What To Do When You Can’t Let Go of The One You Love (4-Video Compilation)

Being romantically fixated on someone out of reach can quietly destroy your life. It can act like a drug—initially intoxicating and comforting, convincing you that possessing that person will transform your profound emptiness into something wonderful. But remember: it’s a drug. It numbs pain for a while, then the effect fades, and before you know it the “solution” has bulldozed through everything meaningful in your life. Could it truly be that the single person you lost explains the prolonged sadness you feel? Maybe — but only if you can recognize the warning signs. Today’s letter comes from a man I’ll call Ed, who asks, “Hello, Anna. Am I trapped in a CPTSD trauma bond mixed with limerence? I grew up an only child; my mother was an alcoholic and my upbringing was understandably unhealthy.” All right — I’ll mark a few things to revisit on a second read, but let’s unpack Ed’s story and see what’s happening.
Ed says he was emotionally neglected, spent much of his childhood alone, and found it difficult to form or maintain friendships. His parents divorced when he was seven, remarried, then divorced again when he was 18. He left high school in his sophomore year because of his home situation; his parents allowed it, and later he earned a GED. He claims never to have used drugs or alcohol. At 16 going on 17 he met his first love and lost his virginity to her. She’d been seeking a “nice guy” after a string of bad relationships and had her own history of abuse from her mother. Ed adored her and bent over backwards to keep her happy; she became the most important person in his life. He became submissive, felt used, and lived with constant anxiety that she might cheat, mistreat, or abandon him. About a year later she left to pursue partying, drinking, and drugs — activities he avoided. That breakup devastated him; he says he wanted to die, was immobilized by grief, exploded with anger and tears, and felt worthless for failing to keep the person who meant the most to him. He continues to struggle with many effects of that breakup, including sexual trauma, though he’s not entirely sure what that term means for him.
After that, another girlfriend cheated on him. A year later he met the woman who became his wife of 25 years. He married while still wounded and too young, fearing loss because of his past. He oversold himself to secure the marriage, treating it as stability, a means of survival. Only now does he recognize that he loves her as a friend and the mother of his children, but he never felt the chemistry, connection, and attraction he experienced with his first girlfriend. He questions whether he truly knows what love is. Throughout his marriage he has thought about his ex and never completely shook his feelings for her. He has not been able to meet his wife’s emotional needs the way he once did for that first girlfriend, and has felt a persistent disconnect. Before his wife’s first pregnancy he already sensed that something wasn’t right and privately questioned the marriage, but they soon had two wonderful children, now adults. He refused to leave the marriage to spare his children a repeat of an early divorce experience. Yet he’s been unhappy, and his wife perceives that, telling him she waits for the day he announces he will leave — though she stays because she knows it’s a possibility.
Ed reunited with his first love about a year ago after thirty years. She’s married with adult children. He met her seeking closure — a suggestion from a prior therapist that he now regrets. His wife knew about the meeting, hoping it might help while he was struggling: he’d had a nervous breakdown at work, lost his job, and was on disability. He lives with diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and says he has no friends. The ex apologized for the past, they reconnected on Facebook, and she invited him into a group she runs that shares their interests. From that point things became a roller coaster of anxiety, tears, and mixed signals causing distress for Ed, his ex, and his wife. There was no sexual infidelity, but clearly an emotional one: Ed admitted living by his phone, waiting for calls, texts, likes, or hearts from his ex, posting in the group to feel noticed, and collapsing with heartbreak when she didn’t respond. He joined group meetups to help and often felt used, but continued to pursue her. Eventually she expressed mutual feelings. For brevity, they still communicate less now; he’s left the group, but he can’t stop thinking about her and is tormented by the sense that he wasn’t good enough back then. He tries to focus on the good in his current life, but remains tortured. He asks whether this is a mix of trauma bonding, limerence, unhappiness, and mental illness; whether exes should be friends when both are married; how to let go and go no-contact; whether he should confess his feelings to his wife; and whether his emotions are rooted in trauma bonds rather than genuine love. He thanks me for my videos and time.
Ed, thank you for writing. This is weighty. I’m so sorry about your childhood and the pain of your early romance. You said you feel you lost her because you weren’t good enough — but remember, you were 16 or 17. From what you describe, you were the “nice guy” she hadn’t had before, and that dynamic explains a lot. A common human pattern — especially when people haven’t fully healed their trauma — is to feel less attracted to someone who treats you well and to romanticize the people who mistreated you. You’re doing now what she did then: equating the “missing feeling” with being unfulfilled by someone who’s steady and kind. It’s possible, though unlikely, that being with her now would be the missing piece for you. But there are clearer indicators that the feelings you’re describing are shaped by unresolved trauma.
