In part one of understanding what makes you angry and why when you’re in relationships or post breakup, I talked about how we get angry because we feel frustrated that things are not going our way or that we are uncared for/unloved and disrespected, and that this filters down into feeling undervalued, feeling taken advantage of, shame and rejection. In this part two, I tackle the latter two.
Feeling frustrated and unloved/uncared for and disrespected because we feel shame.
Feeling ashamed at your own part in something. Potentially feeling guilty – convinced you coulda, shoulda, woulda done more to protect yourself.
This is where you’ll go into over analysing and overthinking drive because when we fixate on the relationship and the person, we look for reasons to blame ourselves and we indulge in blaming ourselves and feeling ashamed, which distracts from the real issues and causes us to lose perspective and feel powerless. You’ll also remain emotionally invested even though it may be driven by negative feelings. This means you can’t let go, which means you can’t move on, and you’ll end up being trapped by your own feelings. You cannot change the past. Period. Obsessing about what you coulda, woulda, shoulda done will immobilise you – knowing what you can do to avoid the same situation in the future, including injecting boundaries and knowing when to opt out, let’s you do something.
Feeling exasperated or even ashamed that you still want someone in spite of how poorly they treat you.
Sometimes you have to recognise your own impatience with yourself. It takes a while for the heart to heal and to catch up with the head. It’s keeping grounded and focused on the reality that will let your heart catch up with your head, especially as you’ll recognise that what you think is ‘love’ and wanting them, is actually your desire to stem the rejection you feel. Instead you need to work through the feeling of rejection and grieve the loss. You will create more pain, more rejection, and more anger if you act on the ‘feeling’ that you still want them.
Feeling angry because you feel rejected and you still want them in spite of the fact that they are not reciprocating.
It’s important to recognise that the anger will persist as long as you ignore looking at why you want someone that doesn’t want you. The likelihood is you feel you desire them more because you feel rejected which is not the same as wanting them – it’s seeking attention, acceptance, and validation. It’s wanting to be ‘right’ and wanting to ‘win’ and as long as you pursue this you’ll feel that you’re ‘wrong’ and that you’re ‘losing.
Feeling that you’re stuck in a cycle of repeating the same behaviours and feeling powerless to change.
The definition of relationship insanity is repeating the same behaviours, carrying the same baggage, sticking with the same relationship pattern, and then expecting different results. You have to want the change more than you want to accept defeat. You need to be patient and take it a day at a time and make a concerted effort to address the issues that keep you in the pattern. You need to do the work and you need to make a conscious effort to keep getting back up and pushing on, because you already know that you don’t like what you’ve already experienced. You’re only powerless if you don’t take control and wallow. You have to fight for yourself. Read my post on why do we throw ourselves at bad relationships and wonder why it hurts.
Feeling ashamed that you were involved with someone who caused you much pain.
I still have the occasional cringe when I think about what I have put myself through, but if I stuck in my previous mode, I’d be stuck back in 2005, meeting the same ‘ole guys running into the same ‘ole problems. Be compassionate to yourself and recognise that you are human, you make mistakes, you love, you want to be loved, and sometimes you trust the wrong people. You cannot hold onto the anger and shame because you’ll become immobile and write off the opportunity to love again. Sometimes we make a lot of mistakes – relationships serve to teach us more about ourselves. Learn the lesson, and you won’t keep feeling the pain. Get to grips with what has happened and learn the lessons so that you don’t put yourself in the frontline of this pain again. Read my post on how relationships teach us more about ourselves.
Feeling that there is something inherently wrong with you that makes you ‘deserve’ what has happened.
This is internalising what has happened and what others have done and turning the anger inward which can cause depression. It’s important to get in touch with who you are, your boundaries, and values, and learn to like and love you because unconditional love means that you know who you are and take care of you, irrespective of what is taking place around you. Be your own best friend. If you don’t, you will use anger that you don’t direct in the right direction, whether that’s adapting your relationship behaviour for positive change or telling someone to take a run and jump, and attack yourself with it. How long are you prepared to punish yourself for? The odd thing is that the level of anger and punishment that you impose on yourself doesn’t come close to matching any anger or ‘punishment’ that the person who ‘wronged’ you feels.
