Meeting the past. Meeting first love - what can you expect? Meeting the first man in many years

30.10.2019

Find a foothold in the past.First love is part of our personal history. Returning to youth, we are looking for the source of unspent strength in ourselves.
Confirm your worth.It is important for us to make sure that our life choices are correct and to end a relationship that has not been continued. By parting with ideal images of the past, we can build new relationships in real-life circumstances.

In response to the question "Would you like to meet your first love again?" we are unlikely to specify who we are talking about. For each of us, a specific person stands behind this phrase.

What drives us when we try to track down his tracks? What do we lack in the present if we readily plunge into the past? What do we expect from a meeting with a person with whom we parted 10, 20, 30 years ago?

Back to yourself

Tatiana, 39, found a forum where her classmates talked, including her first lover.

“We broke up in the middle of the 9th grade: my family moved to another city. For a long time I could not decide to write to the forum, and then I was very worried, I waited: will Victor answer or not? He replied, and now we correspond ten times a day, we cannot stop talking. It seems that we have become as naive and sincere again as 25 years ago. "

The search for first love is nostalgia for the era of innocence, romanticism, brightness of emotions

For many, first love symbolizes a moment in life when we felt full of energy, and the future seemed so promising. The search for first love is nostalgia for the era of innocence, romanticism, and the brightness of emotions.

“Blinded by love for the first time, we are spontaneous, we are attracted by inner impulses and desires,” says Olga Dolgopolova, gestalt therapist. - We create an ideal image, in fact, projecting our desires and needs onto a specific person. We expect from him what we lack in life: understanding, tenderness, support, sexuality ... "

If the relationship of young people develops, then the ideal romantic image gradually gives way to a real person. Years later, the first love is often sought by precisely those who could not or did not have time to get to know each other enough.

“But even in this case, our feelings are directed rather not to another, but to ourselves,” says psychologist-consultant Boris Masterov. - We unconsciously strive to be in the past - in that time when, as it seems to us, we were better, cleaner and full of joyful hopes. And often behind this there is a desire to return to your unrealized “I”.

Express the unsaid

Those who go in search of their first love often say that they are attracted by the feeling of innuendo, the incompleteness of the relationship.

This is especially acute if the relationship ended due to external circumstances, with which the lovers at that time did not have the strength to fight. Parental pressure, moving, public opinion ...

“Unconsciously, there is an identification with fairy-tale-mythological couples, literary heroes: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, those whose love was forbidden, impossible due to external circumstances,” says psychotherapist Alexander Badchen. “Early romantic relationships are also idealized in culture: poetry, music, literature, cinema.”

The search for first love is a call for help to the one who was once dear to us

The feeling of incompleteness gives rise to inner protest and a desire to find your first love, "close the topic."

This is confirmed by 28-year-old Anna: “We broke up because his parents strongly objected to our meetings. For a long time I could not believe that he chose them and not me ... Now I would like to see the man who was my first love, so that he could see me and understand how wrong he was. And at the same time make sure that he is indifferent to me. "

Get a second chance

When we experience success, when our quality of life changes, or when we go through an identity crisis, we need to feel something unchanging, permanent. In order to preserve our identity, we seek support from the past.

“We are returning to familiar territory because the old relationship is always safer than meeting a new person. The search for first love is a call for help to someone who was once dear to us, ”explains Alexander Badchen.

“The easiest way is to go where it was once good. And the first love, if it was not associated with humiliation, is a very positive feeling, ”agrees Boris Masterov.

Newly found love gives many people a feeling of rebirth, as if they have found a recipe for eternal youth

In search of first love, most often those of us who have taken place in different spheres of life go: those who have a family, children, promising work ... What are we missing?

To regain your first love is like throwing decades off your shoulders, feeling young and full of energy again.

Svetlana gave birth to a son at the age of 20, Sergei was her first lover, but he refused to marry and disappeared from her life.

