He's grown up after breakup, but still unsure
Q. My first real time in love with a woman, and I fatally sabotaged the relationship just as it was getting serious. I was a complete &!?$ to her and got what I deserved.
Seeing a side of myself I didn't like, I took a long break and only recently started edging back into the dating pool.
It's been a few years and nobody I meet holds a candle to my ex. I feel like I'm going through life untouched by love, with this one all-too-brief exception. I live as a confirmed bachelor at this point, but I'd like to think that life might someday give me another shot. I just can't imagine ever falling in love like that again, and it depresses me immensely. How to move forward?
One Chance, USA
A. Whether you move forward depends on how you choose to look backward.
Right now, you're looking back selectively, and seeing bliss that you ruined by being a jerk.
I think if you choose to look back at a more comprehensive version of the past -- one that includes not only your blissful days with your ex, but also the days before, the days of sabotage, the days immediately after, and all the days since -- you'll see something more useful. You'll see that you did some growing up between the "before" and the "after," enough to allow you to take responsibility for a side of yourself you disliked.
Which means the "after" version of you is pining for a love (or chemistry or drama or whatever it was; can you really be sure at this point?) that the "before" version created. The immature you, the I-need-serious-work you. the one who picked this girl out.
Maybe you were lucky, and really did attract someone better than you deserved, but I think that works better as a fairy tale than as logic.
Without even knowing it, we all reach for others who are compatible with us emotionally. When people refer to someone as "out of my league," they usually mean looks, income, education, talent -- when our subconscious criteria tend to be far more subtle, weighing and comparing another's level of function (or, dysfunction, as is so often the case).
You're still reaching for her, which could mean you haven't left your old self as far behind as you think. Or, it's not about her so much as the idea of her, which suggests there's room for growth in a slightly different direction.
It could also be a dodge. Think for a moment how convenient the Idealized Ex becomes for anyone who's reluctant to start another long slog up the hill of finding, approaching, vetting, asking, dating, reading, dating, adapting to, dating, knowing and trusting someone new.
"You are struggling to meet someone because you blew your one chance with the one person on Earth you were meant to love." Sounds nice -- sounds honest -- but the best reality buffers always do.
"You are struggling to meet someone because we're complex creatures, and so finding a comfortable alignment of enough key inner and outer traits is inherently difficult, especially when you have baggage." It sounds like an excuse (crossed with a middle-school word problem), but it's not. It's a map pointing forward -- one you can always pretty up with, "Once upon a time."
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