Getting Over Someone You Never Had

When we meet someone we really like, especially when we’ve been yearning for love and struggling to find it, it’s easy to project our feelings and desires onto someone we believe is right for us, even if they’re not reciprocating or if we don’t know them well enough to tell whether they actually have the right qualities.   This can make it particularly painful to move on from them—not because they were truly “the one,” but because of the narrative we’ve attached to them.   But if we want to move forward and make room for the right person, we need to be honest with ourselves about what we’re grieving. Are we mourning someone who truly embodied the qualities of a great partner, or are we grieving the story we created in our minds about who they were and what we could build together?   Distinguishing between these two is crucial. It allows us to grieve what truly needs to be grieved, enabling the right parts of our hearts to heal and open up to new possibilities.