One major sign is that you have no friends. You’ve listed serious psychiatric diagnoses and no social network. If someone has one anchor person (your wife of 25 years), yet still seeks emotional validation in the past, that’s a red flag. You voiced the language of limerence and trauma-driven attachment. From your letter, I don’t see clear evidence of a trauma bond as typically defined, which involves patterns of intermittent reinforcement, though some elements overlap. It’s unclear whether your ex would ever leave her marriage for you; you didn’t say you’d had that conversation, and if you had, you likely would have mentioned it. My impression is that she may have enjoyed the intensity of reconnecting and then pulled back. That’s my inference, because you didn’t state a mutual decision to leave spouses for each other.
High-school-reunion-style reunions often carry powerful nostalgia and idealization. In our teens we were less guarded; love felt fearless and expansive. Now, with water under the bridge and decades of life experience, it’s rare that a rekindled relationship will match the idealized fantasy you remember. The central test is: how does this connection make you feel? Your experience has been an emotional affair: secretive, roller-coastering, and misery-inducing. That’s not the texture of a healthy, lasting relationship. Real, lasting love grows through shared life over time — not through furtive texts and online interactions that you interpret as signals. If the affair requires secrecy or you’re unwilling to actually leave your marriage for this other person, the situation is inherently unstable and unlikely to be the foundation you imagine.
I don’t rule out that some people discover later-in-life partners who are genuinely better matches than their first spouses, but that usually involves clarity, honesty, and people who are actually available. If you’re sneaking around emotionally, that diminishes the potential for a wholesome connection. And even if an ex did want to leave her spouse, it would be a brutal moral situation to pursue. Don’t try to extract someone from their marriage; if she’s genuinely interested, she will take steps herself. For now, if you want to preserve your marriage and protect your wife from unnecessary pain, do not unload the details of this emotional affair on her unless you are actually prepared to walk away from the marriage. Telling her your fantasies without having decided your course will only hurt her. I disagree with the blanket “you must tell your spouse everything” maxim in cases like this; we must consider other people’s feelings and avoid dragging them through our unresolved emotional turbulence while indecisive.
The therapist who advised a reunion for “closure” may have been misguided. Closure isn’t typically created by re-exposure; closure usually comes from stopping the contact and committing to your chosen path. You can have contact with exes in some circumstances, but if it must be secret, you’re entering dangerous territory. When you’re healing from trauma, you can’t afford moral compromise. Clearing up harmful patterns and making amends — like people in recovery often do — relieves shame and restores integrity. Sneaky or grandiose beliefs that someone you barely know now is “the one” are common but destructive.
I think your pattern shows a trauma-driven attachment wound that eroticizes abandonment, turning the person who hurt or left you into an emblem of love. Some of this is limerence — an addiction to hope and intermittent reinforcement. That hope can feel like a lifeline but functions like a drug. I won’t assert definitively whether your ex is intentionally stringing you along, but because she’s married and seems to be pulling back, the compassionate and moral choice is to allow her space and to stop trying to break her marriage apart. If she wants to act, she will. Meanwhile, don’t tell your wife about fantasies that you aren’t acting on; instead, work quietly to heal so you can show up more lovingly where you are.
Practical steps: you need friends and joy outside this fixation. The group and activities you shared with your ex brought happiness; you need to cultivate other social outlets. Don’t assume one person can make your entire life meaningful — that’s unstable. Join communities, pursue hobbies, and build friendships. Twelve-step groups can help, especially for people from alcoholic families. Consider programs and communities where people meet for regular practice, mutual support, and peer connection. Healing tools, consistent practice, and new friendships will help more than chasing an idealized past.
To summarize: limerence is an addictive infatuation with someone who’s not reciprocating, and it’s destructive to both parties. If you’re the one fixated, you’ll hide the obsession, but the other person can feel it, and it doesn’t feel good to be on the receiving end without reciprocation. Try to stop secretive contact, find supportive communities, develop real friendships and joys, and repair your life through honest, sober choices rather than chasing a fantasy.
