Hi everyone. I'm new here, and as so many people here, I'm needing help and advice regarding a breakup that left me devastated.

I'll try to sum it up: I'm 20 and met my ex-boyfriend (and first love) when I was 13. We started dating when I was 14. We really were perfect together, with different personalities but we complemented each other in a great way. We were together for about a year; but then we changed schools and along came new people and new experiences. He started drifting away from me and I didn't handle it well, starting to get clingy and desperate about a possible breakup, which eventually happened.

He was dating again a mere 2 months after the breakup. Despite that, and after a few weeks of no contact, we started talking to each other again. We eventually became best friends and could talk for hours on end without getting tired. He came to me when he needed advice or help. It became clear that I wasn't the only one who missed our relationship. He stayed with the girl he was with for a year, but by the end of their relationship we had grown very close again, and he broke up with her after admitting that ending our relationship was a mistake, and that he still had very strong feelings for me. We started dating again. I was 16 by then.

The second time around it didn't last long. Everything seemed to be amazing, even better than it was before, but after 3 months he suddenly seemed to have a change of heart. We tried to make things work but eventually he broke up with me again. To this day I am not sure of what happened; maybe it had to do with the emotional pressure of dating me right after breaking up with the previous girlfriend, but I can't be sure. I am a bit ashamed to say that after the breakup I went a little crazy and just couldn't seem to stop contacting him, having to text him almost daily. We also broke a big rule and did the "friends with benefits" thing for a while, but I still felt a great deal of love for him, so it obviously hurt more that in helped.

It's been 3 years since this breakup. We never had a friendship quite like we had before, but we have stayed in contact and we still talk. Until last year, I still felt very much obsessed with him and I would feel sick just thinking about the possibility of him finding another person. Eventually I started healing and feeling better. I was never able to see him as "just a friend", but at least I was starting to accept the fact that I had to move on and that he would eventually find another person to share his life with. I haven't been with anyone else since, though.

I was doing great until that fact became reality and he started dating, about a month ago. I am not dealing with it in a good way whatsoever. It felt like a slap on the face and it brought back many memories. I know how wonderful he can be, how devoted he is to the person he loves. I started to miss him terribly again. Coincidentally, a few days after I found out he was dating we texted each other, and had a great conversation, like we haven't had in months.

A couple of days ago I went out with my friends and saw him with his girlfriend. He didn't see me and I was spared from having to talk to him while he was with her, but just seeing that left me with a knot in my stomach.

I don't know what to do. He was my first love, and a very good one at that, and I know in my heart that he will never not be a special person to be, even when we both rebuild our lives with other people, but in the last year I had managed to accept that without much hurt. I was ready to move on while keeping him on a little corner of my heart as a special friend. I wasn't expecting to feel so lost at the thought of him with another person. What should I do? How do I get over this?

You get through this the same way millions of us do, all over the world, every day: you suffer and try to fill your days with other activities, friends, family, studies, hobbies, pets, helping (even here, giving advice). And if you must, you put the 'friendly' contact on hold without making it final. Just tell him the truth. It hurts too much for now, but maybe someday you can talk again. You may connect again in the old romantic way, or you may not. It may be next year or 50 years from now.

Thank you so much for your answer. I have been told countless times that I should have gotten better by now. I have felt countless times like I am being ridiculous for feeling this way, that somehow being so young should have allowed be to get over this in a flash. It feels truly refreshing to have a complete stranger addressing this as natural. :)

I'll be another complete stranger who says this is natural. After six years of dating, a young man and I were going to marry but then didn't for reasons beyond our control. We each married someone else. Forty-five years later we still kick ourselves that we weren't more assertive, but the die was cast, as Caesar once said.

Sooner or later you have to let him go, and rebuild a life that you enjoy, and leave those teen age, high school memories of the first love in the past. You may never forget, we seldom do, but we thrive and survive when we move forward through life, and not back.

Thanks for all the answers. One of my big problems when dealing with this seems to be the fact that I'm so young, and everyone seems to expect me to have gone through this a lot faster because of my age. I am glad to hear that this is normal. I am letting go and I know I will, eventually, and I really should just accept that some people , like me, need more time than others. :)

Yep!!

A quick update... just for the sake of it and because it might help someone else.

A month after finding out that he has a new girlfriend, I'm at a point where I'm accepting that I will always care for him in a special way, while also realizing that it doesn't mean I will never be able to love someone else. (Obvious conclusion, but hard to get to).

I'm also coming to the conclusion that both him and I have changed substantially since we last dated (who doesn't change during the teen years?)... and the person I miss may not be the person he is now.

I'll always hold him in a special place in my heart... But I'm managing to be more and more happy by having him as a good friend and nothing else, instead of missing what we used to have. :)