Am I Being Selfish

[DN]

I really don't understand why people think that other people's emotions are the same as theirs. Just because one person may take a long time to 'get over' a lover it doesn't follow that everyone else is the same or that their love was any the less meaningful of intense because they recover faster.

 

Just as relationships can begin with people falling in love at different speeds so a relationship can deteriorate at different speeds. Often people have exited the relationship emotionally long before the actual break-up. Sometimes, pometimes people think they are over and ex when they are not and get with someone else not really realising that they are still in love with the ex. And some people's emotions arrive and fade faster than others but that doesn't mean they are less intense or meaningful.

 

Life and emotions aren't like a game of chess where you progress from square to square and once you are in one you can't interact with emotions and feelings for people and circumstances that you will experience in the next square or the previous one. These things overlap and overlay and are not felt in isolation from each other.

 

So to say someone didn't feel love, or a strong enough love, because they moved to another relationship so quickly only shows how you would feel and doesn't make other people's emotions less meaningful or profound because their reactions and actions are not the same.

[thouse]

We didn't break up because we didn't want to be with each other. He was raised with my family ever since he was about 15, so when we started seeing each other the family was not pleased. He felt like he didn't want to be the person that would make me choose between my family and him because that is what it was coming to. He said at that time he felt like breaking up and moving on was the right thing to do for everyone and to keep the peace. About 3 months after he got with her he came to me one day and said that he made a mistake, and that he felt like the family would just have to learn to live with it, because he wanted to be with me so when he went into that relationship he was not over me. Not to say it was right or wrong the way he went about trying to heal but that is what happened. Now a third person is hurt because that girl is very upset about this whole thing which is understandable. I am sure at the beginning of the relationship she did not know he was not over his ex.