Loving someone you truly loved makes you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, regardless of all the challenges that come along with that commitment.
However, it’s not always easy to find love, and even when you do find love, it’s not always permanent.
When someone who you truly loved goes away or unfortunately you break up with them for various reasons. It’s easy to wonder if you will ever be able to stop loving them.
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You can never make them stay, no matter how much you may want to or want them to, and they are free to move on without you. Does that mean that your love for them will somehow disappear?
Can you stop loving someone you truly loved?
Can you stop loving someone you truly loved? The short answer to this question is yes. You can love someone you truly loved and, at some point in time, still not feel the same way about them as you once did.
The long answer to this question, however, is more complicated than just one simple word could convey.
It takes time to move on from past relationships, but with the right dedication and help, it can be done.
You can never unlove someone if that even makes sense.
Love is something so intensely personal and emotionally powerful that it’s a part of who we are as individuals, much like memories or feelings of loss, guilt, or regret.
It’s our past, but it’s also a present truth that we carry around with us every day, often without even thinking about it.
To love—and to be loved—is to allow yourself to be vulnerable in a way few other things do.
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So if you’ve experienced love deeply enough to know what love really feels like at its core, well then that feeling doesn’t just go away.
Now, there are plenty of bad relationships out there where people make serious mistakes and wind up resenting their partners over time, yet they don’t stop loving them entirely.
However, more than one bad relationship will likely cause trust issues later on in life that can affect new relationships down the road.
This is an unfortunate occurrence and one that has more to do with learning how to forgive than it does with true feelings of love disappearing from within your soul.
On a basic level, however, not all love between two people stays forever strong once they’ve passed away or split up for good.
People discover their second loves after losing touch with their first ones over time. People change; relationships end; lives move forward, sometimes in ways that put significant distance between two lovers.
Nonetheless, when these familiar strangers meet again (perhaps at a family event) deep down inside, they feel familiar with each other because they knew each other once upon a time.
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They start spending more time together and gradually fall in love again—but not always with one another.
In fact, if these same people met somewhere else or under different circumstances at any point throughout their lives, there’s absolutely nothing saying they would have fallen for each other again.
And since familiarity breeds, comfort and comfort help grow feelings of love within a person’s heart.
Well, maybe finding your old flame isn’t such a silly thing after all. A lot of people do wind up growing back into love with long-lost loves after years apart.
But, on top of that, some couples just never get over one another. You can see it in them; they’ve retained that spark somehow despite having long ago stopped actively dating one another.
That particular level of chemistry is impossible to fake; it’s either real or it’s not—and true chemistry is something that everyone should ideally be looking for in their romantic partners anyway.
A relationship based purely on lust will fade away once two lovers become less physically attracted to one another over time.
However, lust evolves into deeper feelings like love when both lovers bring out positive qualities in each other too by helping them evolve as individuals while simultaneously making them stronger as a couple.
So even though things aren’t always going to work out between two lovers who fell deeply in love early on during a relationship, those initial sparks may occasionally reignite as time goes on.
Just know that sometimes these flames don’t necessarily make sense from an outsider’s perspective—no matter how strong those feelings may be for both parties involved.
After all, what others think about your new lover has nothing to do with why you fell in love with him or her now, right?
So go ahead and take a leap of faith knowing that a potential second chance at love could end up being everything you’ve been waiting for without even realizing it until now…until he/she arrived back into your life again.
It definitely happens much more often than you might expect.
The only way to know for sure whether or not your current flame could end up becoming the one is to stay open-minded and act quickly if/when an opportunity presents itself.
And keep yourself safe by asking yourself whether or not either party still feels different than all other available prospects before getting involved s#xually or anytime at all.
If so, great! Feel free to forge ahead knowing that what initially drew you both towards one another probably hasn’t changed. On the other hand, if your gut tells you to hold off on romance for a bit longer, then listen to it.
Also read: How to get over someone you love who doesn’t love you back?
Your instincts are rarely wrong and they’re worth listening to. If you do decide that you’re ready to invest emotionally in another person again but find that no one seems quite right for you at first…have patience.
Time is in your favor here. No, not all of us are lucky enough to stumble across our soul mates in college or high school.
So try not to beat yourself up over it. Instead, use it as an excuse to get out of your comfort zone, travel a little more, try different hobbies and embrace spontaneity.
Eventually, you’ll come across a fantastic catch that makes you realize that love is more important to you than anything else—money or status included.
Yes, that’s kind of cheesy, but it’s 100% true. Everyone deserves a shot at everlasting love. Don’t settle for anything less ever.
Can you really fault yourself for not working hard enough in your youth to have both a career and a significant other?
Not at all—it’s an unfair world we live in and some people were blessed with looks and money at birth while others had to work hard just to be noticed by their peers on any level whatsoever.
When a person has found love again, have they truly unloved their first partner? Is that even possible or practical?
As for my personal opinion on whether you can ever truly stop loving someone. I tend to say yes, in some cases.
I’m not speaking from a scientific standpoint here, because science is yet to prove or disprove anything in matters of love and/or emotion.
I’m simply talking from a common-sense standpoint that includes both logic and personal experience.
Having said that, one of my most beloved family members is an example of what you could refer to as true love lost—if not forever, at least for a period of time. Sometimes what seemed like love at one point in time didn’t last and wasn’t meant to.
Or perhaps what was once love at one point in time evolved into something else entirely, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less valid than it once was.
There’s a good reason no one can ever stop loving someone you truly loved; your heart remembers them for as long as you live.
Yet relationships end and people move on—that’s just a part of life; we all lose touch with people we used to be close to over time because relationships change, grow, and evolve over time.
Even if there is true love between two people, they may not always want or need, each other anymore after some time has passed.
But for those rare and special relationships that did remain close and meaningful long after they ended, there is no such thing as un-loving someone you once cared deeply for.
Just remember that letting your heart love is always a risk; just be careful not to close it off completely, even when you’ve suffered a big loss in life.
If you can give yourself time to heal and find comfort in other ways over time—hobbies, friendships, activities, etc.—your heart will never truly be closed.
And if by some strange twist of fate your first love ever does return back into your life again someday, one thing’s for certain: you’ll never stop loving them either.
Final thoughts:
In conclusion, can you stop loving someone you truly loved? Despite all of its challenges, I believe in true love.
True love comes from mutual respect for each other’s intellect or personality. It’s something we find when we don’t expect it and once we find it, we can’t help but think it will last forever.
But when things start to unravel and go south, that belief comes into question. True love is blind—maybe even to a fault—and not wanting to admit defeat or face reality can be a powerful motivator.
Just ask anyone who has been through a breakup. Those who felt a strong connection with their ex-partner tend to hold on longer than those who didn’t feel as strongly about them from the beginning.
Recommended reading:
10 Questions to ask yourself before breaking up or ending a relationship
When is it time to leave a long term relationship
