After several years of writing Baggage Reclaim and being asked numerous times, “Are they emotionally unavailable?”, I’ve put together a list of the most common unavailable relationships, as I’ve realised that pretty much everything I’ve heard falls into eleven types of relationship.
‘Casual’ Relationships
Casual arrangements, including Friends With Benefits and booty calls, as well as those who don’t want anything ‘heavy’ and like to keep it ambiguous and unlabelled. Think of these ‘relationshits‘ as someone getting all the fringe benefits without the commitment, intimacy or responsibility.
Boomerang Relationships
Can’t break, won’t break. Your ex keeps leaving and returning, and you keep taking them back. Or you keep chasing them down and waiting around, sometimes even disrupting their current relationship. If you’ve ever dated someone who pops up, gives you an amazing time, disappears for a while and then pops up again… and lather, rinse, repeat, this also falls under the boomerang umbrella–pop-up relationships. Got lots of loose endings? You’re the Yo-Yo Girl (or Guy).
Rebound Relationships
Caught between two relationships, they (or you) are not over an ex, the pain from a breakup, or the hurts from the fallout. Think recently broken up, separated, divorced, or widowed. And remember: people can be interested in you and even tell you they’re ‘ready for a relationship‘, but how ready they are is self-evident. If you have a habit of being in rebound involvements, you are The Buffer.
Affairs
A messy combo of one person rebelling and the other competing. One or sometimes both of you are cheating on someone else, and you play second fiddle. It also includes remaining with someone who you know shags around on you or who has ’emotional’ affairs. Just in case you’re in any doubt, neither The Cheater nor the Other Person are available whatever their (or your) reasons for the affair. There’s no such thing as an honest cheat.
Dalliances
Typically characterised by being short term. Think casual flings, one-night stands, or whirlwind romances that fizzle out. There will also be plenty of Fast Forwarding and possibly some Future Faking. Note: you might not realise it’s a dalliance at the outset.
Rehabbing and Remodelling Relationships
This is excessive baggage particularly in the form of problems including addiction which you try to fix, heal, and help. It also includes relationships where, even if they don’t have any major problems, there’s a lot of control and demands for change. This also includes people who make out that they’re getting help but just pay lip service to it, using their claims to hook people in and gain their confidence. If you need to feel needed, you have Florence Nightingale tendencies.
Long-Term Struggles
Some unavailable relationships can go the distance in terms of time but have various unhealthy problems within them. Yes, even when there’s history, a ‘title’, a legal piece of paper, or kids. Think of this like flogging that donkey till it collapses. This can include some casual relationships where you haven’t heeded their not wanting to commit, but you stick to them like glue in the hopes they’ll change. Next thing, a decade or two has gone by.
Fantasy Relationships
These are about avoiding intimacy. A combination of illusions and denial, fantasy relationships also include virtual relationships and anything where, because of distanced contact, it’s mostly conducted through words instead of human interaction. For example, when you get hijacked by your feelings and then project them onto the person and assume there’s more between you than there is. Or getting carried away with online relationships that don’t translate into offline at all. I’ve also heard from a hell of a lot of people that wait around for someone that pops up occasionally and then disappears.
Abusive Relationships
Full of manipulation, there’s a presence of emotional, physical, and/or verbal abuse with the use of excessive force and control.
Secret Relationships
This relationship is on the down low for whatever reason, but often includes issues with race, religion, and family. However, it can be as simple as them giving you some rinky-dink reason about why nobody else ‘needs’ to know, introducing you as a ‘friend’, working together. Watch out for the latter in particular as this is the easiest excuse for a secret relationship. Of course, some secret relationships are ambiguous, casual relationships. It also includes immensely secretive people who put up walls and people who are being ambiguous about their sexuality and drip-feeding revelations.
Excuse Relationships
Are they busy, scared, too tired, in need of more time? Shy, dealing with a lot right now, ‘overwhelmed’ by their feelings, got a presentation in two years’ time that they need to prepare for, ‘overwhelmed’ by their feelings for you, got an ex that they’re tip-toeing around? Kids that don’t like you, a mama who needs ‘more time’, or just in a need of an extra day/week/month/year/lifetime to give you what you need?
If you (or they) are making excuses, they’re obviously not available for a relationship. This is not least because you (or they) keep lessening their responsibility with the excuses. If you’re reluctant to pigeonhole a certain someone into one of the other categories or reluctant to admit they’re unavailable, this is your relationship. Where there are excuses, there’s denial, and there’s an unavailable relationship.
And remember: If you’re in one of these relationships, it means you’re off the market for an available relationship making you unavailable yourself. Being available to an unavailable isn’t the same as being available. It’s like putting a cap on yourself and limiting your options.
Remember: if your relationship is missing the ‘landmarks’ — commitment, consistency, progression, balance, and intimacy — you’re dealing with unavailability issues. Whether it’s emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual unavailability, they’re unavailable for an available healthy relationship.
Your thoughts?
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Woot! I got 8 out of 11 … all in one “relationship”! And it lasted over 4 years! Way to put it all in perspective, Natalie. I’m so done 🙂
I was going to say, wow I had more than one of those all in one relationship, it was like it morphed over time, and there was always ‘something’ until I trashed him and moved on. LOL
I think there is a lot of potential for overlapping characteristics in these types but the bottom line is GET OUT as these are dead end relationships.
You’re timing could not be more amazing, Natalie! I have been debating in my own head MOST of the issues you have written about in this post over the past couple days. Why is it I can’t break away? What am I “thinking” or “hoping” is going to change? NOTHING has changed in many years, why would it now? The only thing I have got is lip service —-and LOT’S of it! I could get more of a “relationship and commitment” out of dog than I am in my current relationship for sh*t sake!
What is my fear of moving on? I don’t know. What hold does this relationship have on me? I don’t know. What do I think the next few years will bring that the past few years have not already? I don’t know. I have MANY questions..but no answers.
Whyme – I know I stuck around too long in bad relationships because I was “afraid” of wracking up another ‘failed relationship’ and looking bad to other people.
I also stuck in them using the excuse that I had ‘invested’ so much of my time and energy that I couldn’t ‘give up’ now. Which the men re-enforced by saying that I couldn’t give up after all we’d been through blah blah. LOL
I made excuses that I was not perfect so why did I expect them to be… of course the men fed into this by saying they would change this time… blah blah blah…
I didn’t want to be alone, and needed to be a part of couple for the sake of appearances. Better in a bad relationship rather than no relationship was my stupid logic.
I am sure you have the answers, it is merely a matter of honestly facing them and making the change.
Humans don’t like change. Change is hard. Most people find it is easier to stick with the known, the bad crap you understand and accept is easier to deal with, then the fear of the unknown that change would bring.
I think mine mostly fits the Long-Term Struggle type (but has many elements of many of the others as well). Yep, you get caught up in these for years… I don’t know why I did that for so long, other than all the reasons you have pointed out to me already, Natalie: 1) not wanting to admit I made an error in judgement or unwilling to admit I made a bad investment and 2) persistently trying to prove my investment was ‘good’ and 3) having made a bad decision from the outset I was trying desperately to ‘right’ that bad decision.
I see now the complete sense of making the ‘right’ decision in the first place instead of spending years trying to ‘right’ a bad one (I still feel pretty angry with him for not making me ‘right’ after all his empty promises – though I know that’s all beside the point)
What I don’t get is that I am otherwise quite smart… though now, with this new awareness, I am questioning everything about myself, including the possibility that I may actually be quite thick! I am a total procrastinator (always have been – am late for everything!) and I have had low self-esteem though I was largely unaware of the extent and effect of that… so that probably didn’t help me any.
I shake my head at myself now a hundred times a day… how could I have been so stupid? How could I not have gotten here sooner, at least while I was still young and dead good-lookin’! Now I feel too middle-aged to really make it work for me. I missed that boat as well! Story of my life. If I wasn’t so determined to stay positive about it, I’d be very depressed!
I put twelve years into emotionally abusive/frozen nightmare, and in the year afterwards – I’m realizing that I just didn’t want to be wrong about that loser. No wonder I felt so stuck!
Life just froze up trying to shape that gnarly toad into a prince!
And, the worse it got, the harder I would ‘try’.
I look back on it all now and I seriously wonder WHY?! What on earth was so worth holding onto to all that?
I never tolerated as much poop from any man before. Sometimes I wonder if my tolerance for such insanity actually grew over the years.
Maybe the older you get the harder it is to admit to yourself that you don’t have a magic wand….
LOL! That is what I have done. I pick up a frog and dress him up like a prince. I imagine how he will look and proceed to kiss him over and over and over (sigh!) and over. I play house with him and introduce him as a prince to everyone I know and then I hear the croaks and wonder “Now who is that?” As the months and years pass the croaks get louder and the mirage starts to fall apart. When I comment about what is happening to my friends, they all tell me that they knew he was a frog and always would be a frog. “Now why didn’t I see it?” Tired of visiting the pond and I am in the process of leaving my frog of almost 4 years. Thank you so much for this site!!! Maybe this time I will actually find myself and a real prince in the future.
Whyme,
If your involvement is anything like mine is/was (and I suspect it is), the answer is that you need to learn how to validate yourself and admit to yourself that you have made a very grave error in judgement with this guy… basically, you need to give up, walk off the park – hand in your badge – take your chips off the table and leave the building; the bookie always wins. You are beat. Admit it. Cut your losses. Stop looking to him to make you feel good about yourself – value yourself anyway, whatever he thinks or does or doesn’t do, and realise that your worth or value is completely independent of him and the relationship… mostly though, just admit that you were and are wrong to stay invested – hard, but necessary. I never, ever thought that I would get free of this…could not imagine my life without him in it… but it’s looking every day more and more like I can, cos I’m doing it. If I can get here, anyone can! And I although I am not completely over it yet I do feel as if I have shrugged a monkey off my back and am getting used to having me back, all to myself!.. it feels odd, but liberating.
Fearless: “And I although I am not completely over it yet I do feel as if I have shrugged a monkey off my back and am getting used to having me back, all to myself!.. it feels odd, but liberating.”
Great analogy, funny but also true!!!
He is not going to give you answers, the only answer I know by experience is move on.
About that last paragraph – Wow, that’s exactly what my mom said!
May you one day write a best seller to get this information out on a wide scale to women around the world. You just nail it! I can almost see the name of the book “Assclown and EUMs: How to Avoid Unhealthy Relationships.” Seriously, this is so true. I’ve been in several of these. My last, the guy was in a “boomerang” relationship while I was in a “fantasy relationship” – at the same time. My last marriage was a verbally abusive one – this is ugly. Two of my good friends definitely were in a long term struggle and for SIX YEARS flogged and flogged and flogged the donkey until finally giving up. I totally agree with and am committing to your healthy relationship landmarks for the future.
I agree – WRITE A BOOK!
She would also be doing the world a huge favor if she wrote one geared towards Jr. High school girls too!
Not even kidding. Get preventative!
Maybe over the generations these kinds of men will have to go extinct then?!
Natalie needs to be one to write the ‘handbook’ that’s for sure!
I’ve found more realistic help here than in most so-called self-help books I’ve ever read.
Wow mine included: boomerang,affair,rehabing,long term struggles,some fantasy,abusive(lots of manipulation),secret and excuses. Sounds like a great relationship. On day 13 NC. This post helps reinforce the need to stay NC.
Wow Nat, your insights into relationships are SO right on and I really look forward to them. Thank you for sharing.
“Next thing a decade or two has gone by.”
Ouch. That hit a nerve.
Snap Annie …I scored 8 too ! …is there a monetary prize here Nat for the one that scores the most 🙂
Guilty…I am/was in a ‘casual relationship’, but tomorrow will be 3 weeks NC and although its really hard knowing that I’ve let myself down…its OK, we all make mistakes….my second EUM/AC and hopefully my last. Its becoming a little worrying now!!!
Recently joined BR and have been reading all the posts – thank you for all the wonderful, truthful and insightful messages. Brings the message home and hits a little too close!! Where did my boundaries, self esteem go. It just amazes me how quickly we can ‘over look’ the RED flags!!
So glad I found this site, am definitely a work in progress and trying hard to work on ME and what I want.
I have been in at least four of those narratives. When you finally admit to yourself that you keep getting attracted to unavailable people, it sucks for awhile, but then you feel stronger and more able to choose wisely. I’m much more capable now of turning down women who I know aren’t in a place to have a healthy relationship, and I see the signs quicker as well.
Of course the majority of this applies to me and most my dating situations. One that sticks out the most is: Are they busy, dealing with a lot right now………..i’ve heard both those exact lines from someone this year. There have also been about two other times when this has happened with me and a guy. I am doing SOMETHING WRONG. It is hard to believe that 3 men have been so unavailable. I was listening to a woman the other day talking about if it is a pattern to come across these kinds of dynamics in a relationship, more times than not it is the person pulling away because he senses your neediness. He feels drained. SO. That has to be it. My neediness and abandonment issue is scaring all of them off. I can hardly enjoy much less navigate a relationship healthily since I’m so scared they’ll leave. What happens? They leave and I get the “i’m busy” line.
I think there is merit to what you say but at the same time there may also be something else going on. Maybe I’m wrong but I believe because lately it seems more and more women (not all women) give sex or sexual favors so easily and quickly after meeting a guy, that it’s become soo much easier for men to get sex without commitment, that they no longer feel a pressure to conform or reform their behavior and generally improve themselves to be up to relationship standards. So they don’t really bother trying, they don’t really feel the need to be in a committed relationship with anyone in order to keep their sexual needs met. If they have to either put effort into the woman they’re seeing, or they have to wait to get sex, they choose instead to go find someone who’ll give it up more easily and quickly. So is it really a loss when they go? To lose a man who couldn’t be bothered to wait a few months to get to know you, or for that matter to put some effort into getting to know you? I don’t know it’s a frustrating scenario but the thing is the women who give them sex up front in the hopes of “winning” the man… those women don’t “win” him either. The man usually just loses respect for them for giving it up so quick. So dating has become a bit of a lose/lose situation for us women.
And the fact is they’re right, they don’t need to anymore. Men want sex. Women want relationships. Used to be, for the most part, men had to behave well and commit to a relationship, in order to have regular sex. Then both the man and woman had their desires met. Now only one gender is.
Sorry if this sounds way out there, I am not trying to get on a moral soapbox, nor am I saying in any way that all men and women behave as described above. Just saying that ‘generally’ it is a phenomena that seems to be hurting us women.
Mel,
there’s a lot of truth in what you say, I think. We’d all do eachother a favour by not ‘putting out’ so readily and make the men step up to the plate. Sex on its own is of very limited value to a woman, generally speaking. It’s the old saying, ‘why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free’. In the “olden days” (before the 1960s sexual revolution when the ‘pill’ became freely available) a great male motivator for marriage was ‘sex’ – regular, on tap sex.
But men are human too (aren’t they???? Please tell me they are!) and while they all want sex, there are some who have realised they want and need more than that from a relationship – those are the ones we need to recognise (though there are some of those who want only sex and an ego stroke etc… so watch out for those as well! OMG it’s a minefield out there!)
Fearless, Yes, I agree there are men who really want a relationship with us, and you’re right we should look out for those ones. I’ve read articles in the past where men have been interviewed about this topic, and most men say “Well I’m a man, of course I want sex right away… but if I get it, I lose respect for her and probably won’t take her seriously. I want her to make me wait.” If it’s coming straight from their mouth so often then I think we can see that desire for something is a great motivator to improve. Having it handed to them with no effort motivates them to do nothing!
I read somewhere a hunting analogy. They said imagine a hunter. He loves to go out into the field for days and track down his deer, finally getting the prize he worked for. But if the deer just comes over to his house, lays down on his front porch and dies… not quite the same!
Yes, Mel, it’s the idea that if you don’t value yourself you can hardly expect to be valued by him – that would be like going into the ‘ one pound shop’ to buy something and asking if you can pay £2 for it. It just doesn’t happen.
He will only pay what you show him you are worth, and if he can’t afford that, well… neither can you.
Great line of thought going on here.
I hate this sad-but-mostly-true reality because it just feels like such a game.
If a man gets sex from a woman right away, but doesn’t respect her for doing that – does that same man really have much respect for himself?!
I’ve also always wondered when a man calls a woman he “gets too soon” a slut, what that MAKES HIM for “doing” that so-called slut?!
I’m still intermittently visiting the angry side of my healing and I loathe the double-standard land that a lot of men still have in their little playbooks.
Men these days seem to get respect no matter what slimy behaviors they get themselves into, yet they still get to judge what is respectable?! These are the men I don’t want to take seriously – LOL….
Renata, yes it seems like the man who thinks he’s in a position to judge morality based on the woman’s decision to have sex, when he gives himself a free pass to have sex, his judgement is suspect at best.
Sexuality is a double standard and I don’t like it but it is the playing field that we are on and even though we don’t like it, we have to equip ourselves with knowledge and protect ourselves.
@Fearless: You’re right, women and men shouldn’t put out or even make out with someone so early! At least not until after they get to know the person and decided the person is nice.
I know, because I myself had made that choice, and the aftermath was not a pretty sight. It was a few years back, and I was pretty naive (I hoped all relationships were like puppy love LOL…) but very curious. I made out with the guy first, but before truly getting to know him, and then we kept meeting up to make out and had sex a few months later. Because I had no relationship experience, I quickly became confused. Was it OK to just make out with a guy because I was attracted to him? Were we in a relationship? If he wasn’t all that into me, why did he keep coming back? Looking back, he and I were more friends with benefits than bf/gf. What’s more, when we did decide to try for a relationship and to get to know each other, the incompatibilities (and power struggles!) reared their ugly heads.
While I don’t regret the decision, it’s not something I’d do again. To me, it’s just too risky emotionally – I might end up with another guy I’m totally impcompatible with!
Mel,
For some yes. I am seeing many of my friends enter into healthy relationships. I don’t think it’s fair to lump everyone into the same groups, plus it’s not a positive outlook.
