It's been a couple of years now and I still think of my ex boyfriend often. It is not a matter of not having moved on, it's just that it was a long term relationship that impacted me on so many levels. We loved, we laughed, we cried, we experienced so much of life together. It ended because we were heading in different paths, career wise. I have no idea how he's doing, but I hope he is well. I haven't looked him up on Facebook in almost two years because I know that if I start, it will become a habit. I still dream of him and have strong feelings for him, but I do not have grandiose ideas of being with him again or anything, but the memories are peaceful. Sometimes I feel ashamed to still have these feelings, so maybe I am not over him, but that is besides the point.
Can you really ever stop loving someone after the relationship is over?
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Can you really ever stop loving someone after a relationship is over?
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Active Ink Slinger
Yes. - Remembering but not forgetting some wonderful times we shared.
I cannot tell somebody I love them in a committed way but I can say at times "I loved that".
I can remember fondly some relationships I have had but I would not return to an ex. When its over for me, it may be painful, but it is over for whatever reason.
I cannot tell somebody I love them in a committed way but I can say at times "I loved that".
I can remember fondly some relationships I have had but I would not return to an ex. When its over for me, it may be painful, but it is over for whatever reason.
I believe, however naively, that once you love, you love. You may not be in love, but you’ll always love, and you’ll love who he was and who you were and who you were with him, and you may even think you can love who he is now, and maybe you will, and maybe you won’t, but, either way, you loved, and I think that is a fantastic thing to be able to say.
Also, the thing about loss, and the loss of love, is that loss is universal, but loss -- and the loss of love -- doesn’t feel universal when we are going through it. Suffering through it, might be more appropriate. I don’t think the dreams and/or the feelings will ever stop. And I’m not sure they should stop. He’s part of who you are and who you will be. And that’s not a bad thing.
Also, the thing about loss, and the loss of love, is that loss is universal, but loss -- and the loss of love -- doesn’t feel universal when we are going through it. Suffering through it, might be more appropriate. I don’t think the dreams and/or the feelings will ever stop. And I’m not sure they should stop. He’s part of who you are and who you will be. And that’s not a bad thing.
Head Nurse
Quote by sweet80sarah
It's been a couple of years now and I still think of my ex boyfriend often. It is not a matter of not having moved on, it's just that it was a long term relationship that impacted me on so many levels. We loved, we laughed, we cried, we experienced so much of life together. It ended because we were heading in different paths, career wise. I have no idea how he's doing, but I hope he is well. I haven't looked him up on Facebook in almost two years because I know that if I start, it will become a habit. I still dream of him and have strong feelings for him, but I do not have grandiose ideas of being with him again or anything, but the memories are peaceful. Sometimes I feel ashamed to still have these feelings, so maybe I am not over him, but that is besides the point.
Can you really ever stop loving someone after the relationship is over?
My ex of nearly 2 yrs (4 yr relationship)is still very much loved. I've moved on, in a literal, and metaphoric way. I am no longer in the same area, so I can't just run into him, and I've dated several guys since. Still he is there in my heart, and I suspect he always will be in part.
My ex husband(married 10), is no longer there. I think the difference between them is that he(the ex husband) changed that love to hate before we split. It's hard to remember the good when all you see is the abuse you went through. With him it took time to let go of the hate and forgive.
I don't have any answers, just observations.
Active Ink Slinger
Yes, My ex caused me so much heart ache and pain. It was almost a year before I felt like I could trust a woman again.
Active Ink Slinger
There is a big difference between loving someone and being in love. I think it is absolutely possible that you can continue to love someone you were once in love with long after its over. If you parted amicably and/or managed to make peace with the past, why not? I spent 20 years with my ex husband and even though we had our issues that ultimately killed our happily-ever-after, we still love one another and care for each other as friends but are NOT in love any longer.
Its hard to say goodbye to someone you were deeply in love with even if you knew it had no chance of surviving. As long at doesn't inhibit you from being open to love again, I don't see a problem with it.
Its hard to say goodbye to someone you were deeply in love with even if you knew it had no chance of surviving. As long at doesn't inhibit you from being open to love again, I don't see a problem with it.
Active Ink Slinger
There's no easy, or indeed universal, answer to this. For each post somebody will be able to give an example that's the opposite, so I can only state my own opinion through my experiences.
I have never had a bad break up and still care about exes but I've only been "in love" once. I've loved others but wasn't in love with them but my feelings for them now are the same as for friends that I've lost touch with.
The person I was in love with, about 30 yrs ago, I still love to this day. It's rare that a day goes by that I don't think about him at least once. There's a line in a song that I believe is true "no-one else can have the part of me I gave to you". When it happens you find a way to get through but you never forget.
