Here’s the thing: It’s just a text.
There is nothing in “Happy Holidays/Great result tonight/Did you see the snow?/Are you ignoring me still?” that says “I love you”, “I want to get back together with you”, “I’ve changed”, “I’m sorry” or even “I’m making a great deal of effort to show you how much I care.”
If you attach any of these meanings and:
1) Start imagining your future
2) Respond back by pouring out your feelings
3) Invite them around for a shag
4) Cancel your plans or put everything on hold
5) Go into a tailspin and begin ruminating about what it all means, the Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda and yada yada yada
6) Call and keep calling in the hope they’ll pick up
7) Dump your current partner
8. Turn up at their home/office/place where they hang
9) Tell them all about themselves, or
10) Contact their new partner,
you’ve had a seriously disproportionate response.
You are experiencing high intensity emotions/rumination or engaging in high level action for low level contact and effort.
Do you know what you respond with when your ex sends a text saying Happy Christmas/Holidays/New Years?
You either say nothing (it may well be a bulk message anyway), or say nothing because you’re No Contact, or say ‘Thanks and same to you’ or respond with “Happy Christmas/Holidays/New Years”. That’s it! Next! Move on and go about your business. Anything else is OTT.
Likewise, if you’re the sender, you shouldn’t be expecting much either. You might think December offers up the perfect opportunity to reach out to your ex (read: attention seek but you may pitch it to yourself as being the bigger person or a ‘good’ person), but if a text is the best you can manage, it only goes to show that you’re trying to be risk averse and generate an ‘ideal’ maximum response out of a low effort.
I mean, how great would it be (not!), if all we had to do to get a shag, ego stroke, shoulder to lean on, or even have someone declaring our love for us, was to send some text messages?
This all goes back to why you must focus on building mutual relationships – when you match someone with their low effort and see their low effort for what it is, you don’t see gold where’s there’s copper – you see their lack of effort and the reflected results in your life and distance yourself, flush them, or know the limits of your interaction with them.
If you’re making a big deal out of texts, you’ve become acclimatised to a diet of crumbs – it’s time to expect more for and from yourself.
It’s not that text messages aren’t useful (I reminded the boyf to pick up milk earlier) and that in context of a relationship where there’s healthy human contact, calls, and a consistent, progressing, balanced, committed, intimate relationship with shared values and love, care, trust, and respect, you don’t need to be concerned about the use of them, but some of you are making a very large deal out of what can only be called rat dropping communication.
You only have to make a big deal out of text messages when you haven’t got much else to go on… I’ve seen it time and again – the only people who champion text messaging as some great means of communication are those who have an inflated sense of their own importance and believe they’re busier than a world leader, and those who’ve managed down their expectations into crumbs.
I’d also like to point out that the only men who have attempted to ‘sex text’ with me, have all been attached. ‘separated’, or numpties…
I hear from people who live off a couple of calls a month and live off texts the remainder of the time, who are twitchy and waiting around for their phone to vibrate with a text, who only ‘communicate’ when it’s date/shag/lend us some money time, and who are making a mountain out of an ant hill.
You might even think that texts you send are representative of a great effort – they’re just texts.
If your idea of breaking contact and reaching out and saying something meaningful is to send a text, you’re engaging in low level (low risk and low effort) contact but trying to pass it off as high effort.
It’s not – it’s just a text. High effort, is picking up the phone and arranging to meet, turning up, jumping on a plane etc. Even picking up the phone and having a conversation and arranging to meet up (somewhere neutral ideally) to progress the conversation is a reasonably good effort.
Texts are rarely a great effort unless they’re in the context of an already effort filled relationship. It’s great to get a thoughtful text from someone who is already thoughtful, that you have a great relationship with and communicate via other means. It’s not really very thoughtful if the length and breadth of their efforts (or yours) is to send an attention seeking and/or ego fishing text.
Would you find it acceptable to be broken up with by text? If not, you have to ask why you would you feel it was acceptable to conduct your relationship by text?
If you had to say it to their face or pick up the phone and follow up with action, would you still say the same thing?
Texts give too much room for the imagination. You end up imagining how they may be saying things based on how you’re saying things and there’s tumbleweeds where there should be tone – I know I read text messages in how I’d like to imagine they sound, which can be wide of the mark if you allow your ego, libido, or your imagination to get in the way. At least on the phone you can hear hesitation, change in tone, and face to face you can pick up on body language. Of course, for many of you reliant on text messages, the sad reality is that if you stopped texting, there wouldn’t be much or anything going on.
But remember, it’s just a text. If you’re looking to forge a relationship, it’s important to recognise that you cannot be available for a relationship, never mind a healthy one, if you’re on fantasy text island in an unavailable one.
It’s just a text – you’re better than making a big deal out of crumbs. Or rat droppings.
Your thoughts?
Add to favorites
Oh NML, you got me a goodie. I have not one, but two pre-emptive texts sitting in my drafts folder, just in case my ex sends one on Christmas Day. The second one saved is more direct than the first. Even then, as I read down the list I was feeling pretty smug about having them there…till I got to point 9 – telling them about themselves. Damn. I’m ITCHING to send ‘You said you couldn’t please me, and I totally agree. A person who chooses to be skanky and flaky over integrity and decency will never please me. So stop contacting me!’.
Really I can’t tell him about him? Really, really???
*sigh*, yeah I know….. it doesn’t work, it’s pointless, and just plays into their need for any kind of attention. I have read most of this site and learned well. But gee, the fantasy I play out in my head – how wounded he would be (he wouldn’t), how it would spur him to be a better man (ditto), come and try to be with me (Ha!) , and I get to ride off on my high horse into the sunset (I dont have a horse)……those kind of nasty fantasies are what gets me through some nights. But really it just shows that I’m still craving validation and to re-write history. Obviously, I still have a way to go. One small step at a time.
Talking about fantasies.. I have fantasies that he’s hurting, crying, and all these sad things that should happen to him because he’s not with me anymore.. it does make me feel a little more confident. I think my confidence has been shot down to the lowest level three months ago when my boyfriend of 5 years broke up with me telling me, “it’s just not going to work out, i can’t give you what you want, i dont want to be in a relationship with you.” This was my first and only bf… i’m turning 27 in 1 day!
I’m doing a lot better in this past month focusing more on myself and nothing about the future or the past.
Back to this article, texts… ha, i doubt i’ll even get one, but if i did.. it would definitely be a ego boost for me? one way or another? But obviously i’m not replying back as i am trying really hard on the NCR. Like i said, it’s all fantasy of what i think, wish and want him to do during this time… *sad, but it makes me feel better. — maybe i’m just weird…
I wish there was an article to let me know how different guys deal with a relationship that they dumped.
That text is funny though StillStanding…but don’t send it. He’ll just think you’re bonkers and still into him. Guys like this actually get off on these responses – don’t give him tue satisfaction.
Oh my gawd, yes they do get off on it and ASSume you are still into them. ANY response is considered, by these men, to mean, you are still hung up on them. DO NOT SEND ANYTHING.
You can still feel smug SS. No response is actually more insulting. Being completely ignored as if you didn’t exist = more hurtful than any words ever could be.
@Barbara, yeah you’re right about how much being treated like you don’t exist hurts….I’ve been on the receiving end of that sort of lousy behaviour from the ex often enough to know exactly how much it hurts. I think if I hadn’t found this site before the last time he casually strolled back into my life after pressing the Reset Button yet again, I’d have been sucked right back into it all.
Not this time. We signed up for cooking classes when it looked like we might be getting back together. Then there was a phone call where me asking where I stood translated to me ‘attacking him’, and him feeling ‘overwhelemed and ambushed’ (I had the nerve to actually call, insteasd of being managed via text), which resulted in me being ignored for 2 months, whilst my birthday came and went. Did he cancel or change the cooking class to one where he didnt have to bust a gut after work to get to? ‘Course not! He’ll try hard for THAT. I ignored him completely, but he still crossed the room and bent down to catch my eye (I was staring fixedly at the floor) do deliver a cheery “Hi!”. Un-be-lievable.
He still got ignored, and has been until he finaly picked up the rest of his stuff from my house (foothold alert!). We spoke then about a stray dog I’d picked up (oh, the irony!!). Then he abruptdly ended the conversation and walked off. Normally that would upset me, but armed with all of NML’s wisdom I saw it for what it was – controlling the cnversation and cutting me off first. Meh, he can have that control. I still want out of the BS he delivers.
Part of me suspects that he will ignore me on Xmas Day beacause he engaged me in that conversation, and as we all know, ANY scraps are validation to them, even neutral convos about dogs, and he thinks he now has the upper hand again.
So NML you are, yet again, right in your advice. The pre-emptive texts have been deleted and his name had been changed in my phone as The Loser Ex. I will not respond to anything, and will contine to gnore him at cooking class. Each day I get stronger and remember that he tried to break me, but I’m Still Standing!!!
Merry Christmas to you NML, the inspiring people on this site and heartfelt thanks to all. Respect!
Good luck, SS. Your ex sounds like a right twit, with some really messed up values and priorities. It’s classic how he still wants to prove himself as the winner, by coming to the classes even at an inconvenience (who would do that?). It would be so funny if the classes were something less dignified; I mean, this guy would enter a sh*t-eating competition and call it ‘bananas’ if it meant beating you. He’s a sad little rivalry-seeker, not someone who loves you for all you are.
@Elle, hmm thats a really interesting thought, that it’s rivalry. When we argued he would say the most outlandish things, and when he cooled off later he would admit that the things he said weren’t about solving the issue, but rather it was about winning. He also made me a vegie planter last Christmas, which confused me a little as I’d made one myself, but I had said I wanted to make another one and that’s why he made one. His was much fancier than mine was, and later he bragged to his father about how good it was, and said “I had to do better than her”. It was said jokingly, but I was taken aback. The great thing for me was that 10 days later I was one of the hundreds of people who got flooded in Queensland, Aust this year, and the vegie planter was swept away! 😀
Inconvienience to him isn’t the half of it. To get to class he has to down tools on the dot (he’s a boilermaker) and drive through awful roadworks and traffic jams to the class in my suburb, which on a good day is a 40min drive, and currently takes about an hour. And these classes roll on every 10 weeks, at all sorts of times and days, so he doesnt have to miss out.
My question is: what does he think he’s winning here??? I dont get it. It’s a beginners class, so it’s not like he’ll be pulling some MasterChef creation out of his butt that will beat mine!! Why go to all this trouble???
Nat, this is one of your best! It’s really true – I recently got an asinine text from my ex that basically amounted to “PAY ATTENION TO ME!” And I did nothing but chuckle and hit “delete”. In years past, I would have had to call up all my girlfriends, my mother, my sister and possibly my Rabbi and Oprah Winfrey to analyze the (nonexistant) intent behind it. I can also remember feeling I was getting a major promotion because the guy CALLED. I mean, save the breadcrumbs for the fried chicken, you know?
I know, I know I know….it’s about them,every bloody time!
Yes it is Lynda! Ironically enough, if they were thinking about our feelings, they wouldn’t be texting us in the first place. The text that my ex sent me was informing me that someone told him that he looks like a famous athlete that I once told him he resembled and it made him “think of me”. I’ve been broken up with this fool for a year.
Hilarious Natasha and oh so true. It’s just a frickin text. And we wonder why these guys manage to get so much play for so little effort? When you see what level of energy we’re prepared to put into a text, you can easily see how we end up on crumb diets.
“And we wonder why these guys manage to get so much play for so little effort?”
Yup! If I’m applying for a job, can I expect to text the hiring manager, “Hi. I’m a great employee.” with no resume and no interview and think they’re going to call me up and fall all over themselves to offer me a job? I think not. That’s basically what these guys are doing!
Natasha
“In years past, I would have had to call up all my girlfriends, my mother, my sister and possibly my Rabbi and Oprah Winfrey to analyze the (nonexistant) intent behind it. I can also remember feeling I was getting a major promotion because the guy CALLED
I mean, save the breadcrumbs for the fried chicken, you know?”
GOD, THAT’S CLASSIC.
This is what we need to remember, how far we have come…even though it feels crappy when someone flakes on us…we need to observe how we now handle it..compared to how we handled it in the past…I now have a rebound rate of about a day, as opposed to a week…Now when I’m disappointed by people and events beyond my control I just take a minute, ask myself what I am feeling, feel it and then ask myself what I need to do to take care of myself. What would be the emotionally healthy thing to do….and when I do this the feeling washes over me within a day and I am back to my normal sunny disposition…each time I do this it gets easier and I get stronger.
Upward and onward ladies!!
Natasha,
“I mean, save the breadcrumbs for the fried chicken, you know?”
lmao.
lilylee,
thanks for those words. yes, onward and upward.
OMG Nat were you sitting in the back seat of my car a little while ago when I got a text from my ex saying “Merry Christmas”? I almost drove off the road as I rolled my eyes and almost peed my pants laughing at such juvenile behavior. My god do they really think a “Merry Christmas” makes it all better.
I’m not responding back since he’d just think it was an invitation. Better to be safe than sorry.
That sounds like something a strong, independent, and emotionally healthy woman would say!!! GOOD FOR YOU! They have no power, and you have to laugh when you see them trying to exert it..The joy of NC!! 🙂
I’m watching you MaryC 😉 But seriously, it’s not just us who go a little bonkers at Xmas – he’ll be thinking “It’s Christmas – surely Mary will have let down her guard and forgotten how I was knocking someone off behind her back and make me feel better. Santa knows I’ve been naughty – she’d better respond and ease the conscience I don’t have.”
Using the valuable real estate in my head this Christmas to imagine what I would do if Mr. Unavailable texted me or called. This blog confirms my already present thoughts of “Wake Up!” and “Get Over it!”. I am hoping to hold my ground of NC and taking the opportunity to make a New Years resolution of NO MORE MR. UNAVAILABLES!!!! 2012 is mine!
Amanda,
Hadn’t even thought about that until I saw your post. It is going to be 2012, a new YEAR! We can all start afresh. Lucky for me, I have a new free phone that is not tainted with the ex EUMM. That’s a start. Still saving money for that haircut. I need something drastic.
The other day I read an article from a national (maybe international too) magazine about a woman that had a love affair with a married man in her 20’s. Thirty years go by and he (I think it said) emails or calls or something asking to meet up with her again. This time they’re both married (he to a different woman) with kids, etc. She starts running the whole “oh what will I wear…” bla bla through her head. She even talks about the euphoric feeling we’ve all had that she gets. She lets her husband know she is going to meet this old flame. Long story short, they meet up and both their spouses know and by the end of the article she is saying how it was validation to her to see him again, that she now knows she mattered to him. And I walked away from that feeling 1.) I can relate to her story as anyone else here can and 2.) If they mattered so much to one another, why’d they marry other people and not each other????? It’s a true story. The woman writes for this magazine and shared this story. I’m puzzled at stuff like that. If someone “matters” so much to you and all that crap, why aren’t you together? Why string shit out 30+ years just to see how you’re doing now and possibly exchange some emails. Maybe I don’t get it.
Coloro
She sounds like a headcase.
I can’t relate to that story at all. I could have five years ago but now I think “meh, nutter”.
Me too! Nutter! It’s so easy to have this imaginary relationship, one that could never be. The old love against the odds tale, we love that narrative. I am almost certain that both of these individuals like the sense that there was this impossible love in their lives, something out of reach, that there was, then, this reason that their REAL life was never truly satisfying. IT’S BULLSH*T. Colouro, what is clear to me is that they didn’t actually get together because it would have ruined the story for them. They want, and benefit from, the chaos and impossibility. Not healthy. Not vindicating of anything because they never had any real and all that special. If one of the ACs/EUMs of my life came back in 20 years time, and professed some enduring love for me, I’d know that I was not right emotionally (and mentally) were I to buy into that. What would have he really given me during that time? And how would it change the fact that he, like the MM in this story, only gave me a serving of relationship slop when he had the chance? She’s not being honest with herself.
If it hasn’t already become clear, I am a little aggro this morning. I went out last night and one of my oldest guy-mates cracked onto me, with the chestnut (‘I have always had feelings for you, you know that’). This might have been merely awkward but for the fact that….he is married….to one of my friends, no less. Also, and what’s lingering today, is that when I said ‘This isn’t going to happen. Don’t do this. It’s wrong, pointless and will make you feel bad.’ He looked at me, in this moment of sinister sobriety (cue the wonky fairground music) and said to me, right in the eye: ‘I won’t feel bad. You will.’ I have never been an OW, but geez, what a glimpse into that grubby life! This incident was off the back of three guys telling me on separate occasions that I had no chance of meeting a good guy for me now that I am in my 30s, that I’d have to go for mid-forties or mid-twenties. I am not going to take this on as I think it’s bull, but just made the night even more off-putting. Anyway, lots of other nice things to focus on, right! x
Elle –
Yuck! Unfortunately for your friend it sounds as though this guy spoke from experience … “I won’t. You will.” How the eff would he know? And what has he just done to your “oldest-guy-friendship”? Grr.
Is your gf close enough to you that it becomes a question of telling her? What a crap situation to put you in. I’m sorry to hear it.
I swear that these guys who like to lecture 30-something women on how no good guys their age will want them (have heard that one more than once) are insecure knobs who like to feel in-charge at the expense of dashing another person’s hopes. What possible point can there be in saying that sh*t? I’d be feeling aggro too.
My sis is getting married next month. She met her fiance when she was in her thirties.
“I am almost certain that both of these individuals like the sense that there was this impossible love in their lives, something out of reach, that there was, then, this reason that their REAL life was never truly satisfying. IT’S BULLSH*T.”
True words, Elle.
IMHO – Hold out for a good man. It doesn’t matter how old you are. You can always find one if you are patient. I believe this (I also believe most men are EU AC’s 😉 )
Hey Amanda – don’t hope to hold your ground, *plan* to hold your ground. You can do it!
This is hilarious! I did this constantly….I would receive a text/email and then whoosh…..the violins, the naming of our children, the fairy tale; OVER A DAMN text. Women who have had poor relationship (like your’s truly USED to) are so used to “crumbs,” that the slightest thing sets our fantasy wheels ‘a spinnin. On some level I probably knew how destructive it was to engage in fantasy..but it was almost like a reflex. When you start loving yourself (thanks for all the help Nat), you will start to DEMAND more. Just as Nat said “It’s just a text;” take it for what it’s worth (not very much)!!
