No contact success

[steveT95]

Hi,

 

Could anyone with a successful no contact experience please post it here.

 

Successful meaning you got over your ex and moved on.

 

I have had doubts planted in my mind by the ex and need them removed.

 

Thanks.

[pruzhinki]

i've stick to NC for almost 2 months. i cant say im getting better, actually i feel worse sometimes. but im sure im getting close to the success of NC day by day.

[steveT95]

Thank you.

 

 

Anyone else with a story?

[AwptiK]

Eventually it'll get better and you'll either forget or just become numb to the past.

 

It's a simple truth that when you're not stimulating a feeling (ie: feeding your desires for someone with additional contact), that eventually the feeling will pass. I hope that makes sense, I've never put it into written word, but emotions simply require fuel to continue being there.

[TaraMaiden]

Thank you.

 

 

Anyone else with a story?

 

The problem with other peoples' stories is that - they belong to other people.

 

'Stories' is just about finding someone to tell you what you want to hear....

When something someone writes, resonates, it's all you can focus on, even if it's a lone voice among 99 others....

 

So, what's this 'doubt' you've had planted?

We can probably help better with that than through giving you 'stories'.

[Calcmag]

I'm quite a lot older than a lot of the posters here, which means that I've had several relationships that have been very serious and at the time they all felt like 'The One' and I thought I'd never get over them.

 

With the exception of the most recent one, which I'm struggling to get over even as the dumper, I have successfully moved on from all my past loves. I haven't forgotten any of them. The hurt they caused if they were the dumper has now pretty much been forgotten, and I can see the good times.

It's hard but the cliche is true - time does heal. It just takes a lot longer than we want it to, and the route is never an easy straight one.

 

Anyway, how does this tie up with NC? When I look back, the relationships that I healed quicker from were the ones where we went NC and stuck to it. Admittedly it used to be easier, before the net, before texting etc. But NC has proven over many years to be my tool of choice for successful healing.

[Am4Real]

Steve,

 

Tara summed it up well. Stories are mostly unique to the storyteller’s situation. This is largely due to the high degree of variables in anyone’s situations. Not only are the dumpees different, so are the dumpers. That in itself has FOUR different people with their personalities, morals, experiences, goals and so on, not to mention the length of the relationship, the commitment level, the toxicity (if it existed) and so on.

 

You see what Tara means?

 

Anyway, your question might be better poised in the doubtful way to asked and that is “can I really believe in NC”. The answer is absolutely!

 

NC and pain from a break up run hand in hand, most of us know that. However, they are also exclusive from each other in many ways. NC is a method to deal with thyself and the pain, while the pain is more affected by a clear head and time.

 

Back to Tara’s comments, we cannot address “time” for you because like the initial paragraph of this post, there are too many variables in everyone’s situation.

 

Hope this helps.

[Am4Real]

And to directly answer your question: yes, it's been successful every time for me. The amount of time has differed each occurrence.

 

I was "schooled" by one of the originals around here, CALIGUY, who much like Tara and others can help you better interpret the methodology and meaning (for you) of NO CONTACT.

[steveT95]

The problem with other peoples' stories is that - they belong to other people.

 

'Stories' is just about finding someone to tell you what you want to hear....

When something someone writes, resonates, it's all you can focus on, even if it's a lone voice among 99 others....

 

So, what's this 'doubt' you've had planted?

We can probably help better with that than through giving you 'stories'.

 

The doubt was planted by the culprit of all of this, the ex. I spoke to her on the phone last night to explain no contact to her and that I no longer wished to talk with her. She said it was a bad idea, that we should wean ourselves off each other because although no contact may feel like the right thing now or even for the next few weeks. A few months down the line I will start to miss her and won't be over her and she would have moved on. So I started questioning NC.

[Minneloa]

The doubt was planted by the culprit of all of this, the ex. I spoke to her on the phone last night to explain no contact to her and that I no longer wished to talk with her. She said it was a bad idea, that we should wean ourselves off each other because although no contact may feel like the right thing now or even for the next few weeks. A few months down the line I will start to miss her and won't be over her and she would have moved on. So I started questioning NC.

 

Hi Steve,

 

I know you are frazzled and upset. That said, can you see that your ex has her own motives for arguing against NC? From your previous posts, she seems very emotionally volatile and needy; she needs you as an emotional outlet and wants to keep you around as a cushion while she transitions out of the relationship. This is completely unfair to you and will prevent you from moving on.

