Dear John,
I broke up with my boyfriend ten years ago and I still haven't gotten over him. He has moved on and is married and has a child while I am lonely and still pining for his love. I have not been in another relationship since him. Recently he came back into my life and we fooled around a couple of times and had full blown sex once. I feel horrible about this and know it was wrong. Now he has stopped calling and I feel even more like a fool than I did before. How do I get over this and move on?
Signed,
Living in the Past
First off, while shacking up with your ex was wrong, please forgive yourself for your slip up. Life is complicated and mistakes are made. Learning from them is more productive than endlessly wallowing in guilt or shame or self-pity.
No doubt the best way to get over your past lover--probably the only way to get over him--is to date again and open yourself to the possibility of finding love. But ten years has passed without you doing this, so my telling you to simply snap out of it is useless.
You realize that continuing as a lovesick fool is damaging to you, so why continue with it? At this point, the damage is of your own making. You have embraced a destructive pattern of pining instead of granting yourself an opportunity to move on. You need to look closely at your own psychology to determine why this is.
For some, accepting their lot in life is easier than fighting to better themselves; but only by confronting your insecurities about dating will you be able to propel yourself passed this situation.
As the humorist H.L. Chace once paraphrased: "I am the mustard of my fate; I am the catsup of my soul." When you realize that you control your destiny, you will have the motivation to extricate yourself from the pickle you are in and get your buns back in the game.
Thanks for playing,
John
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