This may not be the right group for this question....but I'll ask it anyway...... Have you ever been in a relationship that ended....but you were very much in love??? Time goes by and you start dating again...but you find you compare the new guy to the last guy...the one you fell so madly in love with??? How do you stop this action? How do you let go and move on?? You know you shouldn't do it....but how do you stop??
I think some comparisons are healthy.....not to find his/her "twin" but to find a match for those traits that made your heart beat faster, your love to feel like a new body part was growing in your chest, and for that wanting to melt into him/her when you touched? Oh yes, keep looking for a match to those things!!!!
I openly admit that I will always love the Dutch attorney I had the Euro fling with in 1999. We are still friends. And yes, if someone can look at me with that clear gaze he had, and enjoy some of the simple things he did, they won't have to match in height/weight/physique....but in how he made me feel? I want that and more.
As much as it hurt when we weren't meant to spend our lives together.
You start making yourself remember why the two of you broke it off..it couldn't have been all good or you would still be together. If he broke it off there had to be things he wanted and you didn't or you wanted and he didn't. Let them echo in your mind...and slowly break away.
I think a lot of how we feel about a ex love's make's you reflect on future love's ?? don't we all watch for red flags & green flags of the past ?? lol =:o)
In a way I don't think you ever stop comparing and maybe that's a good thing. My first love at 17 took me about 7 or 8 years to actually "get over". And, to this day, I still think about the traits he had that I absolutely loved and made me so full of joy and I look for those traits. Like HoneyBee, I don't look for the ht./wt/ physique (though those traits were pretty perfect, but hey, I was 17!), but I do look for the things that made me happy. So, if you are looking for the good things, maybe it's good that you don't accept less.
I really try hard not to compare, but as others say, it's really difficult to do. After all, I still look for the same traits - kind heart, sense of humor, easygoing. What really throws me for a loop, is when a new guy will do something just like my ex-love! That has stopped me in my tracks...and then how do you not compare after that?
I think comparing is inevitable. There are traits in people that we are drawn to, regardless of the outer shell. The man I'm dating is nothing like my ex, with the exception of working hard and loving his children, two traits that I greatly admire in a man.
Then, there are the traits we look for so we can then, RUN LIKE HELL! lol,lol
Sometimes I think we try to move on too fast. We look for someone new, before we really allow ourselves to grieve the loss, of the one we have so much love for. When we do this we are only doing it half-heartedly. Therefore, we compare the new guy, to the one we are really still in love with. Maybe you just need a little more time, before you are truly ready to let someone new, into your heart!
I think there will always be that one perfect time when everything seemed to come together, the one love of your life. Even tho you may go on, somehow nothing else seems to top that one relationship. It does not mean you can't love again. I believe the 'love of my life' was misplaced. It turned out he was just surface stuff and had no depth. Of course, I didn't realize that until he dumped me.
for some reason our brain seems to be programed to remember all the good stuff and forget all the bad stuff..... force yourself to remember the bad stuff of why you are no longer with the other person ...... keep doing that ..... you will get over them, I promise ......
PS If it was so good why are you not still with them ..... just saying
