By the time I met the boyf, I had accomplished something that a year or so before I hadn’t been entirely sure was a possibility – I was over my ex, the guy with a girlfriend. This was despite us not only working in the same company, sometimes having to work on the same clients, and sharing mutual friends. A year before I’d been in immense pain over the whole debacle and my self-worth was in shreds and it took Herculean strength for me to walk away from the damaging dynamic and instigate No Contact, albeit a slightly watered down version as we had to work together still.
I have no problem admitting that initially, I hoped it would galvanise the “cowardly, spineless, twit” (it’s exactly what I called him) into ‘doing the right thing’. In retrospect, I realise I had no idea what was good for me…or even right for me…
I got on with my life but my heart, pride, and soul hurt immensely, and initially I felt extremely unhappy with myself and questioned my value.
Of course I bounced out of being with him to being with the guy who would end up doing me the biggest favour by triggering the epiphany that made me see myself, life, and relationships in a totally different way. A five month barely there relationship where I spent more time pondering what was going on than actually knowing what was going on and faced with a relapse of my immune system disease and the implications of that, I was finally forced into looking a hell of a lot closer to home and stop seeing things as a run of bad luck that was out of my hands. It is amazing how much we can focus on everyone else and what they’ve done to ‘make’ us feel this way but when I recognised that I am the common denominator to all my relationships, I realised that I was making myself feel that way, not least because I kept throwing myself into oncoming traffic and then wondering why it hurt.
I’m a firm believer that relationships serve to teach us about ourselves, and life will keep throwing the same lessons at us until we heed the lesson.
A few months went by and despite moving on with my life, tackling my illness head on, and starting to love and like myself, very deep in the back of mind, there was still a part of me that wanted the ultimate validation of my ex leaving his girlfriend and choosing me. This was in spite of the fact that I was finding less and less reasons to like, nevermind love him, and I didn’t actually like myself when I was around him.
He was jealous and possessive and with him, I went into drama queen mode. Long time readers and anyone who bought my ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl will know that what started the whole no contact was when his jealousy and aggression triggered a panic attack that left me doubled up on a London street and because he was more concerned with being home for a call from his girlfriend than looking out for my welfare, he put me on a packed London tube…on my own, to go home. It took me three weeks to recover and the mental impact lasted longer.
Two kids and the boyf later plus a vastly different sense of self, remembering that event serves as a stark reminder of the me who didn’t like or love herself enough that she would allow someone to treat her in this way.
Even after all that had happened though, at a company event, he went on his usual jealous, drunken tirade and I remember exploding in frustration, arguing in the street, and agreeing to let him come back to my place. I forgot myself briefly and then I remember looking at him and seeing him being exactly as he always was, and catching a glimpse of myself and realising that I was somebody entirely different to who he thought I was and that I actually didn’t want ‘this’ or him.
I felt cold and detached. In my darker days of no contact, when I had secretly hoped he’d make me the exception, I’d always thought that if I allowed myself to let him get close, that it would be electric, the chemistry and passion would still be there – it wasn’t. My imagination had been holding on to something that didn’t exist.
‘We’ didn’t exist now that I actually had some self-love.
But I had to Suck It and See (taste the experience and see what the results were) to discover this because, maybe, I would always have wondered about ‘us’, whereas falling briefly off the wagon for less than a couple of hours shut the door on a painful part of my life where I’d had little love, care, trust, and respect for myself and had given this guy too much room in my airspace.
I want to clarify, this doesn’t mean run out and fall off the wagon but if you do fall off the wagon, use the experience to empower yourself to get out of denial and continue with NC.
Suck It and See is when instead of spending more time thinking about what you might or could do, you decide to spare yourself the time and energy by just getting on with it and killing off your curiosity.
Falling off the wagon is not just about sleeping with someone – in fact, it’s all forms of breaking contact. If you’re worried about taking the call, responding to an email, responding to a text, or whatever it is – spending copious amounts of time worrying about taking the call etc is a waste of time if done on an extended basis.