Now, another letter — from a woman I’ll call Romy — asks about saving a dear friendship. She’s been friends with “H” for nearly a decade. At first he showed romantic interest but she ignored him until he stopped contacting her. They moved in the same social circles and reconnected. Romy is extremely extroverted by nature and in her work meets many people, so it’s easy for her to start conversations and form relationships. She and H rebuilt a friendship with clear boundaries. Over the years she dated others and later became engaged; H knows her fiancé and they socialized together. Their interactions were usually logistical — invites to games or meet-ups — with occasional deeper talks about family and work. Romy is not a touchy-feely person and avoids physical contact, mindful that male-female friendships can mislead. Yet in the last two months H began texting more often with frequent check-ins and small messages designed to elicit responses. He started sending long messages during work hours; contact escalated from every two weeks to every two days. He offered to help with life events, promised to cancel future plans to be available, and repeatedly apologized for just “being.” His behavior felt manipulative and sometimes bizarre. Romy grew uncomfortable; friends noticed he seemed in love. She researched limerence and learned it can be triggered by an engagement. She cut back contact and tried to make their encounters boring and infrequent. In retrospect she thinks this pattern has been longer than she realized: H once told her about other women he was seeing, but lately there’s none of that; even his friend life seems diminished. Romy doesn’t want H pining for her; he deserves hobbies and a partner who reciprocates. They’re incompatible in values and independence levels. She worries she’s overanalyzing, but suspects H is limerent. Can she salvage the friendship if he’s infatuated with her? She fears hurting him either way and mentions her fiancé knows and is worried for H as well.
Romy, the answer is painful but clear: continuing this relationship with H as it stands isn’t kind to either of you. Ten years of this dynamic means it’s unlikely to improve while contact remains. Limerence acts like a hard addiction — hope is the hit that keeps the person tethered. Limerent people rarely transparently declare their love and demand resolution; instead, they keep chasing the hope that someday the other person will reciprocate. That “hope” feels necessary to them like a drug. The compassionate move for someone stuck in limerence is to cut contact so they can free themselves to find real love. If you truly care about H, ending the friendship is a gift: it removes the fix and allows him to pursue healthy relationships.
Practically, the clearest solution is to end the friendship kindly but decisively: explain you feel romantic energy that’s unhealthy for your life path, thank him for years of friendship, and say you can’t spend time together anymore. That’s a breakup of a sort, and though it will be hard, many people find relief and clarity afterward. You aren’t a villain for doing this — the current pattern is invasive and uncomfortable. Also be mindful of other friendships that might carry similar dynamics; sometimes people become serial objects of other people’s limerence or unwittingly encourage it. Keep relationships straightforward: no hidden agendas, no secretive emotional entanglements. If the friendship is truly platonic and adults can respect boundaries, it might be sustainable, but when one person is stuck in longing and the other can’t reciprocate, the healthiest path is separation so everyone can move forward.
Next: Sasha’s letter asks whether she’s deluding herself about a long-distance online connection with a man from a trauma-healing school. She met someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style; Sasha had done considerable personal work and believed she’d achieved an earned secure attachment. She admired his commitment to healing and the fact that they seemed closely aligned on values, goals, and visions of raising children. Although they lived on different continents, they started regular video calls that lasted hours. After a few months she confessed romantic feelings; he had previously said he didn’t want long-distance relationships, yet oddly he seemed willing to consider one if she moved to him — which wasn’t possible due to her health. After she explained she couldn’t relocate, he shut down the idea of partnership and insisted they remain friends. She tried to move on but couldn’t. Over time he increased contact until they were speaking morning and night almost daily, often with deep emotional sharing. He said she made him feel understood and sometimes “like heaven.” His words and demeanor led Sasha to believe he was in love, yet when she mentioned it he denied romantic interest and reiterated they could only be friends. He pulled close but kept saying he didn’t want more; boundaries were attempted but the daily contact resumed by his initiative. She felt joyful, cultivated depth and trust, and believed they brought out the best in each other — yet he refused to be a partner. He said he’d been in love once before with someone who rejected him, and he was still grieving. He’d done healing work and previously couldn’t imagine cohabiting, but lately the desire for partnership had grown. After a year and a half of this push-pull, he started talking about wanting to find a partner who wasn’t her; Sasha found that unbearable and went no-contact. It’s been six months since they broke off contact, three months of absolute silence. She still misses him daily, remembers the peaceful and joyful moments, and can’t understand how he could leave a connection like theirs for someone local. She’s tried dating but felt disappointed; the whole experience feels hopeless. She asks whether she’s deluding herself about his love and how to move on.