Always good to hear from you RES! You are living example of what putting you first and addressing your own issues can do. Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday and thank goodness for no more wheel spinning!
4 months ago, i changed my phone number.
i could not bear the idea that it would be possible to text or call.
if i had not … i would be sitting here still, terror stricken by my cell phone.
i don’t see how you guys have the strength.
I hear you! I completely got rid of my phone so he couldn’t call AND neither could I. I used to be so scared, angry, worried, anxious…AT MY CELL PHONE! It was actually a source of pain for me. So no phone for me for a while!
It won’t kill you. This will pass. You can’t be afraid of feeling pain and loss. It is a part of who we are. I promise, it won’t kill you. Sometimes you have to make decisions that don’t feel good, but it doesn’t last forever, and it won’t kill you..
Lynne, I just wanted to say again, hang tough. You are strong too!!! We are all in different phases of healing. Did you sign up for Nat’s NC emails? They really helped me, and 4 mos is a turning point….you are almost through the worst…..so stay strong and stay NC. ((huge hugs))
Bravo!
Thank you Lynne for saying this – I wish more people would follow your lead but they fear missing out on drama or are scared he’ll turn into a prince via text message.
Thank you Natalie, I needed this…You know someone confirming what I already thought it was the case, and that someone is you again 🙂
Thank you and Feliz Navidad! 🙂
Feliz Navidad to you also!
Thank you….your words have hit me like a brick, again! I’ve been interpreting texts from the NC for as long as I can remember (i.e. ~13 years). He’d contacted me as recently as November 2011 with Happy Thanksgiving, and I’d politely deleted the text. This is after I’d told him to never contact me (again) before I’d kicked him out of my house in August 2011 when he decided he wanted to visit me. Of course, during this visit, his blatant disrespect for me was the last straw; he even thought that I was going to allow him to still stay after I’d told him to leave because he didn’t want to leave; I’d kicked him out before he can get what he thought he was entitled to…the sexual contact. He isn’t aware that I’d moved to another state, and is only contacting me because these type of texts would have always opened the lines of communication which would lead to the repeat cycle of a sexual contact; he knew that I’d loved him (atleast that is what I’d thought). Then, I would be back in the same cycle (waiting for the texts/calls, he would never ask me to go anywhere with him or decline my offer to hang out, he would ignore my calls unless it’s convenient for him, he would only text me even though I ask for a call back, etc.) But, not anymore! Moving to another state due to an unforseen issue was the best thing that has ever happened to me (no more waiting for his calls to come over, no more self objection of emotional abuse, etc.) I can now work on thinking clearly, re-invent my life in another state, and work on my foundation again. Hopefully, (in the future) I will meet someone who will love me. I am willing to wait than to accept that type of dysfunction in my life anymore. Thanks for your awesome website/blog! While I don’t think I am completely healed from this type of person’s lack of words/action and respect for me, your words has (honestly) saved my life!
Brilliant Tasha – whatever it takes to have peace of mind and perspective, we should grab it. The move was a blessing in disguise. Someone is looking out for you!
This could not have arrived in my inbox at a better time. My AC recently sent me a holiday card wishing me a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and the card said he was regifting something for me this year – his friendship. He went on to say how we can’t have enough friends and he considers me one (me thinks he’s just looking to get laid). He sent me this after I ignored his attempt to contact me around Thanksgiving. I did respond back with a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – nothing more, no mention of friendship as I am not interested in seeing him and I truly did not send it with the hopes of getting a response back (OMG, I think I am finally getting over him). I did however receive an email response back from him. He told me not to get nervous, he wouldn’t be constantly emailing me (what a complete self-centered ass) and thanked me for responding back to him and it meant alot to him that I replied back (probably his ego talking). Now I am so worried that he thinks the door is open again for him and it is not. I would never consider seeing him again and I am hoping he doesn’t contact me but I would bet money that he does. Help!! What do I do if he contacts me again? Do I just not respond or respond back that the holiday greeting was just that and nothing more – not an invitation to come back into my life to pull the same assclown shenanigans? If I don’t respond back I am worried that he will keep trying to contact me. Crap – it would have been easier if I just threw the card out! Live and learn. Any suggestions PLEASE!!
Finally
Ignore him. Yep, it’s that simple.
Don’t respond. Block his e-mail address (or filter it so that you don’t see anything from his e-mail address) if necessary. With 1 e-mail client in particular, it doesn’t block BUT you can make it (via filter) so that his e-mails don’t even hit your inbox… they’re automatically deleted without your knowledge.
IF you feel like you have to answer… well, I’m not sure what to say because I’d still suggest ignoring the ass-wipe altogether. 😐 I hope that helps you.
Your ex is making me want to stick my fingers down my throat with that pathetic message FinallyDidIt – please don’t respond. Regift his loser friendship back to him.
I hear you. the first time my ex called after we broke up, I was poised and pleasant. He seemed slightly needy.
The next day he emailed me to say it was nice to talk to me, but he hoped I hadn’t got the wrong idea by him calling. (As if he had to caution me.)
So he took the power position and let me know the score again, *when HE had called me, and when I had ended the call.*
That is an essential dynamic. They project their emotional vulnerability onto us, and then act as though we are weak.
FinallyDidIt — it is that guy who is reaching out to get his needs met; don’t let him flip that on you just because you are a polite adult!
I once showed my male friend (a player who finds me unattractive, a cross I have to bear) an email from a guy who was a master at the blowing hot and cold game. 6 months after quitting London, he emails me that he has broken up with his girlfriend and he is coming back to London, I, I, I, ME, ME, ME blah, blah and how are you?
My friend says “ yep he is fishing, I do that all the time. He’s toying with you.”
We used to be hanging by the phone, waiting for a call, putting our life on hold. Now we scrutinize text, even fracking emoticons sometimes and ask : what does that mean?
If it’s from a guy who we are having an imaginary relationship with, he is fishing. He is using our longing as bait.
Natalie
and all of you ladies on this blog.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2012 .
Strength to keep NC, courage to believe we are doing the right thing because kissing the frog into a prince is not our job.
We need to shine, not be covered in slime.
Of course he was toying Artemisia – it’s only us women who want to see meaning where there is no meaning. As a society, we have to recognise that something is seriously wrong with the fact that for thousands of years, texts did not exist and we would not have considered a one sentence phone call or letter as something meaningful. Yet in the space of just over a decade, we actually think that this shite means something. We must wake up! Oh and happy Holidays to you too!
Just what I needed to hear! Although I don’t get bent out of shape over texts and don’t even accept them as a form of communication until later on in the relationship… I am learning that I need to expect more, raise my standard and not settle for crumbs. Not sure why it’s so difficult for “men” nowadays to pick up the phone and schedule a date but we have a lot of boys running around in grown-ups bodies who do not know how to behave with a woman.
About five weeks ago (2.5 months post break up) my ex AC emailed me a one liner “Are you talking to me yet?” I didn’t respond.
A week later he sent me a one word text: “Meh”. This means indifference. That made me angry. I chose to respond with “What do you want from me? Haven’t you hurt me enough?”
He replied: “I just wanted to say hi. I thought of you. So hi.”
I replied: “I don’t want you to say hi. You are not in my life anymore. I need time to move on with my life and get over you. That means no contact.”
He sent the text: “Are you sure?”
I didn’t respond. I’ve not heard from him since.
It did get to me. I had the usual questions running through my head, “Is he still thinking about me?” “Maybe he still loves me?” But they were just texts. No effort required on his part. If he truly wanted to get back with me, he would have made the effort. He didn’t.
About a week ago I discovered through FB that he is having a baby with his new girlfriend. Apparently they are “over the moon”. This is only 3 months after he split up with me (we were together for 3.5 years).
For all those ladies out there going through a break up or thinking about staying in contact. Be strong. It does get better. No contact does work.
Three months ago I was inconsolable. I cried every day. I could not eat. I obsessed over him. I had to attend therapy; take sick leave. I carried a constant, deep ache in my chest. I felt empty. Less than. My life had no meaning.
Today I’m a different person. I laugh. I’m more happy than I am sad. I’m starting to date again. The pain in my chest has gone. I am looking to the future with hope. And I know that it was a blessing in disguise when he broke up with me.
I still think and dream about him and check his FB occasionally (which does break no contact), but his influence over me is starting to slowly melt away. His new g/f used to post about “how in love” and “blissfully” happy she was on FB. These posts are becoming less and less, as the honeymoon period and gloss of the new relationship wears off.
Everything takes time. Time for us to heal and be happy again. And about the same time for the ex AC’s new relationship to revert back from “happy” and “in love” to dysfunction.
So ladies, it does get better! I promise!
LA, I *bet* the honeymoon period is over. She’s stuck with this tit now. You’re well shot of him. Don’t say another word to him and look forward. If she has chosen not to do her due diligence and not feel even slightly suspect about him falling out of a 3.5 year relationship into hers, she will sadly learn the hard way, only now there’s a child involved. Don’t envy her and be thankful that you’re not her.
You are very wise Natalie.
I used to be the *brains* in the relationship; the voice of reason. Now that I’ve gone, combined with the fact that this new woman (as well as the ex) have about as much maturity as teenagers still in high school, the breaks have been removed.
Their relationship/lives are headed for an almighty crash.
“Everything takes time. Time for us to heal and be happy again. And about the same time for the ex AC’s new relationship to revert back from “happy” and “in love” to dysfunction.” LA you are so right! It just made me realize that would be about the time the ex ac would start contacting me again. I’d have just gotten over him and not thinking about him anymore and he’d pop back up. Each time, no matter the guy, I would wonder ‘why do they always come back when I’m happy again’, like they have radar. Nope, its because exactly what you said, that is the time it takes for their new relationship to revert to dysfunction. Yes ma’am, thank you for breaking that down.
SM,
I know. This is what helped me as well! I would often think how unfair it was that I was left alone and in pain, while the ex was happy, in love and not thinking about me at all. For a little history, one week after he broke up with me, he and his new girlfriend moved in together. I then had to put up with sickening sweet posts about how in love they were on Facebook.
But the ex was dysfunctional in our relationship. A man-child. Unable to communicate. Deal with issues. Take responsibility. No money. No job. I knew that it would only be a matter of time before his red flags bubbled to the surface of his new relationship. Then the fights would begin. The problems. The constant drama.
So take comfort in the fact that by the time we have well and truly gotten over the ex AC, they will have traveled full circle, destined to repeat the same dysfunctional relationship patterns that made them and us so unhappy in the first place.
We are destined for growth and happiness. This is as good as it gets for the ex AC / EUM.
I really hope I can get to that point. It has been 9 months since my break-up but I am brand new to the NC. I have tried in the past but it is always one step forward then 2 steps back. It is great to see that there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
Jill,
You WILL get there. Have faith. I didn’t think I would ever get to this point (I’m still not completely there) but here I am. You will have days where you feel that you’ve gone backwards, but it’s all part of the grief and healing process.
I’m not sure I would be at the point that I am now if I had not gone NC. Other than the Facebook checking (still trying to control that one although it is getting better) NC allows him to fade into your past. He becomes just a memory, and his power over you and the feelings you felt for him fade as well.
What also helped me with NC was the thought that in the future, when I was happy and in another relationship, I could go back to being his friend if I wanted to. By this point, though, I will only feel apathy and indifference for him, so I probably won’t need to.
You’ll get there! We all will!
Needed this, bang on time tonight, have had the ‘love’ texts of late from him..talking of need, desire, love describing feelings,(he always did this by the ether) using up all space on phone. I had taken his number off.
They are just texts. He’s on the crack!
I am looking forward to Christmas, truly, but have broken toe(stubbed on carpet runner),ill relatives,job worries and opportunities, a family get together from hell to get through on Christmas eve,missing veneer on tooth..and I get a text saying that’he will never be far away, in his love for me etc bloody etc. Yeah right?
I sent one back saying ‘sorry I don’t get what you mean, it’s a text’
I told him when I left that texts meant nothing to me anymore, they did not represent adult communication. He retreated to text and e mail every time.
The relationship failed to progress,no action of promises… more words of love, a few days before Christmas, sent by text, prove that I was right to leave not wrong.
I felt so cheap for a moment, him thinking to absolve or appease himself by playing the good guy whilst casually throwing off a text..then I focused myself. He is apart from me, a different person in his morals, expectations, needs, future, honesty,values…and communication styles.
If you love someone and want a relationship with them, you put down the mobile. Two feet in relationship, not index finger on phone!
Thankyou Nat, for the breakthrough, the cautions, support, the sharing,the laughs,thankyou for all of that… I hope your man and wee ones have a sparkling day. Kudos for your hardwork,how remarkable and unique are you ?
Merry Effin’ Christmas from the East Coast of Scotland, you brilliant insightful courageous women. Have a Great one.x
Hugs Lynda – your recent comments have been exceptional. Never forget how far you’ve come from when you first arrived at BR. Your ex is a lazy muther… Never take anyone seriously who tries to weasel their way back in by text or tries to be emotional via a vacuous medium after being apart for some quite some time. It’s emotional laziness. This man has less depth than a puddle. If this is the best effort that he can come up with, it only goes to show he’s not worth your time. Don’t sell yourself short and don’t even engage. Hugs and happy Christmas – Jaysus you must be cold up there! X
Hi Lynda, glad that you’ve arrived at a point of clarity about your situation. I can’t imagine how much frustration and agitation you experienced, to be on the receiving end of airy-fairy sweet nothings and to have been waiting for concrete action to materialize. But you sound like you’re in a good place, with a renewed commitment to yourself. Have a blessed Christmas and thank you for your sharing, empathy and wisdom.
Lynda – you have offered me so much wisdom and support; first know how valuable you are! Next: sorry to hear about your toe! Ouch. Finally: at this holiday time, the pressure to spend makes the job woes more worrying; the get-togethers make the family stuff more immediate – it’s easy to feel blown about. This douche texting you at this time, with nothing to offer, is not considerate at all. Have a lovely Xmas reminding yourself what a gift you are to those who truly know and love you!
@ Jade/Mags Thanks beautiful ones for words and all the insight you’ve given me. Light shine on you this Christmas x
Nat and Ladies..
I will be honest here..Part of me is sad that after 3 months,He has not once contacted me…Talk about being nuts huh…
I guess what would he say?
I disspeared on you cuz I am a ass and a coward?
So true……
“This all goes back to why you must focus on building mutual relationships – when you match someone with their low effort and see their low effort for what it is, you don’t see gold where’s there’s copper – you see their lack of effort and the reflected results in your life and distance yourself, flush them, or know the limits of your interaction with them.” NML.
True, Natalie. That’s what I started doing with my guy “friend” seeing him low effort for low effort, and only b/c I kinda have to b/c we work at the same place. I discovered when I went NC for awhile I felt mentally unbalanced. It didn’t seem right. So I began matching him low effort for low effort instead. But I am in a much healthier place now nonetheless. The fantasy I had built up in my head is gone & I now see and accept his random crumb attention for what it is. Nothing to be excited about or respond disproportionately to which includes reading more than there is into it and hoping for something more. Is it a blissful place? No. Is it an upset place? No. It is a sane place.
Very good.
*You are experiencing high intensity emotions/rumination or engaging in high level action for low level contact and effort.*
“fantasy text island” LoL so good! perspective, indeed. when I first saw what NML wrote about *high intensity/low level contact territory* recently, it seeped into my consciousness. the last EUM contact was 11/29, no more effort from either of us. I’m proud of myself for not contacting when I received a pkg he sent after that. I’m sure he could care less, he moved on ages ago. I felt that the end of our last phone conversation where I expressed my feelings and we talked about “Us” was truly the end of the road. somehow, this time, even though I am still as deeply hurting and sad as ever, my (false) hope has vanished. he may xmas-text or call me, or not. NC is not even an issue. I truly don’t have anything left inside me for this. there will be no more attention seeking behavior on my part (that phrase has been on my mind a lot too, simplifies things. is it, or isn’t it? he’s certainly been doing that throughout this whole time. my intuition is telling me that really is all going to cease for good now.)
it was so humiliating to hear myself saying the words “I still love you”, after 18 months of self torment and his cruel, shite behavior. and not hearing them back, of course. especially after getting so into Baggage Reclaim, which I totally believe in. what must he think of me now, that I would say that after how he treated me? that after a few months of Fake Friendship in crumb communications, I’d open my heart that way to him? I don’t regret, it doesn’t matter — I said straight out I wasn’t willing or able to camouflage my feelings. I’m so horrified, and embarrassed, that 2012 is here, and I’m not over it yet. a few other times I struggled for ridiculously long periods w/heartache, and it’s robbed me of a great deal of precious time. but never, ever did it knock me to the ground the way this experience has. parts of my life are in shambles because often I could barely find the will to keep going. sometimes it feels like I’ve been trying to climb Everest, I’m stranded in subzero temps, can’t make any headway, let alone even see or get anywhere near the top.
anyway the posts of the last few weeks have been amazing 🙂 lots of work ahead. trying to be good to myself.
You deserve to be good to yourself Anoosh, thankyou for all you have shared and the help you have offered. Never regret opening your heart, hopefully 2012 will bring opportunities to open it up to the right person…if not,better open and honest than closed and stifled..for you, noone else.
Have a lovely Christmas.
I received my “lazy communication holiday text” last weekend. And I had to chuckle when I read “thanks, same to you” that is EXACTLY how I responded. This blog has helped me so much!
Texting has actually been the theme of my week, it seems.
First, the MM who I’m on a “break” with texted me this morning that he wouldn’t be in the office because he’s really sick and he hopes I’m doing well. Okay? I guess that’s just his way of starting to inch back in, I don’t know. I miss him, but in the time we weren’t talking I was trying to move on and focus my energy on someone else. When he creeps back in like this, it throws me off kilter.
