I don’t know your age, but if your background is closely linked in with what happened in that country, then I can only begin to imagine what you have experienced or seen.

Your past aways has a huge influence on your present and your future relationships and if you haven’t already done so, then I’d recommend therapy. It opened my eyes and changed my way of seeing people, which had not been too great in the past 45 years,really far too long to be controlled by my baggage….

Don’t let the past affect you for so long if you can change things!

Don’t totally fly off the hook and lose all composure. But if you have reason to be mad, damn it, be mad! Then they most often come running back, especially when NC is used. (And, if they don’t, who cares!) Here is my EUM story, which woke me up in general in life, as to personal relationships:

The ex-EUM-jerk I knew MARRIED the woman he had abandoned (he didn’t show up to meet her out-of-state family on a major holiday) after 3-4 months of dating. During that 3-4 months, she got angry and went NC a few times. Get this: HE ALWAYS went running back (with calls, emails, etc.). They got back together a year and a half later, but, in the meantime, he dated me and a host of other women, including another professional I know. She only got one date in. AND she knew about his history with the now-wife. AND he had her meet his friends on the date. (????? NML, what the hell is that about? Scapegoating? Like he wanted to be able to give off the impression, “Well, my friends didn’t like you, so that is why you didn’t get another call” and, meanwhile, she, like me, another professional, could be used to make the dumb bunny/then-ex/now-wife jealous? Seriously!)

Anyways, I bring this up b/c I have to admit that I admire how the Dumb Bunny stood up for herself! She had enough self-respect to do so! She still only saw him every 2 weeks when she took him back, each time she took him back, but, after a total of about 3 1/2 years of dating, she got him.

NOW who is the master and who is the servant?

And, honestly, heaven forgive me, the wife is HIDEOUS. I can’t even look at her for more than a few seconds, she is SO ugly. AND dull.

Sidenote: As a guy friend told me, to explain this bluntly to me, “she’s not dull: you and my wife would never do what she does in bed!”

(The sidenote may have a lot to do with things here, too. Especially b/c I and my friend never slep with him…we didn’t play that card.)

Have to give you all the facts for your analysis.

In any event, that relationship taught me a LOT about myself and relationships. It stood for a lot. I am thankful the jerk came into my life, and for WHEN he did.

You’ve experienced some horrific things in your home country ( I’ve visited Cambodia and have read a great deal on the time with the Khmer Rouge). Have you sought therapy to deal with the atrocities and how they affect your life today?

Eventually i physically moved across the country with the kids and got into a really great shelter and realized it had been a highly abusive situation. Spent a couple years in councelling and was just so relieved not to be walking on eggshells …and also exhausted from being single mom (one is autistic) that i didn’t have TIME to be lonely.
He moved out here to be near the kids after a year and we have finally settled into a good place. He is seeing other ppl, and so am I and the kids have a dad who is in their life and takes good care of them.

POINT IS: after a DECADE …i had lots of anger. So i let it out to my councellor . After a couple years i was ready to date and guess what, the only types that i even find remotely attractive are inevitably EUM’s. Bummer!

But you know what? I’ll never spend another DECADE with one!! In fact, I recognize them quicker and quicker and bail out as soon as I do.

I just got out of a semi-serious fling with an EUM…only a couple months instead of much longer …so how can I be mad? I’m just THANKFUL I know what I know now so i can get out sooner and sooner.

Eventually I suspect I will recognize them right away and then maybe even start being attracted to healthy guys. It helps also to have priorities: My kids, being healthy, having a social life, friends, some physical exercise, hobbies. I am happy on my own, not lonely. Of course companionship is icing on the cake but when it isnt’ FUN anymore, I bail.

No time for anger. Give myself a couple weeks to grieve and that’s it, too bad, so sad, THEIR LOSS.

NML told me to write a letter but don’t send it. I did that and when those dark days come around I take it out and read it and re-read as many times as I have to. It has helped. I think cutting them out of our lives says more to them than anything else. It says we don’t care.

I think doing something really physical helps too, gets the pent up energy/sadness/pain/anger out. Like I said in my other post I took up boxing, I get it all out then and I don’t stop till I’m exhasted. Sometimes in the middle of it I’ll just start crying. My instructor understands and just lets me go at it till its better.

Stay Strong….

My problem now is that I have days I feel sick and overwhelmed with anger at the injustice Of it all- how couldi have let him do this to me fr a year and a half.

So I cut off contact, but I feel like because I never unleashed my anger or told him what I really thought of him, it is choking me now b/c it feels like he got away Scot free- and the anger has nowhere to go. I didn’t even get the satisfaction of feeling like I wasn’t afraid to tell him exactly what I thought – I held back thinking I want to seem mature. Now I regret it and feel like calling him or emailing just to lash out – I hate that maybe he sees me as passive b/c I said nothing – I just cut him out of my life.

Any help as to how to deal with this anger – this rage – that sometimes consumes me when I think of him – would be so greatly appreciated.