When I think about how I lost love, I think about Alfred Lord Tennyson’s quote, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” When I lost love, I felt the whole world had collapsed around me. I’m sharing my story in order to help you if you too have lost the love of your life.
I think it is important to remember that every relationship has a natural lifespan. In Junior High, that’s about four days. As we get older, the lifespan increases. But, there are certain relationships that are right for a period of time and then go awry. Most of us will only have one great love in our lives. The other relationships will terminate. That’s why when I say I lost love, I understand that this is a natural process.
In my case, my girlfriend and I were thinking about ratcheting up our relationship. Her lease was about to end, and she wanted to move into my apartment. As we were spending most of our time there anyway, it made sense from a financial perspective.
But there is something significant about having separate places. I know I lost love because I couldn’t handle her taking our relationship to this level. I guess the time span of our relationship was up because I wasn’t willing to become more committed.
Now, I know I handled the situation badly. I went to a friend’s bachelor party and let’s just say things got out of hand. Word about the wild antics at the party got back to my girlfriend, naturally, and she dumped me. I lost love over the events of one night.
But, when I think back on what really happened, the events of the bachelor party were really a reaction to our discussion of more commitment. I seriously don’t think I would have behaved the way I did if I really wanted her to move in. I lost love because I wasn’t ready for the direction it was taking.
I’m glad I had the chance to be in a relationship with my ex. But I don’t think she was the love of my life, my soul mate. Instead, she was someone with whom I genuinely enjoyed spending time. I loved her. I still love her. But, she is not the person with whom I see spending the rest of my life.
I went through a period of mourning the relationship and analyzing what went wrong. I really was hurt when she said she wanted to end things. Sure, I understood that I had hurt her. But, I didn’t want her to leave my life completely.
I guess what I wanted was for things to continue on the way they were. But, every relationship has to grow or die. Because I wasn’t willing to let it grow, it had to die. In every relationship, there is a time to die. And, for me, this was it. That’s how I lost love.
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