Describe your worst ever heartbreak

In My Humble Opinion
21

1. How long ago was it? 1982

2. Do you feel that you are over it now? Yes

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it? Meeting my wife in 1983, getting married in 1985 did most of it. Not until I managed to email her in 1996 did I really put it behind me.

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery? Contacting her helped.

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ? This was the worst by far as I fell in love instantly and she was amazingly intelligent, beautiful, and fun to be with.

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience? No. That was too painful.

7. What have you learned from it? Not to be too cautious in a relationship. I wonder if I had been more aggressive with her if it would have made a difference.

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened. We were both busy people at the time. We met indirectly through a dating service, her roommate wouldn’t go out with me because at the time I wasn’t Catholic. M didn’t care and she called me up. We went out a few times but working in different cities didn’t help. As it happened, my grandfather died and after going to the funeral and visitations out of town, I returned and called her up. She said, “oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you…” She lost her job and was moving out of state. And that was it. Her name is unique enough that I managed to find her on the internet so I was able to contact her and catch up a bit. As a bonus, her husband put up a site for their wedding and she wasn’t nearly as stunning as I recalled. Double bonus, her husband is bald and gap-toothed.

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel? I’d just like the chance to say hi to her in person some time, but it won’t happen. I’m very happily married with the best kids in the world. She finally married in 2001 but has no kids, so I’m satisfied in the knowledge that losing a career girl wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me.

22

…metaphorically?! Otherwise your story would be quite the opposite of “trivial and typical”. :eek:

23

1. How long ago was it? Twenty four years.

2. Do you feel that you are over it now? Yes.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it? Years. I can’t really define when I crossed the line.

**4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery? **Oh, definitely not.

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
I was never so vulnerable again, so was never hurt as badly.

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?
At first, it really wasn’t, because I handled it badly. I decided I was never going to be happy, so nothing mattered and I didn’t care what happened next. That attitude worked out…poorly. Choices I made at that time still affect me today. However, I somehow got to where I am today, and it’s a good place, so I think I won’t complain.
**
7. What have you learned from it?**
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need. That, or time wounds all heels.
**
8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened. ** I was sixteen, he was seventeen. It was all on my side, and I knew it, but it was still shattering when he was gone for good. I’ve always been glad I lost my virginity to someone I really cared about.
**
9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?** It would be extremely odd after all this time. I’ve thought about him for so long he’s pretty much become a legendary figure. It’s strange to think he’s a real person, probably alive and having a wife and kids. He seems more like he might have been a character in a book I read long ago. I don’t feel any need to find out what happened.

24

  1. About seven and a half years ago.

  2. Yes. See the last answer.

  3. About three-four months.

  4. Flirted, mostly. Forced myself to hang out with people. The week after, I made myself go on a road trip out of state with a friend.

  5. Every other relationship, I felt as though things ended when I wanted them to end. I mean, with my marriage, it’s not like I went into it wanting it to end after three years, but when it got to the point where it did, I was ready and willing for it to end. The heartbreaking one, though, he cheated on me, and so, while I technically ended the relationship, it was abrupt and I didn’t want it to end. I’d argue that, long term, my failed marriage has probably affected me more in terms of my attitude towards relationships, but I never went through the heartbreak period. It was more of a giant pain in the ass.

  6. Yeah. Because, really, he wouldn’t have worked out. He ended up on heroin and in the court system.

  7. No matter how bad it feels now, it’ll get better.

  8. First boyfriend, guy I lost my virginity to. Relationship was rocky, but workable, and then I found out he’d been going on the side with someone we both knew. We could have continued after that, but I declined.

  9. We’re still in marginal contact–we speak maybe a dozen times a year. About a year ago, he asked if we could get back together. I didn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone. I really didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. So I declined. Though, to be fair, it’s not as though I didn’t get a tiny bit of satisfaction.

25

1. How long ago was it?
About seven years now

2. Do you feel that you are over it now?
Yes, finally.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?
About five years

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?
I wouldn’t call anything I did during that period proactive. I tore myself down to the very core in the most destructive manners possible.

