You're not pathetic for missing them. You do have some happy memories, and you are honest enough to remember that. A lesser person would be going around saying, "Well, now that I look back on it, she was never any dang good anyway . . . . and neither was he." But that's not you. You saw what was worthwhile in these two people, and I don't doubt that they had their moments of relating to you in a satisfying way. You all did have some good times together. You're refusing to disown the truth of that.

Unfortunately, you now discover that they didn't value you as much as you thought they did. And they knew very well that you were trusting them more than you should have. And they let you. Pretty mean, I would say. So you will be a little more cynical about people from now on. Well, that's part of what experience does for us. Some of life's lessons are sad ones. But we need to learn them, if we aren't going to be successful in getting what we need out of life.

You can actually start to understand how they could do what they did. Here's the missing piece of the puzzle: Whenever someone is spending time with you, it's usually because being with you is serving to meet some need they have. They are not there primarily to meet your need. They are seeking their own satisfaction in life. At some point, this person may come to genuinely care about you in a loving way. But some people have other reasons to stick around that don't have much to do with love or caring. It is your job to figure out why that person is really hanging around. And you can't just ask them and go by what they say. They may not understand their own motivation. And there are people who won't tell you the truth. It is your job to figure that out.

How do you do that? Well, you try to learn what the person's values are. You watch how that person treats other people. You listen to that person talk about how he, or she, treats and feels about other people. Can you honestly tell me that, after 2.5 years, you had no reason in the whole world to think that your girlfriend wasn't all that sweet of a gal? If you make that claim, then I have got to figure that you need to start paying more attention to how people act and what their actions mean. How did she treat her parents, siblings, pets, etc? When she told you about previous boyfriends, if there were any, how did she say those relationships went? Did you ever see her do anything really unselfish and nice for the people around her? How does she talk about the people she works with, if she has a job? Everybody's got a "track record."

Here is the answer to your question about how to trust people: You don't. You have no right to trust anyone that you do not know. Also, you have no right to think that a person is going to treat you any better than they are in the habit of treating others. You only trust a person as you come to know they deserve that trust. You base this on what their behavior tells you about their character.

Now, do you really think that two people who treated you mean are going to be all that wonderful to each other? I highly doubt it. Yeah, they might be in the honeymoon phase of their relationship at the moment. But that won't last.

Finally, why be mad at everyone in the world because of what two people did to you? If that kind of thinking represents your values, then you aren't much of a person either. There are other people out there who would also treat you bad. And there are people who wouldn't. It's your job to figure out who's who. You base that on the evidence of what values people hold. Don't worry. They'll give you plenty of evidence to work with, if you just look and listen . . . and think about it.