I’ve talked a lot about boundaries, how actions speak louder than words, and how we can teach people how to treat us and also what to expect from us. I’ve talked about low self-esteem and how we choose partners that reflect the things that we believe about ourselves, and I hope I’ve given you umpteen reasons why chasing men that don’t love, trust, care, or respect you are a really bad idea. As always, we have to take the focus of them and bring it back to us, and so it’s important to start asking yourself how authentic you are being?
Are you someone who is conducting yourself and your life in line with the values and characteristics that you profess to have? Or are you being someone else entirely? Are you lost?
Do you know who you are and why? Are you prepared to reconnect with yourself?
So why is it important to be authentic? Because it’s a thin line between trying to please everyone and losing sight of who you are whilst you go on an impossible quest to fill up your life with other people’s needs, wants, and expectations…even though they may not actually be in line with your own needs, wants, and expectations.
Many of you will find yourselves acting happier than you feel.
One day, you blow, or it suddenly occurs to you that you don’t know who you are or like you or your life that much, and you turn that disappointment, anger, and frustration inwards and allow it to eat at you.
If we place too much of our desire for happiness in the hands of someone else, it’s easy to slip into co-dependency. In trying to be and do everything that they want in the hope it’ll be reflected back to us and we’ll feel the wonderful feeling of being loved, we end up allowing disrespect to happen and in some instances normalising bad behaviour. Then they’re gone, or we get wise about what we’ve been engaging in and realise that we’ve become incredibly distanced from the person we once were.
I regularly I ask women (and some men) that I correspond with:
Who are you? What do you like to do? What are your hopes and dreams? What were your hopes and dreams before you got caught up in various relationships? What do you like? What don’t you like so much? What’s important to you? What are you good at?
Some people can’t answer me. Others can answer, but only by using the object of their affection or misery as a reference point. For others, getting love and holding on to it seems to be the only thing that defines them. And for a lot more, they’ve spent so long bending and yielding to accomodate the possibilities of someone else being in their life and realising the potential that they’re betting on for the relationship, that they don’t even know who they are anymore.
They’re people who put up with things they would never have dreamt of doing.
They’re lacking in confidence where once they were bubbly and vivacious.
They’re constantly afraid, second-guessing, panicking, and quick to believe what someone else says.
They’re also prone to hanging onto illusions.
As I’ve said before in my various posts about illusions in relationships, whilst I’m not suggesting that we all can’t hope and dream a little, there is a big difference between hope with a little basis, and living your life full of illusions.
It is the illusionary factor that creates a major part of the lack of authenticity in your life.
To keep up an illusion, you don’t see the person as they are, you don’t see the situation as it is, you don’t remain true to who you are or your values (because you’ve given those up) and instead you have to take on a role to maintain the illusion.
Do it for long enough, and after a while, reality gets distorted because you spend so long being someone you’re not, you don’t even know how to get back to the someone you are. Things may be a little blurry…
I can’t emphasise enough that if you are finding that you have to shelve who you are and effectively compromise your sense of self in order to be in a relationship (or attempt to be in one), something is really wrong. Equally, if you’re seeking out people so that you can create a ‘self’, you’ll also find that you’re experiencing a lack of authenticity.
People will ask who you are. You’ll be effectively answering ‘I’m whoever you want me to be’.
Stick with the illusions and you’ll get lost and make poor decisions off the basis of your lack of reality. The further distanced you become from you, the more poor decisions you’ll make.
Before you charge out there looking for love (hopefully in the right places), it’s important to get back to basics and know who you are. As always, aside from having your boundaries, you also need to learn to like and trust yourself. It’s about listening to you and trusting yourself to do right by you, even when this means that you may have to make uncomfortable decisions and get stern with yourself. By trusting you, you can have faith in your own actions, making it easier to have faith in others.
It’s about that unconditional love of self – remaining true to you and keeping your sense of self intact no matter what takes place around you, rather than allowing every situation and person to take a chip off you and change how you feel about you.
