Dumped 10 months ago, 8 year relationship

[clumsiest]

This is the first time I've tried to tell my story here. I've been lurking the forum for over a year, trying to get some insight from some of you, and just overall trying to figure out how to move on. Everything has come apart at the seams since he left. The weird thing is.. it wasn't a very good relationship. In fact it was downright unhealthy to the both of us (we were/are both clinical depressives with anxiety problems). That said...bit of a backstory. I had this idea January 2010 that if we just took a few months break and sorted out our lives we could come back together later on and make it work again. The problem wasn't that neither of us cared about each other anymore, but that for some reason we just got too depressed to make our separate and couple lives better. And I felt like I had a lot to catch up on, life was passing me by. I'm 28 years old and really behind career wise. Not to mention, I lost all of my friends when things went really bad for me several years ago. They couldn't really understand why my anxiety was so bad and what it was that was going on. My ex was there through all of it though and he really struggled with me. He had his own set of similar problems as well, and in a way it was like we were feeding it back and forth to each other because neither of us were strong enough to take it on by ourselves. Instead though, we just ended up making it twice as difficult.

 

Anyway, so I had started to improve some things but we got back together too prematurely (and during this brief period, had some really amazing times together), but things quickly went back to being too hard. A couple months later, seemingly out of the blue, he left me for someone else. I was in shock for weeks, and have been terribly depressed ever since.

 

I have taken control of some aspects of my life since then, and tried to steer some things in better directions, but then he ended up coming back and messing me up all over again. His new relationship fell apart drastically after a month and he somehow clung to it for another 3, and then she dumped him on his ass and he came crawling back with all this nonsense about how he missed me and how I would "get him" forever. I told him he hurt me too much, I couldn't just trust him like that. So this would be about 4-5 months after we broke up, and I hadn't seen him at all that whole time and only talked to him a few times after. Anyway, we started to hang out a little bit. I know that this was a stupid idea, but I think it was because I was now living alone in an apartment, had no friends, and really craved some kind of interaction besides what I was getting from my family. A lot of my anxiety problems just make it too difficult to meet people and do regular things. But I was still heart broken so hanging out with him only made things worse. We hung out a few times, and I noticed a hickey on his neck, which turned out to be from this girl that I had trusted with a lot of ****. In fact, she faked being my friend but was after him the whole time. Talk about **** luck..... So there I was broken for the second time. Everything got worse. I couldn't hack school and had to drop out, I stopped leaving my apartment and trying to make things better. It just got too hard...... I told him how messed up I was over it and all he could tell me was that I deserved to hear the truth which he would never actually tell me in detail. All I know is that he thought he was too messed up to be in any relationships and the next thing I know he is screwing this girl and hanging out with her a lot and now is in some kind of relationship with her. All the while? He swore he still cared about me and was having difficulty letting go as well. What the hell? I keep having to see him in public and the last time I did (about 2 weeks ago?) I kind of made a scene and/or made it really obvious that I "knew" he was with someone and that I was not happy with him at all. 1) For making me feel like he's been lying to me continuously for ages. 2) For making me think that he wanted to work things out again, which is not exactly what he said, but is what he was hinting at when we were hanging out and he was screwing this girl.

 

Right now, my life is not going too well and I'm having too much difficulty trying to move on from this relationship. We are back to not talking, and this time he is not even trying to force it on me. I feel lonely, hurt, angry, confused, and overall like dirt, and at the same time I can't get him out of my head. He was my only/best friend as well as lover and everything I do reminds me of him still. We shared everything.... but he kept his friends and I didn't keep mine, and now I feel like it's too hard to go back.

 

I'm going to try to write here more in hopes that it will help me let things out, get some support and move on. I will also be restarting counselling soon to get me back on my feet in a more general sense. Any input at all is welcome........

[VJohnson32]

Sorry wrong post

[timchambo]

We are in similar age bracket. I can't really compare what I went/going through to what you are. I drew the line when we split and that is that. I have no intention today of letting that line be crossed. She wronged me and life goes on. You too need to commit mentally to ending that previous chapter of your life. Counseling sounds like a great first step.

 

You said you couldn't cut school and I am sure that is primarily because of what you are going through. Don't give up on that as a future goal. Just put that to the side for now. What about hobbies? Maybe go learn how to play piano. Maybe you have always wanted to be a more confident dancer but felt you were not good. Go take some dance classes. I once met a beautiful girl at dance class while attending with my ex. She was there solo. I plan to do this again myself.

 

Sounds like these women may have helped this guy mask his anxiety issues. When he was talking to you again he may have seen the same anxiety issues you had have not changed. Find happiness within yourself and take 1 day at a time.

 

You probably want to have children one day. Grow from this experience and use it as a life lesson you can teach them one day. The days will get better, they have to. I hope somewhere in my rambling I may have brightened your night for the moment. I just lost the girl I considered the woman of my dreams after a 7 year RL 3 months ago. Some days still suck. What has helped me the most was meeting new people and enjoying NEW moments in life. We both have a lot of years ahead of us. Don't let this experience ruin any more time than it must.