Unfortunately there is a lot of social pressure when it comes to dating. especially the breakups. So when you have a terrible breakup, and the other person was completely so terrible to you, maybe treated you like garbage. your friends, your television, and the internet will all tell you that your pathetic for still being hung up on them or even wishing you were still in a relationship. Most of all you will tell yourself this. The logic behind this might make sense to you at first. This person was terrible to you; you should not love someone who is terrible to you; you are therefore a pathetic excuse for a human being for not being able to move on
but thats untrue.
let me break something down for you. sometimes love will blind you to a persons flaws for a while. or make you think that they can change, or think that they are only cruel to you because of something about you that you can change. Sometimes love will make you stupid, and not just in romantic relationships either, but with your family and friends too. you will take the good times you have had with this person and use them to obscure the bad times. Heres the good news now.
this kind of love is only secondary love. when you really love someone, you will see all of their flaws, and you will accept them (more or less) instead of pretending to yourself that they don't exist. And you can find that kind of love.
But your not pathetic for still loving someone who is cruel to you. I had an ex-boyfriend whom I deeply loved. we dated for 2 years, I moved an hour away and he got jumpy about long distance and broke it off. The kicker is I was pregnant, and he knew it. then when I moved he refused to speak to me about it, I was very young, and I was terrified. I miscarried, something I still can't even speak about. he appolgized later, said he was deeply ashamed, the whole nine yards. but he kept going. he kept doing things to make me feel like I was nothing to him, and worse like I never was, whatever he said.
Its been a few months since then and I love him still. but I am not pathetic, and neither are you. first off theres a difference between feelings and actions. do I love him and want to be in a relationship with him? yes, yes I do. will I ever? god no. never. I could never trust him again. having lingering feelings at the end of a relationship is normal, and whatever you want to tell yourself, they do not make you pathetic. they make you human, and blinded by love. and thats okay. you just need to know somewhere in your heart that your moving on. even if its just a tiny place in your heart at first. and one day you will move on.