It’s also about embracing you and ensuring that meaning is being created in your life irrespective of whether you’re involved with someone or not.
It’s about saying ‘Yes I do want to find love, love and be loved, but that’s not the only thing about me and hell, I’m gonna live my life and value it’ because at the moment, many of you are focused on just the romantic/relationship aspect of your life and your success or lack of it is then distorting your view of yourself and how you act across everything. You’ll end up trying to stem your sense of rejection and failure by pursuing people to fill in the gap.
It’s good to check in with yourself and not only make sure you’re being your true self, but also sanity check how you’re measuring your success. We don’t always know exactly why something is so important to us, but if success for you looks like the big L, that’s not a crime, but I would certainly question if putting yourself in pain in the best route to ‘success’.
There has to be more to you than getting a romantic partner. Don’t close out who you really are, turning away from the things that interest, motivate, and excite you because you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole whilst pretending that you’re OK with someone’s behaviour when you’re not. You are not defined by one man or a number of them; you define you and if you live by you, that’s authentic, and hey, you draw in authentic people because you won’t resonate with the fakey’s anymore.
Who do you see when you look in the mirror? Make sure it’s someone you know and that you’re comfortable with – you have to hang together for a long time 😉
Your thoughts?
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Way to go, Natalie!!! Being “authentic” is probably one of the best “lessons” that I’ve learned over the years! So many times I would convince myself to be exactly what I thought the man I professed to “love” would want me to be, whether it was what I wanted (or who) I wanted to be. I am in a very fullfilling and stable relationship now, and one thing that never fails to amaze me is just how comfortable I am just being “me.” I remember that song “B**ch” that describes all of those dimensions of who we are as women..and do you know what??? It’s awesome to just be “OK” with all of them. Learning to love yourself, flaws and all, is the first and most crucial step in developing healthy and positive relationships! Bravo, NML!!!!
Thank you so much for writing this post. It is so on time for me. I have been reflecting all day today on this very topic. I have been struggling for so long with letting go of someone that is not for me – it is hard (it’s been over 10 years since I’ve known this person). However, I know that somehow I am breaking through. I am getting too old to continue on like this and I do not want to look up and another 10+ years have come and gone and I’m still going through the same ish with the same person. I am not happy and I know I can do better. I have faith that I will break through and come out stronger, but it starts and ends with me.
Awesome post. So true about that “fake happiness.” I often found myself acting happier than I was…. until recently when I started “living by me” and making decisions only for me rather than worrying what others were going to think or how they would feel about it. And sometimes those decisions ARE hard…but I am starting to feel deeply happy again.
I cannot tell you how profound I found your book! I broke if off 3 hours into the new year with my EUM, I acted out of character and just said I was done. Amazingly I felt relieved and I knew I had made the right decision. Little did I know a few days later I would romanticize the good times thus making me contact him to apologize. But he was my epiphany relationship. I knew so many times that I was attracting the same type of man and it had to be me, but I could never figure out the why! Until four days later someone told me about the book and I gotta tell you, it was a hard read to see the truth about myself staring me right in the face. I thought I has my stuff together, I was strong, intelligent, beautiful, educated and had never (so I thought) let a man define me. Boy was I wrong! Everything happens for a reason. A month ago I had began seeing a therapist to help me work through some childhool issues and I believe thus was the reason why I finally ended it with the AC! He had every dang on characteristic in that book, the “moodiness” that he professed was the reason why he disappeared, the living with the ex, though him on one floor and her on another, and I could only visit him there when she was away, I mean crap I never put up with from any man! I could go on and on. It’s been seven days of no contact and I feel really good! Thank you for holding the mirror up.
A few months ago it was scary looking in the mirror and seeing who was looking back at me. I didn’t recognize that person anymore, she wasn’t me. She had allowed someone else to define her, use her and take her heart and soul without any regard. But that woman is slowly regaining her true self once more. 3 months later of NC and I see a woman who is still shaken by her bad choices, still sad about what happened but a woman who day by day is gaining strength, courage and determination. No one ever said the road back would be easy but the journey ahead to the woman I once was and the woman I once liked and had respect for is worth all the pain.
