Why do people change so much?

[neiu]

So I haven't been here in awhile, probably a couple months which is good. This place did its job I suppose. I guess I'm just sending a general msg out there and for KM I'm surprised you're still so very caught up in this.

 

Who cares. Does it really matter what this guy is doing or saying? It's over and its been over for a long time. If he really missed you or whatever then maybe he should be a man about and grow some balls and actually tell you instead of beating around the bushes and playing with your head. Screw him move on to someone whos willing to tell you straight up how they feel about you.

[magichands]

Does it really matter what this guy is doing or saying?

Yes, because he is the love of her life.

[dropdeadlegs]

KM, here's a peanut butter cup to calm you down.

 

Unless he is initiating a reconciliation, the use of pet names is out of line. I would venture to say that emailing you is out of line.

 

As for his actions, I would say that he is getting out there again, but I have to agree with ariawoman and ruby_gloom for the most part.

 

Every relationship changes us, and with any luck the changes are for the better. I understand your confusion at his turnaround.

 

I just love Art_Critic's signature, so here it comes.

 

"One day someone will walk into your life and make you see why it never worked out with anyone else."

 

Live it and breathe it, they are powerful words.

[magichands]

he is initiating a reconciliation,

Could be. Seems like it. But what next?

I tend to make the move. I go after what I want, no excuses, no regrets.

Or maybe just sit back, nibble on the bait, and let him worm his way back into your life.

[KittenMoon]

He wants to see if you are still on a string for him. That's what. He may be having problems with a relationship if he is in one now.

 

Don't play his games. Disappear

 

My ex has never been smart enough for head games. Any sort of complex emotional reasoning pretty much puts him into emotional shutdown mode. So I don't, and never have, believed he's d*cking around with me, conciously anyways.

 

You guys were meant to be together. Don't fight it. Write an email back to him, and sign it with your nickname. Poof! You're back together.

 

Let's hope that this time it is happy ever after.

 

Stop being a douche bag, MH.

 

 

Unless he is initiating a reconciliation, the use of pet names is out of line. I would venture to say that emailing you is out of line.

 

I guess I'm most pissed about the pet names. Not to mention the affectionate joking about feeding his stuffed monkey that I gave him. (Yes, we had the tendency to treat our stuffed animals like they were "real") I mean, geez, why don't we make some cutesy jokes about how much crying I did, and still do? Or the 15lbs I lost when he left (and yea, he saw the physical toll it took on me) Or how about that great time he told me he wanted to be able to get phone numbers from girls at bars?

 

Ok, enough of that. The pet name thing has been an issue before, but I tolerated it because only my name was used, and it was the only name he ever called me while we were together.

 

I will definitely take this opportunity to tell him pet names and our old cute jokes are long off-limits. Emailing me is one thing... talking like we're still close and cuddly is another.

 

BTW, I've decided to move away from where I (we) live. Unfortunately, this won't be happening for 8 months to a year or so, but that's the plan. I can't stand being in this area and remembering better times.....

[Starlight Starbright]

KM,

 

I know how you feel. My ex broke up with me 2 months ago. I am Persian, my ex is American but I taught him Farsi throughout the relationship. Also, he took a French course last year and I learned some of it with him. So we used to communicate with each other in 3 different languages: Farsi, French, and English. Well, I looked on Gmail last week, which has a chat feature (for those who aren't familiar) and you can set a custom "status" message for all to see. He NEVER puts a status on there, but last Wednesday I looked and he had set his custom status message to "I am working", but in French. I was pretty sure he meant for me to see it, especially since we were going through our longest NC period - 2 weeks - and I know he was probably getting antsy. So I fell for it and set my status to a private inside joke we had that was a mix of Farsi and French. I looked and 20 minutes later he had yet again changed his status message to respond to me with another inside jooke. We ended it there. Now, after another week of NC, yesterday I see that he once again had set his status to the Farsi/French inside joke we had. This time I ignored it.

