Guilt / Is it so bad to feel this pain?

[TeaAbraham]

So trying to get over this horrible break up, 3 year relationship ending with being cheated on with her ex and my best friend, I, as all of you do, feel extreme pain.

 

At first I was blaming myself for the problems that we had in our relationship. How I could have done something different to keep us together. How all she gave me was love and affection, and how I made her feel so sad by not returning that affection during the last months.

 

Complicated situation, but I felt so guilty for her cheating on me. I felt like I drove her to it. That if one day two months ago I had flipped the switch and realized something and changed my behavior, we would be the happiest people in the world together today.

 

This is painful. I feel so much guilt for causing this situation. She really was such a sweet girl. She loved me so much. She was so very smart and beautiful. But when we had problems I didn't return that love. We never knew how to solve the problems we had. We never talked about them until they boiled over. And once we discovered what was the matter, I wanted to fix the problems so badly. I wanted to solve these problems. But we always just said that we would fix them, that we would act differently. We never actually looked critically at how to do that. We never worked together to solve our problems. It was as if each one of us should go out on our own and change ourselves, and that when we came back together everything would be solved. Our relationship was too special to let this happen. But we were too inexperienced to know.

 

Even after we almost called it quits the time before it actually happened, we didn't communicate when we realized the problems were slowly seeping back. We didn't address them. She just became sad that the problems were coming back, and she never told me if I was doing something wrong that we had talked about. We just let the problems escalate We could have solved these problems. We could have worked together and supported eachother to solve them. But we didn't. And she grew sadder and sadder, until she couldn't take it anymore and called him.

 

There is so much pain. She felt this pain for months before we ended it, and now I am feeling this pain. But then she found MR F*CKING BUTTERCUPS while we were still together, and then she left me to be with him, and now she has someone to snuggle up with at night; to hold when she feels some semblance of remorse about what she has done to me. She moved out saying she wanted to find herself, to be her own person. This was when she still said she wanted me the way I used to be more than anything in the world. But she didn't move out to find herself. She moved out to be with him. She even took MY condoms when she moved out. Why would she pack up her boxes with the condoms I bought for OUR love? Obviously she wasn't telling me her TRUE intentions. She was telling me she wanted me the way I used to be more than anything, but was lying. She just wanted to f-*k my best friend.

 

Don't give me your pathetic sad face when you see me. Your face full of pity when you see that I have turned into a psycho trying to come to terms with this f-8cked up situation. Don't tell me that I should have realized this two months ago. I didn't stop loving you. My heart was always yours, completely, forever. I was always engulfed with love for you. You just never told me when you felt pain. You hid that pain with hugs and kisses. We never talked at the onset of an issue. We never worked through it together like we should have.

 

There is no way that I cannot feel pain. But I don't want to feel this pain. It hurts too much. So I start thinking about how terrible she is. And how I wouldn't want to be with a person who could do this. Who is so deceitful and conniving. I just want to forget. I want to be numb. I want to find somewhere without pain. I want to take drugs to numb this pain, even though that is something I have never done.

 

Is pain bad? This pain is just my love for her. This pain is me, not trying to run away from my problems. This pain is me trying to confront those problems. This pain is me trying to make sure I never make that same mistake again. This pain is me, naive enough to believe that we are soul-mates. That we were meant for eachother. That our deep love will overcome even these hardest times.

 

Three years ago I wrote you a letter to tell you how much I loved you. I loved you and you loved me before we even talked to eachother or started dating. We never even started dating. We just came together, and we knew we were in love. I knew you were the one, just as you knew I was the one. There was something greater in our relationship. Something more special than words or love letters. You never got that love letter I wrote to you 3 years ago. I didn't have to give it to you. You knew. We both knew.

 

I told you months later about that letter. You wanted to see it. I told you that I really only wanted to write 5 words in that letter. That letter before I really even knew you. Before we knew we were so right for eachother.

 

"Promise me you'll marry me someday?"

 

If I'd have given you that letter, those 5 innocent words, you said you'd have said yes in a hearbeat. It wasn't weird, it wasn't crazy. We both knew we were made for eachother. We were both in love. From the moment our eyes met. There was a sparkle in those eyes.

There was something different between us. There was something beyond love between us. We made love. It was the first time for both of us. We knew. I was always scared of death. I cried knowing someday I would lose you, when we passed beyond this life. You said it would be okay. We'll have eachother always. I felt safe for all eternity in your arms.

