How I Said Goodbye

[metal_chick]

Leigh. Time for a reality check.

 

Try to shut your internal nonstop chatter and maybe you'll hear this:

 

You know all the things people say about your former relationship that you get so indignant and enraged about?

 

Where do you think that ALL these people got these ideas from?

 

FROM YOUR WORDS. YOUR POSTS.

 

This is the picture you've given us. And the more you post, the more unlikely it sounds that your relationship was really the way you keep desperately, desperately trying to convince this world of strangers that it was.

 

You haven't described a real relationship. That's why everybody doubts.

 

Why can't I like a post multiple times?!

[Leigh 87]

What's your point though?

 

We lived together.

 

We had sex.

 

He adored me as a person. He ACTED like he was crazy about me on a daily basis.

 

He saw his mates once a week to play poker, talk ****t and drink.

 

We had hopes, dreams and friends we quiet liked to spend tim with, but we were each others favorite person to be around.

 

We were undoubtedly there to support each other.

 

When he fell ill or had long day I am all he thought about pretty much.

 

........

 

So how is this not a relationship?

 

We were bf and gf.

 

We both considered our love to be a very strong degree of love.

 

I doubt we will easily find other people that will make either one of us think ' wow what I felt for Leigh 87 was nothing close to this Propper love that I have now realised'

 

I just don't think what we had wasn't real.

 

We will learn to love more, sure... we will know more about ourselves and find a better fit.

 

I don't think the intensity or degree of love we felt wasn't propper, half baked or nothing close to the strongest type of love.

 

My instinct, my gut feeling dictates that we had a pretty strong love that will not just ' easily' found again or surpassed by much.

 

I will go on to be able to experience deeper love, yet I will never look back and view my love for my ex as sooooo weak and insignificant.

 

........

 

We had a very close and ful on relationship. Our lives were all about each other, and we based all our life decisions on how the other person would feel.

 

.....

 

Toxic, yes. We were. The relationship was.

 

Lacking love?

 

Hell no.

 

Love is why we stayed. ... we saw things weren't right yet couldn't just leave... because we loved each other.

[Leigh 87]

We stayed in an unhealthy relationship because we really liked being around each other, we had a lot of fun, we could make each other laugh so much every day and we both felt so much love ( both from each other and towards each other)

 

I could see that the issues within me caused way too much drama.

 

I could see that he was too immature to handle and process real love ( but could definitely feel it)

 

We both knew and verbally expressed to each othed how the R wouldn't work, unless significant changes took place.

 

We both knew.

 

...........

 

 

I want to work on myself and I want to really get a feel of what the next dude is like, one day.

 

I want to fall in love with a man who can handle it better.

 

I want to be in the place to handle love myself too.

[dreamingoftigers]

They were. I left before. He begged for another chance. He didn't blow it again with the hookers' but he did something even worse: he sought validation from HUNDREDS of girls online. HUNDREDS.

 

It was never physical, but man.. I should have just left, worked on my own life with therapy and etc, and I am fairly certain that he would have gotten help in order to be with me again.

 

Good riddens though! He can be the next girls problem.

 

I hacked his accounts and saw everything. It was disgusting.

 

He even went into a LESBIAN chat site, and used MY pictures!!!! He pretended to be a woman so that the women would send HIM sexy pictures! !!!!!!!

 

I let it slide because I believed that he is seriously messed up. He used primarily hookers for sex before me, despite being good looking.

 

More disturbingly, he had only ever had sex with ONE woman who he ever bad actual feelings for...............

 

Then his mum died jusy before we met. They were extremely close. She did everything for him.

 

I stayed because I really believed that he was in love with me in the best way that he knew HOW to love.

He did treat me very well on an everyday basi. He is a very independent dude who likes his space and normally leaves girls who demand a lot of his time.

 

In writing what he did is absolutely inexcusable. It is how he treated me on a daily basis that made me so happy.

And insofar as intimacy and his desire to please a women because he enjoyed watching HER pleasure, he only had eyes for me. I totally trusted him the times he went out. He never bad eyes for other women; yet he has the ability to use a girl as a human sex toy, devoid of any emotion.

 

It was a very different place for me to be in.... I'm not silly. I don't get into relationships with men who DO NOT adore me and make it known that they want to be with me more than anyone else.

