Has anyone ever had a first love disappear entirely from their lives? It has been 16 years since my first love and I broke up. We were childhood sweethearts, together from age 13-21. We were each other’s first proper relationship, lost virginity, proms, etc. We grew up in the same town and would spend every day together throughout our early years. When we were exiting our teens, the relationship began to strain ever so slightly. He was going to university and his network of friends changed. We stopped spending as much time together and I felt as if I needed to experience life without him and broke up with him. After some months had passed, I desperately missed him and I tried to get back with him, I tried for months but he simply refused. I told my girlfriends some lies as to why the relationship ended, that he had cheated and treated me poorly but really he done neither. He was so good looking, kind, caring and I hated that I had lost him. I think I always took him for granted. We still used to message privately sometimes on social media but when he found out I lied about our breakup he was so disappointed that he didn’t even get angry, he just cut me off completely. We didn’t even get to put it all out there in one final big fight, he just walked away. Soon afterwards I got married and had children. He is married now too and we actually live in the same town still. The strange thing is that we have never properly run into one another. I have seen him in a restaurant on a night out but he was with his wife and wouldn’t look once at me. Apart from very brief encounters in malls or supermarkets we just don’t meet. When we have, I say hello to him but he can barely say hello back. He doesn’t even look at me, just through me. I think it hurts that I lied all those years ago. When trust is broken with him, that’s it, he can just move on. Things are going well for him, he is successful in his work and he seems genuinely happy, which makes me happy. I am also very happy in my marriage. Just over lockdown I thought about him a lot. Friends of mine had said on group chats that they had spoken to ex bf’s here and there and it all seems so normal and mature. I haven’t spoken to my ex in 16 years and never felt we had proper closure. I know that is not even a thing but I just feel that we were so so close for so so long and then for that just to disappear forever, well it’s quite sad. I am not looking to make contact with him, just wondering if anyone else has gone through similar? I find myself thinking about it a lot because I feel it’s just such an odd situation. If I did talk to him, I don’t even know what I would say. So, has anyone else ever been in my shoes? Any stories? Tnx