Cplow Esther,
I’m E., I’m 27 years old and I’m writing to you to get your wise answer which I hope can help me. I’m in a limbo from which I can’t escape.
About a year ago I left my boyfriend after a relationship that lasted 6 years. He was my first true love, with him I felt truly in love for the first time, serene and happy, complete, like when you feel you are in the right place and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. We spent six wonderful, full years where we did a thousand trips and experiences togetherand we also grew together. We also lived atabroad for a couple of years in a wonderful exotic place, one of those in a documentary. I remember sometimes thinking that what we were experiencing was too good to be true, and I felt happy and lucky. Moments and moments come to mind that just thinking about them makes me feel empty in my stomach. Sometimes I think I dreamed all this.
I fell in love with him because I always thought he completed me, because he had what I lacked, and vice versa for me. We have always had our balance despite some character differences which I think are normal in a couple.
What happened then you ask?
It happened that a year ago I got to know a person who, like a bolt from the blue, destroyed everything what I thought was indestructible.
I met this person and day after day I realized that I had a mental affinity with him, an inexplicable connection, an empathic, sometimes telepathic dialogue that I had never had with any other man, not even with my boyfriend. This thing shocked me so much that within a short time I went into crisis, I was never able to see my boyfriend the same way againI felt the need to leave, as if until that moment I had had a veil before my eyes that didn’t let me see this “lack” of his.
I left him, aware that I had done what I instinctively felt was right, I continued the acquaintance with the other boy which then turned into a real relationship that continues today.
The problem is that now, a year later, even though I am continuing my life with this other person, I can’t feel free, I keep thinking about my ex boyfriendI keep imagining that one day things will be able to work out, I feel empty inside and I can’t detach myself from his thoughts. Every time I happen to pass him on the street I feel a pain in my stomach.
I still feel in love with him, I still believe in all those plans we had, sometimes I think I lost my way, that I was weak and let myself go to a selfish instinct.
But then I think about this empathy I have with this person and I realize that for me it is important, almost necessary, it makes me feel good and makes me feel like myself. An empathy that I don’t know if I will ever be able to have with my ex. But I think at the same time that this lack of empathy, due above all to his communication problem and his closure in terms of expressing feelings, was perhaps the only flaw in our relationship.
So I ask myself whether I should listen to my heart and have the courage to try with him again, as if we were two new people, or accept that if it’s over and there’s no solution to this lack of him, I will always have this pain and this remorse.
Thank you
Ester Viola’s response
Dear E.,
For a long time one could wonder about the easiest way – for the love subject – to become a concrete and resolved sentimental adult.
What should one do at twenty? Fall apart? Falling badly in love, following a Nino Sarratore and then re-emerging, later, more aware human beings, with experience and the ability to reject. By discard capacity I mean: I see someone who is better avoided, and I avoid him.
Let’s talk about what we were like when we were twenty, I would tell you, if you weren’t twenty or so now.
I was a helpless idiot. Twenty years are meant to throw them away. There’s nothing else that matters, then of course there are some lucky ones (you) who have had a good time, good friendships,
Good studies, good boyfriends. But there are so few in the basket that when I meet them it seems like a miracle to me. You write to me exactly this: that even the miracle’s days were numbered. And now, with everything working, you tell me that nothing works, that in the same way we grieve, we draw long lines because love could be better and it isn’t.
What if it was the defect? What if “life will always lack something to be perfect” wasn’t an Instagram phrase and just a stupid cliché?
But these are idle arguments. The world will always be divided in two. Already defined:
The Contented
They are the ones who have experienced love that takes away sleep and hunger a few times
before the age of thirty, losing a lot of time and some health. A few attempts
and many broken bones later said one day to themselves: well, we have tasted it,
that’s enough now.
So, having closed the cabin of absolute and romantic love, they set out
meticulously searching for love by reflection – as Tolstoy called it,
love after you’ve gone crazy.
What is it about. A more compatible and calmer feeling. First of all: yes
chooses a person who already likes us. The most adaptable in terms of character. They reject
the accusation of being people who are a little dull, losers who have let go of everything
opportunity for happiness. On the contrary, they don’t think of themselves as the losers of love, yes
Listen to the experts.
The deluded
Those who love must win over everything, whatever the cost, even life. They are incorruptible disciples of purity of feeling and happy endings: you have to believe in eternal love, there are happy families, there are the always faithful and couples blessed by a divine anti-rust. Even unicorns, if you believe in them enough, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They are willing to do anything to fit into the ideal couple. They are annoyed by the wastefulness of others, those who, just to call themselves a couple, make everything go well. Never them. They swear: it’s worth it.
And therefore, choose considering your inclinations. Character. What one feels capable of throwing away and risking. And perhaps after a few years you’ll get there, on the highest branch of couples’ maturity. And it is written there: everything here is unjustifiable.