Allison, “I don’t think it’s fair to lump everyone into the same groups, plus it’s not a positive outlook.” I know and I definitely agree with you about being unfair or lumping everyone into anything, that’s why in my post I said, “nor am I saying in any way that all men and women behave as described above. Just saying that ‘generally’ it is a phenomena that seems to be hurting us women.” I’m not saying it applies to every man or every woman and while I don’t want to be negative, I do think it’s important to acknowledge the truth, even if it’s unpleasant.
If I give it up too soon, whether it’s sex or anything close to it, they have left soon after. Subconsciously I must have been thinking something like “I need to sleep with/do something sexual with him right off the bat or he won’t like me”. The only time I dated someone that actually wanted to wait was the one time I took it slow. That felt nice. A man that wanted to take it slow. So they do exist!
After it’s said and done and they leave, I end up feeling like I gave a part of me away and feel used up. I’m not going to be a prude but this crap about giving my body to someone TOO SOON for fear they won’t like me has stopped. Or even thinking this time it will be different. This last time and seeing this jackass with someone else has done the trick MY GOD I HOPE!! I say this now……but years of laying myself out as a doormat to men are years of habit I have to break. I honestly did not even conceive that a man would look at me after being intimate so fast and think I was easy or nothing to work for. All I could see was I wanted someone to want/like me because I did not want/like myself. And learning to want myself now is hard. It is learning a new language and feeling system.
Wow Mel!
You are so right. I’ve heard/read several versions of your theory. I just read an article about how the feminist movement and sexual revolution changed the modern romantic relationship. Though i do agree that the feminist movement and the sexual revolution set women free in some aspects (we earn more money, have more opportunities and have more choices) it has also hurt us in other ways. We can date, hookup and have sex like guys, but is that necessarily a good thing? Though guys have accepted this behavior as the norm, i’ve heard several men say that the women that give it up arent the ones that they make girlfriends and marry. Chivalry is dead and WE killed it : (
Ruby,It’s all about choice…your (my) choice not society dictating what you should do…if you wish to behave in a fashion that makes you feel bad then stop the behavior but do not blame it on that old worn out shoe you call feminism…equal rights are still not here but that isn’t what this is about is it? Take responsibility for your choices and choose someone who is in alignment for you and your values. I personally want a complement to me not a person who society has trained to see me as “the little woman”…I don’t need a pedestal either…just a nice, giving, receiving, balanced partnership with both parties contributing what they have to give…besides yesterday isn’t what you have to live with now…plan for your future and don’t blame the women of the past for they went through hell to give you and I what we do have and which is all too frequently taken for granted if even recognised for the gains that we derived from them…perhaps a little herstory would be beneficial if you doubt my word…check it out for yourself. Yep. things aren’t perfect. But you have a mind, you have this great site to learn from and you are free to make your choices…
“Chivalry is dead and WE killed it : ( ”
I know and I can’t think of what we can do, we can control our own behavior but not that of other women. So while there’s always free milk available around every corner, chances get less that the man wants to buy, much less put any effort into, the cow!
Mel,
That may be true but there are plenty of men looking for a healthy relationship.
If I continued to choose the same type of men I would agree with your point but, I choose to focus on respectful, healthy people.
I truly believe if you carry that attitude, you will continue to attract the losers. It’s like a big neon sign!
“Chivalry is dead and WE killed it : ( ”
I disagree completely.
A man who would judge me for ‘putting out’ too early is not a man who would interest me whatsoever. A man who believes in the double standard is one i wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. A man who likes the hunt and loses interest if a woman doesn’t present a ‘challenge’ is very questionable in my eyes.
Each to their own and i totally respect the opinions posted here, but to me it is NOT ok that men act one way and expect women to act another. I am a feminist, i believe in total equality, i believe that i should be able to live according to MY values and not what society dictates. I deserve to be loved for who i am and not judged because i don’t act in accordance with some set of rules that a bloke has decided makes me more or less worthwhile.
I will sleep with a guy when i decide i want to, whether that be within a few hours or a few weeks. I go with my gut. If a man judges me for this, then he is not the man for me. I am not going to change my values to hook some guy.
Ruby:
“I’ve heard several men say that the women that give it up aren’t the ones that they make girlfriends and marry.”
This explains the why there is a huge trend not marry anymore!
Why should any man bother these days? Just browse all of the creepy adult hook-up sites and Craig’s List ads.
Today is the devil’s playground for just about any lustful desire one can think up.
But did a lot of us women really kill chivalry? Yes, but no. Men still have a choice in all of this too. They don’t have “do” everything with a pulse just because they can, and we don’t have to either.
Renata (and others)
Some men do believe that, a lot of men are on Craigslist, but plenty of men don’t believe it, are looking for a proper relationship and aren’t on Craigslist. They aren’t down the bar trying to pick you up. They aren’t mouthing off their silly theories on women and sex. They aren’t chasing everything in a skirt/skinny jeans/whatever. They aren’t very visible. You (and I mean we) don’t notice good men because for some unfathomable reason we’d rather focus on loser men who don’t respect women in general and us in particular. And then we treat what these twits have to say as some kind of gospel. They know NOTHING about women (or humanity) as their experience is so shallow and one-sided.
Don’t worry about these loser manboys. They’ve got nothing to do with us!
I think women should stop trying to be the perfect woman according to the man’s standards. If I sleep with a man when it is the right time for me and because I want to, then he stops respecting me because I failed his silent test of my ‘morals’, then thats his problem. We put too much time and effort trying to be what men want instead of being confident in what we want. I will add that if we sleep with a guy to try to get him to like us then it’s for the wrong reason and manipulative. Then we disrespect ourselves. It’s very tricky, but if you remain sure of your own choices and act according to what is important to you, not what you THINK might be important to him, then you retain your own self respect. If he stops respecting you, then you have different values and he isn’t respecting his own values because he participated in the sex too. That makes him a hypocrite.
Excellent!! Totally what I was trying to find words for and you nailed it – THANK YOU jennynic!!
Colourorange,
yes, neediness and clawing desperation are not attractive qualities, in either gender. Confidence is. Confidence in who you are, what you’re worth, what you expect, what you’ll tolerate and what you won’t. You would not be all enamoured with a needy and clawingly desperate man who has little to no respect for himself and who turns himself into a doormat just to get you to return a text message, would you?
Do we really want a man who clings to us like a tearful baby to its mother’s apron strings, whining for attention and crying, “but I caaan’t live without youuuu!!!’ 🙂
I hear you Fearless. I’ve only been slightly involved with one man that was needy. While I thought he was a cool guy, his neediness made me want to stay away. So I did. My hope is that I’ve been burned enough by now that I will be confident the next go around. I hope.
ColourO
Yes. This current heartache guy didn’t know what you are worth cos you are not so sure yourself… focus on raising your self-esteem. Know your own worth and the next guy will know it too. Wishing you all the best.
Great post Natalie!!! I have pretty much participated in the majority of these and will keep this as a cheat sheet/reminder of what is no longer acceptable for me in terms of relationships. My last , for lack of a better term, relationship hit 8 of these points.
I love this blog and hope you will continue to write for a long time 🙂
Great post…right on the money !
OMG Nat this couldn’t of come at a better time, you must of had your crystal ball out and seen I was in trouble. My ex (yes the cheater) contacted me yesterday (of course by text, which equals lazy communication as we all know) just to say “Hi” after almost 2yrs and to see if I was done being mad. Are you kidding me was all I could think of as I was reading it.
I must admit it took me by surprise and made me wonder what the hell was going on. I know he’s still with as I like to call her Miss Pink Purse (long story won’t bother you with the details) so I couldn’t imagine what was up but after reading this I’m thinking its #1 Casual Relationship.
I’m staying strong (NC) even though my world was shakened for a few hours.
Hi Natalie, I LOVE your list, it is so true! You’re so great at getting to the truth of the problem, dissect and lay out the facts for us in ways we can understand, thank you! Your blog is so clear and doesn’t make excuses for inadequate mates.
Now I have one suggestion.. I think ‘Harem Relationship’ should be it’s own category too. They keep protesting they’re available, but it’s just you have to share him with his mother/female best friend/several female friends/ex-girlfriend/etc! Maybe this falls under the last category of ‘excuse’ but I actually think it’s a whole category of its own!
Also Natalie this is going off topic, sorry, I was wondering if you had some posts about parents/mothers/family/non-supportive friends. Especially ones who are ACs/saboteurs. Separation from family/frienemies, that sort of thing?
Well, let me see, Nat. I don’t know after your great post, if I should laugh or cry. You have named 3 types of the relationship I had with my EUM. We had a Boomerang, Rehabing and Remodeling, and Excuse involvement. There was also a partial Fantasy, but since our relationship was very physical and not an on line kind at all, and he did promise me many times we would be together forever, I only fantasized and dreamed that he would change his hurtful behaviors. So, according to him, he is the misunderstood, hurt and unpublished poet whose art is not truly appreciated by the world. I believed if I was a good woman, I would would heal his past hurts and be his muse. And his excuses of why he can’t be around me all the time? Why there was, “he had to be alone to write poems, his day job in the corporate world that was so demanding he had no time to see me daily, weekly or even monthly at times.” Or “he was so tired on the weekends, he just wanted to sleep.” Yet he managed to hike, bike, run, play with his computer, etc, etc, etc. And of course to all this, I just said ok, hoping he would eventually realized I was the one he was searching for.
It’s funny too, that when you are finally tired, you find a strength you never had. I’m in so much pain now so please don’t think I am ok.. And I would probably be with him in heartbeat if he would be the man who wanted a real relationship and showed me he loved me. But then that would not be my EUM, that would be another man completely, because he is incapable of having that kind of relationship. I won’t look for that kind of man for long time. I need to get over this heartache first before I can even think of moving on.
Hi just read your post and wanted to say that I think you did well to get away from that guy he is really big with excuses and didn’t prioritize you. Don’t take it as something is wrong with you, he probably is just unavailable. He just kept you strung along. I think you should not go back to him and hold out for a man who really makes you a priority!
What category would you put a man (age 29) who is in no hurry to leave home? My ex lives at home with his parents. His other constantly calls him while he is at my house. It was like pulling teeth to get him to stay at my house past Sunday night. I just did not see any independence characteristics about this guy. Other than that, I would say that he treated me with love, respect, kindness, etc. I really do not doubt that he cared about me but his personal development as a adult was just not there. Does that make him unavailable?
Hi I’ve had ‘experience’ over the years of dating a few guys who lived at home. Some had never left, and some had left but had gone back. One had his own place but his mother came to live with him (permanently?), and he was in no hurry to get her out, he said she needed a place, and he wanted to help her, fine, but he sure wasn’t in any hurry to find another way to ‘help’ her without her living there, and he showed no urgency to move her away… so same issue as him living at his mom’s in my book.
Another guy he had moved back home under the guise of helping the rest of the family take care of his mother who was terminally ill. Well she died a few years ago and he’s still there. And really, if he’d wanted to, he could have kept his own place, and taken a shift taking care of mom every day. From what he said and what I observed it seemed to me that he was really just freeloading off his parents and using his mom as an excuse to tell others how noble he was ‘taking care of his mom’ which I don’t believe he did much of anything to actually take care of her.
That last guy he would always tell me (future faking) about how he wanted to marry me. Then somehow it would come around to he’d say, even when his mom does die, he worried that he’d feel guilty leaving his dad on his own (his dad was quite able bodied! and there’s plenty of family in town). Then it was, what will become of his dogs if he moves away?… it was always something, even when just talking about the hypothetical future!
One thing I’ve noticed is that men who live at home by choice often make it sound like there is a noble, self-sacrificing reason they live with their parents (or their parents live with them). Whereas men who are living with their parents against their wishes freely admit, i lost my job, had to move in, it’s obvious they hate it but they are just doing what is pragmatic, and are working all the time towards the ultimate goal of quickly getting back out! (hope this makes sense) There’s a difference.
Mel,
The dogs? LOL!!!
Allison, lol! Yes dogs! That’s absolutely true! I don’t know if I’ll go into it now but that guy was obsessed with his dogs! No joke! He was also obsessed with his nephew and his nephew’s wife and baby. It’s too much to explain right now but he had a narcissistic harem that wasn’t just other other women, it actually included his dogs. He always tried to pit me against his dogs. Endlessly telling me he was worried about them, and speculating they would be ‘upset’ with him because he was gone from them while he was on a date with me. When I was planning to come over, he speculated that the dogs might bite me and not like me because they’ll recognize my scent as the person who’s been keeping him away.. etc… yes there’s more! It was endless! He just would not Shut Up about his stupid dogs! And the thing is I’m a dog lover! But for goodness sakes, shut up already, He acted like he was married to the dogs.
He also behaved exactly that way about his best friends (his nephew and his nephew’s wife). They all phoned eachother every day and always ended every conversation with ‘I love You’. One time his nephew texted him while we were at a ballet. He looked at me pleadingly like it was ALL he could manage to wait til intermission to reply to the text. (I was always being made out to be the ‘bad guy’ that was keeping him away from these people and animals that needed him sooo much. Yet every time I tried to relieve him of this endless struggle, and simply dump him, he desperately pleaded with me not to. To this day, years later that guy is still bugging me! I’ve actually had to go to the police about him!) He whispered, what if something’s wrong with the baby? OMG it’s not even his baby. (He also had 30 pics of that baby on his phone, which he proudly showed to everyone, one of those pics was the phone’s ‘wallpaper’ pic, and NO pics of me) So instead of spending intermission with ME, he spent intermission hurrying to a quiet corner where he could call back his nephew and make sure everything was ok. It never ended with that guy! That’s why I dumped him 🙂
Mel,
Yikes!!! Very strange!!!!! What was the average length of his relationships? I can’t imagine how anyone could survive this!
Allison, Yes it was horrid. I kept trying to dump the guy from about a month in, then he’d beg and plead and pout til I let him stay a bit longer, then reverted back to the same behaviors.
Also he was great with the ‘left handed compliments’, and he always talked on about other women about how great they were. And he would make fun of me or laugh at me, if i tripped or if my stomach grumbled or really anything that normal adults wouldn’t bother mentioning, he made an issue out of it and snickered or laugh or gave me a ‘weird’ look like I did something ‘wrong’ it was miserable being with him. I always felt I had to be ‘perfect’. Don’t eat, or my stomach might grumble, then he’ll give me the ugly look and shake his head. Have all the counters wiped off, or he’ll be sure to point it out. Be sure my hair is neat or he’ll comment on it’s frizziness. I mean it was miserable.
And the funny thing is I didn’t even like the guy!! He begged me to date him, I said no at first then finally thought I’d give him a chance because, ‘heck he seems to like me a lot, I guess I’ll give him a chance’. Well I kept trying to dump him, he’d beg me to stay, this went on for maybe 7 or 8 months? which I know is 7 or 8 months too long! I should have stuck with dumping him the first time I wanted out.
And he still tries to control me remotely now. He still sends unwanted messages, gifts, in his messages he tells how he misses me, that I’m beautiful, phoney ‘concern’ during for instance a snow storm or crisis, stuff like that. But it’s fake. He’s just being passive-aggressive because he knows I want nothing to do with him, and he’s trying to force me to accept his input in my life!
As far as his past, he was married once several years before we ever met. She lives in another state and they don’t stay in touch they don’t have kids. He spoke ill of her, from what I gather they got married then one of his buddies moved into their apartment with them (I’m sure that was a romantic way to start a marriage), then him and his buddy proceeded to team up against her. He said she was a ‘Bitch’ and ‘just ask my buddy, he’ll tell ya..’ I said well your buddy shouldn’t have a place or a say in your guys’ marriage anyway! So he was doing that triangulation stuff against her back then too. Pitting others against the woman he supposedly loves…
Mel,
Why haven’t you blocked this guy?????
You’ve written a great deal but, you’re still in communication?
Oh no I have blocked him, on several sites, and no “we” aren’t in communication, it’s been all one way communication from him, to me. I told him 3 years ago, after I’d already dumped him and he kept bothering me, I didn’t want to hear from him anymore. The problem is he won’t go away.
He’s getting no response/ communication from me. The only response he’s got since I told him to stop bothering me, is getting blocked, and the one time I sent a gift back to him the same day I got it (he had sent an unwanted gift to me), then it ended up in my driveway the next day. Then he still sent other gifts after that but i didn’t send it back, didn’t want him to use it as an excuse to bring it to my house.
I’ve been quite reluctant to involve the police for a number of reasons, but recently I finally have done so and I am hopeful this will come to an end, I hope it will stop.
Trust me he doesn’t love me, he doesn’t want me back (nor would I ever under *any* circumstances, ever, take him back!!), he’s just passive aggressively trying to control and make things unpleasant for me. grr.
I’m ashamed and embarrassed I dated such a guy. Ugh, see, he’s getting his way even now. I managed to rid myself of him over 3 years ago and yet here I am still spending precious time talking about him!
I’m glad you got the police involved. This person is not normal!!!!
Thank you Allison, yes I agree he’s not normal. Funny thing is, to the casual observer, he’s simply ‘being nice’, sending a gift, writing to give me a compliment, or to show ‘concern’ for me… but no he’s a disturbed person. It’s quite frustrating.
Mel, he sounds like a total creep. Who brings back a gift that has already been refused and puts it in your driveway?… that’s creepy. Keep your eye on that situation and one way or another make sure he gets the message that his persistence is now criminal harrassment.
Fearless thank you, I just want it to go away and I hope that it will stop. Don’t want it to escalate, and don’t want it to stay the same. I just want him to leave me alone and go away!
Do you really have to ask the question “is he unavailable?” he doesn’t want to make his life with you at the moment and doesn’t want to stay over or leave home. Whatever the reaons for that are, they are pretty irrelevant really. Is that what YOU want from a man in your life? If it is NO then bite the bullet. There honestly are plenty of fish in the sea!
Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been almost ten months since breaking up with the AC. I’d now say it was a rehab project from my side, with me thinking I could just talk to him about the snide remarks and ambush put-downs and condescension; seeing him as a ‘poor’ bachelor who never figured out why women won’t stay with him. He probably thought I could use his ‘help’ too, like some kind of executive Pygmalion project.
From the beginning he promised to be there for me but made sure to let me know how busy he was – I had him on such a pedestal I was totally accepting of his laying it out: he was a VIP and I was getting into his schedule. Did I understand what a big deal that was? (Yes, sir.) So that was a great Excuse for why he couldn’t be fully attentive, less rude, less evasive and less helpless to say no to the attentions of ex-girlfriends.
Hmm. Sometimes I think I ought to take a break from BR, because I don’t think about the AC much anymore, except when I come here to check in. And thinking about it just pisses me off.
But I have other stuff to work on, so I keep coming back. And it doesn’t piss me off THAT much to think of him – it’s over, thank goodness, and the stuff I realize I have to learn is so important. All that work would have been there still had I not had the wake up call of being in that disrespectful situation. No more excuses, and no more rehabbing, or thinking I can tell anyone how to live their life.
Congrats Magnolia on being in a healthier place! No more Florence Nightingale for you right? I had the same problem. Doing alot better now that I know what it was that was my issue and corrected it. I always had self respect, I just had a really hard time letting go of the idea that there was hope for it to end up the way I wanted and imagined it to be. Finally was able to let go of the illusions I created about it all in my own mind. What a journey. Learned alot and I am for sure in a healthier place too. Good luck and keep moving forward and doing what’s good for you.
Magnolia,
I hope you don’t take a break from BR but I can see from your posts over the past months you are in a new place. I’m relieved you don’t have the ex AC on that pedestal. Busy my arse. My ex was busy too. They don’t seem that busy when they need a shag now do they?
As usual, Natalie’s cheat sheet to unhealthy relationships is a wonderful reminder as to what to avoid. That’s why I find it invaluable to hang with BR. I don’t get as angry anymore either despite the most recent situation. There is a ton of stuff I need to focus on too. A ton of my stuff that doesn’t involve a him. Could it be that our focus could possibly be on us instead of them? It feels weird thinking about me. Dawn, you are right. Letting go of the hope and the illusions I created in my own mind feels strange.
It felt akward, uncomfortable, and hollow this weekend being with him again. There was no hope. There were no illusions. Just plain, ugly reality. You are fortunate not to have to endure the suck it and see phenomenon. The former great dysfunctional sex was just dysfunctional sex. I’m going to go take another shower and see if I can wash him off, again. When do you go home?
Hi Runner,
I’m in LA now, just flew from SF today. Here til Saturday, then heading home. I just checked in for an extra BR look-see particularly because I have been thinking of your post all afternoon, since I read it.
It’s strange: it bummed me out (just a bit, but enough to have me think about it) to learn you spent the weekend w the exMM, after all this time. Is it, do you think, because you never really truly did do NC, and so have not really begun the task of being over him?
In your posts where you mention taking calls, meeting up, etc I notice that you often don’t say what you were feeling that had you go against your better instincts.
Anyway, thank you for sharing this with us. I have the dual sense of having been set back to square one in your story, and at the same time your story continuing as ever. Kind of like with the writing practice I have that involves a daily quota: when I miss a day, my ‘streak’ count falls back to zero and I have to start building up my streak again. The longer the streak, the bigger the bummer when I fall back to square one. Then I realize: even when I start again at zero, I still have the history of having been working at my streak, and know that I have already achieved much, and learned much.
Here’s to getting back in the saddle of NC. Have you made the decision to do that or do you expect to be in further contact? Let us know; I’d like to know when the new streak starts.
Magnolia,
So sorry to bum you out even a little but thank you for the question. I believe Natalie may have hit on it in her response to me. Natalie said that I have been hoping he’d see the light and he has been hoping I’d return to being the dutiful OW. We are at stalemate. He’s not going to see the light and I’m not going to be the OW again. I realize the difference between what I’ve been doing in this psuedoNC period vs. what it is like to be committed to NC because it is over. It really feels over. The times I have spoken to him on the phone always reaffirmed that things we not the same. This weekend was another firm reaffirmation that I can’t go back. I like your writing analogy. For me, it’s like going to the gym. You get on a streak, it feels good, then you get busy and don’t go. But when you do go back, you aren’t as completely out of shape as when you started. I think I may have begun the task of letting go of him but still have a boat load of work to do, obviously. The new NC streak has started. But it hasn’t been like the first time. Before I was fighting the urge, like an addiction, although the urge was lessening. I like how I feel without him in my life more now than I like how I felt with him in my life. Without him, there is hope. With him, there isn’t. This weekend was a good contrast. I didn’t feel good getting back on the rollercoster and, for the first time, I saw some seriously incompatible characteristics. Does any of this make sense?
I can not thank you enough for your blogs, please keep writing! I am done with day 1 NC and got strength from your words to call it off! We are both attached and it was a train wreck! Your posts are so blunt, that’s what I needed to wake up and end it. Read a bunch of your blogs today whenever I felt like calling or texting, they kept me from contacting him. Thank you for using your insight to help others!
hey natalie,
your blog has been super inspiring, as others have said I do hope your posts and lessons about love are more widespread…. if it wasn’t for reading your ebooks I probably wouldn’t have had the mindset or courage to just end things and try to be healthy for myself.
i have been nc for almost 5 months now and though I thought I could not handle it at first day by day I realize im growing stronger. I still battle some emotions but at least now I know about boundaries and code red behaviour. I remember your other post about admitting you are wrong, If I listened to my gut feelings and recognized the red flags then I would have realized the relationship was not right anyways!
I really appreciate your words and I’m glad I can have this knowledge for the future, I’m still scared to date but at least now I know what to look out for so ill ease in slowly and take your words to heart !
Although I’ve been in an abusive relationship, a downgrade to FWB and been the OW (these were different relationships) my underlying issue is secret relationships. I’m not kept a secret, I’m the one who keeps the relationship secret from my family (fundamental christians) for religious reasons. I absolutely warn you against getting into a relationship with this kind of ambiguiy. Don’t be kept a secret. Someone who keeps you a secret is ashamed of you but, more important, ashamed of themselves. It’s just a horrible confusing experience for both of you.
If he/she has cut his family off and cut off the religious ties that’s fine. It’s when they’re trying to juggle conflicting values and beliefs you’ve got a real problem. THAT is the reason I will probably not meet anyone again. I can’t reconcile my religious beliefs with being in a relationship. I KNOW that religious people get married all the time, lol, that’s what they do. I’m still figuring it out but at least I’m no longer putting myself into the relationship arena when I still ambiguous about it. In all unavailable relationships, the key issue is their ambiguity. You, he, or both of you are not really “in” it and you’ll never be satisfied.
That’s interesting, Grace – wise words from you as always.
I am curious as to how fundamental Christianity squares with all the abuse you suffered as a child at the hands of these supposedly Christian parents… but I am well aware that people’s supposed religiosity is not always transferred onto their human interactions where it is most needed. My EUM, for example, was always banging on about how Catholicism was the true religion – he was all very concerned about human rights across the world – like his concerns for sex trafficking, he was a member of Amnesty International, gave money to help dissident prisoners in China etc.. unfortunately these high falluting humanitarian values did not translate to his most basic human relationships with women (I often found him heartless and emotionally cruel, in a passive sense – never any physical or open verbal aggression). His supposed Christianity led me to imagine that he was a ‘good’ man. I’m sure he thinks he is. Though he did say to me soon after I met him that he had a sense that if everyone in the world was like me the world would be a better place but that he didn’t think he could say the same of himself. Ambiguities or what?
I agree totally that what lies at the heart of toubled relationships is ambiguity – they are riddled with ambiguity, on both sides. I finally started to see myself in a clearer (but shocking) light when I realised that everything I hated or angered me about him I was actually pretty guilty of myself (though I was never heartless or emotionally with-holding; quite the reverse). The main one being: indecision and being incapable of making my actions fit my words. What a pair of hypocrites we were, both of us.
Grace – Thanks for telling us that bit about yourself. I’ve read your comments for 10 months on this site thinking you had just given up on relationships; it’s like getting a piece of the “Grace” puzzle. Your comment reminds me of stories I’ve heard in the gay community, where it’s a recipe for heartache to date someone who is in the closet and can’t or won’t come out to family or workmates. It speaks to deep conflictedness in that person, despite the good heart they have. Would you say you are ‘in the closet’ about your religious beliefs?
Mag
No, I’m not in the closet anymore but I “should” only date someone with the same religious beliefs and if you go into any church the women way outnumber the men. Plus I’ve been married before so there’s the issue of re-marriage. All that can be overcome though, the person who made/makes it complicated is me. That’s what we have to understand about the emotionally unavailable – they make relationships complicated, it really doesn’t have to be!
I think if you’re gay, or there are religious differences (more prevalent now in a multicultural society), then front it out. The people who really care about you will accept it (especially when children come along) and the rest can … push off. Easier said than done, though. Secrets make you sick.
“secrets make you sick”
Here, here!! Well said, Grace.
I guess that speaks to the ‘shared values’ piece. For folks whose religious beliefs are hardly formed, or unimportant to them, the religious beliefs of others can seem rigid. But it’s just as much a set of values to say “I’m not religious” as it is to have any other religious orientation.
I never realized how much my spirituality means to me until trying to ‘explain’ myself to the AC, and feeling weird about the ‘depth’ of my sense of experience of G~d, despite my lack of attachment to any religious system (former Catholic, though). It really hit home near the end of our relationship when I asked him if he would like to pray with me for ‘us.’ He said okay. I said my piece to G~d, asking to be heard on what I cared about so so much. His turn: the recitation of a formal prayer that barely related, that had no sense of humility, and with a false sincerity that struck me – is THIS who this man is, really is, before G~d? And it was unengaged, compliant, memorized and formulaic.
Until that point I would have never said the spirituality piece was a big one for me, but now I see that for me a deep place of intimacy would be one where I could share who I feel myself to be before G~d, and have the privilege of my partner showing me the same and me being comfortable with that. I never realized how much I would value that.
Talk about feeling like my expectations are way high! (But that is for the next post.)
Fantasy relationship, excuse relationship mixed with secret relationship! That was the relationship I had, nope I don’t miss the relationship one bit, the only reason I’m hurting would be because a) I fell for an illusion someone who pretended to be something he’s not B) I put up with alot of cr@p from him and accepted unacceptable behaviour, I know time will heal and I know that my attachment is released, I know I have to be patient and go through it all, even though it hasn’t been that long (2 months) I’m at peace, I’ve faced the worst & I know I CAN handle it
Thanks Natalie for reminding me again why I shouldn’t want that relationship & why it’s doomed from the start, I’m better off!
Even if you are in a “relationship” or friendship with a guy like this, I think it is okay as long as it is clear that it is a friendship only. That way, you don’t wait around for him, but also date other people. This doesn’t go for all of these situations, but with someone who is truly your friend and brings value to your life. You have to set the boundaries. Rori Raye calls this circular dating and it means you don’t ever commit to a man unless he gives you the things you truly want in a relationship, but allows you the flexibility to still connect with a man who is unavailable. You just know it is not a relationship. I am interested, Natalie, what you think about this.
I don’t know what Natalie thinks… but for me “friends” and “dates” are two different things; we don’t have sex with our “friends” or even wonder if we should or even ponder the issue!… and our friends do not expect or hope or try to have sex with us; a lot of these unavailable “dating” men do! Or are they just looking for a new friend? I don’t think so. And if you are dating various men, you are not really looking for a new “friend” either, are you, really? It’s one thing to say that you can remain ‘available’ for other dates – yes, you can… the question is can you remain *emotionally available* for other, better, dates? I doubt it.
I think we need to be clear in ourselves what it is we are looking for in a relationship, otherwise there’ll be trouble ahead.
I’m not sure about that, the thing is that it’s not like you can just ‘decide’ to not develop feelings for someone. If you’re attracted to him, and you’re spending time with him, you might end up getting emotionally involved and then what to do? Can be easier said than done just to ‘turn off’ the feelings.
Nat, this is a bestseller book. You need an agent NOW.
AGREED. Some smart publishing house should find you and get you out to the big time, now. MANY, MANY women (and men) are desperate for wisdom and straight, no-bullshit talk.
Thanks again Natalie, this was dead on as all the articles. This website has been so helpful and such a source a strengh. Eventhough, I broke NC with EUM almost 2 weeks ago, he was the one who started NC after he refused to call me back after breaking or not following through on his own plans. Almost 3 weeks later, he calls back to hit the reset button, I didn’t take his calls immediately but when I did, I allowed myself to re-enter the cycle of the same(insanity) and start the explaining and dummying down my values again. Now, I feel back at square one. Between this site, my friends and really listening to my gut, I have been equipped with the tools to walk away and I know I will be okay to walk away and not look back. It is so hard to know to do something different but still want to do the same. I know that I am absolutely holding on NOTHING by continuing to entertain him. Within, the last a couple of weeks I have been able to see some of his drama and wonder, should he even be dating ? Well, of course not!!!
The Excuses and Boomerang is what our involvement is based off. In this past few weeks of continued excuses about his time, committment and just whatever else he can think of to dripfeed me, he admitted he would never just go away because he “believes, I am the one” , that I understand him and I am patient with him. I know now, yes I probably do since I am emotionally unavailable too and that why I keep entertaining you. Today, I am preparing to start NC again and have thought about paying for block on my phone. However, I will come out much stronger if I am to maintain self control and not answer if and when he calls.
Great concise blog Natalie 🙂
My first ex and I both decided to keep our relationship a “secret” to begin with because of the large age gap.
I was too young and naive, and he should have known better than to start things. When our friends and family finally found out we were together they kept saying it wouldn’t work, you’re not suited etc. I should have listened to them, they were right. Hence keeping it secret.
We finally broke up 4 years later realising we wanted different things.
20 years on from NC I am so relieved it wasn’t supposed to last. My lucky escape.
I’m so glad texting and emails weren’t available in those days and the 100 miles between us. It made it easier for me to get on with my life.
He was gutted I didn’t want to remain friends when I went NC.
He shouldn’t have been surprised after saying he was getting married within a few months of our break up. He’s since divorced.
One of things he said really stuck with me all those years
“the g/f’s I got closest too always went NC, than those whom I didn’t bond that closely with stayed friends after we broke up “.
So glad I went NC.
Q: If you go browsing online to see how an ex has done, is that breaking some form of NC (even without actually contacting them) ?
eg viewing from afar (hence me finding out he got divorced). Is this wrong/taboo or just natural curiosity ?
I was in a rebound relationship with a man who was still in love with his ex. I ended up walking away when he finally came clean and told me that he did not feel as strongly for me as he did his ex. Breaking up and going NC hurt like hell, but five months later, I am feeling a lot better. I’m actually becoming the man that I want to marry by being good to myself and loving myself. Currently, I am in escrow to purchase an adorable little house that is in a picturesque little town on the waterfront in beautiful Northern California. It was a short sale and I got a really good deal on it. I can’t wait to decorate it and invite my friends over! I also enjoy doing things that I’ve never tried like taking sailing lessons. My next fun activity will be taking flying lessons (these activities can be done cheaply through an online company called: LivingSocial.com) Ladies, life is what you make it! We can choose to be happy and do things to enhance our happiness, or we can choose to be miserable and engage in behaviors that enhance our misery. Like Natalie (and my late mother) said, we have to do things that make us happy and not look to a man to create our happiness or define us. I don’t know about you all, but I choose to be happy!!
P.S. The best way to vindicate and validate yourself from an EUM, assclown, or future faker is to live the most positive, happy and successful post breakup life that you possibly can
Hey Gina,
I totally agree with your post. I broke up/have been NC with my EUM for the past six months. Since then i’ve taken flying trapeeze lessons, S-Factor pole dancing classes, been white water rafting, been to several concerts, festivals, clubs and lounges around my city (I’m in LA) and have booked a cruise to the Carribean. I probably would’ve never done those things if i was still with the EUM because i would have been either waiting for him to come around or too bummed to do anything because he broke off plans…again. So here i am, living my life to the fullest and not waiting around for “the one” to do these fun things with. I’ve started dating again but am in no rush to get into anything. I will definitely take my time and choose wisely this time.
Hi Ruby!
You sound like a woman after my own heart! Good for you! What in the world is S-Factor pole dancing? It sounds dangerous! Wow! Flying trapeze lessons sound wild! I’ll see how the flying lesson goes, then I’m seriously going to consider skydiving (I have a fear of heights and feel that this would be a great way to get over it). It sure is a small world! I’m originally from L.A. as well. I hear what you mean about taking it slow when it comes to getting back into the dating scene. I’m doing the same thing. Keep on doing what you’re doing though. You are definitely on the right track!
Gina, “I’m actually becoming the man that I want to marry by being good to myself and loving myself.”
Wow that’s really simple but I sure like the way you phrased it! Great concept, thanks!! Hmm perhaps we could also apply this to ‘being the mother/ or father/ or friend we wish we had, etc..
“Hmm perhaps we could also apply this to ‘being the mother/ or father/ or friend we wish we had, etc..”
Mel,
You apply it to whatever situation works for you!
“P.S. The best way to vindicate and validate yourself from an EUM, assclown, or future faker is to live the most positive, happy and successful post breakup life that you possibly can”
Truer words were never typed Gina! As a “giver” to everyone else but myself, I am now learning to “validate and vindicate” myself first in healthy ways so that I can have a healthier and more content life. And thanks for the rec on livingsocial.com. I’m relocating in 6 mos to another city and I will use this site.
