Forgiveness and closure is something that many struggle with, often because it feels like any other parties involved ‘need’ to be in agreement about our perception of things and to acknowledge where they’ve gone wrong. When there are unanswered questions or a vacuum where they existed either because they’ve disappeared, moved on, or passed away, and it feels like they just don’t get why we’re so angry/hurt and unable to move on, it can feel like we’ll never get past it.
What I discovered about forgiveness and closure recently, is that you definitely don’t need to gain agreement from the other party about your perspective on things and that your own acknowledgement and validation travels a hell of a long way.
You move on when you stop invalidating yourself.
It’s a decision – it’s a choice between being in the pursuit of, in some cases, a lobotomy and a personality transplant, or processing your feelings and supporting you, including not blaming yourself for other people’s behaviour.
In the month before my wedding, everything I’d put behind me about my relationship with my father – the first Mr Unavailable in my life – was severely put to the test when we had massive falling out (we’ll save that story for another day). Why? Because it became apparent as the clash unfolded that me being ‘easy going’ and seemingly ‘forgiving’ had been taken for granted or misinterpreted as permission to press the Reset Button.
We’ve had an OK relationship but in recent years, as my unwillingness to allow hot and cold, Future Faking and disappointments to happen became apparent, distance has grown between us. I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t bothered me initially (you may remember that I addressed my disappointment a few years ago) but I’ve found that expecting people to be different from who they’ve consistently shown themselves to be is a great source of unhappiness that I’d rather forgo.
It’s easy to get comfortable and sucked in by the warmth of a ‘hot phase’ and then fall into the old trap of thinkingThings will be different this time. You may think enough time has passed for you not to be affected and then you get hurt when old dynamics are revisited.
I know that I am not alone in having been affected by the behaviour and/or absence of one or both parents. I’ve read and heard so many stories that I know if you had an absent or very emotionally distant father, or a highly critical mother, or over arching parents who didn’t chip in much emotion but expected you to live up to high standards, or were witness to or experienced physical abuse, or were emotionally abused, or were treated as if your feelings and needs were not important and the list goes on, you are highly likely to have not only been in unavailable relationships, but you’ll no doubt have self-esteem issues and possibly perfectionist issues.
There was a time when I had little self-worth and was very much emotionally parked at June 1983 when I felt that my father abandoned me and I used that to judge me and form some unhealthy beliefs about relationships, love, and myself. I realised recently that I have no memories of my parents being together and that many of my memories are of waiting around, being ecstatic to get some attention, or of being disappointed that he hadn’t shown up…even if we’d flown thousands of miles. Yet I idolised him.
I did exactly the same thing in my relationships which was why crumbs felt so normal.
When we had the fallout, I realised why I felt so infuriated: I’d moved on, sorted out my self-esteem, had done my best to include him in my life but it felt like a slap in the face to hear talk that sounded like history being rewritten and even denial of how things were. It was like taking an anger match and some oil and chucking them on embers that had died out. I.Was.Furious. And incredibly hurt.
But yet, I was OK. I was upset. But I was, am OK.
You see the thing is, it is downright infuriating to deal with something and then feel like it’s been thrown in your face or even that it was in vain because the person hasn’t changed or they’ve reverted back to the very behaviour that they know you took issue with, but then I remembered something:
I didn’t let go and focus on me and my own life on the basis that he changed or was even in acknowledgement of his actions, or in agreement with my perspective. ; ;
That would have made my endeavours conditional because quite frankly, each time he got on my tits and disappointed me, I’d have been plunged into despair again.
I’ve never said “I forgive you” because it wasn’t really necessary. You can say these words but the truth is, there’s a damn good possibility that nothing will change and then it’s like “Oh but I said that I forgave them. Why aren’t the heavens opening, the angels singing, and my pain disappearing?”
Forgiveness is about the decision to let go. After you make the decision, you have to honour it with the actions to support it. But sometimes we don’t consciously say “I let go” and instead, we get on with the business of living, we nurture ourselves, we process our thoughts, feel all of our feelings even when they hurt, and one day we realise that we feel less about something than we did before and are in the process of letting go or have let go.
Whichever route you take, the point is to stop holding it so closely. If you keep staring at something, if you keep revisiting and reliving it, if you don’t work through the feelings and gradually start to draw conclusions and learn from the insights gained, it just mushrooms into something that drowns out perspective.
It was actually more important to forgive myself and I did this by starting to treat me like a worthwhile and valuable person instead of withholding love, care, trust, and respect and being my worst critic.
Letting go is about deciding to be ‘done’ with something no matter how much more information or change you could continue to seek. It’s not that my father couldn’t do with changing but seven years ago, I had to ask myself why I was devoting my life to expecting him to change, feeling bad about the fact that he hadn’t, and putting my own progress on hold in the process?
The trap of course that many fall into is making the external actions and thinking of another person a condition of moving on and letting go. That’s why I’ve had some readers tell me “I can’t move on until I get the answers that I need / they show remorse”, which is like proclamation of a stalemate. It leaves them with nowhere to go as it’s out of their hands. It’s also not ‘can’t ‘- you can’t know that you can’t move on in advance of it. Seizing onto the condition creates an obstacle.
While it would be nice to gain agreement on how we see things, to get our feelings validated, and to get acknowledgement of where they have erred, not getting them doesn’t have to be an almighty barrier. You’ve got to learn to trust your own eyes, ears, judgement etc. Sometimes you’ve got to hurl it into a bucket and chuck it into the universe and let things fall where they will fall. And you get up, hug yourself a bit tighter and you do your absolute best to get on with your life and treat you well.
The funny thing is that my father thinks I’m not OK with him because I won’t agree with the illusion whereas it’s actually that I am OK because I’m in reality. We can coexist with our differences.
And the even funnier thing I’ve learned from reading / listening to countless stories is that we do often choose to let someone back into our lives and to let something go because we think or assume that they ‘get it’ – but often they don’t ‘get it’ in the way that we want them to and it subsequently becomes apparent in their actions, which means that a lot of us letting go and moving on is really about how we feel about us and how we deal with something in our minds. That tells us that we are in a lot more control of how we can continue to feel than we realise and that is incredibly freeing when we embrace the value of this.
Your thoughts?
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Hi Natalie,
Was this written for me?
Or am i just making everything about me! 🙂
Great post Natalie! I have been getting better and better with NC, but I am guilty of what you describe above. Waiting for someone else to ‘be on the same page’ or gain agreement from them is really just another form of holding onto hurt (because it’s comfortable) or hanging onto a person who has hurt you. Every once in awhile I find myself scared that the ex has forgotten me or moved on, but this post is a reminder that I have moved on too and I don’t need him to say or do anything in order for me to be OK. It’s going to take some time before I can look back on things without getting angry or sad, but I know I’ll get there if I continue to do the things suggested here!
What I love about this post is the insight that you can be flipping pissed off and still “okay”, because your peace of mind is dependent on you and because “okay” means being “in reality”, not being okay with buying into bs.
In the moments after I stood up to my father recently around bullying a kid, in the face of family members who approved of his actions, I went outside and sat on the porch to breathe and decompress.
I had all the familiar feelings of being at odds with him, of knowing that I wouldn’t get an apology or agreement, and in fact would be seen as “too sensitive” (when I eventually came back in all the women were in the kitchen talking about me in exactly that way).
But though all the old feelings were triggered, I didn’t sit out there and cry, like I once would have. I just felt how it felt. Their resistance to me didn’t make me feel abandoned, powerless and self-doubting anymore – or, it did, but I could feel those feelings without turning my back on myself to re-join my family emotionally.
It felt shitty, and I was annoyed and disappointed with my female relatives for smugly tut-tutting, but I thought: well, I validate my own feelings, and I say that I acted upon my own conscious – so there you have it.
I was *okay*.
The experience also speaks to me thinking my dad had “got it” (he had apologized to me, he has tried in his way) but seeing that in some ways – i.e. how he’d react to fresh situations – he didn’t “get it” at all. But I had done a lot of self-validating by that point and wasn’t crushed to learn that he wasn’t at some wished-for point of enlightenment.
Letting go of wanting to see the co-dependence between him and my mother “righted” and those decades of injustice righted is one of the lettings go that is still in process for me. It feels somehow wrong not to get incensed on my mom’s behalf but at some point one has to say that it’s my mom’s responsibility to decide whether she’s being/has been used or not. It’s not that I’m “okay” with how she is taken for granted, but that I need to eliminate stressing over things I can’t control.
Father’s day is fast approaching and it is always a cause for reflection.
I personally wish the day would just disappear then I wouldn’t be caught up with internal conflict.
I believe neither my dad nor my step dad deserve recognition for the day.
It is easy with my dad he lives in another country and wasn’t part of my life many many years he made a conscious decision not to be by signing court documents to that effect. So for me their is no conflict, but quite a few people think I am being harsh towards to my dad and I should send him a card and a gift. It puzzles me that they think I should thank someone who wasn’t there. I have forgiven my dad and I speak to him but I don’t think I need to be hypocritical about Father’s day where he is concerned.
But I am a hypocrite when it comes to my step dad. I don’t want to buy a card and a gift but I do. I think I am afraid of being disowned by my family because it would signal the end of pretence that we all play along with.
I feel I have done a lot of work on forgiveness towards my step dad because I have come to the conclusion that I cannot go through life blaming everything on my past there comes a time you have to take responsibility and start dealing with what happened and move on. I just wish I had the courage to not send anything for Father’s day the only concession I get is I don’t have to spend the day with the family.
It is fascinating when you state clearly what you problems are to a person and they hear you but the comeback is astounding that you wonder if you were speaking chinese to them. I laugh at all the effort I went to when trying to explain to the ex eum why I was so upset it wasn’t worth the effort he was never going to acknowledge anything.
Thank you Natalie for a lovely article which is so well timed for me. Only this evening I was having a conversation with my best friend, having realised that I thought I had let go of the anger and resentment I feel towards my ex for not bothering with his children or making any/very little financial contribution towards them since I left him 11 years ago. He has recently come back into my daughters life and I now realise that I have a lot of unresolved anger. However, I also realise that holding onto this anger is only causing me pain, I’m sure he is fast asleep without a care in the world as I sit up unable to sleep typing this! Reading the fallback guy was such a joy and gave me such an insight into EUM. My father is an alcoholic (in recovery for last 30 years) but I now realise as a result of joining Alanon 2 years ago, that I attract emotionally unavailable men. I love the concept of accepting crumbs which I can totally relate to! I’ve spent the last 2 years having counselling and attending Alanon and am now in the process of trying to push myself into the dating game again, as maintaining a loving relationship is the only area of my life which I don’t seem to have mastered yet. I’ve had an incredibly difficult 6 months with events beyond my control have occurred including 2 deaths and my daughter setting herself on fire. Even through all this stress, with the support of good friends, reading books of support and meditating and praying, I am ok. For the first time in my life I feel content and am much kinder to myself. Your articles are such a source of inspiration for me. Thank you. x
Eva, your story so pulled at my heartstrings. How brave you and your daughter are, you must have so much strength to speak so honestly about what’s happening in your life.
Many of us have been there re: the ex and his lack of care for his own children. I had a great friend who constantly reminded me that it was about the kids and not me; that having dad in their lives was invaluable to them, and seeing me as supportive of that would so pay off for me. Now that my kids are out of school, that advice was so insightful. I still have to struggle with it, but I have control over those feelings and know it will be alright.
Praying for your situation-
I’m guilty of this as well. I allowed myself to give into the hot cycle with the intention that we could be friends, but that quickly faded as my old flame went into sabotage mode to cause a barrier between us once more. He remained stubborn and gave me the silent treatment for 3 months before I got it into my brain that I needed to give myself permission to let go. I kept wanting him to at the very least tell me that we were severing ties or burning our bridge, but he wouldn’t speak to me, but he passively tweeted that he wouldn’t take the bait, by telling me goodbye or discussing anything and I was wasting my time.
