So it’s good to be back after a nice long break over Christmas and as I looked through comments from various readers, I realised that it’s important to readdress some key points about mentality and attitude, because remember ladies – how we think, feel, and act is often reflected back at us in our relationships!
1. I’ve said it many a time before and no doubt I’ll say it many times again, but as long as you carry negative beliefs about yourself, love, and relationships, or misconceptions about these things, they will be reflected in your relationships.
2. You get the man that reflects how you feel about yourself and if you don’t believe that you deserve to be loved or treated decently, then lo and behold, you will be around men that exacerbate these beliefs and reconfirm the negatives.
3. You cannot impose change upon someone else. We as individuals have no right to demand change from others even if those changes would lead to something better. You don’t date the man you don’t want and try to build him from the ground up to turn him into the man you do want. You can’t decide that just because you think you love them that they must do as you expect. If you were both singing from the same hymn sheet, you’d both be doing what was in the interests of your relationship, not fighting it.
4. Loving someone (or thinking you love them) doesn’t mean ipso facto they love you. We need to get real about our concept of ‘unconditional love’ and loving men we hardly know and who aren’t connected with us. If we’re emotionally unavailable and they’re emotionally unavailable, where exactly is the love because you’re both disconnected!
5. Of course you’re going to feel like sh*t if you refuse to take the hint that’s given to you by a man who mistreats you or has opted out of the relationship and moved on. Clinging to him and the relationship when it’s over and he’s even moved on is like masochism. No, you can’t instantly get over him but your self-esteem grows when you recognise that you’re abusing yourself by pursuing love from someone who repeatedly rejects you, or uses you…and still rejects you anyway.
6. There’s licking your wounds…and there is wallowing. We all have our moment to cry and feel the pain but if all you do is hurl yourself in the pit of misery and say how sh*t everything is, and blame yourself, or analyse him, you will come to a complete and utter halt. Like it or not, life does go on, and the shocking thing is when you stop wallowing and begin to appreciate you and the life you’re given, it’s shocking to realise that you feel better than expected. I’m not saying you can’t be upset but I am saying there is overkill! Set a time limit and then force yourself to start living – go to work, start forcing yourself to cut back on thinking time about him, see your friends – start doing things that make you feel good instead of wallowing in things that make you feel bad.
7. Self-blame, obsessing, and analysis is for those that don’t want to move on. Resolve to either be accountable and make better choices or to stop thinking. The likelihood is that you will choose the former. I can guarantee you, there is zip all to be gained by analysing the crap out every day, minute, and second of your relationship. At some point, you have to admit that it is what it is because your life will pass you by whilst you’re conducting a relationship in your head with the assclown. He in the meantime, is long gone.
8. Do something! Take action! There comes a point when you have to acknowledge that talking and thinking all the time, whether you’re in or out of a relationship, is the trapping of women who want someone else to be responsible for their happiness. Ask yourself if anything has changed as a result of all the previous talking and thinking? Probably not… Ask yourself if you stayed silent and cut the thoughts, whether you’d be any happier in your poor relationship, or whether he would spontaneously combust and change into a better man in a better relationship? Er…no. Stop waiting for others to change or for life to sweep you along, and take control!
9. Don’t let the golden dream of the promised land blind you. If you spend your life waiting for someone to turn into what you want or waiting for your life to become what you’d like based on the actions of others, you will find yourself bitterly disappointed. Live the life you have now – If he wasn’t how you wanted him to be six months ago, a year ago, or whenever, and he’s still not what you want now, why keep betting on potential and refuse to accept what he is and make a decision?
10. If you keep getting the same result from doing the same thing, start doing it differently. As I’ve said before, it makes sense that if you keep throwing yourself into oncoming traffic that you are bound to be hurt when you get run over! Throwing yourself in front of the car a further 20 times isn’t going to change the outcome. If you’re not happy with how things are and you’re being, feeling, and doing much of the same things, it’s time to start being, feeling, and doing something else.
11. When you meet someone and you both engage with each other in a healthy way and he’s not assclown/Mr Unavailable, the relationship grows and gets better over time. It doesn’t come to a grinding halt, go into reverse, or go in fits and starts. Poor relationships often start hot out the gate and fade to cold or lukewarm and then flit through the temperatures. Healthy relationships build. You get to know the person and connect with them over time. You don’t wake up after a a couple of years and suddenly realise you’re on a permanent date or that you don’t even know them.
12. And remember, pain is not love, it’s pain. Don’t get things twisted. That familiar feeling of excitement you think you’re feeling, the surge that you get when drama kicks off, and all that jazz? That’s not lust or love, that’s fear and pain. Relationships whilst they take ‘work’, they don’t take the kind of work that feels like work. When two people are in a relationship with both of them with their feet in, you share the common ground of each other and have each others best interests at heart. You bring out the best in each other, and are yourselves, warts and all, and you grow together rather than grow apart.
Your thoughts?
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Natalie,
Great post! I really enjoy visiting this site and reading, so helpful!
Wonderful inofrmation to start the New Year with, NML !
i CAN’T SPELL, SIGH.