I have come across a lot of women who broke contact, took the call, and then found themselves deserted/ignored by the assclown which served as a major reminder of why they should be NC and they stayed NC afterwards. These women worried about these calls etc for months and even though the assclowns behaviour hurt, the curiosity got killed in a far shorter time period.
You do have to agree to be honest with yourself, go in with both eyes open, and accept whatever you discover. If pondering the what if’s, but’s, maybe’s and possible fairytale endings is weighing on your mind for an extended period of time and you’re trapped in indecision, Suck It and See means you take action. In doing this, you have to recognise that you are potentially opening yourself up to pain, but if you go in with both feet in reality instead of floating in on a hopes and dreams bubble, the actual potential to be hurt is far less, because you gain on getting your final closure.
Suck It and See is the type of thing you should do once when it comes to going back to an old relationship/partner. That’s taking the call, replying to the email, hopping into their bed etc.
Don’t give yourself license to keep engaging by claiming that you’re sucking it and seeing it – you’re not. Instead, you’re not accepting the information that venturing back is telling you and you’re caught in a cycle of breaking up and getting back together which communicates that you are not to be taken seriously. This is called being in denial, something that will work against you NC or not.
In the ‘aftermath’ of my backslide, I panicked and initially carried on like I was ‘doomed’ until I realised I was being a total drama queen and I could make it as big or small as I wanted it to be, so it became tiny and insignificant.
Falling off the wagon isn’t what I intended but it is what happened. I knew it was over forever there and then. I’d spent most of that year looking back and wondering if he’d ever catch me up, and instead, now, I looked forward and never looked back and of course, he never did catch me up and I didn’t want him to.
If you’ve been spending many months or even a year obsessing about a relationship that has ended and pondering whether you should give it one last try, seriously, please go and put your hand in the fire. There is no 100% outcome. If you’re trying to figure it out to the nth degree and get concrete guarantees – it’s not going to happen.
I listened to a woman talk incessantly about her ex. She switched from obsessing about if she would hear from him to obsessing, once she’d broken NC, as to whether he could give her the relationship she’d wanted – this is not being in NC. It’s called conducting your relationship in your imagination. It’s certainly not cutting contact and refocusing on yourself.
You have to take a leap of faith and either way, you have to get behind your decision, whether that is to end it or to give it a try, but do one or the other. You may discover, like I did, that what you thought could be, is actually in your imagination and if anything, the urge is driven by a need to be ‘right’ and to not feel ‘rejected’.
Some of us can weather it out and eventually the fog will clear…and some of us, have to get our hands burned. Hopefully, after you do get your hands burnt, you’ll use a combination of your gut, instincts, judgement, values, and boundaries and realise that fires burn.
Stop looking back because it’s like trapping yourself in relationship groundhog day and we can’t cling and hold onto everything just because we’re afraid to look forward to a future that doesn’t have them in it. Looking forward actually helped me to have some faith in myself and helped me change my beliefs, which changed how I felt about me and my experiences. So maybe when your imagination is working overtime, why not start imagining a more positive and confident you in the future, without the object of your thoughts.
*****I want to add for some further clarification that No Contact is No Contact but I am realistic that some of you will stray and eventually find your way back to NC. I have added further clarification throughout the post
Your thoughts?
Are you doing No Contact? Check out The No Contact Mail for support delivered by email . Also check out my ebooks including The No Contact Rule, a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you, and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl, a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them, in my bookshop. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.
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Don`t know if anyone else is having the same experiences as me, but when I came to this site, and bought the e-books about 2 months ago – I remember feeling many things as I read them, eg:
“I don`t think I can do no-contact”
“It all seems very harsh”
“Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt”
etc etc etc
The funny thing is, over the last 2 months everything I read has been proved correct time and time again. I almost feel that armed with these books and this website I can predict what he is going to do – he is running true to form as a perfect EUM! I almost feel sorry for him that I am so forewarned and forearmed!
