A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of not making someone the sole source of your happiness, your reason for being or your purpose, and explained that on a number of occasions I had believed I wouldn’t love again, that I wouldn’t recover and that I couldn’t be happy without them, only to discover that this was completely exaggerated and untrue.
I’m here, I’m still standing, and with the wonderful 20:20 vision that hindsight gives me, I realise that it was the pain of letting go more so than the person. It was all of the feelings about myself tied to those experiences rather than the actual people themselves, who to be fair, for some of them, I should have been relieved.
Whether your relationship was healthy or unhealthy, it is hard to breakup but I must admit that the overwhelming majority of people that I hear from who are struggling to get over someone have been in an unhealthy partnering.
Why is getting over someone so hard?
It’s the loss of hope and plans. It’s the white space that appears where you thought that you’d be doing stuff with them. It’s how you feel about you as a result of the fact that they’re no longer there. It’s the unanswered questions, it’s listening to the tape of your relationship playing back and wondering what you missed, latching on to something that was said and wondering if that was the start of it all, blaming yourself, sometimes feeling ashamed that you were with them or ashamed that you still want them, remembering the ‘good times’ and then feeling the longing, or feeling indignant that things that they said or professed themselves to be were not what it was. It’s wondering what could have been different and thinking about the coulda, woulda, shouldas. It’s also a lot easier to focus on them as we feel uncomfortable looking too closely at ourselves.
The hardest part: letting go. That’s not just letting go of them in the physical sense but letting go of them emotionally and mentally. It’s letting go of what you thought might be and what you thought they were and accepting the reality of who they are. Letting go of illusions is difficult. Holding on to anger, indignation, and sorrow is quite easy.
As I said to someone yesterday, “You’re grieving a huge loss and part of that is accepting the man he is and letting go of the illusion of the man he isn’t.”
A breakup or even feeling dejected after initially dating someone and it not progressing is a loss.
It is important to work your way through the loss and process what has happened and grieve the loss of them otherwise you will get trapped in your feelings of rejection which aside from stalling the grieving process, may cause you to react to those feelings and do stuff that at best is embarrassing and at its worst, humiliating, only for you to still have to feel the loss and end up feeling rejected all over again.
This is grieving the absence of them from your life, the things that you thought would happen, the promises that were made, and basically any fantasy’s that had built up as a result of your relationship or connection to them, however brief it was.
The difficulty in accepting someone for who and what they are is that it does force us to have to look a little closer to home at ourselves.
I ranted, I raved, I bitched, I cried, I complained, I bargained with myself, I replayed every damn conversation and when I chose to accept him for what he is, it made me ask ‘But why on earth would I want to be with someone like that in a relationship like this?’. At times it made me see my own choices too clearly and I would try to refocus my energy on being annoyed with him. It was exhausting.
People keep saying to me ‘When am I going to get over them?’
In all honesty, it’s different strokes for different folks but the people I know that do get over their relationships don’t continue to hold onto their ex in any way, shape or form. Bit by bit by bit they let go.
If you’ve been broken up longer than you were together with the person, it is clear that more holding on than letting go is taking place.
If it takes you weeks or even months to get over someone who you knew for days or a few weeks, this is a very disproportionate reaction to your involvement and is indicative that you were too invested in a very brief connection and are struggling to let go of the fantasy.
If it takes you months to get over someone who you were involved with for a few months, it may be about evens until the amount of time together is outpaced by the amount of time you’ve been broken up.
If it was a lengthy relationship, you’re probably looking at a year, maybe more.
A major factor that can affect the aftermath of the breakup is what actually happened in the relationship. Very traumatic relationships can take more work to get over as it can really affect your trust issues. Abusive relationships are very devastating to your sense of self and it can take quite a while to unravel yourself from the abusive messages and control that you’ve been subjected to. Relationships where there’s been a lot of future faking going down and red flags missed will also take longer especially if you become suspended in disbelief about the truths that you’ve discovered.
You also have to factor in that particularly with unhealthy pairings, they don’t make it easy to move on from them because they often like to pop up in your life and keep a foothold.
But this is why you have to go back to the fact that you and only you are in charge of your experience and that you have to steer yourself out of the breakup waters into the calmer sea of acceptance. No-one else is going to do that for you and being over them generally doesn’t tend to just ‘happen’; you have to actively seek to distance yourself from the source of the pain, grieve the loss, and start rebuilding your life without them in it.
You’re not going to read or do something today and then tomorrow go ‘I’m over it’ but if you think of yourself like a piggy bank, everything that you do to help yourself through this loss after the breakup, adds to your self-esteem pot and helps to restore your faith and confidence. Stuff that undermines your efforts will have you depleting whatever reserves you have left and if you persist in holding on making yourself emotionally bankrupt – something has to give, and that something is you.
Much like relationships, getting over a breakup doesn’t just ‘happen’ – they take work.
While it is understandable to initially bunk off work, be anti-social, sob into your tea and biccies or whatever at home, get miserably drunk, and essentially hold yourself a pity party for a month or so, doing it on an extended basis is basically wallowing and removing your own accountability to take care of yourself and work your way through the breakup.
It’s good to talk about the relationship and of course you’re going to think about it, but after a while, it’s good to limit yourself to force you into processing your thoughts, limit the anger holding, and more importantly fill up your mind with other stuff. A number of readers actually put a time in their diary that they are allowed to think about their ex and for the rest of the day, there is no room in the inn! If they didn’t do this, they’d be thinking about him all the time just because they could and it was habit.
Yes – it does become a habit to think and talk about your ex. That doesn’t actually mean that you’re actually as invested in them still as you believe, it’s just it has become second nature and your purpose to think and talk about them.
Talking about your ex and rehashing what happened actually breathes life into them, especially if in talking about it, you don’t process the information and draw a conclusion and instead ‘rewind’ and start over – talking can be cathartic but make sure you’re not reliving your relationship and holding on and are instead using it to draw a conclusion and move on to looking at something else about them. If you’re still talking about the same thing, it means you’re not processing. You’re voicing your thoughts but not really listening to them.
Thinking about the fact that you’re thinking about them will only exasperate you further. Likewise, we can actually get used to being in pain and grieving and so even when it starts to feel better, when we have a good day where we don’t think about them, we follow it up with days of thinking about them to compensate. It’s as if our purpose has become to feel hurt and hold onto the pain of letting go of them.
Spend some time writing out your thoughts (download my free Unsent Letter mini workbook) or at least if you’re going to think about your ex, commit to always answering these two questions:
1) What does this mean about him and the relationship? (Draw a conclusion)
2) What can I learn from this and apply to my future experiences? (Take action)
If you’re not prepared to answer these questions and move on to the next thought process, give your mind something else to think about. Boredom is dangerous because when you are bored, you will find that you use that physical and mental energy on them. Next thing you know, you’re hijacked by nostalgia or blame, obsessing, or even dialling or texting them.
Cliche as it may be, nobody got over a breakup by not being busy and forcing themselves to get on with their life.
One of the things that will stall the process of letting go is if there is an underlying fear of ‘what happens next’. i.e. When I don’t have them to cry and complain over and to think about morning, noon and night, what am I going to do then?
We then think about starting over, having to put ourselves out there, getting out of comfort zone, interacting with new people, discovering our own accountability for what may have happened in our relationships and being a person of action and it can all seem very scary.
So we go back to the safe cocoon of feeling hurt, indignant, angry, frustrated and often in denial about our ex because it stalls the process of being 100% accountable for our own experience…even though we still are. Be careful of becoming too comfortable in the role of ‘broken hearted’ or ‘dazed and confused’.
If you hold onto them, whether it’s that you hold onto the loving feelings, the anger, the frustration, the confusion, the anything, you will lengthen the period of time it takes for you to grieve the loss of the relationship and move on because you will move back and forth between denial, anger, bargaining and depression and keep yourself at bay from achieving what you really need which is acceptance.
When on some level you’re fighting, whether it is yourself or them, you are not letting of the relationship.
When you don’t let go of the relationship, aside from veering back and forth through different stages of grief, you end up obsessing which is looking for reasons to blame yourself which will only make it harder to let go.
Resistance is a key factor in a lot of problems in relationships – resisting change, resisting the truth, resisting acceptance, resisting accountability, responsibility. Do you know that resisting is a lot harder work than acceptance? The amount of energy it takes you to fight the inevitable or the reality of things is a lot more than it is to accept it because the reality is that you denying these things doesn’t change the actuality of them.
You’re not over them yet because you’re not over them yet. On some level, you’re still fighting and you haven’t accepted that it is over. Whether it’s that you’re still questioning the who, what, where’s and why’s of what they said and did, or you’re wondering what you could have done different, or whatever it is, you still are not at acceptance.
Recovering from a breakup and getting over a relationship involves you using each and every day to take the focus off them and bring it back to you. You accept that there will be bad days or even weeks and you get back up to live another day. The more time you spend thinking about them, is time that could be spent helping you to work through the loss of the relationship and start rebuilding your life without them. When you make them the focus of your thoughts, it’s like having a running internal dialogue with them and for some of you, it’s actually like you’re continuing the relationship in some sort of alternative reality.
Breakups are supposed to hurt and many readers have emailed me and said that they can’t break up because they think it’ll hurt too much and they won’t survive it or that they have broken up and it’s too painful. Always be careful of correlating the level of pain you feel to how much you feel because they’re not tied to each other – how you process loss, deal with rejection, and how much your imagination has been working have a lot to do with how much pain you are in.
I’m not asking you to develop a heart of stone but I am asking you to take care of you and not put your life on hold because hard as it may be for you to hear, they are still getting on with their lives. Take them off the pedestal, strip out the illusions and feel the pain – it does pass. If you’re really struggling to deal with the loss or organise your thoughts, see a counsellor or therapist as this will really help you to move through the process.
One day you will wake up and realise that it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to and that in fact, it hasn’t for a while. When this happens, embrace it – don’t fight it and panic about the fact that you’re not thinking about them as much. Whatever you’re doing on the days where you don’t think about them as much – do more of it.
Right now, if you are struggling to get over them, you’re trapped in your feelings about the hope you once had for yourself and this relationship. You may feel like all of your hope went with them, that they were your last chance saloon, or that if only they’d been able to change then things could have been oh so different.
Don’t give up on love because you give up on yourself. Take all that energy you’re using in willing, waiting, and hoping and redirect it towards you so that you can believe that you will meet someone else and believe that it does get better. Let go of your past so you can start living your present and start looking forward to the future.
Your thoughts?
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Thanks NML, I was beginning to believe something was wrong with me because I’m still mourning my loss after almost a year. Oh its gotten so much better but I must admit there are days its like it just happened. You’re right we all get there in different ways and at different times. You have no idea how much your site has helped. Thank You again.
A song I recently discovered, I forgive you by Rachelle Farrell, is very therapeutic. All you want is progress and peace.
Thanks for this, Natalie. I really appreciate it. I can tell that my mind just plays a tape of all this stuff now because, at heart, at the depth of things, I have accepted that he is not part of my life. I have not once made an action towards getting back with the AC, and secondly, when I ask myself whether I want to be with him, I say ‘no’, not in a defiant, angry way, but in a calm way that recognizes that the relationship was not emotionally sustainable for me, and that we had some serious mismatches.
So what burdens me now is, what you say, letting go of the illusions, letting go of the hopes and dreams we conjured, letting him be right too, letting go of his positive qualities, forgiving him, forgiving me, and working out small ways of reprogramming my brain to stop it from replaying the story in the mornings, and associating his name with pain. It’s a real mind-f*cker!
It feels like one of those 3D images where in my calm, sensible moments I am the image (me, and my loved ones, my pursuits, and present surroundings) and in my angry, tense moments, he (and all the associated what ifs) comes to the fore. It’s a matter of focus. And what helps with that focus is things like you say – little exercises to draw healthy conclusions and lessons, and then, let’s face it, the obvious (but somehow overlooked) things like physical activity, meditation, good food, laughter, time with friends, new hobbies, joy in what’s going on.
Sometimes you just have to tell yourself that this, this present, is what you have, and you’re going to give to it. The ‘this’, the what we have, and I am really trying to appreciate and be open to that. It is, otherwise, like you say, an alternative reality! And even kids when they play dress ups know, when the fairy and superman gear goes back in the box, it’s time for something else.
Thanks again for this. I was getting stuck in a misplaced sense of justice, and struggling with how to get to peace.
Hi there Elle,
What helped me alot was to say to myself, calmly, ‘It is what it is’.
That simple sentence has gotten me through so many things. I didn’t need to add anything to that sentence. It stood strong on it’s own and encompassed everything. It helped me alot with the ‘letting go’ process.
I suppose it is another way of saying…. ‘I ACCEPT’ these events happened. I no longer need to question, justify, reason, analyse, know the whys and wherefores, etc., etc., etc. They don’t matter because irrespective, it happened. Now I am not holding on to all the above, it allows me to ‘naturally’ move forward.
One thing I loved that Natalie wrote in this article was about ‘resistence’. I felt it was so, so, so true.
Natalie wrote: ‘Resistance is a key factor in a lot of problems in relationships – resisting change, resisting the truth, resisting acceptance, resisting accountability, responsibility. Do you know that resisting is a lot harder work than acceptance? The amount of energy it takes you to fight the inevitable or the reality of things is a lot more than it is to accept it because the reality is that you denying these things doesn’t change the actuality of them.’
