Even when you've moved on, have you really moved on?

I find myself lately dwelling on a relationship from my past. A relationship that I for the first time EVER (even tho I was once engaged) really thought was it for me....the one.
I am in a new relationship now, but can't seem to utter those three small words...I love you...I guess in part because i am not really IN love. I mean I love and care about the man I am with now. But it's not like the love I have for my Ex. So how can I say those words?

How long does it really take to get over your true love anyways???

See the thing is god was cruel to me in the love department. He has given me some great guys in my life already (not to say he hasn't given me some real a*#holes also!). But these great men in my life were all missing something and I couldn't figure out what so I just kept breaking up with them.
That is until I met my ex, we will call him Smith. Smith and I had crushes on each other for years, but, both of us being very shy never knew this, our friends knew, so in passing one day (4yrs after meeting each other might I add) his friend decided to let me in on the secret! I was jumping for joy (inside of course! outside I stayed cool, calm and collective!!). I decided he was so shy, if I wanted this I was going to have to take matters into my own hands! So I dialed him up and (prayed for voice mail!!) asked him out. He....said YES (I later found out he literally jumped for joy- in public at that!). The rest as they say is history...we were inseparable for the first 6 months of our blissful piece of heaven! It was something I had never experienced, he was everything I never knew I wanted. Then one day he asked me to move in with him. Now if you knew me or him for that matter, you'd know that we are very, very independent people. So you'd know I would never allow this. But for the first time in my life I thought only with my heart. I bought out my lease and I moved in! It was fantastic! We were the sick mushy couple that makes you want to shoot us or yourself! I loved every minute of it!!
But as it happens I have that type of luck....bad luck...
A few weeks after we moved in together Smith was laid of from his job and something in my gorgeous mans face was gone, like a switched had been flipped and there was no going back. Whether it was his ego or his confidence something was gone. Basically this is where my story book tale ends.
Smith and I made it just over a year (barely) before I moved out because of his reckless drinking, disregard for my love and numbness to my pleas for him to come back to the reality we once knew.

So what does one do when they are in love with someone who isn't what they need...I think I maybe unable to let go....Here's to trying anyways

-M