I still love my ex girlfriend and my life is complicated...I need help.

Forums: Relationships, Love, Triangle, Break Up, 1st Love
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My head is in a bit of a mess and need urgent advice..... where do I begin. I fell in love at 16 years old with a girl of the same age called Claire, call it 1st love or puppy love but we both knew within a few months that we were mean't to be together. I feel like we spent a lifetime together, we learned about ourselves as people and I experienced everything with her. We were very young, naive, but perfect in my eyes. We split up at 22 years old and I was an emotional wreck at the time, crying in front of family and friends all the time for 3 or 4 months. 2 years prior to the break up, I now know and realise I treated her so badly. I told her I needed to experience other women as Claire was my '1st time' and I didn't want to have slept with 1 woman for the rest of my life. I told her I wanted to travel the world with my friends, and not with her. I didn't support her at uni due to jealousy as I didn't go to uni myself, I went through an apprenticeship instead at my own choice. I didn't make effort to see her friends. I hated seeing her family. To round it up, I was a child, a selfish teen that also didn't want her to be with anyone else. Wow, how wrong I was. Now I have grown up into a man with an established career, I realise what I lost.

The break up: She went to Thailand with her friends for a month, 1 night we had an argument on the phone, this was my own fault as I have some anger issues and kick off for no reason sometimes, I thought she didn't want to contact me for days on end as I heard from her a handful of times throughout that month. She said she couldn't get to a pay phone, I didn't believe her. She told me that when she's back, we will talk. We met up a day after she got back, argued, had the worst sex (my last time with her, I knew we were all but over) and she drove me home. On route she pulled over and split up with me, I agreed, got out of the car and cried all the way home. I looked back and saw her in tears still sitting in the car. Then was my chance to redeem us and walk back, I didn't, I kept walking. I tried to tell myself it was for the best for the next few months, we kept in touch but after my begging for months on end to get back together, we lost contact for a while.

I had a year being single, I wasn't used to this, hated 'pulling' girls and decided it wasn't for me so I intentionally put myself out there to find myself a new girlfriend, someone that could top Claire and possibly be the one.

I'm 25 years old and am now living with my girlfriend of 2 years, Marie. The problem is: Claire still haunts my mind and my dreams. The 1st year I was with Marie, me and Claire contacted each other to meet her for a coffee as friends, I thought I'd got over it and agreed. We met once, had a laugh and I kept myself together, emailed her afterwards and said I still loved her. She replied saying: 'I'm not sure what to say. I'm sorry but I don't feel the same. I will always have a soft spot for you and have happy memories but us breaking up was a massive turning point for me. I am happier just being me and by myself. I think we have grown up with different lives and I think we would be happier continuing living our own lives. What we had was very special and always will be but I couldn't go back, too much history and time has passed.' We met again, didn't talk about us and again I emailed her, she sent a negative reply. This has happened sneakily behind Marie's back. Marie still doesn't know we met. This happened once more, a few emails back and forth of disagreements about us and now all contact is lost. It's now been a year of no contact, although she is my friend on Facebook and I sometimes check her page for updates. Claire has had flings but not a steady boyfriend that went past 3 months.

I think about Claire at least once everyday whilst living my life with Marie. I can honestly say that I care for Marie with all my heart, but Claire was my soul mate and it's proven too difficult to keep pushing it to the back of my mind for the last 3 years of being without her. Sometimes I have realistic dreams of Claire, other times I cry in private. I see Marie as an obstacle, a test for me. 50% of the time I can see a future with her, somedays I really feel like I love her so much that we will marry and have children, then the other 50%, I'm miserable, I'm pining for Claire to be in my life. I feel like the only man on the planet going through this and would like someone to contact me who is experiencing a similar problem.

Sorry for the essay, but I can't talk to anyone I personally know as I know how bad this is for Marie, and my current relationship.

URL: http://able2know.org/post/discuss/relationships/

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Type: Question • Score: 12 • Views: 16,156 • Replies: 8
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First of all, Claire is NOT your soul mate.

She has let you know - clearly and without any doubt - that she does NOT want the friendship to go any further.

So what are you hanging on to? Fantasy? Wishful thinking? The past? Afraid to commit? The chase? the unattainable?

Unless you can get over this "crush" on your own past, it is unfair to make a commitment to another person. Perhaps you should let Marie go free, so you can find yourself.

PS You need to have a better vision of what that relationship with Claire was really like. You were a boy. Things weren't really that great. She has put you in the past. You are hanging on to that "first love" feeling. Something is pulling you back to those boyhood days. It's not really Claire, it's something else. Find out what it is and let it grow up.