I am grateful to no longer be motivated by fear that has only caused me to dishonor myself. For the first time, I feel like I own my life, my time, my sexuality, my work. Fells like I’ve found my true North and anyone that comes into my life must share my values or else they must go. I am no longer afraid of being single or being lonely. I was lonely in relationships for a long time.
As long as I don’t abandon myself, I have a chance to be happy for REAL.
I’ve never had a healthy relationship where there was true respect, trust and honor. And if I never have one with a man, I can have one with myself. 🙂
It has been a long hard road but I wouldn’t trade it for the best lover in the world. I promised the little girl within that I would never allow anyone to mistreat her again and I mean it. She’s been through enough and I have a responsibility to protect her, from AC men especially
So glad to finally be loving me and accepting me, flaws and all!!
Us ladies have been made to care and nurture others and now its time to become rationally selfish.
It amazes me how ur emails are exactly what I need when I need it. To keep who you are intact is so essential. And I did exactly the opposite by losing my person for trying live in a fantasy and not see a reality.I havr read this post twice today already. Thank you so much!!!
This was great. Thank you. A big pick me up.
You just summed up my life history. Best. Post. Ever!
Who I am and what I want has changed with age and life stages. three years ago, the youngest flew the coop. I have two daughters 16 years apart, so I had done the mom thing for 34 years straight. Through all those years, I was sure what I wanted to do once I was done being day to day mom. When the time came, I recognized I didn’t want to do that anymore, but I didn’t know what I did want to do. It took 3 years to figure out who I was and what I wanted. It was so different than at 18, 30, 42, 50. My needs for a relationship now is all about pleasure. When I was a young mom, it was all about shared responsibility. Even good guy at 25 may not suit you at 40. In order to be happy, it seems it’s most important to be honest with yourself about yourself all the time. Having real friends that will be honest with you, helps, too. I’m so grateful that Natalie doesn’t BS around. I need to hear truth said straight out repeatedly.
.-= Terry´s last blog ..Prisoner Makes Unusual Request =-.
So deep NML! Just an amazing article about really, really loving yourself. I love all your posts, but every now and then, you have one that really impacts the way I view situations/relationships and gives me an awesome mental boost!!
Great post. I found in my last relationship I was being myself, perhaps for the 1st time in a long line of relationships.
However I had this unerving feeling that my partner was not authentic. He had and has no idea who he is and after awhile it made me very nervous. I never pushed my ways, thoughts, interests and values onto him, in fact I encouraged him to be himself. However it almost felt like anyone new he met, he would take on a lot of their character. It’s very scary because u know at any point *poof* they could be gone because they easily change and are fickle. I believe it’s called mirroring. It’s hard to keep your trust in this type of person, I mean how do you no what’s real? Now that it’s over I’ve been left with this horrible empty feeling if wondering what was real, who he was and what did he even really think about me 🙁 if you meet someone like this, RUN!!!
What a timely post! I’m gonna print this and carry it in my purse all day. NML – Thank you so much!!! GBY
Ok this is seriously spooky!!! I’ve been dwelling on this issue for the past 10 days, almost on the same words…
Is like this post was writen for me.I have been so much worried about finding a relationship all my life.I dont know why that is so important to me but I just fell like I “need” one.Probably because of my issues like you said.If you asked me “Who are you? What do you like to do? What are your hopes and dreams? What were your hopes and dreams before you got caught up in various relationships? What do you like? What don’t you like so much? What’s important to you? What are you good at?”,I wouldnt be able to answer too but Im working on changing that.
This is such an incredibly interesting process ! I really think it started last year when you asked me what it was I really wanted – and I said “just not to hurt anymore”.
Now, finding out my ‘bad’ qualities, facing them squarely (the hanging on to illusions, the living in denial, hope, even my acts of lack of compassion or negativity or impatience that copy my parents behaviors — all of this is gradually, slowly, causing me to become more authentic.
I am learning that if I want honesty, I must BE honest – not just when it’s convenient.
