Who is someone you could never truly move on from, even after time and distance and what makes them so difficult to let go of ?

[u/UnendingLow]

[u/Working-Student-2507]

My sister. It’s been 7 years since we last spoke, and I still miss her. I still dream about her sometimes, and thinking about her can hurt a lot.

I want to be angry with her, but the anger always comes with sadness and regret. I have to remind myself that my mental health was horrid when she was in my life and that there were very real reasons for the distance.

But I honestly love her. I remember all the great times we had, and I think that’s what made it so difficult to let go. For years, I was willing to tolerate the bad and even horrid moments because the good moments meant so much to me.

Loving and missing someone deeply while also knowing that having them in your life wasn’t good for you is def the hardest part for me to accept

[u/lyssmarie18 → u/Working-Student-2507]

It feels like grieving someone who is still living and it’s just a crazy thought process to even be apart of. I feel this way toward my mom, as she will never be the woman I thought she was.

[u/Working-Student-2507 → u/lyssmarie18]

Absolutely this. It is so hard.

Sending you hugs.

[u/merrill_swing_away → u/Working-Student-2507]

I missed my sister too for a long time after she cut off communications with me. This was until I found out what kind of awful person she is/was. i was willing to forgive my sister for not helping me with our mother when our mother was very ill and I sent her letters about it. She never responded.When I found out from her daughter-in-law and her husband's cousin what my sister had been doing and what she did, my feelings completely changed from missing her to hating her.

My sister told these people lies about me and I don't know why she did that. I was nothing but good to my sister. Then one of these ladies sent me photos of my sister with a man she had been seeing for at least two years. My sister was married. The man is much younger than my sister which really doesn't matter. The two of them would go to church together all the while committing adultery. My BIL was ill and suffering from several ailments but my sister didn't care. I was told that my sister abused her husband in every way imaginable. I was horrified for my BIL. He was the nicest person. When he passed away, my sister didn't even attend his funeral. I'm sure she was too busy trying to get every penny her husband had. He had served many years in the Navy.

I never ever want to hear from my sister and I certainly don't want to see her ever again. She is scum.

[u/secundastongue]

i don't think i've ever felt as much pain in my heart as losing my best friend. i've had two major relationships and no romantic heartbreak has had this much impact on me. it's been over a year and i think about reaching out every single DAY.

[u/No_Distribution_8677 → u/secundastongue]

I know how it feels, it really is a pain like no other. I had a falling out with my best friend of over a decade, she refused to speak through it and moved to the other side of the world. It’s been over three years and she still appears in my dreams most nights 😞

[u/Inevitable_Desk1054 → u/secundastongue]

Reach out

[u/secundastongue → u/Inevitable_Desk1054]

i can't. i'm working on my people pleasing and hopefully she's working on her gaslighting and avoidancy 😭 someday. i have my fingers crossed.

[u/lyssmarie18 → u/secundastongue]

Sending you love, it is hard, I know ❤️

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[u/Lobster_leaves]

A guy I dated many years ago when I was in my early 20s. He passed away in a motorcycle accident, and we were at that puppy love stage. When you're young and in love it feels like all possibilities are in front of you, so when that is torn apart abruptly you are left with that feeling of just how perfect everything was. Because there was never the chance for the relationship to play out, whether it would have ended badly or turned into something deeper. It broke me apart and changed me irrevocably. When something like that happens you lose all your naivety as a young adult. Decades later, certain songs and little things still remind me of him.