“When my son was supposed to return from the army, I braced myself and called Sergei. We met, and a week later we realized that we could not live without each other. Now we are together. It was as if I returned to my 20 years, lost weight, go in for sports ... I am absolutely happy. I haven’t told my son yet, but I believe that he will understand me. I wish every woman in her 40s the same beautiful and strong love as in her youth, she just needs to get over the hurt and learn to be happy in the present. "

Newly found love gives many people a feeling of rebirth, as if they have found a recipe for eternal youth.

Female interest

Why do women more often go in search of their first love? Dreams allow them to distance themselves from the daily routine of everyday life, where day after day they need to play the role of a good wife and caring mother. They often dream of their first adult relationship, which was not yet burdened with adult responsibilities.

“It is important for a woman to feel that there is something constant in her life, which does not change with age, which can be experienced and felt again,” says Olga Dolgopolova. "But if a woman constantly thinks about the past and strives to live in memories, this suggests that she is afraid to look ahead and avoids reality."

Anton Lazarev

Find a starting point

For each of us, the first love experience is one of the most important events in life. This is the end of childhood, the first departure from the family circle, a step into adulthood.

“First love, first meeting - this event changes every person,” says Boris Masterov. - We feel that we are no longer the same as they were before. To some extent, this is a choice and a test of one's path. After all, to one degree or another, all subsequent love relationships develop in accordance with the first love. "

Alexander, 38, married a woman who once had an affair with a foreign student. The couple broke up: he left for his homeland, and she did not dare to radically change her life.

“Milena tells me about this story as something experienced, but I see that in fact the plot is not finished. I do not want my wife to forget her first love - it seems to me that this feeling gives new light and warmth to our relationship. I’m even sure: if not for this novel, she would not have chosen me. ”

“The way we relate to each other, how we touch, how we make love, what we say - all this is somehow connected with the experience of first love, - explains Boris Masterov. "We either take this model of relationships and partially reproduce in the next love experiences, or we start from it, build something completely opposite to the unsuccessful experience."

The road to renewal

Sometimes meeting your first lover can be frustrating.

“It is like the feeling we experience when we return to the city or neighborhood where we spent our youth. Once there, you suddenly notice how different reality is from the image that has been preserved in our memory, ”says Alexander Badchen. “It can still be the one and only, but it takes up less space in the soul than before.”

Even if we again face something that once pushed us away, this experience will still be useful.

This is confirmed by 39-year-old Evgenia: “It was enough for me to hear his 'hello!' - and the world blossomed with new colors. I knew his voice so well. Then we met again ... and the charm was lost. "

43-year-old Ilya says: “I confess, when we met Masha after 20 years of separation, my heart was almost torn to pieces: we still love the same books, films, admire the same people ... But, when I realized that we can start all over again, I realized that for all my "coincidence" with Masha, I really love the woman who gave birth to my children. "

If there is a desire to meet a person with whom all the best and brightest in the past are connected, you need to meet. Even if we again face something that once repulsed us, this experience will still be useful.

“This is how we see the whole person and part with his ideal image,” says Olga Dolgopolova. - But at the same time we have the opportunity to start building new relationships, not necessarily love ones. We can enjoy communicating with each other in real-life circumstances. ”

The experience of seeking and returning is always valuable, even if it is associated with the loss of illusions.

There are memories that stay with us for life. How we build our families is largely determined by early relationships - with parents, loved ones.

“There is a psychological point of reference in them,” adds Alexander Badchen. - Our first love is the continuation of these relationships, their reconstruction, the first independent attempt to recreate them. This is its special psychological value. This experience remains in the secret place of our soul, accessible to us all our lives, and we never lose sight of it. "

The experience of seeking and returning is always valuable, even if it is associated with the loss of illusion. We need him in order to better understand ourselves and live on.

Men prefer new

Men are less inclined to seek their first love, but you should not reproach them for being less sensitive than women.