Then there’s a guy I’ve been dating for about six months, though not seriously, who seemed super interested in me up until this week. We saw each other this weekend, had a talk about where this was going which seemed very promising, and everything was great. But it’s been three days and I hadn’t heard from him so I texted him something cute and simple – no response. I know his job is super high stress right now and he’s studying for a professional exam, but it’s not like him to just not say anything back. I’m starting to worry he’s just not that into me, even though he said otherwise 5 days ago. We live about 100 miles apart, so it makes it even harder for me to figure out what’s going on. Should I calm down, or do I have a right to be this paranoid?
oh bri
you sure do have your head in the clouds. which is okay except they are storm clouds.
1 – when you have two men on the go, neither of them is right for you. Especially one of them is married.
no. 2 the only “someone else” you should be dealing with is yourself
no. 3 no-one who wants a serious relationhip deals with someone 100 miles away. This applies to you and to him. It’s different if you meet and then circumstances drive you apart for a short time. And even then, I wonder.
no. 4 nope you’re not being paranoid. an interested man doesn’t see you and then ignore you for five days.
What I see is a girl turning in circles from one EU man to another, playing out a drama where you get to win someone against impossible odds (a marriage or 100 miles). Stop doing it to yourself.
When you wake up to the fact that you don’t love either of these guys, you won’t care a fig what they think of you.
Man #1: he’s MARRIED. Plain & simple. Don’t give it or him any more energy.
Man #2: sounds shady. Watch yourself.
I don’t understand it though. Why would we have this great weekend together and have a talk about how we both want this to go somewhere, and then he just wouldn’t contact me?
The MM messaged me at work today and threw me all off balance again. “Just wanted to see how I was doing.”
Why insert yourself into someone’s life if you don’t mean it?
Because we let them.
Bri
“Why insert yourself into someone’s life if you don’t mean it?”
Don’t mean what?
What I don’t get is why you are inserting yourself in the lives of two men (one of them already married) – which one do you ‘mean it’ with, Bri?
Maybe you are best placed to answer own question.
fearless
I’m starting to feel like your siamese twin.
Bri
Why are you trying to insert yourself into a relationship with long-distance lover boy when YOU don’t mean it? The only reason you’re chasing him is because the MM is blowing cold. I don’t feel sorry for LDLB, he’s playing you.
But you’re playing games as well. Mainly with yourself. Them I understand, you I am having more trouble with. But then I realise I did all this myself. Was I really that clueless myself? I must have been. I’m warning you, unless you get your act together you could be my age (gasp, 46) with a string of crappy affairs/relationships, long-distance dalliances behind you and no boyfriend or husband. I’m happy now but, for sure, if I could rewind I wouldn’t do it again. At the very least it’s just embarrassing!
Try to benefit from what we are saying to you and take some of it on board. You are free to come here using it as a sounding-off board, but that’s not going to help you. You don’t seem to want to change. You want to keep trying the same stuff for a different outcome. Same stuff, different man, over and over. If you want something different you have to do something different.
The break with MM had started to give me some clarity and I was trying to move on. It seems maybe the other guy I’m dating is an EUM too, I guess I just hoped he’d be different. One minute we’re having “the relationship” talk and the next he’s not answering my texts. Being with him made me happy, and made me not think about the MM, and I thought I’d have a shot with someone I was actually physically, intellectually and hopefully emotionally compatible with. But I know that I deserve at least a text.
We discussed how neither of us are ready for a serious relationship but that we wanted to move in that direction. I guess I thought I was making strides, and I could really see myself with this guy. I saw a code orange here and there, but all of his other qualities drowned them out. I guess I’m just back to feeling rejected again and I wanted a reason for it, for him to shine a light on what went wrong in just 24 hours. I always thought I was too needy, not EU too.
Bri, it’s rare I’ll say this but you’re actually boggling me.
How in the hell can you be feeling indignant and rejected by long distance guy when you’ve been seeing another man, a *married* man at that and are currently on a ‘break’ from him and pining over him?
You can’t have been that interested in this guy – you’ve been waiting and wailing about the married guy.
You thought you were needy not unavailable? You’ve been shagging a married man for a couple of years and trying to get him to leave his wife and three kids, two of whom are disabled. You’re the Other Woman – you’re emotionally unavailable.
You are in some serious denial. Not only are you unavailable for a healthy relationship or even for self-care duty, but you’re unavailable for *reality*.
Grace:
“If you want something different you have to do something different.”
Ain’t that the truth! It is what (at least for me) is at the heart of Nat’s message on BR, and if we don’t get that, well, we don’t get much of anything. We have to do something different to get something different from our relationships, and in terms of this post, that means dump all the texting! Stop thinking a text or two from some avoidance ridden arsehole marks the beginning of the love story of the century! It’s a text. It signals one thing: he does not want to speak to you. Cos then you might start expecting things, god forbid, like him showing up for Christmas dinner! So we must all apply a proportionate response to a guy who only wants to text us – which would be: don’t bother texting him back.
Grace:”fearless
I’m starting to feel like your siamese twin.”
ha ha! Well, aside from Nat, and perhaps unknown to yourself, you have been my best mentor all this time. Keep on posting. Am always hearing you loud and clear.
Fearless,
I know you’re right; I just wish you weren’t.
Bri, that line is like the theme of your life….
Bri
two weeks isn’t a break. and you know he’ll be back in the new year. And unless you do something drastic (which doesn’t involve a moron 100 miles away) you’ll be there waiting. Moving on doesn’t mean grasping the next straw that comes floating your way. I strongly suggest something that will probably seem impossible to you – no men for x months. If the thought of that makes you go cold inside, there’s your sign that you need to do it.
As for hanging on for a text – look carefully at the title of Nat’s post.
If neither of you are ready for a serious relationship, that’s it. It’s game over. It’s already lost. In your own words you’ve admitted that a big draw is that he made you forget the MM. It’s not a solid basis for a relationship.
Can you see the similarities – both men have made promises and broken them; with both of them you’re not seeing the big picture but focusing on .. a text or msg, you felt desirable and in control at first – now you’re feeling helpless. Both men come complete with obvious unavailability – a marriage and distance. Both of them blow hot and cold. You feel extraordinary compatibility that you believes will overcome all obstacles. They are essentially THE SAME person because you are playing out THE SAME drama. You probably started doing it when you were a child and now you carry on. It’s not your fault but only you can fix it.
Yes you are too needy. And that is what makes you EU. It plays out in a different way to when a man is EU. But you’re still doing bouncing from person to person looking for them to make you happy. You only make yourself happy. Until you do that, the man will always fall short. Either because you keep picking duds (believe me, both of these are duds) or should you accidentally pick a good one you’ll get bored/frustrated because there isn’t enough drama to keep you distracted from your own issues.
I don’t know how much blunter I can be. Both these men are bad for you. Not because they are so amazing that they’ll turn your world upside down but because they are just your bogstandard, cheating, hot-and-cold, disappearing, ignoring EU/AC. They are very very substandard.
Hi Bri,
You mentioned that texting seems to be the theme of your week. If I’m reading Natalie’s post correctly, texting as the basis of the relationship will always be theme of the week with unavailables. Texting may be a sign you and/him are unavailable if it is the basis of the relationship. You mentioned something that caught my attention, you said: “I always thought I was too needy, not EU too”. Since the MM has you on ice while he is with his wife and family celebrating Christmas and ringing in the New Year, and LDR guy isn’t responding to your texts, this may be a good time to explore whether you are “needy or EU too”. I was floored last year when I was on ice for the holidays (which lasted 90 some days), discovered BR, went on a BS diet, and had to face the fact that I was unavailable too. It was unsettling to discover all about myself. I was so unavailable, it was impossible for even me to deny. I hope you can use this time to explore you. It’s an amazing experience. It’s been 5-6 months since the suck it and see weekend and I would now never settle for being an OW or being thrown off kilter from a text, unless I was in a healthy, loving, respectful relationship and I forgot to pick up the milk!
Bri,
This sounds a little like my story too with the different town thing. Please consider pulling the plug on both of them! I wish I had pulled the plug on my EUM, he was so crazy about texting/so busy/will have more time/blah. Ugh! I wasn’t number one, not even number 101…
NC hurts, but it will hurt 1000x more if you don’t.
I spent the first half of 2011 chasing the EUM and the second half in grief, at the psycologist, and grieving! did I mention more grieving? I’m in month 8 of the No Dating Rule (Dating Detox/Hiatus) and have only just managed to recover my self esteem/not really care what or who he’s up to and breaking up bad habits.
The thing is this: when my EUM lived in the next city, someone much closer can make a better deal than I could can, because they live closer. I saw him in isolation – like tunnel vision- sole focus, but he, was totally lapping up the buffet.
Re: several comments about “dating detox/hiatus”. I have come to think that maybe that is what I need, but I am not sure for how long? How will I know I am ready again? Of course this would be an individual thing, but does anyone have any ideas, range? As, for example, when people say not to date for a year after a divorce, or that after 4 months of NC it gets better?
I have recently been getting texts (and a note on my car) from my last ex after he saw me somewhere. I have no illusions though, I know he is either bored or having a dry spell between hook ups and it has nothing to do with wanting me or missing me. I do know it’s only a text and it makes me look at him as a smug little shit looking for an ego boost. Maybe he wants to be friends? I don’t want to be friends so there is no point in communicating I am not ready to talk to him, by text, phone or in person. I am seeing someone else and don’t feel its fair to him to engage with an ex who isn’t a friend anyway. Before the block expired (verizon blocks expire every 90 days) it was a non issue because I didn’t know either way if he was trying to text me or not. I stopped thinking about it all together. Time to renew the block and eliminate any curiosity or stress over whether he tries to get a hold of me over xmas or New Years, especially since New Years was our first date last year. I won’t let him spoil my fun this year.
Me likey, NML. Some Christmas feast for the soul. Emotions can run higher around the holidays fo sho. Then we tend to attach obscure things to those emotions. It will be wise to be mindful of that. Thanks and Cheers!
Stop the projection.
Oh, this is so true! This weekend the ex AC was mailing me because he was coming home for Xmas and really wanted to meet up. Hinting that he wanted a shag. I said I would meet him for tea in a public place and that was all, he agreed to that but when I pressed him where, what day or time, he would say “I don’t know what I’m doing during the week” or “I’m terrified of buses” (even though he’s been living in London for the past 9 months!). Yes, this is really what you do when you really want to see somebody, isn’t it?! So, I called his gf and told her what he’d been doing, sent her the emails. I don’t think she believed me or he managed to persuade her that he didn’t write the emails? More likely he persuaded her that I was a psycho (even though she had the proof sitting there in front of her eyes). But, I believe contacting her was a great way of getting him out of my life completely…there’s no way he’ll be emailing me looking for a shag again while he’s still with her. 🙂
So, I realise contacting his new partner was one of the things you say not to do. I needed to do it though. I knew that if I did that, it would get him out of my life at least until she leaves him and hopefully by then I’ll be strong enough to ignore him if he does email me.
Moon, sorry but contacting his new partner was wrong..and you know it. Their relationship really has nothing to do with you.
Listen, you’ve not had your brain removed forcibly, you already say that you knew he was just up for a shag. Why meet him at all, public place or no public place? You have willpower, you are an adult.
I think you were angry when you sent the stuff to his girlfriend, possibly angry at yourself in the main. Been there.
However, dragging his girlfriend into it to cause drama is not the way forward. These things always backfire. You need to own that you may have caused yourself to look like you were on a visiting pass from psychoville. In time she may well wise up…not your problem.
You should be focusing on yourself and your own happiness. He isn’t worth it, patently. C’mon ‘Afraid of buses!’ he sounds like a right tosspot. See yourself as separate to them and trust your own judgement.
This was part of focusing on my happiness, I knew that if I told her then he would finally leave me alone and it’s worked. So far anyway. I agreed to meet him because I thought he would then stop hassling me about still being “tempted” by me if I could talk to him face to face about it. But, he didn’t really want to see me, he just wanted to know if he still had a hold over the puppet strings. I realise that now. He wanted to see how far he could go with his manipulation and I stopped him in his tracks. I don’t really care if I came across as a psycho, I won’t ever be meeting this girl so I couldn’t care less what she (or he) thinks of me now…if he’s told her I’m a psycho…then it begs the question – why was he still talking to me?
…”there’s no way he’ll be emailing me looking for a shag again while he’s still with her”. Moon what makes you think that? He’s already shown he doesn’t give a hoot about their relationship and while he may be mad at you for contacting her he’ll most likely get over it and contact you again.
Initial NC and stay NC from both of them.
I think he thought he could get away with it before. He probably thought I would never dream of contacting his gf. Now he knows I will, I reckon he won’t do it again. Am I wrong?
I am trying to do NC, I told her in my email that it would be the last she would hear from me. Not looking at his FB is a bit more difficult, it’s shaken him I reckon, but it should have, he needs to realise that he can’t treat people like he does, whether he’ll change for good is another matter, probably not, he’ll treat her like a princess til he thinks she’s forgotten about it and then he’ll find someone else to manipulate by email. Hopefully he won’t try it again with me!
Moon
I don’t think what you did is bad. If my non-existent boyfriend cheated on me I would want to know. That said, there’s NO WAY I wanted “my” MM to be found out for sexting. The last thing I wanted was him turning up on my doorstep in disgrace. I didn’t tell but, ultimately, it was for my own selfish reasons. And I didn’t have her contact details anyway.
You do run the risk of escalating drama – best thing is not to get into the dilemma in the first place!
It’s done. It’s their problem now. Stick to ignoring him.
Grace,
Thanks for the advice, I will be ignoring him from now on. The only reason I had her contact details is because he rang from their landline a couple of weeks ago, he had emailed beforehand telling me it was an emergency so I stupidly answered thinking he had been mugged or something. Do you know what it was? He had told his gf he was going for a pint with his workmates so he would be half an hour late getting home, she had got in a mood about it, stopped answering his calls and went to a friends house instead of home…this was an emergency???!!! What world is he living in???
Good Gawd I needed this post! Thank you, Natalie, for giving a message I needed to hear EXACTLY when I needed to hear it.
This made me ill… there is an actual formula this guy is selling that uses text in just this manner.. just sickening. I only post this so you all can see that it is real what Natalie is saying
http://textyourexbackmichaelfiore.com/
WOW! What a dirtbag! 😐 Thanks for the heads up. Time to pass this along to a couple of friends. 😉
Thanks for the reminder Natalie about how low-level and lazy a text message is and thanks AMD for the link. I never doubt what Natalie says. I couldn’t believe somebody is actually selling “Text Your Ex Back”. Below is a quote from that website:
“Texting gives you almost unlimited access to your ex. People are addicted to their cell phones and have them within arm’s reach nearly every minute of every day. This gives you an incredible opportunity to reconnect.”
I couldn’t read much more.
Thank you Natalie for sharing your wisdom.
I just threw up a little in my mouth. Seriously. If you read the reasons the page about ‘why texting works while other things don’t’, it actually lists ‘intimacy’ and ‘better expressing your emtions’ as pros of texting. w. t. f. That is beyond sick, I am seriously disturbed!
Aargh! It even says how you can press the RESET BUTTON!!!
Too ridiculous. I love the part where he says, “You have to erase the negative thoughts she may have of you from her mind” and … the fact that the relationship ended is just a huge opportunity “to PRESS THE RESET BUTTON and do things right.” Ha ha ha ha ha!! It’s like he’s speaking from the AC script.
Thank you AMD! Wow! Takes Assanovary to a new level.
Sad thing is that WE DO look at these texts because it is so impersonal, we think we can handle it. If my EUM sent me an SMS today I would probably read it… then delete…
This is the first time I have shared my thoughts here. I am so glad to have found BR. My ex narcissist EUM just tried contacting me through a request for a game of Word Feud. This is the second time in four months of no contact that he has tried this. It’s even more lame than a text! Thankfully I am stronger every day and I just hit reject. Did I mention he is in another relationship? Thanks Nat for reminding us that a text or a request for a game doesn’t mean squat!
Stronger
“My ex narcissist EUM just tried contacting me through a request for a game of Word Feud.”
OMG. These men are truly ridiculous.
Good for you stronger – keep on flushing!
‘Tis the season for remembering why we went No Contact in the first place. I have an ex EUM who recently began texting me after 9 months of NC. He said he wanted to “have a word with me”. Kind of ominous, I hesitated to reply but since I only dated him for a couple of months and was “over it”, I replied and said OK, call me after I return from visiting family (about a week). Instead of calling, he actually texted a week later and asked when he could call. I said today works for me. So he called and proceeded to tell me about his year and then actually asked if he had been a dick the way he “ended things”. I said well your timing really sucked (it was Christmas Eve day), and his comment about “leaving the door open” didn’t really sit well with me (not gonna be your booty call buddy). He then asked why he didn’t hear from me after he called a couple of months later. I told him, “I don’t want to be someone who gets a call once a month”. He proceeded to talk about himself and I told him I would call him when I was feeling better (had a bad cold at the time). So I didn’t call, was busy, not too sure it was a good idea, etc. So he sends a text a week and a half later asking if I thought better of us getting together, or was I dead. I called him back and said no I’m still alive, and suggested lunch sometime. He seemed taken aback that all I was intersted in was lunch…and I haven’t heard from him since. And that’s OK! It just validates that my assessment of him and his limitations was correct when I went NC, and nothing has changed. I really think texting is a HUGE red flag that points to emotional unavailabilty, especially in terms of new relationships. I’m not talking about “pick up some milk” texts in an already established relationship. I’m convinced that texting is just another tool for EUMs (cowards) to remain cowardly and not let their guard down and have a full human experience, which includes being vulnerable and experiencing the authentic highs and lows that come from actually talking to someone.
Wow, thank you. This is exactly what is happening to me & here I am feeling guilty because I didn’t respond to the last email which read “whatya doing?” Most of them are along those lines.
Sally,
“I’m convinced that texting is just another tool for EUMs (cowards) to remain cowardly and not let their guard down and have a full human experience…”
I totally agree. Texting (in the contexts Nat is talking about about) is not a means of communication, it’s a means of avoiding communication. For these men (and for us if all we do is text them) it’s a means of maintaining a comfortable distance – but it is about maintaining *distance* – keeping you at arms length – not getting involved. i made so many excuses for my ex EUM texting me as his first preference, but there is no excuse, there is a reason why they do this and it’s to ensure that they get what they want with minimum effort – they are not looking to get involved and this has got to be a major red flag. Texting as the default means of communication is a major sign that there is nothing but a total chancer at the other end of the text. I am never going to be managed down to texting ever again.