 

Please, I urge you, don't let her manipulate you in this way. By your own account, talking to her makes you feel worse. Choose yourself here, Steve. You deserve to grieve, heal, and move forward.

 

M.

[steveT95]

Hi Minneloa,

 

I told her I wasn't on a lead anymore, I wasn't going to come running whenever she called. She left me, the fact that I was talking to her at all was me doing her a favour because I don't have to. I am putting myself first.

One of things that determined me even more was that one day she says she is saying how much she needs me and can't cope and the next she is been very cold and selfish.

And inbetween that I realised I shouldn't be holding her hand out of our relationship just until she meets someone else.

[TaraMaiden]

The doubt was planted by the culprit of all of this, the ex. I spoke to her on the phone last night to explain no contact to her and that I no longer wished to talk with her. She said it was a bad idea, that we should wean ourselves off each other because although no contact may feel like the right thing now or even for the next few weeks. A few months down the line I will start to miss her and won't be over her and she would have moved on. So I started questioning NC.

 

Oh boy, is she selfish or what?

Her motives for staying in Contact are really all for her benefit:

 

Dumpers keep in touch, or re-establish contact far, far FAR more often than not, because they want to see whether their dumped ex- is still thinking of them, and would like to be buddy-buddy now.

The reason Dumpers throw breadcrumbs is two-fold:

 

One: it boosts their ego, and makes them think "Oh, good, they still think of me then - I must be more important to them than I thought!"

 

And

 

Two: it relieves their guilt, because if you comply (for which your motives are entirely different) they believe you've moved on, are healed and are happy to be in the 'friend-zone' because obviously, if you hadn't replied/agreed to a coffee/ things would be different. But you have - so it lets them off the guilt hook. I mean, if you're willing to engage in small chat, you MUST be fine, mustn't you?

 

Their motive is testing the buddy-level water.

 

Yours is "OMG!! S/he wants me back?? Maybe?? I think I may be in with a second chance!!"

 

Heart goes into overdrive, head turns into mush.

 

Dumpers want this kind of contact because it makes it easier on them.

 

Another indication that she gives a schytt about what you want - it's what she thinks that's important.....

[steveT95]

I feel better today.

 

But worried, like she said, that because now I'm suppressing the feelings towards her that they will be back in a few months time and will be strong.

[TaraMaiden]

You're not supposed to suppress them.

You should be channelling what you feel towards making you more energised and putting you in a more positive frame of mind.

 

Honour those feelings.

Let them be, let them manifest and give yourself the right to feel this way.

But don't wallow.

And don't snowball.

[steveT95]

What's the best way to feel the feelings? I feel it building up inside but it is hard to let it out and by not doing so it is having a more negative affect.

[TaraMaiden]

I suspect it's because you are in fact snowballing.....

 

I'm sorry to duplicate this, but I've posted this in the past - and it seems to be something which comes up time and time again, so I actually copied/pasted it, and stored it as a word.doc:

 

I read something on the internet, that struck a chord....

 

Basically it said that when you're in true distress, the distress lasts for 12 minutes or so.

After that, it's self-inflicted.

A stack of people came back with arguments against this fact:

 

That drug addicts can take years to get over their pain, bereavement is permanent because someone is gone you can't replace them...

 

They were missing the point.

 

If a thought that provokes the pain comes into your head, that thought generates that pain for around 12 minutes at a time.

 

Any prolongation of that pain, is something you are psychologically inflicting upon yourself, by perpetuating that pain.

 

So the thing to do, is to not permit that pain to 'snowball.'

 

This is the problem with situations like this:

Those nursing a broken/healing heart, can't "just leave it there"....

They begin the snowballing... that is, they have the grain of an embryonic thought, and instead of leaving it, they begin to roll it DOWN the hill, accumulating more 'snow' as they go, turning this fleeting little notion into a great big story complete with chapter, verse, footnotes and date references....

 

The trick is to not start rolling the snowball.

Pick it up and throw it, and move on.

 

It takes time to 'get over' a relationship of any kind.

But in your healing process, learn to spot, to recognise, where the real 'pain' should stop, and where you begin with the self-inflicted 'pain'.

 

Pain is valid.

Emotions are valid.

They deserve to be honoured.

