How do I stop loving my ex-girlfriend after 10 lonely years seperated?

Hello Johngotobann,

10 years is a long time. I suppose there was no closure. Or that you
still had hope for a long time. However, I agree with many points
raised before in comments by others. And you may not only be in love
with the memory, you may as well be in love with a future that could
never have happened. Maybe you even fell in love with the idea of a
lost love, which is the only relationship that suddenly starts to
develops in a realm outside of every-day gray, in the colors of dreams
greater than reality ever paints them.

Is love forever? Yes, everything we do changes us, so we carry our
past into the future -- falling in love changed your life and
determined what you became.
Only, don't just carry the heart as a weight putting you down. Carry
it as a happy tune you whistle from time to time.
Sometimes, the feelings of the heart are replaced by the wisdom of the
head, and instead of burning inside we assembled more wisdom. Maybe
the heart will not burn as bright next time, or maybe, the new-found
wisdom inside your head will make it even sweeter.

Things come and go and we cannot hold on to something, especially not
if we love it, because love shouldn't be possessive. If you truly love
someone else, you must be able to let them go, because their beauty
exists without you, but still within our world. Don't feel like
because you don't see something live, it dies. Be happy for someone
else.

In short; I don't believe somebody else but you can help you. All we
can do here is to point you in the right direction, make you trust
what you want to believe: you post here so I can see you already
realize a need for change.
Think about it -- you can't change your past; you can't get everything
in life you desire; but you can change yourself. You need to
understand how much energy you waste by trying to change fate, other
people, and all of your surrounding; you might as well start cursing
the rain drops that fall on your head when you want sunshine.

Get on with life. Accept what happened. If you feel it's the worst
that could have happened to you, accept that. Easier said than done,
but crucial. Accept it, and ask yourself: "What now?"
Do you want to wait another 10 years, and look back on life, and think
you failed? What if too late you realize there's many other women who
were around you, or who could have been closer, that you discarded...
hunting a shadow?

So for your own good, don't forget the past, but live with it, and
focus on the future.
Sometimes, a change in environment helps. A change of friends if all
you get is pity and understanding, giving you too much false comfort.
A change of job if it the current one doesn't test your limits, giving
you too much time to think about the past. See things so different and
people so different you wonder how much life had to give to you, and
get excited to see and experience a new you: the change from within,
which is also a self-fulfilling prophecy; if you believe you can get
on with life and find new inspiration, motivation, energy, and love,
you will achieve all that and more -- maybe things will be even better
than you would have dared to dream, which will be the point when you
will say to yourself: "I'm happy for how everything happened in my
past, because else, I wouldn't be the man I am now."

Good luck with that!

I hear logical answers that come from common sense and millenia of
human history and I know what I should be doing, ie. accecepting it
and moving on, but the heart want different from the head.
What j_philipp-ga answers is typical of the best intentioned get up
and keep going brigade and must be correct (other's comments agree).
I am satisfied with the answer, I got what I wanted from this
experiment (a feeling that there is someone to talk to).
Thanks for everyone's advice and I will try stop idealising her and
the past relationship and try to create a little more room in my heart
everyday for other possibilities. Bye.

hmmmmm ... Thats a tough one!

You must never stop loving her!

However, you must also look for a new love.

It could be a long quest ... or she could pop up anytime.

Good luck!

You will stop loving her when you develop a true conscious desire to
stop loving her. Sometimes, even valid reasons for “wanting” to stop
loving someone are not powerful enough incentives to actually make
your love for that person diminish. Selective love is a conscious
choice we make. One cannot love another against his conscious or
subconscious will. You may regret loving someone, or even loathe the
fact that you love someone who does not reciprocate, and yet you still
have those feelings. You can actually despise someone you love, and
love someone you despise.

Ask yourself if you truly (currently) love this person, or if this
ten-year separation has caused you to long for the comfort of the
loving experience itself. Work toward finding out if you are still in
love with “her” or merely in love with the “memory” of her. If you are
in love with her, you may always be in love with her; but if you are
in love with the "idea" of being in love with her or being with her,
its entirely possible for you to file that special period in your life
away in its proper place and move on.

This statement sounds confusing but if you REALLY examine what I say
here it will make great sense to you:

When you really WANT to stop loving her "AND" you really stop WANTING
to love her – you probably will...but not before.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

I still love my first boyfriend, although I have not seen him for over
40 years. But the love I feel for him is not obsessive, and it has not
kept me from building more mature, enduring relationships, such as the
one I have with my husband (we celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary
next month.)

There are many different ways to love someone. It is not unhealthy to
have feelings of love and tenderness for your ex-girlfriend; what
would be unhealthy and unwise would be to fixate upon that one love to
the exclusion of all other possibilities, and thereby deprive yourself
of the lasting satisfaction of reciprocal love, which not only can
last forever, but can continue to grow and deepen with time.