When you say to yourself, ‘It is what it is’……. you are essentially letting go of any resistence and embracing acceptance.
Acceptance is one of the most ‘crucial’ steps to moving forward, I believe. TRUE acceptance, I believe, is about being present and seeing and acknowledging things as they ‘actually’ are.
It is what it is.
I WISH I could forget about him however we are in the process of getting divorced. If he doesn’t file papers by next week I will have to get an attorney to do it (we’re 1500 miles from one another in our home states and initially met online).
I’d welcome any suggestions for getting through this without thinking about him. Thanks.
Amen. This is right on time.
This post was very helpful. It has been over three months since the break up and NC from a four year relationship. Just lately I have felt a set back in my progress. I have changed my habits completely, where I shop, where I walk, everything to avoid contact with the AC. I even moved to a different house. This has worked for me. This week, I went back to a few of my old places and ran into a couple people who of course asked, “where have you been, are you still hanging out with M. (the AC). I tried to be direct but not say to much, saying “No, we are not together anymore and I moved so I am not around as much.” Well, they prodded “did you end on good terms” My brain went to mush and I said no. They prodded more and I probably said to much, but did convey that I was no longer willing to talk or be around the AC. They said, “you have to get over that.” Well, this pissed me off. I have been doing okay the last couple of months, and much of that has been due to the NC and finally being able to catch my breath. The relationship left me feeling battered and I was finally in a safe zone. After talking to these people, it started me thinking about it all the time, dreaming about it again and having insomnia, replaying things that happened. Talking about it more again. I thought I was ready to dip back to my old life, just without him now, but my old life is haunted by him. I don’t want to explain it to every mutual person we knew. First of all, they don’t understand what went on and act like I am going overboard in avoiding him, because after all, he is “so nice”. They didn’t mean any harm and were just wondering, but it felt like a scab being pulled off. I have been working hard to get over this . I worked up my courage for almost two years to make my move away from the AC, who was WRECKING me. It was the hardest thing to do, really hard, but I finally did it. I know all of you know how hard all of this is. Talking to these people made me feel like a freak. Now I am questioning my avoidance technique, am I running away? I have no intention of breaking NC, but should I just “get over” avoiding my old life and people who knew me. None of them are really great friends, just people I have been social with. Funny thing in all this, when they asked about me and the ex “hanging out”, I realized that after four years of being together, I was still in the category of “hanging out”. More than one person has referred to us that way. This bothered me while I was in the relationship, now it just cements the idea that that was really all we were. Hanging out for four years. (future faked into it of course and promised oh so much) Is it healthy to just walk away from the old completely and start new? Or is it just inability to cope? Right now, I feel like I would rather go to the dentist than go back to my old social haunts. I am so sensitive to what people say to me now. SO sensitive. But I can’t fake being “okay” in these situations, so I avoid it.
@jenny: I think it’s very healthy to start afresh and, when you feel better, and more objective, consider whether those friendships, places and earlier interests are still interesting and worthwhile to you. Of course, you don’t want to build these things up as scary – especially places, which are yours too. But why make it harder for your brain to process a loss, why not take it out to a metaphorical pasture until it’s better? In the meantime, best not to share with friends unless you know they have your best interests at heart. It’s not that they were being intentionally insensitive or anything sinister, it’s just that break-ups rattle people, and they’d rather it was all tidied up quick smart.
Jenny,
You are doing great!
All your dipping back in to your old neighborhood really did was confirm that you had made the correct decision in upgrading from your previous existence.
I like how these aquaintances of yours felt like it was their business to ask you about your break-up, and offer their opinions! F them! They didn’t suffer through the “hanging out” BS and future faking and everything else — you did! Who are they to judge your reaction or decision? AC’s are great at maintaining the “good guy” performance for a lot of people in their audience. If they buy into the show, that’s their problem, Jenny, not yours.
Stay out of Loserville, you don’t need their dirt on your shoes.
You’re better than that now.
XO,
Over It
Jenny – I love what you wrote and share many of the same feelings. Why do people tell you to just get over it? Why is it socially unacceptable to be grieving a difficult relationship? It is a loss that needs to be dealt with and it sounds like you were doing the right things – changing patterns, moving on, moving, for crying out loud. No one outside a relationship can possibly know what went on and in these ridiculous assclown relationships, even we often don’t know what was going on. I also loved what you said about calling it “hanging out”. My AC also categorized us as “hanging out” – possibly the most non-committal comment ever. As though you two just ended up in the same room together every day by pure chance.
Grieve as you need to. Heal as you want. Forget other people and their opinions. That these AC fakers can convince others they are a “good guy” and that you should just get over it is enraging. Take care of you – if you felt ok, you were on the right track and you don’t need to “get over it”. You just need to get on with it and focus on you.
‘You have to get over it’ is one of the most useless and irritating things anyone can ever say. I think that phrase should be banned! Would anyone go up to someone at a funeral of their loved ones and say that?! No, it would be the most insensitive thing ever. A loss is a loss and dismissing it is so hurtful.
Jenny – i think moving was a great idea. I happened to move just after my first breakup with the EUM (the lease expired), but it was so great to be in a place that he’d never been. It does help, it does take time. Once you’re healed you will be able to go back to your old life with a coat of armour that you will have developed for yourself and ‘visit’ and observe your old life in an objective way, but you have to build that armour first, so the scab doesn’t come off again.
You’re doing brilliantly :).
Just to clarify that ‘armour’ is not a negative thing or being cold etc, i meant it to refer to boundaries, self love & respect, self esteem etc – no one can get through that, 🙂
That is soo much like what I got when I went to a divorce. People telling me to move on , get over it, like if I had not right to grieve and if I was from another planet. But I took my time, I stopped going some places and even now 3 years after my divorce, even that I don’t have no feelings for him, I still avoid some places and doing some things we use to do together, just to avoid open old wounds. Little by little, one step a a time.
I completely agree with you girls!
I hated when my ex AC/EUM and I had ‘JUST’ ended and people (my best-friends!) were like, ‘Just move on’, ‘you need to get over it’, ‘You need to let it go’. I know they meant well but they were just not feeling me or the situation at the time. It devastated me that fact and also the fact that I felt I couldn’t talk to the people closest to me about what I was emotionally feeling and going through.
I also agree that sentences like that should be banned. The trouble is, the people that are saying it, most of the time, actually do mean well and are usually thinking about your well-being when they say that because they don’t want you to suffer more than necessary. However, some of the time they just haven’t got the verbal/communication skills to express it more sensitively and appropriately.
My best friend, who is lovely beyond belief, when I used to try to talk about my ex and I’d falter in tears she just didn’t know how to deal with seeing me hurting. So she took to changing the subject to some inane topic when I so much as mentioned my ex’s name. That hurt me incredibly because I felt I couldn’t grieve properly because I had no-one to talk to and had it all pent up inside me.
I felt so resentful at the time because I felt, this is only a few weeks after the relationship ended not ‘years’ later and we had been together for almost 2 years so it wasn’t just a 2 week intense fling (which in itself can be hard to get over ‘immediately’).
What made my friend subsequently relate to what I had been going through was when she met someone and had an intense 2 months relationship and it ended in abrupt and unsavoury way (he was an AC/EUM!). My friend was devastated and it took her quite some time to get over the experience.
What people (and sometimes we too) don’t understand is sometimes we are trying to get over the ‘trauma’ of the situation as opposed to ‘the person’.
Sometimes we totally mistake the painful feeling of the ‘trauma’ we have been through, and attribute the pain as an indication of the depths of feeling/love we had for the person.
Jenny, it just shows how traumatised you were by the relationship and how vulnerable you are still feeling. Sometimes a person needs to take a step back and not put oneself into certain situations until they feel ready to deal with them and there is absolutely nothing wrong in that at all. It is called ‘self-preservation’….. doing what you’ve got to do to get you and your sanity back!
However, to heal properly, you need to deal with your inner vulnerabilities/insecurities as opposed to avoiding them. In the end, the situation was just as much about us, as about our ex’s. Ultimately, it sounds cliche but it is true…… our power resides in us. It is just simply whether we chose to exert it or unconfidently hand it over to someone else and make ourselves powerless. If we are strong and secure inside, we don’t give our power away, nor do we accept someone ‘trying’ to take it away.
Jenny, going back to that situation was actually a really great thing because it showed you that even though you thought you had dealt with most of what you had been through, there were obviously vulnerabilities that still needed working on. That has nothing to do with your ex. It is all about working on you. On the inside. Moving, etc. was just dealing with the external traumatic reminders.
When you have truly dealt with your vulnerabilities and feel really good within yourself…. you will then feel strong enough to go anywhere at any time and not be held hostage and ‘limited’ by the memory of your ex. If mutual associates come up to you, you won’t be any more phased than anyone asking you about any old ex boyfriend. ‘Like with all our ex’s, it just simply didn’t work out’…..(smile). No need to explain or justify any further to anyone, unless you chose to.
All in good time Jenny! 🙂
Excellent post Natalie.
Every now and then I’ll take some time to do a major emotional exploration, and I’ll find things that are still affecting me from years ago – that come from not dealing with breakups correctly! Things that I had repressed. Often times the intensity of those things comes from a combination of what actually happened, the length of the relationship (how long the trauma had been going on for), and also my own beliefs about it.
Sometimes, while dating a certain emotionally unavailable man that a woman is attracted to, she will develop a belief that “that’s the way it’s mean to be”, or at least meant to be for her. Because as soon as those things (his behavior, etc) are rationalized, they become beliefs with strong emotional foundations. So even when you get over the relationship, you might still find all of these intense feelings and beliefs connected with that relationship that are extremely difficult to eradicate. So that needs to be an important focus of dealing with breakups too.
Personally, when I’m feeling intense emotions, I open up and feel them completely; I feel the way I am creating tension in my body and mind in order to feel that certain way, and then I just “let it go” and the emotion drops away. After a while (a few days to a week of doing this), that feeling can dissipate entirely.
A great and timely post. How do we get over them? Time, distance, no contact but for me the best thing, the thing that has really worked is seeing him (and me and the relationship) clearly. It was the pictures, hooks and fantasies that were the killers. I was “mourning” the relationship but what I was really grieving was the lost hopes and dreams that made up the relationship I still very occasionally get nostalgic for the guy I thought he was but having spent time with him at work, I absolutely see him now for what he is and can’t believe I ever thought I wanted it. He is literally a different person and there is nothing about him that attracts me, appeals to me or seems worth my time. Even more important than him, though, is finding me. I got so lost so quickly, it was terrifying. I deserve better than I got and intend to find it next time. In the meantime, “nothing” is undeniably better than the “something” I thought I had with the AC. What was I thinking?
“Even more important than him, though, is finding me. I got so lost so quickly, it was terrifying.”
Exactly! I moved to be with him and lost myself, my spirit, me. He finally got it however he compartmentalized it. I lost me, and now I’m getting me back. Almost there!
I agree Dee.
When you see the relationship for what it actually ‘is’, you realise that most of it was hopes, dreams, illusions, projection (on both sides) at best! And lies (some by way of denial on both sides) and deceit at worst.
That ‘clarity’ that you gain from being honest, being present and seeing something for what it actually ‘is’……….is what allows you to naturally move on.
What you eventually ‘actually’ see is something you don’t ever want to hold on to.
That is when you realise you’ve not only gained clarity but you’ve gained growth in yourself too!
That alone is VERY empowering.
Thanks NML, for this one. It’s important for us to allow ourselves the time necessary to grieve. We can get on our own cases so much that it actually hinders the process, and keeps us in a shame spiral that we even have the feelings, and that we’re not progressing quickly enough through them. There is societal pressure as well to just get over it, and if you’re not dating others or seeing someone else rather quickly, you really are looked upon with a little fear and suspicion. While I think it is one of the gravest mistakes single people make – trying to cover the pain of one lost relationship with another…or many others. I’ve done it so many times – only to thoroughly f* up another relationship because while it may have felt good for quite a while, I ultimately felt dependent on it, and limited by it, and I didn’t want to. I’ve been struggling all my life to stand on my own feet, while still trying to medicate, with relationship distractions, the pain (and a real life and self) I was afraid to face on my own.
Another timely post from NML!
I fell in love very quickly and deeply with my childhood sweetheart /AC and I trusted him blindly, also I believed what he said to me. He was so allergic to any kind of confrontation that he couldn’t end things properly (because he was too cowardly to be direct) so he gave me the silent treatment, and wouldn’t take my phone calls….his actions caused me to become distressed and worried. Had he just been upfront with me and told me how he really felt, I would of accepted that he didn’t want to be with me.
Since he chose to do it in such a passive aggressive and cold way our breakup became a open wound for me. I didn’t even feel like myself after I got his cold email…I didn’t feel like I knew him at all (i didn’t!). I could not recognize anything about the AC I fell for in the way he related to me at the end. On top of being dismissed callously via email, I then find out he is really still married. It was like having an out of body experience. I remember the first week that I couldn’t even function normally and I was removed from all my normal emotions and my normal routine of life. I didn’t want to do ANYthing. I didn’t want to do any of the things that normally I enjoyed. I would find myself just sitting and staring, unable to focus and concentrate on my job. What just happened? Did he really break up with me via EMAIL? in less than 5 sentences? How could he even say he loved me and do such a thing? When did the lying begin? He is really married? these are just a sample of the runaway thoughts and questions that whizzed by in my head.