I just wanted to add a comment to breaking NC because of my recent experience. LAst week I broke NC. NML was right – DON`T contact even in an emergency – well, I was racing to ER with a choking baby (egg allergy, first time, please be aware mums of babies!) and he works at the hospital (he`s a doctor). So I texted him to ask if by any chance he was on duty (I was kind of hoping to pull the “friendship” card and get my baby boy seen more quickly if I`m honest, but it was also a definite break in NC!) Here was my epiphany moment – not only did he not respond straight away (which is fair enough because sometimes he is in surgery or with a patient) but he didn`t actually respond for 5 DAYS – not even to check if we were OK.
Finally I got a phone call two days ago. But I am SO incensed that it took him 5 DAYS to come back to me I didn`t answer it, didn`t call back, just listened to the message “Hi, it`s me. I`ll call you back later” (of course, he didn`t) and deleted it. Didn`t even ask if everything was OK in the message! Again proving the concept that everything really is all about them.
A few thigns have come out of this experience that I want to share with people that might help:
1) It is absolutely true for most people (there are exceptions of course) breaking NC only confirms what deep down you already know – the AC needs it and you are doing the right thing.
2) I was almost fantasizing about him chasing me and me being the one to ignore the texts and calls. But you know, it really DOESN`T give you the satisfaction you imagine it will. I don`t feel any sense of triumph or control just because I ignored his call. It just leads to even MORE wondering what he is thinking – and who needs that?
3) When you have your epiphany moment, it`s like a light switches on and suddenly everything changes. Mine was pretty big but it doesn`t have to be.
I have a looong way to go with this guy. He got under my skin in ways no-one else has ever been able to because of the circumstances under which we met. But thanks to the books, this site and all you guys and your experiences and stories I am getting stronger all the time. NML wrote something about attracting things into your life – I SWEAR that this site and all this information was sent to me right at the time that I needed it. Whether I attracted it in, or it is just coincidence I don`t know, but it is also helpful and comforting to feel that there is a plan to all this, that these guys are sent to teach us things, and to fight against it and try and force things into a direction they are not meant to go in is to fight against forces of nature over which we have no control – we really should just let it be and go with the flow because when something no longer feels right, it is almost certainly because it no longer IS right for us.
Just the post I needed to read today. After 2 months of NC, made easier by his being out of town, my AC is returning to work and I will have to start seeing him everyday. I have done great work on me. I have grown and come to see that my interest in him was really just me needing validation. I had held on to the image of him as a great guy for too long, living in a fantasy world and therefore “mourning” what I thought I had lost by not being with him. Now I see him for the AC he really is. I had also wasted a lot of time and energy debating whether to stay friends, what the reunion was going to be like and all that nonsense. I have grown stronger, I now recognize I deserve to be treated with respect and care and he has no history of doing that. I know what good treatment looks like and I will not accept any disrespect. If he returns with a polite, professional, respectful attitude, I will treat him the same. If he comes back looking to hit the reset button, playing more assclown games or trying to get back into my head and life, he will be shown the door. Not as an idle threat or as a ploy to get him to shape up – but because he doesn’t deserve my time or attention. Thank you, Natalie, for helping me see this. I have wasted too much time and energy on this clown, when I should have been focusing and working on me.
Ladies – After months of agony with my assclown (who I work with), and then months of NC, I finally had my much anticipated, long awaited encounter with the returning assclown. Guess what happened? He said hi and tried to act as though nothing happened. I blanked him completely and felt nothing. Glory be praised!!! All the work, all the endless reading of this site paid off big time. I felt nothing! He was an assclown and will remain an assclown and I couldn’t be happier to be rid of him. I no longer see whatever it was that I thought I couldn’t live without. He is a selfish jerk. Despite all his talk about needing to keep me in his life as a valued friend and how he would never let anything split us up, he didn’t put one ounce of effort into maintaining this supposedly invaluable friendship. The second I stopped stroking his ego, he couldn’t have been less interested in me if I were on fire. I couldn’t help but notice that, once I stopped reading meaning and significance into every little thing he said or did, there was no evidence of him caring for me at all. It had all been in my head. When the rose tinted glasses finally came off and I saw him for what he really was, there was no more fear, no more need. I had my power back and there was nothing he could have said or done to make me interested in him again.