What you describe is so typical Sally that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. He clearly wondered if you were still on ‘ice’ for him…dodgy bugger. The fact that he abdicated the situation when you suggested lunch speaks volumes…you were being checked out for ego boost, lunch might have made it all too real again..
Your comment
‘texting is just another tool for EUMs (cowards) to remain cowardly and not let their guard down and have a full human experience, which includes being vulnerable and experiencing the authentic highs and lows that come from actually talking to someone.’ is just such a good call for us all.
If they can’t do the face to face, how dare they send a text.Amen.
I can’t understand when these ACs get someone pregnant within months of The breakup. Then have the audacity to contact and try to get you back. Obviously these people have no conscience what so ever.
Hi ladies,
I’ve really been enjoying reading your strong comments! They’re so empowering and thank you Natalie for another great post!!! (You were highly recommended by Susan Elliott of the Getting Past Your Breakup blog.)
In regards to No Contact, I think everyone should BLOCK THEIR EX’S NUMBERS!!!! and all other forms of communication (email, FB). This will:
1) send the message to the ex, “Please leave me alone!” and
2) eliminate all chances of being manipulated by any communications.
Some phone companies offer this feature for free. For email and FB, all you need to do is change some settings.
so START BLOCKING and START LIVING!!!
Yep! re: Facebook. As annoying as the constantly changing settings are, it’s possible. A couple of weeks ago, this guy that I liked in the mid-2000s sent me a friend request. He got married soon after we stopped liking each other (which means that someone was probably already in the background). Unless we’ve been friends for YEARS before you got married, that’s a NO-NO. And he tried the request under a different name! As if I wouldn’t recognize the face? Dumb ass.
Needless to say, I declined the request and clicked “No” on the question that asks “Do you know this person outside of Facebook?” (or something to that effect). 🙂
ALSO…(and maybe it’s easier to see this after quite a bit of time NC)….reacting in ANY way to attempted contact is basically saying you don’t have any say on whether this is OVER! Get a text? Ignore it! Be the one who decides it’s over over over over, not all vulnerable to a measly text. Who’s running the show?
Good food for thought. Never thought of it that way, but it makes sense.
OK then – I’ve just had a birthday text from an ex, (which I didn’t respond to) followed a day later by a text saying his boiler has broken down and now he’s going to have a even worse cold Christmas. Would I be a really mean bitch to continue to ignore?
Norfolk broad
ignore. if he really wanted to speak to you he would call you. at which point you would hang up.
Be of course…He probably ignored you, your emotions and love…Let him freez…You have more imortant thing to do instead answering on his text (like to decide which nail polish to apply…deep red or classic red….
I know exactly what you talking about but just remember how many times your messages were not answered…
Classic Red for me !!
Nope!
No you would not be a bitch if you didnt respond. The way I gather it, he is just using different tactics to get you to pay him some type of attention so he can get whatever it is he is trying to get from the situation. Shag/Attention/Ego Boost etc
My ex has went as far as lying that his mother was in hospital and had a few weeks to live trying to get me to break the no contact. Only for me to find out from other people it was all a sick elaborate lie. And that was one of many many sick twisted fake stories…
Pay him no mind and dont fall for the cheap tactics. Maintain no contact and continue on your journey.
Best of luck! xoxo
Not at all. He probably just wants you to heat him up in your bed. 😐 Let the coward assclown freeze, and stick with no contact.
No. He is a grown up who can figure out how to get his own utilities fixed.
wow,I;ve been following BR for years now,as long as i’ve been in this EUM relationship-aside from the informative posting,all the readers comments are equally informative. Its amazing people’s insight and I truly think you all.
Interesting enough I am not looking forward to any kind of relationship,not when these EUM’s are dominating the market. I know this sounds negative,but what is there to look forward to?
Hi Vivia, not sure that they dominate the market, although they have a lot of stalls set out, for sure.
There is the relationship with yourself to look forward to, to develop and enrich in anycase.
When I’m ready I will pay the market a visit again but this time it will be a much more considered purchase. I also will not sell myself short.
Texts are most excellent for one thing: managing the status quo.
For absolute minimal effort, zero cost, and low risk he gets to keep you on ice. So there you are, frozen in time, waiting for a man who most likely has a girlfriend/live-in lover/wife to text you.
It’s not fun, it’s not flattering, it’s not a relationship, it’s not a friendship, it’s not harmless. It’s a waste of your life. You’re kidding yourself if you think you can handle it. You can’t. He can handle it cos he’s got all the power (that you gave him).
Cut him off.
This is absolutely true, Grace. Looking back, I feel really insulted that I’d allowed myself to be pathetically managed by text and quite stupid that I’d poured out all my feelings in an open, confessionary way. I was guilty of points 1-9 on Natalie’s list, nearly did no. 7, having inflated the meaning of these rat droppings. When I got a “whats new with u” text, I thought it meant that my ex-EUM still wanted me in his life and was interested in my life. A man who SMSes to say “i wish u were with me”, where words are not accompanied by action, is nothing more than a spin-doctor. And there I was, imagining that he was pining for me as much as I was pining for him! He was probably having a good laugh on the other end, a pre-bed time tickle/entertainment since his SMSes always came around midnight. I probably seemed so deluded and misguided that he couldn’t resist deriving a thrill out of what seemed to be fictitious, romantic agony.
I feel silly also for accommodating textmania. First time I came to BR I was like wondering what all the fuss was about texts (as EUM and I did it all the time, I think we had 3 phone calls the entire time in our non-relationship), but now I see.
Text is what people use when they want to feed the chooks some crumbs. Years ago, I arranged a date online and I didn’t even get messages, I got sexts! How’s that for a ‘Hello!’ Like I’d be going through my day and then suddenly a text would come along with his naked body/shirt off/zoom up of his abs. Jaysus! I’ve NEVER EVER sent naked or even partially revealing photos to anyone ever. Has the world gone mad?
This was the same person who couldn’t get their garbage together to actually meet for date. He’s with someone else now (GOD help that other person) thank goodness I flushed them!
I am so grateful for this site!
That’s one of the curses of technology – it allows people to get away with all manner of shady comuunications, making them think that a text is good enough. And don’t get me started on the people who are “SO busy” and “SO important” that the only way to reach them is through text. 😐
It’s just a text. If you get one (or a few), delete ’em and go on about your day. If you plan on sending one, do yourself a favor and DON’T.
I am no longer under any illusions as far as “communication” from the ex is concerned. It used to give me such an ego boost and validation that he still wanted me, missed me and regretted ever treating me like rubbish. Oh no but these days I see the communication for exactly what it is…trying to see whether I am still the same stupid, naive and not to mention desperate girl who would entertain his bullcrap and let him play russian roulette with my emotional wellbeing.
Now I can proudly say that that girl is long gone, and its such a great feeling to know that I no longer entertain nonsense as far as he (or any other person for that matter) is concerned.
I have come to hate my mobile phone. For the last 3 years the majority of the relationship with the EUM was done by text. Even though we are not together I hate it when a text comes through in case it is him – what mood is he in today? Will he be nice or mean? I hate myself for being so needy as sometimes even wanting him to text. Yesterday he was mean….asked what I was up to so I said I was at the panto and his reply was ‘home for you’. I was flooded with panic, anger and upset – omg! What a mean thing to say – thats so unkind. And this the day after confiding in him that I was sad I had lost contact with a good friend – his response was to blame me, tell me I’m harsh and unloving and no wonder I have no friends leaving me in tears.
I feel incredible shame and sorrow at what I have become by being in relationship with him. A part of me wants to acknowledge that if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have discovered things about myself that needed addressing – or this site – but is that blowing hot air up his ass that he doesn’t deserve? Yeah great he was abusive to me and it made me take a long hard look at myself – but he didn’t have to be so mean.
I hate texts. Is it something to do with being a polite ‘good’ girl but if he texts and I don’t reply I think I am lowering myself to his level somehow….whats that about?? I texted him a few days ago and he didn’t reply. I checked again – no reply and so a day later I rang and he said ‘oh didn’t feel like talking to you’ ……When will I get it?! Who says those things if they truly care about the other? And he must sit there thinking ‘he he I can do what I want and she will take it’ – I have no respect for myself.
It all has to stop. I have lost myself this year, I have become physically ill and I thought he was my friend but he’s not. I have told myself it’s all my fault, my mum, my ex and him all told me it was….so it must be true….but no one else says it. For 2012 – no more texting – resolve to treasure my friends and CALL THEM.
Jane, you are going too far with your ‘politeness’ and are being a doormat. He’s spam – unsolicited and unwanted communications. He’s also a bloody nuisance. Telling this asshole your problems and feeding him his punch lines, is like confiding in the person that’s sexually harassing you. Stop offering this man ammunition by speaking to him. It’s not rude not to respond- it’s called having some self respect.
By the way – this is abusive behaviour so stop participating and letting this man do mind fuckery from a distance. I hear from women who are terrified and practically house bound due to the intimidation they get by text or from a long distance caller that insists on them being home to answer their abusive calls or when they don’t respond to texts, calling repeatedly.
This man is a twat. The polite thing to do would be to tell him to f*ck off and not to contact you again and that if he does, you will pass his malicious communications to the police.
Jane
Heard on the news yesterday that a young woman in Bangladesh had the fingers of her right hand chopped off by her husband for going to college without his permission.
For all the women out there who don’t have a choice, choose better for yourself and ignore him.
This woman left her husband. So, in the end, even in a country with few rights for women, she made a choice for herself.
Be wary of what being “good” is. I don’t see any definition anywhere that good = being treated like a doormat by an AC. I’ve no doubt you are good but none of that goodness is being expressed in these interactions. What’s being expressed is fear, self-doubt, lack of self-respect, lack of conviction, lack of self-control, compulsion, indecisiveness, denial. There’s nothing good about any of that. Good would be to do the brave tough thing and strike out without him. Courage.
Jane, as you’ve found out it’s easy to send a malicious text or be anbiguous or threatening by this method. I remember you posting before and you were experiencing verbal abuse then too. Enough is enough. You say that you ‘want to take a good look at yourself’, great but do it for you….not because this abuser is telling you to.
Distance is paramount here. Remember though,he may not take silence lying down. These kind of guys like to have the last word. Tell him clearly one last time that you will report him if he verbally abuses you. Then change your number.
Re your Mum, ex, him and the stuff they are feeding you. Whatever!You have your own opinion…stick to it.
It is a good idea to get back in contact with those whose opinion you trust,who make you feel good about yourself and who may be impartial. Phone them, meet up. Engage. Leave this meanie behind in 2011.
Grace,
” Good would be to do the brave tough thing and strike out without him. Courage.” Very well put. Being good to yourself equals courage. Being good to someone undeserving is gift wrapping yourself as a doormat.
I have come to realise all of this. Thank you for your comments – it helps to have support in what I think I know to be true – and its helping me believe in myself. I have spent way too much of everything on him (and others) and I need it all to stop. I have looked back and seen that hardly anything he sends is kind to me. I had isolated myself from my friends because of this man – either because I was waiting around for him or because I felt so ashamed I didn’t want to see anyone. I have got back in touch with some and they have been understanding. They are truly supportive friends and I realise I am lucky. It does all have to stop and I want it to now. I don’t want to be a victim anymore! And I know when I am not around him I’m much better. Thank you for your support
“For all the women out there who don’t have a choice, choose better for yourself and ignore him.” Amen Grace.
My mother once told me that I chose men as if I was a poor single mother with a few kids hanging off me – in other words, I carried on as if I expected my options to be extremely limited. I was deeply offended but she was actually right…not least because I learned it from her!
Two of my NCs have been writing texts about how much I mean’t to them, how empty their lives are without me…. Blah blah blah. One said it would be a frosty winter…. Strange coz here in kenya, December is the hottest driest months with temperatures averaging 35-40 degrees C!!!!
The reality is that when I was with them, I was miserable they demanded sex when I was having a really bad MS day. They “forgot” to call me for weeks, and they never paid back the money they borrowed from me. They disparaged me in public and in private. They ignored me and called me ugly…. I no longer suffer selective amnesia.
Wizzy, They lost out on you and that is their issue. They didn’t treat you well when they had you. It is unlikely they know how to care for you now in the way that is worthy of you. Based on what you said they were sadistic and acted as if you were a person made for their needs and not in need of anything for yourself. I hope you stand up for yourself in the future and not let anyone who shows themselves as unable to treat you well get a foothold in your life as you are a beautiful soul and not deserving of unkindness. You take care of yourself and let them deal with their true loss of one who DID care…hope you have a good season in Kenya and remember that you don’t need their BS bringing you down. Have a good New Year!
Thank you.
It’s very reassuring to know that NC is the best reply for these guys.
But I met a guy a few weeks ago. we exchanged numbers and spoke a few times, then he vanished!…for like two weeks. Funny about this post by Nat. ..coz he texted!!! and he said that he missed me and had a few issues to deal with. I replied that he had the rest of his life to deal with issues, but I didn’t.
Sometimes life now feels like an excersise in indetifiying these A- holes…where are the good ones????
Wizzy, I don’t know where all the good ones are but I do know that you have to keep flushing the bad ones so you have room for the good one who is worthy of being in your life. I just read “Understanding the Tin Man” by William July and it seems that when a man isn’t ready for a relationship there is nothing to be done but pass him by. Most of the relationship advice that makes sense emphasises that again and again…if they are not ready then pass ’em by.Flush ’em ’til you meet one who is authentically emotionally available for a real relationship with one woman. I find it hard to find a good pair of shoes…I see a lot that look good but few feel the way I need them too and function for the purpose that I’d purchase them for…finding the right fit in a mate is at least as challenging.
Another call from an ‘unknown’ number. Is it him? Didn’t answer, no voicemail left. Why am I shaking though?
Doesn’t matter who it was keep NC and find something better to do.
Answer InLoveWithMarried’s question on nail polish…deep red or classic red (I’m a classic red girl myself), decide if your Team Jolie or Team Aniston and which one of the Kardashian’s is the most obnoxious.
See now those are things to worry about.
I’m not sure which I’m doing more:
1) dreading getting the text or
2) dreading not getting one
Both, I realize, are making way too much out of a damn text that hasn’t even happened yet and might not. Only one week into NC though, so I’m trying not to be so hard on myself for my resolve being so wobbly. Already, though, I’m starting to remember all the reasons why it needed to end for good and I’m making a point of getting out and keeping myself busy. Unfortunately, as someone in her 40’s, 90% of my friends are married with kids and doing the stay-at-home thing and it’s too expensive in this town to just go anywhere (even the dive bars cost $75 to get in on NYE here in NYC). But I’m trying…
Hi NoMoreFear – I did the stay at home thing even when I was single and in my 20s. It costs that much to get into places here in London or back home in Dublin. It’s just one night. If you don’t want to hang out with these friends, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is.
NML
I do know a single mother with three daughters who finally married a keeper when she was well into her 40s.
There is a constant barrage of:
“You can’t meet a man in your teens, they’re too young. You can’t meet a man in your 20s cos they are all shagging around. You can’t meet a man in your 30s cos all the good ones are taken. You can’t meet a man in your 40s cos they only want younger women. You can’t meet a man in your 50s cos – they still only want younger women. You can’t meet a man in your 60s because you’re too old. You can’t meet a man in your 70s/80s cos they’re all dead”.
If you believe this , it’s no wonder that when an AC/EUM comes along you treat him like he is the last man on earth. I’ve got no choice. He’s the last one – I have to make it work!
You’re so right Grace! That’s what people don’t realise – when you put together all of the things that people say make it difficult or impossible to meet a man, then it basically means it’s impossible at any age to meet someone. Which is bullshit.
My mum was the very thing she said I was behaving like – no matter how circumstances changed or what she had going, she believed she had little options. I thought I had little options because of who I was – my option was Mr Unavailable.
When I became a lone mother at 28 years old I thought all my options with men had narrowed drastically, or all but closed down (I do still think they had narrowed, but not nearly as much as I thought at the time).
That’s when I had a thing with a married man, a few brief encounters with EU men and then the long-haul most current ex EUM arsey man – I met him when I was 39 years old. Yep, I thought he was the last man on earth – it was this or nothing – because I wasn’t in a position to expect a man to deliver a proper relationship or care about another man’s child and because I had a child to love and care for 24/7 I believed I wasn’t in a position either to offer a man a ‘proper relationship’, so I went for what I also thought I could give, or something like that.
What I see now is that if you talk yourself into a corner, you’ll find yourself in a corner! And many women do it. The world is actually heaving with men – of all ages – if we a want a decent one that’s all we need to find = *one*. How hard can it be? Lol?!! 🙂
Wish I would’ve read this yesterday. Heard from the ex mm…yesterday. After a year of NC. He played the “friend” card & we texted back and forth for 5hours about him….I went right back into the role of ego-stroker, shoulder to lean on, building him up…listening about how his wife doesn’t meet his needs. Left me with a knot in my stomache. All the work I’d done on myself over the past year….poof! I think I’m the fallback girl (we’ve known each other 20years..thru marriages, divorces, etc.) All this drama over a text? It was just a text!!! How do I put Pandora back in her box? Start NC again? Ugh!
E
Sounds like he got what he wanted out of you and you enabled him to do it. Get back on the wagon.
You’re right color orange. So very very true. Trying NOT to beat myself up for a moment…or 5hrs ….of weakness. Starting fresh right now!!!
No need to sweat it momentary blip in your progress. Carry on with NC and don’t look back.
E, you’ve just spent 365 days being NC – now that your 5 hour text fling is over, get back on the wagon. Let the hangover from your crumb intoxication remind you of where dipsticks reside – at the push of a button.
