Do you ever get a pang when you think of a past love?

[cherriesandplums2021]

Just that, really. I wonder how common it is. I don’t mean thinking of them in a nosey way but when you think of someone and it pulls your heart a bit and makes you feel sad. I remember an ex bf said you never get over relationships, you just push them down and bury the feelings.

I think that was more a reflection on him maybe but I definitely do feel that with one relationship, as not great as it was, I still years on feel sad about it and wish for what could’ve been.

Yes I think it’s just getting to that stage of acceptance. I miss him very much, or maybe just what I believe could’ve been.

Yes. All the time. I’d never act on it.

Well, there was my first love where the timing was just never right, and I spent ten years pining for him, etc.

Luckily we eventually got a grip and sorted ourselves out and now he is DH.

None of my other exes ever get a passing thought. I'm not sure I'd really recognise my teenage boyfriend if I walked past him now!

@cherriesandplums2021

I think I have accepted that I will just carry this with me till I die. It’s interesting because whilst I’m not struck down with grief every day - like I was in the beginning (I would not wish that on anyone) - I do still think of him every day. I’m only in my 30s and wonder if I Have another 30 years of this.

I remember thinking this when I was young and it doesn't happen like that - really it doesn't . Time will fade these memories and new experiences will grow over them .

Oh I’m glad to hear that. I really hope so. I suppose you need the new experiences though - and they’re not really a coming.

Yes, although I love DH, who is the love of my life, I feel the pangs for my one that got away. It's been decades and still the same. I've learned to live with it.

Sometimes I feel a pang and miss how happy I was, but knowing what I know now, it wasn't real. He wasn't who I thought he was so its more like when you wake up from a really lovely dream and are disappointed it wasn't real, if that makes sense.

I have a ' what if ' . I was 17 and having my last family holiday with my parents at a caravan park. I was fairly naive and a bit of a loner. Met a lad same age as me also holidaying with his parents. We got chatting got on well , parents got on well etc . We lived about 150 miles away from another. Kept in contact . I would go to stay at his ( parents house ) and he mine, all very innocent , separate bedrooms. His family and him were lovely , perfect family.
Being 17 and wanting a boyfriend nearer to me , I started dating someone in my area. It was coming Up to away boyfriends 18th and didn't want to dump right before his birthday , so attended the party and then dumped a few weeks later. Went on to eventually marry nearby living bf , but divorced 15 years later. Still sometimes think about my holiday love.

How long has it been since you split up? If you still see him that’s hard. I’ve got an ex that I think it would upset me if I saw or at least impact me because it was an intense relationship and I was very in love with him for a long time. But I don’t think that’s a pang for lost love, more a remembering some intense and often negatively intense emotions.

Was it a good and calm relationship overall? Or did some difficult things happen in it?

Yes. And I've been married for 45 years.

We were too young and I was definitely too immature. But he was a lovely bloke and I hope he's been happy.

In a way.. but I would never ever get back with him, it's just I sometimes look back to the good times (before he started acquainting his fist with my face) and thinking how happy I was before things went wrong.

Nope, I only had 2 boyfriends before getting together with dh when I was 19.

My first boyfriend turned out to be gay, it was, understandably, a strange relationship. I'm lightly in touch with him, enough to know he's happy, and get no twinges at all.

My other boyfriend was a dick and I don't miss him at all. I passed him in a shopping centre about 5 years ago (it was 100% him, even after 30 years! - he didn't see me I don't think) and I thought "dodged a bullet there!"

The closest I get to that feeling is thinking of me and dh in the early part of our relationship when we were both young and innocent - sometimes I miss that!

You will recover from your heartbreak OP! Embrace it and cherish it because it means you are alive and have an open heart and are vulnerable - this is the stuff that makes life vibrant and real. Just give yourself time to heal and as always, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else .

I’ve had exes I have PINED over and now I look back and laugh and am so removed from those feelings. It’s usually harder to move on if you’ve been dumped as it’s so tied up in ego and the loss of control - however I like to think that if you’ve been dumped then you really haven’t lost anything at all because what did you lose apart from someone who didn’t recognise your value or feel a connection? Hardly something to hold on to is it.

Onwards and upwards OP!

