by Gladys Diaz

If you’ve ever had your heart broken, you know how difficult it can be to find the courage to move on. One of the things that can make moving forward difficult is when you still have feelings for the other person. Memories can be tricky beasts, especially when you’re feeling lonely. Memories can remind you of all of the great moments and make you forget the reasons why the relationship ended in the first place. And loneliness can make you think that being in that relationship is better than being alone.

These thoughts and feelings can make you believe that maybe you’re not ready to move on.

How could you possibly open your heart to someone else if you still have feelings for your previous love?

Shouldn’t you wait until you no longer have any feelings for that person before beginning to date someone else?

When I lost my first husband, I honestly did not believe I would be able to love anyone ever again. I just could not imagine ever being “over” him. There wasn’t any reason for me to stop loving him, and, what’s more, I didn’t want to have to stop loving him!

When I met Ric, there was a moment where I wondered if it would be fair to him for me to continue dating him, knowing that I still loved and missed my late husband very much. Would I be leading him on? Would it be fair to him or myself to even explore the possibility of dating and getting to know one another?

When my sister, Michelle, ended the on-again-off-again dating pattern she had with Arnie, she knew she wasn’t willing to wait for him to make up his mind about whether or not he wanted to be in a relationship. She asked herself the same questions: Should I wait until I’m over him before dating someone else?

The answer?

No!

Thankfully, neither one of us chose to stop loving the man we loved before opening our hearts to someone else.  In my case, it lead to experiencing 15 years of more love and happiness than I ever dreamed was possible!

For Michelle, it led to her meeting and dating another wonderful man. And when Arnie came back to her, asking her to give him another chance, she then had a choice regarding who she was going to choose to love, and she’s now married to Arnie and living in the relationship of her dreams!

Even if you still love someone else, putting your life on hold until you feel you’re over him only serves to keep you stuck right where you are.

Now, do I believe you should take some time to grieve the loss of the relationship? Yes, of course. You want to acknowledge your feelings for that person and grieve the loss of the relationship. But what you don’t want to do is keep putting your life on hold until you are completely over him!

Why?

Because, even though you may still love him, you need to love yourself even more!

Loving yourself more means that you can give yourself permission to continue loving and missing him while also giving yourself permission to open your heart to new love!

Trying to resist or ignore your feelings is only going to intensify them. Hence, the saying: What you resist persists.

So, rather than pretending you don’t love and miss him, you can acknowledge that you do and that you also love yourself enough to know that you deserve to be in a happy and fulfilling relationship with someone who loves you, too!

Once you allow yourself to feel what is there, then you can begin opening up to the possibility of meeting that someone new who will reciprocate your love and create a the type of loving relationship your heart truly desires.  

And you can do it guilt-free because you’re not hiding your feelings from yourself.

As you meet and get to know new men, you’ll have new experiences, new moments of joy, new moments of feeling loved and cherished, and you may find that the feelings for your previous love getting less intense. And, while they may not disappear completely, it’s okay.

Your heart has an unlimited capacity to love. The more you expand it, the more love you are able to feel, experience, give, and receive.

So, if you’ve been putting your life and happiness on hold, waiting for your feelings for a previous love to disappear, grant yourself permission to continue loving him, and then choose to love yourself even more so that you can graciously welcome new and extraordinary love into your life!

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