BTW, Great, no, FANTASTIC BLOG. I’ve been lurking for a year, and though I was going through an extremely heartbreaking separation and now year later, divorced 4 mos ago, this blog has been a Godsend. The blog entries are very helpful, eye-opening, and insightful into relationships, and how most of us have to recognize how extremely hurtful toxic relationships are, what we choose to accept, settle for, and how we gain strength from making informed choices to protect our hearts, empowering each of us to live more productive lives.
ncbound2012,
You are SO right! This sure is an AWESOME blog! I only wish that I would have found it six months ago when I first broke up with the ex! Another site that you might want to try is: meetup.com. It’s a great way to meet both men and women who share the same interests and hobbies as you do.
The other thing that I want to get off of my chest is how I don’t like it when we women engage in long discussions and debates as to why the EUM, ass clown, or future faker, moved on and found someone else. Screw that, and screw them! Let’s turn things around and let their sorry behinds hear through the grapevine how: after we kicked them to the curb, and walked away from their good for nothing asses, we took the time to work on making ourselves better and healthier; then moved on to happier and healthier relationships! Talk about some serious vindication and validation!!! Ha! Ha!
Can I hear an AMEN!!
Amen!
Amen! Love it, Gina. I too have had so many lovely, even awesome, people and opportunities come my way from the seeds I planted in the wastelands of the relationship with my AC. I am mixing metaphors terribly, but, really, NC is a real healer, and such a great wall to push from. You really can use these people as sources of inspiration if you want and choose to. Despite the deep hurt and humiliation (and temporary homelessness), it’s funny, I now (a year on) genuinely feel grateful for the experience of being in a relationship that, according to this scheme, was a mega-combo-deal, rebound-abusive-fantasy one.
Amen.
Once it done, it’s done – it doesn’t matter after that what “he’s” doing or not doing; it only matters what we are doing! A wise uncle of mine told me once when I was struggling to recover from a broken relationship – “you’ll get over it when you decide you want to get over it”. Simple, but true.
Gina,
This is a serious question. If you experienced having been with an assclown or unavailable or whatever and he goes on to someone else, can you honestly say you don’t feel hurt by that? Or if it’s easy for you to let it go, how do YOU do that and where can I buy that pill?
“If you experienced having been with an assclown or unavailable or whatever and he goes on to someone else, can you honestly say you don’t feel hurt by that? Or if it’s easy for you to let it go, how do YOU do that and where can I buy that pill?”
Hi Colororange,
In answer to your question, my EUM/FF has reconnected with his toxic ex in the hope that they will get back together (Nat calls it relationship insanity), and knowing that he loves her more deeply than he did me does hurt. I’ve been NC since last February (although he did email me a little over a month ago to ask how I was doing and to let me know that I’d left some clothes as his house). There are days when I feel really strong and cast my gaze forward, but there are other days that I look backwards and feel sorry for myself–for what I wish could have been, but isn’t. To make myself feel better, I participate in activities and socialize with people that are uplifting and add positive things to my life. As more time passes, I will eventually get to the point where I feel indifferent towards him and what he does, which is my ultimate goal.
Well, why do toxic parents succeed at pitting their children against each other (I’m an only child, but I can imagine how awful this is)? I think it affects the same traits in human nature.
Yes, we tend to be jealous. I think most AC take advantage of this. Whenever we don’t do what they want, they “casually” mention an ex or praise an attractive stranger, flirt with somebody or call their fallback girl. Very often, this strategy works.
Bottom line, it’s probably normal to be jealous, even of the new girlfriend of an asshole ex. But this is another thing that just happens in our heads (almost automatically, I guess). Maybe reminding us of this fact helps us to get over it more quickly. This jealousy has nothing to do with our value or their value or with him having “changed”.
You said it, Sister!!!!
Great, great timing. The last ambiguous relationship I was in was entirely online, and he disappeared when we actually Could meet in person. Thanks again for opening my eyes! 🙂
I had a lucky escape from Mr “too busy” a few weeks ago, contacts me 6 weeks after our one and only date, came around for a coffee (tried to shag me, I said no) then goes AWOL again for another month contacting me with a text saying “u home tomorrow” hahahahaha I text back “don’t bother.” I’m a bit sick of all the shit to be honest.
“I’m a bit sick of all the shit to be honest”. Yes Kirsten. No bloody wonder. So am I. Your wee comment struck a chord with me…made me feel a bit sad, actually. One wonders how they get to be so brazen, so arrogant, so shameless – I just cannot imagine treating anyone like that – I’d be too embarrassed. What the hell is wrong with these people?? The notion even of common courtesy seems to have escaped them (since when did men get to call you up after weeks of nothingness to pop round for a shag… well, since we let them, I suppose)
Maybe, we shouldn’t respond to someone who hasn’t made contact in six weeks. We have to show them that this is unacceptable.
No offense but, allowing this man into your home for coffee after one date, may have given him the idea. I’m not throwing this on you but, someone of his character will read it the wrong way. Better to be safe.
I felt like that too….for a good while. But, as I have been saying, I really think these are tests. The pattern seems to be: AC/EUM crisis, then a string of less hurtful, but no less frustrating, even demoralising, incidents (to test whether we’ve learned the AC lessons), then meeting someone as awesome as we are, and with our new relationship-armoury. Stay positive.
Totally agree Elle!
You learn the lessons, you go out there with your new arsenal of knowledge, wade through a few plonkers, take pride in your new alarm system that goes haywire when you realise you’ve encountered another EU. Recognise AC vs decent men (usually using decent male friends/ relatives as a basis for comparison), which is a *very* important distinction to make. You test your strength when you reject bad behaviour, you gain faith in yourself.
I totally agree that you do come across less hurtful EUs in the wake of an ACEU disaster (in my case i had a few flings with some lovely, very respectful but very flakey guys), before meeting someone awesome, finally! It doesn’t happen overnight.
The boyfriend and i went to a music festival this weekend. The first time i’d ever been with a partner. It was amazing, fun, blissful! We had such a blast and even bumped into the ex EUM a couple of times. He was wandering about by himself. The best revenge really is to get on with your life :).
Yes 6 weeks was a long time but there was a fairly good explanation on his part (lost his job soon after our first date and his work car & phone got taken straight away = couldn’t get his numbers out of the phone and had no transport), so I was willing to catch up for a coffee and a chat. And yeah Fearless, no frigging shame these people. Not that I care at all, just seems to be the bloody norm these days.
I thought I was going right with my last ex I went on 6 dates before any sex. Even this lead to me dating him an unavailable. For 4 ish months. I realised quickly actually but I was waiting to see. I have now learnt that people show themselves Quicker than you imagine.
How about this one? The Mirroring Relationship.
When I told the EUM that my dating experiences in my 20s and 30s included lots of sexual partners and dating around because I didn’t know what I wanted (I was obviously an EUF back then), he said he wanted to “do what I did” and wanted to have sex with lots of different women and that is why he could not commit. He is 58, and I’m 52.
When I asked him how many women he thought he’d have to bed down to have “enough,” he said “as many as you did with men.”
I’ve been NC for a couple months now. Never felt better.
Lose them, ladies. They aren’t worth the paper their phone number is printed on.
Yes, people show us pretty quick what to expect as far as how they will treat us. Our job is to heed this and opt out and not try to “change” or “fix” them, or try to get them to treat us any different. People treat you the way they want to treat you-don’t expect anything different. If you have to ask someone to treat you differently then they are(major red flag)…then your with the wrong person. Think of people “as is”, they aren’t fixer uppers, as you find them is how they are and always will be. Tough lesson to learn but the sooner you learn it and act accordingly in response to that (opt out) the more sanity you will have in your life and the more time you will have to be open to healthier people that are capable of treating you with the love, care and respect you deserve.
As-is. Perfect way to put it. I won’t be graduating into good relationships until I get that one through my head.
dawn, so so true!
I really needed this! Caved and met up with the MM. For months he told me how I “broke” his heart 6 months ago when I told him not to contact me, how mad he was. Of course, we have been in contact, but where he lives out of state, we finally met up. Well, when I met up with him he wanted to know if I had been dating others, I told him I had. He went on and on, how mad he he was 6 months ago when I didn’t want to see him, that his “heart” was not broken, but he wanted to put me on a guilt trip! WTF! Sex was amazing! Foolish me! He flew home this morning. To make a long story short, I ticked off 8 of the reasons above and I am DONE! NC for sure! Never again will I fall for such nonesense, if I am alone forever so be it.
Nevertoolate
Thing to get is that you’ll never be more alone than you are now – in this empty, soul destroying tomb of a “relationship”.
I am so sick and tired of people saying “it’s OK if I’m not ready for a relationship as long as I’m honest with them up front!” To me, that is nothing more than a selfish cop-out. It’s a way of using another human being and causing them serious emotional pain without having to take responsibility for it.
Get it in your heads once and for all, people! The person who is on the receiving end of that crap ALWAYS thinks that the guy will change his mind once he sees how much she has to offer to him: she is physically attractive (assuming that she is), loving, fun to be with, funny, intelligent, a good conversationalist, caring — bottom line: a genuinely nice person.
Any emotionally healthy woman who spends enough time with a man holding hands, feeling his body next to hers as they walk arm-in-arm, having intimate conversations about one’s life, hopes, etc., is going to fall in love with that man – especially after they have sex. That’s the way it is. Men know that and they use our open hearts as a weap0n against us.
If men (heterosexual or homosexual) just want to have “fun,” then they should do so with prostitutes. They should approach non-whores only if they are ready to be in-love, to love, and are looking for a partner for a loving and lasting relationship. It may be different for homosexual men, though, since my understanding from what I have read, based on the statistics that have arisen from the multitude of studies that have been carried out, they are much more promiscuous, such that finding another gay man to have sex with and who doesn’t want a relationship either is much easier. However, that’s not the case for women, as most of us want the in-love, love and the lasting relationship.
Ann, I get you all the way to the prozzies bit. What men *and* women who want to be casual can and should do is be up front. What men and women who want more than a casual person does is run in the opposite direction when this is apparent.
I have tried an online dating site off and on. Several times I have been contacted by men who when I read their profile, their intentions are listed as ‘dating but nothing serious’. Mine are listed as ‘Long term relationship.’ Anyway so a couple of times I responded to these guys saying, ‘So you’re not looking for anything serious then?’. They reply back ‘Oh no, I’m interested in a relationship with you’.
Riiight. It’s all too weird. If he’s stating up front he’s just there to date random girls and doesn’t want anything serious. Then contacting me and saying he does want serious, then I can’t help but think he’s not being authentic somewhere. Anyway I guess this goes back to sometimes guys will tell you what they think you want to hear.
Fearless ….re : nevertolate
remember….its RELATIONSHIT
.
Done with day 3 NC! Please tell me this gets easier & I will think about him less…
I may have to be in a two week class with him in October ( same freaking place where we met). We had signed up for the class together before I came to realize that I filled a “void” in his life as he put it but was never going to be a priority or part of his. Also realized my own marriage deserved my attention to fix versus wasting time on a dead-end texting/phone call relationship. Any words of advice from others who did NC but then due to work etc had to be in the same space with that person again? I am already dreading it….
countrygirl
Think The Queen. Greet and move on. No touching or other funny stuff. No pub, no chit chat, no sharing personal details, no explanations, no apologies. You are The Queen and he is a mere commoner.
If you feel that this person is a threat to your marriage, it may be worth switching classes or cancelling. But October is a while away, you’ll feel differently by then.
Wow! I really like this ! Yes, I am the Queen and he is but a commoner!!! I don’t speak to commoners! Thanks Grace!!! I am writing that one down and gonna look at that everyday! Awesome!
NC gets easier, CG, I assure you. In fact, NC can even be a life-affirming, wonderful opportunity. You have to work on it though – you have to be disciplined with your thinking (do not idealise this guy or make him more important than he is – for what it’s worth this guy sounds like a bit of a user-flake and it certainly seems as if he didn’t really know you anyway – so no need to feel personally rejected). You have to look after yourself as if you have a physical injury or illness (doing nice things, babying yourself for some time). Write loads (to stop any contact). Be honest about what you were looking for in a relationship outside your marriage (maybe see someone to talk about that). Give yourself some credit for dodging a major bullet of trouble and more heartache (real heartache) by getting out of an affair before it was physical and beset by all sorts of fantasy emotions. Finally, do a few super things that you wouldn’t normally do, a new, dazzling hobby perhaps? (use it as an excuse). Fortunately, I don’t have to see my AC anymore, almost certainly never again. But if I were in your position, I’d be doing as much as possibly in the next two months to get myself more emotionally robust, and getting him off the throne. If you feel good about your life and we’re it’s going, you will cope (you might even feel very little when you see him). If you make him, somehow, an important indicator of your value or power, you will struggle. It’s up to you!
Country girl – you can always “unsign” for the class? If you are serious about achieving the necessary distance in order to seriously move on from this, you should think about that.
You could cancel the class.
I don’t think she should have to put a stop to an aspect of her life- be it class or anything else- because of this guy. That’s effectively ceding the field to him; he wins. I feel the same about changing a number- why do we women have to give so much up when he gives up nothing? Screw him; I’m not giving up my power.
Meagan19,
she doesn’t *have* to put a stop to an aspect of her life- be it class or anything else- because of this guy (and neither does anyone else); what she can do is *make a choice* about whether taking a class that he is also taking is a good idea for her own emotional welfare. That isn’t giving up your power; it’s taking it back. And it’s not about who ‘wins’, it’s about making sure we don’t get more hurt or more involved with people and situations that are damaging to us. Sometimes getting your power back means cutting him off – and sometimes cutting him off means blocking his number and avoiding being in the same place as him if at all possible. You know, these guys do not see our NC as us running away from anything but HIM! – Or as them having ‘won’ – quite the reverse; they have not won, and NC shows them that. They are not daft – they see it for what it is: us wanting nothing else to do with him! And if that’s winning – then we win!
meagan – I totally understand feeling that way and have felt that way. It’s unfortunate that what is really good for us after being in a bad situation is messy and costly (ie. cancelling classes, changing numbers, moving house, having to switch jobs if work becomes a drama zone, etc). I’m not saying we always have to make those changes, but that taking such measures are usually the consequence of / necessity when getting well clear of ACs and even EUMs.
If anything, the sheer hassle and expense of clearing out of a bad situation (much like the expense of dissolving a poor choice in contract with a business partner, or bad hire), has motivated me to do the learning so I don’t have to keep cleaning up messes and incurring costs to ensure my peace and stability.
That lesson is one thing I think ACs have already learned. They’ve figured out how they like to live their life and they pick relationships that don’t disturb that. They’ve always had a sense that if things blow up they won’t be the ones to change a thing about themselves.
I’d enrol in a different class, and chalk it up to doing what needs to be done.
No question. Absolutely no question. Without a doubt, she should enroll in another class.
If he knew that she was supposed to be part of her class, AND she is forced into contact with him, AND he asks her why she is not in the class, THEN she will jus say that enrolling in another session/class was what was best for her schedule. No lying there, either!
If he didn’t know, or only was told that she was planning or thinking about taking the class at that time, then we’re (still) good.
In any event, NC all the way. And, if she runs into him, she should choose to just say “hello” with a smile while walking away! (If she is with a group, then she just has to think of a reason to leave the group. No big deal.)
@ Country Girl and every woman/man out there that is in NC;
Congrats on choosing NC. You will have your good days and bad days, what has helped me is writing down my emotions and thoughts about the realities of the relationship it helps me process it through and come to grips with it, and let it go, and if I have anything I want to say to him, or feel a need to contact him I just write it down instead of breaking no contact. Talking to the guy will not be helpful to you in anyway shape or form, you can’t change him by talking to him. If you have to talk someone into wanting what you want them to want it never ever works-ever. Especially when it comes to things like being available for a real relationship. You are not available for a real relationship with him either, your married. You will think of him less as you process through your emotions and thoughts. Get professional help if you can afford it, and keep reading Baggagereclaim.com. for insight and support and any other info. that pertains to dealing with what ails you. I have learned everything that I am telling you pretty much right here from NML and the other women and from surfing the net and learning about infidelity, marriage, love, etc. etc. This is some of the things that I have been doing which has helped in my efforts to stay on the right path and keep me doing what’s best for me because that’s what NC is all about. On a daily basis remind yourself of the realities which are: 1) the fact that you are married and need to explore what’s going on there and deal with whatever issues you discover you have within yourself and whatever issues your husband has to deal with. 2) the fact that you are not interested in having a dalliance with a man who has told you point blank that is all he is interested in. 3) the fact that he is just looking for you to fill a void in his life- and that your not a void filler!!! 4) the fact that this man can’t and won’t ever be what you want or need him to be. 5) Don’t get caught up in fantasy thinking about the “what if”‘s and the possibilities that you may make up in your own mind -don’t bet on potential, don’t view him with rose colored glasses and make up fantasies in your mind about what you think being in a relationship with him could be like if only this or that. Don’t even go there like I did because it’s only going to send…
hi countrygirl,
I’m on day 11 of NC from my “other man” (married too)…today has been tough, but i replace my upsets about him with my upsets about my dad i realize where the upsets are coming from…the tears come from realizing my dad is the original EUM and letting go of my fantasies about my dad & him showing up & finally treating me like his little princess is what i really need to do…my “other man” was just another stand in to work out these issues….he’s about 9 of those relationships up there!!! fun, fun, fun…hang in 🙂
I’d certainly agree that several of these can be rolled into the same relationship, particularly over time when one can morph into the other. It strikes me that a lot of them can be avoided by just having some self-respect and not giving the guy exactly what he wants (i.e. all the fringe benefits and none of the commitment).
Countrygirl,
I’m not sure how much money you have invested in this class but if possible I would avoid going to it altogether. You may be just fine by October but do you want to spend all your time until then worrying about seeing him again? It’s almost just an invitation to keep him in your mind/life in a way.
I would keep no contact & try to get into a different class without him. Even if there is wasted money that is better than wasted time/emotional agony.
you into a deep dark pit of misery that will cause you some very harmful damage that you will then have to deal with getting healed from.