 

I did feel genuine love from him, and I do not think he will just EASILY find a woman where be thinks '' geez, now that I'm with her, I realize that I only did that crapp to Leigh 87 coz I was not all that in love with her''

That's why I stayed. I would not have stayed witb a man who I felt did all those things cos he just didn't love me much, and would suddenly change for a woman who really knocked his socks off.

 

I couldn't change my drama and personal issues for him in the end, nor did he change for me. Be stopped tbe the physical cheating yet be needed the thrill of talking to ' new ' girls online.

 

I still only think it's cos we did not love each other enough...... and I don't put up with people online thay tell me he only behaved in such a way cos he just had not found a woman that he crazy enough about.

 

Look, the important thing is: it doesn't matter how he feels about me!!!!

 

It doesn't matter whethef I was the love of his life or just a woman he used for sex.

 

ALL that matters is that the relationship didn't work. I now need to forget he exists and move on.

 

 

 

Ugh. I couldn't read all of this post.

 

Ugh.

 

Do you remember one time long ago I posted up about some of the dumb crap my husband did and you asked me how I could've married someone that turned into such a monster?

 

Well, there you go. Deep-seated intimacy and respect issues.

He behaved similarly to the ways my husband behaved.

 

And yes, my husband could also make me feel like a zillion dollars. When he was trying. But it was beyond a mind-fu*k Leigh. Way beyond that.

 

I don't recall reading about cheating with hookers and online garbage.

 

But I wasn't on here full-time either.( No, really I wasn't!)

 

Leigh, you loved him and wanted him to be what he wasn't. In a little bit you'll see just how far he was from what you thought.

 

You should've chewed him out and dropped him a long time ago. But I get why you didn't. It's hard. I know.

 

After what he put you through, I understand why you have trouble understanding how a guy could be monogamous and how your self-worth must be up-and-down and trying to figure out exactly why you accepted that for so long.

 

This relationship will be harder to grieve, not just because you cared about him so much, but because you'll have so much trouble reconciling how he could seemingly be two totally different people. The one so taken and in love with you, and the sexual demons eating away at him where he takes you for granted and is irritated by the emotional backlash of all of that.

 

My husband, too, remained far more focused on my issues, including long-dead ones than on taking responsibility for his. Andrew will probably wake up months or years later and really smack himself if he hasn't completely worn away the pleasure center of his brain.

 

I know it hurts so much. Being a partner to someone who so blantantly cruises for ass is very very hard to understand and then even harder to accept the explanation once you have it.

 

It's harder to find a decent man that isn't hooked on all of this internet garbage where they can feel admired by dozens of girls at the click of a button. Where they can feel smarter and sexier than they actually are.

 

Somewhat of a sample: it talks about porn, but it really applies the same principle to the hookup sites too. Plus, (you'll have to trust me here) that guys that get hooked often extend into real-life encounters, even just for the new or shock-value. While others just keep going until they can't function.

 

 

I'm sorry Leigh. It'll take awhile to find your footing. I'm not surprised you want some NSA sex.

[Leigh 87]

I just don't see it as one of those scenarios where a guy "treats one girl he does not like very much badly, only to totally change the instant he meets a girl he is nuts about"

 

THAT is precisely why I stayed. I did not feel, in my GUT, that he would just walk away from Leigh 87 and be like " wow this new girl really blows me away, I am never ever going to revert back into my old selfish ways AGAIN. EVER"

 

I read his journal. He seldom writes, he is a terrible speller, yet I managed to decipher it. It is not the words of a man who will just throw ME away, only to suddenly change his deep seated issues THE INSTANT he meets a new girl.

 

I have my own issues, which is also why I tolerated his.

 

....................................

 

In the start I thought it was no big deal, as I truly believe that not all men who are truly in love, LACK the capacity to do what he did.

 

After it was too late, I realised I deserved a guy who did not have his issue, yet I loved him TOO MUCH to leave at hat stage:(

 

I mean REALLY leave; unlike the first time when he promised that he would do anything for me:mad:

 

I mean to his credit, he went from multiple hookers a year, to just two in over 2 years with me. He abstained and even wrote in his journal that " he stopped the last year we were together and he did not find it hard at all"

 

OH well, the physical might have been easy enough to stop once he met me after a while; the need for girls to tell him he has a big d*ck and how hot he is never dissipated.

