How to Get Over Someone You Still Can't Get Over | Rewind

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Hi, Matthew and the gang. I recently listened to your podcast from April this year titled How to Get Over the One Who Got Away, and it made me realize I could use your help. 2 years ago, I met someone. He came into my life out of nowhere, and it was easy. It wasn't obsessive. It wasn't addictive. It was just easy and good. Our connection and chemistry was everything I ever wanted. A few weeks later, he ghosted me. We eventually had a conversation. He wasn't ready for a relationship. We stayed friends. A few months later, we tried again after being friends for 6 months. It obviously didn't work again. I didn't trust him enough, and it was hard. We stayed in touch and continued to see each other, often taking things very, very slow. And suddenly I discovered he had a girlfriend. It's been a year now. I have traveled a lot and went on a solo trip to Bali. I have dated, but nothing compares. He once told me he saw himself marrying me. But he wasn't ready for anything like that. He wasn't ready to be the man I needed. We see each other around, but we never speak, and it feels as if the connection and chemistry is still there, and others point it out. How do I get over him? How do I make myself see that he is not the person for me? Please help. I don't want to waste another year.

I think this is such a relatable email.

Tell us why.

You know, it wasn't the great love story of, you know, a 5-year-long relationship where you got a dog together and had a house. I just mean that it was a lot of the time they're very short-lived, and a lot of the time you don't know why it just felt so good and so right that it just ends up getting being the thing that sticks under your skin.

I also think when someone says it was easy, you know, there's that feeling of, I never normally click like this with somebody. It just felt so natural— is another word people use— felt really natural.

It just was—

it just felt right when we were together. You know, this is the kind of thing people describe, a kind of fluidity, an organic nature to how it feels to be with this person. It doesn't feel forced, it doesn't feel strange, it doesn't feel awkward. It feels so natural.

When we have that special chemistry, it's really easy to build a story, and it becomes— it becomes extremely hard to let that go. Even like, people have that years after where they go, but with them, the way it felt when we were together, when we were intimate, when we went on trips, like, the way it felt with them, it was just so much more than anyone since.

It becomes a memory played over and over and over again. It becomes a bit of a time warp. You, you get, you get lodged in a certain moment in your life, in a certain moment in time. And, you know, by definition, it can never be that again. Like, it was, it was that thing, that moment in time. And we should qualify it, obviously, to begin with by saying that connection or no connection, chemistry or no chemistry, if someone didn't commit to us, then they couldn't make good on the promise of being everything we ever wanted. It wasn't the connection and chemistry, she says, is everything she ever wanted. But then goes on to say a few weeks later, he ghosted me, which, by the way, isn't everything you ever wanted, nor is this person not committing, nor is this person finding a girlfriend. I don't know if it was— how long that was going on for in the time you were speaking, but None of these things are things that are everything you ever wanted, nor is you going away to Bali and doing all of these things and giving it space and giving it time and him not coming back to you and saying, I've made a giant mistake, which he's not doing. That's not everything you ever wanted either. So I think the starting point is realizing that this actually is a far far cry from everything you ever wanted. It stopped well short of that. Now, that doesn't stop that. What's the Spanish— is it— no, Portuguese word, saudade. Steve knows it.

We did. We talked about that word on another podcast. Saudade.

Yeah.

Can you explain saudade to us, Steve?

Oh, you brought it up, Matt. I think it's some kind of feeling of wistful nostalgia, isn't it?

For the— yeah, it's described as a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament. Um, but it's a word that to my knowledge doesn't exist in quite the same way, uh, in other languages. But it's a very, it's a very descriptive word in that it captures something. And I don't think that— I don't think that the— what I'm saying is somewhat logical, right? That you— they didn't commit to you. They didn't give you what you wanted. So they by definition aren't everything you ever wanted. But the logic of that doesn't eliminate the saudade that we may feel, that wistful melancholy of what once was that didn't turn into something more. And, and that can linger. But the danger, of course, is thinking that that is an indication of how important something is. Instead of just seeing it as one of many, many experiences in our lives that may bring up that kind of a feeling. You may have that feeling about a time in your life where you were more physically able than you are now. You know, I— you may have a moment of melancholy for a time where you were healthier than you are now, or when you had a certain fun moment in your life with friends and life doesn't feel quite as carefree anymore, or you don't get to see those friends in that way anymore. We're, we're capable of that kind of melancholy about many things in our life. So I think that part of, part of it is putting it on a level with lots of other things. In your life that you may have a sense of melancholy for, uh, that isn't really a wish for your life to go back there, but more just, uh, a moment, a moment of nostalgia for something, rather than this nostalgia that I'm feeling means that I've really lost something important. That to me is the non- sequitur, the idea that this relationship must be important because I still have feelings for it. And if you lose the sense that the relationship is important, which it wasn't because he didn't commit, so it was only important for the experience it gave you at the time. It was not important in the context of your life as a—

your future.

Certainly wasn't that. Um, it wasn't that because it didn't become that. So it was only important in what it gave you in the present. It was not important to your future. Once you lose that, so much of the sting of that melancholy is removed. It just— you're allowed to just feel it as a sense of melancholy instead of a tremendous sense of loss for a future that, that was supposed to happen but didn't.

I love that.