INFORMATION
This post is a perfect encapsulation of everything that I resolve to stop doing and also do in the coming year. If that makes sense!
I’ve been doing everything wrong for so long and this post just says it all. I’m going to stop doing the stoopid stuff and start doing the smart stuff.
Thanks a million NML!! You’re a life and sanity saver!
Very nice, concise list! You’ve given a boatload of great advice here NML! Nicely done!
I’ve reflected on the past year and tried to learn more about myself and the choices that I’ve made. The articles by NML and the posts from readers (esp Astelle, Nilonder, Brak K, Carm, FSTL & Gaynor)have given me encouragement, hope and wisodm. This year, the focus is back on me and healthier frienships
I used to think that the ex-EUM was special as I would be abuzz with excitement whenever he made contact. I thought we had similar interests. The intimacy was incredible. I actually told a friend how the exEUM was the most fascinating man I’d ever met, how much I cared about him and that he was the man that I’ve loved the most.
Now that I’ve taken a step back from my involvement with him, I realise that he is also the man who
* Has hurt me the most
* Disappointed me the most
* I’ve shed the most tears over
* Expended too much energy trying to make it work
* Discussed the relationship with and over
* Begged to spend more time with me
Interestingly, I also dated him the shortest, saw him the least (as with most EUM’s, he was very “busy”) least and gave him the most chances. He is the first EUM I’ve ever been involved with and I mistook this drama for passion – I know know that it wasn’t love or even friendship.
This website has shown me the internal changes I need to make, helped me to spot EUM’s and make smart decisions.
Cheers to a wonderful New Year full of hope, happiness and love -minus the assclowns!
Thank you NML.
Christmas caused me to get a bit sentimental, along with the news that one of my EUMs close friends died suddenly and unexpectedly, and the ending of a small relationship I was in, and I almost broke NC. I haven’t contacted my EUM, but I’ve been wallowing in misery wanting to, which is really almost as bad.
I thought I’d been doing so well, but I “fell off the wagon” so to speak and was really having a hard time keeping up NC. I came back to this website (I’d been here sporadically, not as often as I used to be), and you reaffirmed everything I’ve been working so hard for! 2009 is gonna be a great year for me – man or no man! I love that the first point you made in this list was that we have to believe that we are worth a good relationship and that it CAN happen! I’ve not been believing that, so it’s no wonder I haven’t been seeing it. Thank you so much!
Oh – I forgot to mention, just for interests sake, that I’ve kept up NC for about 6 and a half months now! Now if I can just get my stupid heart/brain to stop thinking of him so much. :/
Amy – I felt similarly over the holidays and it’s been about five months for me. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning he pops into my head and I’m like “arrrggh!” because I want to just erase any thought of him and not spend one more minute out of one more day thinking about it. I hate when my mind wanders to him, which it does quite frequently. Now that the holidays are over, though, that sentimentality is subsiding. Like any loss, the first events that follow the seperation are always the hardest – first Christmas, birthday, etc. Hopefully by the time our birthdays roll around in a few months (we’re one day apart) it will be easier. The holidays for us last year were hot, hot, hot (as in he was blowing super hot and I was totally under the spell) and they seemed so anticlimactic this year. I know why, though now, so best foot forward into 2009!
Great post… I like the last two in particular. I am 1) trying to build a healthy relationship right now and 2) Keep thinking of my ex and how exciting and amazing it was at the beginning. My dating life is going “well” but it’s a bit ho hum some days and I get worried why I am not feeling that swept off my feet feeling. I think it’s going to take some experimenting to figure out if there just isn’t a spark or if it’s just because there isn’t horrible drama causing my stomach to drop off every other day.
Thanks
Cynnie,
Wow, sadly I share all of your bullets with you.
Funny thing is is that I hate any other type of drama in my life, why couldn’t I recognize it earlier?? As I look back at this individual I realize how little we really had in common, basically he was just a really good time guy- very sad that I didn’t recognize such a lack of depth and substance in someone I loved.
The good news for us is that we’re out and have learned and important lesson. Never settle for so little, we deserve a committed loving relationship!!!
Happy New Year!
Thanks NML for a wonderful post..it’s great to start of the new year with helpful reminders regarding relationships. I wish everyone a wonderful new year and pray for love, happiness and peace to be with us for 2009
I have been coming to your website and reading for a year now, it has been so reaffirming for me, even though it took me practically that long to stand firm with NC with a complete waste of time idiot. He’s so predictable when I do cut contact (blows luke-warm), too funny! Anyways, this has been my longest stretch, over a month, and I know I need to go at least one more (longest time he’s ever disappeared x2). Oh, and in addition, I cut contact with my ex (real relationship) to move forward and be good to myself and that’s been 7 months and was and is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done!! Yay me!
Many thanks NML
A great way to start a new year! Happy New Year everyone! Thanks NML!
I was, well, still am determined to make this year different, I fell of the no contact wagon and went and saw him at his invitation, but its easier to not be swept away and not have hope when you are armed with the truth I am thankful that it has been easy to go back to no contact and even not sit and obsess about him..
Thank you NML for your web site it is so helpful in this journey..