God bless you Natalie – I have my life and sanity back!!!
After 28 days I broke contact
Why because I forgot to concentrate on me and what is best for me it was his birthday a significant age one I kept busy for most of the day then in the evening in a moment of weakness I sent a text saying happy birthday because my thinking got side tracked and I was thinking things weren’t that bad between us he remembered my b’day etc and on and on these delusional thoughts went he did reply almost like he knew I would text him.. so now Im back on the wagon always re reading my why I am in no contact list and it is extensive..
Today is the day of his b’day party that I was initially invited to but I could lay a million dollar bet that I was never on the invite list.. and when I woke up I thought I bet he expects me to text him that his party will go well and he enjoys it.. (which I wont I plan on keeping busy and doing a be kind to me night)
Unfortunately I know down the tack this guy will be back in contact and I was hoping NML you could do a post on what to do when he contacts you..
Thank you
You ignore. You don’t respond. It’s really that simple (and that difficult).
If you fall off the wagon, just get back on again. Just cos you sent one lousy text you’re not obligated to him in any way.
And even if you’re a miserable failure at NC (which many of us are/have been), you are still reducing the time you are interacting with him. And that’s always a good thing.
Fascinating stuff. I am glad I read this today. I have just read something in one of Melodie Beattie’s book on codependency in which she says to stop fighting the pull to return to relationships, even when we know they are bad for us. She argues that if we keep getting pulled back into something like a relationship, its because we haven’t learned everything we were meant to from it yet, that “class isn’t over until its finished!”. I am on the fence about this today and I am not certain whether I am looking for justification to modify my NCR with my AC (after 10 weeks) or whether I really need to briefly re-engage to finish the lesson. I am honestly over him – he is the very textbook definition of an assclown (the one they made the mould of, I suspect!). I have to work very closely with him and the NCR has been difficult. Serious problems have developed at work because of our inability to talk to each other and others have complained they feel trapped in the middle (one equated it to feeling like a child of divorce, trying to please both sides). I feel immature and unprofessional continuing this way. I have no hope and no interest in anything personal with this man, he cannot and will not ever give me what I want and I now see his ridiculous ways for exactly what they are. But I do need to learn some way of being professional and civil. Some part of me is scared, though. I think my boundaries are in place. I think I am strong enough. I think he has no interest in restarting the relationship in any way, so what am I scared of? I realize now I had alot of unspoken expectations of this man, which he had no intention of ever meeting, and that was what was causing my pain at the end of the relationship. I have learned so much over the past months about myself and my bad relationship patterns. Maybe what I am really afraid of is that all this work has not yet taken hold and that I will slip. I just don’t know. I will hold off contact with him until I am clear but would love to hear others experiences and thoughts. I am being sincere when I say I am not clear what I am afraid of.
Who cares what your colleagues think? I’m sure workplaces are riddled with people who can barely stand each other for one reason or another. Head down and do your job. You only have to keep your boss happy, not a myriad of office gossipers. Why do they have so much time on their hands that they’re concerning themselves with your relationships? Are you talking to them about it? Well don’t.
Keep your contact with him minimal, professional and businesslike. Channel your inner Greta Garbo.
I have been reading this site for over a year. I dated a full fledged assclown for months and then left the situation after I came across this site and started reading here. I went NC for nearly 9 months with him. I came to Baggage Reclaim and just read and read which kept me focused on learning how to basically “walk again” in the world of relationships and begin to formulate new beliefs about myself and love and relationships (because I can say I really had little to none). In March of this past year, feeling much stronger based on what I had read here and the self work I had embarked on, I broke NC with the former assclown and reconnected for another month and a half in March of this year, during that time, I really just woke up and saw with my own two eyes, that he was still the same old AC that he always was – But what was different this time around was that I knew I had changed. I had a huge wake up call when it occured to me that during those 9 months when we were apart, I was working on me and my belief system and my values system and I finally had my own inner compass up and running now, which although it was “weak”, it was still at least “operable” now….I was able to start to really discern when I did not like the things he was doing because I had some boundaries so I knew where the lines were now and my voice of opposition both inside and out got stronger. I left again for another month. Of course I feel off NC again for three more months before I finally had that moment where I knew in my heart I had changed and had experienced the last of my denial days…..I saw things clearly.