Yeah, and I think it's even okay to have those old memories that are beautiful and painful at the same time. It's, it's not allowing them to become this, this thing that like smothers everything else. Now that's the danger. And also, Matt, the interesting thing about this is that I find so fascinating is the thing that she talked about, about him. Loads of things sounded really wrong from the get-go there in terms of his behavior. His ghosting, not really being involved in it, not saying he wanted marriage, all these things she wanted. Why is it that we somehow put chemistry on such a huge emotional pedestal, but behavior we just sweep under the rug? What do you think that is about?

I think that our tendency is to, um, overvalue chemistry and undervalue character in a relationship. Chemistry is, I believe, necessary for a romantic relationship, but character is going to be the foundation of a long-term relationship? What is someone's code of ethics, their code for living? What do they— what rules do they live by in their lives? And it's very easy to, to overrate chemistry because chemistry produces spikes of emotion. It produces, you know, it has a drug-inducing effect on us. And so it feels— it's the, it's the, um, you know, it's like the orgasm of courtship is chemistry. But that you can't live in that state and expect that that's going to nourish you, because it won't nourish you any more than heroin nourishes a drug addict. It's a heightened state.

We—

the reason I say we overvalue it is because we look back on situations and we go, that situation with that person produced this unbelievably intense feeling, and that must mean it's important. But If you applied that to heroin, it would be a disaster. If you said, uh, you know, ecstasy or heroin produced such an exquisite feeling when I did it, it must mean that this is a really important thing in my life that I should do every day. We would look at that and say that's obviously a terrible conclusion to come to. And yet in relationships, we give them a special pass. We, we say, no, that makes sense, that if it felt that— if the high was that high, it makes sense that this should be a constant in your life. And it is, it is a non sequitur. It— chemistry may be important for a relationship. I wouldn't advise a relationship that has an absence of— a total absence of chemistry. How much chemistry we need, whether it needs to be the greatest chemistry we've ever had or not, is a different question. But the absence of chemistry is obviously a bad thing for a relationship, but the absence of character will produce hell in a relationship, even if it's the greatest chemistry of your life. And what you've picked up on there, Steve, is that there is an enormous overvaluing of chemistry in this email, but a massive glossing over of the importance of character. I mean, none of the things that reveal weakness in character, whether it's his indecisiveness, whether it's his inability to stop seeing her even though he's aware that he's not giving her what she wants— it takes a certain kind of selfishness once you realize you're not giving someone what they've clearly said they want, you still keep leading them on. That's selfish. That's a weakness in character. The having a girlfriend part. They're still seeing her and staying in touch and doing that once she's tried to go away and move on and not doing the right thing, which is to break contact. All of these things suggest weaknesses of character, but she's not listed any of them as though they were weaknesses in character. She's added no detail, no emotion to those things, but massive emotion to all of the things that are right. And what you begin to see in that, the way she's written the email is indicative of the way she's writing the story in her brain. And if you write a story like that with that level of spin, then it's going to produce a certain conclusion. And the conclusion is that this person was something very, very special and that I'm going to always struggle to get over them because of how special they were. One of the great ways to burst that bubble is to just get real about the ways that they're not perfect. I mean, he has been put on a pedestal above way too many other people. And understanding how imperfect someone is, is— it's not a way to denigrate them. It's a way to level the playing field between them and everybody else. Here's what I want you to do, Louise, as a— just a small exercise. Firstly, Actually recall what wasn't good about this person and connect to it the same way you connect to the good. In what ways has this situation made you miserable? In what ways has this person acted selfishly in either not letting you go or reaching out even though they know that you're hurting, or not being caring or thoughtful, the ghosting. In what ways did this person actually make you sad, mad, or miserable? And I want you to notice in other people that you meet qualities they have that he didn't. I'm not saying— I don't— what I don't want you to do is the moment you meet somebody else or go on a date or whatever and you don't feel chemistry, I don't want you to be comparing the chemistry. But what I do want you to do is notice when someone shows a character trait that makes you go, oh wow, there's a— there's an empathy or a kindness or a generosity or a conscientiousness or a selflessness about this person that he didn't have. And I want you to really tune into that. That doesn't mean that the person in front of you is the right person and you should go for them even though you don't feel chemistry. What it means is you're starting to, to see that there are other people in the world that actually have extremely important qualities and qualities that— forget the 2 years that you've known this guy— over 10 years, 20 years, 30 years are going to be the cornerstone of the relationship. They're going to be the thing that makes it last. And then say to yourself, what I need is someone with these wonderful qualities and someone with whom I feel chemistry, someone with whom I feel that connection. The person you may be on a date with that you don't feel chemistry with, who has these wonderful qualities, isn't right for you. But nor is he right for you by having the chemistry but not those qualities. Your person is still out there, but anytime you meet someone who has the stuff he lacked, remind yourself, oh, he lacked really important things. The person I'm supposed to be with is gonna have those things.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Before you go, make sure that you do this one thing today. I promise you that every week you are missing out by not doing what I'm about to say. I send a private email to a group of people who have registered for it every single Friday. The email is called The Three Relationships, and every email is packed with advice on how you can improve in the 3 core areas of life: your relationship with other people, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with life itself. People really look forward to this email. It's not the kind of email people skip. People look forward to it in their inbox every Friday. Go over to the3relationships.com to sign up for that email for free. By the way, the 3 in that domain is the number 3, not the word 3. So the 3relationships.com, and I will see you in your inbox this Friday. Thank you for listening, everyone. I'll see you in the next episode.

Be well and love life.

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