I tortured myself and re-opened old wounds. The good thing is that I did decide for the final time that I would remain no contact. Going on almost one month now. I realized that he didn’t add or serve any value to my life. I had to remove toxic, negative and irreparable relationships to make room for inspiring and positive ones. While I’ve had good days and bad days where I’ve cried my eyes out, and felt my emotions to the fullest I understand that I’m human and I allowed myself to be vulnerable and love someone. Detachment is not as easy as it seems. I felt very sad at the fact he just faded away, with no explanation, but he didn’t owe me one. That’s the truth. He knew how I felt about him and he didn’t care to consider my feelings even if the truth would hurt. If he felt the ends justified the means, the end result to simply to rid of me, I’ve committed to falling off his radar permanently.
Yes, it would be nice to think that he misses me or feels remorse, but that’s something I’ll never know and serves me no purpose to make assumptions. The truth as far as I’m concerned is in the actions and lack thereof. I don’t expect to hear from him again or see him again. I believe that I’m just steps closer to having the healthy relationship I want now that I’ve learned my lesson. I noticed a pattern in the types of men I’ve been attracted to and its a pattern that needs to be broken. Though, I’ll never forget him and wish things could’ve have ended amicably or on better terms, I can’t undo the past. I can only move forward.
Hi, I really do wish I was on BR this morning…UGH.
I broke NC after 11 mths w/ exEUM, so far everything feels normal. No highs or lows. I haven’t had many thoughts of him and haven’t been pining for him either. He’s with someone,
EUM sent a msg today, I didn’t think anything of it and sent a reply. But your post makes me wary about whether we should even have occasional contact or if that may lead to the reset button?
I feel I’ve already validated my own feelings about the break-up and moved past it and I don’t care what his agenda is. I just don’t know if I’m being too laid back about the whole thing?
I think I’m staying focused on my own life and not competing with him or anything so it shouldn’t matter. I wrote out my core values yesterday on paper after reading the article. It was good seeing them clear as day and I saw areas where I can make improvements to live more authentically.
I recently started hanging out with a guy friend as something more, we hooked up once and I never heard from him again! I already know that we do not have shared core values and therefore I need to get over it before I get in too deep. I think that’s helped with not feeling rejected, it was fun, leave it at that!
Atrophy, only you know how far you’ve progressed and what you can handle. Be real with yourself and ask what you would get out of occasional contact with the EUM. Does he bring positivity or genuine friendship? Unfortunately it takes a long time for a person to move to a healthier place, but it can be done. If you feel capable of handling the situation, more power to you!
However, it reminds me of the ‘let the breakup fire burn’ post that Natalie wrote awhile back–you can control how much hurt/pain/temptation you have in a given situation. If he’s not really that good of a friend and you don’t share the same values–even if you think you are strong and in a good place–why tempt yourself? And what’s the real point of him having any place (albeit a small part) in your life?
I think one of the things I most admire about this piece and more generally NML’s writing is that she isn’t afraid to be ‘human’ or ‘imperfect’; and what I mean by that is, even after this massive journey NML has gone on to get to where she is, she still finds hiccups and obstacles that need the same sort of treatment she has given previous obstacles from years ago. Her life isn’t always perfect, and frankly, sometimes, things need to be re-affirm, obstacles need to be revisited, minor breakdowns happens, and guess what? She got to the other side and is still in the process of getting there.
I feel there has to be a good amount of pressure on NML to be sort of perfect now that she been through the worst and got to the other side, because, God forbid (lol), if things were not, then readers would question her authority on the subject matter. NML humanizes, then, the whole journey, and through this tale, shows that there are still pot holes that come here and there, but she’s still making it through to the other side, making it back to her life.
Or maybe she doesn’t feel any pressure on our parts to be a ‘model image’ for what she has accomplished here. Regardless, I appreciates the honesty in a post like this because it makes me feel like I’m not getting preached to but instead can sort of she the complexity of her life as it still unfolds. I don’t need perfection on her part to ‘believe’ everything she says because I know it has helped me.
I’m totally in awe of the wisdom Natalie has amassed in her young 35 years, lived through many adversities, and here she is, teaching women in their 40s and 50s how to live their lives authentically and sometimes how to just make it through the day! You rock, Nat!
So much agreement with so much of this post!
I had an absent father (he died) and a very critical mother. Top that off with a physical assault as a teenager, I was a walking recipe for low-self esteem and self-criticism.
I was the other woman in my late teens. Then in my early twenties I spent four years with an abuser. I left him for another emotionally unavailable man and I have just broken up with a cheating AC (who I had broken up with and I gave him a second chance because this time, I thought he ‘got it).
I have two more years until I hit my thirties. I’m not going to deal with the same BS in my thirties. I would love to get validation from these AC men, but it will never happen, and as you said, I’m in reality fighting their delusions and illusions.
I’m in therapy now and learning how to actually take care of myself. It’s not a lesson I thought I needed to learn at 28 but looking back at my relationship history, I need it more than ever. The AC men in my life won’t learn because they don’t want to, they think nothing’s wrong. I know I can heal and eventually I will find someone who will have similar values and treat me well 🙂
The “delusions and illusions” of ACs, how true! This is something I’ve only realised recently: it’s not like only we are dreamgirls living in fantasies while the ACs have their feet firmly on the ground,no, ACs live in their own fantasies and illusions and delusions and often don’t know their head from their tail!
Oh Cheese Sandwich, Yes, learn these lessons when you are 20-something. If you don’t now, you’ll be 50-something going good frigging grief, how did I let this happen. I’m new to the dating world, at 53, and it is totally fun, weird, and different. There are total idiots and there are some actual good guys. I don’t need any guy. That’s the difference now. And since I haven’t talked with my father in over a decade, who cares what my father thinks. Oh but there is this new guy who I would like to see again. But the difference now: I’m choosing whether I want to see him again.
yes cheese sandwich learn those lessons in your 20’s because most of us wish that we had and…your name is making me hungry! And it is 10 pm, too late to go out and no cheese in sight erg:)
I hope this is not completely off-topic.
I don’t know if anyone else here struggles with the fallout of being an adopted child, but I finally have come to see my adoption as the root of my emotional unavailability, shame, and persistent feelings of worthlessness. I mean, if my own mother didn’t or couldn’t love me (and willingly turned me over to strangers), who could?
I’ve been recently considering searching for my birth family, but in the meantime, what I’ve realized is this: letting go of my birth mother’s act of relinquishment of her child and healing from the after effects doesn’t require her agreement, her consent, her validation, or even her knowledge. I’m (probably) never going to get the kind of closure I want.
So I’m making my own closure with my birth mother, even though I know nothing about her. I know that her actions weren’t about me and weren’t a reflection of me. I’ve worked hard at forgiving myself for internalizing things that clearly had nothing to do with me. I’m meditating daily on letting go of the past. And I’m working on forgiving her.
I suppose my point is that sometimes you can’t get the closure you want/the answers you need/the remorse you feel entitled to/the validation you crave, but I think in the end, the crucial part is to make conscious choices to create our own closure, let go of the need for answers, forgive others and ourselves, and providing ourselves with validation and the knowledge and certainty that its okay to move forward, even without the agreement of other people.
Just thoughts.
Cheers!
I can understand where you’re coming from. My step father wanted to adopt my brother and I, our ‘real’ father wouldn’t allow it. My step father and his mother accept brother and I as their kids, no hold barred, but step dad’s family always looked at bro and I as “outsiders”. It’s like you’re neither here nor there. Most people you know can’t understand that feeling. I do think that birth mother’s are giving their babies a gift if for no other reasons that, in most cases, they realize they would be crappy mothers. I can’t say “don’t” feel rejection, but embrace the acceptance by someone else. Does that make sense?
Hi Magdelena,
I think you are doing the right thing in finding closure for yourself about your adoption.
If you do decide to find your birth family you have to be prepared for all the possibilities about what could happen. It could be a fairy tale ending with your mum having spent years looking for you but unable to locate you or it could be she simply doesn’t want to be found or something in between.
In my twenties I went searching for my dad because he was going to be the answer to all my problems, once I met him my life would be complete he would be understanding, caring, show deep remorse and regret for signing away his rights to be my father. He would give me guidence like tv dads do.
Well reality hurt and I wasn’t prepared for it.
Here is a snippet of things said by him
“If I was still married to my second wife I would not have anything to do with you.”
“I can’t answer any questions for you I have no answers I don’t remember.”
“I measure a person’s worth by how much they work and you don’t work hard enough for me go and do more work”
I can’t recall everything he said but it was far from the fairytale I had in mind. I do remember a phone conversation where he said
“My biggest regret is … I waited with baited breath finally he was going to say it was giving me and my brother up, but no it was that he had worked too hard in life and ruined his knees and couldn’t do the things he wanted to do. I cried after that he really did not regret his desicion and he gave us up for the selfish reason to be with his other woman at the time.
Another massive crash to earth was when I was living in the same country as him I got myself into financial difficulty partly my fault and partly the ac’s fault who I was dating at the time. My dad offered to help me out I could go and stay with him for a bit until my work situation picked up again. Off I went so happy wow my dad whooooooo I get to live with him. It was horrible he was controlling he drank a lot and he is nasty when he drinks. In the end I chose to go back home and be broke than stay with him any longer. I made up lies to get away and he did give me some cash when I left.
I had so many fantaties it was ridiculous when I was growing up about my dad wish I had been grounded in reality when looking for him.
I still chat to my dad on average once a month it is a one sided chat with him doing most of the talking and there is usually criticism of me involved but I can handle it now. I know he can’t fix me and I have to do it for myself.
There maybe others who have stories that are the opposite to mine but I think either way you have to be fully grounded and head in reality before embarking on the search, I also think you are correct you can never have your questions fully answered as to the ins and outs of the situation.
Good luck Magdalena.
magdalena-
i have a dear friend who is adopted … two dear friends, actually … and they report much of what you are experiencing. it is so very hard when you have no information – and i’m not sure what’s worse for them, having information that is hard to live with or having no information at all.
i guess what i’m saying is – try to not jump to conclusions about your worth because you were put up for adoption. no disrespect meant to your birth mother, but the chance that the reason she put you up for adoption was all about her is just as good as that chance that it was all about you (i mean a good reason about you, as in she wanted you to have a better life).
look, this may not help – and i don’t know how your adopted family was to you – absolutely wonderful, i hope – but try to think of yourself as CHOSEN rather than abandoned. your friends whom you love and trust? they chose you. your adoptive family, no matter how good or bad they were to you? they chose you.
i cannot imagine how all this must feel to you, it must be so hard. but you choose you too.
big hugs
Magdelena:
I was raised by abusive adoptive dad and my adoptive mother died when I was eight. After going NC with my dad and being really embroiled in anger I hired a private investigator and through him found my parents and full blood sister. It was a mixed bag I will tell you. My mom was thrilled and proceeded to burden me with huge amounts of drama and clinginess, my sister was jealous having been raised to be the only child and my dad…was a huge stoner who brought me a bag of pot as a “getting to meet my biological daughter” gift.
Now it is funny but really at the time I was a bit perplexed, disappointed and disillusioned to say the least.
I don’t understand why you assume that you were rejected by your birth mother. That seems really unrealistic. I honestly can’t relate-the one really positive thing that my adoptive parents had done, was to always stress to me how hard it must be to give up a baby and houw people do it for the child, so that they can have a better life. There are many people who view it that way, both my brother and I do ( from 2 different bio families). Why choose to view it negatively?
Magdelena;
As someone who, like you was adopted ( see my prior post to your concerns) Itotally get your position, but there is SO much wisdom in Nats reply.
Look, after meeting my bio family what I realized is that 1) it could have been just as bad there ( my bio sister had her own issues with my bio dad not being there, as he divorced my mom when she was 3 so)….hey in some ways it would have been just as bad; I still would have had father abandonment issues, wither from my adopted dad or my real one.