If I want compassion, I have to BE compassionate and not judgemental. If I want a man who is available, I have to stop being unavailable myself…
And even seeing my good qualities clearly, and giving THEM credit, is part of it, part of me really beginning to see who I am…
Funny, at 51 you’d think I’d already know. Yet it really feels like I’ve just started to learn. Hard lessons maybe intiially, but then so rewarding.
Once I choose to strip away what doesn’t work effectively in my perception of things, the learning brings pleasure with it.
Thank you again, NML. A hundred zillion times 🙂
.-= Loving Annie´s last blog ..SAAM at The Bazaar by Jose Andres =-.
The aspects of co dependency are so interesting and the results of being involved in any way like this are pretty deep. I got caught up with someone who sensed my strength and sensed he could draw from it. In my inexperience I threw myself into his neediness. What this caused was some kind of weird role reversal; he got stronger and I got weaker. Mirroring is a decent description of how it occurred.
I found that when you are with someone who lacks mature strength of character you can lose your strength and your good sense. Even with the best of intentions, losing my sense caused me to make worse and worse decisions. Yet thankfully some persistent voice inside of me, that knew something was way off, kept saying WTF ?Actually, towards the end the voice started yelling at me : – ))
Recovery after NC involves everything this post addresses ..getting back to who you were before you gave so much of yourself to the a needy child-man situation. Having a mature relationship with a child is impossible. Trying to help a man grow up is no work for a woman. His momma had that job when he was a kid, and the rest is up to him.
I am starting to get real feelings back, of things I was interested in, before I let him become my main interest. The weirdest thing is that there really was not that much interesting about him, just a lot of “nobility of suffering” pity provoking posing, that I am finding out is a method of operation for many of these boyclowns. Appeals to our mothering instincts, geez.
The things that meant so much to me before him, my interests and dreams, have such integrity. And of course, he minimized all of the things dear to me, in his own subtle and not so subtle ways, all along. I must have beat my dreams down all those years. It is good to start feeling something for them again.
@ aphrogirl
“got caught up with someone who sensed my strength and sensed he could draw from it. In my inexperience I threw myself into his neediness. What this caused was some kind of weird role reversal; he got stronger and I got weaker. ”
When you said this I felt how profound it was…it was so true in my relationships. He got more distant, more cold, I guess grew bigger balls and I became even moreso crazy and out of control. 8 days and counting of NC, though this am I saw him driving past me on his way to my house…he owes money on a credit card, and since I haven’t contacted him regarding when he was going to pay it, true to fashion he just decided to pop up. Thankfully I had already left for work.
Right on aphrogirl! .. they totally need you more than you need them. When you get that realization and really ‘feel it’ for the truth it is in your innermost being you know you are well on the road of recovery. I’m almost there I can taste it, still a bit mushy inside. But working on it. He totally turned the table on me and it was like I was outside watching it happen. I know this was the testing ‘non relationship’ I needed to know how far I have come in really seeing who this kind of person was. Sadly the person this behaviour came from was the one person I anted to be able to believe was in it for real. Ouch. Loss. In the end his loss. Authentically, I watched him take my carefree spirit and the happiness I had spent two years building… replace it with his pain and fear… now I’m doing the work of getting his poison out of me so I can regain myself. Damn vampires!
Thanks, Natalie great post 🙂
This post is so true. As a result of abusive and absent parenting, I have spend all my adult life searching for what I called love and it was only when I realised that the common factor in my string of abusive relationships was me that I looked inward for the answers. I found that I didn’t have a clue who I was or even what feelings are. My feelings had been trodden on so much that I have had to relearn what feelings are and what they mean – one of these is the red flag, the gut instinct that something is wrong and to run like the wind…I definitely was ‘I’ll be who you want me to be as long as you love me” and didn;t know or like who I was.
After breaking of contact with my abusive parents (the abuse continues to this day via texts etc..but I ignore them), I began to see where the real problems were. I saw reality for the first time. Its taken time but I now know who I am and like the person I am. I also love the peaceful life I have without relationships. I still struggle with feelings and have to regularly ask myself ‘what is this feeling?’
and make sense of it.
