stretch Posted August 9, 2011 Posted August 9, 2011 Hi everyone, this is my first post... I think I need the guidance of those a little more seasoned on here. My ex girlfriend and I broke up nearly six weeks ago. She'd tried for six years to be with me and said that from day one I was the love of her life. I really and truly believe her too, she gave up a career to be close to me, her home, everything (this was despite my efforts to convince her not to). We had a brief fling in university which didn't last... she was cheating on her then partner and it was too complicated. Around three years later I left my partner and my now ex, sprung up again wanting to give it another shot... she was again cheating on her current partner, although this time, she left him to be with me. As you're probably already thinking, trust was a huge issue, in fact, such an issue that I simply couldn't trust her at all... it was impossible and heartbreaking because I grew to love her very much. I don't believe she ever cheated on me but not having that assured peace of mind just made everything so uncomfortable. Anyway, fast forward to post breakup. The girl that seemed to love and adore me went from wanting to spend the rest of her life with me to wanting to be friends seemingly overnight. I know that she did it because she couldn't bare to see me so miserable over not being able to trust her and I'm sure she had had enough of accusations and distrust. The last six weeks has been a roller-coaster of emotions. I've been despairing for most of it because I know that the only issue we had was trust... I loved her, we were close friends, we got on and ultimately we were in many ways so compatible (or is this just me rose tinting as we so often do post break up?) We've gone from talking most days on the phone to meeting up to go to the cinema (trying to pretend we can do the friends thing) to ending up cuddling for the day after she'd gone out and got so drunk that she was ill for the entire day and needed me to look after her. She'll then suddenly cut contact for a week and only get in touch if she needs something, a perfect example is today she's contacted me, after nearly a week of no contact to ask for help with paperwork (I used to handle all that stuff when we were together). My main problem is that she seems to be able to handle the whole 'friends' thing far better than I can. I'm in pieces for days after because I depserately love her but she seems able to drop in and out when it suits her. She says she struggles too, maybe she's just stronger than me and can hide her emotions? maybe she gets strength from my weakness when I break down and call her while I'm upset? I'm hopelessly confused, she left me, she wanted it over and yet she also still wants to be friends, meet up on the odd occasion and hang out. Because I still love her, I don't feel I can do that so easily but she seems fine with it. Does that mean she's passed our breakup and able to maintain that kind of contact? Anyway, that's probably enough questions... any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.. thank you all in advance
jchips Posted August 10, 2011 Posted August 10, 2011 hi stretch. wow, i really feel for you. it's tough, isn't it? it sounds like this whole being friends thing is tearing you up. it's no fun being jilted and then called on a whim to be with her for whatever she needs at the moment with no reciprocity. it's not fair to you, stretch and it's just making it hurt all the more. i'm not a huge fan on nc but for me, it has protected me from feeling jerked around and getting hurt further. and it's helping me regain my self-respect. i deserve better & so do you, stretch. you might seriously think about what continuing your contact with her is doing to you and consider nc so you can begin to heal. stretch, it's hard to do, i'd be the first to admit it but your heart just keeps getting broken every time you hang out with her. love yourself first and stop letting her hurt you. I'd go nc and i'd start hanging with my friends as much as possible to get her out of my system. good luck, stretch.