I have never had a bad break up and still care about exes but I've only been "in love" once. I've loved others but wasn't in love with them but my feelings for them now are the same as for friends that I've lost touch with.
The person I was in love with, about 30 yrs ago, I still love to this day. It's rare that a day goes by that I don't think about him at least once. There's a line in a song that I believe is true "no-one else can have the part of me I gave to you". When it happens you find a way to get through but you never forget.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by dpw
The person I was in love with, about 30 yrs ago, I still love to this day. It's rare that a day goes by that I don't think about him at least once. There's a line in a song that I believe is true "no-one else can have the part of me I gave to you". When it happens you find a way to get through but you never forget.
Cock Connoisseur
It really depends on how your relationship ended and what kind of feelings you had for that person at the time, as well as what brought the relationship to an end in the first place. Falling out of love with someone after being with them for over half your life mixed with other things felt as it came to an end. For me, yes its possible to stop loving someone. There will always be a connection especially if you have kids with them. You can love someone as a human being or as the father or mother of your children. Some relationships end where neither love the other anymore, and its often one sided. Its really a question that is as individual in each situation as it is to the two people involved.
You can choose to move and live, or you can be stuck in the past with the what if's. It's a hard thing to do, I know am living it now. The hardest thing is to trust again, if you can figure that one out, then you truly are one step ahead of the rest of us.
You can choose to move and live, or you can be stuck in the past with the what if's. It's a hard thing to do, I know am living it now. The hardest thing is to trust again, if you can figure that one out, then you truly are one step ahead of the rest of us.
Quote by sweet80sarah
Can you really ever stop loving someone after the relationship is over?
One certainly can. People and relationships differ. Some will end up not loving the other. Some will continue to care for the other to varying degrees with the love changing from what it was in the relationship to something different.
Active Ink Slinger
I have never had the fortune of dating the person I loved, since I met her 7 years ago she has maintained a relationship with the same man but I've loved her all the same. If I'm incredibly lucky I can go weeks or even months without thinking about her, but every time I do the feelings come rushing back. I wish you better luck than I've had trying to move on.
Yes. Only once was it was hard and mostly because she had been my closest friend. It was like a death. Not heartbreak but much more than that. Probably when I am old I will still think of her from time to time. But my love died with the betrayal. However, my concern for her well being didn't.
But when I go, I go and usually don't look back.
But when I go, I go and usually don't look back.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by TylerStark
I have never had the fortune of dating the person I loved, since I met her 7 years ago she has maintained a relationship with the same man but I've loved her all the same. If I'm incredibly lucky I can go weeks or even months without thinking about her, but every time I do the feelings come rushing back. I wish you better luck than I've had trying to move on.
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Sorry but if you can go weeks or months without thinking about her then it's not love it's infatuation.The the good news is in time the feeling will be less painful. The bad news is you will never completely forget her. Years will go by & from time to time memories will come back to you.
Here's A word of advice. Please take heed. There may be A time in the future you may have the chance to connect with her. Don't do it. She will never live up to your expectations. You have probably put her on A pedestal. No woman can live up to that.iDBeUQyuFZ8ZNh3h
In-House Sapiosexual
If it was love, it doesn't just disappear. The intensity dies or it takes on a new shape or form. That form can be pain.
I once told a lover that there are somethings that I will always love about you, but you will never be my friend--never again.
Sometimes we have to forecefully make the decision to let go simply because loving ourself has to mean more. I remember me after my divorce. I would literally wake up on the floor. My body would search out his in my sleep and I'd drop right off the side of the bed. Now that memory makes me shake my head a laugh.
I once told a lover that there are somethings that I will always love about you, but you will never be my friend--never again.
Sometimes we have to forecefully make the decision to let go simply because loving ourself has to mean more. I remember me after my divorce. I would literally wake up on the floor. My body would search out his in my sleep and I'd drop right off the side of the bed. Now that memory makes me shake my head a laugh.
? A True Story ?
Active Ink Slinger
It depends on what ended it. If it was just a case of moving in different directions maybe not, but a bad ending with hurt feelings yes
Active Ink Slinger
Love is an energy. Energy, as all scientists know, cannot disappear, but its form may change. Hence the lyric "There's a thin line between love and hate".
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by NickiC
But when I go, I go and usually don't look back.
As much as I love you, and you and Aragon, I don't believe it!
You don't love by parts, it's all or nothing! Even with a bad break there's that bit of you that you gave for ever. It's when you walk down the street and a laugh, the way someone moves their head, a chin, a walk, an ass, a shirt and so many random things, spark a memory. The first memory is good and then we analyse.
There is always a good memory and we recall them first, later comes the warning of why it was no good.
Quote by sweet80sarah
Can you really ever stop loving someone after the relationship is over?
Well, that's a question we've all asked ourselves. It's brave and honest of you to ask it here.