But if we self-inflict, we actually do those honourable feelings an injustice, because we coat them and embellish them with our own story, and blur the edges of their raw honesty.

 

 

The self inflicted pain begins when you begin to labour the point. When you diversify from the original thought and take that line of thinking into a completely new and unrelated zone.

you may THINK it's all related, but it's not.

 

For example: (totally invented and just to demonstrate....)

You suddenly remember that day the car ran out of petrol, and she jokingly accuses you of doing it on purpose, in order to get down to some naughty hanky-panky... it makes you smile, but you then remember where you were going, what your trip out was for, what she was wearing, other things she said....

 

Here it is again, with the original thought, and where the point starts getting laboured...

 

(1) You suddenly remember that day the car ran out of petrol, and she jokingly accuses you of doing it on purpose, in order to get down to some naughty hanky-panky... it makes you smile, [highlight]snowballing starts here[/highlight] (2) but you then remember where you were going, what your trip out was for, what she was wearing, other things she said....

 

See what happened there? You began the snowballing, adding, embellishing, expanding - and feeding your own pain.

 

Feel the feeling (1). Don't labour the point (2).

[AwptiK]

I'd like the above post a hundred times if I could. Saved to my desktop..

[Am4Real]

And here I sit atop a ski slope accompanied by two snowmen on each side of me....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is again, with the original thought, and where the point starts getting laboured...

 

(1) You suddenly remember that day the car ran out of petrol, and she jokingly accuses you of doing it on purpose, in order to get down to some naughty hanky-panky... it makes you smile, [highlight]snowballing starts here[/highlight] (2) but you then remember where you were going, what your trip out was for, what she was wearing, other things she said....

 

See what happened there? You began the snowballing, adding, embellishing, expanding - and feeding your own pain.

 

Feel the feeling (1). Don't labour the point (2).

[steveT95]

Okay, I kind of understand this but not entirely. If I have a thought, for example; celebrating her birthday (which has been on my mind a lot recently) I should try not to remember the little details?

 

Tara, if I could lock you in a cupboard with wifi access (so you can continue helping others) I would, just so I could have your advice on tap!!

[TaraMaiden]

I am currently sitting in a 'cupboard' (The room is 3.5 feet by 5...!) and there's barely room for the desk and chair, so we're half way there!

 

Okay, I kind of understand this but not entirely. If I have a thought, for example; celebrating her birthday (which has been on my mind a lot recently) I should try not to remember the little details?

 

Trying to not remember the details is like telling you to stop typing, and NOT think of a cat wearing a bow tie.

 

The trick is to not let these details become the focus of your sadness.

Breaking up with someone is like mourning the death of a close lost loved one.

You need to give yourself time to mourn, but don't let the mourning turn into wallowing.

 

Wistfully thinking on the past and knowing it was fun while it lasted, is one thing.

Sitting there and letting it 'snowball' into a "woe is me, will I ever be so happy again!?" is fruitless.....

 

I realise sometimes it's a fine line - but you have to become watchful of your thought processes, and stop your mind messing with you.....

[iouaname]

How do you suggest that you stop those thoughts?

[TaraMaiden]

[highlight]iouaname,[/highlight] You PM'd me.

In all honesty, for some reason it either didn't show up or as my PC/connection was playing up last night, (post #166) maybe I failed to notice it....

 

I will reply....

 

How do you suggest that you stop those thoughts?

 

I would never suggest you stop these thoughts; a brain can no more stop thinking than a shark can stop swimming....

 

 

What I suggest is that you pay attention to the thoughts and notice how they make you feel - and if they have a negative effect, deflect their effect by bringing yourself back to the Present Moment, breathing, and letting go.

[steveT95]

I'm going to start allowing myself half an hour a day to think about things and get upset about it, in order to let it out. But any other time will force myself not to think of it.

 

I think things that make me angry so I miss her less. Is that an okay thing to do?

 

For example: 'Selfish cock sucking slut, f*ck off'

[TaraMaiden]

Do you feel comfortable thinking in that way?

Does it make you feel better?

Do you feel it's a constructive solution?

 

"If it feels good, do it.

When in doubt? - Don't."

[steveT95]

Yeah, I feel it encourages me to move on. I only feel that about certain topics in the break up. Other factors in her life still make me very sad for her and still care for her and want to make it better. But I know I can't and that it is not what she wants. So highlighting the negatives helps enforce the fact that we have broken up and that is that.