Comments

1
What can anyone expect from a starter relationship?
2
The biggest mistake we can make, when just starting out in adult dating, is thinking we will find the perfect match right out of the gate. We usually stay together because it feels safer and more secure than being alone. But we have a lot to learn about ourselves and about how to interact with other people, and the best way to do that is to date lots of other people.

So stop committing to a single person. Date lots of people. Have (safe) sex with lots of guys, and have FUN.
3
I loved Dan's closing zinger: "I bet they have boys at the university you're transferring to."

That's a good thing to remind high school sweethearts and other heartbroken youngsters. They're going to be going through a lot of transitions and meeting a lot of other people of about the same age and the preferred gender, many of whom will be single. Kids in college get a much more numerous selection of new acquaintances to consider dating than most of us older folks do.
4
@2: "The biggest mistake we can make, when just starting out in adult dating, is thinking we will find the perfect match right out of the gate."

Or that you're supposed to, or that it's a good thing that you do. My not-teen sister just ended an abusive relationship with her insta-"soulmate" and the concept just makes me wretch.
5
It's reasonable a lot of the time to forgive cheating. But discovering that your (I assume theoretically monogamous) boyfriend of two years has a live-in-girlfriend he didn't bother telling you about is not garden-variety cheating; it's sociopathic manipulator territory. Cut him loose ASAP and maybe go to a couple of counselling sessions.
6
Dear LW, maybe take a little time out by yourself for the next two weeks. Close Sam down and just be with you. The way forward will occur to you.
Relationships need their place in our lives, when they take over and become all we see are are interested in, then there is a problem. Throw the boys off for a couple of weeks, do some fun things.
7
I call fake on this one
8
Who calls having sex "an intercourse"? Who pluralizes intercourse?
9
@8 I assumed she wasn't a native English speaker.
10
@8 the same person who takes a pill abortion. I'm with #9 here, and guess the writer's first language is one in which the noun precedes its modifying adjective.
11
@7: Why? This shit happens all the time. The needless drama is all too real. Hell, it bleeds into the comments section all the time, too many times someone is in a bad relationship asking for advice and commenters go through gyrations and justifications to convince them to stay together beyond all reason. And then they snark on DTMFA answers as if one should never "give up" on something that doesn't work for either party out of some bizarre appeal to virtuous suffering.
12
Ricardo @1: Exactly. These are the mistakes which young people must make in order to learn from them. LW, go forth and make some different mistakes with some different guys, and learn some more.
13
This poor girl is in pain, being told " this is life, kid", is not going to help her now.
LW. It's time you reset your boundaries. Going back with the first guy, after what he did? Now you are confused. Tell the second guy you feel this way, and you need some time to think. Don't tell boyfriend one anything yet, you can be ready with your new boundary words to deliver face to face.
Then spend some time feeling your own power and strength, be alone with your self some of the time. The first guy has got to go, after how he treated you, give him the flick. That's my opinion. That sort of behaviour in a two year relationship, is inescusable.
The second guy, deal with the first guy first and then give yourself time to check how you feel about him.
14
I agree. Getting back together with someone who has treated you poorly never feels good. That's why you are insecure now when you sleep with him and you see the other girl in your mind. Well done on getting the abortion pill in time, that is one of the best and easiest ways to do it. Your feelings of relief about this are also telling you that he is not right for you anymore. I hope you got some good reliable contraception as well so you won't have to go through that again. One day in the near future you will potentially meet someone who treats you really well and then you will look back and be so happy you moved on from your first boyfriend who didn't.
15
Agree with all who say to dump both, concentrate on making new friends and having new (safe) experiences. Asking myself what makes those first sexual relationships so devastating. Or Richardo's question: What can anyone expect?

My experience might help SADGIRL. (The regulars here have all already heard it.) I wasn't treated nearly so badly. There was no cheating involved. I fell in love hard. It was wonderful, a high feeling like nothing I'd ever felt. We broke up explosively-- which made sense given that we really hardly knew each other, had no real idea of how to make a relationship work. The time frame for all this was less than a year when I was 18. I worked on meeting someone else to fall in love with while also figuring out how not to lose myself so totally in another person. I've now been in a good relationship with someone for 30 years. I still miss my first love.

It's like that first love is a drug you crave for the rest of your life. As much annoyance as I feel at myself and at him, as much pain as its caused me, I would never recommend that anyone avoid falling the way I did. Even though my first love is now a married not terribly appealing middle aged man, I think that given the opportunity I'd throw myself at him all over again. Still. It's crazy, I know.

What can we expect from a first relationship? How about kindness? That should be the standard.
16
@2: "The biggest mistake we can make when just starting out in dating, is thinking we will find the perfect match right out of the gate." LW read that seven times!

