A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:How hard is it to get over your first and true love of 3.5 years. We are heading down the road to a breakup and i keep getting scared that i will never love the same again. I then keep thinking of all the good memories which is so painful. How long does it take? Will the pain ever go away?Are first and second loves different?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (16 November 2010): Well my chronological first love wasn't actually my first love. Neither was my chronological second love. People often THINK they are in love, especially when they lack experience. The first time I fell inlove was with my third love. To me he is my first. Upon meeting him I realised I had never been in love before, only thought I was.
I don't know why people put all this fuss about your chronological "first" love. Mine wasn't that great. He just happened to be the first. The whole thing about "first" loves is just kinda like folklore.
My "first" love (who was my third love), I'll admit it was very hard to get over him. We dated for two years. It took me at least one year to stop thinking about him everyday. I too thought I would never meet someone ever again. I dated men, but I didn't feel for them even a fraction of what I felt for my ex.
But another factor of why I had trouble meeting men was because I relocated. (I am a city girl. I like urban men. Something about their sophistication, the way they view and treat women is quite different). I moved to a suburban area. Just had a really really hard time meeting anyone even remotely up to par with what I wanted.
Four years later, four years really of loneliness, not one relationship even worth noting during that time period. Just completely pathetic time. So I packed up and moved back to the city, I couldn't take it anymore. Within my first three months back in the city I fell madly in love! First time in 4 years! And we have been happily together ever since. My fourth love!
So my third and fourth love were WAY more notable than my first or second.
Don't be afraid. Be strong. And if you can help it, don't relocate, or at least be sure you live in a place that you are happy in, where the pool of men are in the range of what you are looking for. This is very important. That way you will be able to meet someone else who might match or be even better than what you know.
A
female
reader, k_c100  +, writes (16 November 2010):
 I found the main differences between my first love, and subsequent loves are:
1. When it is your first love, you are so wrapped up in that relationship and person you lose touch of reality a little bit and everything is massively exaggerated
2. You learn so much from your mistakes with your first love that your subsequent relationships are LOADS better and you have plenty of "what was I thinking" moments when you look back on your first love
3. Your first love feels more intense than second loves, but your subsequent loves are more mature, sensible, happy and committed. Therefore there is a LOT less heartache than what you have with your first love and you are MUCH happier with subsequent loves.
Hindsight really is a great thing, and of course with your first love it is a new experience so everything feels extra special and extra intense. But because of these feelings, you stay and put up with so much more terrible behviour from your partner just because you dont know any better. Whereas with subsequent loves, you have the knowledge and maturity to look back, realise where it went wrong and to never allow yourself to be treated that badly again.
First loves are always full of drama - there is always cheating, trust problems, insecurity, problems with friends, problems with family, arguments.....etc. Whereas your subsequent loves are much calmer and happier, you feel like you are progressing in your relationship rather than going round in circles like you do with your first love.
Of course it will be hard to get over, 3.5 years with anyone is a long time and it will hurt like hell for quite some time. No-one can tell you how long it will take, it is different for everyone. But the pain does ease with time, life goes on and then eventually, when you are ready, a new man will come into your life and you will look back on your first love and think "I cant believe I wasted so much time in that relationship that was so bad for me when there a great guys like xxxxx(new boyfriend) out there!"
You will always have fond memories from every relationship, that is normal. But just because there are happy times, does not mean it accounts for the bad times and makes being treated badly, or being unhappy ok. Part of the healing process when you break up with someone is to let yourself cry over your ex, miss him, hate him, be angry....it is like a death of someone you love because you go from them being there in your life to never hearing from them and possibly never seeing them again. And that is hard, you have to grieve like you do for someone who has just died.
But once you have got past the anger and tears, you start to accept what happened and learn your lessons from all the problems. This is why staying single for a while is so key - you have to let yourself go through all the emotions and then learn from it all before you can jump back into a relationship. I made the mistake after my first love of getting into a serious relationship 3 weeks after I had split up with my first love, and I didnt give myself enough time to get over it, so I carried all the residual problems I had in my last relationship and that relationship was not good either.
Rebounds are dangerous teritory - you find you crave the comfort of a boyfriend/girlfriend because you are missing your ex, you are worried you may never find anyone ever again and the all of a sudden there is somebody showing an interest in you so you think you would be crazy to turn it down, but it is just a nightmare waiting to happen!
But as long as you give yourself plenty of time (for you, at least 6 months of being single) and allow yourself time to really let all your emotions out - you will be fine. You will of course love again, you will go on to find a better man who will make you even happier, and you will never look back. At times it will be hard to remember this when you are feeling lonely and missing your ex - but I promise, there is a lot better out there and you will be much happier one day.
I hope this helps and good luck!
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A
female
reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (16 November 2010):
 Its always hard to get over your first love, and it takes different people different times, but believe me you will love again, and it will just be as good if not better than your first love. I remember it took mea good year to get over my first love and i was convinced i would never have that feeling again, the second guy came around and 3 months in to the relationship i still felt that id never feel the same again, but by the 4th month i knew i loved him and it was even better the second time around. But it does take a while.
just go out with your friends let them support you and go out with them and enjoy yourself. dont contact this guy as this makes it so much harder you can never be friends with an ex straight away you need to get over your feelings first.
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A
female
reader, fi_the_tree +, writes (16 November 2010):
 There isn't an exact time limit on something like this, it takes aslong as it takes for you to be able to accept the break up and move on. Put it this way, i broke up with my ex 5 months ago, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did on day one (We were together for 3.5 years aswell) But every story is different.
Take steps to boost your confidence after this break up, go out with friends, go shopping, read books (not soppy romantic ones though) keep yourself busy and slowly but surely things will get easier. Good luck hun, i feel your pain, as does ever other woman who has ever been heart broken...
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