I’m in my late 20s now and I feel so much despair.
I think a huge factor that shaped my world is my breakup almost 3 years ago. I had dated several people, actually more than several, before then.
I feel like people think I am delusional when I say this, but he was genuinely the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t understand how it’s possible for someone to have actually cared about me to the extent he did. At times I felt like he actually cared about me more than my own mom did. It wasn’t just that, he was intelligent and hilarious too and we had a lot in common.
Unfortunately I wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to continue the relationship. This basically fundamentally broke me.
I had my share of heartbreaks before, but even when I met him, I was basically at my breaking point with love. I remember telling myself this was my last try (because I was so done). To this day I literally have no idea how I could have so much in common with someone. It’s like we completely agreed on almost every aspect in life. Did he just lie to me or agree with everything I said or something?
Apparently he has also had random acquaintances tell him he’s a breath of fresh air and so nice to be around compared to most people, so it’s not just me.
I really don’t know what to do other than cry about losing him. I’ve tried so hard to find happiness for myself but how could I let something like that go?
My life hasn’t gotten any better since then and I honestly think I am hopeless. Genuinely.
Literally everyone pales in comparison to what I had with him. Even though what I had clearly wasn’t real, because ultimately he clearly didn’t feel the same about me since he chose to leave. It felt real to me, talking to him is the most enjoyable thing I had experienced in my life.
This all sounds extremely sad and pathetic but really what am I supposed to do? I bet most people haven’t even come close to meeting someone like him so they can’t relate to this at all. I am going to sound insane again but I think he is some prodigy or something. Like one of those one in a million once in a lifetime people that most won’t even get the chance to meet.
About 14 years ago, I met the “perfect” woman. She was interested in all the same things I was,. I enjoyed spending time with her and we would just talk for hours. We didn’t date very long before we decided to get married.
And then the cracks started showing. What I thought was “perfect” was actually the outward manifestation of an undiagnosed mental illness where she was just “mirroring” the person she thought I wanted her to be. What followed was 6 years of absolute hell, the story of which is too long and too awful for me to recount here. When my first marriage ended, I felt like I was perfectly happy to be alone for the rest of my life. Being alone is better than being chained to your enemy.
I’m not saying your situation would have ended up like mine. Just giving some context.
A short time later, I met someone else. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I did not think I wanted a relationship. I just thought she was cute and decided to chat her up. We hit it off and after a while, to my surprise, she asked me out. I was actually kind of excited but also scared shitless. I didn’t really know what to do so I decided I would just be honest. Without going into too much detail, I told her where I was at emotionally, that I wasn’t looking for anything really serious, and that if she was ok with that we could go out. If not, I get it. No hard feelings.
Fast forward about 7 years. We’re coming up on our 5th wedding anniversary. I adopted her daughter and we had two more kids. NGL, the last few years have been rough for a lot of reasons but I wouldn’t want to have spent them with anyone else. My wife is my best friend. I am very fortunate that she somehow waltzed into one of the worst chapters in my life and didn’t immediately run away.
She is not “perfect”. I’m certainly not either. We are not the same person. We are different people with different life experiences that have shaped who we are. I had to stop looking for “perfect” to find what I actually needed. “Perfect” was what got me in hot water to begin with.
When I was thinking about whether I wanted to get with serious with my (now) wife, I threw my criteria out the window and tried to focus on what really mattered.
Is she a good and moral person? Do we have compatible values?
Are we a good fit personality wise?
Do I enjoy spending time with her?
Do we have enough overlapping interests to make our time together interesting?
Is she OK with me investing time in my interests that she doesn’t share?
She definitely checks all those boxes.
Don’t spend the rest of your life mourning what might have been. You will never know how things would have turned out. It could have been great it could also have been awful. There are plenty of people out there who are terrible people. But there are also a lot of good people. I’m willing to bet the right person for you is out there and you may not even be looking for them when they show up.