“Men are more focused on meeting immediate needs,” explains Olga Dolgopolova. - They want to experience emotions, show interest, realize sexuality right away, without shelving. If a man dreams of something, then rather not about relationships, but about social success, career takeoff; his fantasies are in the outside world.

Representatives of the strong half of humanity love the experiences and feelings that a woman evokes in them. In addition, a return to youthful hobby can significantly complicate their life: a man may feel at a disadvantage in relation to the current partner of his beloved. And he doesn't need such rivalry. So men would rather seek new relationships than look back. "

I dedicate this post to some of the aspects of rebuilding relationships when ex-partners meet many years after the breakup.

As usual, I want to anticipate questions and comments: “But it was not so with me…”, “And if…”, etc. I do not set myself the task of describing YOUR story, and I do not try to guess what it was in reality. This article is only a generalization, on the basis of which you may draw the right conclusions and correctly assess your own, unique situation.

How does it happen ...

Such meetings (many years later) can happen for various reasons: one of you both decided to get in touch on his own (called or wrote); you met by chance (on the street, at an event, at work, etc.)

It seems that everything is already forgotten and you did not expect such a contact. You have a constant partner or your own family, children, or you are still alone and have long put a cross on yourself, but now, you saw him, and you seemed to be pierced by lightning. You cannot even determine what is really going on, but something irresistibly pulls you towards this long-standing love. Forgotten old grievances and misunderstandings, you are already a wise woman with life experience, and everything that seemed important before, those principles that you so fiercely defended in your youth now seem petty against the background of a great all-consuming feeling that you once sacrificed for these principles. The former partner also shows a genuine interest in you, you communicate with him beautifully and kindly, mentally plunging deeper and deeper into pleasant memories of a distant, and only now appreciated by you, such a contradictory, but wonderful past ...

Of course, a meeting after a “long pause” will not always look exactly as I described it. Much depends on what the relationship was, how long, harmonious, what brought more - joy or pain, how difficult and painful the breakup was. We will not delve into such subtleties and will start from the moment when contact between former partners is established and communication is pleasant for both parties.

The first dialogues are usually cautious. You are afraid to devote the guy to the details of your personal life and, in turn, are afraid to ask such questions to your counterpart. He behaves the same way. This fear is dictated by the unwillingness to break the established fragile connection, you just feel good together and this is enough for now. That is why you are trying to be as correct as possible with each other. Your topics of conversation, initially limited to general “how are you?” Questions to which you both answer without details, move relatively quickly to shared memories that are pleasant to both of you.

And now, you already have the impression that this guy is “your man” and only him - the only one, you have been waiting all your life, and this new meeting is nothing but a “gift of fate” and “means something”.

Typically, as a woman who is much more curious than men, you begin to figure out how your ex is feeling about you through clever tricks. You "almost love him already", but he is you? References to poems, songs and pictures with a very unambiguous content are used. You are trying to find out what kind of wave your ex-boyfriend is tuned to, and whether he feels towards you, at least approximately, the same as you do. You want to convey to him your mood and feelings, but so that, on the one hand, you do not frighten him off, and on the other, leaving yourself a path to retreat if he does not accept your “promises”.

But a "miracle" happens - he accepts the format of communication you offer and also begins to respond with links to songs and poems. It is almost guaranteed that somewhere at this stage (or earlier) you will return in conversations to the moment of breaking up the relationship, calmly find out everything and express a completely different point of view on the reasons that separated you. Most likely, this conversation will end in "drawing the line" under the past disagreements, conflicts and end with reconciliation, because you are already different and he is also different and, as it turned out, many years later, to mutual pleasure, you are much more united than divided.

It is possible that you will begin to experience something reminiscent of falling in love, and if the ex experiences something similar, then this feeling will create the illusion of "repeating the past" and cause an irresistible desire to use the "granted by fate" to reunite again.