I was stunned and in shock for a few days. I never considered that I had lost my self so quickly, but I did lose myself. I never thought that I made someone the source of my happiness, but here I was, miserable – all because of him ending it and THE WAY he ended it, and then the shock of finding out the extent that he mislead me. And, finally, the realization that I had been with a married man unknowlingly!!! (Something I have sworn I would never do in my life.) He managed to get alot over on me during our quick faux relationship. I did need some time to sort this out in my head. Someone commented that it was much like feeling as if you landed on another planet and yet, you don’t know how you got there.
I needed some me time to dissect what happened and replay it in my mind from a perpective of reality and truth. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I didn’t sleep many nights either. I drove home after work and cried more than I would like to admit. I longed for time to pass quickly and hurry up so I could be over the pain. I am ready to put this behind me. Each day I have to direct my mind to think of something else when it wants to keep going back to the past. At some point it occured to me that I was grieving for someone who had not only lied to me from the get go, but someone that didn’t even care enough about me to leave the relationship in a respectful manner. I didn’t need to find any answers from him, and I certainly didn’t do anything deserving of his sick behavior.
Everyone is different and getting over it will take as long as it takes. But it will also take YOU making up your own mind to be done with the lingering affects of the breakup, and putting yourself and your happiness ahead of the AC issue. I am learning each day how to bring my focus towards my healing and my health. I am no longer crying myself to sleep, but I do still have the occasional dream in which I get to vent my anger. But I am learning what it takes to let go. I appreciate this blog and all the commenters for the support!
It took me 3 years to get over my uber-player ex. I was anxious and had severe depression. I had to take ADs and go to counselling. I cried in my sleep. When I woke up I was already thinking about him. I went to the gym over three times a week and STILL couldn’t get him out of my head even when exercising.
But now, I’m so over it. I hardly ever think about him, it’s almost like it hasn’t happened. Except, finally, I know that I CAN get over someone and it’s certainly made me less panicky in my relationships.
I honestly believe that if I can get over it, so can you.
Oh, and the number 1 thing that will help you is NC. and certainly NO SEX.
What I don’t know is, how do you get over them when they are with someone new and don’t appear to be treating her like shit? The consummate Mr. Unavailable/Assclown seems to be treating her just fine, fully committed……..I’ve read the posts about “Why Her and Not Me”, but still……….how do you really move on when you see he is capable of being everything he said he wanted to be with you? That he can mean everything he says, but it’s with someone else? That really sucks. I know he’s an assclown, but why isn’t he an assclown to her?
Natalie, if you take requests, I’d like to see that topic revisited a bit more in depth. I’m struggling with this one……..
@jenny
my AC went right back — made a B-line in fact– straight to his wife after telling me al the ‘woe is me’ stories that he hated her, she cheated, all she wanted was his money, etc. I couldn’t believe that he basically back tracked on his love/affection/everything he told me that he wanted with me, then went right back to his wifey, who he just trashed to me! I think he is going to give her the exact same AC treatment/lies/hot/cold that he gave me. I would not be at all surprised to hear they eventually divorce. He is just not capable of dealing with any kind of real emotions. He wants all the highs remember?
I honestly don’t think she is lucky to of gotten him back! But if he is the kind of person he showed himself to be with me, he is a piece of *hit. Actions speak louder than AC words. Sorry to be so blunt but I don’t think a leopard changes thier spots. It’s always good in the beginning, and the AC’s specialize in that period. Give it time, I bet the OW will get to see the same AC that we experienced, it’s just a matter of time.
Best to you! We really are the lucky ones now to be free of them….
@jenny
I am experiencing the same thing you are. My ex-AC is with someone new. A couple of things you said really stood out to me. You said he doesn’t “appear” to be treating her like shit. He “seems” to be treating her just fine. These AC’s are good at “appearing” and “seeming” like good guys to outside observers. The mutual friends I had with my ex-AC, if asked, would all say he is a great guy.
Now that I am one of the outside observers, it’s easy to buy into the picture that the ex-AC can paint. Who am I kidding? I even bought into it while we were dating, to some extent. I mean rarely are they all-AC all the time. He managed my expectations, just like he is probably managing hers. Why is he still with the new girl, and why hasn’t she seen what an AC he is? Maybe she is easier to manage than I was.
I can really only guess, but I do believe that people can change, HOWEVER, that process usually has to come due to some sort of loss or consequence that forces it, and it takes a lot of work and time to really, truly change. I also believe that if my ex-AC really had transformed into some super-great guy, that part of that change would involve him seeing how awful he was to me, and maybe apologizing for it? And that hasn’t happened.
It’s a real struggle on some days, to know he is with her now, and then other days, I consider her to be my unofficial guardian angel, because as long as he is with her, he won’t come sniffing around my door. So, his relationship with her is protecting me from him!
But, I do get how hard it is to feel validated when he “seems” to be making it work with someone else and not me. I have to constantly remind myself of two things: 1) their relationship is not likely to be as good as I make it out to be, based on my time with him, and 2) what REALLY matters is that he did not treat ME well.
Jenny, the thing is you are looking at it through your eyes (and emotions) and from the outside. You can never know how anyone is treating another (or being treated) behind closed doors just because you see them walking down the street, hand in hand, especially during ‘the honeymoon period’ when he is reeling the person in and on his best behaviour.
You won’t see from that that they are a liar or a cheat, or that they play psychological mind games to keep you confused, or that they are passive aggressive in their behaviour, or that they say a little seemingly ‘innocent’ throw away comments here and there that is said with the pure objective of demeaning you and chip away at your self-esteem to make them feel better about themselves, etc., etc., etc.
The article that Natalie wrote, where the theme was ‘Why her and not me’, actually outlined it really well……
If someone was an AC before in his behaviour, it is highly unlikely that he is going to be anything but in his future behaviour and relationship (unless he is faced with a dramatic life changing event that absolutely forces an epiphany and subsequent radical change – aka ‘a miracle’). The only thing is that the women he moves onto will have been picked because she will be more accommodating of his AC behaviour due to her own issues and low self-esteem. She might turn a blind eye and shut up and put up with his antics in a way that someone healthier wouldn’t even entertain for a split second.
AC can seem great and charming to the outside world but those that are in an intimate ‘relationship’ with them are usually damaged by them……and friends and family on each side in a lot of cases are usually unaware of how the person is. Doesn’t that tell you something?
Jenny, don’t waste your time and thoughts thinking about how he is treating someone else. What is important is that you recognise that he wasn’t good enough for YOU! That thought is what you should focus on and be embracing 100%.
Don’t be a victim……by telling/questioning yourself, ‘What was it about me that wasn’t good enough for him?’ When you ask yourself that question, you are automatically saying, ‘I am not good enough’. Why should you automatically think you are the one that is not good enough? That may stem from your own self-esteem issues that may have been in existence prior to meeting the AC.
Even on a normal day to day level, relationships come and go quite simply because the two people were not the best match for each other. That’s all! No big deal. It didn’t necessarily mean that there was anything wrong with either person. Or that the woman (or the man) should need to ask, ‘What is wrong with me?’. There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with anyone.
Again, it is about ‘acceptance’ that something didn’t work, for whatever reasons.
It is, what it is.
I agree totally with you Left Wondering, if anything you have to feel genuinely sorry for the person the ACs move on to. You know, despite appearances and the honeymoon period, exactly how it is going to play out and what they are going to suffer being with the AC.
Jenny, you will with time look back and think….’I cannot for the life of me believe I ever thought I had strong feelings for that AC to the extent that I wasted my time, efforts, thoughts and energy on him. I see him clearly now for exactly what he always had been. An idiot.
Left Wondering and Nicole are absolutely right.
Nicole
The new person, with whom the “relationship” might be lasting longer, could also be a worse EU than the guy himself.
My ex-AC was married for 22 years to a woman he described as a “rageaholic.” I understand that I was only hearing his side of the story, and it’s possible his EU tendencies triggered whatever fears and relating issues she had and she turned it on him in rage, but the point is that many times, these guys are in relationships with someone WORSE than they are. So the guy becomes the one whose expectations are “managed down” while the EU woman is the one doing most of the manipulating.
Who knows? But I agree wholeheartedly that they cannot and will not change without a whole lot of introspection, and I would guess professional help on an ongoing basis. But first they have to believe they are doing something wrong! They have to have enough insight to understand that what they are doing ISN’T WORKING for them.
And, let’s be honest, for most of these guys? It’s working for them. They never have to engage in full intimacy. They can leave a hit parade of brokenhearted women behind them while moving on to their next victim.
Imagine the sheer terror they must feel at true intimacy and expressing their real feelings. It is easy to feel badly for them at some level.
“… accepting the man he is and letting go of the illusion of the man he isn’t.”
Perfect! He is who he is – I never lost anything of real value – ij my mind who I thought he was just an illusion. When you look at who they really are – questioning why would you want a relationship with someone like that anyway becomes more of a priority. Putting the focus back on me is harder than blaming him – its actually using him as an excuse not to deal with me. I can tell you from personal experience that putting the focus back on me is much more rewarding than any replay of what wasn’t and would never be. Great post Nat as always. Hey maybe I am addicted to you! lol
Every word you said is 100% true. I am still grieving the loss of my fantasy relationship and have to remind myself daily that it wasnt real. I vacillate between being shocked the the assclown treated me that way he did and being determined not to let it destroy me. In order to do so I have to remind myself every single day that that relationship (and others before it) may have changed me but I will NOT let them define me….Its a daily ritual I have to perform. I found great help from the poem INVICTUS, (from the movie of the same name about Nelson Mandela’s life and struggles)…Here it is…
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul..
Every day I tell myself ” I am the master of my fate….I am the captain of my soul…”
Sometimes when you feel like the world has left you ‘bloodied and bowed’ it really helps to get that inner strength back by repeatedly telling yourself that YOU are your destiny…well, it helps me anyway.
Thanks again for yet another brilliant article…You have helped me more than my counsellor at times….and I can use all the help I can get!!
Cheers,
@Jenny
I really dont think he IS going to be any different finding someone else or even going back to an old love. He is just biding his time until he finds some other sucker to cling onto when eventually he will treat them as badly as he treated you. These men are so cunning and sly. Yes, he may be playing his stage acting trick as these AC’s seem to do – they should be on tv – well at least mine should be. He was a consummate actor up for a Golden Globe Award. I look back now and see even though our relationship was of 3 years duration, i really think a lot of it was some sort of game for him. And towards the end – which i never saw coming – i realise now how sadistic, cruel, hideous and deceitful he could be. Its these memories i have of him that get me over the longings i sometimes get for him. Some days he is still on his pedestal in my head, other days i truly hate his guts for what he did to me. So what other women he may take up with in the future i really feel sorry for, they are not getting a bargain, they are getting a damaged individual who for one reason or another never learn’t what ‘love’ truly is. Apparently he was the last born, and he said he was a shock to his parents who were approaching their 50’s when he was born, so he either got pushed aside by his siblings or his parents, or perhaps both.
To get on the subject of ‘love’, this is the man who could not remember when his wife died, he said he never told her he loved her either because he did not know what ‘love’ was. Oh yes, he often told me he loved me, but i think it was because he thought it was something i wanted to hear, but once again he said it so matter of factly looking back he need not have bothered!
Today i have trashed all his photographs in my shredder but i have saved the one i really liked which is now languishing inside my shoe so that tomorrow i shall be walking all over him just like he did to me – it wil feel really good!! Golly i never thought i would stoop to something like that but if it helps to heal my thoughts i shall do it.
@Left Wondering
I also experienced the out of body experience when he stood in front of me and said he wanted nothing more to do with me, no relationship, no physical contact anymore as if he was an alien with a masklike face, a cold voice and actually took a step back as if i had some sort of disease! This was a day after he had been all over me like a rash which made it more surreal. To say i was confused was an understatement, but now i think – his loss. He did, however, say he would like me to be friends with him and tidy up his house when he moved out. I can see the funny side of that statement now. I told him i had gone from being a lover, to a friend, to a cleaner in the space of 3 minutes and that was some record!!
Susiejay
“I told him i had gone from being a lover, to a friend, to a cleaner in the space of 3 minutes and that was some record!!”
That’s hilarious!! Thanks for that.
This is a spot on post NML for me right now… we do not move on until we accept – fully – with no ifs or buts – that it is over, done, finished, capoot!
I am trying to go through the process of rejecting it, bit by bit.. and therefore accepting it is over.. bit by bit… every day in every way… I think I am beginning to see a chink of light at the end of a dark tunnel?! Bring it on!! I want some of what’s at the other side!
Thanks for this post NML
SusieJay, …….LOL…… this was another classic of yours:
‘Today i have trashed all his photographs in my shredder but i have saved the one i really liked which is now languishing inside my shoe so that tomorrow i shall be walking all over him just like he did to me – it wil feel really good!! Golly i never thought i would stoop to something like that but if it helps to heal my thoughts i shall do it.’