But throughout this process, I did keep the focus on me as much as possible…when I would think about him, I had to bring the focus straight back to me without delay, at the same time I experienced the Suck it and See, and something was/had changed inside me….my beliefs about myself and what I deserved were finally catching up to creating more appropriate, self loving emotional responses to what the AC was doing in the relationship but more importantly what I was also doing in the relationship. I became more authentic with my feelings and I began to put my foot down, I became more assertive and truly spoke my mind about what I wanted and needed and I got stronger. True to form, when he could not provide those things, and he could not live up to my values and my expectations for what I truly wanted in this relationship, I left him behind…..
These painful interludes were important to me, not as personal failures, but rather they served to reinforce the reality of him, the changes I was truly making in me, and the impact on me emotionally that my choices were having on me…..All of this moved me towards addressing the real issue here which was “why on earth do i keep going back?” The NC process helped me to learn how to hold onto my power now based on MY beliefs, trust myself now, know my values and needs and that my power is in honoring them myself by not accepting less than what I need..taking the time to know what I needed during NC was a critical step..how else was I going to know when I wasn’t getting them met if I wasn’t authentically aware of them?…so when the AC came with his hands out with the crumbs, asking me to accept less, this time I was able to really listen to him spew his normal sales pitch but I no longer foolishly bought into the illusions…Instead, I remembered my needs and the pain of the relationship because I hadn’t stuffed either away in a drawer anymore, I remembered the lies because they caused me pain and I acknowledged it and honored my feelings, and felt it and it registered as offensive rather than glossing them over because I wanted to believe he was different. No, this time, I realistically assessed my experiences with him, let how I felt about them sink in, and understood how inappropriate and outrageous he acted, and having thrown out my rose colored glasses along with the illusions, the AC was not attractive anymore and his Modus Operendi sales pitch was nothing short of insultingly pathetic…I was “riding with me” for once as NML said…..but it is a process of growth and I learned that NC really is for me…..and NC is not a test of my willpower, or a comptition between you and the AC to see who can pretend it doesn’t matter the longest (that is Drama in disquise)…the objective is not to pretend anymore and get in touch with your own feelings and process them and put the focus on you and work on you!!….NC is the gift I give myself to have the absolute necessary time and space I needed to protect myself from further pain and empower me to think logically about the situation and not react or deny what happened or how I felt as a result. NC is not a win or lose proposition…..it is a process that will help you get major clarity if you stick to it because you are no longer going to settle for crumbs…..when i finally did say goodbye to him, like NML said, I really saw him for who he was…..and it made leaving him as clear as a blue sky……hang in there….keep the focus on YOU and focus on what you authentically feel…..I am moving forward too…Thank you to all the women who shared here…..Happy Birthday Baggage Reclaim! and Thank you NML…
Ithaca – Wow, girl. Congratulations. You are a walking advertisement for the positive power of NC, working on yourself and getting the clarity and self-respect necessary to start having a healthy relatonship with you, which means the death of any relationships with assclowns. I love what you said here and it has helped me stay strong. For some reason today the AC has been on my mind alot and I have been playing with the idea of breaking contact. I finally sat down and asked myself why? Why did I need to talk to him? What good did I think would come out of it? Did I honestly think I would end the contact feeling better about me? Was I just interested in making sure I no longer wanted him, in which case why did I need to talk to him? I guess we will never truly know why these guys have such a long lasting effect on us and our psyches but Ithaca, your story is a great example of what NML has said all along – as long as you stay focused on you and work on yourself, you will start to see these guys as the bottom feeders they are and you will no longer have to fight to keep NC. It will be the only thing you want to do.
Well done, girl!
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