In terms of relationships, my main problem now is that I don’t want a relationship. I feel I’ve become slightly phobic of them in fact. I like men as friends but have no desire to pursue a romantic relationship. I like a bit of male attention but panic if someone so much as asks me out. But as NML says, there is far more to life that a relationship, and this is only a problem as I feel pressure from society that I ‘should’ be in a relationship and that there is something wrong with me if not.
Great post NML. Keep it up x
Coming from experience I can trust that I am heading in the right direction…
.-= Trying to Find My Way´s last blog ..Power of Positivity =-.
Nailed it! Coming out of the wreckage and looking around with open eyes – seeing the damage done by this person inhabiting my body who really was not the “real me”. The woman I once was a long time ago – so long I forgot when I saw her last – I have a picture of her when she was strong – single mom raising two young boys on her own – standing on her own two feet – making her own decisions – making it alone without a “man”. Makes me wonder – how long have I been gone and who has been in charge here – what a mess!
I agree. It’s important to not lose sight of who we really are or endeavour to be by allowing other people to define us. Sometimes, in our eagerness to please others, our values and proirities do get a little jumbled up and we lose focus of what is really important to us.
This brings to mind something I once read: “..we can’t live without food, but we don’t live to eat..”
There’s so much more to life than the trivial things we constantly find ourselves obsessing about.
Great post. “Ditto Gillian”. My story is almost exactly the same!
“Sadly the person this behaviour came from was the one person I wanted to be able to believe was in it for real.”
Not for nothing De but, for me, the want was fueled by the lack of substance being offered. You know…you want what you don’t have. I think the players of the world have much success due to this fact….and EUM’s are players, even if they are nothing like the stereoptypical suave, handsome guy. ( Actually this site seems to imply they rarely are ) They are boyclowns, playing hide and seek with their emotions, goofing around.
I like what Terry noted above, that we want different things in a partner at different stages. I have mothered my mother, and mothered my child. I do not want to mother a man ! I am done with mothering. My radar is naturally tuned for Interesting, confident, positive people with stable personalities. OK, I let one AC slip by, it will not happen again.
Maybe older women have to be more careful. At the opening of one of my favorite Steinbeck books , he laments that many married men revert to being needy boys as they turn older. I can only hope he was being cynical, or times have changed !
I really like this article, it has good insights into what we do to create the role we play certain romantic situations. Wish I’d read it when I was 16 instead of 36 though…sigh…could have saved myself alot of heartbreak regarding one man(no man-child, actually) in my life who I am doing my best stay away from and change patterns that originated from the dysfunctional relationship (if u can call it that) that started in childhood.
Thank aphrogirl.. I’m re-reading you post, again and again.. I don’t want to do any more mothering either… and stopped myself from going there in the last experience…annoying to have to even think about not going there!! Glad to be out 🙂
Natalie this is were I am in the NC book… I’m loving it! very empowering!! You have that very good loud strong voice and I’m hearing you!!
Stick to your boundaries, know your values, treat yourself with respect and make a judgement call and act upon it and respect your decision rather than second guessing it and living your life in limbo trying to obsess and analyse everything out to nth degree so that you don’t actually end up doing anything.
hugs
De
An article and people’s insights as to HOW the EUMs and EUWs of the world manage to make us feel really really badly about ourselves.
The EU I knew, way back, hung out with EU people, one of whom, a woman, was a “friend” who decided to play God in my relationship with the EUM (to get him to not be attracted to me anymore, so that he would stay interested and go back to his ex–which he did: he married his ex) by taking me to his hangout on a night when we were supposed to have gone out, a night I refused a date with him on b/c he had taken too long to call me. So my “friend” sabotaged my relationship.
Anyways, I could never tell my “friend” off for this, of course. And she really did do me a “favor” b/c he really always was EU. (SHOULD I have told her off, ladies? Wouldn’t she just have cated like I was paranoid or nuts if I did?)