I feel, despite being angry at my adoptive dad, lucky in many ways. I had a wonderful loving adoptive mother until she passed when I was 8. I have LOADS of good memories from her that sustained me through the not-good years after. I had a great foster mom later when I was 16-18 that guided me and with whom I still keep in touch. I have several step-siblings from my adoptive dad’s marriages who get my complaining about my adoptive dad and who have their own issues that they had dealt with successfully and gone on to love people truly due to their efforts to gain closure with themselves…No one has a perfect life. There are just little stars that you can grasp at sometimes, and remember that you have to see those stars with perspective; they seem little from below when you are grasping at them but really they are just like stars in that, somewhere, they are huge. A stitched together family of people who you CHOOSE to call family can be every bit as beautiful as some imagined perfect one, even better because it is real.
I will leave you with a story my adoptive dad told me about my adoption which I love:
He told me that some ordinary people come from storks and they dropped through the chimney and the family just gets what the stork dropped. But that my mom and him were chosen to get to go to a STORE to pick out their baby. And they wandered the aisles and saw rows and rows of babies but none felt like theirs. Then just as my dad was about to leave in frustration he looked down and there right in front of him was a skinny, little baby with big brown eyes that reached up her hands to him. He looked in its eyes and he said “That is my baby. She has my eyes. She needs me” and he picked me up and paid for me and took me home and my mother and him were both so happy.
That is the story that my dad, a man who has his own issues, due to wars, surviving the Depression, losing his own father when young, gave me for my adoption. I like that one and I will always be thankful to him that he gave it to me. I think that is the right perspective to have about adoption, personally. You were chosen:)
Magdalena, I wanted to share a few things with you as my heart hurt to read the torment that you’re putting yourself through and what is missing from your life is perspective and that affects *everything*.
Now I’m not saying that you should be thrilled about being adopted and it is understandable to go through a myriad of emotions, but you have taken a very extreme view of your adoption and you need to not only empathise with your own position but also empathise with your birth mother’s position.
I have friend’s who have been through the heartbreaking and at the same time absolutely marvellous and stunning gift that adoption is. Two friends have just been approved after a lengthy process. Another friend had hair loss and all sorts of physical symptoms. They sold their house, rented another, and have gone through a lot to have their gorgeous daughter.
I’ve heard from readers who were adopted into loving families that still ended up on a destructive path.
I’ve heard from readers who have had difficult relationships with their mothers and then found out that their was a child ‘before’ them. Someone they’ve never met but who they feel inadequate to and who their mother carries the burden of their loss and choice.
I’ve heard from readers who have got back in touch with birth parents – some happy stories, some…not so happy.
I even consider people like me who weren’t raised by their own father and even though my stepfather was emotionally distant, it took me until my 30s to *truly* be grateful for what I’ve had and recognise it. That man, in spite of his and my mother’s crazy relationship, did a lot for me and it’s only in recent years that I realise that my obvious hankering for my father mustn’t have been easy to watch. Hell, my own mother lived with my dissatisfaction and clear distress and desire for my father… a man who wasn’t there and if he had been around, he would have been OK but it would have been messy.
Adoption is not an easy process and while there are some no doubt shady people out there, adoption comes about due to how the person feels about *themselves* and their own inadequacies and capabilities. That’s not to say that their thought process ‘makes sense’ but you only have to read some people’s comments and the shite we often think about ourselves to realise that we don’t seem to need much logic.
Look at how much guilt people feel over leaving a shit relationship.
Adoption is not easy for any party involved.
One reader told me that her adoptive parents said that she was distressed for a year after being adopted at 12 months and at some level she remembers it. She says she had an idyllic upbringing and yet, nothing has ever been enough until the past few years when she started to truly appreciate her life and what she *had*.
Another reader who has a secret sister she found out about a few years ago, feels that the adopted child is more loved than her.
This tells you that it’s about *perspective* and *your* relationship with you.
If your mother had you adopted, it is because with the best of her knowledge at the time, she thought she was doing better for you this way than she could have done herself. She was not to know that this is what would happen. She has to live with that decision for the rest of her life and the grief.
It is *not* easy to give up a child. Even if they keep a stony face, in their most private moments the grief and even the shame will eat them up. The guilt is what often causes them to not be able to forge relationships with future children or to enjoy their lives – they often punish themselves. There are very far reaching consequences for adoption for *all* parties involved.
Parents are not infallible whether we’re adopted or not. Some parents do not know how to parent likely due to their own upbringing. Some parents think that just being there, material stuff, or the act of adopting you is enough. My point is that you have not missed out on a fairy tale alternative. What you’ve been through is painful but it does not have to define the rest of your life. You are *more* than Lisa who was adopted.
To think of yourself in this manner is to not only indulge in self-rejection but to keep *reliving* it.
You need to fill up the hole in your own life. I’m not saying that there won’t always be an ache for your mother but it will be a different type of ache in a different type of life if you start taking care of you and owning your responsibility for you. Even if you find your birth mother, it is your job now as an adult to nurture and parent the child within you. You are, in continuing to neglect you and thinking of you in the way that you are, rejecting little Lisa at your core. It is time to love you.
Magdalena
When I was a child I used to fantasize about being taken into care to escape my mother. Truth is, I would have been a lot worse off in care.
I’m not saying my situation is the same as yours, but I know how the “if only” can keep you stuck. “If only” my mother loved me. “If only” my father hadn’t been so discouraging. There are those who don’t know if their children are alive or dead. In the news recently, Keith Bennett’s mother, after fifty years, still doesn’t know where her murdered child is buried. At some point, even though it’s always “there”, the decision has to be made to live our lives fully and not let something we can’t change shipwreck us.
For over forty years I wondered and wondered about my upbringing, which my counsellor described as “one of the worst cases I’ve ever heard”. In the end, I came to the conclusion that *drumroll* it is what it is. Only that. It doesn’t make me unlovable, it doesn’t make me incapable of love. I’m not eternally damaged. I don’t need to understand the ins and outs and ups and downs of it all. I don’t have to fix it.
Even though it’s painful and hurtful, there is a plus side to holding onto the grief and pain. It’s a very good reason not to put yourself out there or take any unnecessary risk. After I rebuilt my life and got happy I was beset with anxiety when I met the new man. I just didn’t think in my heart that I could have love. I lived out the anxiety on this blog and found my way out the other side (thanks Nat!)
And as for the man, for all his optimism and happiness, he’s been through a lot as well.He was a child in a warzone.
If it doesn’t break you, it makes you stronger, really.
Be brave.
By all means search for your birth family, with support. But don’t get carried away that it will be the answer. The answer is in you. My counsellor called it the enduring human spirit. As a Christian, I say we are made in God’s image. No crappy parenting can take that away from you and no wonderful birth family reunion (if that’s how it turns out) can give it to you either.
Dearest all,
If its possible to have a “vulnerability hangover,” then I definitely have one! (Did I really just share the innermost contents of my soul with the entire internet? Yep, guess I did. Too late now!) I thank you all for your wonderful, empathetic,and understanding replies. Thanks especially to NML for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and kind reply with such insight.
Adoption has always been a tricky subject for me to think about, as its fraught with what I think is referred to as cognitive dissonance. In other words, its been hard to reconcile what I’ve been told about adoption and what I actually feel about it. For example, adopted kids are always told that they’re wanted children, but its hard to make that match up to the reality that kids are placed up for adoption because they aren’t wanted (for *whatever* reason, no matter how benign.) My view of adoption as a rejection by my birth mother isn’t a terribly sophisticated way to understand it and my adult brain rationally understands that, but its how I always understood it as a child and my thinking about the subject never evolved past ‘rejection’ until recently. (In fact, I tried very hard not to think about it at all until recently.) I am fairly certain that my birth mother relinquished me to give me a better life and I can’t imagine how hard that choice must have been. I don’t wish to blame her for anything. Emotionally, however, the fact of my adoption always felt tinged with rejection (and subsequent feelings of anger and shame) and its hard to articulate these feelings even as an adult. Its not terribly socially acceptable to express any feelings (especially big scary feelings like anger, grief, or shame) other than eternal gratitude about adoption, so its only been now that I’ve been working my way through feelings of hurt and anger (and a whole bunch of other things) that I’ve carried around my whole life. I’m working on my way backwards through my emotional unavailability, from the most recent (epiphany!)ex-EUM to the ones who came before him, to my feelings about my emotionally absent adoptive family, and now I’m finally ready to face the feelings about what I consider the root cause of the very painful feelings that I wrote about.
I don’t hold out much hope that finding my birth mother or family would somehow be the panacea that makes everything better or that I’d ever get the type of closure I always wished I had. I’m curious about her (them?) for all kinds of reasons, but I’m prepared to make peace with my adoption, even if I never end up searching or finding information.
I’ve done some very hard emotional work in therapy and meditation and I’m finally healing up some very, very, very old and deep emotional wounds. I’m striving to love myself better every day and make choices that reflect an ever growing belief that I’m worthy of love, especially from myself. Its been difficult and I’m definitely a work in progress, but the present (and future!) moment holds much, much promise and hope.
Best to all,
Lisa-Magdalena
Magdalena, I’ve had many “vulnerability hangovers” by sharing the innermost contents of my soul with the entire internet. I’ve never encountered such insight, consideration, and healing until I found Natalie and the amazing folks on BR. Thank you for sharing and I’m wishing you the best whatever you decide to do. You deserve the best. Peace to you. xxoo
Wow. I needed to hear exactly this at exactly this moment. Thank you.
Natalie you are so right about seeking validation in unavailable relationships. Once you get to a point where you don’t need validation it is such a good feeling it is liberating. These assclowns are not worthy of anyones time or important enough to seek validation from. Their behavior is not about you its because they are assclowns. My ex unavailable tried to blame me for the outcome of our so called relationship ur no I will not take the blame! He has a terrible track record with women and I know why and I feel validated because he just showed me how much he is a crap relationship candidate. I have been NC for 7 months now! And of course he has tried to contact me from blocked a blocked number I don’t answer those! Finally he unblocked his number but didn’t have the nerve to leave a message. It’s been almost two months since he has tried to contact me maybe he has gotten the message and knows that I wont listen to any of his bs.
Magdalena… Your message touched my heart as a mother. I cant imagine the pain of giving up a child but some people have no choice. I am not saying this was your biological mothers position. Its just that sometimes I think giving up a child is too hopefully give the child a better life than what they think they can provide while also giving the child to parents that are unable to have children. Its complicated . If u are truly interested in searching for your birth mother I say go for it but realize there are 2 reactions you may get. Excitement or Rejection. Are you ready for either ?? Maybe some counceling before hand while your seaching could help. I know for myself I would want to know something, anything about my birth mother.
I am sorry you have to deal with all the emotions you wrote about. I lost my beloved mother last year and it was so painful. Then the EUM cheated 2 mths later & I said flush, the hurt &sadness was so overwhemling at times. I would come to this blog,read MR Unavail & the fallback girl and somehow remain sane. Its so hard to go thru the loss of a parent & having the person who you thought would be there thru thick & thin go behind your back & cheat. I was a complete mess of a women but I survived.And NO there was no getting the closure I think I deserved. No apologies I think I deserved. I realized he never said I am sorry for anything the entire time we were together. Like he just couldnt say those words, ever…But I have accepted I will never know & it doesnt matter anymore. I have a life to live and we only get one chance at it. I am not wasting it on a EUM that doesnt/didnt deserve my love.
Best Wishes to you whatever you decide. I want u to look at yourself in the mirror and say these words.