I got a similar problem. I fallen in love with a girl who has a
boyfriend, she's been my friend since april.... now I love her, I need
her with all my heart, and... certainly I DON'T WANT any girl but her,
I feel that if i get another girl, she wouldn't be as nice as she is,
as understanding as she is, as sweet as she is. So, it's true, if you
don't want to stop loving a girl, you won't do it.... but
unfortunately, I don't want to stop loving her, and I won't ... but
maybe you may try to do it. By the way, maybe you'd like to send a
question to http://www.romanceclass.com (I sent a question before some
weeks ago, before I realized that this girl would never be my
girlfriend - and I wasn't entirely happy with the answer but... maybe
they can help you).
Bye.

Okay, let me guess what’s going on—-you went out with this girl for
awhile and she broke up with you. And now, ten years later, you
probably don’t have much contact with her; maybe you talk once and
awhile-—if that—-and she certainly never initiates it. And this drives
you crazy, right?-—because every single day you think about the ways
that it would be perfect for both of you if you were together again,
and all you need is another chance to make it happen. This isn’t
necessarily obsessive, but you know it can’t be healthy, right? I
mean, that’s why you’re saying that you want to stop loving her—-you
want to get out of this.

 So, here’s what I’m going to tell you: Start being honest with
yourself. I know, you’re like, “Oh, I’ve thought about it and I am
being honest.” Yeah, whatever; don’t lie to me, and don’t lie to
yourself. You know that everytime you think about her, all you think
about is stuff like how she did her hair, and how she acted around her
friends, and how confident she is, and how she looked at you when you
talked to her. What you don’t think about-—or at this point, maybe
what you’ve forgotten—-is all the things she’s done that were annoying
and serious character flaws. Maybe she was flaky, or inconsiderate, or
arrogant; I don’t know who this girl is, but if I did I’m sure I could
give you an itemized list of all the things about her that are
obnoxious. But maybe you’re like, “Oh, I know she has flaws, but
that’s okay she’s still this extraordinarily awesome person.” No! STOP
IDEALIZING HER. I’m sure she’s a great girl, but I can give you a 100
percent guarantee that she’s not as wonderful as you’re consistently
pretending that she is.

Here’s the second part of being honest: stop feeling bad about
yourself. And yes, you do feel bad about yourself-—everytime you think
about how great she was, you think about how she doesn’t want you, and
if she’s great and doesn’t want to be with you that must say something
very negative about the kind of person you are. Stop doing that to
yourself. You’ve liked this girl ten years after you dated, it’s not
your fault that she’s not into you. I’m going to go out on a limb here
and assume that you haven’t locked yourself in your room for the last
decade-—you have a job, you have friends, you’ve grown as a person,
you’ve accomplished things. Everytime someone calls you, or laughs at
one of your jokes, or smiles at you, it’s a compliment to who you
are-—take that and run with it and stop trying to think that you’re
somehow inferior.

And let’s be honest one more time: For the last ten years you’ve
wanted this girl, but what’s your ideal outcome to this situation?
That she calls you tomorrow and tells you that she wants to be with
you? Total honesty: that’s not going to make everything better. It’s
not going to change the fact that she broke up with you, it’s not
going to change how you’ve spent the last ten years without her, it’s
definitely not going to change how you feel bogged down in issues.

Get rid of all that—-the idea outcome of this situation is that you
decide that you’re okay and that you’re ready to take whatever comes.
You can do anything you want to, you can find a kick ass girl and
start a new relationship; I know this doesn’t sound as appealing as
what you had worked out in your head, but believe me-—the unexpected
is so much better and offers so much more possibility than the
so-called predictable “fairy tale” ending. Just let it go and let
whatever’s going to happen, happen. I don’t know the future—you don’t
either; who knows, maybe your ex will decide that she likes you and
wants to be with you after all. But-—and this is VERY important—d-o
not let that happen until you’re ready to move on without her.

Just go for it. You’re not made of glass, you don’t break—you’re OKAY.
Okay?

Hi,
Firstly thanks for your time responding,

I still hope Love is forever because I do not forsee anyone taking my
feelings for Maria away. Everyone was very good and seemed genuine in
their comments and they wanted to help and give advice that would stop
me wasting any more of my life.
You are all correct (don't ignore love - but get busy living), I am
well educated, well moivated and effecient it's just that I still turn
to jelly when I meet her. Right now I want to hate her, this might
stop me feeling so preoccupied with her. I'm not weird or anything
just someone who hold this hurt and pain inside and lets life slip by
regretting each failed missed day.
Thanks for everyones concern and this feels "in a cyber kind of a way"
like a problem shared and halved.
I don't yet feel inspired (to get on with life as if I was a free
agent) but you have helped to persuade my self defeating brain that
there are possibilities.

many thanks,
John