BUT, to this day, I don’t know WHY or HOW he (and she) got to making me feel really really badly about myself. It doesn’t help that she ignores me when my EUM-ex and his wife are around. An article on HOW and WHY we feel so badly would help.
I know it has to do with boundaries and not setting them forth. But, at the end, when I cut contact by moving on after not having heard from him for 3 weeks (he busted in on my date with someone else), he never called me to apologise. But, with his now-wife, then-ex, he called and called, begging for her to take him back; and they always had an off-on relationship. I would have liked an apology, too. (Not that I owuld have taken him back! No way!) Maybe his withholding an apology or contact was his way of not letting ME have closure.
@Used Keep in mind that I’m answering this based on a lot of what I have seen you write on here – You feel badly because as humans we want acceptance and fear and handle badly perceived rejection. You feel rejected not only by him but also by her. You feel that there have been social repercussions and you don’t even know *why* there was these repercussions, so this has had a long lasting impact on your life even though you don’t seem to want him and have moved on. Emotionally though, it seems that you haven’t. The man left an imprint and you’re not in control of what happened and it seems like he is the dog that gets patted on the back with no major consequences socially whilst you, the good decent person doesn’t. You feel badly because you haven’t made sense of it, you’re still trying to make sense of it, and I think you would have let it go if your peers had given you some validation that he is indeed an AC instead of appearing to invalidate you and your perception of things with their actions. You feel ill done by because he hasn’t apologised to you – this is because even though he may well have something to apologise for, he doesn’t see it in that way. It’s big to you, but it’s not big to him. He has bigger fish to fry. You’re assuming he has that much astuteness and emotional connection to connect the dots and realise that you have been impacted, hurt, and are owed an apology. Hard as it may be to here, you didn’t have the same level of relationship with this guy that he had with others and this probably goes some way to him working out where his fake apologies are needed. However, you might stop feeling badly if you trusted your own judgement of the situation, accepted that these people don’t have enough awareness, judgement skills, or even care to validate what you know, and accept what has happened. Work on not caring about what these people think and want and start ignoring them. These are fairweather people. Take control of the situation – if they’re flipflapping, uncaring friends, keep them at a polite distance and surround yourself with people that don’t make you feel bad. More importantly, start working on letting go because you have a husband that you should be enjoying the present with. This man has too much impact on your life. You don’t need him to have closure – this is something many of us assume. You need *you* to make closure. It’s you that needs to let go and accept what has happened so that you can move on.
NML–
You are on the dot with everything you say, about me, him, and our mutual “friend.”
FYI, he gets patted on the back (figuratively AND literally!!) b/c many of his wife’s women friends, including the sabotaging one, are still single and want him to fix them up with successful single guys; and the sabotaging friend has always called him a jerk. She just doesn’t own up to this (by, e.g., ignoring me) when he is around!
I don’t expect an apology anymore. I did, back then. I do see him, often, in our social circle; of course, we don’t talk. I am nice to his wife (I say “hi”–that’s it) when he is not around.
I have since learned that, when single, he bragged to another mutual friend (one who has always known his now-wife, then-off-again-on-again gf) that he dated a, b, c, and x, y, z women–naming them, including my own name! (One woman I know and respoect, too.) So we weren’t that small fish to fry! We were all somehow “important” enough to brag about! What do you make of this? Narcissist? Or what?
However, in light of the above, and even though he called his now-wife only every few weeks, too, he had empathy enough her. I guess his apologies to her, back then, were fake, as you say. (See also below.) That fakeness is probably a call you can, and I can not, see.
And yet he now treats his wife badly, too (e.g., he walks ahead of her, looks at other women).
I have to let it go, stop trying to make sense of it, and move on. And I am getting better at it. One step involved letting go of the fake, fair weather, sabotaging friend (who, BTW, talks to my husband and ignores me when she is in the same room as us!).