I am beautiful inside & out. I love me for the amazing person I am. I deserve all the best the world has to offer me. And believe every word when u say it….God Bless 🙂
Thanks so much for your kind words, Kathie. I am still thinking through the idea of searching for my birthmother and the possible consequences, as its a big can of worms for everyone involved. I’m in such a better place to make these kind of decisions now than I was a few years ago– I’ve done lots of really good work in therapy, healing through meditation, and self-help. I’ve been working backwards through my (thawing!) emotional unavailability, dealing with feelings from the string of EUMs, to emotionally absent adoptive parents (no blame-its just how things were), all the way back to the adoption issues I refused to acknowledge for years. I know I’ll probably never have the answers I want, but just even thinking about my adoption from a new perspective and making peace with it on my end has been very healing. And thank you so much for the beautiful affirmation at the end of your message–I will be using it in my meditation practice and throughout my day.
I wish you absolutely all the best on your own healing journey after the painful loss of your mother and the hurtful actions of your EUM. You sound like you’re well on your way to healing and loving you!
So True Natalie, and Yes, I’m doing well! I’m actually doing a kind of ‘circular dating’ and am talking and dating several really nice men.
I found out a few years ago that my early training/ programming regarding forgiveness really was an issue with me and a few Xs who did not have the same outlook/training of forgiveness.
My method of forgiveness was instilled in me through my church and parochial school, in that when someone ‘sinned’ against another person, then to receive forgiveness there was a method/ pathway for that to happen.
For example: If I hurt someone, I would acknowloedge to myself that I hurt them and realize it was wrong to do it. Then I would TELL them that I was sorry. Then they would forgive me. It goes vice versa, and when my boyfriends would hurt me I would expect them to realize it, to apologize to me, and then I could forgive them – and realize Peace.
But in the real world people do not all receive that type of training regarding forgiveness (in that aspect) and I had to adjust my thinking and expectations.
Yes, we must be decisive and stand up for ourselves in what we know is right and good. Thanks for this advice, and as always…. I appreciate you Natalie & Dear Readers 🙂
That was a moving account, Natalie. For me, understanding provides closure. It was once very important that they “got it,” or that they acknowledged their bad behaviors. That would be nice, but it’s no longer necessary. With understanding comes the ability to see things from their point of view, to appreciate their humanness – including their irrational fears or hurt. And understanding that makes it unnecessary for me to harbor resentment or ill-feelings toward them.
Of course, sometimes you can’t know their motivations with any certainty, but it’s comforting to know that they did act or are acting out of hurt and fear and insecurity, and that’s punishment enough without adding in your own bad thoughts about them.
This is so true and I´ve not only looked for validation from ACs and EUMs as part of closure, but also expected other people to share my feelings towards them.
A while ago I found myself wondering How is it possible that the EUM who treated me so badly is still respected by his friends and colleagues? Why didn´t they fire him?
Of course, very silly thoughts but I think it´s part of the need for others to validate my feelings… when in reality, nobody cares much.
I´m working hard at internalising that I am the one who should care about my feelings, and it doesn´t matter at all what everybody else thinks.
I’ve been searching through your site religiously this week looking for an article that would speak to the anger that I feel towards my ex and finally coming to the point of acceptance that he is and always has been EU, a future faker, an AC, a liar, cheater, deceitful etc. I also haven’t quite forgiven myself for putting up with his nonsense for the time that I did and am literally ashamed to admit what I put up with to friends.
I went NC on him, in which case he put up several piss pour efforts to bust the boundaries, attempting to still be “friends with possible benefits” who could still “hang out” but I slammed that offensive door and bolt locked it. I am STILL angry about the audacity and the disrespect (but what did I expect)?! It has been 5 months since the break up and mostly I’m fine but the past couple of weeks have been difficult because his family members and a couple of mutual friends feel that they miss seeing me and have called me constantly inviting me around etc. I refuse to see them and it seems unfair to them, but each time I speak to them (let alone see them) it sets me back. An in-person meeting and the possibility of running into him would probably cause me to punch through a wall with the hurtful memories of what he took me through. I also don’t want him thinking that if I am coming around that there’s a possibility that he just might be a decent human being.
I truly need to move on and release the anger, hurt and betrayal that I feel but it is quite difficult. Your article (and your website in general) is helping me move in that direction.
Atrophy: We are sailing on the same ship this week. I broke NC as well (after 10 months) by answering a half-assed email from him. Received a reply back almost immediately inviting me out for a drink (I would never have gone and didn’t reply back) and then today received another saying sorry, he should have thought it out more clearly and withdrew his offer but said he would be emailing me in a couple weeks “just to say hello” (thank you almighty assclown!). His emails now go directly into my trash and will never hit my inbox. I don’t even want to see this asshole’s name. Any contact, no matter how innocent you think it is, is no good. These guys are like vampires, they’ll suck the life out of you. Never, ever, ever again. Thank you Mr. AC – lesson learned!!
FinallyDidIt
So totally true, there is no such thing as innocent contact with these idiots. After three months of no contact I get a text inviting me out for dinner as he would like to catch up…??? I replied immediately thanking (?!) him for the invite but declined. Five minutes later he relied, “Thats ok as was gonna have to cancel on you anyhow, nasty dramas happening here.” In the past I would have been really hurt and angry but now I just laughed and laughed until my sides hurt. Never did find out what the nasty dramas were and did not care! LOOOOSER!
Story of my friggin’ life. My father bailed when I was three, only to show up and wreak havoc in my life whenever he was in the mood/got remarried and wanted his new wife to see what a nice kid he had (that never kept them around, however). He wouldn’t give up custody to my step-father who wanted me, but he didn’t want to pay child support or visit, and thought it was perfectly OK to blame all his failures in life on the fact that I WAS BORN, thus gumming up his dream of being a professional baseball player (which my mom told me later was all bullshit). I finally told him to go F* himself in June of 1981 and didn’t see him again until last December…when he was lying in his coffin. Seriously. I had a visceral reaction to the dead body, still the fear of being blamed for ruining someone’s life.
The result of this crappy treatment was I have ONLY been drawn to AC’s/EUM’s. Like I’m trying to ‘fix’ a problem.
My ex husband is pulling the same crap on our daughter. He has totally abandoned her because she’s a teenager an a little sassy and she calls him on his BS. So, in his mind, SHE is a bad person, and he lets her know this. She make a suicide attempt over this. I’ve spent the past year with her in tons of therapy and trying to explain to her on a DAILY basis that it’s not HER, it’s HIM. I feel horrible that she is going through this, but I am determined that she is going to learn to see through this kind of man and be a stronger woman in the end.
I agree that we have to move on, that we have to find our own strength, but when people mind-fuck us, I really don’t think they deserve forgiveness.
Thanks for this post and for BR!
I’ve been working on improving my self-esteem since things ended 18 months ago. More than anything, I’ve been trying to forgive myself for accepting to be ‘the other woman’ in a losing game aiming to feel connected to someone –to anyone– in a city where I felt so lonely; forgiving myself for allowing him to label me –without any fight– as ‘the woman to cheat on his girlfriend with’, ‘the woman to cheat on his ex-girlfriend with’, ‘the woman to keep his bed warm and his needs met without deserving anything meaningful in return’; forgiving myself for the neglect, low self-worth, and lack of appreciation and self-love that I submitted my body and soul to trying to win the graces of a man who always knew I was not the one.
I wasn’t doing so badly. I surrounded myself with good friends, and I started asking the right questions: what do I want for myself and who do I want in my life?
And he contacted me, out of the blue, with a text that said “is everything ok with you?”
I had been very specific about NC -ever. But there he was.
First mistake: clinging to the old feelings, I replied.
A few texts, a very angry email from my part, and suddenly I felt as if I had finally said all those things I had dreamt I had had the courage to shout at him when it actually mattered. But why was I so angry? Revelation: I was still looking for validation. Ego in check; I was ready –as ready as I was ever going to be– to move on with my life.
Second mistake: I shared my recently acquired insights with him. At the beginning I actually felt at peace for the first time in a long time. I was being honest about my feelings and the mistakes I had made during my involvement with him. Could it be that I had had my so desired closure? He was replying with some of the “right” phrases: he was deeply sorry for how he had treated me, he had been seeing a counsellor and so was able to give some “explanations” on why he had acted like he did, he had loved me…
Could it be that he finally got it?
Third mistake: Assuming that he actually “got it”.
<<>>
A man who never took the time to know you as a person simply can’t understand what you may want/need from him or how his words and actions affect you. He will never say or do the meaningful things that are necessary for rebuilding trust between you or at least changing the image that you have of him. If the relationship was unbalanced to begin with, the interaction that you may have will most probably keep being unbalanced (leaving you feeling that you are once more giving more than what you’re receiving if you ever let him in again –even by email). And when you are not (and never were) the honest object of his affection, he will always have a personal agenda when he contacts you.
In my case, he was looking for my forgiveness. His last relationship had ended (his first time being the rejected one; real reason for him going to counselling), and he was feeling bad because he had “realised” how he had been the driver in the lack of success of his relationships after his divorce. But, of course, he was feeling lonely.
He said he just wanted to know if I was ok and wanted to wish me the best. Strangely enough, he never felt compelled to contact me to ask this until his relationship ended, and he was feeling lonely.
He wanted to talk about him. The present ME was never part of his discourse. And when I started to feel disappointed of his behaviour (again, expectations that are only healthy when related to caring people), I got so angry that the argument escalated to the point in which we started reliving our own versions of what had happened trying to demonstrate which one was the most accurate one.
It was a sour moment. Who wants to relive a painful past for nothing?
He said that he had decided to contact me because he wanted to “give us the opportunity to understand what had happened”. But I never needed his insight to make my own conclusions and move on. I had understood his emotional unavailability since I was with him, and I had been working on my own unavailability since it ended. My struggles had to do with my personal story and my self-esteem. And he had nothing to say that I could use helpful in that respect:
-Him saying that he had loved me -at the end- didn’t change anything. Because true love comes with respect and appreciation, and him having sex with other women without telling me or offering a commitment only to have me around for the holidays (he actually dumped me the day after New Year’s Day) showed that he didn’t value me and so that he couldn’t love me.
-Him trying to be nice explaining how “the woman that came after me” felt the same lack of commitment from him is infuriating because she didn’t come after me; he was actually texting her when he decided that “our relationship wasn’t working”.
-He could never understand how painful it was to read his words saying that “if it made me feel better, he wanted to let me know that our affair had destroyed trust in his next relationship”. Because it hadn’t been enough the time that (after discovering that he had been seeing her on my back) he had listed the many ways in which she was more suitable than me for a serious relationship. He had to continue reminding me that I had been only an affair and never a girlfriend.
-And him saying that he’s genuinely moved by the memories he has about me and that I’m the best lover he’s ever had is just insulting. Especially because he made sure to cross all the missing boxes of his list of sex desires just before dumping me. But most of all because he never stopped to think about how deeply it would hurt me to have been used for sex given my personal history of rape.
Letting go of hurtful things is necessary in order to move on and be happy.
But those who wronged us have little to do in our forgiving process.
Let them forgive themselves for the pain that they have caused.
NC, NC, NC, NC, NC, NC, NC!!!
We have to focus on ourselves and only ourselves.
Love,
Ellie.
You’ve been through so much hurt. But that made you stronger and wiser. They all tend to act the same. I’ll be on the lookout. Thanks for sharing and best wishes to you.
“we do often choose to let someone back into our lives and to let something go because we think or assume that they ‘get it’ – but often they don’t ‘get it’ in the way that we want them to and it subsequently becomes apparent in their actions, which means that a lot of us letting go and moving on is really about how we feel about us and how we deal with something in our minds.”
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, although I’ve still been reading over the past few months. My counselor has told me that I’ve become much more confident over the past few months: starting work on my PhD, enjoying time with friends, enforcing boundaries. But in May I did choose back into let my ex-fiancé back into my life. Despite the fact that he broke up with me three times over the past few months, I knew I had really hurt him and considered that my actions (breaking off the engagement, telling him I wanted to see other people, being super-critical) had made it difficult for him to return to the relationship. I thought with this new understanding we could try again.
