Can't let go until meet another one but that feels hopeless

I think it's somewhat normal to have trouble getting someone of the mind, especially after having been intimate with them. Eventually it's best for your mental well-being to move on though. It sounds like relationships are somewhat completing you since you can't let go until you've found another one? Consider what it is exactly that you're feeling attached to... Because it doesn't sound like the actual person since you can move on after finding someone else. Is it the expectations of settling down? Is it they make you feel important and wanted? Whatever it is, once you figure out what is it that is making you feel attached, maybe you can figure out how to make whatever it is on your own, without relying on another person to make it for you.

What if you told yourself your don't have to meet another one anytime soon? Seriously, think about it. The key to that is to complete yourself on your own, so that you feel good enough being on your own on a Saturday morning and is capable of being alone and happy with it. That isn't to say that you should never meet someone, but when do you find someone good for you, you won't feel this bad if you are confident that you love yourself instead of relying on someone to do that for you.

Not sure if this would help in your case, but what I've found tremendously helped was writing a list of all the reasons they weren't a good match for you, and why you don't want to be with them. Sometimes it's hard to see the negatives when we are preoccupied with how great they were. It doesn't matter if other people would think what they said or did was bad or not, but if it was something that made you feel bad or unsettled, don't think - just write it down. Then read it whenever you start thinking of them. I read your other thread and spotted some emotionally abusive tactics that he said that lead you to feel bad inside, and some other behaviors that wouldn't personally fly with me, that seemed to also affect you, so there's a lot you can add to the list.

What I think would definitely help if your case is making a list of all your positive qualities and why you love hanging out with yourself. You can read that list whenever you're feeling hopeless.

I've historically thought of it as a form of strength and not just weakness-- I mean, it's such tenacity! Such mental courage! Such an ability to try to stay true, etc. etc.! Such a gift to someone who actually sticks around themselves if we can apply it towards them instead of towards the ones that don't!

But of course it's more complicated. As people like to talk about on these boards, we may consciously think that intimacy is our deepest or most persistent longing/hope, and yet we hold to repeatedly wanting it with people who can't or won't give it, and so in that sense we are actually doing everything we can to subconsciously avoid intimacy. I think that's a major mindshift, to realize it isn't just the other person's unwillingness to give, but also our challenge with allowing ourselves to receive. By staying persistently focused on the longing for the people we can't be with, we are not allowing ourselves to be open actually having real love in our lives even though we THINK that is exactly what we are trying to get.

I find it helpful to see it as a bit of an addiction-- an unrequited love addiction. I remember when I first heard that phrase a year or two ago I thought, wow, that's exactly what it is-- decades of my life. For some reason this helps me separate myself a bit from thinking it is just the true reality of life to recognizing that I am hooked on one particular path that doesn't always have to be the path. If it's an addiction, one doesn't have to stay an addict forever.

Also I just want to say I can relate to your efforts.... I've tried the whole writing, mourning process, letters, special candles from the voodoo-witchy store and so on. If only all those things, or any of those things, worked!

My situation is a bit different because I have a history of emotionally attaching to friends that don't actually become romances, and do not have this dynamic with actual partners, but I can relate in that for most of my life I felt like having strong unfulfilled desire (that would hopefully eventually be fulfilled) was just inevitable. It would be towards one person until another, or maybe multiple people simultaneously, or feel permanent.

It is only recently that I've been able to mostly step out of that. It's like one day it just won't be worth the price you have to pay to be drawn towards people who can't or won't reciprocate. One thing that happened was I had my lowest point-- I think of it as the darkest dark night of the soul. Or maybe it was a midlife crisis. Maybe it's the equivalent of an addict's "rock bottom." You get to where you can't live that way anymore-- you decide you won't-- even if it means doing things you wouldn't have done before to get out of it (whether that be therapy or medications or reliable exercise or divorce or whatever).

I don't think it has to be that way though. Some people find smart ways to not have to reach rock bottom. But there is a better place out there and you can (I'd like to say you will) get there someday.

Then you can live without the someone new-- without anyone-- being the object of your ongoing longing. I know it feels impossible, or even like in some way a betrayal of your true self even though you want to get there-- but keep believing.