Two last questions:
1. Was the EUM a narcissist? What do you think, in light of the above?
2. Should I tell my husband to ignore that bad friend? He would if I wanted him to. It annoys the hell out of me, and makes me feel awful, her being friendly with him and purposefully avoiding me. (And she purposefully avoids me b/c she knows she has done wrong to me on other things.)
Sorry for the slow reply Used. I think there are some bigger things that you need to look at. You are married and if I remember correctly, you’re married to a great guy and are happy with him. This begs the question of why so much of your energy is caught up in the identity that you feel has resulted from your brief involvement with him?
Irrespective of who has said what to who, the first things that need to be applied here are proportion and perspective. The amount of mental and emotional time that you have given to what was a very brief involvement, far, and I mean seriously far, outweighs the amount of time. If you didn’t and don’t want him, you have to ask yourself why 1) you can’t and won’t let go, 2) you’re caught up in details about his wife, and 3) you don’t turn your attention to your husband. I understand about the aspect of the social circle and what appears to have happened, but the fact that these people have behaved in that way is their responsibility, not his. He’s not *making* anyone do anything. If they’re doing it, it’s of their own free will which means you have to decide how important these people are to you and if they are worthwhile you telling your husband to ignore them. He sounds like a decent guy – I’m sure he would ignore them if you requested it but he may also be curious as to where all of this is stemming from. Even though you are not interested in this guy (in terms of pursuing him for a relationship), you are too ‘interested’ in what he’s doing, his wife, etc. You are letting a brief dalliance define you and even calling yourself ‘Used’ – you deserve better than this.
Narcissist is a clinical term. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. What I do know is that you don’t need to be important to brag and I’m not sure why you’re concerned with your level of importance to him. He’s doing what he wants and what serves him best. My suggestion to you is that as you’re not his wife, you’re not interested in him, and you have a lovely husband right in front of you, that you put your energies there. You’re robbing yourself and your husband of a more emotionally engaged you as you are preoccupied with this man and that is not fair. Do what you need to do with this woman – the message will be loud and clear to her then and you can move on. Good luck and take care.
NML–
Your first post back to me hit things more on the head, in terms of how I feel about everything.
First, my husband knows all of the facts.
Second, I don’t care what the jerk and his wife do, or my “level of importance” to him. At all. (His wife–and our mutual friends–can have him!) I don’t think you understand what I mean in my response to .. “bigger fish to fry” in your comments.
I can’t stand the hypocrisy of the other people/women-friends we know in common and especially how they enable him, and have always enabled him, even when it hurts other women we know in common who he dated/used and bragged about dating (including also another woman we all know and respect)! My husband jokes, laughs even, saying, “When one of these women is in the mud, she wants to take everyone else down with her!”
I have started to let it all go, even before writing this past week. Mainly b/c I have (finally) found healthier relationships. But the jerk-woman-friend keeps going after MY friends, including my new relationships! She gets to know my friends, invites them to her parties, etc. She sabotages in many ways! It’s like high school! She is the worst EU person of all! (What she did with how she sabotaged me with the EU jerk is always in the background, something I can’t even speak of, either. A woman-friend who knows about her first/EU sabotage was APPALLED at how she id it, and told me, “She wanted to see you squirm!”)
I know, I know, you can’t control what people do. But I can’t talk against this woman b/c I was close with her at one time–it would make me look bad–and she knows this. See.
“A few months ago it was scary looking in the mirror and seeing who was looking back at me. I didn’t recognize that person anymore, she wasn’t me. She had allowed someone else to define her, use her and take her heart and soul without any regard. But that woman is slowly regaining her true self once more. 3 months later of NC and I see a woman who is still shaken by her bad choices, still sad about what happened but a woman who day by day is gaining strength, courage and determination. No one ever said the road back would be easy but the journey ahead to the woman I once was and the woman I once liked and had respect for is worth all the pain.”
MaryC – It is like I wrote this comment myself! I am 3 months NC and it has been a tough road, some good days and some bad…but I have continued on the path and am looking forward to finding myself again.
NML – Once again, you have looked into my heart and soul in way that no one else ever has. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making me feel like I am really understood!