40 Years after Our Fling, Why Can’t I Forget about Her?

Why do I still wake up every day with her in my head? I know that I am not a member of the cool hair club, witty, or handsome. I had a wonderful experience in high school with a great girl. I stupidly had to be patriotic and joined the military. She dumped me six weeks in. She fell in love with a great guy who did not leave her alone like I did. They built a life together that is everything I have ever wanted. I have tried everything I can think of to remove her from my thoughts. Now, 40 years later, I am coming apart at the seams and believe that I must deserve this crap somehow. I am sure that I will get all of the "you're not alone" comments, but the truth is, yes, I am. I have been married to a woman for 30 years and she doesn't love me, but she can't survive without my help. She broke my heart with two different affairs, proving that I suck. I have two children who mostly just need the ATM. Every day of my life, I wake up with my high school sweetheart on my mind for some reason. She was the first to make me know that I am not worth waiting for to her. Never mind, I know who I am to the world. I guess somewhere deep inside, I just want her back or I just want to feel that way again. —Looking Back

That girl in your head—she was your first love, perhaps? And your first heartache too? You still have feelings for her, it seems, and I think that while she may have many wonderful features, she built a life with someone else, not you. You don’t know what her life is from the inside, so it’s easy to make it seem ideal. It may or may not be.

Also, she dumped you six weeks after you joined the military. First off, she might have dumped you anyway—you first got together in high school, a time when relationships can be flimsy and fleeting. It’s part of growing up.

Why do you wake up every day with her in your head? I’m guessing it’s not her so much as it is you and her together, the way you were 40 years ago—young, hopeful, naive, the world opening before you. You shared the exciting spirit of beginnings, but I wonder how long that would have lasted even if you hadn’t joined the military.

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The world seems closed to you now. You say no one loves you or knows you deep down. Your wife had two affairs, and you have been having a kind of fantasy mind affair with that girl, the ineffable first-time perfect girl. She stands between you and your life. You are holding her in between yourself and your life. What you had together for a short time 40 years ago stands between you and your real life, and it is taking the place of your real life. It’s time for you to dump her and live now. There’s no do-over.

Your two kids, you seem to suggest, are teenagers or young adults, and only interested in your money, not in you. Perhaps that’s true, I don’t know. I’m not sure you know, either, since you live with a curtain that blocks the reality of yourself in your life in this moment.

Why do people torture themselves with visions of a perfect past, a wonderful experience, that doesn’t exist? Why do you? Are you afraid of your life now, of looking at who and where you are now? Is it painful?

Perhaps you’re unhappy because where you are now is not where you would like to be. You can’t go back 40 years, obviously, but you can look ahead to the future and see what kind of life you would like to craft for yourself, what you need to do to make it real, to build a life for yourself—no matter your age—that is rooted in the present so it can be satisfying and genuine.

How can you do that? You can look deep inside yourself. You can go to therapy, or to group therapy, and dig hard and come alive.

I wish you luck, love, and satisfaction.

All my best,

Lynn

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