Keep the focus on you and what you need to deal with in your life and put your time, energy and effort into resolving whatever you need to resolve there.
Good luck with your journey-and here’s to a speedy recovery.
Having a tough time today. I’m so glad I have this place to come to when I need support. Avoiding the ex at work has been relatively easy so far, but today I had to actually look him in the face. Ugh. He asked me to do something work-related and I swear, I could not speak! Words were there, but did not come out so I just nodded.
It should not be this hard anymore! 🙁
Wow, Magnolia! What an eye-opener for me! You’re right! My ex-AC knew how he wanted to live his life and found someone who wouldn’t disturb that! And if it blows up, he wouldn’t have changed a thing about himself! This is the man who once told me, by text of course, that he wanted me, but was not ready for kids in his life (my kids; he has a grown son who lives out of state). So, he’s now been in a relationship with a woman for a year who he says has no kids. And who’s younger and recently divorced (they started their relationship while she was still married). What a guy, huh?
All too common, deejay! My last one never said so, but of course he never thought he’d quit his job to follow me anywhere once I finish school; he bought a house he kept calling “ours” but whenever things went wonky of course it was *his*. And when we broke up, it was certainly clear whose sense of future job, city of residence, social life, etc was disrupted and whose wasn’t. “Our” future had always been his future; my leaving didn’t change what he saw happening for himself. And I was forced to admit that I had been happy to envision his future as my own.
Now I’m working at a vision for my own future that isn’t dependent on anyone else, and on my own *right now.* Whoever I click with is going to blend into/modify what I already have going on, not replace it, and I’ll be damn careful who I allow to potentially disrupt my career, my favorite places to hang, my gym, my social circles, etc.
CG:
I would cancel the class and keep it moving.
Men aren’t like us, they are wired differently. What we think is “rude” “mean” etc. doesn’t apply. We think it’s mean, they don’t. We think we’re running away, they don’t.
Men respect no contact. They respect ACTION. They respect BALLS.
Have balls, ladies, have balls!!! With ACTIONS NOT WORDS. When we go on and on all they hear is blah blah blah she’s weird blah blah blah what a losergirl blah blah.
But when you act? They have no choice but to respect that. That’s how men deal with each other.
Good luck and maintain NC. I am in the same boat here and I feel pretty freakin’ great already. Facebook deactivated and everything. My AC can kiss my cute ass.
I just got back from Natalie’s Baggage Reclaim Q&A in New York and just want to say thank you for the time, effort, and generosity of heart that goes into this blog and helps so many women. It was very moving to hear so many variations of stories and heartbeak and emotional courage. And Natalie has addressed pretty much every scenario shared tonight on this blog and can, in person as well as in writing, break it down to its essence. I heard from women who were going through exactly what I was (prolonged grief after a long relationship), and even though I had been in bad shape all weekend and today at work, and was unsure if going to the event would be sort of wallowing in it, I actually feel better. He doesn’t want to share his life with me anymore and doesn’t quite want to let go, and even though I am the one who was in with both feet long after he began inexorably pulling away and would be now, in an instant if asked, I am the one who has to stop breaking my own heart by engaging on his terms. It’s that simple and that hard. It helps that other woman know exactly how wrenching this is to accept and act on. I am in denial a lot of the time (like 18 hours a day, but then my dreams show him out of reach).
At the end of the event, like some movie, Natalie’s little girls came running in, followed by the boyf who waved from the shadows. It was like the embodiment of what can only happen if you let go of someone who can’t or won’t be a family with you. The fact that Natalie is in such a good place personally and yet continues to post and provide a place for those of us who aren’t there yet struck me right then as almost a Buddhist ideal of selflessness, helping to alleveiate the suffering of other beings. In fact, Buddhism teaches that the root of suffering is attachment.
Thanks and best wishes to everyone who was there tonight.
Sounds like it was a great event! Natalie, when are you coming to Vancouver?
How about San Francisco?
Nixnix, I’m very touched with you for sharing and thank you for coming along. I thought it was a great evening and the atmosphere was so collaborative, inspiring, and heart warming. You will get to the other side in time. Grief is difficult but a necessary journey and I’m so sorry your heart is breaking and that he just doesn’t value you enough. It’s not a reflection of you – some people just aren’t in the market for love or a committed relationship. When you’re out of the woods, a better relationship with a better man is out there. ((((big hugs)))) and thanks for your generous, kind words and your support. xx
Nixnix, so well said! I’m so sorry for what you are going through and I’m sending you lots of love and support. You sound like a strong lady and I know you are going to be just fine 🙂 Trust me when I tell you it does get better and, if you’re like me, you’ll be surprised to discover, one day when you’re not really expecting it, that you’re not sad anymore and genuinely ready and excited for a much better life and relationships. Finally, on a related and very, very important note….
WE LOVE YOU NATALIE!!!
As usual, the lady is on point. And it seems the rest of the world is catching up. Saw this -> article today on clues that the guy’s really not interested. Seem familiar? Courage mes filles, better is waiting, a change has got to come.
Niki
I enjoyed the link. However, I didn’t like that the man they asked (Mike) divides women up into those he treats well and those he messes about (or, in his words, those he’s serious about and those he’s “just dating”). I don’t like how there are SO MANY women in his life that he has to categorise them.
I think where Nat really stands out from the crowd is her emphasis on OUR part in it and our own emotional unavailability. And that these men are who they are. They don’t morph from good to bad to casual to serious to cheaters to faithful depending on the quality of the woman. That old chestnut is still doing the rounds and I’m mightily fed up with it!
Yip, i’ve just been fast forwarded by a guy…. unbelievable, the intensity of him last week was too much, i thought, but i thought maybe he’s insecure. I met him on a night out two weeks ago and he and my friends spent the evening together til we went home. I bumped into him the following week by chance and he got in touch with me. To say he seemed genuine isn’t an understatement – he rang me three times and texted me every day since – until we met up this saturday just gone. He was pretty eager to title the relationship – way too soon in my opinion – and he said i was his and he didn’t want me dating other guys and he wanted to get to know me. i have to admit, i got swept away in the tide of intensity and in his attentiveness. Gee, he seemed so consistent all along.
Saturday night went ok – but as you say, Nat, dating is a discovery stage and i’m like inspector Cluso now!! He said we would meet for lunch on sunday. I rang him around 12 o’clock. i figured it was ok to as he had put in a lot of effort up to this point. He said he was going to chill for the day…i said i was doing the same. i wasn’t too bothered about not meeting for lunch as it was a late night and i was tired and i suppose he was too. He suggested watching a dvd later in the week. I said i was free Tuesday evening and he said he was too. i wasn’t going to be free later in the week. He said “i’ll ring you and we’ll make the arrangements on tuesday (today).
Now, the last contact i have had from him was a text on sunday afternoon….”what do you think of 3sums? Xx” to which i replied “i don’t!”. I haven’t heard a dicky bird from him since then. We definitely maintain our dignity in our silence and without a doubt its very tempting to call. But we must not devalue ourselves by doing that. As you say, Nat – i’m not that desperate and he’s not that special.
I was disappointed to get that text from him about the 3sum as it’s clear that he’s looking for a dalliance and doesn’t genuinely want to get to know me. Oh well, another one bites the dust.! i read about fast forwarding on Monday and this definitely fits him.
All i can say is what a plonker!! And this guy has a very serious job…i shake my head!
Audrey,
“He was pretty eager to title the relationship – way too soon in my opinion – and he said i was his and he didn’t want me dating other guys and he wanted to get to know me.”
This needs to be a huge red flag to all the ladies out there. This is not normal!!!!!!!
Absolutely, Allison – he’s not balanced and not capable of a healthy relationship.
Beginning to realize I have been in an unavailable relationship with my husband for the past 18 years….and that he is a true narcissist! Finding out about his secret life and how he has reacted to being found out led me to examining his true personality. I honestly believed he was this way as a result of his job (and what he sees everyday on the job) but now I am finally seeing the light. When we talked to our son about the problems we were having he would only say I love Mom (sorry but you do not love someone and check in with another person daily) and I love this family (that is why it was ok for him to call her from our family vacation)….not I was wrong to hurt Mom and this family. Then when he pointed out that our son took it harder than he expected…not that he felt bad for his indiscretions and what he had done to our family. The biggest clue was how he would react to my crying….and how aggravated that made him. Give me a break. Apparently he felt he was somehow a superior being who was entitled to this secret life….and the compromises and give and take of a marriage was seen as a loss of control for him. Apparently he decided he was in charge of when him and his “friend” talked and didn’t talk….therefore filling his need for control in his secret life. Yikes!!
Bewildered,
What are you going to do? Is this guy still in the house?
Did you have the computer checked, yet?
Yes, he is still in the house…apparently he isn’t having any luck finding a place (his realtor told me to stop calling her everyday yesterday…she realizes I want him out asap but she is trying as hard as she can). No on the computer…I have all of the information I can stomach already and I am looking for a place to bring it so all of our financial records aren’t compromised. Call me stupid if you want but honestly I don’t need to know anymore.
The arse had the nerve to send me an email today to ask how my day was going…this was my response: “Since you asked…I am spending today just like I have spent every day since June 23 – trying to grasp how my husband could have been so selfish to think that it was acceptable for him to have secret life with a certain Sarah and how it may quite possibly destroy our marriage and our family”…his response “I was hoping your day was better than mine and I was just trying to be nice and I get sarcasm”….my response “No sarcasm involved only the harsh reality of your actions for the past six years”
Keep your fingers crossed he leaves soon!
I don’t mean to be harsh Bewildered but it’s fairly obvious you don’t want him to leave or he’d be gone; he’d have been told to get his bags and go – his realtor ain’t your problem. He’s biding his time – he knows you are not serious or he’d be out of there.
I wish Natalie would come to the East Coast!!
I’ve come to realize that I would make excuses for guys straight from the VERY beginning. “Oh, he hasn’t replied to my message even though it’s been 3 days. I guess he’s busy, or he forgot…I’ll give him a day or two and send him another message just to remind him I’m here.” My goodness, what a wreck! Unavailability in the beginning, middle, or end of the relationship is unavailability.
I’ve learned a lesson from my experience and the posts here. Show some self respect and walk along as soon as any of these excuses pop up. We all deserve much, much more.
Self love all the way!
I made those excuses all the time, because I thought facing the truth meant I was “worthless”. Yes, that’s right. Whenever somebody acted as if he didn’t really care about me, or behaved like a real asshole, to me it meant I was complete and utter crap. That’s why I made all those excuses.
My parents didn’t care about me (other than as a target for their sadistic jokes and other bad things) and behaved like real assholes. I always blamed myself (like most children do) and made excuses for them. I think that’s what you call a pattern.
The truth is that… I’m not bad! I’m not mentally ill (as my mother always claimed)! I’m not repulsive! How liberating this feels. I wonder how happy my life might have been if I my parents hadn’t been like that.
If somebody doesn’t call, he’s just not worth it.
EllyB: absolutely, making excuses is a trap for us women. there’s no excuse to not call.
Way to go, Magnolia! I’m so happy for you that you’re in a better place with yourself. It’s been hard for me, especially since he went back and forth, making me think that he wanted to be with me and then pulling the rug out from me repeatedly. I always hoped that *this* time he really meant it. But he never did. We never had a *real* relationship. I was in love with what I thought *could* be. It never materialized because he never followed through. It still bothers me, but I continued staying in contact with him, even though he always chose someone else over me. I eventually went NC, for 6 weeks now. I hate to say it, but I still think of him often, even though we’re both in relationships with different people, and even though the man I’m with loves me and treats me with the love, care, trust and respect that I never got from the AC. That’s the part I hate about my own behavior. It’s ridiculous for me to be thinking about someone who treated me like I was expendable. I’m hoping, as many have said here, that in this case, absence does not make the heart grow fonder, and that when/if the AC resurfaces, I won’t feel anything for him. I long to be in that place! Again, Magnolia, thank you for helping in that process. And thank you, too, Nathalie!
I thought I write to update the other Other Women out there involved in affairs. Don’t know if anything I write would help anyone else but what you all write certainly helps me. Long story short: Natalie, you were right in May when the ex MM kept contacting me and I kept responding. You said then, “Runnergirl you are in danger”, and further noted that the danger comes from within. I heeded your warning and did shut the door permanently then, I thought. On July 4th I responded to an email from the ex MM. July 4th was “our holiday” together blah, blah, blah. I’ll skip to the bottom line, you can all fill in the details. We met this weekend and it turned into all weekend. Hiking to the beach, frisbee on the beach, dancing to Reggae, BBQing, mimosas, brunch, dinner…just like old times. Only it wasn’t. You were right again Natalie. Although my self-esteem is still in shreds, there has been a little healing, just enough to make things seem very hollow although he was doing everything he knew I loved to do.
Got a phone call from him a few hours ago. It seems his wife was out of town this weekend (I wondered why he was so available) and put a tail on him. Yup, that’s right, she hired a private investigator. When she returned late Sunday evening, she confronted him with all of our activities this weekend right down to the minute. There has to be some incredibly revealing pics as we were not shy in showing our affection in public and actually never were. She hacked into his email and has all the emails we sent every time I slipped off the NC wagon for the past 7 months and he isn’t sure how far back. The emails since NC, of course, were pretty revealing even if she doesn’t have the prior two years worth. She has phone records of every time we talked for the past two-three years which was at least 10 times a day and every text message. God knows how many text messages.
I don’t know quite what I am feeling. Everything is mixed up. I think I’m feeling stunned, shocked, sorry, angry (at myself), very, very sorry and angry (at myself) for betraying his wife. Very, very, very sorry for how his wife must be feeling to find out her husband of 27 years was leading a double life and now she knows the intimate details of our sex life as well as all the things we did together that he did not do with her. She was, apparently, headed to my house on Sunday evening to confront me but went home and confronted him instead. Dear lord. A private investigator? Pictures? She knows all the details? I really am sorry for betraying his wife. I am so very sorry. She didn’t deserve this. There is no such thing as an honest cheat, myself included. Crap. I thought it sure was fun while it lasted but it really wasn’t. The affair destroyed her life, the life of our respective children, and the affair destroyed my life. It wasn’t fun afterall.
@ Runnergirl – Having just had this done to me and finding out about my husbands secret other life…I can honestly say since you are not married, the bulk of the problem lies with your MM. I am not condoning your part because just like my husbands “special friend” said to me “I honestly didn’t think about how it would affect you” but I also realize something was missing in our marriage an your MM’s marriage that made you (and her) worth loosing everything. As much as I would like to blame her….its all on him because you are not married… he is, he took the vow to be faithful, you didn’t….he is the one who by conversing with you led you to believe his marriage ment nothing to him. By not leaving his wife was misleading her, he is the one who knowingly was deceiving his wife and family. Personally, right now I am happy to let him go to his secret friend because I know that there is someone out there who will treat me with the respect and love I deserve. If he was willing to put this all on the line for you – he should be with you. By definition he has all of the red flags of being unavailable and will most likely continue to cause you heartbreak in the very near future.
Not sure there is a winner here though because now you have guilt, and your life with him is going to have its obvious troubles because you will never (and understandably) trust him completely, and there is a chance he might run back to his wife for fear of loosing face, security of his family and everything he has. The discovery will now allow his wife her freedom to find a guy who with treat her respectfully and with love.
With all due respect – because I so value your comments on BR, I could feel your pain getting and during NC and I can see your position now…the big question is….why would you want to be with someone who would treat his wife and family with such disregard?
Bewildered:
“…why would you want to be with someone who would treat his wife and family with such disregard?”
Does this mean your hubbie is getting the heave-ho (ta-ra, goodbye, good-riddence and all that?)
@ Fearless – Excellent point! I guess so…………
At this point I am just trying to be as tactful as possible for the wellbeing of my kids. Re: the Craigslist add last night he shares (brings up with out any prompting) that a guy at work and his wife swing….so, my question is this unconscious rationalizing in his mind??
Bewildered,
You now know how this man thinks. Why does any of it surprise you?
I don’t understand the inaction on your part? Are you going to stick it out for the kids- You do know that the emotional damage from an adulterous parent is life long!
By tactful I meant not exposing his indiscressions (possible bisexuality) to the world….its actually pretty humiliating to be the one who was cheated on, it would certainly ruin his job and future earning potential which will negatively affect my kids and also my kids do not deserve to feel embarassed by him. He sent me and our marriage under the bus it wasn’t about them. For those reasons, I will not hang him out to dry publically.
Yes, he will be leaving and the fact that he is so narcissistic there is no hope of making a mends ever.
Bewildered… you are not his psychologist. But since you ask, he is trying to make swinging sound normal, mainstream, just some harmless thing that lots of “ordinary” people do… he is hoping you will “see” that; he is laying the ground so that when you get your head out of denial and realise that he has been “swinging”, his hope is that he will already have laid the ground for his behaviour as ‘normal. He swings. Sounds like if he gets to keep his marriage (which he will and he knows that already), next thing is he’ll be trying to introduce you to some “swinging” – cos that’s what he would like!
I’m going to step in here because I can see this is going to descend into loads of us trying to micro manage your marriage woes Bewildered which isn’t really appropriate although obviously you have put the feelers out for feedback. That said, I’m sure we don’t know the ins and outs of your lengthy marriage and are getting a snapshot of things. This takes time, there are kids, feelings, lies, new revelations and all sorts of things involved.
So I will say this to you: This is your marriage, which obviously your husband has all sorts of shady activities that he’s up to. You have to process things in your time (not ours) and obviously if you can make a decision based on the information you know, which is more than enough in itself, not seeking out further info is your prerogative. That said, I think you’re putting out confusing information which is confusing in the comments so I will say this:
1) If you want your husband to move out, you just tell him to move out. How, where, when and why is not your problem. He’s not the first man to be poking someone else to have to go and stay in a motel/hotel.