And ditto Fichu@15 – Those first loves are sooo intense simply because it's the first time you've felt those strong emotions and have nothing to compare them to. Also add in a heaping helping of hormones run amok. They tend to end badly because young lovers don't have any experience in how to end things gracefully. And, since the adolescent brain's risk-taking centers aren't fully developed they make ill-advised decisions (like having a live-in girlfriend on the sly while you're dating someone else) or (being so head-over-heels that you don't see the boyfriend's telltale behaviors that scream ASSHOLE!)

Totally agree that "that first love is a drug you crave for the rest of your life" and it will never be quite the same again. You can't experience something for the first time twice. But you can learn from your experiences (notice I didn't say mistakes) and find love that is more deeply satisfying while still burning brightly.

The key is learning how to trust after being betrayed, how to choose wisely, how to keep the blinders off that make you overlook those "danger" signs, and how to learn that not everything lasts forever and be thankful, not spiteful when it ends. There's no magic bullet that can give you that knowledge instantly, all you can do is live it, and sometimes it hurts. The hardest thing is not to become jaded when things don't work out. A positive outlook will help you find that thing that *clicks* a lot better than a cynical one.

Good luck on your journey!
18
@13 - I've gotta disagree - not with your actual advice, which is good, but that being told "this is life" is not helpful.

What I have found most useful, when going through bad times in my life, is not sympathy and understanding and gentleness, but a reminder that we all go through this, this is how it works. That mistakes and pain and confusion are part of the process, and there is nothing very special about me or my pain, that all of us go through some version of this, and come out the other side knowing more, and being able to take better care of ourselves.
19
@ 13, 18 - I do think Lava's right in that it's not particularly helpful at this stage, but once you're on the other side of heartache, once you've pulled through, you do realize that those who told you "this is life" were right, and knowing you just went through something that is absolutely normal helps you go forward from there.
20
13, 18, 19-- Why does it have to be either/or? Nothing really helps the pain of first love break-up in the sense of making it all better or so it doesn't hurt anymore. I think we as a society do a disservice to young people when we try to shield them from everything. But if I were a slightly older friend to SADGIRL, I'd try to comfort her with sympathy, community, advice, perspective, stories from my own experience, and one that isn't recommended often enough- art. Great literature, great break-up songs, whatever is beautiful and soulful and cathartic.
21
Fichu @ 20 - The first time I had a real heartbreak, I listened to the Smiths' Unloveable on repeat. Knowing that someone felt shittier than I did (even though it was just a song) helped me tremendously. A few years later I discovered Tindersticks, and all my tortuous relationship feelings were covered for eternity.
22
@20, don't forget exercise! A friend of mine gently took me on walks in the park after an awful, awful breakup. I was really key to my recovery to move around outside in the trees and the wind.
23
My breakup song was "Wasted Time" by the Eagles.
24
"Control" by Poe for me.
25
Cat Power, What Would The Community Think?
27
Example of an even larger problem -- making a binary choice out of something that is not a binary choice. Feel conflicted between two choices? There's almost always a third, fourth, or fifth option. Often the very best choice is just "neither." Stop obsessing between boy #1 and boy #2 and give some thought to boy #3 or "no boys for a while" or ____.
28
Blood on The Tracks, Bob Dylan.
29
Wish I could give you a hug, LW. You have been deeply wounded by your first love, and yes as agony points out, you gotta toughen up, eventually.
For now, accept you also have made some judgements which messed with the story, and learn from that. Your own actions, that's all you can change.
Good luck dear girl, mend your broken heart with your friends around, and you will come out of this wiser. Affairs of the heart, that can be brutal territory.
30
Fichu, I'd never want to jump my first love's bones. Like SADGIRL's beau, he behaved badly.
31
She seems so inexperienced and smarter, sweeter and nicer seem like a very different guy, so I think Sam isn't actually very much like her boyfriend. He probably just makes her feel a similar way as her first boyfriend did once.
32
Ain't young love grand
33
Goodbye to You, Michelle Branch; Dream Attack, New Order.
34
Mine was Hole In My Soul, Aerosmith.

On a side note, my husband and I got to talking about how cringe-inducing emotional breakup songs are if you hear them for the first time as an adult. For instance, I think Pearl Jam's Black is excellently done, musically--but the lyrics make me want to gag, or at the very least give Vedder a solid smack across the face to get him to pull himself together. Partly because of disgust in seeing my former, ludicrously distraught 13 year old self in it, and partly because being on the other side of the one who won't let go is downright scary.

I developed a hypothesis, during this conversation, that the reason so many popular musicians got deep into hard drugs was that it helped them keep that angsty edge that appeals to teens.

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