I spluttered and had a damn good belly laugh when I read that…. Classic!
I tell you some of these guys are so disconnected…..that the facts are more bizarre than fiction. You couldn’t make these things up, could you? For your ex to tell you he wanted to remain friends and you could tidy his house when he moved out???
You have to laugh 🙂 I mean…… REALLY?
He did you a big favour by ending things.
I look back at my ex and I say to myself, I must have been in a low place within myself (unbeknown to me at that time) to ever have embraced him into my life.
He used to come out with some bizarre disconnected crap like that. They are just narcissists…
This is really what I needed to read. Me and my ex were in a dysfunctional, unhealthy on-and-off relationship for almost four years. We have not been talking for a few months, and I am struggling with letting go of the relationship and letting go of him. Thank you for this inspiring article. 🙂
Dear Natalie, it took me quite a while and many days and months of analyzing the whole minute by minute, play by play to realize that no matter what I could have said or done, should have or would have said or done that the out come would have still been the same. After many weeks of crying and many nights of praying and asking God what is wrong with ME?
It hit me like a ton of bricks and I realized the biggest problem I was having with letting him go, is the fact above all else… I could not accept the fact that I could be so wrong about him. I could not let myself accept the hard truth that I was in fact wrong about someone. That would mean that I was not as smart as I would like to think… So, I would continue to go back to prove to myself as well as others, that I was not wrong and I did not waste time on this man. Each time I felt we were so close to making it work… that he was finally realizing that he would never, ever find another girl like me and if he did not change he was going to once and for all, lose me forever. I am laughing at this point. I knew he loved me more than he could ever love anyone, he had told me so many times I was the only girl for him. I made myself believe that each time he was getting closer to realizing just how much.
This man is so emotionally UN attached to even himself and the fact that he could ever love someone or feel as though he needed someone could only be when he meets someone who was as cold and emotionally unavailable as himself. This being said, because it would take someone with no emotions and feeling to rattle his cage, not his heart as he doesn”t have one. It is a never ending cycle, keep in mind neither one of them are happy with the other.
I needed to believe all the wonderful things he said to me was real, I could tell by the look on his face and the way he looked at me and when he told me, I was the only girl for him that he would never leave me again. I had allowed myself to believe his words once so the second time around I needed to believe it was true, yet again. Self justification! Once I went back to him after his lies, I had to keep going back because it was to hard for me to accept that I could be so wrong about this man. I had built him up to be so wonderful and convinced myself that I was happier than I had ever been in my life. The truth is.. that the good times were so wonderful and the bad times were so painful. I knew each time when he was wrong, but, the longer he was silent and not coming after me then the more I would turn the blame on myself. I finally realized the battle was between my heart and my head and not about what he had done. My head and heart was fighting to prove which one was right and which one was wrong. I knew there was no way I could have been so wrong about this man, key word So. My head knew I was wrong, but, my heart would not listen or accept this to be true. I am to damn smart and accomplished, no way I could be this wrong.
The day I allowed myself to accepted it is OK that I was wrong… is the day my life began to change.
I mentally had to picture his face in a balloon, smiling the most beautiful smile he had ever smiled at me and looking at me with those eyes that would and could always melt me. I smiled back at him with tears in my eyes and I mentally cut the cord to the balloon that was attached to my stomach area. I watched him float away with his big beautiful smile and I said goodbye. I felted an immediate relief. I still think of him, but I will not allow myself the really think of him, because I know that my heart and he will try to reconnect the cord that binds him to my sole.
Thanks to YOU!!! I started dating a man as you said would not appeal to me at first, but to give it five dates. I never thought it would work for me… Natalie, I owe it to you that I have met the most wonderful AVAILABLE man, not to mention successful and so full of life. He so talks about a life with me and his actions match his words. Priceless…., I can tell you that I never thought I could feel so wonderful and positive about someone after the love I had so convinced myself that I had for my Mr. Unavailable. I not only hear the words and see the actions from Mr. Emotionally Available I feel and see happiness now and in my future!
Please, do not stop touching our lives. I promise I would usually not have given this wonderful man the time of my day. I am so fortunate to have been a faithful reader of yours.
Thank you,
Deborah
Deborah, EVERY word you wrote was exactly my relationship to a T (except I didn’t see you mentioned cheating mixed in there). I kept reading your blog shaking my head saying, that’s me, that’s him, OMG! That’s our relationship in a nut shell. Right down to the “cord cutting” you spoke of–except I liked your analogy of the balloon. I must admit, I also felt a sense of disconnect once I “cut the cord”. It took a few times to do, but I kept mentally cutting that cord. Between that and keeping a list, log and putting every thing on paper so I could read it over and over, helped so much. When I finally wrote down a list of reasons why I loved him, it had nothing to do with what he did FOR me. My list lacked security, feeling safe, feeling loved, wanting the same future together–oh he told me he wanted a future but that was only lip service. But I kept holding on to the dream, and the illusion of his words, not his actions.
Anyway, like you, I am now in a healthy, balanced relationship. What a world of difference. Being with someone who actually loves you, is there for you emotionally, wants to do things with and for you is amazing. I’m not carrying all the weight of the relationship, its shared and that is “love”.
@Deborah,
me too: I am still having trouble with “being so wrong about him”. But I accept that I was very wrong about him. I had nagging doubts within weeks of dating him… I knew he was “not in touch with his feminine side” (I come from the West of Sotland – men here are not known for being very ‘romantic’!) that I could handle, bit it was the other stuff; the more sinister things that I am talking about; I was very very hurt by his hot then cold behaviour; his disapearing acts – I found this very cruel, but yet I “knew” he was not a cruel person, so I must be misreading something, failing to understand something.
I think it is their contradictory behaviour and words not matching actions that is so confusing. You see the good side of them, and you think this cannot be the same guy when the bad side emerges.. you sense, among the fog, that something seems to be very wrong, but you also like them and they have nice qualities, so you can’t quite put the two things together to make a whole picture – a whole person; you seem to be getting bits from two different people, and you stick your money on the nice one and hope you have bet on the right guy!
Also, mine seemed to behave as if his crappy behaviour was perfectly normal; as if it was not odd in any way and did not merit any comment whatever – he never explained anything or commented on anything he did or did not do. So I kept thinking, “is it me?”, “it must be me”. Am I imagining all of this?
Are my feelings of hurt and beng let down and ignored and abandoned and then picked up again as if nothing odd has happened all in my imagination? Or is he just having a feckin laugh and the joke’s on me?
How could I be so wrong – and for so long? I did not want to admit to myself that I was definitely wrong about this guy… and the longer it went on the less I wanted to see it.
I doubted myself. I shouldn’t have done. I was right all along. He is odd. It was all odd. Very odd. His behaviour is cruel and he does know it is cruel. He is emotionally bankrupt. His only way of dealing with his crummy behaviour is to normalise it, and sadly I went along with his version of normality.
Only now, after nine years, am I completely certain that I am right. That he is odd, weird, and all the pretending in the world doesn’t make it less weird, or easier to live with. And I am not going along with it any more. He can go play his warped games somewhere else – far away from me.
I got two emails from him tonight – on the usual benign, nothing imprtant ‘For Your Information’ on what is a mutual interest type thing. I am not responding. That’s a first for me!! put up the flags everybody!!
I do feel a bit sorry for him; for what must inevitably be his experience of love (and life and relationships) but I feel much more sorry for myself! And I choose me. Finally. (And thanks to NML for giving me those words, so simple, so obvious, so unambiguously necessary – if you sense something “off” about a guy: “choose you” – and do it fast.)
Cheering for you Fearless!
Fearless –
I always enjoy your posts and this one is particularly close to what I am feeling. My AC is driving me crazy by making me think I am crazy. He is literally trying to deny the relationship happened, and at times it makes me wonder as well. I know all he is doing is trying to downplay his responsibility in what happened but it almost feels like he is denying me my right to be hurt. Like you said, I begin to wonder if its in my imagination but then you think about it and realize, no – I trust myself and my gut and I am certain that the overwhelming majority of it is his absolutely bizarre and unstable behaviour. I realize now I did have alot of illusions and pictures in the relationship but I know I didn’t imagine the whole thing. When I look at him now (we work together), I do not see anything of the guy I thought I knew. The erratic, hurtful behavior is all that is left.
Ignore his emails, focus on you and hang in there. I have no doubt you will recover from this beautifully. Best wishes.
I totally relate to “is he crazy or am I?”. In the beginning I knew he was off, than I started buying into it – he’d say I don’t understand the way you think – and there I was doubting myself. At the end – I was waking up again. I said to him “i don’t understand you’re thinking”. Concert, dates at his house, spending the night, 4 nights in the mountains with his sister & brother-in-law – and THEN has the nerve to call me psycho B and we haven’t even been dating!!! EXCUSE ME – on the way home from the mountains he said he was going to look for property to buy for us to spend the weekends at – FUTURE FAKING – and we were not dating???
I have to laugh now – as all this crosses my mind I am starting to get my sanity back (they make ya insane) I think of all this and I have to laugh – EXCUSE ME – and then I have to say “where the heck you been Aims – lala land?” Unfortuantely that’s where I had been – nothing like illusions and fantasy land!!
I also saw a post yesterday about how her AC would call all the stuff he got/bought “ours”. I had totally forgotten that my AC did that in the beginning. Everything was OURS like we were already married. And back then I thought it strange – but then I fell for it – HOOK.
Love you all for your posts, support and humor. If anyone is hurting today – look in the mirror and tell yourself you are beautiful and you are going to be ok – in fact better than ok -especially without these AC’s.
“One of the things that will stall the process of letting go is if there is an underlying fear of ‘what happens next’. i.e. When I don’t have them to cry and complain over and to think about morning, noon and night, what am I going to do then?”
Bang on! This is exactly my problem. Meeting my EUM coincided exactly with the day i moved out of my parents’ place (after leaving a 6 yr healthy relationship that ended amicably, with my ex who i was living with, that i’m still friends with today) into a flat of my own with friends. I am having such a hard time with the ‘what happens next’, because the EUM was initially a disraction from the ‘what happens next’ which i should have dealt with 9 months ago. I now have to focus on the ‘what happens next’ that i’ve been deferring all this time and it’s SO scary. Thinking about him and being depressed is so much easier! I know i have nothing to fear – the future is scary but exciting at the same time. I’ve got to have faith in myself that i will be able to create a great future for myself – this was an anxiety also, that i am responsible for my own fate (and might cock it up), much easier to put the responsibility in someone else’s hands… I’m actually laughing at myself now!
Thank you NML for all these wonderful articles! You’ve helped me so much!
Wow Minky, I met my xeum 5 days after moving out of my (amicably broken up, whom I’m still good friends with) ex of 8 years’ home. And I met another potential eum a few days before going NC with my xeum. I was very tempted, but thankfully I decided to take some time before I got involved with anyone else. And I’ve heard since he’s quite the ‘player’ with a harem of younger women that he chooses from. Glad I dodged that bullet but I could have easily ended up in another bad situation had I not decided (exactly!) to face the ‘what next?’
People say the universe, or god or whatever ‘provides’ and doesn’t close one door without opening another – but I’ve seen friends and family get involved with exactly the same man they just left behind, or with whom they had a very nasty ending. I’ve read recently, and I believe it, that the universe will provide you with a teacher (NML?) – if that’s what you need (and we do!) – or someone who reflects your own level of emotional maturity. If I’m truly honest with myself, my xeum provided a better mirror to me than I ever wanted, but most definitely needed. I will be treating men and potential partners and myself and any relationship with much more respect and care than I ever have in the past.
Thanks Nat, for me the most difficult part is, to forgive myself for been involved with such an ugly, drunken, pathetic loser who is a complete waste of time and space a few years ago.
Unfortunately he crossed my path when I was at an extrem low craving for attention.
Under normal circumstances I would not touch him with a stick. I still find it difficult to forgive myself, even as my life is going very well and even that this episode ended years ago.
Maybe you like to do post on the topic “how to forgive yourself”
Best wishes
X
I am still in such a raw place with all of this. I read these words of realisation all you ladies (and gent) have had and realise I still have not 100% let go. I remember with my last LTR it wasn’t nearly so hard, my ex then was kind actually, it was as simple as “if he doesn’t want me = I don’t want him”. I don’t understand why it hasn’t clicked this time. I hope this happens soon. I can honestly say that I do not want to be treated the way he treated me but I still don’t fully make the connection between the bad treatment and the part of him I love. I still feel so responsible in some way. The good to me seemed to outweigh the bad, until the bad happened, then time would pass and the bad lost its impact on me. But this time I know I can’t go back because I am so scared of him hurting me again, I can’t take it anymore but this pain feels equally as hard – with or without him. Not that he’ll come back, I made up with him every time. I must be a very good persuader. I have been NC for only 12days.Still wondering if he is going to come back and talk to me in a few weeks time when he said he would, when his workload is not so chronic. It’s true, facing myself is awful. I have so many decisions to make and I don’t know what to do about anything because I am fearful they are reactive, but some things can’t wait. I hope I can read this page again in a week or so where all these words (your words) actually compute!
Bev,
Everyone here grows and heals at her own pace.