I read an interesting article around 6 months ago, which said that lots of us are feeling this way due to the pandemic making us reflect on our lives. I was genuinely tying myself up in knots, wondering why, when I have a good life with an absolutely wonderful DH, my head was consumed with thoughts of my teenage first love. It felt like an emotional affair but one in which the other party was not part of at all, and which was happening mainly in my subconscious. I still think about that first love a lot but am now trying to recognise this for what it is, compartmentalise it and get on with all that is good in my life.

I think also, there are feelings about the aging process involved, at least for me. When I think about that first love, I remember being a teenager and having so much ahead of me. I did have a lot of teenage angst but I also remember long days of no responsibilities, hanging out with friends and laughing non-stop. I still feel like that person inside but now I'm perimenopausal with a saggy body and the young people in my life tell me my views and ideas are outdated. I year for young me, as much as I yearn for the time I spent with him.

I haven't seen him for years - apart from an occasional SM snoop - but I know from the grapevine a few things about him. I understand that he is happy and content and has a wonderful family life. He is a very good father. I am genuinely pleased for him. When I think back over what could have been (he was an unrequited love for about 3 years, then it turned out he had been feeling the same way, we got together but it didn't last and there followed several years of nearlys and almosts where neither of us were in the right space at the right time), I wish things had been different back then but I also have no desire to change the present for either of us right now.

Nope met someone much better for me

Yes. It wasn't a boyfriend as such, we kind of had a brief fling despite us both being in long term relationships. He was from the other side of the world and somehow found himself living in my tiny town. Oddly, my best friends dad grew up in the town next to the one he was raised in. We met through a mutual hobby and it was an instant connection. Like electric zaps for both of us. Turned out we had close friends in common from another continent. We were both going to the same event in Europe, on the same flight. Far too many coincidences. It was very bizarre and the first time ever I believed in fate or missed chances. I could literally feel his eyes on me and I knew when he was about to call me. Bonkers. We both decided that as much as we wanted each other it was for the best to cut ties completely after 2-3 months as we knew we couldn't be just friends. It was for the best, our marriages are still in tact. I know because I still see them out and about as I'm sure they see me and my husband.

I absolutely love my husband and made the right choice. But to this day I've never had that feeling with anybody but him. I heard the word Limerance a few years later and I think that's exactly what it was.

This is quite embarrassing and I would never admit it to anyone I know because he was an abusive wanker whose only decent act was leaving me. But my ex (from nearly 25 years ago) and his wife sit opposite where I work at football matches and I always have a quick look to see if he is there through my binoculars (I have them for my job, I'm not just taking them to spy on him). Once I've seen he's there, in his usual seat, that's it, I don't check again. But I know if he's not there, it's because something serious has happened or he's unwell. I don't wish him any ill will despite how awful he was. I just like to know he's where I expect him to be.

no, never. it ended, ok, well.

No. I've had 2 10+ relationships. Don't miss either of them.

Only ever think of them in connection to my children.

Yes, over 30 years ago and I still think of him nearly every day and dream of him frequently. I've been married twice since him and both were mistakes. I, stupidly, ended it, so only have myself to blame and I know he wouldn't want me back as he's happily married. He lives near me and I dread meeting him as it hurts so much. There is no way I can leave my current husband, even though we don't have a proper husband/wife relationship, as he is very ill and I am his carer and he literally has no one else in the world. You do eventually just accept it, you have to in order to carry on but if there was any way I could live my life again, I'd never let him go.

Nope. I've got mild PTSD from all past horrors. Am thoroughly enjoying not having a mad/bad/sad bloke in my life for the foreseeable future.

Not really.
I do, however, get a proper flutter downstairs when I think about an ex that was a supreme god in bed.

I get pangs when I think how my ex husband was - and how men generally were - before the days of internet porn.

I think you are more likely to do this when a relationship ends when you were still totally in love and blindsided by the ending of the relationship. I had a relationship like this and I was heartbroken when it ended. To me the relationship was perfect and it was for life. I couldn’t understand why it ended and still don’t. This was 20 years ago. I still think of them often. It still affects me after all this time.

One girl, yes. We met too young, but she was perfect. I spent almost 2 decades thinking frequently of her and what could have been. She was always super family oriented and I got pangs seeing her with 2, then 3, then 4 kids. Totally made worse by being in a poor and abusive marriage.

I've met someone equally wonderful now. And for the first time in 25 years, I'm at ease with having missed out.