 

Sad really.

 

I mean, from where I stand now, it is actually laughable that he managed to "stop being physical" yet had to replace it with incessant talking to chicks online!

 

And yes it is VERY hard to reconcile the loving man who ADORED me, and SHOWED me DAILY, with the man who had to reach out to other women to get thrills.

 

I think he is highly immature and long term, LIFE TIME monogamy with NO sexting with other women, SCARES HIM.

 

....

 

 

I also trusted him when he went out in the end; I mean, in my gut, I never felt that he had it in him to kiss and be intimate with another girl insofar as wanting to please her in anyway.

 

And then I confirmed that he was trustworthy in that regard in his online journal, where he often commented "whenever I go out, I only think if Leigh 87 and not these other bitches. This love scares me. I never thought I wanted life long monogamy"

 

He also revealed:

 

' the thought of spending a lifetime with this one person is actually a very joyful feeling, rather than the death sentence I used to think life long partnership/monogamy was"

 

" yet I am scared that I feel this way. I feel too hard in now, I love her too much but I am not sure I am ready within myself"

 

..............

 

 

I hope for BOTH our sake, we get he help that we need, that will lead to better relationships for us the next time around.

[Leigh 87]

Before Andrew and before my anorexia (I was not sexually active during it)

 

I always just preferred casual fck buddies. You know, a really nice guy who was super attracted to me, made me feel wanted and enjoyed pleasing me; who I also was attracted to enough to want to please him.

 

I mean, I LOVE being sexual, and I hate the notion of waiting for the right guy, before relieving myself.

 

I love being sexually free to enjoy that aspect of life, as my values dictated that it is very important to me.

 

To me, enjoying food, looking after your health, being social, looking after your mental health AND SEX - are all of EQUAL priorities to me.

 

So yeah. I am looking for a casual hook up again.

 

I do not go demented and attached like some women do. I did once though, after a long period without sex about 4 years ago with a guy; I did not know how to handle myself since I had not had sex in SO long!

 

..........................

 

What I need now, is to just wait a couple of months, process the enormity of NC, feel a positive different within myself and THEN be open to sex with a casual buddy, lol.

 

The overseas partying holiday will be over the two month mark, and a little over a month of strict NC.

 

I cannot see WHY I would not be able to enjoy someone helping me get off and wanting me and vice versa.

 

In saying that though, I will not seek it out by any means lol.

[dreamingoftigers]

I just don't see it as one of those scenarios where a guy "treats one girl he does not like very much badly, only to totally change the instant he meets a girl he is nuts about"

 

THAT is precisely why I stayed. I did not feel, in my GUT, that he would just walk away from Leigh 87 and be like " wow this new girl really blows me away, I am never ever going to revert back into my old selfish ways AGAIN. EVER"

 

I read his journal. He seldom writes, he is a terrible speller, yet I managed to decipher it. It is not the words of a man who will just throw ME away, only to suddenly change his deep seated issues THE INSTANT he meets a new girl.

 

I have my own issues, which is also why I tolerated his.

 

....................................

 

In the start I thought it was no big deal, as I truly believe that not all men who are truly in love, LACK the capacity to do what he did.

 

After it was too late, I realised I deserved a guy who did not have his issue, yet I loved him TOO MUCH to leave at hat stage:(

 

I think that there is some truth to what you are saying. However, the dopamine that comes with the sexual fix actually inhibits the oxytocin-bonding hormone, that's a major contributor to love. And empathy and closeness. Guys that do this stuff literally dull-out the chemicals needed for love or empathy. So they often oscillate between hyper-arousal and fog and sometimes guilt/shame which needs to again be dulled with dopamine. Takes about 90 days (give or take) to get off of the dopamine-bus.

 

He might change for the next girl. But that may have a lot to so with not wanting to trainwreck another relationship after having dealt with the pain of loss, which is coming BTW. Don't wait for it!

 

He might be much more selective about when he chooses to bond with someone in the future. He might hold out for someone like you. It's at best a crap shoot.

 

Honestly, I am sure that he had plenty of feelings etc. for you, BUT in your twenties, who you are really surfaces and he might not have completely known his whole nature and how that would affect someone else.