I believe we all learn a lot from each other, in part because we can see each other’s *relationships* in a more clear and detached way than we can our own.
When I read this —
“Still wondering if he is going to come back and talk to me in a few weeks time when he said he would, when his workload is not so chronic.”
— my blood boiled, and honestly, I felt like kicking this guy right where he’d remember it.
Bev, this is total BS. My dad was a country doctor who did a great deal of volunteer work and guess what? He always had time to love and respect my mother and include her (and us!) in his life.
A normal man who is not an AC has time for you right now and always, just as you have time for him.
I know it takes time to heal (tons for me!) but I hope when this guy shows his sorry face again you will give him the surprise of his life and kick him to the curb.
Wishing you strength and love,
Over It
Love this post. I am 3 months post break up from my AC, but I wish I could say I was no contact. I was no contact for 2 months but he has returned to work and there has been too much contact. At first I was hostile and silent. Then we tried talking about the relationship and that was a disaster. I know he’s an assclown and his behaviour has been appalling, yet for reasons I cannot even begin to explain, I find myself thinking about him again and worrying when he won’t reply to my business emails. I have no illusions about the relationship (there wasn’t one, really) and don’t like or respect him, but his combination of silence, hostility, and just enough personal talk to make me insane seems to have hooked me again. I hate it! I was doing so well and once again he has invaded my peace of mind and shaken my sanity. Not because of a promise of a relationship but because his toxic nonsense seems to grab hold of me. I am not sure why the disinterest hook is so deep and honestly, till today, I wouldn’t have thought that had any effect on me. I hate when he was silent or blowing cold – so why all of a sudden does his worst behaviour throw me right back into the AC tempest? I want to unhook! I thought I had! I thought I had gotten him out of my mind and life. I feel like I need my anger and hatred of him back. It was protective. I had started to forgive him and me and think we could be cordial and civil at work – ah!, maybe that is it. Keep the anger and distance and never, EVER allow myself to think I can have him back in my life in any way. He really is an absolute assclown and a total waste of time. I cannot allow myself to think of him any other way. I don’t want anger, resentment or hatred in my life but those negative emotions truly seem (for now, at least) to be the best defence against his assclown ways. Oh, help.
Sarah, you said “I don’t want anger, resentment or hatred in my life but those negative emotions truly seem (for now, at least) to be the best defence against his assclown ways. Oh, help.”..those are NORMAL emotions to go through. It’s part of the healing process. You are on your way hon. Sooner or later you will become indifferent-then you have crossed over that bridge to the other side of never looking back. You CAN and you WILL get there. I’m pulling for you!!
sarah- I feel for you. It can be so hard to disconnect from these ACs. Identifying the hooks really does help – it helped me to see that it wasn’t even him that was really hooking me, it was my screaming inner child that was reacting to something he was doing. The degree to which my AC reminds me of my father’s emotional patterns is horrifying but definitely explains why he pushes my buttons even now. Hang on. Ride it out. There is no need to be friends or even friendly. And you don’t really need to hold on to hate or anger to protect yourself. Boundaries will protect you. It doesn’t sound like you are hanging on to the relationship. Its just the hooks still have some hold. As you pull them out, his behaviour will likely have less effect on you. Good luck and we are rooting for you.
sarah
Healing isn’t “linear.” There is a lot of back-and-forthing of feelings, justifications, what-ifs, what-should-I-have-done, what-a-bastard, etc., etc. There just is.
Kubler-Ross describes this in her seminal work on stages of grief. I would imagine no matter what kind of loss one experiences, the grief process is not linear.
Seeing him and being in contact with him for work must be excruciating. I’m not sure I could pull that one off, frankly. It’s pretty obvious it could trigger your “hard wiring” to revert back to old feelings. Just like we are “wired” to choose these guys in the first place because we don’t have boundaries and high self-esteem wired into our brains – in my case from my crappy relationship with my father.
And sometimes we don’t see obvious external triggers for reverting to feeling bad, even if we had weeks or months of NC and were feeling good. The triggers probably come from a primitive part of our brain and are mixed up with old family relations, old past relationships with other people, the desire to be loved and the sexual longing that goes with it, etc., etc. It’s so complex!
Hang in there. NC/no personal chatter with him is very important and if you went NC after the initial break-up, you can keep doing it, even with a setback!
From my own experience, I actually think sometimes a broken heart can take longer to heal when the relationship was VERY short – e.g., you only had a few really intense dates and then the other person inexplicably broke it off. I had one experience like that – and because I didn’t know the guy, I was so devastated, because in my mind he was perfect. I spent the next year and a half always happening to be “around” him just so I could learn more about this person and try to understand what had happened between us. Finally, I realized that he is just a completely emotionally-empty and routinely manipulative human being who really doesn’t love anyone but himself. He also seems to take a sick joy in coming on really strongly to women and then completely rejecting them, refusing to talk to them, etc. But because I didn’t know these things about him from the beginning, I was able to have my heart so destroyed.
I have to disagree, sorry. I wished my ex AC would have broken it off with me in the early dating stage. Instead, he strung me along for almost 4 years. The longer the abuse, the harder it is to recover from it. When you invest yourself in someone who promises you the world and buy into the words vs the actions for years, THAT is a difficult thing to get over.I am not dismissing your feelings, however I do believe I would have moved on much quicker if he had not dragged out the relationship for years with no return on the investment. The more years invested=more despair when it ends. Imagine if he had shown you that side of him for years??
Well, you say you don’t want to dismiss my feelings, but I think the tone of this message is pretty dismissive: e.g., “have to disagree, sorry,” “THAT is a difficult thing to get over” (as though my experience wasn’t), etc.
I have had assclowns of both stripes – on and off for seven years, and then this one I discuss here which took place over a period of somewhere between 2 weeks and 3 months. I just wanted to say that I personally think it’s a fallacy to assume (as many do) that a longer relationship necessarily correlates with a longer time spent healing. Sometimes (certainly not always) that longer relationship can be so emotionally tiring that when it finally ends, you can put it behind you more quickly, because you have fewer remaining questions and dreams about the guy. In my case, I over-invested, listening and naively believing the beautiful romantic scenario he displayed before me, and then when he inexplicably one day was with another girl and refused to talk to me, I was left with all of these beautiful dreams and no answers about what had happened. I would wake up in the middle of the night just in shock, as though I had been through something like in Titanic – 4 beautiful days of romance cut to an end. Hahaha such an idealized vision of this JERK now really makes me laugh.
Anyway, I do want to say I am very sorry to hear about your painful situation. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.
3 date broken heart
What is going on for me with trying to heal from the more short-lived relationships is a whole lot of projection – which is really difficult to get over because it fed my fantasies of what I thought I wanted with the guy.
And that projection was taking place LONG BEFORE I ever met the assclown. We all have in our mind a picture of what we want in a relationship – some of that is realistic, but a lot of it just isn’t. Then when we meet someone, we try to fit them into our fantasy at the same time ignoring red flags (in my case, red flags on our very first meeting back in 2009, the first time we dated).
All of this projection, fantasy, denial, and not living genuinely and true to ourselves by acknowledging the reality of our poor choice is just plain difficult to get over, even if it was only two weeks, two months, whatever. It’s a jumbled up mess, and it takes time to untangle ourselves from all of these thoughts and beliefs.
I think the grief isn’t in many respects for the specific guy – it’s for the fantasy, and that takes longer to tease out and work through. For short-lived stuff, there is probably more fantasy going on because we haven’t had the opportunity to experience much “reality” with the guy, or at least not much positive affirming realities.
Hang in there, though!
Hi Rayan,
Thanks for the comments! I like your point about the fantasy existing before we have even met the person, haha. Definitely true. My situation was complicated by the fact that I had just moved (all alone) to another country and didn’t yet speak the language. I was 23, and the guy was 34. I definitely got lost in a fantasy of this older guy looking out for me and protecting me in another country. How embarrassing!!! Sigh. It was 2 years ago and I still blush with humiliation everytime I think about it.
How true! If we never had a real opportunity at a relationship, it’s hard to take comfort in not having to put up with their flaws anymore, because we don’t know yet what they are!
It’s not really about how long or short the relationship was, or if he cheated or was a good dad or a bad dad etc. The real question is why we allowed ourselves to be treated so badly and hurt by someone who is not even worthwhile. And that can only be down to poor boundaries and shaky self esteem. I’m not saying stick around and make them change, I mean walk away, walk away!
I absolutely understand the hurt, and it’s natural and necessary to grieve, sometimes for QUITE a long time. But at the end of it, there is only you, and what you can do for yourself. And you will get to see how special you are. It’s wonderful when you get there!
Love to you all!
Natalie, you always put my thougths into words perfectly. Thanks for another great post! It’s been 3 solid months since I split from my EUM. We had been together for 3 years (together at his selfish convience) and for the past year I had become increasingly despirate to get out of it, and at the end I can truly say that I had lost my mind & my self esteem. There was nothing left of me. I had done so much damage to myself at that point. I remember trying to explain to him what I was feeling and why he hurt me so much, but I could never put it into words. I wish I had come across this website a long time ago. I would have seen that the problem really was him and not me. That is wasn’t because I wasn’t trying hard enough. It was never going to be enough. He was a future faker too and what makes it worse is that we have a 2 1/2 year old son together, whom he does not acknowledge now that we are apart. It’s so sad. To have some one look into your eyes and tell you how he wants to raise our son together, and be a family and meet his family, (I am a very family oriented person and he knows how much that meant to me.) and then take it away without even telling you was horrible. Some one had said that her EUM had invisible trip wires in another post and that was my EUM. He realized that he’d actually have to commit to that, so he’d get mad at something I did and use it as an excuse to not follow through. I’d find this out during some other fight two months after all those things I wanted to hear were said. He told me all that stuff a second time and renigged again which was even worse, and I never recovered from that. We never fixed anything. It’s part of the reason I had such a break down I knew that if I didn’t get away from him and get my son away from some one like that, something really bad was bound to happen to me. Leaving was hard and it sucked, and I’ve had terrible days. Lately however I find that I’ll realize I haven’t been thinking about him and actually happy about it, not sad. I don’t wake up in the morning sad and thinking about him. I have a court hearing for child support coming up and I’m going to need all the strength I can gather for it. Experience has shown that EUM probably will not show up. He’s big on burrying his head in the sand. I’m so happy that I no longer am fighting for head space. I could never go back to that. It’s too scary to see how I lost myself. I would never want to be in his frame of mind. I am so happy I finally got away, even on those bad days.
I just wanted to say “thank you” to everyone who posted about getting over the ex when he’s with someone else. I really appreciate your feedback, as well as that from everyone else who posts here. I learn just as much from you guys as I do from Natalie!!! I don’t post often because I find that someone has already written exactly what I would’ve said! You guys sooo rock!!
Call it an overactive imagination, but in my mind, he treats her like a queen. She is everything I am not and therefore doesn’t “deserve” his crappy treatment, his ambiguity, his cruelty and downright dismissive behavior. I know this is just my tendency to blame myself, but it just feels true. It has been 3 months since he told me that he loved her (which was exactly 3 days after he told me he loved me “like there was no tomorrow”), and they are still together. Three months might not sound like a long time, but since he pulled disappearing acts on me about every 6 weeks for a solid year, it seems like commitment to me.
Call it emotional immaturity, but I don’t want him to get the girl. It just seems so unfair that he can lie, cheat, be purposely deceitful and definitely uncaring, but still land on his feet. Trying really hard to forgive, but it’s hard……….
Thanks again to you all.
It’s been a struggle for me emotionally the past 2 days, after having 3 days of feeling strong and getting perspective. I have been NC now for month 1/2. I go from anger to sadness,to anger. I feel like I am back in the deep end of the pool, treading water.
I too appreciate all the feedback and shared stories from of all you… I am always surprised at the familiar traits of these AC’s (is there a AC manual we don’t know about?!)
I really identify with the comments of Jenny and 3 date broken heart.
I know that NML says “If you’ve been broken up longer than you were together with the person, it is clear that more holding on than letting go is taking place. ”
I must be holding on to the pain and rejection and the fact that he moved on so easily, so quickly and went back to his marriage when he had said he was divorced, over her and also resented her for cheating. He said it was a deal breaker and I believed he was divorced. Sometimes I think what did I do to make him a) want to go back to her and b) treat me so horribly, cruelly in fact, and be able go right into being happy and in love with her like he was with me. I felt all I did was love him and gave him what he said he wanted, my love and affection and trust.
I know that I would never be in a relationship with a married man, and I know since he lied to me and was still married – him going back to her is to be expected -one of my friends said she felt he did this to me as a way to get back at his wife, so maybe he used me as tool to help in deal with going back to her!
I know that I had I really known the TRUTH, I would not of wanted this man to begin with and none of this would of even happened! I also think that if he was lying to me about everything, he could not of loved me, cared or respected me. My belief in his love for me was also wrong! There is a silent hope that I will be acknowledged and heard and somehow he will realize how hurtful his actions were to me, how unfair and hurtful he was to me. I almost feel like he took his anger at his wife out on me. She cheated and I looked in his phone, somehow my offense was worse than hers…
However, because he lied to me, I was under this false impression, fell in love with a the person he pretended to be…and I am having a hard time shaking that deluded perception of him. It’s so confusing when they make you think and believe they are someone they in fact aren’t!