 

I know it was my fault for having responded the first time, but I just think it sucks on his end because he knows how much all of this has hurt me. I've already told him how I had cried every day the first month that we had broken up. I told him I needed to move on. I think that now that he sees me really sticking to NC (which I wasn't doing in the beginning), it is beginning to bug him and like CaliGuy says, he wants to make sure he still has me on a string.

 

The thing is, as a dumpee, it is soooo easy to fool oneself. It is almost ridiculous really. When I see my ex attempting to contact me in even these smallest of ways I start thinking "Awww, he misses me. Poor thing." And so its easy to trick myself into responding to him. Now, I almost have to force myself to remember, "Wait a minute! He DUMPED me. He could theoretically call me at anytime and ask to get back together, but he has NOT, so why am I feeling bad for him? And why do I feel like I owe him a response? I don't owe him anything."

[jaycie724]

Now, I almost have to force myself to remember, "Wait a minute! He DUMPED me. He could theoretically call me at anytime and ask to get back together, but he has NOT, so why am I feeling bad for him? And why do I feel like I owe him a response? I don't owe him anything."

 

I can't wait until I've gotten to that point. I'm still in the "i must have some sort of contact with him" phase.

[KittenMoon]

Well, if anyone cares, I did write him back, saying very clearly that nicknames, inside jokes, etc were NOT APPROPRIATE and for him to never use them again. Which actually hurts a lot because I liked my pet name, and him using it, but (and I told him this) the nicknames were for us when we were together, and now we are just [my name] and [his name].

 

Even if we do have these occassional emails, I'm not interested in being talked to like I was when I was his gf. That's bull. He can talk to me like anyone else or not at all. Not with a tone of intimacy long gone.

[Starlight Starbright]

jaycie,

 

It was sooooooo difficult for me in the beginning to go NC. I think I was literally fighting with it every second of every day. The thing that helped me the most was calling my mom and crying to her every time I felt like calling him. She really was amazing about it. I know she got incredibly frustrated with me at times, but she just kept reiterating the same advice to me over and over and over again. It has been almost 3 weeks of NC (minus those 2 gmail exchanges) and I can honestly tell you that it HAS gotten alot easier. Also, I keep reinforcing the negatives about my ex over and over again. It is all finally starting to sink in.

[jaycie724]

jaycie,

 

It was sooooooo difficult for me in the beginning to go NC. I think I was literally fighting with it every second of every day. The thing that helped me the most was calling my mom and crying to her every time I felt like calling him. She really was amazing about it. I know she got incredibly frustrated with me at times, but she just kept reiterating the same advice to me over and over and over again. It has been almost 3 weeks of NC (minus those 2 gmail exchanges) and I can honestly tell you that it HAS gotten alot easier. Also, I keep reinforcing the negatives about my ex over and over again. It is all finally starting to sink in.

 

Thanks, Starlight....once he moves out, I'll try that a little. I think I've already pushed my mom to frustration a number of times in the past 2 weeks...my friends too. But they've all been great.

 

It's just amazing how before this I loved to be alone, now I hate it. I dread going home, and all of the things I used to really enjoy no longer hold any joy for me. Of course, nothing holds joy for me right now. I hope that passes with time too.

 

Now if I could just get through all the bad "time"

[jaycie724]

Well, if anyone cares, I did write him back, saying very clearly that nicknames, inside jokes, etc were NOT APPROPRIATE and for him to never use them again. Which actually hurts a lot because I liked my pet name, and him using it, but (and I told him this) the nicknames were for us when we were together, and now we are just [my name] and [his name].

 

Even if we do have these occassional emails, I'm not interested in being talked to like I was when I was his gf. That's bull. He can talk to me like anyone else or not at all. Not with a tone of intimacy long gone.

 

yaaay! good for you!

[KittenMoon]

Well, this is ending badly. No, not badly. STUPIDLY.

 

My ex responded back to my email: "sorry I'm stupid I will leave you be" [sic]

 

I was like "wtf?!" and pretty much snapped a little, wrote him back saying he was being an ass and he had to tell me wtf he thought it would be ok to talk to me like that.

 

He wrote me back, saying he had just been remember the good times when he wrote me and he didn't mean anything by it and he was sorry. ANd he was sorry for the short email before he was just reacting to my long response about not speaking to me like that. And that he won't use my nickname anymore, but he can't help that he would always think of me as that.