The frustration will persist as long as you 1) focus on blaming yourself because it will immobilise you, 2) avoid acceptance and accountability, 3) lack compassion for yourself whilst not being real about the other persons actions, and 4) fail to process what has happened so that perspective kicks in and you can move on.
Feeling frustrated and unloved/uncared for and disrespected because we feel rejected.
Being angry that someone else is in the relationship that we want to be in.
The anger stems from the lack of control and someone else killing your vision of what you thought things would be. The key with moving past this anger is accepting the reality which involves realising that when someone doesn’t want the relationship with us that we do, it’s a major red flag. That, and the longer you’re trapped in anger whilst someone else is off living their life with someone else, the further you are from having a better, real relationship. If you want to be in the relationship and they don’t, what are you seeing that they don’t, and what are they seeing that you don’t? If they want out or are not interested, why do you still want in and are still interested? Holding onto what you thought could be is demoralising and draining. Recognising what is and what has actually happened or not happened, will stop you from cloaking yourselves in illusions.
Feeling that someone else has taken your place or that they’ve been chosen over you.
Again, this is frustration that your vision is not being met, that someone else might be getting more than you did, or even reaping the benefits of your efforts. It will drive you crazy if you feel like you’re second best and the anger may even cause you to engage in embarrassing or even humiliating behaviour to quell the feeling of rejection.
Believing that someone is ‘getting away with it’ whilst you feel that you’re suffering or that they go unscathed whilst they seem to be living a carefree happy life.
The rejection in this scenario kicks in because you feel that life and what appears to be some sort of natural order is rejecting you. We can often assume and believe that bad people get punished and found out – they mostly do, but not necessarily on your clock and not always in the way you envision.
The carefree assclowns of this world, for instance, seem to land on their feet and find someone new whilst you’re sitting in what appears to be the ashes of your life. It seems unjust and unfair (it often is) and it doesn’t seem that life is being fair to you, throwing you any luck, or dealing out that karma. Aside from internalising what appears to be the rejection of the universe, you may feel inclined to find ways to ensure that they don’t get away with it. Hard as it may be, resist the urge to react to the anger in a destructive way. Unfortunately, when these people go on their merry way, it’s not them that stops us from moving on and being happy – it’s us.
Instead of holding onto the anger and punishing yourself, refusing to trust again, or waiting around for a suitable punishment, I suggest you grieve the loss, feel the pain, and move on. This is not an easy process because it means you have to let go, and letting go means that the focus comes back to you, and you’re back in the hot seat of driving change for you. Eventually, people who habitually treat people badly do experience their own pain and discomfort. Don’t make your life’s and your mind’s focus be about why someone isn’t getting their just desserts – you’re trying to control the uncontrollable which will fuel an immense frustration.
The frustration will persist as long as you 1) stay feeling rejected 2) keep reacting to the rejection and trying to stem the feeling of it and then experiencing further pain, and 3) you don’t use boundaries and your own gut and judgement to reject other people’s unacceptable behaviour or lack of interest so that you can take control.
*****
One of the things that helps to deal with your anger is educating yourself about what you have experienced. I’m not just talking about reading here at Baggage Reclaim (although please do) but soaking up information to help your perspective and following through with actions. Many of the readers that arrive at Baggage Reclaim or who buy my ebooks thought that they were on their own, going crazy, and that they were responsible for the other persons behaviour – that’s bound to cause a lot of frustration.
Your thoughts?
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Wow, does this one post really strike a chord! You’ve just described EXACTLY what is giving me the most difficulty in moving on.
I keep making his unkind, inconsiderate actions mean something bad about ME, when the only thing they really mean is that there’s work to do internally, in terms of treating myself with more love, compassion and acceptance.
There’s no figuring out why he did what he did. But, like a detective, I can follow the chain of events backwards and figure out why I accepted and allowed his sh*tty behavior. And change THAT!
Dear Natalie:
I found your website a few months ago after I experienced my first relationship with a severe commitmentphobic (Mr. Unavailable). Wow! I never knew they existed and was I ever taken on a mind trip! Your web site has given me validation and more importantly exposed my part and my feelings in that so called “relationship”. Especially helpful through the post breakup! I used the no contact rule December 26, 2009, and have stuck to it. Your articles have truly helped me heal and move on! I just want to Thank you!