 

Sounds like he needs the next girlfriend to cheat on him. Then he might "get it" a little.

[dreamingoftigers]

And Leigh, you need to be more in love with yourself than with the guy you are with, so that you don't accept any of this garbage.

[Leigh 87]

I see that we had the foundations of the deepest type of love. I really feel that.

 

I just do not think we had the capacity to love. It sounds like a strange notion, to have the ABILITY to with a given person, yet not be able to realise it.

 

I Just felt we had "it".

 

We are both very selective about partners. HOW ironic!?!?! He accepted a chick who had anorexia, no friends and was a total freak. I accepted a dude who banged hookers instead of bothering with regular chicks, who yelled ****e from the car window, and who I frankly, was not all that attracted to at first.

 

We didn't START OUT wanting to be together though, it just happened.

 

Even though we never let anyone else in due to us wanting to be single until someone REALLLLLLY compelled us to give up our fantasy of the single life and its abundant options.

..................................................

 

Long story short: neither of us want relationships. We want to enjoy being single until a very special person comes along.

 

I talk about love in a way that has been misleading; I LOVE being in love, it hit me like a ton of bricks times 100,000,000

I want it again, I am the type of women who loves being sexual and having a man who I am everything to, and vice versa.

I LOVED it.

I LOVED being in love, in my own way and as much as I could feel love, with a man who was the same.

 

I am NOT ever going to seek it out desperately or will it to happen ASAP lol.

I would like it to happen in my 20's, because I enjoy having a partner. But you know, I would MUCH RATHER WAIT for this rare sort of feeling about a person, than force it cos I get impatient.

[emmalynro]

"Long story short: neither of us want relationships. We want to enjoy being single until a very special person comes along."

 

I read this as "that's what he wants, so I'm convincing myself I don't want a relationship either". You've posted elsewhere about really wanting a guy for sex and hanging out, which by all accounts is some kind of relationship, so I don't think your statement above is true. And why are you bothering with the present tense? Or the word "us"? There is no "us". You're over.

 

I would also note that your special relationship was apparently not special enough for him to stop seeking the favors of prostitutes. Certainly it's possible to sleep with a prostitute and love someone else---many men are sex addicts---but by your own account that isn't the case; he only did it sporadically and didn't stop even when you asked. Which means he didn't care enough about you to stop.

 

I am usually a big believer in "whatever it takes to get you through the day". However, in your case I think someone needs to hammer it into you that HE DID NOT LOVE YOU because otherwise you're going to think behavior like this is acceptable and you'll endure it in another relationship that could be painful, abusive or worse. Do we hurt the ones we love? Yes, sure, and more often than we should. But a guy who won't commit to you in that most basic of ways, ignore your requests and expose you to very dangerous diseases (you have been tested, right?) has no respect for you, much less love. If he acts desperate to be with you it's because he knows no self-respecting woman will put up with his behavior.

 

The man who loves you will say "Leigh87, I love you so much I'll never sleep with prostitutes, which I don't do anyway because I'm a grown man who is capable of controlling his urges, but even if I did sleep with prostitutes, I would stop for you, because even if I find other ladies attractive you are the only one I will sleep with since that's what real men do." And he'll do it.

 

Do you think it's strange that no one here shared your view of events? Do you think it's odd that you have to make post after post convincing everyone how at peace you are and how much he loves you? Don't you think that would be unnecessary if it were true? I'm sure he cared for you in some way, but he was far too selfish to really love you. That's not trying to take anything away from you, that's trying to make you see just how damaging this was and that you deserve so much better.

 

Stand in front of a mirror. Look at yourself, even the parts you don't like, and say "I love myself and deserve to be loved." Say it again. And again. Say it fifty times a day until you begin to believe it. Don't post another word justifying his actions or defending his behavior; post about you. Talk about how YOU are, apart from him. Love being you. Love who you are.

 

And then you can finally find love for real.

[Leigh 87]

oh I know I deserve better.

 

Look, I have a viewpoint that a man can have meaningless sex with hookers and still be in love.

 

That is my view on men. I believe that there are men who are capable of feeling true love, yet see hookers.

 

I do not think that all men in love have an off switch that prevents them from ever wanting meaningless sex.

 

Sorry but that is just how I believe men are. Not all men in love act the same way.