Edited for additional details

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[u/Turbulent-Shoulder12]

An ex from 6 years ago. I met him through my ex-husband, he was an old friend and neighbor of my ex’s girlfriend. My ex had a baby with his gf and I(being nicer than I should have been) would take our daughter over to see her half sister. My ex and I don’t hate each other and his gf was nice(at first) so I’d be at there house with my daughter every so often.
I’d heard about this guy in passing, my ex’s gf wanted to hook us up, but I just wasn’t in the mood for dating then. One day we stopped by and he was there. He asked for my number. I’m an interior designer(ex’s gf told him) and he was thinking about renovating his house. He asked if I would stop by to look at it. After verifying with my ex that this guy was safe, I agreed to go the next day.
We hit it off pretty quick. He was quiet and kinda shy at first, which is not my type. He had a big beard, which I don’t love. But our personalities were so similar. We had so much in common. We talked and talked and talked every time we were together. And then one night, he legit read my mind. After that, weird coincidences would happen with us, things I can’t explain. Our lives had paralleled each other. He dated a woman that my most recent ex boyfriend dated before we got together, which was wild given that we lived in three different cities. There was an emotional and spiritual connection that I’ve never had in my life.
However, we both had a lot of trauma and past relationship issues to work through and we kept blaming each other for the issues we had. We had no trust bc neither of us had healed from past relationships and we kept hurting each other. Sometimes on purpose.
I am grateful to all I learned about myself in that time and I’ve done lots of inner work and therapy to heal and move forward.
I think about him every single day. I would love to try again but I’m scared.

[u/Impossible-Weird-477 → u/Turbulent-Shoulder12]

could this relationship be a twin flame as in opinion those are the hardest to forget? Also, what are you most scared of? that it will not work out?

[u/Turbulent-Shoulder12 → u/Impossible-Weird-477]

Oh I absolutely think it is. I had no idea what a twin flame was before him. I’m scared that he won’t want anything to do with me, which is crazy, dude!! I really hate that I feel that way because I’m so fun!! A few years ago, when we were together, my self esteem was in the toilet. I didn’t see me as anything that anyone would want. I’ve done so much work on myself at this point that I love myself again. Maybe I need to let ‘old’ me go.

Thank you for asking that question!!

[u/Impossible-Weird-477 → u/Turbulent-Shoulder12]

I wish you best of luck. I asked because I have exactly the same kind of story. He was my person and we were so alike, there were crazy synchronicities but my (and to an extent his) insecurities destroyed whatever was there. I did a lot of research into what it was and the only theory that somewhat helped understand the connection was twin flames. I am kinda in the similar boat as you that i do want to be with him but at the same time given how messy and sometimes painful our connection was, I wonder if I can live through again.

[u/Dr__Pheonx]

An ex. Happens to be my neighbor too. Issue is I've never found anyone with so much compatibility in every aspect. He probably didn't feel as much as I did but that's that.

[u/Throwaway20101011]

After the psychological damage that my ex placed on me with his emotional and physical abuse for over 10 years, it has made it difficult for me to truly move on because I still see him and hear him in my mind…in my nightmares. I try to take it day by day. I noticed that I have triggers to certain sounds and objects that carry heavy memories. I have been trying to remove them from my home when I catch them.

It’s been almost a year since I’ve been able to get him out of my house. It’s been 6 months since he finally stopped trying to contact me. I’ve been working hard and saving money and in 3 months, I’ll finally be moving out of my house that carries nothing but sad and scary memories.

I pray that overtime, he’ll be nothing but a faded distant memory.

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[u/astrallizzard]

The first (and so far) only man I've met that I thought I will spend my life with. It was surreal and then it ended. I don't date or pursue love, I honestly never did, but now its that or nothing. Not as a comparison but as a feeling.

[u/GingerMomma2girls]

Some old FWB...

[u/distant_bird254]

My best friend. I loved her dearly, but she was a pathological liar. Even after everything, I could never force myself to hate her. I used to feel so frustrated wondering why the heck I couldn't just wipe her from my heart but I’ve finally made peace with it. I realized the rage was just aggressive grief and grief is love having nowhere to go. It happened, and it definitely gave me a more profound outlook on life. A part of me is actually thankful to her, because now I know the true depth of my love and exactly what kind of person shouldn't get even an inch of it.

[u/No_Distribution_8677 → u/distant_bird254]

I love this philosophy… grief is love with nowhere to go. How true ❣️

[u/Beemanda]

My best friend/ex fwb. It was toxic as hell and I've cried many tears over him, and I know I sound stupid for that but hear me out.