Thanks to all of you for sharing and especially to NML who through her posts is helping me discover and examine so much about myself!!
Hey Jenny. Good to hear from you although obviously not glad your heart is hurting.
Let me be real with you: Anyone who can say he loves someone and three days later say he loves someone else is talking out of their bum.
He loves you like there’s no tomorrow? This guy is a muppet. There is a tomorrow and the day after that too. What did he do? Switch off his love when he realised tomorrow had come?
I don’t think he has any idea WHAT he’s feeling but you’re missing the key information here:
He is an incredibly insincere and disconnected person who is so outrageous that he expects to say crap like this and for it to be taken as a given. You can’t trust someone who can say they love you one day and then profess to love another.
If he can lie to you, he can lie to her.
He can be The Perfect Guy for a while but it won’t last and his true colours will show. He’s not to be taken seriously. By anyone.
Here’s the thing – you know that this guy has treated you badly and that the relationship had you feeling bad, and yet you’re wondering why this woman has had 6 weeks more than you did! You have no idea what their relationship is like.
Don’t compete with her over who gets to hold on to an ac for the longer period of time.
Does it matter whether he screws you over in 6 weeks and her in 12? The point is that you will both get screwed and you have both been involved with a ‘less than’ man.
Your not better than her and she’s not better than you. You can’t judge your relationship on the merits of another relationship he’s having. Judge your relationship on what happened between you both.
He gets to do his thing because he is moving on. You don’t get to be happy because you’re still holding on to him even though he has left the building. That’s not down to him.
You overall were involved with his man for a lengthy period of time. You have been back and forth and back and forth. It didn’t work and you have twisted and contorted yourself to hold on.
You can keep berating yourself and living in the past or you can validate the reasons why YOUr relationship didn’t work.
Cheaters, acs, Mr Unvailables do tend to land on their feet. Why? Because there is always someone out there willing to buy into their BS.
They don’t worry themselves about what they did wrong and why it didn’t work out – they press the reset button and even assume the right to pop up in your life at a later date.
Our mistake – we don’t let go, we dig our heels in and put our lives on hold while obsessing about them and looking for reasons to blame ourselves.
You are robbing yourself of the opportunity to live and experience something better. You are eating up your own time trying to prove the wrong things about yourself.
You want to correct what you think the
mistakes you made ‘first time round’ were – save your energy for a new relationship. It’ll reap greater rewards.
Hugs nat x
You’re so right Nat you can’t compare one relationship to another. I did that with my ex and his new GF only to find out that she’s as miserable at times as I was. What I find sad is that a mutal friend told me she thinks he still cares about me even though we haven’t seen or talked to each other for almost a year. So he must be saying things about me or doing something for her to think that. Looks like he’s up to his old tricks. Didn’t take long for the “real” him to come out and to think I drove myself crazy wondering why her not me.
I was so eaten up with jealousy about her for such a long time but now with space and time I only feel sad for her because I know what she’s going through.
“Don’t compete with her over who gets to hold on to an ac for the longer period of time”. Love that Nat, going to remember it.
I am new to the site but I just wanted to express my sincere thanks for Natalie and the information that is here. It has opened my eyes and made me realize that I am not crazy. My 3 year relationship with a Mr. Unavailable ended a few weeks ago. Well, I’m not sure what happened. I had a meltdown and told him things had to change as to how he has treated me and that at this point I wanted to see him more than one day or so a week. We live about 30 minutes apart and even though he would talk about how “one day” we would marry and how I am so amazing and all he wants, etc…..there was no ring. There was no specific talk about shopping for houses,etc. His words were always general about our future..We both have elementary school children…I have two boys with me and he has visitation with his two.
When I had the meltdown last month, one of many, he at first said he was so sorry and wanted us to be like we were before. But…then suddenly within a day or two he said he was torn and couldn’t talk about things. Then he proceeded to remove every picture and memory of me from his house and changed his relationship status on Facebook. He is one who specializes in giving you the silent treatment when he feels like it. So after a few days we talked (on the phone) and he said he just needs a break…that we haven’t been happy in a year (since I caught him calling/texting a married friend of his and putting the contact info under his daughter’s name. Still don’t know how involved that was) I spent the last year watching to see if he would take the steps to make things right…to show me that I could trust him. Instead there were many times of not being able to reach him…the phone was left in the car, etc. I also had saw that after over 2 years, he still found lots of excuses to only see me one day or so a week. He would say that he wanted to marry me and that he bought his new car with a 3rd seat for all our kids, that one day it would be mine, etc. Told all his friends that he had found the woman he wanted to marry, etc.
He would SAY all those things about how much he loved me and how much he wanted to marry me “one day”…assuring me from day 1 that I could trust him and that he would be good to my boys. Well, over the last year I watched him not be there for me when my mom died, heard him tell me he just didn’t come to help me or be with me because well…I didn’t sound excited enough about him coming over. That I didn’t show enough enthusiasm. Then this summer I found out that I have possible cancerous cells on my cervix and will need to have a hysterectomy. When I was going through that…he found reasons not to be there like going to his son’s little league games, etc.
Well, I look back now and I realize I should have ended things last year. I spent the last year asking him why he treated me so badly and why he would SAY so much about our future, but yet no ACTION was taken. Wondered why he said all the things but yet kept a type of wall up between us and a sort of wall away from my boys. I now see that he was fake about future plans. He would blow hot and cold just to keep me there. The hardest part of rme is that all of the people who know him…young and old just rave about how wonderful he is. How they all feel so bad for him because his ex wife was unfaithful to him. And yet…I see this other side of him. The side that could literally ignore me for days if he didn’t like what I said. The side that would lie about a myspace page and then find out it was filled with women. The side of a guy who is a coach and a teacher but yet was only polite to my boys and never really took them under his wing like he did his own players!
The ironic thing is that I got upset and said things had to change. And he ended up now twisting it all around and says he told me he needs a break…he wouldn’t discuss anything in person…only over the phone/texts. And each time it is the same…I love you and I’m not walking away…I’m just neede to separate myself and then I will call you one day and ask you out and then we won’t have to deal with all these issues. So….I’ve been twisted up trying to figure out how it got twisted around to him needing a break. And now he tells me that he’s not sure if he wants to get married, isn’t really ready for a relationship of seeing me more than a day a week and well..that he knows he should have said something long ago. Ummm…hello? Yes, especially with my two boys trusting him and hearing all his talk about all of us being a family one day and my kids being so close to his. It is all just so difficult to grasp. He says he is just taking a break but in reality his ACTIONS are saying that he is walking away without even trying to discuss any other option…and he is doing it even though I am facing the situation with cancer.
I have tried to focus on myself and the boys. I am on Day 9 of no contact and in reality, he is making it easy by not even trying to contact me. He sent me a text last week saying …..”I know you are hurt and confused but you will be in all my thoughts. Oh and by the way, I’m going away for the weekend to get away from everything.”
As I read all these comments and articles, I realize that even though everyone I meet just raves about him and he is so giving to his friends and the community….that the reality is that he is a selfish, narcissistic person who has no empathy or compassion. It is all just for show.
I try not to dwell on my own shortcomings and what I did wrong…I wasn’t perfect, but I gave him my love and trust and was faithful and loving, as were my boys. Thank you again for opening my eyes and helping to see that there is a way out of this craziness!
Aw that’s very hard. It’s classic EUM behaviour. They bamboozle you with fancy words but if you took those words out of the equation all you’re left with is someone who doesn’t show up when he’s supposed to, basically. I understand the compulsion to ask WHY WHY WHY? because you are trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, their words and their deeds. You can only look at their deeds. As someone said on this site, if their actions do not match their words, their words ARE EMPTY.
For them, it is EASY to say I love you, I miss you, I want to marry you, I think about you, I’ll always love you, I want to be in your life, BLAH BLAH BLAH. Following through is ENTIRELY another matter.
And having a lot of friends does not indicate very much. I wonder how many of them would stick around if he REALLY needed help. They are probably just “party” friends, not people with whom he shares real empathy, compassion and support. And maybe he is a coach and a teacher cos he likes people looking up to him, he doesn’t really care about them. Yeah, I am that cynical.
This guy sounds like me might be back , sniffing around. DON’T LET HIM IN!
@GatorGirl2010
OMG – I read your post and you could be telling my story exactly! Not sure if you have seen my posts. Try to find some – I am sure you can relate.
My mom died – not there for me
2 Biopsy’s, not there for me and didn’t even remember
Lives 12 minutes from me, spent 1 night at my house in 2 1/2 yrs (total of 9 times at my house) – always his house!
Did the “break” with me 2 yrs ago after I got angry 3 girls showed up in his backyard on “our” date night, he eye-f**cked one and let me leave for the night so he and his 2 friends could drink with the girls (6 wks after my mom died)
During the break would call and say he loves me, have me come over at least once a week and make out, said we were not talking to, seeing, or dating/sleeping with others – it was just his chronic pain
Get off the break and a girl shows up to his Halloween party and I find out he was calling her & trying to date her during the break
Then found pictures of the girl he eye-f**ked in his camera with his arms all around her the night he let me go home (he actually deleted a whole bunch of pictures before he gave me the camera- guess he had to keep that one to “remember” her)
Talked about us marrying, building house in mountains, buying a house together – “I was such a good woman” etc.
Found out he was on FB 9 months after we started dating – relationship status “single” and friends with the girl he eye-f**ked.
I protested about how he treated me, we’d have talks, it’s be good for a little while, then same old crap.
Then asked me to be his friend on FB & removed his relationship status (no one knew if he was single or not) – never acknowledged that I was his GF & never posted pictures of us – just his garden, his buddies at MY cabin, his family, and “our” dog – the girls just love it!
He now has one of his old GF that he is just “friends” with and I was suppose to be ok about spending the night at his house.
OH MY GOD – I am so angry at myself that I put up with this. I feel stupid – yes he is a jerk – but look at all I tolerated and that isn’t even the 1/2 of it – we haven’t had sex in 1 1/2 yrs because of his CHRONIC PAIN and his medicines – I don’t even know if that is true as he lied SOOO much!
I ended it with him Aug 22nd and have been NC now for 25 days – he is cruel. But I am doing lots of soul searching to make sure I do not do this again. I try to be patient and kind to myself because I truly believe (and GF’s have said the same) that had he not been this guy I loved when I was 15, my mom had not died, and I’d been single for 8 yrs I would have thrown him to the curb long ago.
Keep the NC – it’s up and down – but it is with them as well – you can do this – I have blocked his phone from calling my house & cell and blocked his emails – they go to WWW heaven (more like hell) now.
We’re here for you!!
Hi Natalie, you beat me to it by replying to Jenny. I was going to almost mirror your words you wrote to her – you are a star as always!
This OW he now has is going to get the same treatment Jenny did eventually, so no need to be jealous of her. I can honestly say myself that i had no idea about AC’s and EUM’s until i discovered your enlightening site – thank you. When my relationship ended in such a cold, cruel, callous way, i really thought it was myself at fault and i was in total shock. I could not get over how a man who had been so loving and ‘into me’ suddenly stood right in front of me and said he did not want any sort of relationship with me anymore. I really thought he was joking, but i could see from the unexpressive face that he wasn’t. Then everything seemed to go into slow motion as he spoke to me (has anyone else had that feeling?) and i finally realised my 3 year relationship with this man really was over! I never want to experience anything like that again in my whole life, it was so surreal. One minute he was calling me ‘my girl’ the day before, then he was more or less telling me to get lost! He ignored my tears because i did cry and i immediately felt so worthless and discarded like a piece of ‘poo’. He completely shut down emotionally, whereas before whenever i had been upset over something (not to do with him) he would take me in his arms and tell me he would look after me and make things better. How awful to be like these AC/EUM people – thank god i have human emotions and can relate to someone’s distress.
You know Natalie, you wrote recently in reply to one of my postings about my relationship with this man, if i looked slowly back over the 3 years i would see the ‘red flags’? Well i am remembering little things that happened, like the time he gave me an eternity ring and i said to him ‘does this mean i have you forever’ – his reply was ‘No, i dont belong to anyone’.I think i was so taken with admiring the ring anyway, i missed that ‘red flag’. So, yes Natalie you are right. I am now looking for some of the other things i missed being so starry-eyed and in love with this man.
Well his photo has been inside my trainer all day and i dont think it will see the light of day tomorrow – it is completely trashed, consigned to the dustbin and hopefully soon my thoughts will be the same. Tomorrow is another day…….
@gatorgal 2010
He sounds like an assh**e. He is emotionally (and physically)unavalaible at best, and plainly he is still playing the field. Part of the problem with these guys is that they always think there is something better out there for them. They don;t realise the problem is with them, not with the women they choose. It wouldn’t matter who they found, she will never be more than an ‘option’ for him (if she gives him the time of day!)
But don’t feel alone here! (we all have/had one of those!). I wouldn’t worry too much about him turning it round to he’s ‘taking a break’.; that’s just his way of keeping you hopeful that he’ll sort his crap out very soon and keep you and hanging on, waiting for him. He doesn’t admit to himself that “his crap” that needs sorting is actually HIM! (though on some level I think they do know)
You have offered him everything; but you are actually only an option for him, and, sadly, that’s what the ‘taking a break’ is all about – he wants to believe (and does believe) you will still be an ‘option’ – forever available. he has no intention of doing anything any differently (as it seems you have guessed already).