This time last year i was in a very bad place. I had just caught the man i lived with cheating. I threw him out and he still hung around trying to get an ego stroke/sex etc etc. Whilst trying to get these benefits from me he was planning an engagement ( within a month of us breaking up) and a wedding a few months down the line. 2011 has been a very trying year for me and although i am still single and a little lonely whilst he is spending his 1st Xmas with his Wife and new family i am determined to enjoy mine with friends and family who actually care and love me. I have ordered your book Natalie and it shall be with me tomorrow. I wanted to thank BR for helping me finally discover that in order to receive the love i deserve i need to start to love myself first. I still have a long way to go but i am sure i will get there
Merry Xmas to everyone
Louise, just remember that you don’t need to feel like you’re so exceptional that you need a man to propose inside a month after meeting him…especially one trying to get with his ex. He’s no good. He might be married and no good, but I’d rather it was her than you. Don’t envy her and thanks for buying my book – enjoy!
The thing i don’t undertstand is getting a random text or email out of the blue, always just a one liner of ‘hope you’re well’ or something and i reply only to be greeted with radio silence. Not replying again, as it’s happened twice and always wrecks my head for weeks. It’s so insincere and we’re obviously not friends, so it baffles me why he even bothers when he ended it.
Lisa,
It’s like taking some bait off the end of a hook, and he sits there with a broad smile saying to himself, “Yep, still got her.” Then he goes about his merry way until next time.
Lisa, I think he’s just looking for an ego stroke in the form of a response! Nothing bewildering about it (though I know what you mean, it’s like, “Errr, YOU broke up with ME.”) – he’s an asshole. Put him on your block list and let him bother someone else.
Lisa
It’s no bother to him. It’s just a text. The person who’s bothered is you.
Well done for dropping him. Keep it up.
“This all goes back to why you must focus on building mutual relationships – when you match someone with their low effort and see their low effort for what it is, you don’t see gold where’s there’s copper – you see their lack of effort and the reflected results in your life and distance yourself, flush them, or know the limits of your interaction with them.”
All I see now is a big heap of copper. Thanks to you Natalie. Lack of effort? had it in spades and i had the results reflected in my life. What the hell was I thinking? All that lack of effort and lazy communication could mean only *one* thing. Finally, I really feel I have joined all the dots. What a lazy using, manipulative arse of a man…. and here’s the other thing: you have knocked me on the head again with highlighting that I/we are just as guilty if we are also just texting. I used texting as my way of maintaining contact with him. I was also manipulative and attention seeking – by text. I was managed down though, I think. I wanted to phone him, to speak to him face to face many times, but I was cowardly. Many times after a ‘text row’ I would pick up the phone and call him, being sick and tired of (and annoyed about) doing ‘this’ by text. He could never get off the phone fast enough – he always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t ‘talk about this right now’.
What was I thinking? The important thing is this: I am not thinking it anymore!
Thanks for all the great posts Natalie – thanks for knocking some sense into my head – it’s been a long road but I feel pretty confident now that I have knocked this ex guy – and his woeful lack of effort – right off his pedestal.
Wishing you and your family a peaceful and happy Christmas. Best wishes from me.
My ex texted me yesterday: “Can we meet up during the holidays? I would really like to try and have a friendship with you”
I responded: “I don’t hate you, but I don’t see the point”
He said “If you can find it in your heart to meet up… blah blah”
And then a few hours later when I didn’t respond, he sent a text casually talking about his life… again I ignored.
Last year when he pulled this stunt I agreed to meet up with him, and I hated every second of it. I now see it for what it is… manipulative and selfish. He just wants to feel better about this, so that he can feel like he wasn’t such a horrible person to me when in fact he extorted me, abused me, cheated on me, and all kinds of wonderful things. On top of it all, he has absolutely no respect for me if he’s still trying to contact me after I specifically asked him to leave me alone. Flat out disrespect– gross.
This website has really made me see the forest for the trees. I feel so much better in my life now that I don’t let myself date emotionally unavailable men or assclowns… sometimes I mess up, but the time it takes me to figure out something is wrong and cut them out of my life has drastically reduced from years to months to weeks… to days. And it feels SO good! I haven’t dated anyone in months, which is fine. I’ve been so busy living my life and doing things for me, and while I am still not ready to date yet, I feel like I look at men differently. The things that attract me now are kindness, respect, responsibility… above and beyond chemistry. Oh sure, chemistry is important. But sometimes it’s just my dysfunction reaching out to someone else’s dysfunction, so I try to be very careful when dealing with intense chemistry. And the text message/instant message communication thing just doesn’t fly. Years ago I dated a guy primarily through MSN! A month ago some EU in my circle of friends tried to “date” me that way, and I friend-zoned him so fast his head was spinning.
Good for you Jen!!! You got this! So happy for you & I admire your strength.
Oh wow Jen, your words really hit me: ‘Oh sure, chemistry is important. But sometimes it’s just my dysfunction reaching out to someone else’s dysfunction, so I try to be very careful when dealing with intense chemistry. ‘
I have been struggling with chemistry, wanting it as well as the integrity, decency etc… wondering if that was ‘wrong’ or something to really want it as part of the whole great relationship thing; afraid that it might be an either/or thing and not liking the thought of that. But your words about being careful to distinguish what the chemistry may be has really given me pause for thought. Very wise words!
ps
2012 is going to be mine – all mine! I insist upon it. If some guy wants to know me he had better pick up a phone, show up in person, be capable of actual human communication and not attempt to keep a foothold in my life (while keeping me out of his) with his sorry cyberspace two syllable avoidance tactic. Ladies, enough is enough.
Awesome.
Straight up reporting: I just got back from drinks with old friends in which one of my oldest male friends (20 yr friendship) took me aside and tried to get saucy with me (‘You know how I feel about you’ followed by lean in for kiss). I want to say a few things about this wrongness: 1) He is married…to another friend of mine; 2) He is now texting and calling. There is a call coming in now. This is call 25 and there are 3 texts (most received as I drove home). Reject and turn off phone; 3) I said to him straight up that this was not going to happen, that he was married, that it was wrong and pointless of him to even try something, and that he’d just feel bad. (I can imagine you’d be thinking I gave him too much in saying this, but this is a guy I am friends with, it was very strange behaviour as far as I could tell.). He looked at me in the eye and said, ‘I won’t feel bad. You will.’ At that moment, it felt like the world went sinister for a minute, like a cheap horror movie with fairground music. There was just something so telling about that, that he recognised I would feel bad and he wouldn’t (might not ultimately be true, but true, for him, for that moment). I have never been the OW in my life, but what happened tonight underscored what a crap deal OWs get. It’s a grubby prospect for everyone involved.
Urgh! The frantic calls are maybe because he’s shitting himself that you may have a word with his wife??
Not excusing his behaviour it was grubby and foolish but people do strange things, this time of year at drinks parties. Was he three sheets to the wind..? These kinds of cringeworthy faux pas happen every Christmas/Holidays but it’s what it does to the long term friendship that lingers and untimately matters.
There is a chance that he wants to apologise and let things lie, you alone know whether that’s a possibility because you alone know the history and nature of your friendship with him.
Sordid thing to say though…’ I won’t feel bad you will..’ Yuck, feel a shudder coming on. Hope you resolve this to your own satisfaction Elle, that’s the only bit that matters.
Elle,
That is really creepy. I got goosebumps when I read what he said to you about you being the one who will feel bad, not him. Sounds like maybe he has gone down this road before. I feel bad for his wife, and for you for having to have been within 5 feet of this dirt bag. He sounds like he is stalking at this point……creepy!!!!! I don’t know if ignoring him or telling him to fuck off is better. It makes it even harder that he and his wife have been friends with you for awhile. I would no longer consider him a friend since he just revealed what he really is. Slippery and callous….and kind of scary in my opinion.
Elle
“He looked at me in the eye and said, ‘I won’t feel bad. You will.’ At that moment, it felt like the world went sinister for a minute,”
Just goes to show how concerned these men are for how we might feel about what they’d like us to do with them. It’s sickening, and very telling and, yes, sinister. Time to give this “friend” the cold shoulder, Elle?
That gave ME the shudders over cyberspace! Wuhuhuhuh…
A classic example, though, of someone telling it like it is right from the start. Well done for not giving the creep the time of day.
Hey Elle,
Just wanted to chime in with the others with the shudders regarding your “encounter” with the MM. Good for you for ignoring his texts/calls. Sometimes (maybe many times based on the coments on this post), silence is the best way of communicating how inappropriate his conduct was. Stay silent.
I have to admit, there’s a part of me relishing the fact that since you haven’t responded, he’s shitting his pants wondering what you are going to do. That was one creepy comment. Also note the irony, he’s called 25 times and only texted 3 times. Apparently they do know how to call when their arse is in the wringer. I am sorry about the 20 year friendship though. Stay strong and stay silent. Silence is golden…couldn’t help it!
Thanks ladies. I appreciate it. I wrote this as it was happening, but it did not come through, for some reason, on my computer. It deleted when I pressed ‘submit’, hence the repetition in my message above (to ColourOrange) this morning, when I felt tired and hassled by the whole thing. (Feeling OK now, but it made me feel really drained). He was not calling last night to apologise or back-pedal. I know this because the last text I got, which I only saw this morning as I had turned my phone off by this point, was to say ‘Where are you exactly? I want to stay with you.’ Anyway, he has since rung a few times (unanswered) and sent a couple of texts, all along the lines of ‘I am worrying about what I did last night when I was drunk. Sorry I behaved badly. I hope you can forgive me. I feel silly.’ That sort of thing (combo of guilt and embarrassment). Anyway, I did reply in the end, because I will see this guy again and it is a little less straightforward when it’s an old friend, just saying ‘Hey, it wasn’t any way to behave so you should probably feel worried – it would be bad if you didn’t. I wanted and want no part in any of it, and how you feel has got nothing to do with me so please don’t include me in it anymore.’ I got one more text of course, another sorry, but that was it.
Anyway, I could so see how I could have bought into what he was saying about what I meant to him, even just to feel pretty and special for Christmas. Hehe! I wouldn’t have done it anyway as that’s not my scene (other dysfunctional things, but not OW), however I can see how nice it would have been for a moment, esp off the back of a few guys telling me various things about my prospects! ; ) Thanks again, ladies, and all the best for a peaceful holiday weekend. All I want for Christmas is space between me and what’s going on around me. That would be my present-of-choice right now! xxx
Thank you, I could go on and on about this or that, but no. Thank you, is all I need to say. I am sure that you understand. #thatisall 😀
Ah… My last text from ex MM/co worker – from last night…. Have a chuckle, ladies 🙂
“I cheated on X (his wife) for almost three years. I’m not madly in love with her. I’m here cuase my kids are here and I’m a coward. I don’t want to face the world as a cheater/liar/adulterer and I don’t want to set that example for my kids. I’m sorry but that’s the truth. My world is OK, nothing great, you were the highlight but I can’t and especially YOU can’t do that anymore. As much as I friggin adore you. Don’t respond, please. I love you”.
Oh, lordy. I laughed. AND I responded. My response? “You also cheated on ME for almost three years”.
What an AC. Oh woe is him.
Well at least he’s got one thing right…..he’s a coward…..
“Don’t respond, please. I love you”. Barf.
Res
eugh, that makes me feel a bit sick, and I don’t think it’s all the christmas chocolates.
I just got the equivalent of a text from an ex-EUM, who has been trying to keep a foothold in my life for over 20 years, with varying degress of success. He sent me a one-line email about happy christmas or something. bleugh. i barely read it.
Flush.
Oh my God…yes….similar to my exMM ( ex as of this Monday)….I am in the marriage only not to set bad example to my children….while having sex in my apartment I have not noticed that you were thinking of your children …..they are all for sex…only that…
Thanks to this site which I discovered only last week I left my ex MM on Monday…(relations for 7 months), get rid of another EU guy with whom I used to text almost every day for hours…
The one guy I did date that was half-way decent DID call. He text and that was ok because he followed up in other ways too. He did come to see me and it was obvious he was interested. That’s the only one. In my clearer moments, I see where I was EU and had no clue. This text thing IS quite a phenomenon. I do it maybe five times a week max? But it burns me up when a guy comes along and that’s all he wants to do. It says to me “you’re not worth me dialing you up or going out with for some serious coffee, so let me punch buttons on a keypad to sling you around.” Ouch!
This week my ex e-mailed me (turns out you can’t block people you work with – oops!) to tell me he had changed phone and it hadn’t carried my number over … and to say that if I wanted him to have my number just to ‘let him know’.
Honestly.
This is the man who communicated his emotional state through the number of kisses he signed off his texts with (4 – blowing hot, 3 – average, 2 – getting annoyed etc.) Really! It’s so cringey now, but I used to genuinely be bothered by it!
Oh and he signed the e-mail with 2 kisses… *snigger*
I won’t lie, it was a shock to hear from him, my heart was thumping and my hands were shaking with the temptation to reply – but thanks to BR I took a deep breath and reminded myself how far I’ve come in only six weeks.
I ignored it. Onward.
Good for you Blue skies!!!!
blueskies,
OMG! I could tell the emotional status of the ex EUM by how he signed off his texts/emails. And it really bothered me too! I was more interested in the sign off than the content as it told me exactly where I stood with him at any given time.
signed off:
Full first name and a kiss and a “princess” = I am dead into you right now; I love how you don’t expect anything from me and make no demands. This is your reward. Don’t you feel lucky? I’ll be wanting to see you very soon and hope this is warming you up for sex.
First initial and a kiss or two = am still feeling good about you but I also need to keep a safe distance but I also might want to see you soon and will be wanting some sex.
First initial and no kiss = (eeeeekk! panic stations.) you have said something that is against the rules of engagement. You gave out an ‘expectation vibe’ or you called me on my crap and your punishment starts right now. Or maybe I just need to manage you back down now after my full first name, three kisses and a ‘princess’ got me laid.
No name, no initial, no kiss – nothing = you have really pissed me off. Don’t expect to hear from me again until you do some serious grovelling.
And this is what I read into all of this. And I still kept seeing the rat-arse. Pfft.
Fearless, you’ve decoded the sign off in a funny way, but it’s also sickening and horrifying. I went through something similar, the highest indicator of my ex-EUM’s “hot” barometer was indicated by the number of exclamation marks after a kiss, better still “KISSSSSSSSS!!!!” (the best he could manage). I cannot believe how I did jump for joy once upon a time over such insipid, juvenile expressions and how I, supposedly an adult, could accept something like that as human communication. The content was threadbare, mundane reporting about what he ate, or what he’d acquired. When I replied at lengths, often maximizing the full capacity of a text to a mere “how r u”, there was not much of a follow up response. When I received “GN” (good night), with nothing, I panicked. I did so much groveling to try to break the silence. Some other of his favourite lines that kept me “hot” were:
“When can I see u again?”
“do u want to see me”? (as if it was such an immense honor seeking an audience with him, aka his majesty!)
Sometimes I remember just staring at a skeleton-like text, trying to picture the complex emotions behind those letters. Some texts had many dots…….. that meant something mysterious and secretive, some complex, lingering afterthought of his that couldn’t be articulated and got me really excited. That was one crazy period of my life, desperately trying to communicate and reach out to someone who wasn’t interested in it/me. I’ll never settle for that kind of bogus pseudo-communication again and it’s worst than nothing to me. Love your balloon release analogy too by the way!
LOL! Oh Fearless, I always enjoy your comments. ‘you have said something that is against the rules of engagement. You gave out an ‘expectation vibe’ or you called me on my crap and your punishment starts right now.’ You have a way of verbalizing nearly everything these ac’s put us through. Happy Holidays to all!
[should I sign my full name or just an initial??]
outergirl
Try a “princess” and two kisses and you’re well in there!
@JadeS
Am so with you on all of that – bogus pseudo-communication is exactly what it amounts to – well said. For every word my ex texted 0r emailed to me I saw him and raised him three thousand! (And I always walked away empty handed). I so wish I hadn’t bothered my arse! For men that think so much of themselves they’ve got shag all to say!
You’re always so timely Natalie, truly. It amazes me that despite different colours, classes, and hell, geographic locations, these men are truly all the same.
Even more amazing is my naivety. I honestly believed that he’d just let things be – we’ve had so many squabbles and ‘broken up’ so many times but I still clearly failed to acknowledge the level of his a**holery and selfishness.
So he, like the other men mentioned in the comments here, sent a seasons greetings message, after months and months of silence. Of course, it was all about him – how he regretted how things went with our relationship, felt like he lost a friend, would be doing better in the future. Is there a formula out there that all these men follow? I mean honestly, the similarities are UNCANNY.
That said, I’ve wondered about responding or not; but after reading this, I thought about why I wanted to respond at all and it was because of ‘good girl syndrome’. When I asked myself if I wanted to respond or not, the simple answer was no. And considering he’s never considered my feelings, I don’t intend to consider his either. Merry Christmas to me – I’ll be damned if I take him into 2012.
right before I cut my ex off, we had broken up but he still occasionally texted me. I had a minor surgery, and he sent me flowers and “how are you feeling?” texts while I was recovering at home. I was enjoying the attention, although it wasn’t quite the same as actually having someone there feeding me soup and keeping me company. Then, after about a week, his ex wife called me– he was letting her stay in his house and she had taken it upon herself to call and say a bunch of weird stuff to me.
I realized while he was ordering flowers/sending texts to me in lala land that she was sleeping at his house, co-parenting his children, and participating daily in his real life. The reason we had broken up in the first place was that he had unresolved feelings about his messy divorce which made him unavailable for a real relationship with me. Her phone call made it clear that a few texts didn’t change that fact. It broke my heart at the time but I just couldn’t stomach staying even virtually entangled in something so unhealthy and so unrewarding (for me) so I told him not to call/text/email anymore. Even though I still have a little fantasy that he’ll clean up his act and show up as a normal, healthy partner I know the truth is that he’s probably still the wimpy, clueless, victim he was in our relationship. A few sweet texts are not worth being vulnerable to someone who is buying time so he can continue using me as an emotional airbag!!
the empowering song for fall back girls worldwide!!! here’s to an AC-FREE new year ladies!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlzCpTEhhQM&feature=related
I see your Nancy Wilson and raise you some Macy Gray! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVKF-0l7UeI have an awesome Christmas too, here’s to a healthy 2012!