2) Er, your husband is a liar and a cheat giving you information on a need to know basis that doesn’t see anything wrong with his actions. He’s also only prepared to *just about* admit to as a little as possible so will never confirm anything with you absolutely categorically stating that you know otherwise he’s afraid of admitting to more than he needs to.
3) Liars like him thrive on you being in denial as it feeds their lies – be careful of being mind screwed.
Got it…no more denial for me and no more mixed messages on BR!! I told him to move out this morning and I told him I was telling our daughter he was moving out….and he didn’t let me down as expected, his selfish comment was “Why do you want to do this to her?” Stupid ass…you did it to her and to all of us…nobody but you.
Bewildered,
BRAVO!!!!!!
Big hug to you!!!!
Praise be Bewildered. I’m *relieved* to say the least and stick to your guns. You’re not doing this to your daughter – you’re doing it to *him*. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Going on what he’s said to you, it’s amazing that he hasn’t connected the dots of HIS actions and recognised what it has done to you and his family. I know he’s your husband and that you share children and a history, but he’s being a dicksplash. You are far more polite than me because you can be *sure* that I’d have rained down on him and said “Take your shit and your fancy piece and get the f out of this house. NOW.”
Natalie, please pardon me for laughing at “dicksplash”. *adds to my vocabulary IMMEDIATELY*
Good for you Bewildered! Remember, actions speak louder than words. FOLLOW THROUGH is of the utmost importance. 😉
Yes, whenever there is a married guy and his “other woman”, he is unfairly taking advantage of both women, and most of the blame really belongs to him.
In earlier threads, I mentioned my female ex “best friend” who often had two or three BF at a time, plus various affairs and one-night-stands. She also sometimes loved to “grace” long-time platonic guy friends with sex.
Yet, she always managed to convince me that she was some kind of fairy who only brought bliss and happiness into the lives of her lovers. Whenever there were arguments, she blamed the guys and made me pity her for her suffering. She even got insanely jealous whenever she suspected any of them of cheating on her!
I know this sounds crazy, but I believed (and admired!) her. I believed I was the one with the issues, because of all my self-doubt (which she supported in many sneaky ways), my own messy relationships (in which I didn’t cheat on others!!!) and my hatred of sex (which is the result of some kind of childhood abuse, I guess). I believed she was a thoroughly “good” person, while I saw all those “bad” and “evil” traits in myself.
Those people are really capable of twisting reality. I guess most of the time they even believe their own crap. Otherwise they wouldn’t be that convincing.
Good luck, Runnergirl and Bewildered! I’m sure there are better days ahead for both of you (without those guys).
@Bewildered re: Runnergirl
Who says Runnergirl wants him at this point? These men play both sides against the middle. This has been a good lesson in seeing both sides of the situation and understanding instead of placing blame. Instead of playing back all the things my EUMM tells me that I can put a positive spin on, I have decided to focus on only those things that can be taken negatively, because shouldn’t a caring person not be saying anything that can be construed as being hurtful? I have decided that my AC really needs an ego stroke more than anything else; well good luck to him, he’ll never find ANYONE like me again! And Runnergirl, your man won’t either, guarantee you he is screwed, he is in the public eye is he not? Remember you were the best thing to happen to him, and the operative word here is WERE! Stay strong, Girlfriend, you’ve been through enough!
Nevertoolate, I’m sorry for your disappointing weekend with your exMM. Looks like we both sucked it and saw. Isn’t it weird that once we cave and see them again, it isn’t the same. Just like Natalie and so many others said it would be.
You are spot on with regards to whether I would get involved with the exMM. I started to ge scared some time back when D-day was approaching…last kid leaves home. Even back then, I started realizing that I didn’t think I wanted to be involved in a real relationship with him anymore. Like yours, mine isn’t capable of a real relationship as I now envision. He’s all about the ego stroke. I’m scared sh*tless at the thought. Last kid leaves home in a few weeks AND his wife knows he had an affair. Even if they do get divorced, like so many others have said, it wouldn’t work on so many levels. And yes, he is a public figure. Small scale but in the public eye.
I’m giving him and them wide berth. I’m too scared to do otherwise. His wife probably has him secretly wired. When I got home today, there was a “message” on my land line which nobody ever calls except telemarketers. It was somebody breathing heavily for about 2 minutes. Pretty creepy under the circumstances. Good luck to you. You sound strong and encouraging.
Ladies, I never thought about another other woman. It is like I’ve been handed a steamy pile of shit and it stinks. I think his wife would be glad to pin the PI’s number to his shirt and send him my way.
For all the other other women out there, this is downright nasty when it finally happens. It is a hard lesson. Thank you to you all for your support, even though I was complicit.
Just be glad it is finally through, doesn’t matter how and under what circumstances, or how the lesson was learned, but now you are FREE! My idiot is scared to death and his wife lives half way across the country, he is only here one weekend out of the month and works while he is here. Most likely he is too “scared” to cheat in their “home” state, lucky me (sarcasm!) A cheat without balls, imagine that! Hopefully, he’ll contact someone else he knows here and I won’t here from him again. He and his wife are prominent in their fields, oooh how scary to be discovered, his time will come. it is just a matter of time.
Hey Runnergirl, bit jetlagged so excuse if I sound fluffy headed. I’m sorry to hear of what’s happened as it’s pretty damn awful. It can be very sobering and sending you big hugs from here.
Unfortunately, this whole situation was on the cards and inevitable. While obviously you didn’t want it to shake down like this, the truth is that as the OW you *wanted* him to leave or be caught – you just didn’t fantasise that it would feel or be like *this*. It was a an unrealistic fantasy – this man is ill gotten gains.
Now it’s like you’ve been handed a bag of shit. It look, smells, feels, and is bad.
I meant it when I said you were being a danger to yourself and I think if you’re honest, NC hasn’t really been NC for you – you’ve been waiting, hoping, and routinely responding to him. This wasn’t *over* for you – you must have hoped he’d see the light. Instead he kept reminding you that he was there if you wanted to go back. NC is for when it’s *over*.
The truth is that a man who is so obvious in his deceit and disrespect is either a deeply arrogant man near narcissistic believing he’s invincible, or very safe in the knowledge that should he be caught, he can cross that bridge when he comes to it and talk and showboat his way out of it. He got off on the ‘risk’ but it was a managed risk and I suspect she turned a blind eye up to a point and then got medieval on him.
As Bewildered said, the issue is between them. You’ve now got to deal with you and take your blinders off about this man and stop being self-destructive. You’re *better* than a ‘Cheaters’ style sting operation and you’re better than being a mistress shamed or otherwise. Stop the madness.
And let me say to you – if either of you are thinking it will make it better and less shameful if you’re together – don’t go there. It won’t. Let it be. Let it go.
Hugs x
Thanks Natalie for the hugs and ladies for your comments,
Oh dear, how right you all are. I did want him to leave or get caught but as you say Natalie, I didn’t think it would feel like this. Great insight. It feels like sh*t, scary as hell, and is extremely sobering. And, you are probably right as I really wasn’t NC, probably just faux NC. He is deeply arrogant. He said he thought he was “more clever than to get caught” and I’m sure he thinks he’ll showboat his way out.
This is really messy. I think the blinders are off now and I’m ready to stop the madness. It is actually to scary to think about continuing with him in any way. Fearless, it IS time to run now and I don’t want to be his shoulder to cry on. Magnolia, it struck me as well as to why now would his wife go medieval after turning a blind eye in the thick of it and the contact with me over the past 7 months has been minimal. It doesn’t matter, though. She did. I thought this type of sting operation only happened in bad movies. Grace and Fearless, it has been like his wife wasn’t real. She got really real yesterday. She still could turn up on my doorstep as she is threatening to do.
Bewildered, I thought of you as he was telling me what happened and how betrayed you must feel by your husband’s secret activities. I wish you the best and that your husband finds a place soon. His message to you indicates that he doesn’t get how devasating his secret life was. That’s what I most regret is how much she now knows about her husband’s secret life and I was part of the dirty little secret. ICK. But thanks for your kind words about moving on and being treated with love, respect, and care. You can too. There have to be better days ahead!
Hi runnergirl,
I honestly don’t know whether to say I’m *sorry* to hear that this happened, for so many reasons. My main concern in responding to you is you, and you seem okay, which is good. The events of the weekend are the culmination of so many decisions on everyone’s part: I hope you’re finally able to move on.
If his wife was pushed to the point of a PI, I have to wonder if you’re the only one your MM was involved with. You’ve been less in the picture (though obviously not totally out of it) for almost 10 months; if she has had suspicions and is moved to act within the past 10 months he probably has been behaving in ways that motivated this, and the contact you’ve described with you doesn’t sound like *enough*. That is, just because he wasn’t getting attention from you, doesn’t mean he put it all back on his wife; sounds like it was still going elsewhere.
He wouldn’t tell you that, of course – ie. if there are other numbers on her phone tap. You might just be the one that got caught because you fell into her let-me-go-away-for-the-weekend-and-see-what-he-does plan.
Of course I know none of this for sure, but his wife’s actions suggest that things got worse, not better, between them over the past year.
Excellent point Magnolia!
runnergirl,
first and foremost, you betrayed YOU. You are going through a very stressful experience and I’m wondering if you are getting professional help…it sounds like you could use some extra support.
And not only for the support, for the clear perspective. I remember seeing you post “I’ve been NC 6 months” and “The guy just popped up” in the same day, and I wondered, “does she really think she’s NC?”. There are other inconsistencies I’ve noticed that someone with a clear perspective and who is with you privately, in person, could reflect to you and help you be more honest with yourself.
I used to be really averse to the idea of therapy, until I realized that there are people who have spent their lives dedicated to understanding and helping people emotionally and psychologically, and are way better resources than my friends and family, who would turn a blind eye or give awful advice or think that bad behavior was normal or didn’t want to hurt my feelings with the truth.
You may have destroyed lives as you said, and remember, from the ashes rises the Phoenix. Be gentle with yourself and give yourself copious amounts of kindness and care, and I wish you all the best.
Runner
It’s a bit late now (!) but that’s why we have to block everything and respond to nothing. You just don’t know which text, email, FB post, phone call etc will tip off his wife. I know it’s hard to see when you’re in it but his wife was always there. She hasn’t just suddenly turned up.
Do you want to be with him? I think whatever you want it most certainly is time to take a big step back. Don’t be his shoulder to cry on. He needs to deal with this on his own.
Runner – time to actually run?
Grace I like this: “…his wife was always there. She hasn’t just suddenly turned up.”
Yep, it’s like, what the eye doesn’t see the mind doesn’t grieve over. In these situations it is hard to stay “real” cos the wife is always more of an imaginary person… as I said before it’s always finally *over* when the wife finds out.
No matter what way you look at it- being with a married man is going to end in tears.
Yes, Magnolia, I thought of that too… it’s very possible, runnergirl, that you are not the only “suspicion” she has. It’s not your problem anymore tho’ – give it, her and him a very wide berth. You’ve had a lesson and you need to learn it.
Grace, I’ve so appreciated your posts. I’ve taken a giant step back. His wife did not suddenly turn up. She has always been there. However, now that she knows about me for certain, she could turn up on my doorstep. Your comments over the few past months have made me think about whether or not I would want to be with him. Would I become her? I am back on the NC wagon, albeit with a few cuts and bruises. But I got both legs and arms, windows boarded up, and ready to move on again. NC is starting not to be NC but a more comfortable way to live.
I heard from the recent unavailable this morning, as i thought he would – to test my boundaries. He must have seen me on the street, i got this
him: you look fkn hot:-)
me: what kinda crack are you on?? its obvious ur looking for the casual no strings attached type “relationship” involving threesomes and whatever else the heck you’re into. Ur barking up the wrong tree with me. So much for wanting to get to know me…we were suppose to meet last night or had you conveniently forgot?
him: i want you xx u turn me on.
Me: get lost.
him: ok.
him: sexy ass:-)
him: u calling up for a dvd later?
me: no.
him: lol. ur odd.I was only messing. Got called into work last night (he’s a paramedic). I’d like to date you xx.
Me: Dont believe you. Funny how you were able to phone me three times last week and text me every day. Dont treat me like i’m stupid.
him: i’m not. call up later xx
Me: no, i’m not callling.
him: era, go on so. Moody. No time for moody girls. deleted.
me: yeah ive no time for messers or for guys who dont keep their word and blow hot and cold. I’m not moody – i expect to be treated with care and respect.
Him: Moan.
I did think about ignoring him but i thought, why should i leave him off the hook so easily? It is true guys show themselves fairly early on and its up to us to see it and to not minimise the behaviour and make excuses.
I guess i feel disappointed by him but i’m glad i told him what’s what. At the end of the day, people can talk up a storm but it doesn’t mean they are genuine – their actions tell whether they’re genuine or not.
Now the next guy thats sweeps me into intensity like he did, i won’t be so quick to respond. It just happens i’m glued to my phone right now as i’m looking for work and the recruitment agency could ring me anytime during the day. I see i made the mistake last week of giving him way too much attention back and responding to him like i did. Lesson learned.
Audrey…
this guy is making me feel queezy…eee…yuck, and that’s just reading the convo! He’s not talking to you here, he’s talking to his hard on! – (sorry Nat, for expressive language). Tell him to go have a w**k -oops, sorry again!
audrey
reading that text convo was absolutely hilarious. i’m afraid you didn’t tell him anything. he enjoyed the attention. he actually liked that he got “caught” and you were still interacting with him. don’t bother with him anymore – no texts, nothing. no harm done but, really, he wasn’t worth the ten minutes of your life it took to have this interaction. and he’ll be back.
“their actions tell whether they’re genuine or not”. Yes. And if you genuinely want nothing to do with this guy then ignore him. I ignore people all the time, usually unintentionally, and they absolutely HATE it!
Audrey,
I think silence is more effective. By responding, you’re showing him you care.
Next time, ignore!
By reading this conversation, this guy was clearly, ONLY interested in sex.
Audrey, he sounds like a jack ass. You told him you didn’t want to be treated that way, now show him you mean it and ignore him. Flush the turd.
No doubt he will test me again soon when he feels cocky enough to. I will show him i’m serious by ignoring him. Its just disappointing – i thought he was decent but he’s not – as you say, Jenninic, he’s a jackass!
Hi Audrey,
Your text string made me chuckle and reminded me of a loser with whom I recently yet briefly interacted (if you can call strictly text communication ‘interaction’). I did the same as you- all but gave him a dissertation via text (ah, lazy communication) about why he was treating me with disrespect. But as the brilliant-as-always NML says- you can’t teach someone how to respect you or your boundaries, these things shouldn’t have to be explained. You can’t shame these SOBs (I told him not so kindly that he must be used to f*ing teenaged girls to be acting this way, that he was a creep and a pervert- and he STILL contacted me a few days later to ‘get together’). I am right there with you about letting them get the last word- but believe me, there is nothing we can say that will burn them up more than saying nothing. They love attention- good, bad, or ugly. We can’t give them the satisfaction, it only encourages bad behavior.
Hey girls, absolutely, he showed that to me after Saturday. I will ignore him from here on in. He got off on the chase and the attention i gave him but underneath, it was all hot air!!! lol. i know i’ll be chuckling about this in a day or two. In fact, i’m chuckling now!! What a tosser. just for a laugh — i hope if i need a paramedic, he won’t turn up….can you imagine!
I guess, when a guy calls you three times during the week, and texts every day, its easy to think they’re genuine to begin with.
I have often been the ‘excuse’ maker in the ‘excuse relationship’ category.
I always thought it was because I was too busy, too tired, too scared, in need of more time, feeling overwhelmed, etc. It made sense because I am a single Dad with custody of my children, and a full time job. Only recently have I discovered that I was subconsciously making myself unavailable, because I knew that she wasn’t ‘the one’. Now, when I start making excuses, I know that the source of the excuses that I communicate is much deeper, and has nothing to do with the excuses that I make. Not something that I am proud of and I will correct my behavior in the future. Thanks for your insight, Natalie. I believe that your posts help me to become a better man.
Rick
Thank you for that. I think people can change and do. Otherwise, what’s the point of all our human intelligence and emotions?
I know that if I’m making excuses it’s because I don’t want to do it. For me, it’s not around relationships (not in one) – but social things that a particular friend keeps inviting me to. stuff that would entail me travelling three hours on my own, what a bore. I make the excuses, she keeps asking, and asking and a part of me wants to yell TAKE THE HINT!
Ladies, he shouldn’t be jerking you around, but sometimes you just have to take the hint!
@Runnergirl
i feel for you…….i was in an similiar situation and it left me with thoughts like. …hm maybe i wasnt the only one. ………But i KNOW now it doesnt change anything. My MM went back to his wife after he moved her 1000 miles away and filed for divorce. But he called me after weeks of NC just to tell me it would be with me where he wanted to be………..THAT day i finally got another feeling towards him……….he is just a poor little guy that reaches out for an ego stroke, no matter if he hurts others or not.It was like an epiphany,like the fact why would i ever wanna be with such a person.
I was to weak to end it although i saw red flags everywhere. But now i am strong staying NC, and i am so glad about this.
Wish you strenghth Runnergirl
This is a really good list. Short, sweet & to the point. This can cut down on all the talking & ruminating & pontificating & thinking & wondering & pining & wishing & waiting & etc. Someone starts complaining about their “relationship”, you remember the list, and stop the complaining right in its tracks. “Hey friend, this isn’t a relationship; this is a dalliance (or insert either of the above here)! Leave it now.”
I need to sanity check something.
I’ve just had a facebook friend request from my first boyf who I haven’t had any contact with in twenty years. We were in a relationship from when I was 15 to 18. I know he’s married with children as he is still in contact with my family (via church). He lives in another country.
I’ve no interest in an affair or dalliance.
Accept or ignore? Why contact me? Why now? What about his wife? Am I overthinking it?
