Dear periwinkle123:

Your feelings about Ron don’t mean that you are crazy (“I know I’m not a crazy person”), and it is not a spiritual matter: it is not a message from a higher that Ron is your soul mate and the two  of you are fated to get together and  live happily ever after (“The spiritual side of me lately questions this a bit though- WHY do I still think of this person”). I think that it is a matter of newness and of youth.

Here is an example from my life: I grew up in a country where pizza was not available. When I was about 20, I had the very  first pizza in my life. Looking back at the experience, it was magical. No words to express the elation and wonderfulness of the experience. Eating pizza since is delicious but not magical, using your words, “I feel like there’s something just missing”.  If the same pizza I was served then would be served to me now, it would not be magical.

Ron to you is like pizza to me: Ron was new to you at the time and you were younger (“when I was 12/13 I encountered a boy.. we were just kids”).

When we experience things for the first time when we are young, we don’t only experience the thing or the person, we experience our youth at the time. When you think about Ron, you remember how you felt at the time: you felt intensely, because you were younger, and children/ young people feel more intensely than older people. We lose emotional intensity as we get older.

There is more to your post, but I will stop here, and see if you reply to what I posted here. (I will be back to the computer in about 12 hours from now).

anita

Dear periwinkle123:

You are welcome. “How do I get that emotional intensity back in my current experience”- I don’t know if it is something you or anyone can do: to get back a feeling or an intensity of a feeling. People try to do that by taking drugs, or sky diving, but I don’t recommend drugs and I don’t encourage sky diving.

Try to be okay with how you feel, don’t aim at feeling something different.

“I want to be really happy and focused on the love I have in my life now”- you can choose to focus on your relationship and make it the healthiest relationship possible, loving and healthy, one to benefit you and him.

But focusing on feeling “really happy” will bring you the opposite result: feeling dissatisfied, always comparing what you feel with an ideal of happiness-ever-after.

Happiness/ joy is a temporary feeling, it cannot be maintained because joy is a neural and hormonal excitation that the brain/ body cannot endure for long.

Is my post making sense to you?

anita

Dear periwinkle123:

You are welcome. “it’s okay to be a bit bored” with your partner, absolutely. Who is not bored with a partner once in a while (?!), especially in quarantine. It is not possible for one person to see to  it that the other doesn’t get bored every hour-of-every-day, day after day, week after week. Best you can have is “exciting moments” here and there: moments- not a life time of happiness and excitement. (Fairy tales ending with, “and they lived happily ever after”, are works of fiction/make believe, same as romantic movies in which for two whole hours, two people are excited about each other.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by .

We are look to our partners to complete us , and when they don’t we feel let down . The only person who can complete you is yourself .

The first taste of love is so powerful that it a standard all  measure our Partners against ( whether is was a good experience or not).

So your feeling are normal and healthy. Don’t surprises them , rather celebrate the beautiful memory of this teenage crush . Often a letter to your 13 year old self is a good exercise .

You and your partner live in the now , where all beauty and human frailty is revealed . Love your partner for the wonderful person he is , flaws and all.

It sound like you have a very special relationship , I wish you joy and health .

Hi Periwinkle

He’s basically the one that got away! You are posing the ‘what if’ question in regard to Ron, an unanswerable question full of mystery and romance.

Laugh it off. If a relationship had blossomed with him it would probably have died long before now and you would, from within your loving relationship with your boyfriend today, be thinking to yourself ‘thank God I didn’t marry that Ron bloke’. The feelings that linger for him are as intense and lasting as they are because they were generated when you were very young and because they, and he, were never tested.

Having said this, if you do feel something is missing, that your boyfriend doesn’t really understand who you are, perhaps that’s something you can work on with him. If you talk to him about the parts of you that you want him to understand, and he shows interest in getting to know you on the deeper level you crave, all well and good. However, if he is dismissive of your concerns and isn’t willing to know you more deeply, that might be a cause for concern.

all the best

Jan

You’re welcome. I’m just wondering, what kind of situation brings up this feeling for you, that your boyfriend doesn’t understand you ‘at your core’? Is it because he shows no interest in the things that make you tick? Your hobbies, the things you love (maybe art, music, running, animals, growing orchids) or is it more fundamental like politics, attitude to money or religion? Or how much time you want to spend with friends and family (ie away from him), or how you dress or where you want to live?

You say:

“it feels like we’re not emotionally connected all the time”

which is OK, two people can’t go about joined at the emotional hip all the time. But do you mean that, when you express your feelings either verbally or through actions, he sometimes turns off from you? That he seems to disapprove of you sometimes?

Or if, say, you want to carve a career growing orchids which would make you happy but not rich, and he thinks you should do a job you hate because you can make a lot more money that way, that’s a pretty big stumbling block as he is not showing concern for your feelings. Or if he wants to have five children and you’re not even sure you want one.

I know that nameless feeling, I’ve experienced it. Sometimes it’s that we do know, deep down, what the problem is but we don’t want to address it. If you feel there’s something missing, it might well be something you should spend some time examining (on your own) to make sure it’s not a huge red flag that you should not be ignoring. If, as you say, he’s amazing and cares for you deeply, he will be willing to work with you on any doubts you may be having.

all the best

Jan