Things were going okay this time around and then I caught him in a lie (once again). Even though it was relatively a small lie; it devastated me that he had lied about something when he knew he had broken my trust in the past. I thought he had “got it” –I don’t liked being lied to! He told me that he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t lie to me again because “nobody’s perfect”. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I need to adjust my expectations and stop being so critical. I know he has issues: bad temper, irresponsible with money, but he says he will get help with those things. And don’t we all have issues? He’s been so sweet to me this time around—thoughtful and caring. Doesn’t that outweigh the “bad”? I’m not sure.
I know I have to let go one way or another. Either I need to adjust my expectations, or I need to walk away from the relationship for good. It’s not fair to either one of us for me to remain in this state of indecision and emotional unavailability. But letting go is so hard to do—especially if you’re not sure if you’re making the right decision.
Laurie
No-one’s perfect but a bad temper is a dealbreaker. You should never be afraid of your partner. And so is fibbing. Some lies are okay “sure, I’d love to spend the day with you and your mother”. Others are not acceptable. Such as random lies that seem to serve no purpose (headf*ck) or where he is and what he’s doing. I’m not saying check up on him but if you can’t believe what he’s saying, what’s the point of the relationship? Also, when trust is broken to the extent that it is here it may not be possible to get it back. Though I wonder if it was ever there in the first place.
But for you, it’s not so much about making the right decision or the wrong decision. It’s about making ANY decision. You go back and forth,split up, get back together, drop him, take him back, doubt yourself, doubt him. You’re half-hearted, unsure, and don’t know. Your inability to commit to yes or no will get you even if you did meet someone trustworthy who doesn’t lie. There’ll be some other nagging voice “is this right?, is it wrong?” In these things, it’s not about right and wrong, it’s what you DO and what you make happen.
After a lovely day with the man I was struck by fear on the train home that IT WILL NEVER WORK. I could give that fear room to grow, feed it, question my decision, believe it’s trying to tell me something or – do what I did – tell myself it’s a bad habit and to enjoy what I have.
There is no Validator who will sweep in and say DO THIS, DO THAT.
Having said all that, to me a bad-temper and telling lies IS wrong and it would take more than thoughtfulness and caring to make me forget that. They should ALL be thoughtful and caring and so should we! That’s a bare minimum. Sweet I can take or leave. I think I can leave it,it doesn’t strike me as being of substance.
Thanks grace.
I’ve definitely been waiting for that Validation—a voice from heaven to tell me what to do. Apparently that’s not going to happen. I’ve read a lot about what Natalie has written about internal and external fears, since I seem to be living in a perpetual state of anxiety and indecision. I think I blow a lot of things out of proportion: when someone lies to me, I imagine all the other things they might possibly be lying about. That’s probably not fair. But in this situation, the distrust is not all internal. The facts are that he has lied, and he has pretty much guaranteed that he’ll lie about stuff in the future. If I’m feeling fear and distrust, I suppose that’s pretty well-founded. Same goes for the temper and irresponsible behavior. Just makes me really sad.
I really appreciate what you said about thoughtfulness and care being a bare minimum expectation. I suppose that should be obvious, but I guess I forgot about that when I was trying to construct my “pros” and “cons” list. “But he buys me flowers, takes me out, texts me to see how I’m doing….” Well, yeah. That’s what you do when you’re in a relationship. I think I may have been overvaluing those things and perhaps minimizing things I shouldn’t.
It sounds like you’re saying that the only bad decision is to remain indecisive or uncommitted to the decision I do make. I know I need to learn how to trust myself if I’m going to make any relationship work. I’m not even sure where to begin with that. Definitely something to bring up in counseling tomorrow.
“You move on when you stop invalidating yourself.
It’s a decision – it’s a choice between being in the pursuit of..a lobotomy and a personality transplant, or processing your feelings and supporting you, including not blaming yourself for other people’s behaviour.”
Such a simple concept really, and yet so difficult to put into practice sometimes. I am guilty of holding out hope that my dad will morph into the father I always wanted. But he is not likely to become that “perfect” dad any time soon (although he has improved significantly over time). You are right, we can be OK *anyway*, without their acknowledgement, agreement or personality change. We are all human, with fears and insecurities – our parents, ourselves, our partners. I am pledging to let all that pain and disappointment go. I have started to “let go” of the exMM’s effects on me with some success, and now I will take your advice and “let go” of the pain and unrealistic expectations from the more distant past. It’s time for me to be responsible for me!
Thank you for bringing us all along with you on your journey Natalie. Sharing success is wonderful!
Thank you Learner for bringing me along on your success. We really can be okay without their acknowledgement, agreement or personality change. I found “letting go” of the exMM and the pain and disappointment of my distant past to be the same thing! The letting go has been happening in tandem even though the events were separated by decades.
Natalie, sorry to hear about the falling out with your father right before your big day. I’m glad you are/were okay. That’s the topline: Your big day happened despite the fallout.
Oh runnergirl, I should be thanking YOU. You have been a consistent source of support as I got myself out of the cheating cheater nightmare, through sharing your story, your advice and insights, and generally being encouraging. And you don’t even know me in real life. Very kind of you. I would not be in this increasingly healthier place if it were not for NML, you, and all the wonderful BR posters.
I love your idea of the “tandem” letting go. I think it’s happening to some extent in my case, too, as the source of the FBG status becomes more clear (childhood issues).
I couldn’t tell my parents that I forgive them … they wouldn’t know what I was forgiving them for! LOL! (“I’m sorry I allowed your mother to do you the way she did”, “Your childhood wasn’t that bad … Joanna Blow down the street had it so much worse than you!! She had no shoes OR feet!”)
I guess you just come to expect what you know they are capable of giving, if you choose to maintain a relationship with them. I know my parents are limited, and they’ve no interest in changing (as there is nothing to change in their eyes), but I choose more for me and have forgiven because the anger keeps me stuck. And both parents are so angry. I don’t want to be them. I am just sad for them. I guess the anger that we feel (temporarily) now are from the slights in treatment/nurturing/love that others expect and we are just now learning to be our basic rights. Its sad when you have to process that.
Again, your timeliness comes in handy NML. A well-meaning friend alerted me today that my ex-AC is now conducting a new relationship very publicly on social media, and sent me a screenshot. A lot of what he says is recycled from his tweets to me when we were dating.
To say it was a kick in the stomach is an understatement, and the fact that he doesn’t ‘get’ why he is such an arse also upsets me. Ideally, yes I would have liked to be first in getting a new relationship, but as you said in a previous post, you can’t organise dead heats in this. I’m choosing to work through my issues instead of jumping headlong into another relationship, and it really isn’t up to ME if he hasn’t learnt his lessons. Needless to say I have given my well-leaning friend a warning not to send me updates again. What AC does is just not my problem any more.
Seeing him coupled up may suck, but remember it’s not about who gets with someone else first–I highly doubt that he has changed and is probably up to his same AC ways, whereas you are looking for a quality relationship, and that is very commendable! 🙂
A so-called friend did the same thing to me, told me all about how she saw the ex AC holding hands with a new girl. The ex stopped holding my hand about six months into the 2 year relationship. Then he started to show his true, emotionally abusive colours. Believe me, he will with the new girl too, and so shall your ex AC. We must realize that we are blessed to be rid of these losers. We are free!
As for my so-called friend, I dumped her as a friend. She was more of an acquaintance, and also, I just don’t need toxic types who want to deliver news about the ex. I’ve told everyone I don’t need to know, and she broke my rule. Flush.
Found your web site two weeks ago, which is proof enough that the universe delivers exactly what i need. Thank you Natalie. I am 5,000 kms from my husband, so we agreed to an open marriage. I never acted on it and thought when I did, I would be able to keep my heart off- limits, but I fell for every tool that AC used–Fake Futures, the whole thing. I nearly left my husband for him. Two weeks ago the AC returned to his wife, notifying me in an em. I am new to NC and gain strength and convinction from reading these replies. Yes, he tried to get the door open. He misses me, he stares at my picture. But no accountability. I hungered to reply–valdation, please!—but you are keeping me resolute. I don’t need him, I need me. Many thanks for your insights.
Janine: “I understand that I’m human and I allowed myself to be vulnerable and love someone.”
Your experience sounds exactly like mine, I mean everything you wrote word for word I’m talking TO A TEE, especially the end paragraph, though mine was more of an acquaintance than a ‘relationship’. I realize now that all he was trying to do was use me for sex, while living with his girlfriend and trying to pose as a family man. But my situation is posted elsewhere and not the point of my response here. I wanted to respond to the above quote because I did and felt exactly the same thing in my situation as you did in yours. The very fact that you felt so deeply about someone I think speaks volumes about you as a person. It shows you were/are capable of having those feelings in the first place, and despite the hurt, those feelings are in fact good and positive, and they came from a good place. The AC? Not so much. I feel very sorry for men like him. No positive emotions at all. Only out for themselves and not caring about your feelings. My AC’s actions did NOT come from a good place at all. And that’s what I’ve been trying to focus on in order to help me over this hurdle. It has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my 41 years on this planet, but I know someday I’ll be ok. I’m coming closer to that indifferent feeling after almost 4 months since I last interacted with him. It’s been a very long summer. lol
Hang in there, learn that we can’t control these idiots’ behaviors or ‘will’ them to think like we do, no matter how good or positive our thoughts or actions may be.
Imagine your life if you were in fact his girlfriend. In my situation, she may think she’s ‘won’, but believe me, he ain’t no prize. A woman’s self esteem must be at an all-time low or non-existent if she feels she has to fight for a man like him. That’s not a life I want for myself. He told me once that they had met 10 years ago and it’s been rocky the entire decade, him moving in/out, back and forth, whatever. She was 41 when this started, my age. She’s still with him, and putting up with his shady behavior, and in my opinion has wasted many years on someone she should have kicked to the curb a long time ago. There are worse things than being alone, and I think she’s someone who is in fact afraid to be alone, so she’s settled. So I’ve applied this insight to my life and think that she and I are similar in a lot of ways now that I’ve analyzed my emotions, habits, and behavior (I must say I’m not really afraid of being alone, though). The difference is, I’ve been given a chance at something healthy because I’m not caught up with a man like him, I chose to walk away when he asked me for my phone number the last day I saw him. Lordy was it hard. LOL But as time goes by I see it was the right decision, not just morally but for my future as well.
The very fact that you acknowledge that he didn’t add anything good to your life is a step in the right direction. Yeah, there might have been good times that you miss, but NEVER lose sight of all the tears you’ve shed or the loneliness you might have felt. I won’t forget my AC either. I don’t want to. Yes, there were some fun times, but very very few compared to everything else. And it’s in the ‘everything else’ that we learn the lessons we are to learn.
Excellent post. I have discovered I have been harboring unforgiveness with the ex husband from years ago and I am allowing it to still haunt me to this day. I never thought that it was a sign of me invalidating myself. Thank you for this perspective.
Keep the insights coming, Natalie. I’m working so diligently to make changes in the way I choose partners. It’s the same story, played over and over and over. I’m a work in progress, and it’s so empowering and energizing to realize that I’m not the only one who has these issues, and that freedom is possible. This article particularly spoke to me. Thank you for sharing.
The typical family and relationship dynamics will still be there, particularly with people who have acted the way they have for so long. If you’re lucky, you won’t need to experience those dynamics frequently over time, but don’t expect it to disappear completely. In many cases, these people may have changed their behavior on the surface, but deep inside they’re still thinking the exact same thing about you that they did in the beginning and not actually working hard to empathize with you.
You have to trust yourself to know whether these people have sincerely changed and wanted to change, and whether they can do that with you. Otherwise it’s time to let go.