This is what I think.
If you truly love someone, that never, EVER goes away. But of course sometimes THEY do and in that distance things change, people change. You do, they do... We change as people every single day, and if you've got a pretty special relationship with a partner both can accommodate those changes and even move closer in experiencing them.
But with a lost lover, that doesn't happen. Put quite simply, the person you loved, (still love?) doesn't really exist anymore except inside your head and your heart. What we truly mean when we say, "I still love Him/Her" is that we love OUR MEMORY of that person and that love.
I've been there once or twice. It's fucking tough, isn't it?
After a while I think, (it took me nearly two years to get over the last one!) we can come to terms with the fact that what we have, what we are left with, is the Memory and the Experience of having loved someone very special to us and hopefully the memory of being loved in return.
But that isn't the real thing and we all know it.
And there are TOO MANY people who don't even have such memories to look fondly back upon. People who CAN'T say, "Hell, I WAS truly loved, I loved someone and it WAS real and it can happen again..."
You know, two years ago, (almost) I quit Facebook for the very reasons you hint at... Prompted by your post I think maybe it's time for me to get over it properly and visit there again.
Best of luck, You.
xx Steph
Clever Gem
Well depends on the circumstance...right now yes i'm over one, but at the same time rekindling with one i thought i was over 20 years ago. Life's a mindfuck...embrace it.
Mazztastic
Quote by crazydiamond
Well depends on the circumstance...right now yes i'm over one, but at the same time rekindling with one i thought i was over 20 years ago. Life's a mindfuck...embrace it.
That's marvellous...
I'm happy for you
Active Ink Slinger
I feel that if you truly loved that person, then no you can never not love them. You can move on, you can love another, but you will always love that original person.
My mother really loved My father. For many years she loved him. But they did get divorced and she found another whom she married and lives with happily. However she still carries a torch for My father even though he has now passed away. There will always be a love that no other can fill in her heart.
If you really love a person, they never leave completely. MHO.
My mother really loved My father. For many years she loved him. But they did get divorced and she found another whom she married and lives with happily. However she still carries a torch for My father even though he has now passed away. There will always be a love that no other can fill in her heart.
If you really love a person, they never leave completely. MHO.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by dpw
As much as I love you, and you and Aragon, I don't believe it!
You don't love by parts, it's all or nothing! Even with a bad break there's that bit of you that you gave for ever. It's when you walk down the street and a laugh, the way someone moves their head, a chin, a walk, an ass, a shirt and so many random things, spark a memory. The first memory is good and then we analyse.
There is always a good memory and we recall them first, later comes the warning of why it was no good.
I completely and totally agree with you dpw. If the love is real, no matter what the current circumstances are the love should remain in your heart. If it isn't there, it wasn't there to start with, basically it was a mirage. Total, complete, honest love involves a feeling so very deep that it cannot be moved, ever. One so deep that the trust should never be questioned. If the trust is not there the true love never was in the heart and soul either, in my opinion. To totally love, one gives up their soul to the other and with it part of their heart. This is a commendable act by anyone, something they should not be ashamed of, but proud. It takes tremendous inner strength to do this and is one of the reasons people have so much distrust in the world we live in, again my observations and opinion. I believe they give in to soon to what others, meaning friends or family tell them, and don't hold true to what they think and feel is the correct way to deal with whatever issue it is.
This is just one Lush member's opinion, so don't be to hard on me for offering it
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Damn double posts, sorry 
My Stories
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Quote by stephanie
Put quite simply, the person you loved, (still love?) doesn't really exist anymore except inside your head and your heart. What we truly mean when we say, "I still love Him/Her" is that we love OUR MEMORY of that person and that love.
This nails it.
"There's only three tempos: slow, medium and fast. When you get between in the cracks, ain't nuthin' happenin'." Ben Webster
Active Ink Slinger
YES...when she tromped all over the "friendship" that remained for 40 years after our marriage broke up....and even our daughter thinks that was shabby.
Her Royal Spriteness
oh, yeah. it's easy, actually. for me, if a relationship is over, it's usually cause they did something that put them down on the bottom rung of the ladder, right below pond scum. that's the rung i wipe my shoes off on if i've stepped in dog shit. i don't really care for dog shit so yeah, the love, at that point, is gone.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
Raised on Blackroot
Quote by DLizze
This nails it.
I honestly think it depends how the relationship ends and whether you are still on amicable terms. I mean, you can stop loving someone romantically, only to love them more in a manner of close friend/confidant/quasi-sibling.
Not all relationships end badly. Some just fizzle out mutually.
Candyman
I think I depends on the circumstances. If the other party is never truthful, the trampling of ones feelings can cause deep hurt. So, yes I think you can.
"I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free." Nikos Kazantzakis