Author stretch Posted August 10, 2011 Author Posted August 10, 2011 Hi Jchips, Thank you for your reply, it's been really helpful. Everything you say makes perfect sense and I know deep down it's what I need to do for myself. It's really tough to go NC but I know that it's the only course of action that's going to help me get over this and move on. I've never been so affected by a breakup so much as this in my life, in fact, usually I just get on with things but this has been tough. I really commend you on your strength in going no contact and you're right, we do deserve better! It sounds like you've regained so much from taking the decision to go NC and that inspires me to do the same despite it feeling so depserately hard. Thanks again for your kind words
olivec Posted August 10, 2011 Posted August 10, 2011 Hi everyone, this is my first post... I think I need the guidance of those a little more seasoned on here. My ex girlfriend and I broke up nearly six weeks ago. She'd tried for six years to be with me and said that from day one I was the love of her life. I really and truly believe her too, she gave up a career to be close to me, her home, everything (this was despite my efforts to convince her not to). We had a brief fling in university which didn't last... she was cheating on her then partner and it was too complicated. Around three years later I left my partner and my now ex, sprung up again wanting to give it another shot... she was again cheating on her current partner, although this time, she left him to be with me. As you're probably already thinking, trust was a huge issue, in fact, such an issue that I simply couldn't trust her at all... it was impossible and heartbreaking because I grew to love her very much. I don't believe she ever cheated on me but not having that assured peace of mind just made everything so uncomfortable. Anyway, fast forward to post breakup. The girl that seemed to love and adore me went from wanting to spend the rest of her life with me to wanting to be friends seemingly overnight. I know that she did it because she couldn't bare to see me so miserable over not being able to trust her and I'm sure she had had enough of accusations and distrust. The last six weeks has been a roller-coaster of emotions. I've been despairing for most of it because I know that the only issue we had was trust... I loved her, we were close friends, we got on and ultimately we were in many ways so compatible (or is this just me rose tinting as we so often do post break up?) We've gone from talking most days on the phone to meeting up to go to the cinema (trying to pretend we can do the friends thing) to ending up cuddling for the day after she'd gone out and got so drunk that she was ill for the entire day and needed me to look after her. She'll then suddenly cut contact for a week and only get in touch if she needs something, a perfect example is today she's contacted me, after nearly a week of no contact to ask for help with paperwork (I used to handle all that stuff when we were together). My main problem is that she seems to be able to handle the whole 'friends' thing far better than I can. I'm in pieces for days after because I depserately love her but she seems able to drop in and out when it suits her. She says she struggles too, maybe she's just stronger than me and can hide her emotions? maybe she gets strength from my weakness when I break down and call her while I'm upset? I'm hopelessly confused, she left me, she wanted it over and yet she also still wants to be friends, meet up on the odd occasion and hang out. Because I still love her, I don't feel I can do that so easily but she seems fine with it. Does that mean she's passed our breakup and able to maintain that kind of contact? Anyway, that's probably enough questions... any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.. thank you all in advance I'm sorry man and I know how you feel. My ex after the break up was still contacting me even though she was the one who wanted the relationship to be over. So like a fool I continued to contact her after the breakup and got sucked in royaly and ultimately felt more used and betrayed. Ultimately you must do NC right now! Thats the only way to move forward and heal!
Author stretch Posted August 11, 2011 Author Posted August 11, 2011 Hi Olivec, Everything you say is true. No Contact is the only way to heal. I find myself at times feeling so strong and at other times the weakest I've ever been. It's thoseweak moments where no contact becomes so, so hard. My stomach ties up in knots, the pain is unbearable and I break. I know that every single time I break no contact I'm simply undoing all the painful, hard work I've put in. Any suggesions for getting through those tough moments and avoiding contacting the ex? Thank you for your response.
lymtal1 Posted August 11, 2011 Posted August 11, 2011 Stretch, I wish I had some magic pill for you me and everyone else that is in the N/C situation. It just does not exist. I can relate as I have been N/C going on two weeks and it has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. After the first week I wanted to contact her so bad but did not as I kinda stepped back from myself and asked the hard questions. When I was in contact after the breakup how did I feel? The reality was although you think you feel better deep down you know you don't. You don't because what you had before is gone and what you are doing now is trying to keep something going that might be or is at this point in time gone. And your brain knows this but your heart does not. As I have learned from the many posts I have read on here from so many experienced folks, it will make you heal but it is painful. I know more pain. So what I have been doing when I want to contact is one very specific thing. It has worked for me. I have a really great friend who has gone through this and I am using him as my sounding-board. When I want to contact he made me promise that I would call him and he would talk me out of it. It has worked in every instance. Sometimes we need a voice of reason as my reasons were, well not too good. He made me think about how each time I might do it, my clock would restart and my pain would never lessen. And that is all I am looking for right now is just less pain as I know that it will take some time for the pain to really go away. I have no time table on it just know that rationally I want it to be less. Not sure if you have that person, if not post on here and ask the great folks to talk you down, they will be glad to help. I am with ya on this and wish you the very best in working through it.
olivec Posted August 13, 2011 Posted August 13, 2011 Hi Olivec, Everything you say is true. No Contact is the only way to heal. I find myself at times feeling so strong and at other times the weakest I've ever been. It's thoseweak moments where no contact becomes so, so hard. My stomach ties up in knots, the pain is unbearable and I break. I know that every single time I break no contact I'm simply undoing all the painful, hard work I've put in. Any suggesions for getting through those tough moments and avoiding contacting the ex? Thank you for your response. like others have said theres no real way to make the pain go away any quicker. My ex broke up with me in April and its taken me this long to finally feel whole again. I know you probably dont wanna hear that but it takes along time. It always does when you care about someone. And the reason why its soo hard to go nc is because you wanna believe the relationship can be saved or fixed. I thought the same way to and made the mistake of continuing to contact my ex at first. But after the last few times I realised she was never coming back and i never got the response from my ex i had wanted and i always felt more hurt afterwards. And while I said things like "i still care about you", and "i want to work things out". She said theres too much "weird vibes between us now", and its in the past now". So she was essentially telling me its not gunna happen ever again and shes moved on for good. I knew afterthat last conversation i had to move on with my life and go nc forever and eventually find the right person for me and take everything that i learned from this situation. And I to find this last relationship harder than my last few mainly because I had such high hopes and i'm at the point that i want something real and no games. I still take things one day at a time but i'm in a much better place now and you'll get there to man. Keep the faith!
