst really ill with pneumonia (probably covid related) I had a couple of very vivid dreams about my first love- 25 years ago. It was so intense I felt compelled to look him up although I'd never thought about it before. It's strange. I relate to your post OP but know this is not real. It's isolation and mental exhaustion playing tricks on your mind.