Hi All,

I’m writing today because I am very conflicted with how I am feeling about the loss of my first love. Here is a little backstory on how the relationship ended (which seven months later I am very clear minded about); We were together for a year and a half, traveled around Asia together, I was very much in love and he was afraid of love. So at the time and regrettably so, I was “waiting” and “being patient” for him to finally love me back like I knew he did. This started to take a toll on me, where then I started acting out, out of resentment (which at the time I didn’t realize I was doing). Instead of me standing up for myself, being myself, and realizing he wasn’t going to change for me, he broke my heart into a million pieces, detached emotionally and physically, and ended up breaking up with me for no reason other than he was afraid of love (which he admitted to me). It was the worst feeling, as is everyone’s first love ending, and still is when I think about it enough. He also told me he actually did love me in the relationship, but never could tell me because he “subscribed to a different definition of the word love at the time.”

It’s been seven months since the break up and I am SIGNIFICANTLY better. I don’t cry anymore over it, I can go throughout my days without thinking about him and the break up every second, I feel overall good. However, I still have extreme feelings of regret within myself. I let this guy walk all over me in the relationship and even when we broke up. I let him end it in a way that was so awful and disrespectful that it is hard to even think about without getting angry at myself. I feel as if I NEVER got to stand up for myself in and out of the relationship, and when I tried, I was shut down. Now I know of course that I will never let that happen again and I am a much stronger person as I write all of this out, but the feelings of regret are just killing me. I fear that the way this relationship ended will lead me to have trust issues in the future.

As for my ex, I don’t think he has realized any of the things that I have, it was very easy for him to detach from our relationship (which hurt me more than I can express), and he is the type of guy who is very self-centered and puts his emotions in the back of his mind so he doesn’t have to deal with them. I am the kind of person that doesn’t like having negative feelings towards anyone, but I can’t seem to shake this feeling of hatred towards my ex. I never got to stand up for myself and really tell him how bad he hurt me, which I know he probably isn’t even worth it considering past events of me expressing myself to him. Is it wrong that I hate him so much? Is it not the right thing that I don’t want him as a friend? I don’t see myself being his friend in the future either… he doesn’t know how to be a good one, and I feel like I’m going to burst if I don’t just get him out of my life once and for all. A part of me wants him to hurt like I hurt, a part of me misses parts of him, a part of me doesn’t ever want him in my life again, a part of me wants him to want me, and all of me knows that I should not/can not be with a man that won’t love me like I love him.