Quote:
Originally Posted by Tart Cherry Jam
Did you love the person who dumped you? Do you now? Or was it just your first attempt at dating that went awry and you are now experiencing shame and disappointment? Or is it a question you cannot answer because you have not yet figured out what love is?
Being dumped by the first romantic partner must be a scary experience that can send you in a cycle of despair and self-loathing. It is important for you to realize that on the spectrum of "unsuccesses", this is towards the more severe range, that it will continue to hurt for a long time and that how you work through it now may determine your fate in dating for years if not decades to come. So, it is all very important. I am glad you came here and trust that you will receive adequate support and advice. Do not compare your misfortune to that of others by way of saying that yours is minor because you were not abused as a child and did not have to put up with a toxic partner.
If you actually loved/love your former romantic partner, there is a lot to be said for finding solace in poetry now as unrequited love is such a big topic that has been portrayed well and you very well may find poems that will resonate with you and soothe your hurt soul.
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To be honest, I'm not sure if I have a clear answer to your questions about my feelings for her. I believe I loved her and still do. With that said, do I know exactly what love feels like? I don't know. I know that my appetite has significantly decreased, I am also feeling something akin to anxiety attacks every now and again. I have been feeling physical pain since I've known that things were going wrong.
I genuinely wish the best for her and, during the time we were together, I had promised myself that I would end things if my internal demons and personal issues were to ever affect her. Because, I believed her happiness meant more than our relationship. Similarly, I wanted to prioritize my life goals over the relationship as well, so if I ever felt that being with her was holding me back, I had told myself I would end things. I don't know if I put that into practice because while she didn't hold me back from working on myself (I did the holding back on my own), I did often use my time with her as one of my distractions from my responsibilities without informing her. With that said, I have never really believed she was my "one true love" because I had always envisioned this relationship ending at some point. Partly because of my dishonesty, partly because of how I knew that at some point I would not be able to make time for her. Much of the pain comes from how I didn't think or feel that we reached that point yet.
Right now, I am a student in a program. I am really not doing well academically. I am not sure if I can continue and even if I do, I do not have a full understanding of the financial implications that continuing has for me other than I will be placed into a large amount of debt. She does not know much of this, I have hinted at my financial difficulties but she doesn't know anything else. The fear of what to do with my future has me being indecisive and stagnant but I took some solace in the fact that I had a relationship. Almost as if a way to tell myself that, I am not a complete screw up and that, even I deserved love. I know that it was not right to place my self worth on someone else, especially someone I was being dishonest to. It was not fair to her and it was unhealthy of me. But now losing her, just seems like the icing on top of the cake. While I am trying to build myself up, it's almost like a message saying "you're not worth it".
I am trying to find a way to respect myself again. A way to get strength to face the future, no matter how scary it is. And I wish her nothing but happiness. One of the things I am trying is just talking about what I'm feeling in this community and hoping I'll find what I'm looking for.
I am not too familiar with poetry, I am not someone who considers themselves a lover of literature. Do you have any work, author, or book that you would recommend?