Memories of Your First Love - Part 1

Memories of your first love can have a profound effect on subsequent relationships.  It doesn't matter how old you are or if you're happy in your current relationship or not.  Your first experience of love can leave a lasting imprint on you (see my article: The One That Got Away).

Memories of Your First Love

Books and Movies About the Lasting Effect of a First Love on Later Relationships
Since this is a common experience for many people, this theme often comes up in popular books and movies:

     Call Me By Your Name:
In the book, Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman, Elio is a 17 year old boy who falls in love with Oliver, a graduate student who comes to stay with Elio's family in their summer home in Italy for six weeks.  Throughout his life, Elio has other romantic relationships, but his first experience of love with Oliver has a profound effect on him and his subsequent relationships.

The book, which goes 20 years beyond the movie, illustrates how memories of a first love remain imprinted on the protagonist, who experiences an enduring love and a longing for Oliver throughout his life (see my articles: Call Me By Your Name - Part 1: "Is It Better to Speak or to Die?" and Call Me By Your Name - Part 2: The Concept of Parallel Lives).

     The Sense of an Ending:  
The Sense of an Ending is a book by Julian Barnes which was made into a movie.  The protagonist, Tony, has memories of his first relationship that create an obsession to find out what really happened to his first love.  He is now in his 60s, retired, divorced, and on amicable terms with his ex-wife and his adult daughter.  But he is driven by an unsolved mystery involving a memory about his first love, Veronica, and a love triangle from his early 20s.

     45 Years:
In the movie, 45 Years, memories of a first love come to haunt a husband, who is happily married to his wife for 45 years.  They are about to celebrate their 45th anniversary when he receives a letter which brings him back to his youth and his experience with his first love.  These enduring memories begin to threaten his well-being and the equilibrium of his otherwise happy marriage (see my article: An Old Secret Haunts a Happy Long Term Marriage).

     The Reader:
In the book and the movie, The Reader (book by Bernard Schlink), which take place in post-war German, 15 year old Michael meets Hanna, an enigmatic older woman.  His experiences with Hanna have a life-changing effect on him that endure long into his adulthood.  The book and the movie show how much he changes from the loving and open teenager that he was at the beginning of the story to an emotionally distant man who has superficial relationships with women--someone who is struggling to make sense of his first relationship with Hanna.

I could go on with many more examples, but these books and movies, which are part of our popular culture, illustrate how people are often changed forever by their early romantic experiences.

Memories of a First Love For Clients in Psychotherapy
As a psychotherapist in New York City, I often see clients who are still very attached to their early memories of their first love--even though they are in stable relationships.  There is something very powerful about these experiences that often take over their imagination.

And now it's relatively easy and so tantalizing to contact a first love on social media (see my article: Romantic Reconnections).

For some people, this is really more about themselves than it is about the other person.  They're remembering their youth and who they were back then.  In addition to a wish to recapture their youth,  for other people it's also about their wish to realize a fantasy of what it would be like to be in that relationship again.

Needless to say, if people allow themselves to get caught up in the fantasy, it could work out or it can have disastrous consequences when reality doesn't live up to the fantasy and a spouse leaves an otherwise happy marriage to pursue his or her first love (see my article: Relationships: The Ideal vs. the Real).

This is often a topic of discussion for many clients in psychotherapy, especially clients who are in midlife and looking back on their lives (see my articles: Midlife Transitions: Reassessing Your Life and Midlife Transitions: Living the Life You Want to Live).

In a future article, I'll continue to discuss this topic.

Conclusion
Memories of your first love can remain with you throughout your life.  Beyond nostalgia, these romantic memories can revive an old relationship or they can create upheaval in your life as well as the lives of your loved ones.

Many people reach out to their first love on social media in an effort to recapture what they once felt or to relive a part of their lives that has been over for a long time--often with mixed results.

Books and movies about this subject have become popular because this experience is so ubiquitous and can be all consuming.