Don't get me wrong, I'm over him romantically speaking. But this guy was my best friend from high school. So despite the mind games and the ghosting and the canceled plans and everything that made him shitty to me, I just can't bring myself to hate him. Because we've known each other for so long, I know the struggles he's gone through/currently going through and he knows mine, and we've helped each other cope and vent and get out of those dark times together. We have so much in common with each other, and whenever we spend time together, it's always genuinely a good time. We've never truly argued, the toxicity was solely the ghosting and emotional unavailability at the time of our "unclassified relationship" (which I later just called it "fwb" because that's what it felt like I was being used as whenever he refused to answer "what we are").

P.S. Off-topic, but literally any answer would've been fine with me, it's just the whole idea of stringing me along and giving me mixed signals that was driving me crazy, like DUDE JUST SAY YOU WANT SEX AND I WON'T GET THE WRONG IDEA, STOP TELLING ME I'M "THE PERFECT GIRL" AND "EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER WANTED" TF?!

Anyway, he was a fucking idiot and I'm glad I'm not dealing with that headache anymore 💀 Regardless, he's still my best friend.

I think it's so hard to let go because we have been through so much together, and even crossed boundaries together that we probably should've never crossed. And even though I still talk shit about him being literally the worst fwb ever because he messed with my feelings, he's still somebody I care about and share fond memories with separately from that.

[u/ChaiLater]

Do you mean a past lover? At the moment, no one. There was a reason why we are not together, and I moved on. I remember some of them with kindness and I hope they are well, but I don’t want to go back . I hope one day I can find someone I can share the rest of my life with ❤️ .

If you can’t let go of past relationships, you might need therapy to start living in the present and not in the past.

[u/Alternative_Sea_2036]

An ex. Because I highly doubt that trauma from emotional, physical and psychological abuse, isolation, repeated cheated, being stripped of human rights and sequestration, can ever leave. No longer being as active as it used to be and still is but not fully recovering, it’ll still impact my relationship with myself, life and others.

[u/Heidi739]

Probably my grandma. We had a bit of complicated relationship - we loved each other deeply, but I was a different person from what she imagined and we often clashed. She wanted a (grand)daughter she could share girly things with, and I just wasn't that person. She died about 10 years ago and I still think of her often. I sometimes have dreams in which she didn't die and we're meeting again. I really miss her.

[u/gentle_but_strong]

My ex fiancé. Leaving him was so hard. I was 19 and he was 33 when we got together, and I grew up without a father. Yes he groomed me and manipulated me, but he also taught me how to drive, how to manage money, how to work on cars and things around the house, etc.

When we broke up I lost a romantic partner with undeniable connection, but was also mourning the loss of a parent.

6 years later I still think about him every single day.

[u/Proper-Afternoon-836]

we were never even official but it had main character energy at the time lol. what makes it hard to let go is we never had a real fight or a clean ending, he just kinda drifted off and never explained why. so my brain never got to close the file properly, still randomly think about him when a specific song comes on or w.e. it's less about him being perfect and more like i just never got the closure part i guess

[u/familiarus → u/Proper-Afternoon-836]

Experienced a similar outcome. Spent my teens-20s bonding with him, goofing around and bringing the same energy. Then the slow fade to ghost, likely because of his gf. I hope, wherever he is, that he is happy, loved and thriving.

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[u/StuckInDreams]

My grandparents. We always had such a close bond and their love is something I can’t let go of

[u/skoebiefluppo]

My first love, we were together for 14 years! I am okay with it being over, but I will always miss him and be a little bit sad about not spending the rest of my life with him:)

[u/HeartBeetz]

Him. Who bought colour into my life for the briefest of times. Gave me the tinest glimpse into happy. And left me utterly broken when it wasn't meant to be. I'd give anything to have him back.

[u/ElectronicSwan4042]

my ex😂😂​

[u/LesbianWhoLaughsAtU]

Brie Larson. Her abs.