Virginia
Good stuff. I feel like a lot of the reasons things go badly in a relationship and how we feel about it post-breakup has a lot to do with accepting that there was not an equal value exchange going on.
For example, in capitalism or even a barter system economy, the system only works when one thing of value is exchanged for another thing of value (either money, product or service). If one of the parties in the exchange tries to manipulate the value system, then the system breaks down.
Same theory in a working relationship, there needs to constantly be exchanging of value, whether that be emotionally, verbally, physically, etc. And if there isn’t the constant exchange, the system breaks down, thus resulting in “buyers remorse,” which would be the shame, guilt and anger we feel after the break-up.
.-= Matt Savage´s last blog ..Attraction Triangle Game Theory =-.
In a way I have it easy…my 10 year relationship which included having children ended (for the final time) 4 years ago…and my ex is living the exact same life he was when we met at age 21…(and he’s 36!) He’s had a couple of flings and is seeing someone now, but there’s nothing he has to offer that I want (in fact, I’m disgusted by what he has to offer) so it’s easy for me not to feel ‘replaced’ since whatever she’s getting, I am no longer interested in.
The EUM I just dated and broke it off with is SO miserable, that any future woman will either be miserable also or get sick of his crap and leave.
The only anger I’m dealing with is the bizarre fact that he was SO into me for TWO YEARS and then after only a few weeks of dating, he couldn’t care less if he ever sees me again. Weird. But that in itself speaks volumes and tells me it’s not about me at all…since in actually dating me he only found out how awesome , happy and loveable I am. Guess that wasn’t a good fit for his miserable self hey!
~keep on keepin’ on , ladies!
@Wendy
“it’s not about me at all…since in actually dating me he only found out how awesome , happy and loveable I am.”
I really like that perspective! I believe it’s more true then we realize about these AC / EUM’s.
Just got the update for this in my email. Been a while since I posted or read – just wanted to say, Natalie has amazing advice and taking charge of your life, looking at what really drives and motivates you and learning to be brutally honest with yourself really does make all the difference.
Just as Wendy has said, these guys don’t change. Just keep working on yourself – absolutely true to form, having read plenty (and recommended to many) of the posts and ebook material and having had a few hissy fits whilst I was shaking it all back out the inevitable crumb throw from my ex bounced totally unreplied to – and I have met someone who IS what I really want and never thought I’d find (and who wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the bristling bundle of anger I used to be). There is life – and it is a better life, even if not a bed of roses – after these experiences if you choose to use them as the chance to grow.
Thanks Natalie.
Butterfly, I am so glad that you are well, and met someone who is available!
I wish you all the best:-)
Excellent!!! It is so much better taking time to focus on yourself. Got approached by someone very charming the other day, in the past I probably would have fallen for the act but he couldn’t have stood out as an AC any more if he had it printed on his shirt!!
Afterwards a couple of people warned me to be careful if I was getting involved with him as they had been hit on and burned by him before.
I agree with Butterfly. Natalie is awesome! It seems almost every time I receive an email from Baggage Reclaim, it is what I am currently struggling with. Coincidence? No, it isn’t. It’s God’s way of helping me get the answers I seek. Thanks Natalie.
The carefree assclowns of this world, for instance, seem to land on their feet and find someone new whilst you’re sitting in what appears to be the ashes of your life.
As much as I am distancing myself from my ex-EUM, I do sometimes think about whether or not he went back to his ex-girlfriend or has found someone new. I do ask myself if he has indeed already moved on, what does this person have that I don’t? What does she have that I couldn’t give him? I am trying to move on, but sometimes, these thoughts pop into my head. I hope that in time, they fade away.
I believe we are given the information we need as we are ready to receive it…I, too, feel Natalie hits the nail on the head everytime and seems to be living in my head on most days!! I welcome each new post as they are keeping me grounded at times when I feel I can no longer find my way…and the experiences each individual shares here, while each different in their own right, reflect the commonalities of all our journeys just the same…there is comfort in knowing I am not alone even though I wish none of us ever had to experience the heartache and grief of a relationship break-up!
On one hand, I know that the situation with my ex-EUM was no good – that’s what my sane, rational self tells me.
