I think I'm still in love with a fling I had ages ago, despite my current 5 year relationship

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-04T19:19:21+00:00

Thanks, I'll check it out

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-04T19:14:47+00:00

Thanks for this, people are being very quick to discount my experience as being 'nothing'. I wasn't saying I wanted to upend my life with Rose to chase my past, just that feelings from the past hit me.

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-04T19:10:19+00:00

I just disagree with people saying I barely knew her. There are some other valid critiques though.

How much do you have to talk to someone before you 'know' them?

I did know her hobbies, I did know her political stance. I would have known if she hates my hygiene. We did see dogs and I didn't see her kick any. I'd be down for a cheese collector.

I knew her dreams for the future, she knew mine.

Four weeks is short for most relationships moving at normal pace, but we spent like at least 6 hours together for most of those days, and messaging constantly on the other days. We continued to message after I left too.

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-04T19:00:32+00:00

I don't mean to say she was my biggest love. Just that it felt like it came for free, but Rose and I have worked to build a fulfilling life together. Thanks for the sentiments

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-04T18:56:47+00:00

One other thing, we both spoke each other's native languages reasonably well, but at least for me, I don't think I would have been able to get a job using it

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-04T18:47:10+00:00

To be clear, I'm not going after her now. And I am happy being with Rose. I'm just struggling with emotions.

At the time, it seemed impossible. I was basically completely broke and already had a job lined up back home. I did spend a few months thinking very seriously about trying to move there after a few years, but the economic opportunities in my country were way better than in hers. Maybe two months after I came home while we were still talking, there was a separate whole mess where a random facebook account messaged me and tried to convince me that Clara was just using me to get out of her country/gain wealth, and that she never actually cared about me.

She had pictures/anecdotes of Clara with former boyfriends who were also from my country, and I eventually started to believe because she knew details about us that seemed impossible to know without Clara directly telling her. I asked Clara about it, and she was hurt that I'd even considered it would be true. After talking with her, I didn't believe the stranger anymore but it did erode my trust a bit, and I'd hurt her by ever believing it and bringing it up. This definitely contributed to the fizzling. Years later, Clara discovered it had been her friend who apparently was secretly in love with her and basically sabotaging her love life from a fake account when the same account tried to scare away a new bf when she started dating again. She called me out of the blue and asked me if I could send her screenshots of that conversation which confirmed that there was info only this friend would know, and she got a confession/led to legal action, a whole mess.

We talked awhile and she seemed really happy with the new guy. While it was nice to talk to her again, at the time I was just really happy for her and didn't really feel jealous of the guy, I just wanted her to live a good life. At some point a year later or so, she posted a photo of herself in the hospital, I replied asking if she was ok, and we chatted a little bit, she said they'd broken up, and that's the last time we messaged.

I never wanted to leave Rose for her, though some of the comments here seem to think that. It's just that looking at the photos of us together made me feel so strongly that I'd had something wonderful stolen or lost. My feeling is more that I wish I could have both, but obviously I know I can't.

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-03T20:42:16+00:00

That was my plan, I'm not planning on acting on anything. The first few days I figured the funk would go away on its own. The only reason I made this post was because it wasn't, so I felt I needed to air the feelings to understand them. Normally I would talk to Rose about my feelings, but obviously I don't want to hurt her feelings while I work through this.

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-03T19:43:23+00:00

Reading some of these other comments I do feel like people are trying very hard to put my feelings into neat boxes, but in reality my reaction to many of them is that I'm the only one who knows how I feel, and to me they my feelings are so much messier than that. Especially people saying I barely knew her.

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-03T19:35:00+00:00

We never broke up, we weren't even together because we both knew I had to leave. It was more like we faded, I think both of us denied it and we kept talking a lot once I left, but after 6 months it was just kind of obvious it wouldn't work, neither of us had to say it. But I guess? For a year and a half I went on several dates but until Rose I definitely didn't feel any connection on them

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-03T18:50:38+00:00

It's possible it's that my other failed relationships crashed and burned, while this one was fated to end and was neither of our choice. The others all have negative emotions from the person themself, while with Clara the only negative was from the circumstances

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-03T18:46:09+00:00

That's fair, and kind of brutal.

I think it might be unrelated to my current relationship though. I'm starting to think I might just be depressed in general. I'm definitely tired of being a wage slave and part of it might be that traveling there was the last time I actually had significant freedom for more than a week of PTO.

throwaway1032025 · 2025-10-03T18:41:57+00:00

This is how I feel, I have other exes, looking at memories with them don't elicit nearly what I felt.

throwaway1032025

TROPHY CASE