 

But I can't live with this pain anymore. I have confronted this pain, I have realized my wrong-doings. But she has done more wrong than I. How can I stop feeling this pain. Is it better for me to ignore this pain and try to move on? This pain is paralyzing. I cannot think. I cannot do. I cannot feel anything for another. There are many ways to overcome this pain. I don't want to ignore it. If I do that I will not be a better person. I will not be stronger. I will not be kinder and more compassionate. If I go out searching for other women to ease this pain I will not be a better person. If I light up a bowl everynight and become a mindless organism in front of the TV will that be better than feeling this pain? I might not feel pain, but I won't be growing, becoming that person who she doesn't deserve to be with anway. That person who wants to make a difference in this world.

 

I don't want to feel pain, but how can I ease this despair while at the same time not feel like I am just numbing my mind, and becoming nothingness. I want to be better. I want to be the best I can be even though I feel like I am nothing after you've done this to me. I want to be that person you don't deserve, but it's so hard when despair overcomes my mind and my heart.

 

It helps to hate you. It helps to know you are not worth it. That I am the one benefitting. But I have to constantly remind myself of this. When I fall asleep on the couch, too sad to crawl into that bed where I would always find your warm, beautiful body, my anger dissipates, and all I feel is pain. I can't constantly remind myself of how I hate you. That pain creeps back through those cracks of guilt. I wake up in the night to darkness and lonliness. Thoughts of a few days ago when I saw you and him at the store. You, my everything, with him, the rest of my everything in this world.

 

Of course its going to hurt, but how much? Is the goal to destroy this pain? If so, how should I rid it from my life so I can move on and love again. Love another who deserves my compassion and love. Should I nurture this pain for a while and give it the treatment it deserves, as a person who cared so much about our relationship, then chuck it out the window and be better for having confronted it. Should I try to ignore that pain? Should I direct my love towards others? Towards those who need it?

 

How to rid myself of this pain and move on. Or are we really meant to be? Will you realize your wrong-doings and come back to what we both knew was so right if we could only solve problems when they arise. Are you always just going to run away into another's arms when issues arise? Someday you will have to solve them. I didn't know how to solve our problems, but now I do. I will be the better man. I will know what to do when things are looking down in my future relationship. I will confront the problem, and together my new special person and I will work together to solve our problems, because there are always problems. What will you do when problems arise with MR F*CKING BUTTERCUPS? You will lie, you will deceive, you will probably run to me. Because I am the better man, and you will see that. But you will get nothing from me, because you are the one who is nothing. You are the one who is stagnant and clinging. Don't kid yourself.

 

Is it so bad to nurture this pain?

 

I hate you so much.

[hereandnow]

I'm going through the pain now too brother. I think you do have to go through it. Now, nurture it, I don't know about. I've been hanging out with friends as much as I can these days. Letting some people know what's really going on with me helps a lot. I've been jogging. That helps too.

 

I don't think staying stoned is gonna help you either. I'm a sober alcoholic and addict, and we've got a little saying that from the time you really start using, your emotional growth stops. I don't see anything wrong with the occasional bowl here and there if you can handle it, but using it to escape the pain will only stunt your healing.

 

I'm glad you got all that stuff out in your post. I don't think that's nurturing pain, that's sharing what's going on with you, throwing it out there so that it loses some of its power. Keep it up man! Keep the posts coming!

[Surfer Dude]

I feel for you man.

 

It is extremely painful to lose fiance of several years due to her cheating and dumping. Exactly the same thing happened to me, you read my thread and you know what happened.

 

Sometimes we want to feel the hate because it alleviates the pain of loss. Sometimes we prefer not to feel anything at all, but hate and grief come back when they are the least welcome.

 

In the end we see how really thin is the line between love and hate. But what you're feeling is not love, because love is unconditional, forgiving and freeing. If we could feel unconditional love for just 5 minutes, we would be able to forgive all the wrongdoings that ever happened to us, to let go of every ex that ever hurt us.

 

I have realized that the best way to defeat grief and anguish is to systematically analyze whatever is bothering us.

