Nearly 5 months later....

[Nikki Sahagin]

Nearly 5 months on from my breakup and the anger, the depression etc have all faded. All that remains is that profoundly bleak feeling or sense of being cheated. I am predominantly happy or at the very least content. I have been seeing new people, focusing on working and hobbies and seeing my friends, and although I am happy, I definately feel this sense of the world being an incredibly unjust and unfair place. Though i'm not necessarily bitter, I am much more cynical. I look at couples holding hands and kissing and wonder how long it will take for everything to blow up in their faces...or before they quietly begin to resent each other and drift apart.

 

Me and my ex have been in limited contact during which times he makes little or no sense to me. He claims he still loves me and misses me but needs to be free, sometimes he talks about this hope that one day in the future we can be together and that he feels we both need to grow up and mature seperately. I know he isn't seeing anyone and so I 'buy' that. I'll never know if he talks to me to feed his ego, to keep up our friendship, to keep me on the backburner or because what we had was real.

 

Though i've been seeing new people the greatest disapointment for me comes from not being able to recreate what I had with my ex. I feel there was a special set of circumstances that enabled me to fall in love with him, where ordinarily I am completely disinterested and bored of men. Firstly I was a bit of a damsel in distress (panic attacks and depression) and was so sunny, entheasiastic, optimistic - he brought me back to life, first as a friend, then as my boyfriend. He was my first kiss, first hug, first sexual partner. The newness of doing all of those things can only be done with him. Even now I feel the 'oldness' of kissing even when there's a spark or chemistry - like you can kiss 100 new men or women but it wont ever be that first kiss, and knowing his lips were the first I kissed made me want to come back to them. I think i'm quite old-fashioned and conservative in that way. I was proud to be with just him in an age where people sleep around, are promiscuous, cheat. I wanted to be the ones that could make it....(don't we all?) Now I suppose though I can accept it, I do just find it very unfair and unjust, and that part of me rebels about being fully over it.

 

I've seen friends get back together and try to make it work this time. A friend seeing a much older woman say how he loves her and wants to make it work forever. I think why can't my ex, who supposedly still loves me, wanted to be with me forever, gave me my first kiss, made me cds, drew me pictures, cuddled me to sleep - how can he not want to try again? I know i'm not delusional, I know we had something stronger than many couples. So I don't know what happened and seemingly neither does he. A mutual friend told me he is still crazy about me and in love with me but needs to be alone. No other women etc, just alone. I guess I just can't understand what the hell happened and i'm frightened i'll never have that feeling again. That FIRST feeling. Yes they'll be seconds and thirds and maybe fourths, fifths, god knows, but i'll have kissed someone before, and flirted before and gone on dates before. Its like an old routine now played out with a different guy - but never the one that made you want forever.

 

I guess now i'm in a peaceful but very melancholy kind of mood where I just feel I was cheated out of something that could have made me very happy, and not just in a rose-tinted way. We had problems, but lying in his arms brought me the most peace and love i've ever felt.

 

How is everyone else bearing up a few months on?

[Patrice]

Well, six months out of the house and the legal separation papers are about to be signed. Married 26 years and I was the one who left. He wants me back, yet as I told him I felt neglected and abandoned in the marriage - and in the end I think I just silently disengaged from him - perhaps my ego just couldn't take any more.

 

As far as emotions now, I worry that I'll always be alone, I see couples out yet don't feel free to pursue a relationship. I get comeons from men at work and outside of work that are confusing. There are good days and bad days - for me it has been compounded because our home was sold and I stayed in about 4 places after I left - friends and family. I only recently got into my own place in a new community and know that this will be my time to think and reflect and grieve and find hope again. Also a time to meet new people and embrace new experiences.

 

You take it a day at a time - I'm finding there are good days and bad - sometimes the bad go on for two or three days then it lifts again ..

 

Be peaceful, if it's meant to work out it will .. love yourself.

[Sbrizio]

i'm frightened i'll never have that feeling again. That FIRST feeling. Yes they'll be seconds and thirds and maybe fourths, fifths, god knows, but i'll have kissed someone before, and flirted before and gone on dates before. Its like an old routine now played out with a different guy - but never the one that made you want forever.

 

I guess now i'm in a peaceful but very melancholy kind of mood where I just feel I was cheated out of something that could have made me very happy, and not just in a rose-tinted way.

 

Hi Nikki,

i find a lot of familiarity in the things you feel and describe.

I think time will give you back the taste for life, for fun, and finally for love.

I understand your bad feeling toward the idea of dating right now... this sense of loss of the uniqueness... i feel the same.

 

But, if i look back at my history, i can say that for every girl i've been in love with, that story has been unique in some special way. And my recent ex, has been, for now, the girl i loved the most and with the deepest feeling.

 

Looking back, i know (or at least i find probable) that there will be a moment in the future when i'll be able to love someone again in a unique way. In that moment, i'll be in love, and the past will just be a warm memory. I know this can be, because it already happened to me. This gives me some reassurance.

 

Also i try not to go into dating frenzy. I doubt anyway that serial dating is the best way to find love... i prefer to wait the time some girl will struck me somehow.

 

So now, i just give time to myself. I try to be a better man, to work on myself. And i try to keep my hopes high for the future.

 

I've confidence in the fact that life is always able to surprise us in the way we foresee our future...