Sasha, you need to hope for more — for a physically present partner who openly wants to be with you. You didn’t have that. Long-distance courtship can work, but only when both people have mutual intent and make concrete moves within a reasonable timeframe. If contact stretches beyond a couple months without clear plans, it’s usually not going to become a real partnership. Also, believing you’re fully “earned secure” when you keep attaching deeply to someone who repeatedly says they don’t want a relationship signals you still have unresolved attachment issues. You devoted hours daily to someone who said he didn’t want a partner. You hoped your time, care, and presence would turn him into someone who wanted you, but you must first listen to what people explicitly tell you. Actions and words matter: if he repeatedly states he doesn’t want a relationship, you can’t reliably “convert” that through devotion.
Your online video calls and emotional labor turned you into a convenient, unpaid therapist and companion for someone who wasn’t committed. This dynamic frequently appears in personal-development communities and online healing spaces, where vulnerable people gather and sometimes emotional vampirism emerges. You poured yourself in, believing that if you loved him enough he would reciprocate. That’s a classic “fixing” fantasy and a recipe for being hurt. The healthier pattern is not to maintain friendship when one party has unreciprocated romantic feelings; long-term platonic relationships where one person is still in love are usually untenable. Going no-contact was the right move. Grieve the loss, but recognize that the moments you recall as pure joy are incomplete — they were mixed with confusion, hurt, and unrequited longing. Limerence clouds reality with hopeful fantasies; the “hope” keeps you hooked. You can use this as a turning point: stop pouring your life force into someone who will not love you back, re-invest in friendships (especially close female friends), and build a life that attracts people who are available and excited about you. Set clear boundaries for online friendships — if someone hasn’t declared romantic interest and commitment, don’t give them your daily emotional bandwidth.
Finally, another letter — from Carlen — echoes many of the same themes. She met a man in an online attachment-style program. She believed she had achieved earned secure attachment after doing a lot of healing, but fell for a 32-year-old man while she’s 39. He had a dismissive-avoidant style and prioritized his healing efforts on overcoming intergenerational trauma. They bonded over shared values, had long video calls, and she felt they were compatible. After she expressed romantic interest, he initially entertained the idea only if she would move to him; when she explained she couldn’t, he shut down the possibility and insisted on friendship. Despite trying to move on, they fell into daily, lengthy calls. He confided deeply, cried to her, and said she made him feel understood and joyful, sometimes “like heaven.” Yet he refused to be her partner, citing distance as the only clear reason, a rationale Carlen finds insufficient to give up “the love of my life.” She tried dating others but felt they were unhealthy. She begs for perspective and asks if she’s deluding herself.
Carlen, you’re caught in a “crap-fit” — fitting yourself to an unacceptable person or circumstance because of early survival patterns. Meeting people in trauma-healing programs can be fertile ground for intense, unhealthy entanglements: many participants are wounded and seeking solace; this context can amplify limerence and vampiric dynamics. Your inclination to believe you’re “already healed” yet repeatedly become entangled with avoidant partners suggests more work remains. You poured your time, attention, and emotional labor into someone who repeatedly made clear he didn’t want to be your partner. That pattern is abusive to your own future prospects. The fact that he sought other potential partners while keeping you as a confidante speaks volumes: he wanted the benefits of your devotion without the commitments.
If you allowed this dynamic to continue, you effectively encouraged a relationship that could never meet your needs. You might have been playing the role of the ideal caregiver to someone who needed fixing — a role that leaves you depleted. The fastest route to real love is to remove yourself from entanglements where your needs cannot be met, so you can become available for someone who genuinely wants you. Cut the contact, feel the grief, and seek tools and community to help process the pain. Make friends who are present and grounded, and invest your life force where it will be reciprocated. Recognize the warning signs of limerence and avoid long, intense online-only relationships where one person never actually declares commitment. Real relationships require physical presence, mutual pursuit, and shared life tasks — not hours of video calls that conveniently allow avoidance.
Across all these letters, a few common themes emerge: limerence acts like an addiction to the hope of reciprocity; relationships built on long-distance, secretive, or one-sided emotional labor rarely become healthy partnerships; people often reenact childhood survival strategies by fitting themselves to unsuitable partners; and the antidotes include forging real friendships, cultivating joy and community, practicing concrete healing tools, establishing clear boundaries, and choosing moral honesty over secretive compromises. If you’re stuck in an obsessive attachment, the kindest steps you can take are to cut contact where necessary, rebuild a social life with genuine connection and fun, and look for relationships where the other person is demonstrably available, present, and enthusiastic about being with you. That way you preserve your integrity and open space to attract someone who loves and wants you fully in everyday life — the person who will really be your partner.