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
I really haven’t. Everything I’ve had since I’ve gotten over it has been easy come, easy go.

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?
In the long run, yes. It’s hard to put a positive spin on five years of complete idiocy and self destruction, but I came out alive and a stronger person.

7. What have you learned from it?
A lot more than I care to type here. Mostly, be cautious in loving, but don’t be afraid of it.

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.
When I met her, she was a speed addict and peddler. Although I was at first repulsed, I ended up feeling bad for her and trying to help her get clean and get her life together. Somewhere in the process, we fell in love.

Things were great for awhile, but she apparently missed being a drug dealer and that’s not the kind of life I wanted to deal with. A lot of arguments and binge drinking ensued, and she basically ended up dumping me. For the first three months, I followed her like a lost puppy dog. Then a lot of other girls who had interest in me realized we weren’t together anymore and started asking me out on dates. One of the sweetest, most beautiful girls I’ve ever met (whom I thought I had no chance with) asked me out. I started to get better and realizing it wasn’t the end of the world. Once I started dating, my ex latched back onto me with iron claws and called me every day saying she wanted me back. Even though I was practically dating the perfect girl who treated me like a king, I went back to her. After about six more months, she cheated on me with a coke head.

I was done. At this point, the girl who had been so sweet to me had moved on (and I can’t blame her) and my ex was back to tormenting me. I spiraled into a five year drug binge and moved out of state, where I continued it until I finally pulled myself out of the cesspool that I had created for myself.

Since then, I’ve managed to get a wonderful job and date around. I might be overly cautious, but I’m biding my time because it feels right to me.

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know what I’d do. I haven’t seen anything but a picture here and there of her in the last six years. I hope she’s not a junkie again, but I don’t think we’d have a whole lot to say to each other.

26
  1. How long ago was it?

The relationship started in 1999 I believe. The slow path to final break-up ended in Dec 2002.

  1. Do you feel that you are over it now?

Not really. I don’t know if I can trust a guy again.

  1. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?

N/A

  1. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?

Afterward, I knew enough to stay out of relationships when I knew I wasn’t well enough to handle them. It means I miss out on stuff, but I do have to think about my overall mental stability.

  1. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?

This was the worst. And we only dated 3 months! But then we talked, and still tried to be friends, and still went to the same church… BAD IDEA. It just drew things out longer. And then he moved across the country, making me his sole point of contact with our group of friends…

  1. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?

Good Lord, no. It did make me more aware of any mental issues I might have, but if this hadn’t happened maybe those issues wouldn’t have become such a problem? :slight_smile:

  1. What have you learned from it?

If I break up with someone I’m dating, I need to not see them/talk to them/write them/etc. NEVER AGAIN. I think my heart always thinks there’s a chance, as long as there’s contact. I always thought remaining friends was overrated anyway.

  1. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.

Friends lured me to church with promises of quirky geek-boy that sounded just awesome for me. A couple months as friends, then 3 months of dating, and he announces he’s not attracted to me. WTH? We decided to remain friends, discuss things, from time to time he sounded like he wanted to try again. Then he moved. Came back here twice. The second time I flat out asked him if he was ever going to be interested again. He said no, and had the nerve to e-mail me all nonchalant a day or two later. I told my best friend I never wanted to hear from him again. The letters stopped entirely.

  1. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?

I would probably cry. And I hope I would know better than to let myself care about him again.

27

That part is really relatable. I feel like the person I am thinking of due to this thread is some mythical creature almost, and not a 29 year old woman with low self esteem and an ordinary personality with pettiness, commonness and vulnerabilities like everyone else.

I hope to god my feelings never get that intense again. I can’t go through it again.

28

This is an interesting topic, and after I relate my own experience I’m going to go back and read others’ to see how they compare.

1. How long ago was it?
Four months.

2. Do you feel that you are over it now?
Mostly. Every once in a while, something still reminds me of how happy I was with her, but I don’t feel like I’m still in an upset state because of it.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?
About two months.

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?
Got out of the house, met new people, put my emotion into creative endeavors such as writing, music, and artwork.

