Apologies for any formatting issues, I’m on mobile.
I have been with my current boyfriend, D, for six years. I love him with all my heart, however a few times over these years I have found myself thinking about my ex. They’re not just passing thoughts, it’s a full-on longing that makes my chest hurt. Here’s some backstory:
My ex, M, and I started dating in 2009 during our last couple of years of high school. We had known each other our whole lives and were close childhood friends. Which also meant that he and my brother were good friends. This was our first hurdle. My brother is quite socially awkward so whenever M came over to our house the only conversation and activity was video games, nothing deeper. Discussing things like relationships would be unthinkable with him. So M and I never really told my brother we were dating and would never flaunt it around him. Being teenagers without jobs, we couldn’t really go on dates so we only ever saw each other when he would come over to ours or vice versa. My brother was always there either way, so we got no privacy.
Our second hurdle was when he went to university. I went to my local college and he went to a city two hours away. This seemed like such a huge distance to me back then. We only saw each other when he came back for the summer or the occasional weekend, and he would seldom call or text or get in touch in any way while he was away. Not because he was an awful person, but we were both pretty shy. I still think he could’ve made more of an effort though. I tried to.
These things meant our relationship moved very slowly. The shyness that lasted our whole relationship was kind of how people are at the start of normal relationships - we never really got to progress to a comfortable place due to never getting privacy or seeing each other often. Yes, we were close friends since childhood, but moving into a romantic relationship made us shy around each other, as it naturally would. So because of all these factors, our first kiss happened a year and a half into our relationship, and anything intimate (not sex) about two years in, when I got up the courage to suggest I come visit him at his uni flat for our second anniversary in 2011. I was hoping he’d invite me more often after that, especially for our third anniversary in 2012, where I was so ready to go further. But that didn’t happen and ultimately we never had sex.
This relationship was torture for me. I loved him so, so much but I never saw him. I was so lonely. It hurt me. But I couldn’t tell him this.
In 2010 I was on a course with about a dozen other people around my age. This is where I met D. We became really good friends - we texted almost every day and went to the cinema often. Things M and I should have been doing. It felt so nice to have someone to do these things with, to have the attention. In 2012 D told me he had feelings for me, and I realised I had feelings for him too. We didn’t act upon them until I broke up with M when I got him alone on a day he was back from uni and came to visit my brother and I. D and I have been together ever since.
My relationship with D is everything my relationship with M was not. I have been so very happy with D and in the first couple of years did not give M a second thought. But every once in a while over the last few years, I’ve been thinking about him. And I feel such an intense longing in my chest that it hurts. Sometimes I think I loved M more than I love D and I hate myself for it. Why, when this relationship has been so much better?
I think I need closure so I can stop feeling these things. Because there was so much M and I never got to do that we should have done. So much I wanted out of our relationship. So much potential. Over three years with nothing to show. He was meant to be my first.
These thoughts are not a regular occurrence. Maybe once or twice a year. I’ve seen M twice since we broke up, once when he came round to see my brother. But even they drifted apart. It wasn’t until the other day when my brother told me we he was talking to M again on Messenger. That’s when I started thinking about him again and that’s what has brought me here. It’s not like I want to get back together with M. When I think of my future, D is in it. I just want a way of closing off these thoughts for good.
So please, if anyone can help me come up with a way to get closure on this unfulfilled relationship, let me hear it.
tl;dr I had an unfulfilled three-year relationship with my ex boyfriend. I’ve been with my current boyfriend for six years but I occasionally feel an intense longing for my ex. I think this is because I need closure from this relationship that had so much potential that never got to be realised. Please help me think of a way to get closure.
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