I know there’s nothing particularly unique about pining for a lost love, especially when it was your first love, but I would appreciate some advice right now. I’m not sure why I can’t move on. It’s been two years of ‘no contact’ and in the mean time I have traveled, relocated for a new job, reconnected with friends and made new ones, dated amazing women I really enjoyed being around, fallen in and out of love at least once, learned a new instrument, and finally started cooking and working out. And all of this while almost entirely avoiding any social media of hers or anything else that would actively keep me thinking about her.

The short story is this: We were love-at-first-sight college sweethearts, inseparable best friends. I was floored by her beauty and her intelligence and we had completely compatible values and wonderfully complementary personalities. She had to move back home, across the country, for financial reasons and I bought a one way ticket and moved with her without hesitation. She was my favorite person in the world, of course I would do anything to be with her. We lived together for a couple of years while we finished school, both of us excelling academically but never finding mutual friends for a healthy social life. We spent a lot of time with her family and I focused on my creative pursuits, music and illustration. I guess when I look back on it we were more comfortable than happy, which is why, despite getting in to the same prestigious graduate programs as I did, she chose that we go to schools on opposite coasts.

I had my own ambitions to chase so I agreed, but could never shake the fact that she didn’t reciprocate moving for me. I don’t like to think of things as tit-for-tat, but it was hard for me to shake that as a sign of unequal levels of dedication. Despite that, she wanted to stay together, and our time apart was interspersed with visits that I enjoyed immensely. I struggled in graduate school and the workload made it very hard for me to manage my depression and my issues with smoking pot. Over the course of a couple years of long distance, we started to feel the distance emotionally as well. She chose to drop out of her program and talked about things like sports, clubbing, and video games. Nothing wrong with any of them, but they weren’t things she had ever talked about in the previous 5 years. When she left her program early and decided to move back to her hometown and in with her parents instead of to be with me, I began to have serious doubts. But I understood my location wasn’t ideal for her so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

At a certain point, these doubts, along with the mental state I was in at the time, pushed me to the point where I thought we should consider taking a break. I guess this is the fork in the road that I keep returning to, because I really initiated our separation, and before that had been a less than ideal boyfriend, nothing abusive but I was definitely letting my negative thoughts get in the way of showing her the affection that she deserved. Later, she said she cried for a weekend straight after I said I wanted a break but at the time I never heard any objections and a week later we spoke and she had an ultimatum: move back to her hometown and start a family within 3 or 4 years. I guess in retrospect, that could be her last-ditch effort to solidify our relationship on her terms. But I felt like ultimatums are usually not a great foundation, and I would prefer our future to be something we decided together. (For background, I have no siblings and older parents, so moving across the country to start a family for good posed some serious issues for me.) I proposed a compromise where we move to a city equidistant from our families, but in the end we (she) decided that we wanted different things and it wasn’t going to be possible to reconcile.

Shortly after I tried to get her back, but she had made up her mind already. She thought I should be with someone that could ‘put me first’ and somebody that had ‘the same background as I do’ but what hurts the most was that she wanted to be with somebody that was happier. I can understand this and forgive her for it, but seeing as I have clinical depression it felt very unfair and to this day has affected my self-worth in regards to what I can provide somebody in a relationship. In our last conversation she described her short time apart from me as ‘transformative’ but that she would always be ‘my person.’ I told her I still loved her and she said nothing and that was two years ago this November.

I don’t pine for her every day, and it’s getting to the point where I barely remember what I’m missing anymore. I know it’s not rational or healthy, and that I have a tendency to dwell on the past in general. But, I can’t forgive myself for letting someone I loved so much slip away. I can pinpoint flaws in the relationship, and I can recall the things that I didn’t like so much about her, but nothing quells that feeling that I made a mistake that can’t be righted.

After two years, should I get back in touch? I have heard that you shouldn’t get back in touch until you’re not doing it with the hope that they will want you back. Quite frankly, I’ve wanted to reach out and apologize and find out how she’s doing but have held back due to the fear of being hurt. I have a feeling she is doing very well without me, and while I’m doing well without her and feel that I’ve grown a lot as a person, I still want her back. That makes me question how well I’m really doing and whether I’ve actually had that much personal growth in actuality.