Posting again because I just had an insight. Both my parents were distant and unavailable, as the husband I chose. The driver in my affair was the hole in myself, the core that has never been touched by a human being, the most basic infant need. I did it! I allowed someone in! I know how good it feels! But I don’t need the AC. He just rang from a different phone so I would not know it was him—AC tactic!—and the script was identical to what I have read here. “Keep in touch, I am worried about you.” Thanks, but no.
Being honest with myself today and admitting that Its not friendship I crave with this person but a relationship.
I realized that from the very first time we kissed and crossed the line from friends to more, there was never going to be a relationship, he was never going to be capable of it. It wasn’t something I did wrong on our dates. It was just never going to happen anyway. And while the day after we kissed I was so happy and full of joy and looking forward to dating him (and in my head I was already considering him as my boyfriend) it was already not going to happen.
I was thinking back about which part of my last encounter with him was the part I enjoyed most, and I realized it wasn’t the fooling around but the company on a weeknight, the holding hands, the cuddles that got me. Having someone to watch a movie with.
Confusedd
I’m realising why there aren’t so many “happy relationship stories” on this blog. I feel a bit out of place saying it but – a couple of nights ago after I had put my niece to bed, the man and I cuddled on the sofa, held hands, watched a movie – and then he went home. A few years before that I was being sexted by a MM who I was hoping to be friends with, a few years before that I was waiting, hoping and praying for a playa to be either my boyfriend properly or at least a friend.Those two are history. I NC’d them. If you get rid of these no-hopers what you want becomes MORE likely, not less likely.
As for your mutual friends, they don’t sound very friendly to me if they’re taking delight in your suffering. However, if you want to remain in contact with them, just say “I don’t have much to do with him these days”. If they pursue it, shrug. Look enigmatic. You don’t need their agreement or approval to let go and move on. And you’re not there to provide a sideshow for them either. Don’t make up things to panic about, deal with things as they come up. None of this is catastrophic and you really can handle it.
We have alot of mutual friends and often are in the same social settings, I don’t know how to deal with this. I’m nearly afraid to not be his friend because I don’t know how I’ll deal with it in social situations. And I have alot of nosy people that are aware there was something going on with us that like to stir things up sometimes… Like telling me they’ve seen him out with a girl and then asking how things are between us. Ai ai aiiiii what’s the best way to deal with it?
reading this post at a time like this in my life has really helped me. I am dealing with a breakup from someone who i thought i was going to spend the rest of my life with. just a quick recap of our relationship we dated little over 2 years im 24 hes 26 now. when we started dating i fell fast and hard but i didnt really agree with the people he was hanging out with.. mostly everyone who dont have much motivation to succeed in life.. just working random 9-5 jobs and drinking almost everyday. our relationship was basically based on all lies … i found out that he never went to college form his family but he told me that he did go but had to drop out bc his father lost his job and he has type 1 diabetes so he needed to find a job to pay for his medical insurence.. when i found out i figured it was because he was embarassed so i didnt make a big deal of it… i spoke to him and he promised me that he will try to go back to school in the summer. summer came around and he would tell me lies about taking placement tests and had good details about these tests which is the scary part. I caught him lieing 4 times about those tests and finally he came clean to me and said ” im never going to go back to school … im so sorry for lieing to you but i was being selfish and wanted you to stay but i understand how school is important to you and if you have to leave then thats what has to happen. when i heard that of course i couldnt leave.. i told him as long as he had a passion for life and wanted do something with it i will be by his side. so fast forward a year he ends up getting an amazing job with this great company and makes good money.. thats when i started to believe that stability is there and this is the guy for me. he took me to most of his work functions and when he did girls would come up to me and say ” omg we have heard so much about you.. ur picture hangs in his office he tells everyone ur way out of his league” obviously that made me feel good. but down side of working at this company they reward their clients with non stop happy hours at the bar and company trips with more happy hours and drinking … mind you everyone working at this company is straight out of college… so once these happy hours would come around (the ones i couldnt go to) my bf would always get drunk to the point that when id call him to ask him whats going on when hes coming home he would just ignore me and later on say he lost track of time or answer yell at me for checking up on him and turn off his phone it seemed like he was desperately trying to please these people at any expense which bothered me . i knew it was the alcohol talking but still he could get really mean (especially bc he knows i have trust issues bc my father cheated on my mom and i saw it all .. then my last 2 bfs also cheated on me) so i was deadly afraid of being alone and cheated on… i almost expected it bc he was so good looking and charasmatic. anyways he would always come home but if i was angry at him for ignoring me i would say mean things which he would then use against me and use them as an excuse to not have anything to apologize for bc of what i said … which was soooo frustrating! but bc i love him i would always cave and call myself the crazy one. then later on when he realized how much him getting wasted would hurt me he stopped going to most of those happy hours. things calmed down and we had planned a trip to europe to go see my cousins wedding and so that he could meet my whole family who still live there. the trip was amazing not one fight or argument it was then when my feelings and love for him outdid any insecurity i had about the relationship he was so attentive to every need i had and just an overall amazing guy to my family and me..our last day on the trip i found out from my family that he had asked for their blessing to propose to me in decemeber. i was shocked but so happy :).. i finally found the one and finally someone my family approves of. we get back home things are great and i find out that he has qualified for a vice presidents trip with his company for 3 days.. my world came crashing down bc i knew how much drinking goes on in this company events and the company has a reputation of operataing like a frat house where everyone sleeps with everyone. so i was afraid to say the least that the day i dropped my bf off at the train was the last day i would see him.. and was i right.. i told him ” i trust that u can make the best decision for the both of us and i love you” he said i cant wait to prove it to you so you finally stop thinking i dont love you… first 2 days of his trip it was like a diff person .. calling me anytime he got a chance .. texting sending video messages ..telling me he wished i was there … that 2nd night he calls me at 10pm after a booze cruise and i can tell he has been over served but i appreciated the call so i didnt get mad … he told me him and his hotel room mates were all going to go to the bar for the open bar which is open till 2 am … all you can drink… and if i need anything to call him or text him and he will be by his phone and will answer … come midnight i call to say goodnight .. nothing .. text .. nothing .. by 1 am i get worried call again .. nothing … no answer until 4 am … i get a text from him saying ” im so scared … i need help… please help me … i just got assaulted … i think omg he got in a fight … i call him and he tells me he was sexually assaulted by a guy who came up to him and touched his privates.. i didnt believe it for a second so i asked where are ur roomates he says sleeping .. i say why are you getting back to your room at 4 am when everyone else is in by 2 when the bar closed he yells ” you are not focusing on the issue! and hangs up on me… so i call back again but this time on video chat he answers and continues to tell me how scared he is .. but as hes talking i see something i wish i never saw… a hickey on his neck … i was shocked my heart sank.. i dont think he even was aware that he had one… so i tell him with tears rolling down my eyes that he has a hickey .. to my surprise he didnt deny it .. all he screamed was ” you think im proud of what i did!!! ” … hangs up and tells me to never call him again… i am in shock and so mad and hurt that i took my anger out on him by posting a facebook status about what he did and what kind of scum he is and how hes dead to me and a joke… so that everyone he and i know could see what he did.. i also texted his parents bc i was very close with them and told them what i saw and what had happened… they were all shocked … no one expected that from him not his family or friends… he texts me that next morning and tells me to take that shit off of fb and that im making the worst mistake of my life and that im a terrible gf for not helping him through this time… when he said that i couldnt help my self but to say ” thank god you have diabetes that way you will die 20 years earlier then all of us and there will be one less scum in the world ” … to that he said thanks .. it was a guy .. i didnt do anything remotely close to what you think i did .. and have a nice life… that was the last i have heard from him … it has been 2 weeks .. no apology no explanation .. nothing (i also refuse to contact him bc im scared he thinks .. ill just wait she always cracked before she will crack now … i want him to learn his lesson and realize what he lost… im miserable and cant believe he would do that to me ..after asking my family for permission and flying across the world with me.. and always saying im not your dad im not your ex .. i will never leave you .. u are the love of my life and the reason i am where i am today.. you keep me going… how can someone after 2 years do that and then not have the need to apologize… or seem like he regrets it … i spoke to his cuzins wife who was very close with me and she said he is avoiding his family and his friends that he knows will ask him about it or judge him … he has fallen back to hanging out with his low life friends who he thanked me for taking him out of and making him realize thats not all that there is to life … i dont know what to do .. i feel so lost with out him … but even more so hurt bc the way hes acting makes me feel the 2 years we spent together ..meant nothing to him… why isint he fighting for me or trying to make it better if it was a dumb one time mistake … 🙁 please help
kp-
breathe. you’re going to be ok.
….i wonder how many drugs he was doing the night he disappeared and slept with a guy and lied about it….
i used to think that if i loved my bf enough, whatever terrible thing that was happening would stop happening. and i thought that he wasn’t making the terrible thing go away because he didn’t love me enough. but that’s not true, honey. there’s no correlation between how much he does or does not love you and how much of a (sorry) loser he is.
the question is not why he isn’t fighting for you now – the question is why YOU were fighting for him the whole time?
the two years you spent together were real. but he’s troubled (correction: he IS trouble), likes his low-life friends too much, likes to drink too much, and likes to experiment sexually too much. he is not fighting for you because he is not ready for and cannot maintain a committed relationship and a responsible life. he is immature at best, a total profligate addict at worst. he was trying to please you, for as long as he could, by being something he is not, at least not now. and he clearly couldn’t keep it up.
so, i’m going to say the killing words – you are better off. truly.
i’m sorry, honey, that it fell apart the way it did. but there were signs ALL along the way. its not that you failed – its that you should not have to work that hard to get another person to be responsible in the first place. you should not have stayed with him when he lied, when he drank, when he fucked up.
you were dragging him along the whole way – the aberration was when he behaved well, not when he behaved poorly. now, he is just reverting back to his customary behavior.
and you should just let him go. you already know how your whole life will look – it will look just like this. you should be glad that your life with him is over. if he tries to come back, keep the door closed.
again, i’m very sorry. i know how you hurt. i know what a disappointment this is. but you must realize that you need to find someone whom you don’t literally have to drag out of the gutter. find someone who meets you on the level where you want to dwell. that’s the only way the two of you can be happy.
you’ll be ok if you DO NOT get re-involved in this drama. don’t post nasty shit on FB. behave yourself. don’t seek revenge. do NOT have ex-sex with him. lick your wounds, take care of yourself, and get therapy to find out why you need to redeem losers or you will repeat this scenario. but please – move on from this guy. you’re young. please don’t waste another 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 years on him. hurt, heal, and MOVE ON.
cc-
thank you for taking the time to respond… what your saying makes complete sense to me… but hurts like hell… its still early and i realize slowly i fell in love with his potential because i saw that side of him and was so happy… but i was always worried of him going back to his old ways… im not sure why i stayed with him as long as i did … i think it was becuase i had faith in him and his capabilities to succeed or hes just an amazing sales man which is what he does professionally…it hurts knowing i put all this hard work in and this is how he thanks me.. or now hell have his fun and meet someone new and shell get all the benefits.. this is not the first time this has happened to me its actually the second … my issue is that i lose myself in a relationship and focus all energy on the person who needs help.. makes sense that i would grow up to be a nurse huh :)…i dont give up and it ends up being taken advantage of .. i also hate being alone i see my mom being alone after my father left and i dont want any of that .. maybe thats why i hold on for as long as i do.. i just dont understand if someone knew they werent ready for something serious why tell everyone you want to spend the rest of your life with that perosn.. including people at work and my family in europe … wouldnt he be scared to commit … thats the part that doesnt make sense to me?… i also know he when he gets in trouble he sticks his head in the sand and likes to blame everyone else or just pretend it doesnt exist and he told me once ” i have this dark place that i sink in to once in a while its where i think whatever good i have in my life its not a factor of if i will fail it but more of when i will fail at it” … maybe hes back in his “dark” place … it hurts and im living with the hope that he will realize what he lost and will wake up… it sucks 🙁
ok, kp-
there’s a flaw in your thinking – the same flaw that a lot of us on BR have.
here’s the flaw:
you think that if you find someone who needs fixing (hello, florence nightingale), that:
1- its a good investment
2- they will be grateful to you
3- they will realize your value in their life and never leave you
4- they want fixing at all
5- they want to be fixed in the way you want to fix them
6- they “owe” you – i know it doesn’t feel this way conciously, but you still feel this way
7- its a good use of you and your talents
here’s the deal with 1-7 – they’re all WRONG!