Don’t forget Christina Perri’s ‘Jar of Hearts’. Not an upbeat anthem, but word for word it’s how I think so many of feel towards the EUM’s that we’ve begun to grow out of…
‘So don’t come back for me. Don’t come back at all. Who do you think you are?’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_4O44sfjM
When he weaseled his way into my life, he gave me the line, “I don’t want to ruin a good friendship, but” … and then he did just that and expected me to go back to square one, like nothing more ever mattered. I realized this guy has SEPARATION ISSUES and that these holiday calls are just his desperation over separation talking, not anything sincere about “us”. Pretty much everything he said and did was about HIM, and not so much about me or us together . So I gave him the NC and he stopped calling eventually.
I have always known that ‘a text’ does not make a relationship. Yes, they are handy for all ready established relationships. For quick messages in established relationships that also include real contact, in person (and phone calls)… The texts are just one more helpful way to keep in touch with the true meaningful people of your life.
EU’s that randomly send out “hey…” texts are just ‘fishing’ for their own selfish needs. DO NOT BITE.
When I attempted dating last year, the one fellow I thought would be interesting ONLY texted. After the 3rd date I TOLD him, I didn’t think he was that interested in me if all he was able to offer me was text conversations. I TOLD him I prefer phone communications. He told me I was mistaken that he liked me very much, so I agreed to a 4th date. BUT he continued the ‘text’ only communication… so I blew off the date and him. Then every 3 months he’d send some long text updating me on his life, he moved, he got a different job, had a birthday… I would just shake my head, and when I had time, if I felt like it, I might send back, “That’s nice.” I stopped replied after awhile. We’d had 3 dates, 1 phone call after the 1st date, and nothing else… 6 months later what was the point of replying to his random “fishing line” texts.
Text is really the laziest form of contact. As Nat says, if someone really cared, they’d be phoning / speaking in person.
Imagine if we were several decades in the past, with no means to email, text etc. Would anyone get excited if they got a letter in the mail, that only said, “Hi, how you doing?”
Not likely.
“Imagine if we were several decades in the past, with no means to email, text etc. Would anyone get excited if they got a letter in the mail, that only said, “Hi, how you doing?”
Not likely.”
Lol!! Imagine. I am of the generation who used to letter write. I went to a boarding school (nothing very posh!) and in the holiday periods I would send and receive letters from my school mates from various places around the world. I have kept them all. I also had a boyfriend when I was in my teens who went to work away one summer and I have loads of letters from him during this period. Guess what? None of them say “Hi, how you doing?”. He also called me every day or so – from a phone box! When someone wants to progress the relationship they will make an effort to keep up good communications with you. If they’re not doing it – it is a big hint that they don’t want to do it therefore they don’t actually want the relationship to progress beyond what it already is. As Grace has said, they text to maintain the ‘barely there’ status quo with you – they are not texting you to get to know you better!
Hi Barbar Doduk,
Thanks to this site, I learned to trust what I already knew [but maybe forgot]. I met someone through a mutual friend over the past year. When I say ‘met’ I mean, we know each other when we show up at mutual places. At a party in Oct., we spent nearly the whole time enjoying each other’s company and at the end, he asked me for my phone number. He never called. Oh wait..he called once, to let me know he was on Facebook [G-d I HATE that frikkin’ thing] and to please ‘accept my friend request’. Oh how pathetic, what a turn off. This week he sent me a message [Whoo-hoo!] ‘Hey how are you?’ I waited a few days before replying something like ‘call me if you’d like to catch up ..I am going crazy with my move’. Did he call? No. Did he express an interest in my move? No. But he let me know he’d posted some new pictures..Oh boy!! and to inquire if I would be at a New Year’s eve party. What am I? The ready-made date? I deleted the messages. FLUSH!
Outergirl
Couldn’t help spluttering with laughter into my glass of wine reading about the antics of this plonker who’s texting you and wanting you to look at his pics on f/bk. What a joker! S’truth, it’s like dealing with twelve year olds! And isn’t it just like the thing that they text asking how you are and then do not actually want to know the answer! If it wasn’t so sad It’d be hilarious. You feel like telling them to go find a girl their “own age” (but that would be in very bad taste.)
Fearless,
‘Plonker’!! Oh I love the various names we have for them. He’s in his 40’s! Like 12 y.o. GIRLS they are. But forewarned is forearmed and I won’t waste any time on him. Thanks for the support and the laugh.
Outergirl ~ I applaud you!
All you gals are so inspiring! You help me take Natalie’s articles to another level of understanding and implementation. I’m new to BR and it’s so unbelievable and sad to me, yet comforting to know, how these EUM all run the same script. I am grateful for BR and all who comment!
I renewed the block on both of my ex’s on my cell last night. It felt good to keep the power on my side and not let them have a chance to feed me BS. I am sick of the stupid one line texts, or a sappy text that is sent only to fulfill some need in them. If someone really cares about you, they either do what it takes to be with you properly or they leave you alone. The ones that linger in the middle and send random texts are being EU and keeping you on ice. It kind of pisses me off that they think that lazy crumbs are okay with me. I am NOT that woman anymore. Thank you Natalie, for being a light house for those of us who couldn’t find our way.
Merry Christmas everyone. Hang in there and focus on the good things we have in our lives.
I am dreading the holidays, just waiting to see if he texts or doesn’t text. I feel like either way I am going to be disappointed. If he does it, its only to keep me complacent, so I do not get so aggitated that the next time he does contact me, I yell at him. And if he doesn’t Contact me does that mean it’s really over?? I am new to this whole NC thing, but I do feel like following these very well written posts will help. Its been 9 years of this one guy ruling my life in one way or the other, us being together or me just living my life trying to get over him. I know I am smarter then this… Sorry for the rambling, but it feels nice.
jill
it’s over when you say it’s over. his silly texts don’t change that, provided you just ignore them.
Jill,
I did ten years of the same (have struggled with NC for well over a year now – but it’s quite easy for me now) We too were either together (of a sorts) or I was living my life trying to get over him. The only thing that has worked for me is reading Natalie and BR. I know exactly how you feel and relate completely to what you are saying. Give it up. Let it go. Imagine a big balloon full of all the stuff about him and you and just let it go, let it float up into the air and off and away all on its own. Keep reading Natalie’s stuff and try to stay away from him as well as you can. The only thing that has brought true clarity to me is distance from him – and learning that my value and my worth is all mine – I own it, he does not bestow it on me nor take it away; my value belongs to me; it has *nothing* to do with him – that was my greatest light bulb moment (I learned it right here through Nat’s posts) Good luck. Focus on loving you and on your own well-being.
I realized the same today too when reading this latest from Nat. It has nothing to do with him at all. It’s all about me and what I’ve been doing to run away from much bigger issues in my life. Fearless, I loved the analogy with the balloon! That’s exactly what it is though. It’s like a ball of twine , all entangled in a mass and 110% of our energy goes into that ball of twine leaving 0% for ANYTHING else. It”s important to start looking at what else is going on in your life that you subconsciously become so entwined in such a mess and literally put your life, hopes and dreams on hold. I have to keep reading Nat’s blogs. It seems to be the first thing that has made sense to me and I thank her for that.
D’you know, freaky timing.
I’ve been sitting here reading the comments and my phone’s going mad. My phone NEVER goes mad these days, it’s usually as silent as the grave as I sit here in Picking-Myself-Up-And-Putting-Myself-Back-Together-Land. So you’d think I’d be pleased to have some semblance of a social life, maybe?
Nope.
Some of them are from my ex – do I want to go out with him on NYE? (No, you’re nice and I like you but we split up because our values are polarised and trying to ignore all the things that I wanted out of life made me miserable).
Some of them are from a random dude that I met on a rare night out recently, who has a girlfriend but thought that we could be ‘awesome friends’. I would be amenable to this if he’d rung to talk/suggested me meeting his girlfriend/arranged to meet for coffee even, but so far it’s just a stream of non-stop texts. (No, I don’t want to text all the time and this smells shady to me. And take the hint that I’m not replying!)
Some of them are from the father of my child. (Well, I’m still not over you but nor am I going to leap up and down over a few LINES of contact from you. It’s the equivalent of two-second’s conversation).
So I’m sitting here, happy as a clam, not replying or issuing polite refusals and planning to RING my REAL FRIENDS, people who contact me and spend time with me because they like ME, not all the fringe benefits of knowing me.
BR works! Thanks Nat, and Ho Ho Ho.
This came to me at the right time! I’ve been NC for approx 10 weeks, but in the early days when I was at my lowest point I actually drafted a text message ready to send him over the Xmas period. Saying something along the lines of “Happy Xmas, and New Year, let’s stay in touch”. I look back now and think what state of mind must I have been in to even suggest that. This man managed 90% of our *relationship* via text, because he was always “so busy” or ” having a hectic week” to make calls! This was one of the many things that he done that made me uncomfortable and I didn’t question it with him because I wanted to adjust to make him want me more! Sad but true. His numbers are not even in my phone so even if I wanted to I couldn’t text him anyway! Nobody is that busy, he isn’t the bloody Prime Minister!
I am repeating my entry so nobody makes the same mistake without thinking! I got a very early Merry Christmas text (Dec 13) from my out of state, EUM/MM, and a hello to my Mom? (crazy, I know!) Me, without thinking (same Mom brought me up with good manners, too good!) replied “Same to you, Nice to Hear From You!” Didn’t even MEAN that! And broke NC! Remember girls: it is only a text; be polite to YOURSELF and DELETE!
so right about the texting. there is no emotional resonance with a text – just innuendo, fantasy and misinterpretations. i’m on serious no contact right now and i’ve ignored 2 texts and one email and didn’t call to say “thank you” to his silly flowers. (my ex is also a malignant narcissist, in addition to being a run of the mill assclown!). the last text he sent was pathetic: “in memory of the passing of vaclave havel, i am playing mozart’s requieum on a rainy day here in las vegas.” i guess this was to impress me with his heart felt sentiments and intellectual capacities. what a dope. NO CONTACT!
Dear Natalie,
It’s my BR anniversary! I’ve been going back through the archives to find when I first discovered BR and that I was unavailable, being managed by texts, and being throughly dysfunctional. You responded to me with such honesty and care for an entire year. I want to thank you and tell you I’m truly grateful. I wish I could meet you in person someday. You are awesome. I’m also grateful for all the comments from Fearless, Grace, Magnolia, and Oldenough, and so many others as I was struggling to regain my self-esteem. I’m betting it could be quite a moment if we all got to meet in person. Thank you. I’m so grateful for all your support. Oh yeah, if he texts, which he can’t because he’s blocked but he knows to create a new account, it’s still simple. DELETE. He can create as many new accounts as he wants. DELETE.
((((((big squeezy hugs))))))) Congratulations Runnergirl on what has been an incredible year of growth and positive inspiration. We got there in the end eh?! It’s been an absolute pleasure and I shall definitely meet you in 2012!
One of the greatest sources of inspiration and pleasure is to walk alongside and champion people on their journey through change. I have learned and grown as a result of you also and you gave me a wonderful jolt in the summer 😉
The married guy has ended up being a blessing in disguise – like an exorcism of the melting pot of experiences and beliefs that forced you to look inward and make major changes. My experience did the same – there is something about the brutality of bring second best, being the person he cheats with, disappoints, slots into his schedule for fun times and uses like an upper and a painkiller that forces you to rock bottom while pulling out all your parent issues into the open.
Keep thriving and striving x
dear runnergirl:
has it been a whole year since i related to so many things in those early posts of yours? I haven’t gone back to look (I might cringe at some of the things I wrote!) but I know that today’s runnergirl is very different from the one who was justifiably on the verge of outing the other side of the family-values image of a cheating MM. Your story, which at times showed starkly that what makes for good reality TV is nothing that we would ever actually want to have happen to those we love, has taught me much. Including that we must be included in the “those we love” that we honor and protect. And that the ‘block’ function on our cell phones is our friend. I hope to be able to meet you someday, too. Congratulations on a great year of growth!
Hear, hear, RG. I am so glad for you. I too feel super appreciative towards Natalie – who I have had the lovely chance to meet (she’s as much of a dude as you imagine she would be – warm, sharp, funny, generous and self-possessed – excuse third person, NML) – and all of you readers who comment. Geez Nat, that was me over a year ago now: rock bottom while and my parent issues pulled into the open. Still feel that I haven’t quite managed to put all my spilt-out guts back into place, but getting there, every day thanks, mostly, to this site. I too remember being just so amazed and, pretty much saved, by the people who first helped me truly say, and be OK with saying, that I was treated poorly, that it was OK for me to feel what I was feeling, and understand why some of it happened in terms that could help get me through. I was just so stunned and hurt and in a complete anxiety vortex about it all. This is sanity-making, this place. Thanks and hat tips to all of us!
Dear runner
happy anniversary! You have helped me more than you know. BR would be the poorer place without you – I hope we keep hearing from you even when you don’t need us anymore! Well done – did I say you are an A grade student?! Lol (me? am a bit lazy! But I get there in the end). It would be great to meet one day – if there are plans, please don’t forget me! You have come so far, runner and I know the rest of your life will be happier and more peaceful for you, whatever it brings. I am sending you lots of love and best wishes for Christmas and new year. Now, go party!
Hi Ladies,
Thank you so much Natalie. Yup, being an OW forced me to examine just WTF was wrong with me. Thanks for being such a steadfast guiding light. One thing I’m grateful for is not spending my days and nights checking my cell phone. That alone freed up quite a bit of time to focus on me. I’ll never see a text the same. Cringe.
Magnolia, your comments a year ago were precisely spot on, no need to cringe. I forgot about how close I came to outing the family man whose definition of a family apparently included a mistress! The block function on my cell/computer brought me great peace even if he did use other accounts. I just blocked those too. Remember the B-Day card via snail mail! Cockroach.
Fearless, I’m not going anywhere. BR and you all are the only source of true wisdom and sanity. You’ve been such and inspiration and damned funny too. I’ve still got a lot of work to do. First thing in 2012 is to get out of the house. That ought to bring some adventures. Instead of my cell phone, I’ll be packing my flush handle.
And Elle, you’ll get the parent baggage sorted and unloaded. I’m not all the way there yet, but I’ve off-loaded a ton thanks to you all. Keep feeling your feelings. If I would have given myself persmission to feel my feelings, I would not have ended up in the OW gutter.
Cheers all. Here’s to an AC/EUM/MM and text free 2012.
PS. Helpful budget hint: I cut my cell phone bill in half by reducing my plan!
Please Runner Girl,
Don’t Leave, you are such an inspiration and role model to me. I often think of you in my weak moments. Truly, your journey and insight has helped me tremendously, you are wonderful and strong!
So glad you are doing well, have a wonderful holiday. And Natalie, thanks for this blog, would still be a complete mess without it. Merry Christmas everyone!
xoxoxo
Hi NeverTooLate,
Thank you. I’m not going anywhere. I still have a ton of work to do. Like you, I don’t know where I’d be now without you all and Natalie. I was truly a mess when I first logged on too BR, now I’m only kinda a mess! Here’s to the continued journey together. Peace.
I wish I’d had this blog to read when I was 15. It would have saved me A LOT of heartache and wasted time. It should be mandatory reading for all 15 year old girls!
Thanks!
Me, too, Pink Pearl! I have squandered years of precious time crying, hurting, longing over unavailable men that I continued to chase & throw my love at, hoping it would stick. I am so grateful to Natalie and all the inspiring BR bloggers for their words of inspiration and comfort. Still struggling with my own unavailability issues and a penchant for bad boys (there’s a reason why they’re called “bad,” hello) so the site helps keep me focused on making positive choices. I’ve come to acknowledge that I love the thrill of the chase & edgy, dangerous men ~a toxic type that, after the chemical high wears off, proceeds to drain the life out of me…I’m now declaring a moratorium on bad boys, thanks to BR!
Ixnay:
Thank you. I know I have to stay away from him and not feel like a bitch and guilty when I ignore him. This man is poison to me. Never in my life have I allowed someone to mess with my head the way I allowed this man to. The pain I have been through I can’t describe – there are truly no words. Every day is a struggle for me but I am determined to be free of this piece of trash who took so much from me.
And to Natalie and this wonderful site – all I can say is thank you. You have given me strength when I felt I had none.
((finally))
I so hear you. Stay strong, and I will as well.
Fearless,
Thank you for your encouragement! I can totally relate to what you said about how these guys sign off on their texts and what their emotional status was. The sweet oh how I want and need you texts always started with “My baby” or “My love”. When he was trying to push me away it was always “Hun”. Ugh it makes me sick how I fell for it and made excuses for him. Never again will I allow myself to be managed by text messages.
I think this is such a timely post. My ex contacted me this year and his text came on my phone and as it so happened by boyfriend read this text and we composed a message saying “Don’t contact me again and make it your new year resolution to not contact me again. Any more contact and you will get a christmas visit from the police” Funnily enough no further texts. Result. Its not exactly spreading christmas cheer, but I don’t care. I don’t need to be polite or give a damn!
Ah….I got one too, THE TEXT. Wishing me happy birthday and that he is thinking of me lots – he is actually on a dating site, am ashamed to say I checked ( could have saved myself the trouble but did feel rattled). So I guess there are no takers and he is checking if the door is still open or am I still an option, pinning for some more crumbs. He said life goes on and he is moving on…..I nearly let that BS ruin my day, but your post was in my inbox and I`m pleased to say that I felt like shit for about 40 minutes before a wave of relief washed over me. Natalie, this was the best birthday present I ever had, THANK YOU !!!!!
First of all a big thank you to Natalie for this website. I have never posted before but have been reading for about 6 months now. It has really helped me understand EVERYTHING about EUM and the situation I was in up until recently and really helped me in moving on. Actually a little bit to go but I feel so much better. A Christmas email received (idiot) which had relevance to our relationship. Upset for about 10minutes and then I get the email with your post. Right place right time and all that. I didn’t reply, no way but without him realising he has actually helped me move on. Not sure why but it has because it just reminded me what a liar,cheat and manipulator he is. All in a email. I know you get many posts like this Natalie but, really, Thank you. xx
I went out tonight and my EUM from way back saw me (seems to have someone hmm) and said ‘hi, long time no see’. I barely could make myself smile. Maybe I grimaced?