See Part 2: Memories of Your First Love Can Have a Profound Effect on Later Relationships - Part 2

Getting Help in Therapy
Separating reality from fantasy can be difficult when you're caught up in memories of a first love from the past.

If you're struggling with these memories or the possibility of rekindling a relationship from a long time ago, you could benefit psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Although a psychotherapist won't tell you what to do, a skilled therapist can help you to work this issue through for yourself (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Rather than struggling on your own, you can take the first step by setting up an appointment with a psychotherapist for an initial consultation.

Being able to work through these issues can help you to make important decisions and to regain a sense of well-being.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients who are struggling with midlife and other big decisions in their lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.
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Movies: "45 Years": An Old Secret Haunts a Loving Long-Term Marriage

In the movie, 45 Years, an old secret, which is suddenly thrust upon them, haunts an older married couple, who were, seemingly, happily married for many years (for 45 years, hence, the name of the movie).  They face the emotional challenge, both alone and together, that could ruin their relationship.

An Old Secret Haunts a Loving Long-Term Marriage*

Until this old secret surfaces, the couple, Kate and Geoff Mercer (portrayed beautifully by Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtnay) seem to have an ordinary, serene life in their retirement in the beautiful English countryside.

Suddenly, their world is upended by a letter that Geoff receives about a deceased girlfriend, Katya, who died during a mountaineering accident when Katya and Geoff were very young, and whose body was just found intact in a glacier after all of these years.

Geoff's short-lived romantic relationship with Katya preceded his relationship with Kate, and he told Kate about it many years before.

But as he starts to ruminate about Katya and he sinks into a depressed state about this old loss, Kate begins to realize that he never revealed to her how important that past relationship was to him.  They never talked much about it, and the news about finding Katya's body is now threatening their marriage.

It haunts both Geoff and Kate in different ways.

For Geoff, the power of memory has overtaken him.  He can't sleep.  He starts smoking again.  He is preoccupied and lost in thought about his short, youthful romance with Katya.  He wants to immerse himself in pictures and mementos of her.  When he speaks about his old romance to Kate, he calls Katya "my Katya."

Initially, Kate comforts herself by telling herself that Geoff's youthful romance with Katya was very brief and a long time ago, especially compared to the many years that he and Kate have been married.  After all, Kate and Geoff have had a whole lifetime together, and it's been a good life.

She reasons to herself:  A brief romance from many years ago with a woman who is long dead can't compete with their 45 year marriage.

And, yet, it does in ways that gradually unfold in this movie.

Kate makes her own secret discoveries into Geoff's past romantic attachment to Katya.

As Kate becomes more aware of the effect of this old romance, she wonders how she can compete with the memory of an attractive, young lover who is deceased, but who is still very much alive in Geoff's memory.

Over the course of only one week, with the backdrop of Kate planning a big party for their 45th wedding anniversary, it gradually dawns on Kate that all of her assumptions about her husband and their marriage might be wrong:

• How does Geoff really feel about Kate and their marriage?
• How well does she understand Geoff's romantic history with Katya? 
• Has Geoff been secretly harboring unspoken feelings for Katya all along throughout their long marriage? 
• How can she be jealous of a ghost from the past?
• Would Geoff still have married her if Katya was still alive?
• Now that these secrets have come to light, what does all of this mean for their marriage?
• What is the truth about about their marriage?

Far from being melodramatic, 45 Years, is a the story of a very ordinary couple and the devastating effects of time and memory, which can change everything.  This is what makes it so haunting:  It could happen to anyone.

Without giving too much away, the expression on Kate's face, which is so dissonant from the all the revelry around her at the anniversary party, says it all.

Time seems to stand still for Kate and her expression tells us everything there is to know about how she feels and her dawning emotional awareness.

But there are no easy answers for this couple--just as there are no easy answers for any couple faced with this emotional dilemma.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about it, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.



*The couple in this picture are not from the movie.  The picture is from Shutterstock.