I made an account just to respond. I too have an eerily similar story, I guess that tells you something about the human experience. That we experience things similar to each other more than we think. Wow, ever since my ex and I broke up I’ve been searching for answers on why I can’t get over him even though I have dated at least what feels like 100 guys since him and this forum and the responses, especially from ANITA are the closest I’ve ever come. Anita’s responses sound like they are coming from a therapist who knows what they are talking about, obviously these things are easier said than done, to pick up and move on but realizing why we are doing or thinking what we are thinking has helped me come more to terms with why I have missed my ex. Sure I loved him, but if my new boyfriend ever left me then came back and repeat would I be feeling the same way as I did with the ex? Probably. It’s very possible, it’s a sick game that our mind plays on us to keep us from being happy. In childhood our mind keeps us safe from danger by hiding it in our sub-cautious (repression)  as an adult this doesn’t help us at all, just makes us pine for more pain I think. Then we end up dissociating from the present. There are ways to keep us in the present so we stop reliving out the trauma from our childhood. If anything this has been a wake up call to get my self into counseling or therapy to work out my troubled childhood that has left me being with unavailable lovers and robbed me of my happiness with my current boyfriend.

To the person who said maybe you just haven’t found the right person, I don’t think that is necessarily true if we are looking for love like we had when we were a child  and that love was abusive, distant, cold, or unavailable, than that love wasn’t a good example of love, if we never had a good example of love how do we know what to look for? Our picker is off. I think he was a nice guy but just couldn’t decide on me and strung me along for 2 years on and off. I can’t say I haven’t done this myself in my first relationship but I learned from it and in more recent years I won’t go out with someone more than 4 times if I know it’s not going anywhere. I don’t know how everyone else is on this thread but I am the type of person who knows almost right away if I could love someone or not. I’ve read before that we will always choose what is similar to us and what resonates with us in childhood, what hand we were dealt. I think we can fight against this with professional help!

I have a lot of feelings on this subject, but I will say there is something about my ex, something before things went south that made me love him like no one else I’ve ever loved, maybe it was because they had the same darkness as me and also maybe I felt like a better version of myself around them, but the truth is I couldn’t really be my full self around them because they weren’t in love with me, I had to change myself or feel a need to change myself so they would like me. I have a hard time letting go of the notion that they never were in love with me and they never will be in love with me. The relationship with my father or I should say lack there of with my abusive and estranged father is very much the same in many ways, so at the end of the day it really is me trying to reconcile that relationship as an adult with a man who cannot love me, not the way I deserve to be loved as we all do as our imperfect, perfect selves. I hope everyone on this thread who is suffering from unrequited love with a family member or an ex lover finds resolve and can learn to love themselves, and know they are worthy of reciprocated love from a supportive, attractive and caring partner!