On the other hand, once I start overthinking, I still can get caught in the land of “coulda, woulda, shoulda.” I then convince myself that things would have turned out if I would have just spoken up about things at the beginning and started the relationship on a more open note. But I was so into wanting this now-defunct relationship that I didn’t ask the questions I wanted to and should have because I was scared. I was scared of being rejected and I was also tired of my history of being rejected.
I know what my larger issue is now that I need to contend with, and I’m working on that. But I am having a hard time cutting myself slack with the mistakes I made. I know it’s in the past. But I haven’t had a chance yet to practice in the present these things that I have learned, so I feel – at least on a more primitive, emotional level – that I don’t really know if this new way of doing things will work yet. Kinda feel like I’m in a holding pattern until I can test it. My rational self is like, Duh, of course this will work! On a more basic level, it’s terrifying.
oh, KG!
I soooo get what you are saying…I feel the same way, too. I feel like I am on another rollercoaster ride after getting off the rollercoaster ride that was the relationship!! I feel like I just want the chance now with the knowledge I have in hindsight to get off the rollercoaster and get on the Inner Tube Ride and float down the Lazy River! Not quite as articulate of an explanation as yours, but nonetheless, I can relate. I am trying to make light on a day that started with a heavy heart!
Hi All –
NML, RES, Sherry and KG –
Again, thanks for your comments on my EUM not returning my things. It has now been over a month since I requested them and I am having trouble. Tell me how to forget this please. I actually had 2 dates with a new man that seems normal. I am looking over my shoulder constantly wondering where, when and how this AC is going to try and use my things to contact me somehow. I will not ask for my things again but I am not functioning well. A bit of history – hot and cold, asked me if i would marry him within the year (2009), texting most of the relationship (albeit nice and loving texts as well as cold ones), physically hot then not. Good in bed then terrible in bed. Moved in with me and claimed he didn’t remember being so happy, then distant, then loving, distant, loving, he even told me after he moved out (1 week before Christmas) “you probably don’t believe me but I love you” (via text)….i could go on as this was the way it was for a year. I just want to be prepared but I am so freakin nervous about it mostly all the time. Please tell me your thoughts on how to get past this.
Thanks so much.
BTW – 3 months of NC – only the email I sent asking for my things 1 month ago.
“We can often assume and believe that bad people get punished and found out – they mostly do, but not necessarily on your clock and not always in the way you envision.” That is the clincher for me…and a very liberating one at that! Thanks NML
Part One & Two left me in tears but with a good feeling that I’m starting to understand the why. The past month I’ve been at a standstill to moving on but the 2 posts have helped to figure out what’s going on in my head and my heart.
Thank you again NML for an insightful post!
One thing I’ve learned about my past relationships, why I repeatedly went into “bad” relationships knowingly and why I hung onto them and kept trying is because I thought that was the best I can do. My self-esteem was shot and I didn’t know that I deserved better than being in a pile of shit.
Once I’ve learned that I deserve better. I deserve to be loved, happy, thought of, respected, embraced, to laugh whole-heartily everyday, that’s when I discovered myself. I’m not completely there yet, I’m a WIP, although when I do realize at a start of a bad relationship like my last one, I know how fast I need to jump out of the window and run, however, I’ve learned to be kind about it. I’ve learned that men do leave “hints” about themselves. Nobody can perpetually be on their best behaviour to the point where they say all the right things, all the time. They’re humans too, just like us and we can’t be on our best behaviour, all the time.
In the past, I tend to get mad at myself more because I allowed things to happen. I am the driver of every relationship, not just a passenger and I have the right to steer the car either left or right and I have the right to place it on park or reverse. If I don’t like the car, I could always get out and leave the key in the front seat for someone else to pick it up and drive it away. If another woman picks the keys up and start driving away with it, I hope she finds out fast, like myself, that the car she’s driving is not suitable to be driven and hopes that she doesn’t get into an accident and gets hurt. I think best with analogies. 🙂
Thank you,
Sherry
Butterfly!!!!!!!!!! Nice to hear from you and to know that you are doing fine 🙂
Sherry:
Your analogy is the best! I, too, tend to work best in analogies and always try to find the humour in even the darkest situations. My recent break-up found me, for the first time I can recall, unable to see the humour. It is slowly starting to resurface….the giggle I got from your analogy confirms it. Thank you for that!
