How First Love Affects Relationships In The Future: The Psychologist Answers

What does first love mean for an adult? How to get over a breakup? And why not speak negatively about such relationships after years? Explains psychologist Valeria Yeletskaya.

Valeria Eletskaya

psychologist, creator of the author's method of personality diagnostics

Why does everyone talk so much about first love?

First love in Russia is very idealized thanks to the Soviet past and upbringing. All the ideas that were then broadcast to society were not specific, but very streamlined. It was not customary in families to discuss the personal issues of adolescents, to prepare them for an emotional "swing", the first relationship. It turns out that at a certain moment a person is faced with powerful turbulence, a test, the way out of which must be sought independently. In this situation, people often "mirror" the experience of their parents, demonstrate their complexes. In fact, in other cultures, first love is less emphasized, and even less dramatic.

At the same time, first love is indeed a very important stage in a person's maturation and personality formation. She must make him whole, raise him to a new level of perception of himself and the world around him. But it was not there! Very often, the intensity of passions goes off scale, a person plunges into emotions, loses sight of a partner and does not learn the most important thing: responsibility, the ability to conduct a dialogue, evaluate oneself from the outside. And when (if) the relationship ends, the person leaves it with emotional trauma that directly affects his future and which can be designated as the consequences of first love.

If the first love is over, how to survive?

Once the relationship is over, you don't need to continue cloning it in other situations and with other people. Analyze everything that happened to you, draw conclusions, find the pluses. Otherwise, unlived experience, incorrect work with emotions, phobias - all this will repeat in your life until you complete the chapter entitled "First Love". You will meet the same partners and continue to solve the same unsolvable problems.

Before ending the relationship, talk to your partner as openly as possible, tell about your emotions. You will remember all the unspoken, unexperienced for many years and return to these thoughts not in the most successful moments of life. For example, when girls do not have a relationship, they often think about first love. In fact, these emotions were so vivid because they became new for you specifically at that period of your life.

Getting depressed after such a relationship is not the best solution. You unwittingly admit that love is pain, and it cannot be otherwise. After that, there are two options for the development of events: you begin to control everything and everyone (so that you no longer experience pain), or you avoid relationships.

And what if the first love was long ago, and I still can't forget it?

Many psychologists believe that if you do not stop stress in time, it will stay with you forever. My opinion: healing is always possible, as soon as you yourself have decided to choose joy and happiness for yourself. If you yourself enjoy stewing in this broth of pain and tears, then no one else can help. But as soon as you decide to get out of the relationship (albeit long-standing) and find out what harmony is, no one can stop you. Creativity, personal or professional growth, self-development, sports, travel, or even changing the city helps a lot in this matter. And also remove all the "anchors" that mentally lead you to this person. Evaluate the past experience, not the emotions that continue to cover you. There is no need to endow yourself and your partner with demonizing qualities or distort the world.