You knew it would be hard getting over him, but you never realized just how hard this was going to be. Whether he ended it, or you, the reality is that you’re not sure you wanted it to end. So here you are, trying to accept the reality of your relationship being over and move on, but that sadness and longing for what could have been deeply lingers, leaving you wondering if you’ll ever get over him. I’m going to share with you four reasons why you still can’t seem to get over your first love.
Let’s say you were in a relationship where you feel perpetually anxious or stressed. You gave it your all, even at the expense of your emotional well-being, but the two of you still broke up. You may have been miserable with him, but now you’re more miserable without him. You spend months, maybe even years, wishing you were still together or allowing your thoughts to linger over him.
No matter how pointless you know it is to continue pining over your first love, it doesn’t make it any easier to let go and move forward.
Beautiful, you have to stand back up and put yourself out there again. Your heart is stronger than you realize. I’ve been there and I’ve seen heartbreak through to the other side. It takes time and patience.
Here are the real reasons it’s so hard to get over your first love:
1. You miss the way he made you feel.
Often it’s not actually your ex that you miss, but the feelings you experienced when you were with him. You miss the connection, the passion, the intimacy, the feeling of being desired. You miss the way he made you feel more than the actual person he was.
After going through a breakup there is almost always a period of withdrawal. Whether it was your decision to end the relationship or not doesn’t really matter. Either way there will suddenly be a void and you may feel like you’re walking on shaky ground as that person is no longer there.
Dopamine creates feelings of euphoria while adrenaline and norepinephrine are responsible for the butterflies and overall preoccupation that go along with experiencing love. So the withdrawal is very real!
It will definitely be hard at first, but when you push past the initial discomfort, you will be able to function just as well, or even better, than before.
Surround yourself with people who genuinely care about and love you. Focus on building your life back up in a way that makes you feel fulfilled and content with who you are. It’s time to create that sense of worthiness from within.
2. You gave up your personal life for him.
Being in a relationship can often quickly go from being a part of your life to being your entire life. Maybe you stop hanging out with your friends or family as much, going out, or pursuing your passions. The relationship feels like your everything because at the time it literally is. And if you breakup, you feel empty, like a piece of you is missing. You don’t have those other pieces of your life to fall back on anymore.
The key is to start recreating and rebuilding your life and making it joyful and balanced. When you drop other elements of your life and have a boyfriend fill that space, you will have a huge gap once he leaves you. Realize that this isn’t because he was the other half of your heart, but rather because you put a lot of important elements of your life to the wayside.
3. You took the breakup too personally.
“Was it something I did?”
“Should I not have slept with him so soon?”
“I wish I had been more fun.”
These are all thoughts that can go through our heads after a breakup. Rejection hurts, a lot. Even if it had nothing to do with you (which usually it doesn’t), it can still throb and make you feel like you’re somehow not good enough. Sometimes two people just aren’t the right fit. Sometimes both people know how obvious it is, and sometimes only one person does. Sometimes a person was meant for a season of your life, and that was it.
Don’t take it too personally because even if you think you f-cked up, as I certainly have in my relationships, it doesn’t mean that the breakup was because you weren’t good enough.
4. You don’t think you’ll ever find anyone as good.
This is the biggest myth of all and the reason most people find it so hard to get over their first love. They clutch at the belief that since they never experienced anything like that before with their first love, they never will experience it again or find someone as wonderful.
You convince yourself that no other guy could possibly have the same qualities as him and therefore you can either try to get him back, or settle for someone else who will never measure up.
Will you meet someone else exactly like him? No, because no two people are exactly alike and even still, that isn’t always a bad thing. The two of you broke up which means that maybe what you need isn’t what you think you want. Rather than finding someone with his exact same traits and qualities, you will find someone even more compatible for you.
Give yourself a chance to love again, to feel again, and to live again.
You are alive and here to risk your heart by putting it into something you believe in, as many times as it takes. Know that these feelings that you felt with him were yours, and you haven’t lost the ability to feel those feelings. He didn’t cause you to feel them; you felt them because you have the capacity to feel that kind of love. Which means you can feel it again. 
