Dear GirlShrink,
Since about 4 months ago, my then serious boyfriend and I broke up because he was living in Spain while I lived in Holland. He didn’t want to lose me as a friend as well as girlfriend since he was convinced that we would end up fighting if we had continued it. We still love each other, and we still talk occasionally, but only as friends.
After a month I felt better and I knew it was the right thing to do, and I even met a new guy to distract myself with, but my ex-boyfriend would still be in my head constantly. I ended it with the new guy, and since then.. I’ve been missing my ex-boyfriend more and more… breaking down whenever I thought about the memories of him. Pretty much every night I would cry when I let myself think of him, it feels as if I’m in the same condition as I was when we first broke up. How do I move on? Will I ever move on?
Dear Friend,
Sounds like love to me. Plain and simple. But long distance is difficult. Very difficult. A relationship needs to be nurtured and worked on and that’s really hard to do when distance is a factor. But you know what, it’s really hard to move on from a relationship especially when there were deep feelings of love and respect. You kind of just don’t want to look for anything new when you feel you had the right thing before. But I am a strong believer that if something is meant to be – it will happen. Also if you both want things to happen, then it can. Did you two ever consider moving?Finally – if moving isn’t just something that is realistic, then you really have no choice to move on. You have to make the decision to do it. Keep putting yourself in position to do fun things and new things. Meet new people. Try to keep your distance from your ex for a while until you are truly able to come back to the relationship as a friend and not a “girlfriend” waiting in the wings.