Return to reality

And so, your attitude towards each other is determined, you both recognized the breakup as a terrible mistake and now you are bathed in tenderness for each other, wanting to unite hearts as soon as possible and continue the love that had suddenly ended. You are ready to give up everything - your current partners, families and go all-out, just to be together.

In fact, this is the most dangerous moment in restoring this type of relationship, and mistakes will be very expensive, the cost of which will be the ruined lives of your loved ones. And even if both of you are free, or both are unhappy in your current relationship, you shouldn't rush. While both of you are in a state of illusion, living in a world of memories and delight, you tend to over-idealize your partner, not knowing who and what you are dealing with in reality.

So far, both of you are not in the present for each other. You are each other's past, and the past is always perceived in rainbow colors. Until you move from the past to the present, and the present does not prevail over the past in your communication, there is nothing to even think about how to change your life. There is still a lot to do.

When you were young, the life of one of you was known to another. You were happy to share stories about yourself, about your friends and relatives, about your tastes, habits and preferences. Disputes and disagreements arose between you, which you learned to resolve. In this way, you recognized your partner and yourself became "transparent" for him.

Now, many years later, it is not only impossible to rely on old information, but it is also dangerous to do so. Much has changed both in your tastes and in life principles. You went through several stages of life separately from each other, your personalities were transformed in different ways and until your partner appears before you as he is - without embellishment, and you will not appear before him in the same form, risk the new error will be very high.

You should once again “live” that part of your life when you were apart and did not know anything about the former, but only “live” it already with him, and he needs to do the same. Both of you must transfer your relationship from the past to the present, when you can communicate without memories, begin to live not the past, but the current life of each other and become "transparent" again. Only from this moment can you start counting the BEGINNING of building new relationships and not a second earlier.

Well, and then everything is as usual when building and developing relationships, with the only difference that you will have to act, perhaps, in more difficult conditions than in youth. But you can't rush until you are sure that you are on the right track and that you have passed all the "checks" for compatibility, because the cost of a mistake will be immeasurably higher, especially if for the sake of your happiness, you have to make other people unhappy.

It is quite possible that after a while, when the euphoria has passed, the truth will open up in front of you, and you will understand “no, this is not my man,” and the “hand of fate” was intended just so that you understand this and do not regret the past breakup. ... And your great happiness if this epiphany occurs before you have time to make a hasty decision.

FROM THE AUTHOR: My answers in the comments are the opinion of a private person and not a recommendation from a specialist. I try to answer everyone without exception, but unfortunately I physically do not have time to study long stories, analyze them, ask questions about them and then answer in detail, and I also do not have the opportunity to accompany your situations, because this requires a huge amount of free time, and I have very little of it.

In this regard, I very much ask you to ask specific questions on the topic of the article, do not expect that I will advise in the comments or accompany your situation.

Of course, you can ignore my request (which many do), but in this case, be prepared for the fact that I may not answer you. This is not a matter of principle, but exclusively of time and my physical capabilities. Don't be offended.

If you want to receive qualified help, please, contact for advice, and I will devote my time and knowledge to you with full dedication.

Best regards and hope for understanding, Frederica

First love is the most romantic and strongest feeling. No matter how many years have passed, whoever we become in life, mentally we will often return to our first love. And it also happens that after many years the lovers meet, feelings flood in, and it seems that everything will happen again. But is it really so? And is it possible in reality to return your first love?

Why is the first love not forgotten?

First love is unlike any other feeling. It awakens new emotions in us, some of which will be repeated many times, and some of them will never be felt again. Although first love is usually very strong, most often it ends in a breakup. Even more often, first love is unrequited. But be that as it may, forgetting about it does not work, although there is nothing wrong with that.