 

In saying all of that - I DO NOT think I deserved what he gave me. At all.

 

I still think he loved me though, and I do not think he will EVER lose the ability to sleep with hookers.

 

That is my view on men and my ex. You won't convince me to change the way I view men.

 

The important thing is that I KNOW that MOST men who are in love, are mature enough and have enough strength of character to control their urges.

 

I don't agree with your point of view about men, love and hookers.

 

I DO agree that I most certainly deserve better.

[Leigh 87]

He lost respect for me because I let him live it out; my view.

 

Women with self respect don't tolerate this.

 

With me, I genuinely believe that even some men who are in love can still have the ability to have meaningless ex with a hooker.

 

Because I believe this, the mistake I made was letting him live this out.

 

I still believe that not all men in love lose the ability to do what he did to me.

 

It just makes them lose respect for you, as well as you losing it for yourself, since MOST men are not permitted to explore what he got to.

 

......................

 

One of the last things he said to me was that he did wrong. He admitted he was wrong.

He said while he will always have the ability to do it, he needed to shut it out to prevent the next girl doubting him in the ways I did throughout the R.

I doubted him once other people in my life told me that hell no it was not okay to do.

 

........................

 

 

Please though. I am never going to think for a second that ALL MEN in love lose the ABILITY and WILL to explore sex with another women who is a hooker.

 

Do you know why?

 

Sticking your dick in a women and using her as a human sex toy is vastly different to wanting to kiss, touch and please another women for your own mutual benefit.

 

.........................

 

I have my view on men and hookers.

 

I made the mistake of letting a guy live it out, and I paid the price by losing some respect for myself

 

........................

 

Fortunately, I really like who I am as a person and I am a positive women who loves life in general.

 

I can definitely see myself re gaining the respect both myself and my ex lost for me, in letting him carry out something that should have stayed a fantasy

[Mme. Chaucer]

They were. I left before. He begged for another chance. He didn't blow it again with the hookers' but he did something even worse: he sought validation from HUNDREDS of girls online. HUNDREDS.

 

It was never physical, but man.. I should have just left, worked on my own life with therapy and etc,

 

Leigh, this is honest, and it's ENOUGH. This was not acceptable behavior for YOU, and now the relationship is over. Sorry about the pain - but THANK GOODNESS.

 

……………………………………………..

 

 

and I am fairly certain that he would have gotten help in order to be with me again.

 

I would not have stayed witb a man who I felt did all those things cos he just didn't love me much, and would suddenly change for a woman who really knocked his socks off.

 

I did feel genuine love from him, and I do not think he will just EASILY find a woman where be thinks '' geez, now that I'm with her, I realize that I only did that crapp to Leigh 87 coz I was not all that in love with her''

 

 

^^^^^^^

THAT kind of self-talk, and rambling on the Internet, though, is NOT honest. All your hundreds of assertions and babbling about his deep love for you and how you hugged each other in bed, etc. are NOT MEANINGFUL in this context.

 

The way they ARE meaningful is as memories that either haunt you or comfort you during your grieving for this ended relationship.

 

But constantly trying to convince yourself and everyone else about what ANDREW thinks / thought and feels / felt? That is unrealistic and frankly, not your business or concern.

 

I'm sure it helps ease your pain to return (over and over and over) to his great, deep love for you. I have compassion and empathy for your incredible need for external validation - but that doesn't mean that I think it should be indulged, because I think it's terribly sick.

 

………………………………………….

 

ALL that matters is that the relationship didn't work. I now need to forget he exists and move on.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Now, THAT is what you need to be concentrating upon (except the "he does not exist part, which is unrealistic and childishly dramatic). NOT about how you're positive you know exactly how he feels / felt and whatever he's going to feel about the next girl in his life.

 

LISTEN please, to me and to dozens (hundreds?) of other posters you've interacted with on LS:

 

YOU cannot have a THING to do with how, when, or if somebody changes. All you can do is accept the way things are. Part of "acceptance" is realizing when something is NOT acceptable for YOU and making the changes YOU need in order to have an acceptable or even happy and fulfilling life.

 

Whether he changes some day or not is not really in your zone. Yes, he might. Your relationship with him may or may not have something to do with that. People do NOT change for other people. They change because they need to change for whatever reasons.