It’s very hard but the best thing you an do is let him see that his ‘option’ door is now closed.
I have written out all the reasons why I must not contact my EUM again (it helps me stay NC, as like you, my assh**e doesn’t make contact (he sends gifts through the post – just to let me know he still “cares”!!). I got 38 reasons!
These few of mine might help you now:
4. If he wants to be Harry Houdini, just let him.
8. No man will place any value on you if you do not value yourself. Place a high value on yourself. You do not want to tolerate any more of this nonsense so do not send it an invitation.
36. The thing he has most consistently done for this relationship is sabotage it. Stop trying to climb up his greasy pole. Vote with your feet. Walk away.
There’s plenty more where those came from!
And.. many of us here know exactly what you are experiencing.. you are not alone
Take care
F
Some people have mentioned songs etc. to describe the illusions/hooks and getting over the experience of the EUM/AC. I heard the song “Torn” the other day (most famously covered by Natalie Imbruglia). People argue over what it’s about. I think I’ve figured ot out… Here’s a snippet:
I thought I saw a man brought to life
He was warm; He came around, like he was dignified
He showed me what it was to cry
Well you couldn’t be that man I adored
You don’t seem to know, Or seem to care, What your heart is for
I don’t know him anymore
There’s nothin’ where he used to lie (pun??)
My conversation has run dry
That’s what’s going on
Nothing’s right
I’m torn
yada yada yada..
see:
“Illusion never changed into something real” … perfect!
Gatorgal,
Run! Read back over what you described and imagine several more years like this. Or imagine getting married to him and having him do more dodgy things, wondering what he’s up to.
Like your guy, my ex-assclown was a master of the cruel, silent treatment. When things ended, I tried to take the high road by not stooping to his level (cussing at me; accusing me of crazy, insulting things; punishing me by not allowing any communication by phone — we never did have an in-talk person about the relationship ending, not even once, he just ended things).
He was my childhood sweetheart and the rel. ended a year ago. It was short-lived, but as Nat described, there was LOTS of future faking and I really let myself be taken for a ride. I consider his behavior to have been abusive and confusing (massive jealousy and borderline violent).
You know what resolved things for me? This is something I wouldn’t advise for everyone, but I wrote the bastard a letter last week and sent it, telling him how little respect I had for his lying and deceitful behavior. He kept his ex on ice while pursuing me, then dumped me and went straight back to her, while keeping me a secret. Ohhhh, how I wanted to out him. But I never did.
All this time, I felt like I had tape over my mouth. I’d tried so hard to never say anything mean-spirited or insulting, but I’d really deprived myself of the opportunity to express to him how angry I was over his hurtful behavior. Now I have. And I still did in a way without stooping to his level.
Of course, I’m also angry at myself that I let myself be duped so completely by such an asshole, but I’m working on this stuff and have made huge progress there too.
The upshot of all of this is, for the first time in over a year, my mind is now quiet, where it concerns him. No more replaying vengeful fantasies where I get to give him a piece of my mind. I told him what I needed to say and now it’s done. I’ve barely given him a moment’s thought in days and it’s wonderful. He has no way to contact me and lives on the other side of the country, so I’m glad.
Anyway, I send all of you struggling to get over a crappy relationship wishes of peace and healing. We must take care of ourselves and be tender…. But we must also stand up for ourselves when called for! (But make sure to do it safely. 🙂
Cheers!
I realize I am dwelling on this breakup with the AC boyfriend in much the same way I did when I divorced my ex-husband. When I divorced, I tortured myself, wondering and worrying that he would find someone else, and be the kind of man with her that he never was with me.
Fast forward 18 years. Ex-husband contacts me through Facebook, wanting to re-connect. Without going into detail, he was basically the same AC he was back then. He had not changed one bit!
Natalie is dead-on about them being the same in the future as they were when we were with them. And I bet countless others could tell the same story about exes from their past.
There is so much proof here in my story and others to back up what Natalie is saying. So why the hell have I even spent one second worrying this current ex-AC is going to treat someone else better?
It really is my stuff that is holding me back. Same type of worry, two different men. This one has really hit home for me.
@Fearless
Whoa. Heard that song hundreds of times, but never really thought about the lyrics in that way. Very insighful.
I was just thinking today how my ex-AC does not like to be alone. After we broke up, he would still call me and want to hang out. He did that for months until he found a new girlfriend. Now, I am of no use to him anymore, at all, not even as a friend. Not that we ever really WERE friends, but at the time I tried really hard to convince myself that our pseudo-friendship was real, all the while convincing myself he stayed in contact because he regretted breaking up with me. I am wiser now.
But my hook in that was loneliness, too. So I guess I had that in common with the ex-AC. There really wasn’t much substance to the relationship, but I placed alot of importance on it, because it made me feel less lonely for a while. Here is a snippet by the Eagles that says it for me.
“We are like sheep without a shepherd.
We don’t know how to be alone.
So we wander ’round this desert,
and wind up following the wrong gods home.”
Nicole- I know just how you feel. I tried to save the “friendship” with my AC, only to realize we never really were friends and that he had only thrown the idea out there when he dumped me to make himself feel better. He played along for a tiny bit but then got bored and moved on. It was loneliness for me too – I had just moved to a new country where I knew no one- and he became my life (too much expectation, not enough reality). The pain at the time was incredible but has definitely faded. We work together and now we truly can’t stand each other. Makes me wonder where this great “friendship” went. I talked last night with someone I have been true friends with for decades and I clearly saw the difference between someone who loves and cares for me and the AC who was just marking time with me, despite all the friendly, but always non-commital, words. Stick to your true friends and leave the ACs to amuse themselves.
I read your statement “marking time with me” and my first thought was like a dog marking his spot. That’s how I felt with my AC – pissed on me like a fire hydrant, then would turn his back, but when he was out for a walk he HAD to go back to that fire hydrant where he pissed before (and to see who had pissed there as well). Can’t be with you – can’t be without you! It’s quite hilarious at this point – to picture him as a pathetic dog – but then I was the fire hydrant. Oh well – working on me!!
I just recently shook off a hot/cold kind of guy after almost 9 months.In the beginning he was a dream come true…..or so it seemed. He came after me with full speed and made me think we were meant for each other and he loved me so much and that we were going to be together forever and he was going to make home improvements to my house and we were going to have lots of BBQ’s and for family and friends and just have this perfect family life. Well,as time went on he stopped seeing me as often and then decided we should be just friends with benefits only there were no benefits and he stopped seeing me altogether but stil called and sent text messages and once in awhile would still say ” I love you”. I eventually wised up and told him to get lost and that I had no interest in even being his friend. What a loser! I just feel sorry for the next woman he does this to. What gets me is the guy comes off as having done nothing wrong. It makes me want to SMACK him!!!
I think we had the same assclown. What I don’t get is how they think they can just pretend nothing is wrong and you are supposed to go along with it ….does that ever really work?
I dated a guy in 2009 for three months who was a major EUM – very typical, 90 miles out of the gate, said he was desperate for a relationship, and then blew hot and cold about a month in. Turns out he was “dating” a married lady at the same time he was seeing me, which he “failed” to tell me about until after we had sex.
I threw in the towel after three months (in years past I would have held on much longer, so I give myself some credit for that), but I moved to his (nearby) city in January for a job transfer and looked him up in February 2010, really hoping he’d “changed” or something, but not being honest with him about that, just saying we could be friends and hang out now that I lived in town.
He had ditched the married gal and was dating someone else, and he broke up with that woman in April. We spent hours discussing his relationship “problems” on the phone with me even giving him advice! To my horror, he then immediately picked up with ANOTHER woman (typical EUM pattern of going from girl to girl with no down time) all the while we were “friends,” having occasional dinners, talking on the phone, etc. I started mentioning having sex, while he mentioned it wasn’t working with the second woman, and lo and behold he broke up with the second woman in June and we started having sex.
In my idiocy I thought this meant I had a “chance” with him. He started blowing hot and cold, though. Often we would not see each other on weekends, he would disappear and not call or contact me from Thursday to Monday, our outings started consisting only of dinners together with sex afterwards, no weekend activity during the day, etc. He was managing down my expectations very obviously, relegating me to “booty call” status.
During August he was on a 3-week vacation overseas and on his return talked about how he was trying to get laid over there and have a few Paris flings.
Last week I told him I may be developing feelings for him and had hoped he felt the same now that he was “unencumbered,” but he pulled the plug on us in an email Thursday, saying although he found me intellectually and physically attractive, he couldn’t have a long-term relationship with me at this time. I did not respond to his email. He then phoned Friday asking if I “freaked out” at his email, and I did not pick up and did not call him back.
So it’s been 4 days of NC, and I feel sick to my stomach over all of this. 🙁 What was I thinking?!? Or, I guess I wasn’t thinking, really. I’m not seeing anyone, got lonely and horny, and played the “friend” card.
Huge mistake, ladies. Don’t do it. Once an EUM, always an EUM. There is no hope with them. His email says it all – he talked about what a “great friend” I am and that he would hate to lose me as a friend, at first said he wanted to remain friends but thought it wasn’t a good idea to have sex anymore because of my changed feelings. At the end of the email, he then said he could “go either way” and he was available Saturday and Sunday nights!
(sigh)
It’s pretty obvious at this point I’m an EUW. I actually vacillated about whether to call him or not back in January and at the back of my mind knew it was a HORRIBLE idea, and I did it anyway. I was so caught up with work and my move to a new place that I just wasn’t dating or interested in seeing anybody – I was supposedly “working on me.” But I let him back into my life, and sure enough, just like Lucy and Charlie Brown, he pulled the rug out from under me – again.
Live and learn. Live and learn.
I need to work on ME and this website helps immensely. Whatever you do, don’t open the door to them once they are gone. It won’t work and you will have to be with your pain yet again. It’s just not worth it.
Nicole
Yep, if there is no hope for them after 18 years, they will NEVER change. I’m glad you posted that for us, it helps immensely to hear others’ experiences with these guys out into our futures.
I actually thought a guy I dated in the summer of 2009 would be “different” in February of 2010!! I mean, how lame is that?!
No, they won’t change. They are not “different” with other women. My EUM’s biggest fear, by his own admission, is being left by a woman, stemming from “abandonment” issues with his alcoholic mother. So what does he do? He hooks up with married women (unavailable), or he breaks up with the (available) women he dates BEFORE they can pull the plug on HIM.
It’s so classic you’d have to be an idiot not to see the pattern.
Also, we are not young. This EUM was in a long (unhappy) marriage for 22 years.
So this is another lesson – just because someone is in a long marriage doesn’t mean they can commit. All it means is …. they were in a long marriage! Really, I should have ditched the guy during the first couple of weeks after I met him when he was telling me about his marriage. It sounded like a nightmare relationship. I must say I don’t know how the woman stayed married to him for 22 years, but perhaps she was as EU as he was?
At any rate, glad you shared about your ex-husband. I love reading the stories here, I learn from every one of them. 🙂
“Letting go of illusions is difficult. Holding on to anger, indignation, and sorrow is quite easy.”
And that’s it, really. The reason these relationships take longer to heal from is because they involve really shitty, ego psychologies: fantasy/ idealization, validation, possessiveness, self-denial, control, manipulation, dishonesty, devaluation and abandonment. They’re pretty big things to deal with in one go – a hot, concentrated ball of the very things from which most humans try to evolve. ACs and, to a lesser extent, EUPs, spend a lot of time on this (low level) order of emotionality and spirituality. On top of this, are the issues of social order and justice – the notion that cruel people can still ‘prosper.’ Then, more frightful, is the task of getting on with life without the distractions and delusions of an AC/EUM/EUW. Being huffy and stressed about an AC/ex-AC can feel safer than with the quietness of being responsible.
But, totally agree with Enlightened (thanks!) – at some point, we must get to ‘it is what it is’ in a knowing, accepting, calm way. You can see it with the kind of impersonality as a tornado ripping through town. And you can’t touch, let alone stop, one of them! And judging it is fruitless, once you’ve decided that, next time, you won’t build your house in tornado territory.
“Being huffy and stressed about an AC/ex-AC can feel safer than with the quietness of being responsible.”
Bingo!! This is my final hook I have to remove. I truly no longer hold onto delusions about the relationship but my mind still likes to entertain itself with thoughts of him purely out of habit and as a way of staying away from the stuff I have to deal with concerning me.
I have worked harder on recovering from this relationship than I have worked on anything in my life. I know I have made good progress and am really seeing my patterns and dealing with my stuff, but there are days when I just want a break from all the navel gazing and self-analysis. On those days, I guess I allow my brain the “treat” of going back and reexamining him and his problems (so easy to see and do, compared to my own). A very bad habit I need to break. I stil remain a drama junkie, I guess. My worst hook.
Oh my god Sule, i think you just read my mind! i am exactly the same! thinking about the EUM is so much easier than the responsibility of thinking about myself and my future. He was a big kid and with him i could be a kid again too – no accountability, just fun and frolicks. You guys help me so much – i am so grateful for all of you :).