First of all, this is love - a positive feeling and emotions. Even if it ended sadly, you need to be grateful to fate that it gave you the opportunity to experience this great feeling.
The first guy taught you a lot: love, fight for your love, open up and trust.
Thanks to this feeling, it became clear to you what exactly you value in men. Obviously, the first guy had good qualities if you were in love with him at some point. Focus on these qualities as something to look for in the next person, not that you have lost them.
You know that love exists. Some people spend most of their lives looking forward to their first love. Some people have to wait so long that they wonder if there is love in the world?
These are many pleasant warm memories. As numerous studies of psychologists show, positive nostalgic feelings set up optimism. Reduces anxiety, relaxes.
This is the first intimate contact that will be remembered for a lifetime. If sex happened with a loved one, then the memories of him will be stored all life, gradually displacing all unpleasant thoughts.

But sometimes, first love can be a serious threat to your current relationship. You can constantly compare all your partners with that very first man and look for his features in them. The fact that you cannot forget your first love will prevent you from falling in love again.

Could the first love be repeated?

It's about a relationship with the same person. It often happens that people renew their relationship after many years. It is in romantic films that we are touched, watching how the heroes love each other all their lives and in the end reunite after much suffering. But the authors of the film finish the story with this. We are not shown how the heroes live on. But in reality, after all, everything is not at all like that. It is not always possible to repeat the first love after many years. After all, people are changing and today the person you loved is already a completely different person with new views and beliefs. Maybe he's gotten better, or maybe worse.

You have also changed. Today you are no longer that young girl who was naive and open, looked at the world with trusting eyes. Simply today, you will not be able to find a common language with the man with whom you were once so in love.

Also, different social statuses of partners can interfere with the renewal of former relationships. Well, the banal reason is that each of the former lovers can have families. Although, strong love will not interfere with anything.

Where does the desire to return first love come from?

Despite the fact that unpleasant memories are associated with first love, I still want to return it. No matter how ugly you parted, the memory will remember only those feelings and emotions that you experienced. As a rule, these are romanticism, pure intentions, hopes, brightness of emotions, excitement and belief in a great future. Growing up, people understand intellectually that all these feelings are associated with youthful maximalism and naivety. But the subconscious mind dictates its own rules again - it wants to repeat these emotions. And you can only experience them with the person you first fell in love with.

Another reason why people want to return their first love after many years is the understatement that remained in the relationship. Perhaps the parting was incomprehensible, there were some misunderstandings, unspoken thoughts. Returning first love is an opportunity to speak out and be heard.

They are also looking for first love because a person wants to give himself a second chance. This is an attempt to become young again, to forget all the failures that have happened to him over the years, to correct the mistakes he has made.

What is remarkable, most often women want to return their first love. this is due to the sentimentality and romance of their nature. Men, on the other hand, prefer not to return to the old, but to look for something new.

How to get your first love back?

Returning a person and feelings that were experienced many years ago is difficult. This is much more difficult than returning the man with whom you had a falling out a few days ago. You need to understand that over the years there have been many changes in the life of each of the former partners. If the relationship develops, it will not be the same. They will be new. Therefore, you need to change both yourself and your attitude towards first love. First of all, there is no need to idealize and place great hopes on this relationship.

What to do if the relationship doesn't work out

Unfortunately, it may happen that you returned your first love, began to meet with him, and maybe even live, but the emotions that you were waiting for do not happen. Why is this happening?

both of you have matured and changed your views on many things, including each other;
you may have developed habits or qualities that were not there before;
perhaps your loved one did not become what you imagined him to be during the time of separation;
it is very difficult to come to terms with those women and men who have been in your lives;
you just didn't get along.

And this is the harsh truth of life. In youth, everything seems simple and unpretentious. No need to pretend and adjust. You don't need to think about anything, you can just dream and believe. You just need to listen to your emotions and follow them. In adulthood, all this is pushed into the background. In the main place are social and everyday problems, career, financial crisis, health.

As you can see, we often feel nostalgic for feelings that no longer exist. We dream of returning those emotions that different people experienced. You need to understand that a person at the age of 20 and 20 is two different souls in one body. And it is very difficult for them to fit in it at the same time. Therefore, you need to accept the truth that everything in life has its time. And trying to change that is illegal, it is against nature. In most cases, it is better to let go of the first love, leaving yourself with fond memories.