1- its actually a terrible investment. you know who is a good investment? you! or someone who is already doing their own work and shows up already wanting what you want
2- they will not be grateful – they will feel like they’re indebted to you … which breeds resentment
3- they will not only not realize your value, they will see you as a doormat. they will also resent you for subliminally telling them they’re not enough as they are (which is correct, but still)
4- they probably don’t want fixing, or at least not on your terms
5- if they want fixing, they’ll eventually go do it themselves – and they’ll fix themselves how THEY want to be fixed
6- they don’t owe you – you imposed this on them – they’re more likely to do exactly what he did and essentially tell you to eff off
7- imposing one’s will on another is a terrible use of you. its actually disrespectful to the other person, no matter how much of a low life, druggy, drinky, lying cheating son of a bitch bastard they are. and its disrespectful to yourself to think that the aforementioned is all you’re worth.
if you don’t want to end up alone like your mom, change this, NOW. especially since this is the second time you’ve done it.
let the pain teach you the lesson. its horrible, right? you never want to go through this again, right?
so let the pain be a crucible in which you are burned into a different form.
i know you hope he’ll wake up, facepalm, and come crawling back. TRRRRRRRRUST ME – even if he does, he’s not changed. even if he gets the most beautiful new girlfriend (sorry) in the world, he’s not changed.
kp: he and his dark place are not going to change.
he lied, drank, and cheated. with a GUY.
no, kp. i know it sucks. i KNOW it sucks. but you need to learn this lesson. the hell with him.
and its fine that you’re a nurse, but once you leave work? no more fucking florence nightingale!!!
cc – brilliant summary! I think I need to print this out and post it.
kp – I hope you’re doing OK. The EUM you have been involved with sounds like a huge challenge, and like he would need a whole team of nurses to ‘fix” (but he needs to get there himself). I hope you choose YOU, and stay out of that “dark place” to which he has retreated. Hugs xo
learner-
smooches to you.
kp-
learner hit it – the entire time i read your posts, all i could think, once i got the gist, was “thank god he’s in that dark place all by himself and she’s out here in the light. thank god she can get away from him now.”
do you see? i saw you in the light, out here, with us, and him in the dark. YOU safe. right now, without him (god, i hope you’re without him), you’re SAFE. you just don’t know it.
please write back and let us know how you are. yeah, that would be me, florence nightingale, fixing you.
see how insidious it is?
@kp, I’m living with the hope that by the time he wakes up (assuming he ever does), you’ll be long, long gone. I’m thinking you are right, it sucks now but it could suck even worse if you stick around for more of the same or even worse. And it could get worse. You could be at home with a child while he is off in his dark place or with who knows who doing who knows what. My dad left my mother, finally thank god, and I never wanted to be alone like my mother. That thinking set me up for tons of sucky experiences with men. Now, I’d rather be alone than be a doormat, although those are NOT the only two options! Bet on what you see, not what you’d like to see.
@cc…totally brilliant. You summed up Natalie’s chapter on fixers and Florencing perfectly.
cc, runnergirl, learner,
I am overwhelmed by the amount of support and responses my post has received.feels good to know im not alone :).. I have NOT gone back and have not written him at all … that being said neither has he :(..(i know, i know i should be happy but right now im just confused with who i am and what i want out of life or from him).. over the weekend i realized how dependent i was on him bc when its time to do something for myself ..i didnt want to!! (something internally is holding me back) or see the point of it(i think whats the point who is going to benefit form this instead of thinking helllo!!!! will you fucking wake up this is for you! and you alone! .. stop trying to have someone else fill this void in your life when the only person who can fill it is you! …its almost like the purpose for my life is for someone else..and not for me .. that realization scared the shit out of me…i have to somehow start being independent and figure out how to feel good about it and to live for me… i keep having nightmares about him being on his death bed and im trying to desperately help him and i cant (creepy huh)…i know one thing though im the pro at no contact dont ask how every bf that has screwed me over (by cheating) no contact was initiated in an instant (maybe its because i think ill do the harder thing …but also the thing that is more effective..there goes that hope again errr!… but what im worried about is when he contacts me (which i dont think he ever will bc he never was the first to admit to anything not just to me but his family as well)..i also found out that he had the same issue with his 2 exs before me …constantly lieing about school , work , random shit which lead her to cheat on him according to her…i thought since now he has this carrer there is nothing to lie about nothing to be embarassed about..but instead of lieing about that stuff it went on to other stuff like who he was eating lunch with .. who he was hanging out with at these happy hours..and i will admit i am a jealous person and almost over protective and it comes out in my controlling tactics :/..which alot of these guys ive been with have blamed that as the reason for their cheating.. im not sure what his reason was bc i have no contact with him and probably never will…
Oh @ Ellie bless you. 18 months is such a long time. I am not even close yet only a little over 2 months and I couldn’t imagine that an assclown would have the nerves to get in touch after a year has passed. And suddenly his relationship is over and he’s so concerned with what’s going on in your life. What a “douchebag” from reading your post. Resume to exactly what you enforced NC!!
It is really infuriating when you forgive the person, and they take it to mean you like them again or have warm, fuzzy feelings about them. No. I dont have to like my ex or think of him in a good way to forgive him. In fact, its to not think of him at all! Recently, I let my ex come back into my life briefly. I forgave him for the past after he sincerely apologized and then I wanted to be at peace. Which I take to mean, you live your life and I live mine (even though I think you are a rotten person). He took it to mean he could press the issue of being friends. I tried and for a while I thought he had changed into a better person. But when he reverted to his old ways, and even tried to rewrite the past (saying we had more good times than bad ones), I became infuriated just like Natalie. He wanted to be forgiven on his terms and the way he saw fit and my embers erupted too. I think for a lot of us, its better to find our forgiveness away from the other part because often times they take your forgiveness for granted.
Grace,
thanks for replying, it’s scary taking the leap into nc, – won’t he think I’m being immature, won’t other people think I’m being a dickhead- these are the things I worry about sometimes.
I feel clearer about it now though, like my being friends with him really wasn’t gonna be for the right reasons that I was kidding myself with.
As for the mutual friends, I don’t think they realize how much I was hurt over him as I played down our nondating to other people and then played down our nonbreakup and put a good face on it. It’s still infuriating though when people feel the need to tell me his business. Am gonna practice my shrug lol 🙂 I like the way you said get rid of the no hopers!
natalie-
thanks very much for this one.
somehow, the tumblers have finally started to click into place with respect to the ex-EUM. and i find myself, at moments when i used to miss him or run through some fictional drama in my head starring him and me, with him “getting” me, of course, instead thinking “how could i ever have trusted him, he was showing me from the very beginning that he wasn’t capable, he wasn’t trustworthy!” or “what was i thinking, loving him despite all of his bewildering vortex of stunted bullshit?”
y’know why the tumblers are clicking into place? ‘course you do – because i STOPPED INvalidating myself. … and started invalidating him!
haha…no, not really. his reality is his reality. but mine is mine! and mine is valid! and he’s an emotional cripple! who used me! and that’s real!
and i came to this: its really better when we can take people as they are, not as we need them to be. and to stop expecting them to somehow miraculously be and give us what we need regardless of who they really are. our needs are still valid, our wants are still valid – but our job is to go find someone who naturally fits with us, who is naturally what we want and need. our job is not to remodel others. just as their job is not to remodel us.
anyway – it feels like a miracle to stop fighting with him in my head, to stop expecting him to show up differently, because i’ve stopped fighting with myself. i don’t need him to agree with me. *I* agree with me. i see how i could have done a better job, mostly at not trusting him in the first place, mostly at taking better care of myself, tending to me, loving me. and i don’t need him to agree with me that he was wrong, or that i was right. i don’t need his consent to think what i think of him. and he is free to think of me what he pleases. and i am on my own side in this, finally … FINALLY!!!! its only taken eight, count’em, 8 months! for a 4 1/2 month relationship! and its like being wrapped in the warmest, softest, happiest, calmest blanket ever conceived.
and i am so grateful.
thanks again.
@CC…
I, too was in a 4 1/2 month and it’s taken me 6 months to get over it part of it. Still not there yet completely. I really don’t think it’s the timeframe of the relationships (?) but the intensity of our feeling. Sad but true!
Every word, I just keep shaking my ahead thinking omg that was me, is me. My mother left me when I was 4 yrs old. I have very little memory of her showing any affection. She was an alcoholic. Verbally, emotionally, physically abusive. My father never got over her. We were always, last.Crumbs exactly. It’s amazing how deep these things are buried. I just had another bad, short lived unavailable, cant call it a relationship. Misscarried and the guy who I knew as a friend, well can’t call him a friend.A real coward, full of anxiety, escape artist. Wouldn’t, didn’t, wasn’t even a descent human being to sit at my Dr.’s appt with me. I tried being his friend after it all over and over…crumbs. Just waking up and trying to get my power back, my self respect for the right reasons for my self so that I can learn to love myself first. So I can have some piece of mind. I’ve gone my whole life not feeling love if no one else can give it to me I’ll give it to myself. Im tired of the insanity of repeating myself it gets harder to get up each time. I’ve had enough. I don’t need to be the “nice guy” to anyone who disrespects me. Their gonna hear what I really think of them or just get a cold shoulder “ONCE” I’ve struggled with standing up for myself then trying to be the nice guy back and forth. No more repeats! If I ever walk into that “assclown” agaian and he approaches me he will know he has No place in my heart, or life as a friend. He will not even hold a place of anger in my heart just an empty place. My goal is for him and any other “assclown” to not hold any space in my mind, heart, or soul. Thank you Natalie I cant begin to tell you how helpful you’ve been. Because you’ve experienced and struggled with these issues your wisdom is true and genuine. I can also see in myself through you the abiltiy to get passed this and to grow and recover from many years of not being loved. It doesn’t have to be habitual. Thank you I feel a little free already. Best regards!! <3
As someone who was sexually abused by a family member this post was right on point! I had suppressed my pain for years,but it played out in my abusive realationships. I gave myself permission to allow that little girl in me to grieve,heal. Funny thing is I was never angry at him,,but I forgave him,and first off myself! this guy is very close in my family,now with children of his own,,it was hard but I did
That’s good that you have been able to deal with your own feelings about the abuse, but if he is a sex abuser why is he still in your family and having access to children, including his own? These people will repeat offend unless stopped and they escalate over time too. The abuse on other children will get worse. Forgive him by all means if that’s what works for you but let everyone know what he did. He should be behind bars and/or on the sex offenders register.
This whole validation thing is something I have struggled with on and off in life. Lately for various reasons that whole thing has been a question in my mind “Who really do I need to approve and validate me?”
Well, me first. And the occasional friend if they are trustworthy and I am confused about my perception of things. But other than that… I can honestly say, right now, in bed, reading this after a very productive day, nice long jog and an awesome dinner…not really feeling like I need anyone’s approval 🙂 I wish that this feeling could stay always but of course it won’t, it is hard, I get tripped up momentairily sometimes by putting my guard down, or with difficult family members but overall I feel that I am making headway..maybe it really is the pasta/jog combo, I highly recommend it:)
DancingQueen:
How right you are! You say “Who really do I need to approve and validate me?”
The other night I had moment when I felt exactly the same way. And the thing is to really FEEL this, not just know it, we’ve got to be it and live it for real.