Happy New Year to one and all !! May this year be a year about us and moving on …
Tulipa, I can’t recall your story anymore, but would like to point out that if you think that he will not sweep you away because you are armed with the truth, you are fooling yourself and that is O.K.
Nobody should tell you what to do, you are a grown woman.
Reason you are not obsessing about him – only NOT right now – is because you just got together with him and got your “fix”, but I am afraid it will all go back to the way it was and you will be hurting again pretty soon.
Also, I don’t understand what you mean by” I am thankful that it has been easy to go back to no contact and even not sit and obsess about him..”
Are you back to No Contact? Why?
Can I just say that I’ve found this post and it’s really great?
http://todgertalk.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-for-ladies-26.html
The site is really good and it’s written from a guy’s point of view, and actually really sympathetic towards women.
This question popped into my head last night as I was trying to get some sleep….. The ex-EUM was on a dating web site and the pictures that he posted were pics of himself and his 7 year old daughter. Now this was a guy who seemed to be protective of his child or at least to me and would get up in arms if he thought that any child said something to his child. Why would he then put a picture of himself and her on a dating site that millions of strangers could see? Maybe NML answered some that crap in this post and others.
Isabella, did you meet him thru a dating web site?
Hi Astelle,
No actually, I meant him at a party first and he brought his child with him. I did not meet his child. I was on the dating web site before the party and without a picture posted. He emailed me on the same site (he was on the site too I found out) and was floored with my honesty etc….. and funny I never strayed from the honesty that I had on the site. He told me that he wanted the same things. What a game. I clicked on his user name and saw his pictures and realized that he was the same person that I met briefly at the party. Hope this makes sense.
Astelle, I am not really sure what you mean that I am fooling myself..
I am back to no contact because I realise his potential to still hurt me should I allow him the opportunity.. so that is why I’m back to no contact and I know it is because I am moving on that he is just blowing hot for now and will be cold now because I responded to his invite out… I don’t need to obsess about him all the answers are here ..
Tulipa, since you took his invitation I assumed that you feel “safe” getting together with him because now that you are “armed” with the truth. My apology.
No need to apolozise Asrelle just trying to understand, actually what you typed was true I did feel safe with him because I was armed with the truth.. but I could still see he is not good for me to hang out with…
Sorry Astelle… just got up ..
Hi everyone… I haven’t been on here in a while… Sigh… I am a fallback girl.. who do not love myself enough.. and find that I need to validate that I’m not worth it with someone emotionally unavailable.. Only after forcing myself to leave a situation that I was being lonely and rejected.. after having my heart broken.. and doing some serious work in Therapy to face this…. I have severed any ties from the last EUM that have truly done a doosy on my heart…
the only thing to do.. is LEAVE. SEVER And LEAVE.. Then get yourself to a clinic or therapy.. to face that what Natalie says is TRUE.. this is about NOT LOVING OURSELVES.. Try to get to the root of it.. (which 9 times out of 10 has to do with our parents availablilty) and THEN try to rebuild what you want in a relationship…
Like an alcoholic though… I will always be a fallback girl.. choosing to want more in my life… I need to STAY AWAY from those unavailable knowing just one sip… and I’ll fall off the wagon…
It takes daily reminders “I AM WORTH IT.. I AM WORTH MORE THAN WHAT THIS ASSCLOWN IS GIVING ME.. WHAT I AM EXPECTING FROM HIM… CRUMBS!!!”
Expect more than Crumbs.. My best friend said.. “If you would only believe that you are the S#%T.. walk around like you are… you would not need people in your life who make you feel like you aren’t..
it’s been a rough road this past year.. but with the EUM OUT of my life.. and i’m in a relationship with someone who IS available… I feel 50% exorcised of this.. and the other 50% is knowing that the seed of feeling unworthy is still there and might take YEARS of constant dedication to release myself from..
Thanks to Natalie.. your book has been INSTRUMENTAL in my healing… I’m still getting there.. and I carry your book with me in case I need a reminder.. Thanks to this website too.. all you wonderful women.. and your support.. we are all bound by the same unhealthy tie.. and I stand beside you and support you… as you have supported me.
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!! YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN WHAT YOU ARE GOING THRU!!!!
I bought the first ebook a few months ago and broke up with the AC once but took him back. ugh.
I caught him in some lies and I took him home on Sunday and I haven’t spoken to him since. He tried to call yesterday but I didn’t answer. I’m just blanking him.
Really, there is nothing to say or left to say. What difference would anything I say make at this point?
The part where he is still the same as he was 6 months, a year, 2 years ago is true. He really is exactly the same. Nothing has changed.
I have observed other relationships and was thinking that when one starts to go downhill, is when it should end. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a relationship recover to mean squat after someone has gone lukewarm or other garbage like that.
I kept believing his lies to give him more time. He wasn’t ready yet. blah blah blah.
The last time we talked about commitment he said he was totally committed to me and he only intended to see me forever and not looking for anyone else. Wow thanks a lot. That is a whole lot of commitment after 4 years. I should be thankful he isn’t shagging someone else! Wow!
Please, can you PM me and tell me few more thinks about this, I am really fan of your blog…