No it wasn’t a text, but still. I didn’t want to be happy/smiley/faking it. I just wanted him to beat it and have icicles hang from the roof.
So true Natalie…. A text is just a text and an email is just an email. I used to put too much stock into these.
I have no intention of emailing or texting my ex’s this holiday season, and I know they won’t care because I know that they don’t care about me. In the mist of the holiday season, it hurts to know that they don’t care about me after all of the things that I thought we shared, but I’ve accepted that I can’t do anything about how they feel…. But, I do believe that there is power and comfort in silence, and thus, I am sticking to my NC. My NC is a boundary. It is a boundary that says, “I didn’t want to stay in your life and be treated this way, so I’m walking away because you wouldn’t stop treating me the way you did, and I deserve better, etc.”
I know I’m just suffering from the effects of the season, so I’m just going to ride it out. What I want most is to just make it through the season without letting myself down by back tracking, after having come so far…. So, again it is NC and sticking to the various goals that I have set for myself.
One thing for sure, if my ex’s do think about me over the holidays, they will have to acknowledge that I haven’t contacted them in months, and I just want those few seconds in their brains where their thoughts say, “She’s gone. She must have moved on….” I don’t even care if they care. I will gladly take the passing thought…just so they know, that I said “no” to all of the mistreatment, the games, etc.
As for me, I am looking forward to spending the holidays with my family, and I am going to buy myself a Christmas present for the first time in my life. I am excited, so excited about loving my inner child. 🙂
Thank you for this site Natalie. I have learned so much here, and it has given me a greater understanding of many things that I was confused about. Wishing the best for you and yours. :o))
Happy Holidays Everyone!!
NC is a boundary that says, “I didn’t want to stay in your life and be treated this way, so I’m walking away because you wouldn’t stop treating me the way you did, and I deserve better, etc.”
Well said, Victoria. My recent exes cared so little about me, I initiated most of the contact which hurts tremendously. Needless to say, I don’t expect to receive any sentimental holiday communication from them, but based on the horror stories I read here at BR, it’s a blessing! As Natalie says, you’re either in or you’re out. They weren’t in, so I’m out.
Stay strong and Merry Christmas, everyone!
Brilliant post! Love the site, Natalie’s amazing advice (got the book Mr Unavailable) & this is my first comment! 🙂
Any man who relies mainly on texts as a means of communication has no balls IMO. Even my ex Mr. EU & I decided texts led to more trouble than it was worth & proceeded to have phone conversations only. We always misunderstood eachother via texts.
People do go a bit mad over Xmas. I had one AC text me this eve; someone I’m completely not interested in & my number was given without my permission by a mutual friend. This chap sent a few declarations of love, when the depth of our previous interaction (in person) was him buying me a coffee at Costa the 1st time I met him when I was with a group of mutual friends. He also flashed his iphone & Audi keys at me, as I recall, but I was busy chatting to my colleague at the time. (I seriously think he thought that was all it took??) Anyway, this eve, the texts came hard & fast. I responded once: “I am not responsible for your feelings. I am not interested. I am not replying to any texts from you. Everybody deserves someone who loves them. That girl is not me. Find peace, love yourself & Merry Christmas.” One more deranged text later & I got a protective male friend to call him. I have previously avoided answering texts from him when he started this habit, but tonight I felt he needed a good kick in the teeth but it didn’t work. Bless my male friend. He was expecting a lengthy conversation & all he got was “Ok” from this guy when telling him to back off. My guy friend was like: “My god! At least he could’ve said, “I don’t care! I like her! Get lost!” But all I got was an “ok”! WTF?! No, he doesn’t love you!” LOL!
When you’re not interested (I know this post is related to ex EUs/ACs who think they can sweep in & out) you see things clearly without emotion: the subtext of those texts point to someone who isn’t with it; slightly mad, with an overinflated sense of self-importance & yes, vastly arrogant; but at the same time, “hiding” behind texts, demonstrating a lack of confidence. It’s the “not seeing gold where there’s copper” bit Natalie wrote in that fab paragraph. The difference is amazing when you flip the equation over!
sugarblade
Your male friend’s reaction is so spot on and funny. That’s all it boils down to in the end.
“WTF?”
Thanks for the great post and all the comments. Sometimes I just scroll through the comments after reading to compare them to my own situation, and to gain strength.
I remember in his goodbye letter–that he wrote after I said goodbye because he wouldn’t even unfriend me from Facebook after he had behaved badly–my LDR ex said “I couldn’t allow myself to feel anything for you because of the distance.” He was 40 years old! And I took this seriously at the time. Now I see it as a juvenile excuse.
After all these months of struggling, I realize this: if someone really wants to be with you, he will make a way. I recently went on a vacation that I’d been putting off for years, and I had sacrificed some of my smaller wants to do it, because I really wanted to go overseas. I was the only one who could make that happen, just like he and I working together could have achieved a good relationship and who knows, maybe gotten married. But he didn’t truly want to be in the relationship, in spite of all the things he told me in the beginning to lure me in. “Maybe we could get married.”
There was a time I’d have been so glad to get a “Merry Christmas” Facebook message from him. That time has passed. And even though I wish he would have a lightbulb moment–I know it is not going to happen! So I’m taping my fingers together–and hoping–as some of you have said, “not to carry him into 2012”. It’s my New Year’s resolution!
“After all these months of struggling, I realize this: if someone really wants to be with you, he will make a way.”
Story, I couldn`t agree more. We should always remember this , soooo true. Here is to the happy 2012 🙂
“After all these months of struggling, I realize this: if someone really wants to be with you, he will make a way.”
Yes. We need to grasp this as applicable to everyone – including ourselves – and not just as some cliched platitude that we spout out about other women who are chasing up a man who is plainly not stepping in to the relationship.
When it is applied to “our man” we somehow think he is an exception, that he does really want us but just doesn’t know it yet, and even if we do get that he doesn’t want us, we see that as a minor and temporary obstacle that can be removed by jumping through hoops and doing cartwheels until he makes us the exception to the that rule.
But here’s the thing I now get beyond the quotation above – if he (an EUM/MM/AC) is not making a way to be with you then what he is doing is AVOIDING being with you. So it’s much worse even than we imagine it is. It’s not just about bending yourself backwards trying to be the exception to a man who is largely indifferent towards us, which is way bad enough; but these guys are *not* indifferent: They are pro-actively avoiding being with us – that is where most of his efforts actually go. When I think back now to ex EUM arsey man I can see completely what a fool’s errand I was on – it was like trying to climb a greasy pole. I thought the problem was some grease, which was bad enough, but with a bit of hard graft over time I could de-grease the pole, right? No, wrong, because HE was applying the grease, with his special big bucket and brush; he has an endless supply, and all his efforts went into greasing that pole and watching me try to climb it – if I got a little way up the pole, he upped his efforts with the grease and down again I’d go.
So, I say it’s actually worse than him not making an effort to be with us – All efforts they do make are designed to ensure that they don’t end up being with us.
Am replying to my own posting – forgive me, I want to clarify something (my brain is ticking over on this as I think I am getting at something for myself here).
When I say “effort”, I mean ‘getting uncomfortable, inconveniencing himself or stretching himself in some way’. When I think about it now, my ex EUM made no (emotional) effort to be with me. He spent time with me only so long as it was comfortable and easy for him, only so long as it took no (emotional) effort on his part.
BUT he was more than willing to put some effort or thought (like all his so carefully chosen vacuous pseudo communications and considered sign offs!), to avoid spending time with me – or being with me. He did a lot of squirming and getting uncomfortable when he wanted to get away from me – never to be with me.
In fact the only times he pretty much humiliated himself and made himself look like an arse was when he was trying to get away from me, which was a fairly frequent occurrence. He would never have compromised himself like that in order to spend time with me or be with me. Never.
Now there’s a thing! (sorry am probably “thinking”/blabbing aloud here now)
LOVE your greasy pole analogy. Will remember that one
I’d read some articles about people with emotionally-avoidant attachment style, in my bid to understand my ex-EUM and how to reach out to him. Now, I see all his tactics as cruel and sadistic, an extended human prank. He probably got a laugh, never took me seriously and derived a massive ego-stroke from me hanging around– to show him that he wasn’t so bad after all and quite blameless for a nasty divorce. Distance has enabled to see that these efforts are best channeled into understanding why I persist in climbing up a greasy pole and why I was so stuck on, even addicted to grease and slime. It’s more rewarding and meaningful to understand myself, not try to understand someone else who doesn’t want/need my understanding– love isn’t an obstacle course, neither should it feel like running a marathon in Death Valley and wanting to emerge alive, victorious.
JadeS
I agree. Also read up attachment styles a year ago when I first came to realise I had to deal with the situation and stop avoiding making the decision to get out(the irony!). First sign of a greasy pole and I’m running in the other direction! Nat is right, that it’s humiliating and demoralising trying to get a man to want to be with you. Never again. I have learned a hard and painful lesson. All the best to you – have a peaceful Christmas.
If I may add to Fearless ‘greased pole’ analogy: They’re cutting that pole down as fast as we try to climb it!
Nat…You know how Time Magazine has a person of the year….Well you are my women of a life time!
Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
Brenda
I so can identify with the lazy texting idea and the ridOnculous attention to detail we pay to the content and intention behind a lazy text. I’m 18 months NC, and now in a healthy relationship with a fab guy. However, on the bus the other day I heard someone get a text, it had the same alert tone I had when I was with the nasty insidious lying cheating high-maintenence crumb-throwing AC. Listening to her text tone automatically made my heart sink and gave me a rising sense of panic, which was exactly what ‘his’ texts used to do to me. How mad that we give this lazy communication such over-inFuRkinFlated power.
How free I am now.
Happy New Year gals, and I want to send a special good energy spark to Natalie and family and a bis kiss and uber ((((hugs)))) for the endless wise words.
I discovered this site a few days ago and found that it was all about me and my relationships with Mr Unavailable. Thank you! I discovered the power within myself to put an end to my current Mr Unavailable. I was tired of feeling out of control, especially after I caught myself being passive-aggressive with him. It was like a light bulb went off in my head, duh!
While I was out the jerk left me a flower arrangement in an ugly teapot. I hadn’t seen him in 2 weeks and all we’d done was argue on the phone. Why he suddenly decided to drop me flowers is beyond me. He called me while on a break at work. I started telling him off and he assumed I was upset that all I got from him were the flowers. I told him the flowers had nothing to do with anything. Told him I was sick and tired of his b.s. and not to contact me again.
I feel at peace with myself, I’m not anxiously waiting on a text, phone call or waiting to see him.
This is just over 4 weeks no contact (2nd time round after 5.5 years living together) apart from a scrappy letter that he scribbled when he came to collect the rest of his stuff the other day, which he never even collected!!! and, amazing things are starting to happen in my life apart from me finally loving me, having real self
esteem, not even wanting a man in my life so
for anyone out there doubting no contact, it
really does work, I still come to this site and read every response, this gives me the strength, encouragement and support I need but some truly amazing things are happening in my life right now. Thank you Natalie so much and everyone else, I dont always write as I am usually too tired after all the reading but I get so much support, once upon a time his pathetic scribbled note and recent text messages would of had me hooked again, not anymore, thank the lord, this site and you fabulous ladies. Thank you all and wishing you all a beautiful Christmas time and a fabulous new year xxx
So ive been *lovers* with a guy for 4 yrs. he shows absolutely no emotion towards me, reminds me i am not his girlfriend, comes and goes as he pleases. I text him and most of the time he replies, but the last 4 he didnt.
So since the 17th December i havent contacted him at all, no text, no nothing
It is just to prove to myself that its all me, the whole things survives because i do the contacting. Its crap.
So tomorrow will drive it home even more when i dont hear anything from him. He actually will have no idea why i havent contacted him as we didnt have a fight, everything was *fine*. I just need to get through tomorrow, as not hearing from him is going to hurt so much….
Assclown on unavailable Street
Step away from the pole! You’ll be very glad you did. No more text crumbs! Peace at Christmas to you.
Hi everyone,
firstly to Natalie thanks for this site – it is literally a lifeline – didn’t know how i was gonna survive the holidays.
I am an other woman and have been trying to end it with my MM since Sept – it finally came to head this week where I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him over the holidays as we live in different countries and I was going home – well after one too many drinks I let loose at him – I guess I just couldn’t stand the pent up emotion anymore and how he was treating me – he seemed to be able to switch it on and off just like that – Anyhow after my outburst which I’m soo ashamed off, I think he could see how much this is eating me up inside and I think he’s seen why it now has to end…but despite that I’m now sitting at home feeling miserable wondering will I even get a text tomorrow or even new years – which is sooo the wrong thing to be thinking. I’m thinking if I hadn’t had this outburst he maybe would have text..and then I keep thinking about his wife and how I’d feel in her position…and i just feel unbelievable guilt….
The MM is my boss so will have to seem in the new year – we’re a small firm and often work abroad so the hole no contact rule is gonna be difficult
Anyhow just looking how the rest you out there are dealing with this and any help wpuld be greatly appreciated…
liz
well, at least you didn’t boil his daughter’s pet rabbit.
As long as you don’t upset the apple card (ie his family life) they don’t care about your outbursts. Because they don’t really care about you. if he did, he wouldn’t be doing you behind his wife’s back. He wouldn’t put you in that position.
Waiting for texts is crap. There’s a buzz when you get one, and then an empty feeling. Because it’s not the same as him being there, with you, sharing Christmas lunch or going for a walk, or talking about holiday plans next year. It’s just a text.
Look at what you’ve been reduced too and ask yourself how much longer you can stand it for. Because it won’t be forever and the sooner you get out the sooner your life proper begins.
He can only give you more of the same.
Yes, he CAN switch it on and off like that.
Frankly, I’d get a new job.
Thanks Grace needed that, i’m trying to realise he’s no different from any other MM…and you are right if he really cared he wouldn’t do it…
And I’m the one beating myself up about it – I can be sure he’s gonna have a happy xmas without giving as much as a minutes thought to me…I just wish I hadn’t had the outburst – I feel ashamed I was reduced to that….
And yes looking for another job already..
It’s just surviving xmas and the holidays when everyone is so darn bloody happy
liz
you know that not everyone is so happy at christmas . I’ve spent christmas in a battered women’s shelter before now – there were children staying there. The volunteers there told me that men go “crazyl” at Christmas. They’re full up every Christmas. This Christmas is mild in the UK, last year charities were working flat out to help prevent the homeless dying from hypothermia.
Enjoy the roof over your head tomorrow. If it’s not too late, take up offers from friends and families (fallback girls have a habit of blowing off friends and family cos they’d rather sit at home and wait for a man to turn up/phone/text). Take a walk.
Good for you – a new job will really help take your mind off the MM and it’s something you’re doing for yourself, for your own wellbeing.
Hi Grace, I’m sorry that you ever had to spend a Christmas in a womens battered shelter..thank you for putting things in perspective…yes I should have gratitude for the good things in my life…i have arranged to go to a rugby match with a friend on boxing day afternoon to get out of the house – last thing I want to do – but after reading all the material on the site and comments I know its something I have to do – or else I’ll wallow in the why me state of mind which only makes things worse…I’m gonna remember what you have said not everyone is happy at christmas…its just a perception..
Hi Liz,
You only had one outburst? My 2 year affair with an MM ended (mostly) last year at this time and I’ve been NC for 5-6 months. I had 2 years of outbursts. Grace is right, you didn’t boil his daughter’s pet rabbit. You were angry. Do you see how you are doing exactly what Natalie is talking about? All you want for Christmas is a text from a MM while he is celebrating with his wife and family? A text? That’s it? A merry christmas text isn’t going to solve the problem.
The only way out is NC. Natalie has a number of posts addressing how to do NC when you work together. She did it when she was invloved with the attached guy. She also has some fantastic posts on cheating. There’s No Such Thing as an Honest Cheat. Rather than staring at your cell hoping for a crumb text, start reading the posts and, if you can, download Natalie’s book. In the legal field it’s called “lawyering up”. Read up so when you return to work, you are prepared.
It’s a good thing you are thinking about his wife. I was able to blank his wife throughout the 2 year affair until she caught us. Then she became very real. I have spent the last year owning my role and being accountable for cheating on his wife and daughters as well as my daughter and friends. As I’ve said before, the pain of being an OW for me was worse than the pain of being without him. Wishing you strength. You don’t have to be that woman, an OW waiting for a crumb text, in 2012. Keep posting, that helps too.
Hi runnergirl,
thanks for your helpful comments…I really appreciate it – the one thing I’ve come to learn from being the OW and breaking up is that its very different for a break-up with a boyfriend – your friends and family don’t know so they cannot give you space and understand why you are upset..so the support here is really great..
yes one outburst and I’m the one feeling upset – I’m thinking he’s gonna think I’m a physco etc – I know what the hell??? why do I think like this??
I think I’d been hiding all that anger away from myself, bottling it up and denying to recognise it and it went what the hell and exploded on me..
And it is just crumbs, as you say, that’s what I’m waiting on…honestly can’t believe I’m reduced to that…I’ve read the post “no such thing as an honest cheat” and you know what that’s exactly what I thought of him…slowly trying to get my head around events..
Hi Liz,
That’s one of many shitty things about being an OW, when it ends you can’t tell anybody because it was a dirty little secret that most folks wouldn’t understand. You’ve got to give yourself a break. I wish I could forward you the nasty emails and texts I sent him. Grace is right, as long as I didn’t upset life with his wife and family, he just dismissed my outbursts. As long as I was there to pump him up, that’s all it took, outbursts nothwithstanding. Keep reading, keep trying to get your head around why you’ve settled for crumbs and why you’re reduced to waiting for a text. I’m a year out and still can’t believe I did it. It ran very deep for me. We were soulmates! We couldn’t help falling in love! That may work at 20-something, not at 50-something with a married man with a wife of 27 years and grown children. Ouch, it hurts to write that. Drop the MM. If he wanted to be with you, he would. Otherwise, he’s using you and cheating on his wife and children and you are party to his deception.