I just read a reply to a reader that Natalie wrote, above, where she says that:
“,,,Cheaters, acs, Mr Unvailables do tend to land on their feet. Why? Because there is always someone out there willing to buy into their BS.
They don’t worry themselves about what they did wrong and why it didn’t work out – they press the reset button and even assume the right to pop up in your life at a later date.
Our mistake – we don’t let go, we dig our heels in and put our lives on hold while obsessing about them and looking for reasons to blame ourselves….”
She is SO RIGHT! That is what I experienced!
Absolutely Annie D – they will never change because they don’t need to “there is always someone willing to buy into their BS”. Change is hard – we all know that better than anyone! We have struggled SO much with change and coming to terms with our issues because we want things to be different, so what makes us think that these disconnected ACs and EUMs that live on planet ‘Me’ are suddenly going to turn around and become these perfect guys, or that they are different with their new GFs? They don’t have it in them, they’re not emotionally connected like we are, they don’t know whether they’re coming or going!
I remember once after, my ex EUM said, for the BILLIONTH time “you deserve so much better” saying very frustratedly: “Then be better! Off you go then!”. Funnily enough Mr Articulate didn’t have anything to say to that and it had no effect on his behaviour whatsoever. I laugh about it now.
Minky – just read your comment and it echoes my EU, exacty. Mr Articulate. (Mine is a well published literary critic, so is very clever with words and can write oodles of them for ‘everyone’ else – when it comes to me he loses the use of his tongue).
Mine also tole dme many times, ‘you deserve better’. I would say to him, ‘just not from you?’
I always remember one time we were in a bar having a drink, and I turned the conversation to ‘us’. I was starting to get upset by his inability to speak about it; he suddenly becomes very challenged in the language area…he wriggled and squirmed like a claustrophobic in a lift and said ‘maybe I should just go’. (like this would be a considerate move for him to make – for my sake).. I answered quite angrily, ‘maybe I should just go!!’ (with the emphasis on ‘I ‘), and I will never forget the look of bewilderment and surprise that came across his eyes, which told the story that it had never occured to him before – ever – that he wasn’t the only one who could do the “walking away”.
Their focus is completely and exclusively on THEMSELVES. When you try to shift the focus on to what is important to you or what is good for you, they have no clue what to do with that information – it is beyond their consciousness; so they crash and go into hibernation mode!
Fact becomes stranger than fiction with these people. One summer he had promised me he was going to get his “situation” sorted out. Being the patient soul I am I gave him ‘space’ to do that. I waited around all summer for word from him… nothing… I emailed him… nothing came back… I emailed again… nothing came back. Then out of the blue I got a wee parcel in the post – a gift from the National Library in London (we live in Scotland). He had been doing research down there… and sent me, from the library gift shop, a box of ‘old English words and their meanings’!!! I was gobsmacked. The irony of it.. I had been begging him to communicate with me – to give me some words – and I got some! – in a box from a gift shop at a library! Of course the irony was lost on him (or was it, I often wonder?)
Remembering all of these things helps me to get over it all – helps me to WANT to get over it all, most days! Some days, like today, remembering all these things just makes me angry – and often it is what to do with my fury that scuppers me and I end up having something to say to him. I have been NC now for two weeks today (haven’t seen him for two and a half months.) God, give me strength!! Just repeating to myself, “what a wanker!!” sometimes works!
Fearless
I’d love for you to post your entire list of 38 reasons to avoid the EUM and stay NC. I could use them right about now.
Like Nicole, I feel most of all the “loneliness” aspect of not having the EUM around. He was the only man I was “seeing” because I was caught up with work and other activities and hadn’t tried to meet anybody else. But that loneliness doesn’t compel me to call him or email him. Perhaps it’s sunk in that twice burned really was “enough” and it’s time to move on. I don’t want to be writing posts on this website 2 years from now discussing the same EUM, like giving him a do-over 4, 5, 8 or 10 times. Life is too short.
So if it’s possible, post up the 38 reasons for NC. I loved the ones you already shared!
Rayan,
am glad my ‘reminders’ are helping. They are really helping me.. many of them (perhaps all in some form or another) I have taken directly from NML’s advice/blogs and worded them to reflect my own particular experience of my EUM. I have also used a great deal of what other people on here have said in their comments – I have pinched a lot from Elle, for example.
I will post another few of the particular ones that speak loudly to me (I don’t like to post them all, it would be too long, and I would be ‘hogging’ the comments…
But do try it yourself. Think of all the reasons that make him a hopeless, waste of your time at best and at worst why continuing any more contact with him is hurtful and damaging to you. Don’t think too hard, just write them down.
Here are, though, since you ask, a few more of mine a la NML that probably hold truth for anyone trying NC to set themselves free of the EUM cycle of destruction:
1.Stop doing the same thing expecting different results. Do something DIFFERENT. Like shut-up!
2.Give yourself some peace. Any contact with him does not create peace or tranquility or better understanding; it only perpetuates distress and confusion. It never solves anything for you.
6. You are not the gift that keeps on giving. So Just Stop! You are pouring yourself into a black hole.
9. Contacting him will only remind you of how unimportant you are to him. Last thing you need right now is someone showing you how much you don’t matter. Don’t give it the space.
11.Have some self-respect. You are worth more than text messaging – that’s all he’s got for you, and it’s no use to you.
12.You wouldn’t put up with his crap arrangement from anyone else – what reasons do you think you have to put up with it from him?
14.He does not want what you have offered him. He has turned you down, time and time and time and time again. Why are you still offering him anything at all?
17.You cannot change him; you cannot get through to him. The only thing you can change is your own behaviour. So change it.
18.He is not going to care about you. You need to care about you. Be your own best friend. Do what you know is good FOR YOU.
19.Confusion, hurt, dishonesty and disappointment are not kindly, well-intentioned gentlemen callers. Close the door.
21.Give him something to think about for a change. Give him a new and final experience of you. Your silence.
26.Remember: He will speak to you if that is what you want; but only under the terms of his own self-serving agenda, only if he sets the topics and you abide by his unreasonable boundaries – that’s his deal, you can have it or you can fuck off. Don’t go along with it any more. Choose fuck off. Choose you.
29.Remember: you are not in the same relationship. He is not in this with you. You are riding solo to Miseryville via Miseryville. Get off the horse.
34.He is neither emotionally nor physically available for you. He is somewhere else, on some other planet. So long as you remain emotionally and physically available for him you are burying and abandoning yourself in a loveless tomb – all by yourself. Why would you do that?
This is ONE of the BEST articles by Natalie that I’ve read. It’s true that sometimes we get scared when we realizes that we’re not thinking about the peson as much as we used to, which is counter-intuitive, but it does happen.
In my situation, I was with the cheating bast*rd for 4 months. I set a test for him and he fell for it line, hook and sinker, so I had to break up with him because I knew at that point that he was a cheater, which obviously also meant that he wasn’t trustworthy.
I went into a deep depression. I gained 20 pounds. I lost my desire to date any more men, although there were periods when I thought I would try to date again because I felt completely lonely, alone, and in need of physical human contact and touch with a male (I’m not referring to sex, just basic human touch that takes place in a social setting). I felt that life was passing me by and that I was wasting valuable time because of the pain that that bast*rd put me through, but I just could not bring myself to move forward and actually date new men. When I did try, the men I was interested were not interested in me, so I pretty much threw up my emotional hands, so to speak and said “The hell with this crap; they don’t want me, I must not be lovable, so why even keep trying.” I gave up trying to meet anyone.
During this time, I gained 20 pounds, so that further threw me into a situation that even during the periods that I had decided that I needed to meet someone new to get over the bast*rd, I didn’t want to go meet and would cancel the initial meeting because I was heavier. It’s been a total vicious cycle.
And adding to that is the FEAR that I have that all of these men out there are cheaters. Look at the web site and you will see all of those pigs looking for sex. Many are married or in a relationship, yet they say they are bisexual or heterosexual looking for sex. It’s disgusting! How the bleeping blazes can you trust ANY man when you are seeing for yourself what they are really like behind your back! I’ve seen SO MANY men on that disgusting web site that I’ve seen on Match.com, Plenty of Fish, Chemistry.com, Cupid.com, OKCupid.com, singlesnet.com, etc. It’s VERY scary! If it wasn’t for AIDS, HIV, HPV (which can cause cervical cancer), Hepatitis C, herpes, and all of the rest of the cra STDs out there, I might not be so careful, but it just isn’t worth it risking ourselves for someone who isn’t in love with us and doesn’t love us.
Right now I’m trying to really move past this. I’m doing MUCH better than I was, but I still sometimes remember the blissful times and I cry. I have no embarrassment in admitting that to myself or anyone. I just want for there to come a point, as it did with the other cheating bastards, where I didn’t even think about them and where even their full name didn’t come to mind as quickly. And I want to FEEL the DESIRE to go out with the man and to be excited by him; what scares me also is that I’ve LOST that DESIRE. All I think about when I’m with someone new is that he just doesn’t make me feel the way the other bast*rd did. The warmth, the feeling of being home, the feeling of perfection, the feeling of bliss just isn’t there.
I also wish that there would be a scientific discovery that would allow us to go to a neurosurgeon’s office and have an electrode implanted in the brain, in the specific area that contains memories of that person, and remove all memory of that person. But since that’s not likely to happen, and I’m not sure that I would actually trust such a procedure if there was one, I will continue trying to get over this person and to focus on meeting someone new. To do that, I need to lose at least 10 pounds. I’m sure that I’m using the weight excuse to not move forward to meeting another man because I’m AFRAID that it will be the SAME horrible experience with another cheating bast*rd. Hopefully, and with God’s help, it won’t be!
Was reading one of Natalie’s articles and it made me think of a quote from Mia Angelo “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time”.
One of my favorite quotes Aimee! It is so true!
Take it a bit further, if someone lies to you, they are capable of lying. If someone cheats on you, they are capable of cheating. If you keep going back for more of the same, hoping for a different results, you will be disappointed. Believe them the first time they show you their true character.
“Recovering from a breakup and getting over a relationship involves you using each and every day to take the focus off them and bring it back to you”
Amen! This article is genius. I really appreciate your thoughts and wisdom. I recently wrote an article on this topic
http://escapefromrelationshiphell.com/how-to-get-over-him.php
When you are going through it, it seems as though the pain will last forever, but there is great beauty in what lies on the other side.
Fearless–
19.Confusion, hurt, dishonesty and disappointment are not kindly, well-intentioned gentlemen callers. Close the door.
21.Give him something to think about for a change. Give him a new and final experience of you. Your silence.
Thank you for posting. I was an OW for 4.5 years and currently and finally on my last NC. He is not a decent man. He painted a grimm picture of a failing marriage only to find out he was remodeling their home “for their kids”. I jumped back on to Baggage Reclaim and its been 3 solid weeks of NC.
Right now I feel like I have days of anger, sadness, and disbelief that I let myself fall over and over for an AC. I was married too but seperated during my affair to MM. Because I was so focused on my MM, I further destroyed my marriage until their was no return.
Because my mm and I talked 4+ hours a day, I am now lonely with not many close friends. I ignored my friendships and consequently my friendships disappeared. My job keeps me busy and so do my children but I can’t say this has been easy. Believe me, I realize he will never be good enough for me. But how do I use this time to find myself without trying to replace it with another AC. The silence is the most difficult struggle and friends are far and few between.
I have struggled with thi question lately when when will I be over him??
I tell myself he is taking up too much room in my head and he doesn’t deserve that much room because hes not out there missing me and wondering what Im doing.. I try to be okay with things because it was for 3 and a half years and it is only just at the 2 month mark now.. but I have realised at long last that looking for ways to communicate and checking his web sites facebook status etc etc do not help ..
I think I slide back into denial and I think things were good.. they weren’t and they aren’t it can sometimes still hurt tremendously when I think about what he did. I have to look at my role in things and why I let myself be treated badly..If it was a lengthy relationship, you’re probably looking at a year, maybe more. oh I just re read this oh I want it to go quicker much much quicker… sometimes it feels like Im an addict craqving contact urgh best thing get busy busy busy .. it does pass
It’s not a year of total misery. Quite suddenly around the six-month mark or so you will start to feel much better. This does depend on no contact though,even the odd text/email etc will put you back, though probably not right back to square one. Don’t have sex with them.
Even within the first six months you will have good and bad days. Not every day is a bad day.
Of course, we are all individuals and these are just guesstimates. But you do have to grasp that if a widow or widower (apart from Queen Victoria) can get over the death of a loving spouse, we can certainly get over an EUM/AC.
We are feeding our drama demon too much if we’re constantly telling ourselves we’ll never get over it, our love is so special, we love them so much, we’re so hurt etc.
Trust me, you don’t actually want to see your unanswered questions answered… especially if you suspect your guy is an assclown. I ended up getting back together with my ex and had several unanswered questions answered when we broke up AGAIN. It served to confirm what I already knew, which was a complete shock to me. I got to know an assclown’s way of thinking… It was very shocking to discover that a person could be so selfish and not consider my point of view on any given situation. Trust your instincts, but please, try not to go about confirming them – you might not like what you see. My relationship ended up getting worse and worse the more I dragged it out.