this post took on a strange significance of its own for me as well for reasons I cannot disclose but when I got to this part I wondered if I couldnt help.
now I can't get rid of him! He's never gonna be back in my life (again, as far as I know), but I can't move on

but why on earth would you want to be rid of him? he will always be a part of you and, present or not, will always be a part of your life. what he gave to you he gave to you and you still have that: you will always have that and isn't that what your dream was trying to tell you?
we always think in past-present-future but it really doesnt work that way in the eyes of God.
you must remember him in your prayers always and give back to him everything that he has given to you.
well, thats my take on the boys in my own life anyway.

just one point on the past present future thing. I'm not sure whether you are a believer or not but will assume that you are.
at the end of every single psalm the cistercian monks sing
glory be to the father, to the son and to the holy spirit
as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.

so during the course of a single day it can be sung up to twenty times or more . . .for years I couldnt understand why on earth it was necessary to sing this quite so often and I used to miss it out in my own psalms until one day I realised in a sort of flash why it is so important. not just important but essential. . . .
we people have a terrible obsession with time and for obvious reasons: our selfconsciousness makes us horribly aware of how time passes and how everything we love passes away from us like a mirage - only of course it isnt a mirage its real. many of us live our lives grieving not only for what has already passed but for the present which we know only too well will also pass. I have a strange feeling that one of the aspects of the acute pain of deepest love at its rawest is the knowing that none of it can last and so we grieve even when we are in our happiest moments. isnt it mostly this battle with time and absence that leads us to God in the first place? but once we are there it is the first thing that He takes in hand.
in that prayer 'as it was in the beginning' we are already being asked to realign the fundamental misunderstanding that we people have about the very nature of time (and place) and our real relationship with it.
just as you bring your relationship with your yf to us on the forum so you must take it to God in your prayer and you will see (in time) how God will transform the way in which you think both about your yf and the place you have in his life too.
it is my strong belief that each person that we are given to love (such a gift!) leads us closer to God.
I will never fully understand the relationship between God and Time (and Place) but I know it is not just important but essential and ultimately life-changing and can only be glimpsed through prayer . . . (as in a mirror darkly . . .)
yikes this is too long. forgive me if this is total nonsense for you: I tend to get carried away. . . .