 

I swear to god he is some kind of emotional retard.

 

Some of you have seen my posts for over a year now. The fact is my ex acts like no other person I have ever known, or read about. His words and actions have baffled people who knew him well, fellow LSers, even my therapist who makes a living understanding people. While I watch other peoples ex's either go on/off with them over and over, lie and decieve them maliciously, or actually settle into a mature emotional distance, mine has become this case study in the utterly incomprehensible. As you imagine, I'm emotionally exhausted and fed up.

 

In response- I WENT OFF. I basically said a LOT of things I had wanted to say to him for months and months. Most of them not particularly nice. I didn't call him nasty names or anything, but I did make it entirely clear WHY he could not talk to me the way he did. I let him know a lot of the things I've had to deal with in the past year, and how his continued ambiguous and emotionally intimate statements were totally inappropriate. I've repeatedly reigned myself in over the past year- I think I am allowed this final, honest rant to him.

 

And as I am sure you all are thinking I'm nuts, I also said that I wanted him to say to me, straight up, that he didn't care for me as anything other than an old friend and that there would never be anything between us ever again. (Like most newly heartbroken idiots, there had been points earlier where the "maybe someday" stuff would come up)

 

So now I am just waiting to hear that final statement. My hearts been broken so many times that honestly I don't care anymore, and I figure it can't do much harm to have it broken again, this time in the "right" way. I suppose it's like rebreaking a bone that hasn't healed right, so maybe this time it actually will.

 

I suppose it will be nice to someday meet someone who's emotional responses are actually fathomable...

[Ssheena]

Oh dear.

 

Well, what's done is done. I was going to post not to even respond to him at all and not to waste your time answering him or telling him not to use your special names etc.. but you already did. I think you might being feeling differently now if you had not responded to him but since you did, you did. At least you told him exactly how you feel.

 

Don't wait to hear that final statement. Say it for yourself. You make the decision. Say, I will NEVER feel anything for <name> other than pity and at the most friendship. Take the power away from him and give it to yourself.

[KittenMoon]

Oh dear.

 

Well, what's done is done. I was going to post not to even respond to him at all and not to waste your time answering him or telling him not to use your special names etc.. but you already did. I think you might being feeling differently now if you had not responded to him but since you did, you did. At least you told him exactly how you feel.

 

Don't wait to hear that final statement. Say it for yourself. You make the decision. Say, I will NEVER feel anything for <name> other than pity and at the most friendship. Take the power away from him and give it to yourself.

 

 

No offense Ssheena, but all this empowerment stuff has just become "blah blah blah" to me. It hasn't worked anymore than anything else. And I refuse to pretend there wasn't some hope smoldering by covering it up with overly confident statements of self assurance. LS "rules" are great for a lot of situations, but like I said, since no situation I've read or seen has ever come close to how my ex has acted, they haven't done d*ck for me. Hobbies, new friends, therapy, medicine, etc hasn't done d*ck for me. So now I just follow my own rules.

 

Unlike when we broke up and we did the whole "maybe someday" crap, unlike when he kept giving me mixed messages over the past year, I'm simply asking finally for "over" in no uncertain terms.

[monkey00]

Maybe he was more miserable in the relationship than he is being single?

 

I know people who wound up being more stressed and miserable when they were in a relationship VS after breaking up and being a single bachelor again.

 

Depending how you look at it being single does suck a bit, but the ones that are, are usually happier because of their freedom to do whatever the hell they please!

[Porn_Guy]

I'm simply asking finally for "over" in no uncertain terms.

KM, please delete all his emails before reading them and never answer the phone when you know its him. Tell you friends to not discuss him or what he's doing with you.

[KittenMoon]

KM, please delete all his emails before reading them and never answer the phone when you know its him. Tell you friends to not discuss him or what he's doing with you.

 

Oh, whatever. To hell with this ridiculous mantra.

[Teacher's Pet]

What about single and lonely and miserable? Haha.

 

I second that!

 

-tp

miserable? Nah....