melenkurion Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 It's coming up to a year since my breakup. It'll be one year in about three weeks or so. The tale of woe is here. Not that the details really matter than much, it's very familiar stuff to all of us. I'm definitely getting there, but this last year has without question been the hardest of my life. I have learned a lot about myself, I know a lot about my flaws. I think I have learned something about my strengths as well. If I am honest, the sign that this has hurt me so badly is at least in part a sign that all wasn't well with me before the relationship even began. I think I have learned something. There's a lot of bad behaviour I put up with, and I allowed it to happen. We teach people how to treat us. It's an obvious point, but it has taken me a long, long time to learn the lesson in a very painful way. I still feel sad, about something. I think I had my heart set on a certain future that I felt that we were making progress towards achieving. Now, I haven't quite worked out what I want out of life. I still feel occasional sadness for that illusion of the picture perfect marriage that I convinced myself we had. There is a significant portion of my sadness that comes from embarrassment! I'm very much up and down, and most of the time the ups and downs have nothing much to do with my old life. I had a relapse of letting my "old stuff" get to me last night, and I feel very blue today. Probably because my birthday is coming up in a couple of days, closely followed by the one year since my ex left me. I go to counselling. My counsellor thinks I am pretty much OK these days. She tells me that the emotional ups and downs that I find so confusing are in part because since the breakup I am finally allowing myself to experience my emotions fully, without shutting them down. She says that since I no longer have this illusion of a "perfect relationship" that experiencing messy emotions threatens to unravel, I am letting myself feel things. At times I miss the repression All this stuff is confusing to me. I was hoping that after a year I would have reached zen-like calm and be in communion with the multiverse. There's still a few weeks for transenlightenment to take place, I suppose. Maybe I am more realistic place about things these days. I certainly don't think (as I used to) "if only I had a special somebody, life would be complete". That's progress. Am I stuck? I still think about my ex, far too often. I don't want him back, nothing like that. But sometimes my old life intrudes into my thoughts, and I get sad for whatever it is that I think I have lost.
smudge21 Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 I believe your post just summed up what most of us are going through. Thanks for sharing and I hope... no, I know things will get better. "I don't want him back" - I think that line is often a milestone for so many, when we just don't want the ex back at all. We still remember them and have feelings, but it's a memory of someone from the past and often the ex is no longer that same person. I still do want my ex back (not been as long as you yet, so not fully healed) yet I know she's not the same person she was when I met - she's no longer the person I fell in love with. On the outside yeah, but she's changed so much inside - not in a nasty way, but in such a way that if we'd met now, I wouldn't have fallen for her. I doubt I'd even be friends with her. Yet that said, I still feel so strongly for her and it's simply the fact that I'm remembering a past version of her and clinging on to that. It's not her I want, it's who she used to be. I wish you well in your continuuing journey... good luck.
Author melenkurion Posted September 5, 2011 Author Posted September 5, 2011 It's not her I want, it's who she used to be. It was suggested to me that because I was maybe not the healthiest person in the world when I fell for my ex, that a certain amount of positive projection went on. Positive projection (as I understand it) is when you project an image of the qualities you admire in yourself onto another person. You see them as an aspect of yourself, and so are drawn to them. In my case it wasn't real, he wasn't what I had made him out to be in my mind. That's not his fault. That may have helped me get to the "I don't want him back" place relatively early (after about two months). I realised that in some ways I had fallen in love with my own perfect creation, rather than a flawed human being. It wasn't that he had changed, as such, he never was quite what I had thought he was. My counsellor has said she wishes she could might that idealised version of my ex that I created --- he sounds perfect. In your case that might not apply: as I say, I wasn't the healthiest person in the world back then.
smudge21 Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 I like what you said and I agree with it. Not so much when I was with her, but definitely now we've been apart most of the year. I guess like everyone, I have a vision of the perfect partner and therefore everytime I've done that thing of acting out what to say or do if I see her, I've been projecting that vision on to her. Ignoring the obvious negatives and only focusing on the good points and what I want her to say. I think we all do that in some way too. The whole putting the ex on a pedestal and looking at them with rose-tinted glasses on, that kind of thing. I remember when I first came here a line I read summed it up for me perfectly: "I don't miss her, I miss the person I thought she was..". I do remember a previous ex who I thought turned into a real nasty person, but once that fog of emotion had cleared I realised she hadn't changed at all. She'd always been that way, only showing a nice side when she was interested in me. That ended yet my mind kept that image of her alive... but in reality that person never existed. Thanks for sharing that... appreciated.
M2155 Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Your second paragraph is something I'm starting to realize! I posted yesterday. When it turns introspective, that has been even just as hard and painful to deal with, but one day we will see that it was neccessary to move on. Like you said, we realize it would not have worked the way we wanted because we have a little more work to do on ourselves. We all come to this point at different times. Preparation from something better!!
Author melenkurion Posted September 5, 2011 Author Posted September 5, 2011 When it turns introspective, that has been even just as hard and painful to deal with, but one day we will see that it was neccessary to move on. Like you said, we realize it would not have worked the way we wanted because we have a little more work to do on ourselves. We all come to this point at different times. Preparation from something better!! Yes. I don't think I was ever too bad, but I had some issues with codependency. I still do, to a lesser extent. I do take my share of the blame for the relationship failing. I let warm fuzzies blind me into choosing someone not that well suited to me in the first place. I also allowed certain behaviours to persist that showed a lack of respect towards me. Those should have been a red flag, and I hope from now on they are.
Author melenkurion Posted September 5, 2011 Author Posted September 5, 2011 I do remember a previous ex who I thought turned into a real nasty person, but once that fog of emotion had cleared I realised she hadn't changed at all. She'd always been that way, only showing a nice side when she was interested in me. That ended yet my mind kept that image of her alive... but in reality that person never existed. Thanks for sharing that... appreciated. I feel a little like that with my current ex. He's not as bad in reality as he is in my head (there was a long way to fall from that pedestal), but his mode of interaction with almost everyone is haughty sarcasm. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even choose someone like that as a friend. There's nothing wrong with people who do that, it's just not a mode of interaction that works well with me. Initially he didn't use the sarcasm when talking to me, but gradually it did creep in, over the years. I really ought to have worked out that the way he talked to everyone else was the way he would end up talking to me.
M2155 Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 I am experincing 100% of this statement too There's a lot of bad behaviour I put up with, and I allowed it to happen. We teach people how to treat us. It's an obvious point, but it has taken me a long, long time to learn the lesson in a very painful way. This is why I think my ex won't come back around. I didn't act like I deserved to be treated better than he did. Ultimately no man wants to be with a woman that let's him get away with slack.
Author melenkurion Posted September 6, 2011 Author Posted September 6, 2011 Ultimately no man wants to be with a woman that let's him get away with slack. Mind you, the important thing is you shouldn't let him get away with slack for your own well-being, not to keep a guy (who doesn't sound like he is worth it). You are worthy of respect.
M2155 Posted September 6, 2011 Posted September 6, 2011 Absolutely:cool: It's part of the realization. Don't give more than you are getting in return.
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