 

What we are all experiencing is not love. It is the pain of loss, a pain of breaking the bond with the other person. We are all being plagued by our memories and recollections of times when we used to be happy. But remember, you are experiencing this pain because you are afraid that you will never have those wonderful moments again. You feel that you have lost the best person in the world and that you will never be able to love like that again. The thing is, you didn't lose anything great. You lost what you thought was great, but in reality you have been set free to find your happiness with someone who is going to care.

 

We are all going through that right now. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. You're not alone, trust me.

 

Don't beat yourself up because you might've made some wrong choices in the course of your relationship. We all make mistakes, but realizing what those are and attempting to fix them shows that we are constantly growing and that we have the strength of character. Both of our exs just ran away with other men, avoiding their own problems and demons, thinking that by running, their inner problems and frustrations will go away.

 

I tell you again and again, we can use these painful times to grow and prepare for future relationships. We can become stronger, better men with even greater hearts. Imagine lucky ladies out there who are going to get us. We are going to feel joy once again, while our exs are going to be rebounding all the time, trying to run away from themselves. Who cares what they'll do anyways. Now is the time to focus on ourselves and future!

[EmperorR]

your story made me cry, because its the same thing I'm going through, cheating ex fiance, the love of my life the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, we had a special bond, anyone who saw us together knew it was something more than love, all a crock of sh*t in the end. Cheated on kicked to the curb lied to that she wanted to be alone to run into some next guys arm a week later. and here i am left hopeless, lonely, I do NC, 62 days but I still feel like sh*t. I know how much it sucks when they move on and oyur life hurt lonely etc., and there off with joe herb happy etc.

 

That's teh thing I hate if you didn't want to be with me then fine, but don't go f'n cheat on me, I remember everything in life, even if i'm with another chick, i'll always have in the back of my mind, when she's coming home late or whatever already prejudging that she's cheating.

[TeaAbraham]

anyone who saw us together knew it was something more than love, all a crock of sh*t in the end

 

This is so horribly sad it's hilarious emperor. I got a kick out of it anyway. Probably just a way of covering up the pain. If we've felt this extreme passion and it turned out to be a crock o' sh*t, how are we supposed to trust that passion when it comes again in the future? Is it possible to not be cynical after this?

 

I think best practice is to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Unless they've given you a reason to think otherwise, assume they have the best intentions at heart. But I can see one would be very suspicious of others after having something like this go down. Perhaps there's a little devil within all of us. The best we can do is to nurture the goodness in others, not the badness.

 

What we are all experiencing is not love. It is the pain of loss, a pain of breaking the bond with the other person. We are all being plagued by our memories and recollections of times when we used to be happy. But remember, you are experiencing this pain because you are afraid that you will never have those wonderful moments again. You feel that you have lost the best person in the world and that you will never be able to love like that again. The thing is, you didn't lose anything great. You lost what you thought was great, but in reality you have been set free to find your happiness with someone who is going to care.

 

Totally agreed. Great point. And I think that's a great way to step back from feeling hatred to just feeling sadness, which is much healthier. It's so sad that those great memories and times are gone =-( That is really what I miss.

 

I feel better thinking that this pain is just missing something that isn't there anymore. It's like eating an ice cream cone, and coming to the end, and then it's gone! It's sad that there isn't any ice cream anymore, and you really want some more, but it's simply all gone. And now that you've eaten that ice cream cone you really gotta go to the gym and start working out, which will make you healthier in the end. I can get over an empty ice cream cone. After I go work out I'll get another!

 

That's exactly what it's like, right?

[UnamedSeven]

Its terrible, i know. To feel like, you have been ransacked of all of your feelings by the person you loved so much. Only for them to just promise you the world and how ideal "our" life will be. When i heard that, it dug into me too deep for words. In order for me to move on, i had to dig it up. Little did i know that where i had to dig, was at the center point of my heart. Destroying it like, as if, she planned it. She made me have a purpose in my life other than just being a pathetic person who has suffered from too many heartbreaks.

 

It took me 3 months for me to realize what happened. Of course i called her a month after we broke up, just because she still "loved" me which will always ring in my ears for the rest of my life. Her saying, "But i still love you".

 

I never learned the truth as to why she wanted to break up. She lied by saying how her mom didn't like it, and lied about loving me. We never fought, never stopped holding hands, and she wouldn't let go when we hugged....all the time.

 

Sorry, I'm kind of rambling and i just wanted to say that she did most of the damage, if not, all. Let it be known, that, she missed out on the only good thing to walk into her life. You.