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
That was my most recent relationship. The other relationships I’ve had that broke down seemed a more gradual process, whereas in this case she told me almost completely out of the blue that she was no longer interested in being with me.

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?
Hell no.

7. What have you learned from it?
I don’t know if I’d say I learned anything. I learned that my ex-girlfriend is very bad at interpersonal relationships, does that count?

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.
We had been friends for a year, during most of which we were both harboring feelings for each other that we weren’t sure whether to tell the other. We finally did and had a few months of the most intense happiness I have ever felt. One day I told her I loved her, as you do, and she didn’t respond; I asked her what was up and she said for the past week or so she’d been realizing that she no longer had feelings for me. She said we should remain friends, but after that she broke off all contact with me.

It hurt like hell. I remember feeling one night a pure, animal kind of anguish. I was curled up in a ball and wracked with sobs for forty-five minutes. I think a lot of it was just the fear that I would never again find the happiness and comfort that having her with me had once been.

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?
Angry that she stopped talking to me, and a little nervous - unsure of what to say. I guess I’d like to be friendly with her if possible, because we had a lot in common and did very well as friends before and during our romantic relationship.

29

1. How long ago was it?

23 years

2. Do you feel that you are over it now?

define “over it”. it fades. i’m not disabled by it.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?

see previous answer: it fades. sort of like radiation half-life.

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?

during the emotional/hormonal detox period, mostly just kept breathing; later, composed music and wrote stuff about it

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?

never invested quite as much of myself emotionally, subsequent to that; maybe I could (I am not sure) but less blindly trusting that everything will work out than back then

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?

the heartbreak or the relationship itself? the relationship yes it was worth it in spite of how it crashed. the heartbreak part? I’m not enough of a masochist to call that ‘positive’

7. What have you learned from it?

some entirely nice people’s reaction to the vulnerability of being in love is to run, because it scares them

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.

still don’t know, aside from the above

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?

I have not seen her in about 16-17 years. At that time she was married and had a kid. I enjoyed hanging out. I enjoyed it a lot. When it reached that point in the evening where I felt it was about time for her husband to get up and leave so as to leave the two of us alone together, it was time for me to get up and leave :frowning:

I miss her. It would be good to see her again. It would hurt again, just like it did 16 years ago but not like when it all happened.

30

Wasn’t so much a relationship I was in, rather than a relationship that never happened…

1. How long ago was it? About 6 years.

2. Do you feel that you are over it now? Absolutely.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?
Pretty promptly after I left the situation. Couple of months.

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?
Removed myself from the situation. Best advice I can give.

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
Maybe I’m still a little hesitant because of the situation, but I was never really that outgoing in the first place so I can’t really tell what it is.

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience? No.

7. What have you learned from it?
I was very proud of how I acted through the “relationship” which is something you can’t say that often. However it did leave me rather jaded. I don’t know how much of that is maturity though.

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.
She was in a bad relationship with someone I knew. We knew we had amazing chemistry the week we met. I was a rather naive 19 year old that thought if I did what I was supposed to do she’d see the light and everything would work out between us. Two years. Never did, until I had to leave.

Couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. In retrospect…nothing. Little did I realize how smart my young quixotic self was. :slight_smile:

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?
Probably get a knot in my stomach. She was an amazing woman. But we’ve probably both changed so things wouldn’t be nearly the same.

31

****1. How long ago was it?
30 years ago

2. Do you feel that you are over it now?
Yes, as much as the loss of a close friend can be accepted.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?
**A year. **

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?
Didn’t dwell on it.

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
**All breakups done on good terms. **

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?
The breakup itself, no. The time spent, yes.

7. What have you learned from it?

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.
** The typical breakup of people who are young.**

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?
Actually met with her a couple of years ago. It was painful to find out she lived a loveless marriage and still thought of me. The intimacy of thought had not wavered in 30 years. That she has martyred herself to faith and family was not easy to watch.