I do feel regret about relationship (I was EU of course) and don’t feel right about ignoring him. But maybe it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Facebook is a menace! I’ve had several exes track me down and even an ex of MY SISTER!
Hey Grace, not sure if my advice would help as you’re pretty savvy with these things.
I know you have a ‘no exes’ policy and there’s nothing wrong with sticking to that. I am sure he’ll live :). Personally i don’t think it’s a big deal having an ex on FB as long as you have no feelings for them.
Alternatively you can always add him and then remove him later if he proves to be a pain in the arse. I’ve got a few ex lovers as friends and am happy to delete if they become a nuisance.
Grace,
I know it can seem like different rules apply for FB than real life. And really it’s not the same as real life, but it’s still a form of connection with someone. If you have chosen to not be connected to exes, then I would think the same rule would apply to FB, regardless of how many of your family members he stays in contact with.
I am more of your opinion about friendships with the exes. In fact, I pre-emptively blocked the last ex-bf, so that I could take a proactive stance about not connecting, rather than worry whether or not I am being rude.
My first ex-H sent me a friend request via FB, which I ignored. However, I am friends with many of his friends, his sister, his mother, etc., and I don’t feel guilty about that at all. There is simply no reason for he and I to be friends.
I don’t think you are overthinking it. Maybe the reason you feel conflicted is because it IS a conflict with your boundary of not staying connected to exes. And the fact that you have so many questions surrounding the reason for his contacting you, may be a good indicator of your own reason for having that boundary in the first place.
I know you are wise and careful in your decisions, so trust instinct.
Hey Grace, I had a hard time with FB when I first joined it. Now I just treat it as no big deal “it’s just FB” when I get friend requests from lots of old contacts. Mostly because I find that usually the contact begins and ends at the request and there’s not much communication beyond that. I think its ok to accept, especially because you have great boundaries in place and if he became any sort of annoyance you could just unfriend, hide, block, etc later.
It’s a tricky one and I think you have to trust your gut on this one. It could all be entirely innocent or it may not be – he may be looking for a long distance ego stroke. I’m of the mind that as long as you know your limits, you can be friends with a decent ex. If you don’t feel right ignoring him, accept the request and let it be. What’s the worst that could happen? Not much that a block or unfriend can’t quickly fix. Don’t sweat it. Obviously if he emails you trying to rake over the past, just say that you don’t really want to go all chapter and verse on it and keep it light. I wouldn’t read too much into it especially as it’s a waste of brain expenditure. You’re a smart cookie so I know you can put him back in his box anyway!
Thanks everyone
I think I’ll accept with caution. I’m not very active on facebook anyway, just like looking at family pics.
I was jumpy as the previous ex (married) who contacted me on facebook was well-behaved for years and then seemed to want an affair (though it never got physical) last year. I had to cut him off because it became inappropriate and unpleasant. However, THIS latest ex was never an AC, not even close. And I do have way way better boundaries than I did a year ago. I’d see AC behaviour coming from a mile off! Lol, I hope that’s not famous last words.
grace:
You can also make the settings such that your ex can’t comment on or see anything. A bunch of people from my old neighborhood requested me on Facebook a few months back based on a thread started by someone about growing up in our old neighborhood. Many of them used to tease/bully me; we were never friends, nor did we develop friendships as we got older. While I hold no grudges against them anymore, it’s CLEAR that they were just being nosey. So I made a separate friends list & blocked them from seeing everything but my name. LMAO. If they truly wanted to keep in touch, they’d send a message. None of them have, so on the list they go. *shrugs* (Which reminds me, I need to add a few others to that neighborhood list…)
Re: romantic relationships, all of my exes are blocked or don’t even know that I have a Facebook page. I even had to block the last ex who was decent because he started acting stupid. His brother is still connected to me though; he’s a missionary & I’ve contributed money for him to help in the continuing efforts of the country in which he assists. I don’t bring his brother (my ex) up & neither does he. Aside from that, no exes on Facebook. Can’t be bothered.
All that rambling (sorry) was to say, trust your gut. Make the “block” & “privacy” options your new best friends. 😉
Maybe I can say this because I don’t have FB: but, people rely too much on social media sites an indicator of personal relatonships (and of their own worth). Everytime I read a comment about FB here on BR it’s someone stressing out about an ex posting or whether he should be blocked. I agree w/ the poster who said “it’s only FB”. Why agonize so much over it? It only seems to add unnecessary angst to one’s recovery.
Meagen: Sorry, I can’t completely agree. Always having to look at some guy’s face in your FB account can be painful, even more so, if you don’t acknowledge this feeling. Sometimes every kind of connection, even such a purely virtual one, can be draining. This is the way our emotions work, I guess.
One might think “I want to block this guy”, but then there are all those doubts: Will he get angry at me for doing this? Will he think I’m crazy? Will he think I’m overly sensitive? Will other people who watch me doing this think I’m crazy/overly sensitive? What if I need him at some point in the future?
Stop. This is exactly the point where we have to hit the “block” button. It’s a matter of enforcing our boundaries. It’s the only way to regain our peace of mind. After all, it’s just Facebook (now I agree with you 😉 !)
Elly
in a way you are buttressing my point…look at how much we agonize over “virtual” connection. Just block him or not, and move on cleanly without the agony. I guess my comment was more of a general one and prob off topic- we as a society have become too emotionally invested in/affected by sites such as FB and it only seems to be an added stressor.
meagan
Not off-topic – relationships that are heavily reliant on FB, texting, IMing, even phone calls (rather than meeting) are definitely unavailable. Probably in the Excuse category. I’m too busy/married/indifferent to actually get off my arse and see you in person.
“we as a society have become too emotionally invested in/affected by sites such as FB and it only seems to be an added stressor.”
Totally agree. I remember (not so long ago) the days when if a guy wanted to connect with you he HAD to, at the very least, pick up a phone! If he didn’t phone… well, there was your answer. Simple. If you wanted to chase him up you had to phone him and talk in person… and… woooo… well, that took a lot of nerve, so you probably would just leave it alone. Simple.
Same here Grace, 20 years of NC and counting. My first ex had better not even think about getting in touch with me through online places LOL (he was not the nicest guy I thought he was).
Seriously though, FB is not like real life, where words are uttered in the air and then gone whether it’s flirty comments or nasty put downs. FB is there forever, even if you delete messages, they are never truly gone. Someone else owns them and can repost them to another site despite privacy settings.
I would be cautious with this approach especially after so much time has gone by, why rock the boat for a bit of curiosity? [just MHO].
Grace,
I am not a big f/bk fan. I dip in and out of it but I am not on it very much. I recently came across an old school-mate on f/bk and wanted to say hello and see how she had been doing. I did NOT instantly send her a ‘friend request’, I sent her a message saying Hi, asking if she remembered me and how was she doing. After a few messages wen back and forth, she sent me a ‘friend request’, which I accepted. My point is; I think people send out these “freind requests” too lightly – it gives someone quite a lot of access to your other friends, their comments and your conversations… so I do think that for someone you haven’t heard of in xxyears to instanty ask for you to open that door to them is a bit pushy. I would neither accept not deny his “friend request” – I may send him a message saying I received it and ask how he is… and see how that goes.
I have just come out of a 10 month relationship with a man who was of the rebound and excuse type, I think. I don’t know if he was an EUM or an A/C. I am on day 12 of NC and finding things VERY difficult.
He was inconsistent and a bit hot and cold; he initially denied his behaviour and accused me of never being happy/satisfied when he was trying his best. I then had every excuse under the sun ranging from him feeling inhibited about not being able to do what he wanted to do ( he played a lot of golf but wanted to play more), he was not over his divorce, his ex wife was in very frequent contact, he was frightened of failure, he needed space to sort himself out, he had demons, he had just moved house, he was tired, he was stressed, he had reached an all or nothing place and froze, he couldn’t make a decision, didn’t know what he wanted, frightened of taking the plunge…and so it went on. I was left not knowing what to belive in the end.
I ended things because I couldn’t take any more of the hurt, he hadn’t said he wanted things to end, just that he wanted a few weeks to himself to ‘regroup and tie up a few loose ends in his life’. I wasn’t prepared to sit around and wait for the inevitable, even though I loved him.
He has been married three times but only confessed to the thrid marriage about 10 months into the relationship. He had told me he loved me and was ready to live with me, he then changed his mind – over night it seems. I had all the excuses that I mentioned above, plus the fact that I had a dog and he had a cat and he didn’t think they would get on!
I made most of the effort in the relationship, we lived 60 miles apart and it was nearly always me who went to see him. Nearly every weekend I visited he played golf for 4 or 5 hours. On the odd weekend that he went away (to play golf) his contact was limited. I would text with no reply and he said his phone was in the car or the battery had died…
I did catch him out on a few little lies, he doesn’t know that.
I know I have done the right thing in walking away from this relationship and the NC thing is made easier by the fact that he has made no attempt to contact me and I don’t think he will. All he said at the end was ‘thank you for your friendship’. He said there was a big chance he would disappoint me in the future and that I was wise to walk away. Wondering…
Hello Sally,
If he wasn’t giving you equal energy, time, respect and commitment to the amount you were offering then you did the right thing to walk away.
You’ll feel like rotten for a while, but NC is the way to go. It does get better.
“I know I have done the right thing in walking away from this relationship and the NC thing is made easier by the fact that he has made no attempt to contact me and I don’t think he will. All he said at the end was ‘thank you for your friendship’. He said there was a big chance he would disappoint me in the future and that I was wise to walk away. Wondering…”
— SMH! Isn’t that the worst. When you’ve allowed yourself to digest the excuses and concoct some of your own for these people, and carry on for a while against your better judgment and when you finally decide to walk away….they have NOTHING to say or are nonchalant and pathetic or say something that confirms every feeling you’ve ever had. You almost want to be proven wrong…but nope…the lackluster response confirms every feeling you’ve had that this person didn’t care one bit and you wish you never wasted all that time.
If you walked away from day one or 10 years later, it would all be the same for them. Smh. Which is why seeing the red flags and aborting the mission ASAP is so important. You care so much about your “investment”, when you should have NEVER invested at all! It is annoying and irritating that these EUM will know that they could care less but allow things to carry on and on…but then it is not their fault, if you have someone throwing themselves at you or making themselves available for you and you don’t even have to treat them that nicely or use up a lot of energy, why not? Which is what suckered me in…thinking that there was just no way a man would continue talking to me or wasting my time or his if he wasn’t interested *roll eyes*, how WRONG! Now I’m learning that it is up to ME to have my own standards and boundaries and to be the one to pull the plug if I’M not happy, versus being passive and waiting for this other person to do something differently and expecting them to make the decision about continuing to see me or not. How ridiculous!
Miss E – I’m glad there is someone else out there who has been through a similar thing to me. I think I am gradually realising that I should never have invested anything in this guy. He seemed so nice though, and we got on really well – lots of laughs, fun and doing stuff that we both liked.
It was definitely me making most of the effort though, I had both feet in, he scarcely dipped a toe in (although sometimes it felt like we were on the same page).
I ended things because I had nothing left to give, I could do no more. I had spent 10 months pouring stuff into a bucket that had holes in the bottom. It was hurting too much and I made the decision to save myself, even though it hurt like hell.
I am making a list of boundaries and red flags as we speak, I don’t EVER want to get get sucked into a relationship like this EVER again.
I worry about him continuing to do this to other women, god knows he has done it to enough already (not just his 3 ex wives, but a whole string of other live in girlfriends and others too). I wish there were some way of warning others like me.
Thank you for this blog. I just got out of a 6 year relationship with a Narcissist. At first I was going to enjoy being single and figuring out what I want for a while, then I found out that he’s already talking to someone new (since 9 days after we broke up and I was still living in the house) while he’s been texting me and saying he still loves me but wants to figure himself out. And that he realized “he can’t be anything to anyone right now”. I thought he was serious and he even started therapy. Just found out nothing’s changed.. he’s still talking to her all the time and his idea of not being anything to anyone is telling her “I have to work on myself so don’t wait for me.. unless you want to”. Barf. So I’m done contacting him and I was all ready to jump back into the dating scene. Realized after reading your blog that it was a reaction to what he’s doing and not because I’m really ready for it. I need to heal from this relationship and do my own thing for the right reasons.. not because I’m waiting around for him to figure out he screwed up a good thing. I’m finally being honest with myself and I’m pretty sure I’m going back to school for my Master’s in Counseling. Something I’ve thought about since long before I met him. I’m excited about my new path in life.
Carrie, there’s one word here that makes a relationship and waiting around a no go – narcissist. If he is diagnosed or behaving badly enough for you to believe that he is, in any reading up you should have discovered that you cannot have a remotely healthy relationship with a narcissist and this is a dangerous relationship. It means get out and stay out. If you become a counsellor, you will of course learn this.
You may be dating my ex….omg….he said this EXACT thing: “I have to work on myself so don’t wait for me.. unless you want to”. He said this on multiple occasions! He also did all the rest of saying all these meaningless things about working on himself and our relationship, all the while doing the devil-knows-what and he would come around and appear sincere then literally disappear and a week or so later he would have a new gf! I realized he is a narcissist too and when your self esteem is not where it should be, it can really mess you up. These people will gaslight you and make you feel so crazy or behave so erratically and when you call them out on it they act like absolutely nothing they did was wrong! It may be politically incorrect, but such men are nuts and you need to run faaaaaaaar!
Heh – already done! I’m NC now since Saturday night. Unfortunately he owes me some money, so I’ll have to send him a Paypal bill in a few days, but that’s it. He’ll probably try to screw me on it, but I have a signed agreement with him about it and I can take his precious TV away if he doesn’t pay since the credit card it’s on is mine.
Thanks for the response Natalie! He’s always excused his behavior as extreme ADHD, which is what he was diagnosed with as a kid. I only discovered the narcissism when I stumbled across a description of it shortly after we broke up, at the end of May. I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was like so many questions and problems I had with him were suddenly explained in crystal clear detail! I guess I had hopes that maybe he wasn’t so far up the scale that he couldn’t get some help. But I’m past that now.. when I realized he had no intentions of not talking to that girl anymore.. that he was more concerned with hurting someone he barely knew than someone who gave him 6 years, I finally saw the light. That was Saturday night and it really did cut the final cord for me that still held out hope. I’ve read so much about narcissism at this point, and I’m so grateful that I figured out the truth about him. I think because I saw it as not his fault, that his parents really screwed him up, I didn’t want to abandon him like it seemed everyone else did. But it’s not my battle. And he’s someone else’s problem now. Thankfully I’m very much a move forward kinda gal and I don’t get stuck in the past. I’m good at letting things go and recognizing that it’s all part of life’s lessons. And that something much better is waiting for me. My mantra right now – fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. I’m not about to be fooled twice!
Oh snap! Just had a major epiphany… I’m pretty sure thanks to this website. It’s been making some lightbulbs go off about our relationship. Can’t believe I didn’t make this connection until now. When I met my ex, he was nowhere near over this 4 month relationship he had a year before. She had gone on vacation and came back just to dump him before she moved to Colorado for another guy. He would talk about her all the time. I’m shocked now that I put up with it.. Ugh. Anyway he would go over it and over it and over it so often for at least a year. Now I just know that’s exactly what he’s doing with this new girl.. except I’m the relationship he’s not over that he constantly talks about. And I thought it was curious that after we broke up, he suddenly had it in his heart to forgive her and “see her side”. Because now I took her place. OMG.
Nat- Frederick Douglass said in his autobiography, “Once you learn to read you will forever be free.” The day he learned to read was the day he was no longer a slave. The day I began reading your posts was the day I stopped being his slave.
He didn’t cheat or beat, didn’t rely on texts- instead called 10+ times a day. Wow he loves me- no, he wanted to control me. He thinks I’m so awesome he’s afraid to lose me- no, he has zero respect for my boundaries. Nat, your work inspired me to end it, and I was 5 steps ahead when he pulled all the stunts (reset button, crocodile tears, etc) to suck me back in.
When he finally got that it was over and on MY terms, my personal hell began. My car was vandalized, he stalked me (I cannot overstate the emotional effects of stalking-it’s been compared to rape in domestic violence literature), and finally he showed up at my house in the middle of the night. I thought he would kill me- luckily he didn’t. Since then I’ve had to give up my home and constantly look over my shoulder. I’ve been in court numerous times (and still more to come)- courts, laws, and police are so ill-equipped to handle these issues that it is obscene. I’m actually considering law school to do something about this or help other women out there.
It’s all been absolutely worth it to be free of him. Nat, thank you for being the first step on this journey. Staying with him would’ve eventually become dangerous. I truly believe that you’ve saved my life.
The hardest part is forgiving myself for letting it get so far. But as Maya Angelou said, ‘You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.’
Readers out there, take an honest look at your situation and act on it- right now, right this second. It’s hard but trust that it gets better. Your limited time on earth is too precious to waste.
Wow Fighting For Freedom – I am in awe of your strength and determination. You’re not just fighting for freedom – you’re fighting for you.
What you are experiencing is a dangerous man who thinks he owns you and thoroughly abuses boundaries. You are doing the best thing – getting as far away as possible and using professional support to help you. Winning love and attention from an abuser isn’t worth it and his behaviour is completely inappropriate. It’s not love; it’s control. Many people equate feeling out of control with love and desire and think jealousy and possessiveness are ‘symptoms’ of love – they’re not.
You’re right not to get caught up in being angry about being in so deep – the lesson here for everyone is not to play with narcissist and sociopath fire and recognise healthy love and attention. Thankfully you know this already.
I’m glad to be able to inspire you and take care of you. If you ever need anything, get in touch and stay safe. (((hugs)))
Thank you for sharing, FFF. It helps to hear someone who now has such strength and determination and clarity still say that stalking has emotional consequences, and to point to the *innocent-looking* boundary-busting behaviour for what it was and what it indicated this man was later capable of.
