Hi Anita,

Thank you for your detailed reply. I think you are right, my mother will always do what she believes is best and right, not what I ask or need from her. I have been trying to make peace with this, as I know now more than ever that I cannot changer her, or anyone for that matter. I have taken your advice and tried to remain as cordial as possible with her, without going into too much detail about my life or my feelings anymore. That being said, I do talk to my father quite a bit about my life and my feelings, and because they are always together, she sometimes chimes in. I try not to pay attention to what she says.

I have been trying to make the link you have mentioned between my past relationship and the one with my mother more clear in my mind, as I would like nothing more than to forget about that past relationship, or at least put it to rest. But at the same time, I have so many fears attached to it, I can’t seem to let go. I know (I think most of the time!) that these fears are irrational, yet they still remain. For instance, I am terrified that I will never feel the way I felt about anyone the way I did about him, how attracted I was to him, how much I wanted to be around him, how happy he made me whenever we were together. I worry I will never find anyone else that was as easy going as he was, forever cheerful and in a good mood, even when I wasn’t. Someone I actually like as well as love, someone I find as intelligent, ambitious, fun, and adventurous. I am so saddened how our relationship unravelled, I have so much shame and embarrassment over how quickly I was discarded for someone new, someone I do not see as overwhelmingly “better” than me. I cannot seem to understand how he (someone I considered my best friend, my closest confidant and person I trusted the most) could end things the way they did. I’m worried that after 2 years, if I am still attached to this person in some way, after no contact from him, that I might always be.

I also worry about what this means for me going forward. As I turn 30 next month, and all my friends and siblings (younger and older) and extended family members are married or in serious committed relationships, I feel as though I have failed at something so basic. I simply could not make any of my previous relationships last, and there were many that I tried so hard to continue. I’m worried that heartbreak will always be in my life, and I worry that I will never experience a true connection with someone who loves me as much as I love them, who would want to be with me together forever. I’m not sure how to move forward with my life with these fears and still have hope for something better. Worst of all, I worry somehow by not making the previous relationship work, by not sorting out my issues and being more present, I have destroyed any chance I would have had in happiness and contentedness in a relationship with a man.

Even though it has been 2 years, it feels like only yesterday this person I was so infatuated with, that I adored so much, called me his baby and that if I was just a little patient, we could have the future we both always dreamed of. I know it is borderline delusional at this point, but it truly does feel like no time has passed at all.

As a side note, yesterday after I figured my obsessive thinking/distraught state of mind could not get any worse regarding this ex, I check on social media. His new girlfriend posted a few videos of them and some friends (whom I used to know through him) skiing and snowboarding. In one of the videos, I could hear him talking, and it was if he was right beside me all over again. I would have thought maybe by now I would forget the exact way he spoke, but I did not. I believe this was a very bad decision on my part to see this, as it once again feels like it was just yesterday I heard this voice daily. But at the same time, I don’t know that it changes anything, as nothing seems to make the obsessive thinking better or worse. It is simply there from the moment I wake up, and even after I sleep in my dreams.

I have had many breakups before, each one seemingly as devastating at the time as this one, but this is the only one I cannot seem to process and move on from. The only one where I don’t believe deep down that I am better off without him. I try to come up with lists of why he wasn’t so great, or why we weren’t good together, but everything I write down seems phony as I know deep down none of it was or is a dealbreaker to me. Everything I believe we could have worked on.

At this point, we have not been together longer than we ever were, which in itself shocks me that I am still not over this person or the break-up. We spoke every day, even when we weren’t technically together, as well as spent time together. Separate from him, the only ex I ever spent that much time with was my first boyfriend, and I don’t seem to be upset over that at all. Maybe everyone has a feeling of “the one that got away”, but I just want mine to go away, so I can one day give someone else my full heart. My current boyfriend never got that from me, and I truly regret that.

Hi Anita,

What I meant when I said my mother doesn’t have as much as an effect on me as my ex is that I have taken your suggestions and reduced contact with her, set boundaries and stood up for myself when she didn’t respect them and told her how what she had done to me in the past had affected me. Lately, I have totally reduced contact, but when we do speak, she has begun to apologize for the specific hurts she has caused me, but it doesn’t seem to matter in the sense that I don’t feel any different whether she does or doesn’t apologize. I suppose the past has already happened, and there is nothing that can be undone. I am disappointed though, as I was really hoping that in rectifying her role in my life, I would start to feel at least some relief from the obsessive damning thoughts I have about my past relationships, but I have not.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, and I have come to realize that there are many women (and men) that have been heartbroken after dating a separated/newly divorced partner. One pattern I noticed, is that both the ex of 2 years ago and the one following him that I wrote about to you (https://tinybuddha.com/topic/getting-over-infatuation-with-someone-who-wasnt-real/) were newly out of serious relationships. I seem to thrive in these relationships where I am the rebound, but I don’t see it until it is too late. I think is the openness of these men, the vulnerability and the neediness on their part for me that I crave. However, it seems as they “use” me and begin to heal from their past hurts and are moving on, I can’t seem to let go. I don’t believe objectively either of these men were necessarily the best men for me on paper (both dabbled in recreational drugs, lacked my level of ambition and long term goals, partied too much in my opinion), yet I idolized them as the perfect partners, and in a lot of ways still do. Their flaws didn’t seem to matter, because I was so happy. I felt loved. However I would get jealous and insecure, and often “check” if they were honest with me (look what time they were last online social media vs. responding to my texts, etc.). It seems the more fulfilled I feel in a relationship, the more nervous/anxious I am that they might change their minds. I suppose this is a textbook case of the anxious attachment style.

That being said, I cannot shake my feelings about the ex of 2 years ago. That had I reduced contact with my mother sooner, not cared what she and my father thought of me so much, that I wouldn’t have been so anxiously attached to my partners at the time. In fact, it was always soon after introducing my partners to my parents, that the relationships would fall apart. I can’t imagine that this is a coincidence. How can I possibly let go of these regrets, when it feels like I have doomed myself to never finding someone that I cared as much for again? I keep thinking that had this relationship worked out, we would now have been together for 3 or so years, and I could enter my 30s in a strong and healthy, loving and fulfilling relationship. As it is now, I am not at this point, and so far from it, it seems. I keep trying to tell myself that my ex of 2 years ago likely was not ready to enter a new relationship with me, that the new partner he has is luckier than me in the sense of timing. By the time they met, he was formally divorced. He only divorced mid-way through our relationship. That being said, the horrible night in late September, I believe he was trying to be with me, fully, and I blew it. I am constantly angry with myself, and full of regrets. If the relationship had ended over anything else, perhaps I wouldn’t have to be so hard on myself. But as it is now, I am constantly wondering “what if?” and worried that the rest of my life will pale in comparison to what it could have been with him.

Hi Anita,

Thank you for your reply and continued help with me. I suppose now we have come full circle from the beginning of my original post. How then, do you think if not by setting boundaries and limiting contact with my mother, can I stop living in the past and begin to live in the present?

– L