32
  1. How long ago was it?
  • 2007-2009
  1. Do you feel that you are over it now?
  • for the most part, but I still think about it almost everyday.
  1. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?
  • about this whole past summer
  1. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?
  • stopped talking to her
  1. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
  • haven’t had any since
  1. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?
  • kind of hard for me to answer that question since it’s relatively recent. I would say yes and no. Yes for the simple fact that I learned alot and hopefully won’t make the same mistakes again. No in that it basically ruined my last two years of college, fucked my whole reputation within my circle of friends, and is just basically such a disappointment.
  1. What have you learned from it?
  • don’t take shit from a woman. One of the first times we hung out, after fooling around some, she decided to tell me she had a new boyfriend. She asked if we could still be friends though, and I said yeah. Maybe if I had a spine and said, “no, I want more than that,” well who knows what could’ve happened.
  1. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.

Met her at a party one night by chance, hooked up and it was good. Like the most passionate experience I ever had, but we didn’t even have sex, just heavy petting. Anyways, I really fell for her, but in the following months I never really made a move. Guess she got bored with me, (imo rightfully so) because one night she decided to make out with my friend right in front of me. Needless to say this didn’t go well and I ended up fighting my friend over a girl.

It gets worse.

We talk off and on because I still liked her and wanted to give it another chance deep down, but I still had my guard up. Finally, after months of pissing around I give her another chance. She comes over and we have a great night. Very next night I go to meet her at a party. Guess who she leaves me for again?

still gets worse.

One night, I get drunk and stumble over to her dorm cause I still didn’t wanna give up. We argue for a while and I leave. Well me and old friend live in the same apartment complex and I have the suspicion she’s going to see him. Bout 3 in the morning I see her and my old buddy head to his apartment to fuck.

  1. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?

I’d just wanna know why she left me that 2nd time. The first time I understand, I was boring and just wasn’t myself. The 2nd time though, I did everything right and I just don’t understand.

33

1978, when I found out my wife was screwing my best friend.

There will always be a small piece of me that will wonder why they did that to me, but I sure don’t lose sleep over it.

Close to 15 years.

Not really.

It probably caused the breakup in the long run. I wasn’t completely healed.

It confirmed the old saying: that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

As I said, my wife was shagging the guy I thought was my best friend.

As has been said, the best revenge is living well. I have revenge every day, so to speak. She could have been sharing a good life with me, and she’s not.

34

1. How long ago was it?
8 years ago last month.

2. Do you feel that you are over it now?
Not yet. Mostly, but there are still bits hanging on.

3. If you are over it, how long did it take for you to get over it?
N/A

4. If you are over it, did you do anything proactive to help or accelerate your recovery?
N/A

5. If you have had subsequent relationship/s break down, how did your worst ever heartbreak differ?
The only other relationship I had was very short-lived, almost nonexistant; however, the person was much more open and honest, and that helped a lot.

6. Would you say, in the long run, that the heartbreak was a positive experience?
I’ll say I wouldn’t be the person I am now without it, which means both positive and negative to me.

7. What have you learned from it?
You want a short list or a long one? The soul-searching I’ve done since then has yeileded gold-mines of results, but from the actual event of the heartbreak, I feel I may’ve only learned not to trust people so easilly.

8. If you want to, feel free to give the details, as anonymized as you wish, of what happened.
I’ve told this story a lot of times, so I’ll keep it short.
Had a long-standing crush on a girl, but our availability timings were off. After several years of crushing, she got into a serious accident that almost ended her life. I figured ‘we never know how long we have’, so I asked her out. She said yes, but said we needed to take things slowly. Slowly involved about 3 months without even a kiss. One night after a party we were both at, she, assuming I was asleep, ended up having sex with another guy about 4 feet from where I was (definately -not- asleep). It was like watching a nightmare in slow-motion.

9. Finally the clincher question: if you met the cause of your heartbreak now, how would this make you feel?
That’s an odd kicker. I see her all the time. Being the guy I was at the time, when she asked if I wanted her to back out of our social circle, I said no. We’re… Friends now, but there’s still a little bit of darkness hovering over the both of us that I’m not sure will be completely cleared.

(Incidentally, I often post to threads of this sort because I keep feeling that telling the story is a little bit of cathartic therapy for me.)