I've dealt with this breakup so well, it's actually depressing!

[PennGuy]

Well, in just over a week it's been 3 months since I was dumped on my three year anniversary. Minus one ridiculous drunken phone call after my sister's wedding two weeks after the split, I have bowed out gracefully. I took my curtain call, said thank you, blew a kiss to the audience and watched as the stage lights went black.

 

Aside from sending her a text in early December, I've left her alone. I haven't done drive bys. I haven't called. I haven't e-mailed. I haven't asked friends about her. I haven't showed up our old place. I haven't gone to places hoping she would be there. I haven't drug her name through the dirt. I won't even let other people demean her. ( even though they are just trying to make me feel better.)

 

I've taken the path less traveled when it comes to dealing with exes. I've shed my tears, felt my anger, and lived through numbness and crippling anxiety, and yet I've respected her through all of this. I don't know how I've been able to do it. This is the most crushing heartbreak I've ever experienced and I'm coping with it better in regards to respect for the other person's feelings than I have in previous relationships.

 

It's depressing in a way to me. I feel defeated. I feel like a mouse and not a man. I disappeared from my own home the night of the breakup and ran back to Mom and Dad's and stayed there till I lined up my own digs. I was on that lease. I had just as much of a right to it as she did, but just to make her smile and make her life easier, I capitulated even though SHE was the one who never came home that night. SHE was the one who made out with an ex. I knew things were rocky between us, but she could've at least respected our commitment. I got cheated on and dumped on my three year anniversary and I handled that day pretty well, all things considered.

 

I've given her all the respect I can muster and I haven't even received one breadcrumb in return. Even the girl that used me as a rebound checked in every now and again to "backburner" me, and that was only a three month deal. It's not that I am expecting her to contact me, I know she won't. I don't know if it's because she is glad to be free of me or if she is trying to respect my feelings also. I feel like it's the former, but I can't be sure.

 

I've read through all of Frederikkk's crap. I am the opposite of him. I've let it all fade to black. I'm just this storm of sadness and regret and anger, yet I somehow stand tall and spare her from my wake.

 

"I don't recognize myself. I'm not the man you loved. Behold the hurricane." ----The Horrible Crowes.

Edited January 5, 2013 by PennGuy

[MyAngel]

Sometimes it's best to take the high road like you've chosen.

 

Don't feel weak - everything you've mentioned shows nothing but dignity and strength to me.

[cavalier99]

Glad to see you holding strong. I'm also at 3 months and have maintained NC. She sent me one super nice email for my b-day a couple of weeks a go that didn't help. I didn't respond of course.

 

I think this is sort of a tough point to be at. I don't feel like I'm really progressing. I even cried a few days ago out of the blue for the first time since mid Nov. It weird i was going so strong now i feel like I'm in some sort of weird holding pattern that i cant seem to shake.

 

I guess we just need to keep on going and let time pass. I personally think i need to start some more activities. I'm pretty sure it could be like this for a while. Not really suffering a ton but at the same time sorta in a funk. Just wish i could get to indifference and I'm sure you do too. Hang strong

 

I have faith if we keep on going along doing the right things the clouds will eventually lift. Cavalier

[KS11]

Mate, as much as i can understand you feeling 'a storm of sadness,regret and anger', you have absolutely no reason to feel defeated. It seems like you've shown tremendous amounts of inner strength and more than that maintained your dignity, things that many of us here, myself included can only wish for!

[drpepper1886]

I know exactly what you're going through. It's been 3 months for me from a 3 year LTR as well and I bowed out and started no contact immediately taking her word that she needed to be alone to find herself. I've done the cycle of crying, anger, forgiveness, love and back and forth again.

 

I've started working out and picked up a handful of other hobbies and picked up the slack at work. I'm doing everything that everyone tells me is the right thing to do. But yet I sit here still feeling as if there is still little progress being made on some days.

 

It comes down to just being patient with yourself. There is no time frame and I think taking the road less traveled does make it a bit more difficult because we haven't completely burned/blown up/nuked every bridge possible that would prevent any sort of contact. We were strong and respectful even though we may not have been respected. We are the ones who will look back and see that the extra time we spent moving on was worth it.

Edited January 5, 2013 by drpepper1886

[NoMoreJerks]

OP, I totally understand where you're coming from -- this time around (2nd break-up with my ex), I have felt almost the same way. I've cried, etc., but only after the fact, and I accepted the dumping gracefully and said my goodbyes to him.. didn't even fight it. I think it's really a sign of being emotionally drained... I know I was , and could no longer fight it. I had fought so hard in the past 6 months, to keep this relationship going, put in 10 times the effort anyone would put in a normal relationship, and did ALL the work to keep us together, when in fact he really wanted out (except for the sex and occasional companionship) the whole time.. so I just knew I could no longer do this to myself, didn't have the energy to do it, even if I had wanted to fight it.. I really can't do it anymore.. not with him anyway.. (or date anyone else, for a long time to come).

 

Being in a relationship with a narcissist really mindf*cked me and exhausted me to no end.

 

I don't know your story in detail, but maybe you were just too emotionally drained to fight it. And anyway, in retrospect, I should've done this from the very start, when he dumped me the first time around. Well, I sorta did (I didn't contact him until he contacted me a week later), but not to the extent that I did this time around.. Live and learn, I guess. When they tell you that they no longer have feelings for you (or that they never had any feelings for you), you just gotta accept it and let go. Easier said than done, but when you're as exhausted as I was, you would let go too, even if your heart is screaming at you and telling you not to let go.. I had to let my brain win this round.. otherwise I would've gone KO.

[PennGuy]

NoMoreJerks,

 

She had checked out at some point late spring/early summer last year. I started putting in the all the extra effort and trying to fix things. I could tell that she wasn't going to put her money where her mouth was, but I kept trying anyways.

 

By the end I was tapped out. I couldn't get her to do anything with me anymore....we barely had sex anymore...

 

I think you are right. We threw in the towel. I had nothing left to give.

[drpepper1886]

PennGuy

 

Exact same situation as me. She graduated in June and come July she was having trouble finding a job. She assumed she would just hop in to her dream job and then became depressed. I gave her space and tried to help as much as I could when asked. I did everything in my power to make it work. Sex died out, time with her died out. Then she said we had lost our passion. She lost it. Not me. I've come to realize that some people are just unable to give, as much as they try to force themselves, they just can't. There is some lesson they need to learn first and they can only learn it on their own.

 

It was tiring, and it still is too tiring.

[frederickkk]

Considering I spent every single evening with her. sex every single night. she goes off on holiday for 6 weeks. comes back. wants to move on. more sex.

 

i wasn't going to shy away from the situation.

 

I admire the path you've taken, but if I had taken that path, I wouldn't had had a chance at reconciliation. I never got the ultimate closure.

 

She is telling others to tell me to move on. Yet when I speak to her in person, it was clear she had deep feelings for me.

 

I fought it.

[cannonball1]

i think what you have done is great. im at 3 months and my boyfriend of 5 years left me for another girl. he lied at first obviously. but when he broke up with me i just knew there was no fight left, although i wanted to beg i didnt i said ok thats fine and left him. i did the whole no contact. all i got from that was him getting intouch with me with regret and love. however took that right back. i then went to see him a couple of times and im now kicking myself that i didnt stick to it and act like you the whole way through. im back to no contact and letting him be. and i think its the best way. i think the only reason he got back intouch was because he didnt expect me to walk away. and i only wish i blanked and could say like you now that theres been no contact for 3 months. ive spared him and his feelings and i know what its like to be why am i still being nice about this person. but honestly walking away with your head held hight is the best way.