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hey buddy, it takes courage of you to write this and ask for help.
i would gladly chat with you if you write back with your email address...
i do know how you feel.
thanks for understanding

0 Replies

@mark07,

Hi Mark,

Such things as these can be very hard to come to terms with. Everybody deserves love, and everybody want love in their life - in the right way.

That said - I would like to address a different, but related, and to my way of thinking, a more important issue. Do you realise that you have very low self esteem?
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This is an issue for two reasons :

- Firstly : Self esteem is essential to your overall happiness. The higher your self esteem, the higher your overall happiness in life

- Secondly : Every man I have known with low self-esteem who, if the woman he is with has higher self esteem...every one of those men has actively worked towards pulling the self esteem of that woman down below his (usually over a long period of time). I don't know why this is, but I have never seen it not to be true (when the girl starts with higher self esteem than him).

If you start looking around, you will see that men generally choose women with lower self esteem than them, and if not (and the man has low self esteem)...see above.

Conversely, when a man has high self esteem - he cherishes his girlfriend/wife's achievements and self esteem, and celebrates & supports both her achievements & self esteem.
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There's quite a number of red flags indicating that you have really low self esteem. When viewed together, there are too many red flags to mean anything else :

- I didn't support her at uni due to jealousy as I didn't go to uni myself, I went through an apprenticeship instead at my own choiceYou view apprenticeships as being below university (btw : as a whole, tradesmen tend to be higher paid than University graduates in Australia), and think this reflects your worth as lower than hers (see above, about pulling down womens self esteem). Job jealousy doesn't exist when you are secure within yourself regarding who you are. When you feel truly worthy - you celebrate other peoples achievements.

-I didn't make effort to see her friends. I hated seeing her family.Very common to men with low self esteem - is the effort to discourage their partner from seeing their family & friends (which you haven't actually stated here - did you?). This seems to be in order to 'not have them say anything bad about you', and 'because you don't trust what they are going to say to her', and perhaps other reasons too. Conversely, men with high self esteem don't need to prevent their girl from seeing either of her family or friends, even if the guy doesn't like them...because he understands that it is her choice, and that family & friends are an important and personal choice in each persons lives (and if she had male friends you didn't know...yes, it would be important to meet them, and get to know them)

- I was a child, a selfish teen that also didn't want her to be with anyone else.See above. And also note the hypocrisy, where you were demanding she let you sleep with other girls, and telling her she wasn't important in your life enough to go overseas with - that was reserved for your friends (which would have brought up issues of you wanting to sleep with other girls - and where is more perfect to do this than overseas, while on holidays with your friends?). Note that the higher your self esteem, generally, the higher your consideration for other people. This was very far from the case here.

- I have some anger issues and kick off for no reason sometimes'Irrational' bouts of anger are often linked to low self esteem (though other things may cause them, such as mental illnesses, drugs, chemical imbalances etc). Low Self esteem leading to anger takes innumerous paths (that is to say, it would take up a lot of space to give enough examples to see the pattern). Conversely - the higher a persons self esteem, the less frequently they tend to get angry - and when they do, they can usually tell you exactly why they are angry, and it's usually for a valid reason.
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I think if you started looking into & building your self-esteem, you might find that your yearning for Claire will diminish...and you'll also realise that while she may (or may not) have been your soulmate, you were very far from being hers.

2 Replies

@vikorr,

damn - just noticed the OP date.

1 Reply

@vikorr,

vikor, i just read your post are you a therapist. You hit some good points even if it was an old post. I seem now to realize my self esteem has fallen, after reading this. E-mail me

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@vikorr,

Hi, I just made an account on this website to tell you that I found your post to be extremely insightful and helpful. I don't know if you do this kind of thing for a living, but if you don't you should certainly consider it. Cheers

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@mark07,

eh mark I hear the same rubbish of 3 exs my first was like yu but ive got so into new exs lol shes nothing and I hear same thing ive moved on ect I think they like havin someone feeling so much for them who wudnt eh yu might get back with her and be unhappy wat then ?

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@mark07,

You know...i had the same problem. Me and my exboyfriend were together 5 years, but i suspected he is cheating on me. Maybe you call me a fool or something, but i was desperate and i called an astrology line. Sounds weird,i know, but i did find my answers. I don't know if you believe in that, i wasn't neither, but...maybe it will help you. Still, my opinion is to keep your relationship with Marie and to forget the past.

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I still love my ex girlfriend and my life is complicated...I need help.

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