Maybe you dated in high school and he was your first real boyfriend. Maybe she was your university sweetheart, the first one you could actually see a future with. Maybe he was a summer fling that left you with a deep connection long after September came and went. Maybe she was the love of your life that somehow slipped away and always left you wondering “What if?”
It doesn’t matter now how it ended or how it began because you aren’t together anymore and it’s actually been years since you last crossed paths. That doesn’t mean they don’t often cross your mind though. Just because you’ve both moved on and found different lives that don’t include each other and new loves with different people, it doesn’t mean the memories and the feelings you once felt never existed. New love doesn’t negate old love.
But what happens when you find out they’re set to be married? If it’s happened to you, you know the feeling, if it hasn’t yet you’ll find out one day. It’s almost like your stomach drops to your feet and in the same instant you think you must have heard wrong. They can’t be getting married! You were supposed to go on with your own lives, find yourselves, and maybe one day find your way back to each other. This wasn’t part of the plan. Even if you never intended to end up back together you can’t help the feeling that you were just unexpectedly shot with a dagger and left to bleed out while digesting this information.
So how do you deal as you swallow the lump in your throat and smile politely?
- Be Nice and Be Happy
You should find sincerity in your heart and actually be happy for them. They have found someone with whom they want to share their life with and if you’re being honest with yourself you know that the two of you, back together, probably never would have worked out anyway. As much as it may suck and as hard as it may be, give them your best wishes and truly mean it. What else can you do? It’s not like you can show up at the wedding, burst in, confess your love and expect they’ll pick you. Life is not a romantic comedy or an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. If you do that, you will fuck everything up and most likely not end up with said person in the end anyway.
- Don’t Be a Creep
You may have sudden urges to creep their Social Media and that of their soon-to-be spouse. Do it once (cause we all know you will) but don’t make it a habit. All it will do is make you sad and comparing yourself to the person they are set to marry won’t make them any less attractive in the eyes of their fiancé. You really can’t gain anything by creeping out hard as the weeks and months to the big day approach, all it will do is make you feel worse about yourself. Stay off of their Facebook, you have nothing to gain except a Stalker Status Card.
- Stay on Your Own Course
Yes, seeing the one time love of your life getting set to walk down the aisle can make you feel like they “beat” you to it. Don’t listen to that voice. Stay on your own course, follow your own track, and don’t be irrational. If you’ve been dating Tommy Two-Step down the road for three weeks, now is not the time to start discussing plans for your future wedding just because you think you’re falling behind. Marriage is not tit for tat. Let your life work itself out and focus on your own dreams and goals, and eventually your right person will come along too. Just don’t rush into something for the sake of it, or because you feel lonely, because at the end of the day you have to live your life at your own pace, whether that includes marriage or not.
At the end of the day, life took the two of you in different directions and as hard is it may be to see your ex get married, you know this is just another part of life. Reflect on the good times you had together but don’t wish them ill, don’t try to break them up, and definitely don’t let it affect your current life… the one you were perfectly happy living before you found out the big news. Let them have their new life and remember that one day, when you get married, you too will have exes who feel the same about your upcoming nuptials as you do right now. I suppose that’s just how life goes.
The Love Hawk 