Cheeky
You women are wonderful. I got so much out of this blog as I did with your replies.
I had a low point last Friday and texted the SOBAssclown. I now regret it, but I’m not angry at myself. I think a part of his lure like Natalie said in the article, is that I WORKED so hard for him to care, and now that he doesn’t seem to give a flying poo, that he’s moved on, and probably found a new girl to play the “my heart is so broken I haven’t loved for years” crap (big breath), that it may just be in my mind. I’m trying this new way of thinking…that it’s really about me wanting him to love me…when he’s incapable of loving anyone. And, if I coulda shoulda woulda, I may still be stucka with the son of a bi*cha.
Myrtle
No contact since 3-12-10 (damn, I was doing so well)
I agree with Butterfly. The more you focus on yourself, what motivates you, what you like, dislike, will or won’t accept from others the more secure you become and the happier you feel because you are solely responsible for your own happiness. Not someone else. It’s empowering!
Good luck to all those who are just starting out, using the NCR, etc. Natalie has done a great job on this site, be thankful to have found her site and to have so much support in healing, moving on, and learning more about yourselves.
The one problem I have in “breaking up” is a phenomenon that I call….. the “post breakup reminder signs.” Anyone have this problem? You know….. like…. the kind of car he drives…. all of a sudden, EVERYONE is driving this kind of car (you see that car all the time), or….. if he has a common last name, like “smith” or something, you see “his last name” everywhere, like, it’s the name of a street, or someone’s business…… I don’t go looking for these, I just see them. Happens on all relationships I’ve had. HATE IT!
Although I have no problem getting indiscriminately angry, at inanimate objects for example, I just realized I have a real problem getting angry at him. For the past 6 weeks, I have beaten myself up but good and yet persisted in seeing him as a good guy, when he wasn’t. There is a difference between accepting my own accountability and recognizing that I ignored alot of red flags along the way, and giving him the free pass he really wants. I read an article about George Clooney (the quintessential commitment phobe), who says that everytime he dates someone new, he gets to start again fresh, as a nice guy. That is exactly what my assclown did – hitting the reset button and refusing to accept accountability for his words or actions. Towards the end,there was alot of lying, alot of BS, alot of assclown behavior and I have a right to be angry. It isn’t about blaming him and feeling the victim. It’s about recognizing that I was played with and feeling my anger, not rationalizing it away. Why do we as women have such a hard time feeling angry?
i think it is fear, i think we are afraid to get angry. so it gets internalized, and an implosion occurs, it is self destructive.
however, the smart thing is not to display the anger if you really want to be shrewd. its a game and if you want to keep your power, don’t blow. blow up at home, hit the tennis racquet to the bed, etc. But don’t show him. Play it cool and smart. Slide away like a snake and dissapear, take a trip and don’t tell him. Disconnect your phone, don’t answer your door and find someone else, make a million dollars. But don’t blow up and last but not least – Never Ever take it out on your darling self!!! Do you think George Clooney beats himself up?
Here are two quotations from ‘Feel the Fear and do it Anyway’ that I find helpful:
‘The best way out is always through’ – Helen Keller
Ships in harbour are safe, but that’s not what ships were bulit for.’ – John Shedd
I am trying to break it off with what I know realise (after finding this site) is a commitment phobic, EMU.
Now that I am enlightened through a great deal of reading, here and elsewhere, I find I can see that I keep going back because I want to end the pain of rejection I feel when he does his ‘Houdini act’ and abandons me to my pit of misery. Text book case that he is, he always throws me a crumb eventually, to raise the temperature, becasue it’s getting a bit too “cool” for him and to ensure that I remain available. It’s usually some crumb of supposed ‘feeling’ for me that he has.
Here is his latest crumb by email:
“I will never not love you”
Isn’t that classic?!! Before doing all my recent reading I would have lapped it up, it would have been music to my ears. Now all I hear is “never”, “not” with “love” thrown in. Like the words “always” and “love” cannot exist in the same sentence.
If this is not a display of non-commital ambivalence, what is?! It just goes to show that even th language that they chose to use speaks volumes!
And guess what? Eureka! In reading these words I did not feel “saved” or “validated”; I feel like I have learned to speak his language, so now I understand what he means by what he says as well as by what he does! What an f’n relief!
Don’t be angry – be free!