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Does your first love affect future relationships?

It can also shape your future relationships, including how you go about rekindling the spark with future partners. If you find a first love is shaping your present relationships — or thoughts of future ones — a bit too much, you may begin to feel stuck. 6 days ago

betterhelp.com - How Your First Love Shapes Your Future Relationships | BetterHelp

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It is sometimes said that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The sensation of falling in love is thought to be one of the more exhilarating experiences that a human can go through and can be incredibly special. It can also shape your future relationships, including how you go about rekindling the spark with future partners. If you find a first love is shaping your present relationships — or thoughts of future ones — a bit too much, you may begin to feel stuck. Understanding the impact of a first love and finding productive ways to move forward can help you develop healthy, fulfilling relationships.

Are You Feeling Stuck In The Past? Move Forward With Counseling

Young Love

Feelings of love tend to be very personal. For instance, some people might have first fallen in love when they were in their early teens, while others have their first experience with romantic love in later decades. Some people might even insist that they fell in love for the first time when they were as young as five or six years old. Some may recall an experience of “puppy love” — a youthful, intense feeling of romantic love — sometimes full of movie-worthy love letters, poetry, roses, or heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. Most people who experienced first love like this when they were young grow to understand that while the love they felt was very real, it was probably relatively simple. Even so, they may wish they could rekindle those innocent, exciting feelings.

First Love Later In Life

What if your first love occurs when you’re more mature, when you’re old enough to appreciate more complex sensations of love? What if there is a strong sexual attraction along with love? For some people, if their first love is also their first sexual partner, they may feel they’ve developed strong feelings of intimacy that can stay with them and affect future relationships.

“You Never Forget Your First Love”

“You never forget your first love” is a famous cliché that can have some truth to it. Your first love may actually have an impact on your brain. Feel-good brain chemicals called neurotransmitters are released when we’re in love, including dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. Physical touch can make pleasurable feelings even more intense. The brain may remember these pleasurable feelings and intense sensations from your first love and make you want to re-experience the neurochemical “high” you felt. When a first love occurs during adolescence, people may be more likely to vividly remember the feelings of being in love. During the adolescent years, first love may leave an imprint on the brain while individuals are developing neurologically and forming their identities. Thus, the memories can be intense. People may remember the pleasure or spark of their first love. They may continue to chase that type of feeling or dwell on it. Looking for that strong connection again makes sense in some ways, but it might not always be realistic. A person’s first love can be idealized over time and develop into something almost mythical that isn’t attainable. Instead, a more mature love can be both possible and fulfilling.

The One Who Got Away

First love, particularly if it takes place when people are young, often doesn’t last, but its effects can. “The one who got away” may seem, in hindsight, to have been the perfect love. Perhaps you and your first love parted ways because you were young and had different goals, life circumstances, or geographic locations. Maybe one or both of you felt you wanted to experience other relationships or didn’t feel it was the right time for a commitment. Or, you may have experienced conflict and were no longer happy together. For whatever reason, the two of you may have gone your separate ways. Such a breakup can come with feelings of heartache and lingering feelings. Moving forward, you may look back and wonder how your life could have been different if you had stayed together.

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If you idealize your first love — the relationship, the partner, or both — you may find it can affect your future relationships. You may view your first love as ideal because that’s how they appear in your memories. You may also find yourself longing for the past, which can keep you from living fully in the present and working towards a fulfilling future.

The One Who Stayed

Another scenario is that partners stay with their first love. There are real-life couples who were high school sweethearts or childhood friends who have built a meaningful life and lasting connection together. However, their relationship may be fulfilling for reasons beyond their first experience of love. Their relationship may have matured and grown to have research-backed traits of successful relationships. Studies show that the success of relationships depends on qualities such as the individuals’ communication styles, empathy for each other, goals, priorities, appreciation for each other, sexual satisfaction, and healthy conflict management. If first loves get married, the age of the partners can also be a factor in how successful the relationship will be. For instance, they may be each other’s first young love, but they may not commit to marriage until they’re older and have grown through the transformative years of being a teenager and young adult. There is some research that shows that people are less likely to divorce if they marry between the ages of 25 and 34.

Moving On From A First Love

Some people move on from a first love and find that their experience shapes their future relationships in positive ways. But moving forward from past relationships can also be challenging at times. After all, significant life experiences — and close people in your life — can influence your behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and memories. People often long for positive experiences from their past. For instance, they may remember the spark, excitement, passion, intensity, fun, or novelty of a first love. In other cases, they may find that a difficult past relationship or an ugly or heartbreaking split negatively affects their outlook and their future relationships. Growing and moving forward can be important for living a fulfilling life. While feelings from first loves may linger, a sense of being stuck can feel frustrating. On a hopeful note, there are effective strategies to try using if you’d like to find ways to grow from a past relationship.

Tips to let go and move on include:

Feeling Your Feelings: Accepting and even naming the way you’re feeling without judgement can help you address the feelings in a positive way. For instance, you may feel longing for the past, regret about how a relationship ended, or fear that you won’t be able to recreate the spark you had with your first love. You may feel fearful about future breakups or about starting a new relationship. Learning about how you feel and why you feel it can help you process the feelings and move forward with a greater understanding of yourself and your views about relationships. Make A Commitment To Let Go Of Negative Or Unproductive Feelings: Thinking about why and how you seem to be stuck on past experiences and feelings and committing to healthy ways to move on can feel empowering and motivate you to make healthy progress. Take Responsibility: If you feel responsible for the end of a relationship, accepting that feeling can be a step towards resolution and future growth. You can be kind to yourself about it while still acknowledging the role you played and considering how you might handle relationships differently in the future. Focus On What’s Possible Outside Of A Relationship: Instead of dwelling on a past relationship and wishing you could recreate those feelings in a new one, you might try focusing on your life outside of a romantic relationship. Treating yourself with compassion, taking time for self-care, enjoying non-romantic relationships, and focusing on growing in your job or hobbies can help you feel fulfilled. In time, you may feel ready for another romantic relationship.

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Are You Feeling Stuck In The Past? Move Forward With Counseling

Therapeutic Intervention

It may be easy to acknowledge that fixating on first love can hold you back from living in the present and working towards a fulfilling future. But finding ways to move forward can take some introspection and effort. In therapy, you can work on understanding, developing, and strengthening healthy thoughts, feelings, and behaviors about relationships. Sometimes feeling stuck emotionally can manifest as a physical feeling as well. You may experience feelings of fatigue, alienation, or even depression that can make it hard to leave the house to meet with a therapist. In these cases, online therapy can be a viable option. With an internet connection, you can meet with a licensed mental health professional from the comfort of your home. You may be surprised to learn that online therapy has been proven to be quite effective. Research in the field of mental health suggests that this type of therapy can be just as effective as in-person counseling in many cases. You can reach out and connect with a licensed mental health professional at BetterHelp. They can offer you individualized support to help you address your concerns.

Takeaway

In many cases, first love can conjure up some wonderful and treasured memories that you can carry with you throughout your life. In other cases, the memories may be holding you back. In therapy, you can find ways to learn from the past and put your experiences in perspective, so that you can move forward and enjoy a healthy present and fulfilling future.

betterhelp.com - How Your First Love Shapes Your Future Relationships | BetterHelp

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