First love of 3 years broke up with me unexpectedly

[bls21]

IÂ’m posting this as a sort of catharsis to let some thoughts out. My ex-girlfriend of 3+ years broke up with my about 6 months ago unexpectedly while she was visiting me in college. Just as some background, we started dating freshman year of college and dated all the way up until about 3 weeks before graduation. Although we were both the same age, she graduated in 3 years while I stayed to graduate in 4. She got a job right out of college close to home, about 5 hours away from where we went to school. We had an amazing relationship, truly. We respected each other so much, were always laughing, never fighting, very loving, and shared some wonderful life experiences together (traveling to Europe, going to great concerts, being each otherÂ’s first love, etc.). There were times in the relationship she would ask me what would happen if I fell out of lover with her, to which I told her that I couldnÂ’t see myself doing that. I will definitely admit that spending my senior year away from her definitely made me a bit comfortable in the relationship. It felt as if our relationship hadnÂ’t changed, even though it clearly had since we were so far apart. I kinda continued with it like business as usual. We visited each other a decent amount, and each time we did usually had a great time. So as she made her planned trip to visit me 3 weeks before graduation, business seemed to be usual as well. She was visiting for a week, so we hung out for about 5 days before and everything seemed normal. I was still making her laugh, she was trying to make me laugh, when I told her I loved her she told me she loved me back (not in a way that I could tell she really didnÂ’t mean it anymore). Then out of the blue she broke up with me. Said that she thought she was more driven than me, that she wanted to take her career places that she wasnÂ’t sure if I could keep up with. Basically, since I hadnÂ’t had a job out of college yet she took that as a sign I wasnÂ’t serious about my future. That she didnÂ’t love me like she used to. It crushed me, really sent me into a depression. She was my everything, my first and only love. If it didnÂ’t work out with her, after we just had (what seemed to be) an amazing relationship, how would it work with me and anyone else? We were each otherÂ’s best friends, and when I asked her if I would see her again she told me she didnÂ’t know.

 

Fast forward to about 6 months later, present day. I got a job and am currently seeking to enroll in a Masters program very soon in the city that she is working in as well. I didnÂ’t move there just because of her, even before we met it had been my dream to move out of my hometown for a bit and go to that specific city. I thought her being down there was an added bonus as well if there was a chance we could rekindle our old flame. We had seen each other a couple of times here and there and those interactions were fine. However, I really wasnÂ’t over her yet and had to let her know. The other day we talked in order for me to finally get some closure and I explained the lengths I took to put myself in a better position than where I was when we broke up. And that is true, I worked out a lot and got in better shape, I finally found a steady career path I wanted and could pursue, and was really enjoying life/friends in the new city. There was just an empty part of my heart still pestering me. When I told her all this, in hopes it would possibly open a door to at least becoming friends again and seeing if we could build up from there, she told me that she wanted me to move on. That since we were each otherÂ’s first and only love, it would be really hard to do. She said that it wasnÂ’t my fault, that she was enduring a period of self-reflection now and thought that she was a different person at the end than who she was at the beginning (which is fair, freshman in college to a working adult). Having her tell me that, although I thought definitely helped at first, just makes me sad. She acknowledged that it was ****ty of her to break up with me out of the blue and that she feels guilty about it. But ultimately, she just recommended that I let her go. Since it had been 6 months since we broke up, I had already kind of figured that was the case, so her saying that didnÂ’t devastate me in anyway. IÂ’ts just fully coming to fruition now that the first girl I fell in love with changed and fell out of love with me, and IÂ’m just so afraid that IÂ’ll never be able to be in a relationship like that again. To me, although it wasnÂ’t perfect, it was as close to it as you could get. In the end, I just think we are from different backgrounds. The one thing that united us was college. Besides that, our hometowns are about 4 hours apart, we came from vastly different families/familial relationships, and different cultures. I realize that maybe it wasnÂ’t meant to be and that people do change/grow apart. But I just canÂ’t shake her and what she means to me.

[Redhead14]

A person's first love is rarely their last love. Take a queue from the movie, "Murphy's Romance". In the last scene of the movie, 60 year old, James Garner's character, tells 30+ year old Sally Field's character, that he is In Love for the last time in his life.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Redhead14