I believe this is self love.
this has come at a very good time. all this week ive been trying to get my ac to just say its over . to be a man and say goodbye , it drives you mad . I said repeatly is it over to which he ignores it “oh ill see you after weekend and i know hes just fobbing me off the actions dont match the words . Hes cheating you see with someone and here am i trying to get him to admit , but hes not going to is he . Ive got to stop harrasing , or anything havent i and get out and live my life after being sucked back in yep what a twatt i was and spat out again . this time , when i think of him the feeling of love is gone but replaced by anger and id like to punch his face in and tell the world what a dirtbag he is . But i have to let it go he isnt hurting and its wasteful energy let him go after all my friend said “why hold on to a piece of shit . “
i want to come of fb for a while, tbh i torture myself you see on it , but i know he watches me on there , part of me is like if i come off and in a month go back on he may have blocked me it will hurt , absolutly daft thinking i know , hed be doing me a favour .lol
I woke up this morning feeling like sh*te to the sounds of pouring rain and the dullness matches my inner world. My morning thoughts (which are never of good quality) circled around the usual stations raking my brain how to deal with situation A,B,C,D… they can all be summarised by letting go or not regarding my father, a former therapist, the old care place of my brother, one ex who took a considerable sum of my money, and to top it all the professional I hired as personal assistant who wants to include “touching” into our contract.
“ …. being emotionally parked in 1983….” triggered the ridiculous image of me driving up to various spots, waiting around there like police folks surveilling someone, fretting over catching the culprits I have a major grudge with in hopes of arresting and turning them in to the authorities for punishment.
Everything in me revolts by the fact that this screaming injustice shall go unpunished. I “can’t” bear the thought that my personal assistant still clueless about how he effected me has a merry day while I suffer, got old wounds reopened and lying on the ground again. I JUST “CAN’T”!!!!
Reading your post – and of course you are so right, dammit – it causes me MAJOR cognitive dissonance.
I do want to take action, but I see that my actions are still inspired by the wrong motives, which renders me to inaction as some part of me knows it, giving me ample opportunity to beat myself up, which is prevented by another part of me, that starts supporting me. I’m a battle field yet I am in favour of letting win the good ones eventually 😉
I VERY much suffer from the most recent betrayal by my personal assistant. There will be no chance of “making” him see his lack of professionalism, so I will after consultation knock off our contract as my last word BUT I am tempted to ask my money back which would open the power play, right?
There is the old care home and I’m fuming over the way they packed up my brother’s belongings causing lots of damage, intentionally, things are missing. I should write a complaint asking to refund and all I will get is a symbolic middle finger. But letting them off the hook?
I’m in despair. So much food for thought. Oh, dear….
arlena, if i may-
you must stop seeing yourself as impotent, as all actions on your part being pointless. you are not a victim.
you may indeed get the reactions you fear from other parties, but, still, for your own sanity, you must protest! you must stick up for yourself! you can’t control others’ reactions, but you’re worth defending.
do not just accept the shit that others give you. even if they do not agree, your side is valid.
“touching” is only included in personal assistant contracts if the assistants are serial killers in training. who the hell does that? YOU are the assistant’s employer not the other way around. FIRE that person’s ass. you are not a victim.
fire off a strongly worded letter to the head – the tippy top – of the old care home with a detailed list of what was damaged and what was missing. read the contract you/he signed with them to see what liability they incur/refuse. if you are owed damages, demand them. if you are not, point out their egregious behavior, demand an apology, and report them to whatever agency oversees them. you are not a victim.
take it from me – you will stop feeling like a victim when you stop seeing yourself as one. until then, every slight will feel like it is just pushing you deeper into your victim hole, more evidence that this is your lot in life. no! fuck. that.
i understand how you feel. but you must take control over your identity. you must decide who you are and take your own side. you are not a victim. but you must believe this for it to be true.
now go fight your battles. even if you lose, in fact, it doesn’t matter that you win or lose, it matters that you fight for yourself. its worth it to not accept victimhood.
Dear CC, you are dead on. Belief me, I do throw me into battles and gathered some “compliments” (“You are the only one who complains!”) but often got frustrated as deep down I haven’t detached myself from the outcome and in subtle ways didn’t risk to endanger a possible validation through a backdoor and tried to control the reactions of others to get that wretched validation. It’s a morphing desire. At the root my father and I identified my most feared reaction of him saying basically “You are not the daughter I want and I would swap you anytime if I could!” and any variation of this by substitutes. Surely I don’t want to hand over all my power to him to ruin all my life. You are right, it is a question of who defines my identity and it should be better me (or is it I?) I will have to learn to give people who piss me off a piece of my mind, regardless. Perhaps a period of “naughtiness” would do miracles for me, and give a few surprises to certain people. I’ll ponder that. Maybe it’s even fun, one day. Thanks so much for responding, very much appreciated.
Thank you for your insight. I know I’ll be running into the ex rather sooner than later (because I’m dating his brother*) and I have been wondering how to deal with the old validation feelings. It’s been one year since I went NC with the ex, and the message I sent him at the time – which went along the lines of “Now that I have gained some self-esteem, I know that you bring nothing positive to my life. Sorry, I wish you to resolve your issues as well.” – was clear enough that he left me alone after one angry reply.
I have worked consistently on myself those past months, and I’m mostly at peace now. I have accepted what has happened and moved on, now I’m living in the present and building a happy life.
However I was a bit worried about having to see him again with the BF or our mutual friends, because I know it will annoy me if he tries to make me see things his way again, if I catch him in one of his “everyday lies” or if I feel him trying to bust my boundaries all over again. Your insight about being able to legitimately feel your feelings of anger & disappointment without reaching out to his validation helped me enormously. Thank you !
*I know being with the brother sounds a bit weird. But this is a man who consistently showed me nothing but respect and affection during three years of friendship, and this is a choice that I made out of all the things I have learnt those past months – not something that comes out of my former emotional unavailability.
(On a sidenote, it *is* slightly strange to feel so serene and contented in a relationship. Sometimes a part of me misses the drama and the intensity of having all my energy being directed towards my partner in an obsessive manner. I know that intensity never made me happy and was a way to avoid working on myself though, so I try not to infuse any drama with the BF out of habit. It’s a work in progress, but the good thing is that this time around I have someone to work hand-in-hand with on it !)
I really adored your post, it’s been the music playing in my life for the past few years. Thanks to your site, I ‘got it’! I can’t count how many times I have had that feeling that I needed validation from the (one who hurt me- whether that be someone I was dating or one of my parents) “I mean with their loving ways, I am so surprised that they didn’t cadoodle me with empathy, understanding and compassion!!” (being sarcastic of course)! I remember the meltdown I had with my Mother on New Years 2011. My Mom is an addict, she neglected my Brother and I. We were talking and she was almost in denial, like her not being there had no effect on my Bro and I. She completely invalidated my feelings. That was when I started going to Alnon and ACA to validate mine! Even with my Father, it would drive me mad that he would refuse to take any responsibility (an abuser) and not care about my feelings. It’s been about 6 years and I cut the relationship off because he was really toxic.
I remember countless times with the AC’s and Unavailables that I wanted validation about the way that I felt so I could move on. It only prolonged the B.S. I mean, there was no way that they ever were going to give me validation. I see that now.
For instance, it was about a year ago and I went to a singles event and exchanged numbers with this handsome guy. Turns out he was recently seperated and going through a custody battle with his children. I thought, “why would I ever subject myself to something like this?” I kindly mentioned that I was no longer interested and he kept trying to persist and invalidate my feelings (which then I realized that I definitely made the right decision!) The point being is I stood my ground, I didn’t need this persons approval because I knew what I wanted and want was vitally important to me.
NML, I know the feeling with having a Father that doesn’t get it. And, when I finally got that I didn’t need him to get it, that’s when I was able to let go. I have compassion for him, I know what he went through, but I sure as hell deserve the best life and I can’t put myself into the fire, I put myself there too many times.
Arlena,
I know what you mean about the quality of morning thoughts, and I don’t know if this will help you but Ive found i wake up anxious and edgy and upset if I haven’t eaten well the evening before. Changing my diet to a healthier one and cutting Down on caffeine and sugar has done alot for my anxiety, especially morning anxiety. I know it won’t resolve any of your current situations but maybe it will help you feel better and more grounded to face the day?
Confusedd, very valid point. I take care eating regularly, alas I have addicted myself to caffeine to keep my level of habitual upset high. It is this weird feeling of being strangely off (see Tya’s side note) after having reduced validation seeking, emotional turmoil or drama and feeling quite normal. It’s the moment when I crave a pot of coffee to get my heart crazy to get back to familiar anxiety. I definitely have to curb this habit and normalize “normal”. Thanks.
Thank you Natalie for another great post!
I want to reread it several times so that all of the life changing ideas you present can really sink in. I grew up in an abusive family with narcissistic parents. As an adult, sometimes i still get pulled into the warped family dynamics with my siblings and parents and revert back to that powerless kid. This post is all about focusing on the present and taking responsibility for my own actions. That way i won’t have so many emotional breakdowns when my family (or other unavailables)show me time and time again who they are. It’s a way to release the pain and expectations and give myself all that love, acceptance, respect, and validation that i’m constantly seeking in those who are least likely to give it to me. When things fall apart, i’m going to think of this line:
“And you get up, hug yourself a bit tighter and you do your absolute best to get on with your life and treat you well.” <3
You are soooo right Nat. Your pain and hurt will never be acknowledged, they won’t apologize, so write em off and move on the best you can. I remember folks telling me I ought to forgive my graduate advisor for stealing my data and publishing my work under his name AND not defending my rather controversial research which led me to have to leave the region and ultimately led to the break up of a wonderful 12 year relationship. Been pretty much alone ever since. Forgive? Hell no! Same with the at work AC; he doesn’t give a rats about my pain so why forgive? He is sufficiently clueless to still want me to host social gatherings that he attends AND borrow my tools as well? Screw him. This first week of the semester has been stressful and painful;been avoiding him as much as possible, doing the right thing. I have come to the realization that this is gonna be how it is for a long time, the sadness, the isolation, the loneliness but I am still sticking to my path, now working on my lil farm, running in the mountains, and refusing to accept folks that cannot/are unable to respect who I am just to get a shred of validation and attention.
Magdalena-
…dripping tears.
of course you’re worthy of love, honey. of course you are.
massive, massive hugs.
proud of you.
Thanks, cc…
I’ve come a long way and there’s still a long way to go, but the good news is that I’m headed in the right direction. I’ve learned so many things about me from you and all the other brilliant people who post here.
And thank you so much for the hugs and kind words!
NML, lately I have been reading the works of Eckhart Tolle. If you aren’t familiar with him, the crux of his philosophies (and many many other philosophers and spiritualists) are living in the now (no more worries about the future and regrets about the past), feeling pain but not making an identity out of it, and dismissing your ego (I think at times he is using ego in a more clinical and less colloquial way, but it works on many levels.) In any case, I found so many parallels in your writings to his.
This post resonated with a lot of the reading I’ve been doing lately.
Understanding dysfunction, at large in the world or even in your own dysfunctional relationship, will never soothe the pain that you feel around it. In fact, it is completely irrelevant. Knowing the whole story is a waste, it’s really a distraction as a means to hold on to something that we really just need to –accept–. Acceptance does not mean combatting the pain, or that it won’t be painful, but if you just feel the pain, you don’t build an identity out of it (his words, you might say internalizing the external, etc..), it won’t hold on to you.
It’s funny, I keep typing out problems that I am personally having with a question and I have to delete them because at this point I have read so much BR that I already know the answer. I have spent a lot of time overanalyzing dysfunction(al relationships), I guess I have to spend more time doing than reading now.
This was one of the most insightful pieces I have ever read. This has really helped me with my current situation that I’m going trough. I too grew up without a dad and can totally relate to this. Thank you Natalie.