Grace – that is a very powerful posting – so true. Sadly.
You said something baout a lawyer who thought many divorces could be avoided if the bride/groom could have gotten out of going through with the wedding with *no* consequences.
I think it’s the same principle with the cheating MM. Once they realise how “seriously” the OW is taking it all, how she really does expect them to leave the marriage, once she starts expecting ‘a result’, putting the pressure on him, whining and crying and begging (for a text?!!) that the MM would gladly take the option of getting out of the whole sorry mess if he could be assured of no consequences.
Once they have taken up a year or more of the OW’s time, they become fearful that she would react very badly to him ending the affair and going back on all his big (but empty) promises, so to protect his status quo he keeps just a trickle of the affair going (by text) while he tries to manage the OWs expectations back down. A lot of what they say is eventually to merely appease the OW and prevent her doing the bunny boiling thing on him. Sometimes he’ll make even bigger promises that even he by now knows he will never keep
The MM I had an affair with many, many years ago now almost had a breakdown towards the ‘end’ as he was juggling so many lying balls in the air he almost exploded with the strain of it all. In the end he said ‘I just want to feel normal again’.
I am convinced that he stayed in it for way longer than he wanted to for fear of me having a very bad reaction to ‘the truth’ and revealing the affair to his wife. In the end she found out all by herself and that was the end of all the ‘leaving her talk’ from him! I was at work and he was in my house by himself on the ‘last day’ – apparently his wife came and picked him up and he cried – all tears and snotters – all the way home in the car. I imagined at the time that this was because he was so distraught at having to leave me. I know now, in hindsight, that his tears were all about him and the sheer bloody relief he must have felt that what had become a nightmare for him was finally over.
So, OWs, what you think is driving these men on is not what is actually driving them. It is NOT what you think it is.
Ahhh well it’s Christmas eve and im bloody well sat here with a message-less phone and its certainly not ringing! im finding it really tough to get a grip today after i gave the fella with the girlfriend an ultimatum last week, when he said he “couldn’t do it now!” i told him thats fine and stopped speaking to him, he text me a week ago telling me him and his girlfriend have now split up… text me!! surely thats phonecall material? apparently not in his crazy little world… anyway cut to today and i haven’t heard off him for a few days so im a bit gutted… and thinking about picking up the phone myself… help! i really dont want to =/ xx
Don’t do it! I’m sitting here resisting the urge to add him back to AIM to see if he went to see his new girl (the one he decided he wanted to be in a relationship with after three weeks after stringing me along for 6 years) for the holidays and it reminds me of when I gave up smoking … it really is an addiction! Be strong! If he really was serious he would have picked up the phone. Remember, it’s easier to lie when you don’t have to look someone in the face. Even easier when you don’t even have to hear their voice. You said it yourself, “surely thats phonecall material.” It is, at the very least. Don’t fall for it!
Natalie, thank you so much for all your hard work and your life changing site! for anyone feeling tempted to break NC, respond to xmas-text/email, or generally feeling a bit of EUM/AC-induced holiday blues — have a laugh at the profoundly disinterested attention-seeking email which landed in my inbox for Christmas…
———————
Subject: MC/HNY
(body of email…)
Hi, seasons greetings & all that, figuring yr away somewhere :o) Did you ever get that disc?
———————
oh brother, how much lazier can someone get? so, this is “Merry Christmas(MC)” & “New Years(NY)” all rolled into one, 6 character subject line. another annoying thing, the clown nose in the emoticons — but actually it’s kind of AC-perfect! and, btw, yes, I did “get that disc”, what do you want a frikkin award for such a monumental effort of putting a dvd in an envelope and mailing? as if you really give damn. puh-leez.
the wonderful thing is, I just feel very indifferent to this communique. after the last convo, the futility of it all just seemed so pathetic. I have no desire to respond, no more strength to hold myself up while living on false hopes for “love”. I’m having a bit of FBG Christmas Story tonight, seeing the Ghost of Assclowns Past, and seeing him in the Pantheon of the EUMs of My Life… also, Future Ghost — it’s yet to be written, how do I want things to go? down the same path I’ve been on for 25+ years, heading into late 40’s towards the same EUM’s I’ve always managed to find? NO. No no no no!!! gonna spend a drama-free, happy holiday with my 2 old lady cats, redecorating my house & life. and… definitely NOT responding, even in proportion! thanks Baggage Reclaim…
Thank you thank you this post was just what I needed to see right when I really needed to SEE.You gave me the “snap out of it”
“ah ha” I needed. This is a Merry Christmas! I am not gonna let a “rat dropping” distract me or disallusion me today. 🙂
Bless you!
Mary Merry Christmas
The married AC who has been ignoring me for four days after a “fight” as I’ve begged pleaded called lost my dignity before deciding I needed no contact for me and stuck with it yesterday just sent a Merry Christmas <3. Like nothing ever happened.
I’m in the beginning of no contact with him. I’m reading everything on this site and trying my hardest not to respond. This is day two for me and so I am VERY raw. I seriously thought my situation was so unique and special. Wish I had found this MONTHS ago. At one point, he went NC with me for THREE MONTHS because I demanded too much from him and I stupidly let him waltz back into my life with the RESET BUTTON like nothing happened. I work with this AC too so that makes it a lot worse, but being with him has literally caused me to have panic attacks, degrade myself, mold myself into what he wants, live in a diet of less than CRUMBS. I’m so glad I found this site. I literally cried for hours when I did because I thought I’d be stuck like this forever.
Please keep me in your thoughts today as I enter day two of no contact and I have a work event where he might be there tonight 🙁
You have my support. It is very hard in the begining bu becomes more and more eaiser. If you workwith him, just be pulite and if he starts any conversation just say that you want marriage, children, and only thinking about it and etc…
Please see it as a learning point….you tried, you gave best, but you can not force someone to love you and respect you. neither you or me..
I am now in one week NC and already forgot him … If he can enjoy in holiday with his family why should I woud not do the same?
To all the suffering OWs who have commented – Grace and runner are spot on. Being involved with a married or attached man (or any AC or EUM) means sitting around feeling like a piece of crap waiting for a text message to make you feel better about yourself – as if one text msg. from him will make all the difference! It won’t make ANY difference (as runner says) except to hold you in beggar position; his texts are NOT good news for you!
These OW relationships are all the same. The way forwards is to recognise that your MM is the just the very same as every other MM who’s doing some other woman (as Grace so eloquently put it!) behind his wife’s back. All these other OW’s think their MM loves them just as you think yours loves you. All these other MMs give their OW all the loooove you/soul mate/oh baby talk same as yours does. What you imagine is that your MM actually *means* it while all the other MMs are just lying – you imagine your MM is the special exception; he isn’t lying, he really does love you but these other OWs are juts being taken for a mug, but not you. Here’s the thing: it’s not that *all* these MMS don’t mean any of what they say, it’s just that they don’t mean it for very long, they don’t mean what you think they mean, and they certainly don’t mean anything with any level of constancy; much of the time they are going along with what they think you want them to say – mostly they are just not very honest with anyone, including themselves, so that putting so much weight on what he said to you one time a year and a half ago or putting so much weight onto what *you think* you are hearing is foolhardy, in fact is like climbing into a barrel and chucking yourself down Niagra Falls.
MM is not the same as you; he’s in a very different position than you – he has very different wants and needs from this affair than you do. He’s not looking for a life partner – he has one already!! He is not looking for another or a different wife! You think you are having a great (if tormented) romance (by texting???) and are waiting for the happy ending (by texting???) – all the while he is having an illicit, clandestine and altogether rather sordid little *affair* (mostly by text). Try to see the difference and get yourself the hell out of it.
…you imagine your MM is the special exception; he isn’t lying, he really does love you…”
Fearless, here’s proof to the contrary. I’ve been getting these strange text messages lately that are so similar in tone and wording to my married ex-lover but from an unfamiliar number. Just this afternoon, I received, “What’s the room #?” and I cracked up. Women keep falling for their schtick and they’re not honest with any of them, past or present. He’s obviously replaced me with another naive, deluded woman on his merry-go-round of partners and is mistakenly sending me her texts. Yuk, what a pig. If you want to feel completely unspecial, get involved with a married man.
Blueberry girl
We are in agreement here
I wrote:
…you imagine your MM is the special exception; he isn’t lying, he really does love you…”
i.e.
*You imagine* he is the special exception, *you imagine* he isn’t lying, *you imagine* he really loves you
Obviously you are not imagining any of these things anymore. He sounds like a horror. Glad you’re shot of him.
Thank you. It’s SO hard right now after getting ripped into shreds by him last night, how it’s all my fault and he has a big old sob story of his life and that’s why he’s such a cold assclown to me but he really likes that I love him and would do anything for him. Gag.
So I’m in love with a MM who is a HUGE dangerous assclown and emotionally unavailable. I have a lot of work to do on myself, but I’m SO glad I am not alone. The first time I went NC in August I didn’t have this site or anyone to talk to and I felt like I was alone and in a unique, special situation. I didn’t know which way was up and really felt like I had messed up. It’s good to know the truth.
@ runnergirl: CONGRATS! @ Liz and runnergirl: yes it makes it hard to break up when no one knows what you are going through. That is what made me all the madder at him and to myself for getting myself into this mess. I often fantisize about how I could ruin his life however my thoughts on this are: if i did he might not be as miserable if she kicked him out; I don’t want to be responsible for others pain; and most of all I want to STOP thinking about it.
@ Yoghurt: I am in the same place. ahhhh
@ neverto late: Its OK you broke no contact, cause you really didn’t. If you said” i miss you” that would have been diff.
This is the first holiday in a very long time when I didn’t feel jelous and sorry for myself. It feels sooo goood!! Yesterday from the MM, I got a “Merry Christmas to you, thinking of you. I will always love you and be thinking of you. Never forget that”. I waited a day and replied “Merry Christmas to you and yours”. I really think he just keeps texting me to see if I blocked him. 🙂
I have avoided running into him until this past Friday. Luckily I was in a very crowed place with multiple friends around me. I was able to avoid even looking at him although I know I was being observed. CReepy. My best freind and “sponser” was with me so it was good. I am so happy this holiday, feel so good about myself and that I am OK being alone. Also So happy if have BR. Thank GOD and Natalie!
Sharon, I’m not sure there is any point where they feel remorse even if they are caught. We got caught. So what? I’m sure he did the tears and snotters and managed to get back in the wife’s good graces. Too bad she’s married to a creep. I’m glad I’m well shod of him. His wife is truly stuck.
Good for you for avoiding the creep at your event. These cheating MM’s are a dime a dozen.
Yesterday when I checked the snail mail, there was a strange card, no postage. I froze. If that dipstick invaded my space again I’d out him but good. It took several minutes before I opened it. It was a card from my neighbor, he, he, he!
So last night at work I get a text from him a couple times, just fishing, and I finally lose it and text him back about what type of games he’s playing with me. He then goes off in MANY texts that I was INSANE to expect a response from him days ago (after he basically said he was through with me and I responded poorly by calling/texting him, my abandonment issues kicked in and I admit I went out of control crying/hurting) and that’s why he left ME the first time (I LEFT HIM, so I don’t know what he’s talking about) and how he has SO MUCH to give but I”ll never know it because his ONE TIME AT BANDCAMP sob story is too great so that’s why he’s an emotional assclown. He basically ripped into me all night in text form. When I did actually see him in person it was all “Oh hey, Merry Christmas, nice seeing you.”
I went home and later that night I get a text that “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, you can’t hurt me because I wouldn’t ever let myself be hurt by you, so I’m still here if you’re around so don’t be a stranger and we’re still gonna go out on that date we planned” (this translates to: oh I want to shag you on my terms and I don’t care how much I’ve hurt you and I know I said I will not/cannot give you anything you want and that that is basically your own fault, and that I know you’re hurt, but I don’t care because I want an ego stroke/sex on my terms). He also threw in how he knew I would do “anything” for him and he respects that but he’ll never be able to love me but he likes that. I just didn’t respond because I’m not that girl anymore (or at least I’m working on it).
He has me SO twisted up and hurt. I just really need to focus on myself. I haven’t texted him and I’m planning on keeping NC as much as I can (i get weak and angry, but it would have been better to say nothing last night, but at least he showed me how mean he can be). I saved all the texts he sent me where he basically blamed ME for everything and was downright MEAN (something he’s never been to me) and if I ever get the urge to text him, I’m gonna read those again. It was horrible. He’s a dangerous, mean, selfish man and I wish I’d never met him.
He’s very cruel and I’m realizing I have a lot of abandonment issues that have allowed me to play into this. Guys like him are predators and can really mess up a life.
lim
they’re just texts. he’s just texting, you’re just texting. try to ditch the drama. most of this is reaction, drama seeking, wanting to distract yourself from your own life, and wanting revenge. Part of it is genuine feeling, I grant that, but not as much as you think. You’ll only know the size of it and you can only get over him when you NC him. There’s no such thing as doing NC as much as you can. If you’re not committed to it, you may as well carry on texting him and spare yourself the constant failure of breaking NC because you don’t mean it
I wouldn’t bother saving his texts and reading them. they’re just texts. you already know he’s an idiot. you’ve got better things to do with your time than keep convincing yourself of that.
Limerance,
you need to save yourself, whatever it takes, just get out of it. NC is the answer to your problems. Block all his points of entry. Get rid of your phone – give it to a trusted friend and tell them not to give you it back for at least three months (I did this after a failed NC attempt cos I didn’t trust myself not to text the ex). Getting involved with an MM is the same as a turkey signing up for Christmas.
Oh and a text on Boxing day this time with relevance to our relationship again. He ended it with “take care” and then sent another kiss about 10 minutes after. I mean “it’s over”, I know it’s over and why bring up the past? I feel or know he’s with someone else because now I understand what a Fallback girl is, that is what I was and more and it seems I am not required anymore. He just had to remind me what he thinks I may be missing!!!!!! hmmmm let’s see-lies, manipulation, control, emotional, verbal abuse – need I go on? WHY do this! It’s just screwed up…… I didn’t reply and felt guilty for a while but remembered what I have read on here. Just when you think you are getting somewhere…………… ugh
Shinestar – the text kiss ten minutes later came cos he didn’t get a bite fast enough the first time and he thought a wee text sweetener might help. He’s just checking you’re still on option/fallback/doormat status for him. Don’t be. Ignore him and block his number.
No I won’t, I can’t and you know I’m not even sure he wants me back as I know through history of our relationship he would have tried already and I would have gone. But you are right- it is about the proverbial door and whether it would be open in the future. I’m still weak for him which is another reason I won’t reply – I do not enjoy the consequences of creating more questions and giving him the opportunity to cut me off again.His message was so final I thought like he felt sorry for me. I have been so good, no contact since day1 apart from a blip where I was conned a month or so ago which set me back but all my crying and shouting and obsessing etc have been behind closed doors so he has no idea how I have been feeling or affected by his shit! Thanks – it’s nice to get a personal reply xx
I’ve been given similar advise for yrs…to no avail…in my head before this happened to me I knew that NC was what I should do, but I couldn’t. I felt happy, bad, flattered, hopeful, sad, guilty to not respond….who knows what else. But, I think what you wrote here –and especially the way you put things, has finally gotten through to me!!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
~another grateful reader
i put in place the NC rule after a year and a nice dinner with my ex. so far he had call, email and continue to text me i had not reply. his mother past away last year and for christmas day i send him a text but wishing him happy holiday just letting he know that she is miss during this time. i was not looking for reply . not sure today if is was the right thing to do. but the no contact rule help me a lot i still think about his lies but i thank God for his love and mercy to pull me away from him.
This website has seriously changed ALL of my views on men/dating/love/self-esteem, etc. I have felt so amazing lately about myself and I have taken all of the advice on here to heart.
So I have been trying to get over a Mr. Unavailable for over two months now- and it has been hard. He was a good guy who just didnt want a relationship- with anyone- and walked away the second he realized I couldnt handle something casual with him (which i respect him for).
Anyway, after him not contacting me for the past two months (where he did his usual single thing…still no girlfriend) I just heard from him today with a nice holiday text saying he hopes to see me in the New Year.
Now, in the past I would be thinking “what does this mean” and build up this HUGE idea in my head about how he must have changed- etc,etc.
But this time i felt different. I decided to just write it off as a nice friendly message and not create meaning where there is no meaning. I am going to text him back something just as casual and friendly and that will be the end of it for me. No use making something into a HUGE deal when it is JUST A TEXT.
Thank you Natalie for CHANGING my views on myself and relationships 🙂
I got the “Happy New Year” text today. Thank God in Heaven for Natalie and this poignant post as my only response, chanted like a mantra in my head was, “It’s only a text, it’s only a text…” And that was that. Didn’t respond to him at all. It did get me down for a moment, I’ll be honest. But I was in Sephora for crying out loud, so the choice between responding to this assclown and choosing the best pink nail polish was a no-brainer.
I think I’ve finally settled on a name (I was NoFearNoMore and NoMoreFear) finally. It’s a reminder I often need.
So I’ve been able to keep NC for a week and a half after the Christmas Eve blowout-showdown last phone call with the Ex where he told me he was still in love with me.
Everything has been going fine. Even NYE went well as I was with friends. In fact I’ve been starting to feel pretty good for a change in general. The desire to contact him has waned considerably. Funny that him telling me he’s still in love with me actually repulsed me because how could he say that to me when he also says, “I want to give this relationship (with the new woman) the best chance it has?”
Then while at work today I get an IM from him saying, “Hi, I thought you would be interested in this link.” I didn’t respond. I did click on the link though and it was something interesting, but not enough for me to say anything back. I saw it for what it was. At best he was just being thoughtless and at worst he was fishing to feed his own ego. And I didn’t bite. I’m pretty proud of that. It’s a huge step for me. I owe much thanks to NML and everyone on here for helping me find my strength again.
Just brilliant! The comment you made about it’s time to expect more and from myself too, made me realise I’ve been guilty of the same thing. If I haven’t got the guts to be phoning then how can I expect the men to…. time to up the ante and get a more ballsy – lead by example and then you’re sure to recognise pathetic attempts at communication!