I met the “love of my life” after years And feel nothing

[Melsunny]

Hello everyone,
I used to date a man for 3 years in my early 20s. I was extremely in love - he had a terrible injury after car accident and occasionally use a wheelchair. We never made it work because I think he felt not enough (I’m a marathon runner/very active). Because he couldn’t commit I left him and got pregnant with another man. We divorced now after 4 years of terrible marriage. Throughout the 4 years I kept thinking about the other guy from past. When I divorced I reached out to him and we both cried to each other on the phone how we want to be together. We planned a weekend away together. I was so excited and nervous. It didn’t go how I imagined - I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel the attraction or connection. I will definitely give it a chance but wondering if the spark is just gone?! Or maybe I’m still healing from the marriage that is over (it’s been almost a year) ? Or if I’m just different than I used to be - do you think the spark might come back? What has gone wrong ? Were my expectations too high?

Love your own self for a change. Be on your own for now and consider enrolling onto the Freedom Programme run by Womens Aid. This will help you in your recovery from your abusive marriage.

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?.
Your boundaries, already messed up by an abusive marriage, were already off beam prior to that too because of this attraction to this other man. And a man at that who has already proved to you to not to be able to commit. Leave he, Mr Emotionally Unavailable, behind too.
I would urge you to further unlearn all the crap you have learnt along the way about relationships as well as completely reassessing your approach to same.

People tend to change a hell of a lot during their 20s compared with say their 30s or 40s. I guess you've outgrown each other.

@AttilaTheMeerkat
Well I spent few months in therapy , took care of myself and feel ready to date again. My marriage wasn’t abusive - just no love...

@MyCatHatesEverybody
Very possible

You’ve just both grown up.

You will have changed. I adored this man but he was older than me and in a relationship. Years later I saw him again and thought..what was I thinking.

Your expectations were too high assuming it would be the same. The passing of time doesn't make love stronger.

@Techway but does time make love completely disappear ?

Reality rarely matches up to fantasy!

Yes! Romantic love is a verb, it has to be built upon, if no investment then it disappears. How old are you both?

I saw the love of my life a few years after parting ways and it just wasn’t the same, we weren’t the same people anymore. I don’t think we realise how much we change and how much our experiences change us until we go back into the past.

I think this is very common. Love changes and people we love change. I have loved several men very deeply in my life, but now I feel nothing for them. I haven´t tried to rekindle feelings but I doubt it would be possible. Neither them nor I are the people we were when we were in love. Time does kill love, not because of the time itself, but because people change with time. No harm in checking out if feelings are still there, but it isn´t surprising that they aren´t. There will be someone out there in your future who is great for you and who you will love deeply. It isn´t a case of this guy who you once loved or no-one.

In my experience, hoping to act on 'unfinished business' doesn't work. You're both older etc and there's not the same amount of spark in the flesh.

Did you feel like you could still talk to him in person?

From the sounds of it it sounds like you were expecting too much, expecting it to be the same
With all that time passed you had no real way of knowing whether it would be the same though

Same thing happened to me. Craved seeing my first love for years. We met again years later after having him in a pedestal And never quite getting over him. I felt absolutely nothing. It was just a fantasy and I’d moved on

I’m confused about what went wrong first time around — you say we couldn’t make it work ‘because I think he felt not enough’ and suggest it was because you were a marathon runner and he had a post car-accident disability?

Do you know this was the case, or are you speculating?

How did he feel about you op? Could you tell?

It is a bit excessive to cry down the phone to each other you want to be together and then plan a weekend away. Meeting for a coffee would have been the more normal route.

Sometimes when relationships end it is for good reason, and it’s not the one you think, more that you both didn’t feel strongly enough to fight for it at the time.

Then as neither of you made it work with anyone else, you both created a fantasy that wasn’t true, because if it had been, you’d have made it work at the time, if you had genuinely loved each other.

It sounds like you kept a fantasy of him going in your mind during your abusive marriage as 'your one true love', the one that was perfect.

Now you have met up with him, both of you are older, what you are looking for in a man in reality has probably changed a lot from when you were in your early 20s anyway, and the reality hasn't matched up to the fantasy.

After all, he is just a bloke, and a bloke that didn't cut it the first time round.

Move on, don't date for a bit, focus on you.

I think people miss the time, rather than the person they were with. You look back and think about all the possibilities that time held. But it still holds lots of possibilities now.

To answer some questions - we are both 31 now :)
the reasons why it didn’t work first time are just speculations, but he told me numerous time he thinks I would be happier with someone active and I could feel he is pushing me away (even we had the most amazing time)
It seems like he feels the same about me now as he did years ago but ready to commit. He kept telling me he loves me and started talking about future (something he never did years ago)

I remained in touch via email with someone who I was close to but couldn’t make it work back then for various reasons. When we met for the first time a couple of years ago, there was absolutely nothing there from my part. I think we’d held on to the old us via email but we went through so much in 15 years and changed as people. Met him a couple of times again and each meeting reinforced we had become totally unsuitable.