Randomly Missing Ex Months After Break Up?

[TCD23]

I'll try to keep this brief. Basically I was dating a girl for about a year. I'm in the Navy and met her locally during training. I quite fancied her,she was younger than me (I was 23 and she was 18) and we got on quite well. I was her first boyfriend (in all the ways that applies) but I've had several serious relationships before.

 

Anyway as a submariner I knew that I was going to be away for a long time and after finishing my contract I'd like to travel so I broke up with her thinking it to be a lot more responsible than making her wait. I was literally on the other side of the country so done it via phone (after being away for two months). A dick move I know but better than making her wait any longer. She wasn't happy at the time.

 

Anyway I contacted her a few times when I resurfaced abroad and made amends but the last time I contacted her like two months after I broke up but her tone had changed and I knew she had moved on.

 

I was fine when I was on the sub (although I was pre-occupied with stress and just hating my job) but now I've come back to the city where we met and I'm finding I'm missing my ex like crazy. I came back in late January this year and we broke up in August.

 

I did look at her Instagram and she'd left a picture of me up on there but recently deleted it. I got drunk like two nights ago to apologise for breaking up with her in such a bad way and she said she was fine and happy, I didn't say I wanted her back or anything just that I was sorry. I've blocked her number when I sobered up so I don't message her again. She's had another short term boyfriend in the months we've been broken up but she's currently single.

 

I'm also currently stuck in limbo at work trying to transfer to a new role more suitable for me so I can see that as no helping in terms of moving on. Especially as the new role means a new city which would help.

 

It's a weird situation because I never really mourned our relationship at all when it ended and since coming back it's hit me like a ton of bricks culminating in messaging her to apologize. The city just reminds me of her and I'm trying to get back out there to move on but I'm finding it hard to form any real emotional bond with a girl. I think if I'm honest with myself I just miss having a girlfriend that hit the right notes together.

 

Anyway any advice or thoughts on ways I can make my feelings of loneliness and regret go away would be appreciated.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[preraph]

Well, I think you hit on why it's affecting you now. You were too busy and focused to even deal with it before. Or to miss having a girlfriend or her in particular. So you're having a delayed "mourning." It's nice you apologized. It doesn't sound like she was trying to get back together or anything, by what you wrote.

 

And you did say she wasn't happy anyway there near the end when you broke up, so it was going to happen. To put a little practical thought on it, she and you were both very young. You still are, really. By comparison, take an example of highschool sweethearts who then go off to college, or one goes and one doesn't, usually the pair end up breaking up no matter how dedicated they were before they left, because times of change like this are also times of exploration and meeting different kinds of people, maybe finding a better social niche, and you quite simply often grow in different directions and end up moving on from each other during the teen and early 20s. It's kind of part of maturing and exploring and learning and finding your path.

 

So don't feel that you left something that might have been permanent behind. That's highly against the odds. You're back in that town, so you're having all these associations triggering memories, and I know that can be tough. The trick to overcoming that is to make new memories with friends or new dates. Start dating and DO take your new date, maybe not on the first date, but after a couple when things seem to be going well, to some of the places you used to go with the girl. Overwrite those memories with some new ones. Don't let her memory take the town from you.

 

It's normal anyway to miss people who were once in my life, but you're getting a double dose of it since you were preoccupied for so long. Just keep going and having a good time and you'll be fine.

[TCD23]

Well, I think you hit on why it's affecting you now. You were too busy and focused to even deal with it before. Or to miss having a girlfriend or her in particular. So you're having a delayed "mourning." It's nice you apologized. It doesn't sound like she was trying to get back together or anything, by what you wrote.

 

And you did say she wasn't happy anyway there near the end when you broke up, so it was going to happen. To put a little practical thought on it, she and you were both very young. You still are, really. By comparison, take an example of highschool sweethearts who then go off to college, or one goes and one doesn't, usually the pair end up breaking up no matter how dedicated they were before they left, because times of change like this are also times of exploration and meeting different kinds of people, maybe finding a better social niche, and you quite simply often grow in different directions and end up moving on from each other during the teen and early 20s. It's kind of part of maturing and exploring and learning and finding your path.

 

So don't feel that you left something that might have been permanent behind. That's highly against the odds. You're back in that town, so you're having all these associations triggering memories, and I know that can be tough. The trick to overcoming that is to make new memories with friends or new dates. Start dating and DO take your new date, maybe not on the first date, but after a couple when things seem to be going well, to some of the places you used to go with the girl. Overwrite those memories with some new ones. Don't let her memory take the town from you.

 

It's normal anyway to miss people who were once in my life, but you're getting a double dose of it since you were preoccupied for so long. Just keep going and having a good time and you'll be fine.

 

I meant she wasn't happy because I was breaking up with her. Haha. That is very good advice about building new memories and I do feel that now that I've apologized I can move on as well.

 

Thank you for the advice. I'm feeling better already and I'm happy to see that my delayed mourning isn't that weird.