Dear LiamJames:

“Initially I was elated and relieved. The negativity had vacated my home, where we lived together for 3 years. The fighting and arguing.. was gone”. She was gone which means you found yourself living alone and feeling lonely.

You felt relief because a troubled relationship was over and done with. But then you got lonely and that  is a different kind of trouble.

Before you met your now ex fiancée, you lived alone and sometimes you imagined having a girlfriend and living with her, no longer living alone, correct? Fast forward, after she moved out, you again imagine having a girlfriend and living with her, only now you imagine your ex fiancée being that girlfriend.

If before you imagined a life with a woman you didn’t meet yet, making up the details from scratch, now you imagine a life with a woman you did meet, and you take details from that experience and make up an imaginary story “based on a true story”, that is, an imaginary story with some true details in it.

We are social animals. We are born to be  with others. A movie I watched long ago, “Cast Away”, was about a man who found himself living all alone on an island. He found a soccer ball I think it was, painted a face on it and made it his friend, growing attached to that soccer ball. This is how strong our need is to be with someone, to connect to another.

anita