Pining for an Ex

Visitor's Question from a 21-30 year old Female
My ex-boyfriend and I broke up about a year and a half ago. We dated for over three years, and were head-over-heels in love. I believed we would stay together and eventually get married, but in our last semester of college he decided that he needed to move with his band across the country to pursue his music career, and wasn't sure if he would be able to be a very good boyfriend anymore. He said (and still says) that we will still get married someday, and that the "best is yet to come". But I was heartbroken and couldn't/can't see how we would ever have a relationship again.

So I stayed on the East Coast, landed my dream job, and starting dating a guy who I feel 'should be' my dream guy. He is smart, caring, loyal, dependable, friendly, great-looking, and committed to me. Sounds perfect, right? Well, try as I do, I can't stop finding fault with him and our relationship. I keep comparing what we have to what I had with my ex, and feel horribly guilty about it. I thought that time would heal my past wounds and help me to truly enjoy what I have now, but it's been almost a year and a half and I'm still stuck in a rut. I'm about to relocate to attend graduate school, and my boyfriend is considering moving with me. I don't know whether to stick with our relationship and hope I get over my problems, or to end it and figure things out by myself. Help!!!

---

RomanceClass.com Advice
An unresolved old relationship is the surest way to destroy all current relationships. And you have to be honest here - do you really feel your ex has been completely celibate this entire time? What happens when he ends up marrying some groupie he's been hanging around with, having long since moved on? Now you would have perhaps wasted your entire young adult life, nursing a fantasy that was of the past.

We all have dream guys in our lives, and sometimes they stay, and sometimes they go. We build up fantasies about what it would have been like, and focus on the good while ignoring the bad. If you really want to stay single all through graduate school and then move out to be with the band-guy, assuming he's still single then, then it's a choice. But I don't know that I would risk my happiness on a guy that deliberately left ME in order to do music elsewhere. I know lots of band guys. They can play anywhere they want. You can only go to schools in certain areas. If he chose to leave you, and probably sleep with others, and expected you to just wait for him to return to you, that isn't very fair at all.

-- from Lisa
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com

---

Follow @RomanceClass

Tweet

Speak Your Mind - Share your Thoughts on this Question!

All Advice in the category - Breakup Issues

- Browse Answers by Question Category
- Browse Answers by Age Group
- Browse Answers by Date of Response



Please read through the advice on this site before you Submit your Own Question! We have thousands of pages of valuable advice that can immediately help you with your situation.