As a recovering attention-seeker, I have made the mistake of feeling flattered by boundary-crossing attention: guys who lay it on thick after you tell them to lay off, or guys who don’t go away after you tell them to go away – my first bodily reaction is happy-for-the-attention – to the point of overlooking the mistrust and wariness that naturally comes up in the gut when boundaries are first crossed. With the help of BR and other support mechanisms, I’m learning to like myself enough that the attentions of random dudes doesn’t make me feel like I’ve discovered gold.
Your post makes it clear that learning this self-love is not just about getting healthy enough to find a good new boyfriend. Self-love protects us from misinterpreting and valuing gestures of control and wanting-to-own us. I’m still pretty ashamed that viscerally, I am like a puppy that wags her tail at almost any male attention: but somehow your post helps me not worry so much about the self-judgment and just focus on learning to protect myself. Thanks.
Really grateful you are brave in expressing your experience here FFF.
My ex-Narcissist EUM actually admitted he was stalking me, but it started online only at first (we used to meet face to face every week). He’d become obsessed. It’s still creepy.
He’d also warned me he’d been involved with another stalking case which ended in court.
In the end I had to blank him and NC FOREVER, because he was trying desperately to get my home address too.
To stay safe from these dangerous types you have to go NC always, no if’s, no buts, no slip ups. And be careful who you give your personal details out to no matter how charming they appear – he fools everyone at first.
Stay strong FFF and safe.
“What you are experiencing is a dangerous man who thinks he owns you and thoroughly abuses boundaries…. the lesson here for everyone is not to play with narcissist and sociopath fire and recognise healthy love and attention.” This echos everything my therapist has told me.
When she used the term ‘sociopath’ my jaw hit the floor and I realized the danger I was in. I thought these things only happened in movies- wrong. Sociopaths exist in real life, and the damage they can do to you is so deep and happens so quickly (I’ve realized that I’ve been involved with 2: this one 10 months and the previous 2 months): this damage is SO HARD to repair. You lose your sense of humanity, you become an object for their entertainment, you feel that something is inherently wrong with you or you wouldn’t be in the situation, that everyone can see your ‘flaws’, and that a healthy man wouldn’t want anything to do with you. Nat your posts made me realize not only the unhealthy relationship I was in, but also the patterns, the sick men I seem to attract and be attracted to, and that I need to re-wire my brain to recognize healthy relationship behavior and to learn to love myself. I took a year off dating after my first sociopath and ended up in a worse predicament. Family patterns are not easy to kick. This time, armed with your articles and professional help, I will overcome.
Magnolia- we are on a similar journey. I was the same way with the male attention. I loved ‘manly men’- men who fix stuff, carry guns for a living (military, police, etc.)- who aggressively pursue, who go to outrageous lengths to woo. I still believe that love conquers all, not our love for them but love for ourselves: “Self-love protects us from misinterpreting and valuing gestures of control and wanting-to-own us.”
Cinnamon- absolutely NC all the way. They do fool everyone at first. Can you believe that when I first broke it off, girlfriends were telling me, ‘Don’t worry, he will come around, he will do anything not to lose you.’ I DON’T WANT HIM TO COME AROUND!! At least you were able to have a little info to go on about his past, I wasn’t as lucky. This can’t have been the first time he has acted like this with women.
Thanks everyone 🙂
@FFF
“At least you were able to have a little info to go on about his past, I wasn’t as lucky.”
It was already too late. If I had had this info up front I would never have even written to him let alone meet him, or agree to his persistance at meeting up regularly to form a new team/become a ‘friend’.
As to the stalking online, he was clever to do it anonymously so no one would spot it, including me!
I wish someone had warned me about him. I probably would not have believe them at first. Alas I am not allowed to warn others in the group about him but I won’t be held accountable for his actions or what happens to his next victims, including his current gf of many years.
Like you my jaw also hit the floor when I read up on narcissism and he ticked ALL the boxes. His initial charm was too good to be true. (They’ve all been to the same charm school right?)
Over time, I foolishly overlooked the aggression, physical attacks as horseplay (cos everyone else did too). He could do no wrong in the “gentleman’s/old boys club” mentality of the group.
You are on the right track keeping him NC and knowing you don’t want him in any form in your life. Ignore your friend’s comments.
These are important steps towards damage limitation.
Let’s Flush these abusive people (great image always makes me chuckle).
You will meet a better man, and with Natalie’s blogs beable to spot and react to those red flags sooner.
I know I am, I like to play “red flag bingo” now 🙂
Hi Cinn! It would be nice if men came with a sort of ‘Car Facts History Report’, imagine the trouble it would have saved us! But with our boundaries firmly set and belief in ourselves, we’ll screen out the crazies.
“Over time, I foolishly overlooked the aggression, physical attacks as horseplay (cos everyone else did too).” I’ve been there too! My first sociopath- I met him through family members who spoke oh so highly of him. When he began to say things like, ‘I’m going to punch you in the face’ or make ‘jokes’ about the ways he would kill me if I ever cheated on him, it was like a red flag parade. Mutual friends told me I was the crazy one, that I can’t take a joke. Fast forward a few weeks, he pinned me to the floor while we were fooling around, I couldn’t move, I was completely helpless. I pleaded with him to let me go, and he let out a sick laugh and released me. Dumped him shortly thereafter (even though everyone kept insisting he was a catch- must be that good charm school!)
The more recent sociopath- the one I described in an earlier post- did the same horseplay foolishness. Started small- cracking my toes painfully (I’m a runner and have problems with my feet, I hated when he’d do it- which I’m pretty sure was why he’d do it.) Escalted to him using moves from police academy- they inflict severe pain with little effort and leaving no marks. Towards the end he placed a plastic bag over my head. He got mad at me for not laughing along with him.
*All of these events happened in the context of playing/ joking.* Fighting never happened b’c I was so accommodating to both of them. Imagine if they were pissed at me! Neither one of these men ever outright struck me, but the emotional scars run deep.If I had only had my self esteem in tow, I would have avoided all of it.
There are good men out there for us Cinn. For now I can’t trust any man. I’m an EUW for now, and have removed myself from the dating pool as I am sure NML would reccommend for now. I’ll get there one day. There’s no fire, right? 🙂
Please help…I feel like I’m going crazy! I’m confused by the advice re NC as my Mr Unavailable finished things with me so we had the whole break-up conversation but I thought it best to cut contact (prevents me justifying trying to stay attached, running the risk of offering myself as a fallback girl etc). As a result, he’s not been in touch, except for a couple of texts, and I’m partly moving on and partly hoping he’ll contact me. Was I right to cut contact? Or was it an over-dramatic reaction! I mostly feel I’m doing ok but I really miss some aspects of our ‘relationship’. I’d really appreciate some clarity here! Thanks xx
Hi Sarah – Mr Unavailable is a one toe in, four toes out type of guy. Not only will he make himself feel better by being your friend, but he’ll put his feet temporarily under the table and dip into the sex and ego stroke cookie jar while he’s at it. If you play along, you’ll get managed down into giving what you used to give for even less than before. You may be able to be friends in time (if he was friendworthy in the relationship) but right now, you are not over him and would actually be waiting around by another name (friendship). The fact is, all breakups are hard, whether it’s with an available/unavailable/asshole. That’s why it has the word ‘break’ in it – the relationship is broken for a reason and I wouldn’t go back unless that reason is resolved. Your reaction isn’t over dramatic – it’s called self-preservation. Trust me when I say he won’t be looking out for your wellbeing unless it aligns with a purpose that suits him. You may well miss aspects of your relationship but using the word ‘aspects’ only indicates that you have a selective memory and are focused on the ‘good bits’. You need to see the relationship in its entirety whether you’re in or out of it.
Great advice in that comment Nat. This bit hit a nerve with me:
“Trust me when I say he won’t be looking out for your wellbeing unless it aligns with a purpose that suits him.”
The fact that at times they do seem to be concerned with your wellbeing is very confusing. I recall mine saying once when we were away somewhere overnight: ‘we’re very good at looking after eachother aren’t we?’
I didn’t know quite what to say, cause part of me was thinking , yea, in that we are nice and considerate of eachother when we are together – certainly in terms of physical needs, like if one of us seems to needs a wee cup of tea, the other will happily bring it forth! But I’m thinking… if you are so good at looking after ME why do I feel so constrained and let down and abandoned and neglected and miserable most of the time? But he meant it! He really meant it. That was his perception of things – we were good at looking after eachother! Duuuuhhhh. Do these men even know what the word “we” means?! When they say “we” do they really mean “me”?
Oh Fearless, how do you always hit a nerve with me? I swear I’m not going to post and then you hit it out of the park. Sarah, I’m “fresh” out of a break up after 7 months of faux NC. Natalie and Fearless are sooooo right. He is NOT looking out for you, despite his opining to the contrary and your imagination of the good times. No doubt, the good times were good. He will want to continue to get his needs met and, perhaps, at the expense of yours. That’s been my experience. I’m mostly posting this because I’m still struggling too with this concept as well but I’m no longer struggling enough to break NC. It’s the sex and ego stroke cookie jar. Yikes.
So back to pronouns “we” vs. “me”. I have lots of issues surrounding pronouns academically as well as romatically. My third future husband and I were about to embark on a romantic wedding in Kuai, when the waitress asked what “we” were doing this summer. He replied: “I” am going to Kuai. So Fearless you asked: “Do these men even know what the word “we” means?! When they say “we” do they really mean “me”? I hate to be a grammarian here but “I” does not mean “WE” and sometimes “WE” means “ME”, Sarah. It sucks.
Yep, yep, yep. I think I got trapped in a world where “I’ll take care of you” means I’ll provide financially. And so my “take care of him” was to provide all the emotional maturity and sexy time and nurture time. We “took care” of each other, didn’t we?
And as for: “Trust me when I say he won’t be looking out for your wellbeing unless it aligns with a purpose that suits him.”
I think the reality of this only truly hit me today. I only found out a few days ago that my department (oops!) didn’t manage to find me the teaching spots that were casually discussed as a fait accompli. Now I am truly in a financial tight spot, not crisis as I won’t let it get to that, but definitely not knowing where my next income will in-come-from.
My exAC’s ‘friends’ all enjoy the benefit of his ‘personal philanthropy.’ A flat screen TV here, a trip to a private hospital there, oh and quite a few random thousands here to an ex-girlfriend who stayed friends with him, called him up needing something heroic more than once while I was his gf, and got it.
I did not stay friends with the exAC. Luckily I found BR right after we split and had said I would need a break before considering that, did NC, he didn’t respect that, so I stayed NC. I think he was truly surprised. The benefits of staying ‘friends’ with him were clear.
Now I’m staring at the kind of uncertainty for which his ex-gf used to call him up, and cry, and he would go and play rescuer to her, and then be angry that I didn’t like it, and … I finally get it: he is not here helping me out. And what I’d have to do to get his “help” is so unsavoury that I’m just struck by what a motherf*cker this guy really was. He’s not here giving a shit at all. He is just so not here, so not around, so isn’t showing up when needed.
This is one of those times when after a while of not thinking about him at all, something comes along and puts you back in that place (me, scared to heck of being in charge of my financial safety) that pushed you toward the jerk in the first place. I never, ever again will allow my modest job and modest means be a source of shame, nor let an ass like that rub my nose in how well he is “taking care of me/looking out for my wellbeing.” Fucker.
Thanks Natalie. It’s all common sense really and I know my instincts are right to not pick the scab and to leave things be. It’s just the nostalgic, heart-strings stuff I’m dealing with now which are hard (but most life lessons are, right?!).
I just wish I’d listened harder to my gut when he first uttered the words ‘Im not looking for anything serious’ and not convinced myself I’d be happy to have ‘a bit of fun’ with the guy. He had all the cake I gave him to eat and bolted when (once in 7 months!) I pulled him up when he was being a prat. He left saying he didn’t like that sort of thing and didn’t have space in his life for it. Sound familiar at all to anyone?! God only knows why I’m so shaken by this. I should be thanking my stars he pulled the plug!
Xx
You’re right Fearless! Even when a casual relationship doesn’t feel, sound, look casual, it still is if he says that’s all he can give! The mixed messages are a complete nightmare, especially when we’re busy reading what we want into their actions and words. Mine repeatedly said, ‘I’m not looking for anything serious’ but I played along thinking that the intimacy, being introduced to his daughter and the amount of time spent together was meaningful. It wasn’t and now I’m left feeling like a complete prat! Lesson learnt. Now to heal myself….
Ahhh…Runnergirl…we’ll get there! I’m just about getting over the stage where I’m hoping he’ll call, text etc, just to show me I’m on his mind. Im pretty sure he won’t. That would be too much effort and for someone who wants things casual and on their terms I can’t see him even putting the work in to try and entice me into a FWB thing! But, for the first time in the 6 weeks since the split, I feel it’s a good thing that he won’t contact me. Even if he was casual about me and what I mean to him, I’m damned if I’m going to be casual about my awesome self! 🙂
I am dealing with such a relationship (?). He’s one of those who blow hot and cold, we were platonic, we kissed, we were going into something… Until the moment I realized I was into a fantasy relationship, thanks to you. <3
Now I have a broken heart, since I really fell for the guy, and what's worse, he knows it. I, stupid woman, opened my heart to him. 🙁
I have to respectfully disagree that those above mentioned relationships are unavailable. I’m recently separated from my husband and very quickly met someone unexpectedly. Although it’s not an ideal situation and I certainly would not suggest it for many, they do work out. We’ve been together for 8 months and we do have the landmarks that you speak of.
Sometimes relationships happen in those ways and they aren’t hopeless, but I understand that many are and women hold on to the hope that their’s is different.
No offense to the poster right above me, but give it time. I’ve been divorced and know what my state of mind was, and I’ve also loved a man who just signed his divorce papers. For a year we were in what I thought was a loving committed relationship until he decided to dump me for reasons only known to him. I should’ve known better than to get involved and be a “rebound” for someone fresh out of a marriage, but I thought finally I was “in love” with “the one” and blinded by the fact that he was actually emotionally unavailable behind the many “I love you more than anything”s. I wont date men that are separated, or recently divorced for this reason – they are hungry for ANY type of love and affection after their marriage. They desparately want to move on and prove to their ex and themselves that they can do just fine without her thank you very much. Truth is you don’t give yourself enough time alone or to heal if you go right into a relationship after such a big upset in your life. One is not in a good state of mind at that point and the chances to ruin the trust and love of someone who is emotionally available to you when you cannot possibly be that to them is very high.
My second comment is on this article itself. I know for a fact I’m EU for the following: 1) I consistantly find something about my dates that bothers me so that I won’t bother to see them again. 2) I consistantly entertain the attentions of men in their 20’s while I am 41 knowing that a “relationship” isn’t possible and wont lead to anything. 3) I consistantly believe that no man will stick around…I have the belief system that men will grow tired of you and abandon you. I believe that I am never “enough” for a man. I subconciously choose men that behaive badly and are EU themselves ..thereby reaffirming my belief to purpetuate the cycle.
My last dating experience was with a 27 yr old that I met online last December. Warning flags from the beginning that I saw and ignored are: a) he’s 27 and I’m 41
b) he stated to me from the get go that “dating sucks”, “it’s a complete crap shoot”, that he could’ve had a serious relationship but “doesn’t want to settle”. These were all mentioned in IM’g over the dating site on the very first talks.
c) on our first meeting he mentioned he does soft drugs on occassion like pot and was addicted a bit to pain meds awhile back. “I miss it sometimes, you wouldn’t have any on you would you?”
d) on our second meeting we both got very drunk and he wanted me to take him home with me.
e) he was lazy in communication constantly and primarily texted. I think I talked on the phone twice to him and that was in reference of meeting up at my place and directions – and that was only because I got a new phone with touch screen, wasn’t used to it, grew frustrated and called HIM cause I didn’t want to type anymore.
f) he would see me once a week maybe in the beginning before sex got involved…not always a proper date either but just to meet for lunch….no phone calls and limited texting…sometimes he’d go on business trips and never contact me or contact me sparingly….I’d go for a week or more without hearing from him or seeing him.
g)after 5 meet ups I gave in and had sex…I have to say I did feel a bit like I had been pressured to put out after a couple of month or he’d lose interest. Instead he seemed to loose interest in asking me out properly anymore after that and it turned into me contacted him more often than not. Then came the suspicions of him seeing other women, feeling poor about myself and basically letting this assclown turn me into a ball of mess due to his ambigious /confusing behaviors. I’d never been in something like this before – most guys I had been with OVER adored me…which now I know is also a sign something isn’t right.
h) officially bootie call status when he just texts ‘what are you up to tonight’ and plans involve him coming to my place – then leaving and not hearing from him for a week.
i) btw his profile has still been up this entire time on the dating site we met.
j) I catch him openly trolling for women in other states he’s traveling to on business. He states he’s not meeting anyone and only looking. I never thought we had a “relationship” yet or at all, but to openly see this shows extreme disrepect knowing I’m still on the website too and can see his information.
k)I can feel he’s blowing hot when he’s horned up and cold after he’s gotten a piece and I just feel empty.
l) I dont’ talk to his ass for a good 2 months after the trolling on the site. When he does get back in contact with me he openly flirts, compliments me, and is extremely attentive…I know now he’s full of shit on all counts. Finally he bluntly states “we should have sex again I miss it”. Not sugar coated but to the point and not even a softening to the blow by saying he missed ‘me’.
m) I win because I’ve figured out he’s EU..took me awhile but I finally came to my senses…and instead of screaming at him what an assclown he is I play it cool when he tells me “I really like you alot but we’re just at different places in our lives, you know?” I said I agree and we can be friends and date others, knowing full well he wants me bad and knows now he can’t get it again. But I dont’ want it….cause he’s already told me in the time I didn’t see him that he saw a girl for a few weeks a month and a half ago and wont give me an std cause they “Used protection every time”. What the hell, if you’re looking for a “real relationship” you wont know someone for a week and then bang them right away and then boom it’s done. He does it cause he’s EU.