What Life Is Like After You Lose Your ‘Forever Person’

Breathe.

That’s where it begins and that where you need to start.

Because if you’ve lost your forever love, you’re simply not prepared for this kind of pain.

And right now, it’s just between you and the pain. No one else. Not your family, not your friends, not your shrink – no one.

The pain is there every morning and every night because that’s the time you shared with him/with her. That was your quiet time. No matter what happened during any particular day, those moments are when you were next to them.

That was peace. Even if you were fighting, they were still there. And there was always morning fun. That quiet, sleepy, bad breath, pajamas-half-off sex that feels more raw and intimate sometimes as opposed to bedtime sex but it’s completely perfect for you two.

Because they were your forever.

But now they’re not.

Losing whom you thought was your forever love is not just a breakup, and it’s not just a broken heart. It’s way beyond that.

It feels like a piece of your heart has been cut out from you, that’s there’s no ground upon which to stand, and that you will never be the same.

And you’re entirely right.

So you need to breathe.

Place the tip of your tongue on the top of your mouth and close your mouth. Now, breathe in and hold it for as long as you can. Shut your eyes.

Now open your mouth and your eyes and release your breath as slowly as you can. It’s an ancient Japanese martial arts technique, and it works. Have patience with it. It’s a little tricky at first, but it works.

You’ve taken the first step.

You don’t deserve this. Not in any way. And that’s the second thing. It doesn’t even matter the how’s and why’s anymore. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or you’re wrong in any or all of it.

It was forever. And now it’s not.

They say that the final price we pay for love is grief, and now you know why. You’re paying the price for it.

And it hurts, this pain. In fact, it burns, this ring of pain. It burns hot.

Forever is different. True forever means you didn’t settle. Quite the opposite – you fought for him/for her. Your heart came to a fork in the road and you had the courage, the passion and the belief in them to take the road less taken.

You took a piece of your soul and trusted it to him. You gave it to her. It’s not a small thing for you. And while you never said it out loud you would have gladly died for her because that’s what forever means. And because that’s how much you loved him.

And now it’s gone.

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote once that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. He was a famous Victorian poet.

Over the centuries, it’s become a famous philosophical question. As in – which is better or worse – to never have loved than loved and lost?

You now know the answer, which, beyond fuck you, you famous Victorian poet – is this:

No.

It’s better to have never loved like this because this pain is too much to bear, this cross to heavy, and this mountain too high.

Forever means just what it implies: You will never, ever have another lover; this naked body in front of you will be yours forever, and your naked body his. Your souls are one. Ups and downs you will face together you say, no matter what. His hand in yours. Your hand in his: you two against the world.

I know the feeling. Many do. You’re not alone, and we’re with you.

For D.T. and me, it was 1,825 days. That’s four years, 11 months and 30 days, if you’re counting at home.

I did, I counted. You will too.

So you have to breathe.

True story: overheard a conversation between a guy and some folks. He was detailing his alcohol abuse and how he was pretty sure he couldn’t avoid jail because of the messed up things he did while drunk. And he also talked about losing his forever because she chose not to stand by him. She took the road most taken, as my D.T. did. She took the easy way.

Listening from afar, I heard his friends commiserate how fucked up that was for him – meaning the jail time, and couldn’t he somehow get out of it?

“You’re not listening!” he fairly shouted. “I would gladly do the time if I could just have her back….I would pay any price,” he said, his voice growing softer and softer as distant thoughts of him and her, and his love for her, began surfacing.

This is what losing forever means.

All this time you’ve been waiting to give your self completely and totally. Not your body; that’s the easy part, and you’ve already given that to others – but that part of you that was only yours, like a secret ING account that you put a few bucks in just for you.

I’m waiting for you, you said, first to yourself, then to him.

And you found him. You found her. And it was perfect.

Until it ended.

And now it’s just you and this pain that screams at you: will it ever fucking go away?

I’ve tried anything and everything. From booze to fighting. From running, to lifting to long walks, to writing. I start and stop Match and Tinder more times than I can count.

I meet girls. Yeah, they’re cute, they’re hot but….they’re not her. And I won’t lie to them just to get them in bed. It’s not me. And I won’t do to them what she did to me. You shouldn’t either.

If you know the feeling, you know – anything to keep the pain at bay, to keep it just humming below the surface and not screaming inside your head.

So I breathe.

It begins with that.