Once on the street I met him. It was a grown man with a beer belly, walking arm in arm with his wife and son. Everything in him has changed, he has matured, but by the eyes I recognized the boy with whom I had been in love many years ago. The last time I saw him was when I was in school, and this encounter was very unexpected. More than 12 years have passed ...

"How do you? What are you doing? How are you?" - I asked the most commonplace questions for such a case, and suddenly everything turned upside down in my soul.

No, I didn’t feel that I love him again, I just realized how time flies. All these years suddenly stood in front of me. It seemed to me that everything was only yesterday ...

Has he or I changed?

Leaves only pleasant memories. Experiences, tears, resentments dissolve, and a slight aftertaste, romantic encounters are stored for many, many years. It seems that only recently we walked after school, he played the guitar, we kissed in the entrance. These exciting memories, like jewels, are cherished in my memory.

But when I saw him 12 years later, I realized that everything had changed, time did not spare me either. There is no longer that carefree girl who spent her evenings in the yard, who was afraid to get a deuce and wore short skirts. I no longer laugh the same way - loudly and carefree, I don’t dream under the moon and don’t believe in a prince.

Life has changed beyond recognition. I became more mature, more serious, more responsible. What's left of that girl? Now I am a mother myself, a leader in a team, and very much. But it is somehow sad that all these achievements pale before memories.

How to behave?

I looked at him, at such familiar features and so unusual. This is no longer a boy, but someone completely different. We exchanged some phrases, he introduced me to his wife. But I looked at my watch and tried to escape as quickly as possible. I came up with an excuse that they are waiting for me, that there is no time. Why did I run away? I just didn't want to spoil my memories.

My thoughts about that time help me live. It seems to me that I will be happy to tell my grandchildren about this boy, about how I was going on dates, about how awkwardly I hugged at the entrance and dreamed of marrying him. And I don't want to darken them with what he is today. I'm not sure that new meetings or communication will bring something more touching and important in these memorable moments.

This boy is a symbol of my past. It's like a frozen episode that you don't want to change or rewrite. But this meeting is making adjustments. She seems to make this wonderful time somehow incomplete. And from this I want to escape even faster.

Together into the future

In my life there are people from the past with whom I see quite often. These are my friends. Our friendship has been going on for decades, and it seems to me that they have not changed. I look into their faces and understand that these are the same girls with whom we sat in the same class, walked in the evenings, went to the camp and were happy. Probably, their faces and figures are changing, their characters are becoming harder, but I do not notice this, because they are always there. And when you look at them, just as bright and interesting, you think that time has not touched me either.

But such strange ones suddenly put everything in its place. It turns out that we simply do not know how to notice something that is happening next to us, we do not focus on what is happening under our nose. But distant objects give us a hard truth: time affects everyone.

I ran away. For myself, I am sure that I did the right thing, that I did not need to spend many hours with him to understand how everything changed. But there are a couple of people in my life whom, on the contrary, I would very much like to meet. These are no longer children's novels, but more adult stories. And I'm not looking for a continuation, but just dreaming of finding out how it all turned out. But at this thought the heart contracts in a strange way. I understand that this is curiosity, that this is important to me, but won't this become a meeting similar to the one described?

Is a meeting with the past so necessary, can it bring joy, not disappointment? But what if after it you want to return everything, that you suddenly realize that you made a mistake? This story, this collision caused a storm of emotions inside me, but the past cannot be changed. I am even a little jealous of those who have moved to another city or country, and may not worry that someday they will meet someone from the former.

Find a foothold in the past.First love is part of our personal history. Returning to youth, we are looking for the source of unspent strength in ourselves.
Confirm your worth.It is important for us to make sure that our life choices are correct and to end a relationship that has not been continued. By parting with ideal images of the past, we can build new relationships in real-life circumstances.