Author stretch Posted August 23, 2011 Author Posted August 23, 2011 thanks lymtac1 and olivec... well as if things couldn't get any more confusing my ex turned up last night to bring me a birthday card and present. she's remained in contact with me since the breakup despite periods of NC telling me that we 'probably' won't get back together. I've been on holiday for a week and I'm guessing she was insecue that I'd go off with someone else, In fact, she said last night that her stomach literally flipped at the thought of me doing that. She said that she hopes we can sort things out but that she needs time to believe things have really changed. She says she still loves me, she's even cuddling and kissing me but still won't put things back. On the one hand I really want to prove that things have changed but I'm really scared that I keep myself in this limbo state while doing so. She holds all the cards and may well use this time to just ease herself off me. She did say that it hurts more now than when we broke up two months ago, that she misses me, loves me and wants to spend time with me but she still can't put things back right now. I really don't know what to do, I feel like I might be delaying the pain for further down the line. I've suffered so much the past two months that the idea of having to prolong the pain just seems unbearable, but what if things might work out? I'm so confused about it all. I ask her to give me some clarity and she says that she wants to remain friends, see how things go, try and build the relationship back up and hopefully give it another go but I really don't know. Am I being a fool here? Thank you in advance
EgoJoe Posted August 23, 2011 Posted August 23, 2011 She does not hold all of the cards. You and your love are a prize. Stop being available and start healing. Then start reading. Start here: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t293260/
Author stretch Posted August 23, 2011 Author Posted August 23, 2011 thank you egojoe... I read all the articles there and they have been very helpful. I will start to apply them now!
Nsweet Posted August 23, 2011 Posted August 23, 2011 For starters you are going to need to go NC for long enough to allow your feelings to heal and reconsider wether of not you believe logically that your relationship can survive. During this time she may try to reach out to you out of desperation or anger that you won't contact her, which is usual so just stay the course.Later on she will most likely contact you to check up on your whereabouts. Then finally when she has calmed down she accept the NC and and be easier to talk to. Your distrust of her is very understandable, but you need to reconsider whether or not she will stay faithful which requires more on her part to change than anything you could ever do. When and if she decides to stay monogamous depends completely on her integrity and moral character.
Author stretch Posted August 23, 2011 Author Posted August 23, 2011 thank you nsweet, I know that NC is probably the way forward here but I constantly cave in, especially when she tells me she still loves me and misses me etc. The thought of it alone takes me into absolute dispair to the point I feel i'm losing my mind. I'm reading all the threads on NC and there are many people in the same boat but I really struggle with finding the strength to maintain NC. I feel so damaged by it all and so confused about whether or not she wants to put things right. I'm sure at some point I'll find the strength to do this properly, I just wish I could find it now!! What's worse, I seem to constantly focus on all the good, I can't find a bloody shred of negativity other than how we got together (her cheating on her current boyfriends etc) but I put that down to youth and immaturity and so I don't even have that to give me some fuel to drive the NC. All the other negative elements of the relationship, I blame myself for, I seem to be self loathing at the moment and blame myself for the whole breakdown. I can hear everyone telling me that that in itself is a good thing because it means it was a lesson to improve future relationships but I can't even see future relationships right now, it hurts too much to even consider it. I really don't know how to deal with this at all. Sorry for the long rant
Eddie Edirol Posted August 23, 2011 Posted August 23, 2011 Stretch, she isnt giving you mixed signals. To her, she still enjoys your platonic friendship, but isnt romantically attracted to you anymore...because she is seeing someone else. Dont believe anything she says, she wont tell you shes dating because she doesnt want you to cut her off. Maybe the new guy she is after doesnt value her as a girlfriend, only wants her for sex, and she is trying to get a relationship out of him. Which is why she wants to be friends with you so she can have some platonic attention. So cut her off, forget about her. She wants something, but it aint you. Never talk to her again, she is really damaged.
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