24 days NC...all I want to do is contact!

[nasc88]

I've posted on here before so I'm sorry to bore you all if you're reading this again. I dated a guy (we're in our mid-30s) for a year and a half and forced him to talk to me one day. He ended up telling me that he was having doubts "long term" and that if he stayed in the relationship it would be half heartily. We never fought and got along really well. He was truly my best friend. He said it wasn't me, I didn't do anything wrong and he couldn't help the way he felt.

 

He has some of his own issues/anxieties and I realized that but thought we could work through them. For a week after we "broke up" ie=he dumped me - he was contacting me every day. 24 days ago I asked him to please stop contacting me because it was too confusing and there was no way I was going to heal with him messaging me every day - in truth to take away his guilt. So I accidentally sent a thumbs up like on FB in a message to him the other day.

 

I was told if you want to say something write the message but don't send it - apparently putting it in a FB msg isn't the best option. I said I was sorry I didn't mean to send that and he said "no, worries hope all is well." Which just crushed me. So that was about a week ago? I miss him so much I can't believe it. Everything I see or do I think oh I want to tell him that...and realize I can't. What do I do? I want to contact him more than anything.

 

He is the type of person who I don't believe would ever reach out to me again after I asked him not to.

 

Help?! I just want him to miss me and want me back but it is obvious that isn't going to happen.

Edited September 20, 2013 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[lylat333]

Hi again, nasc88.

 

The question that immediately jumps to mind is - did you ever block him on FB? I suspect not based on how worked up you sound. I think it's far and away the best thing you could possibly do right now. I put it off for a while myself, thought it would be the wrong thing to do. My heart was pounding out of my chest when I did it, but I did it, and I can't imagine where I would still be if I still had to think about her profile sitting out there... the mind games were hell. I even took it another step further and unfriended our mutual friends I never expected to see again. It's been over 2 weeks, haven't been tempted to look at a thing. When we first stopped talking, I was literally checking her Facebook every 10-15 min.

 

After dreaming about her all Friday night I also dealt with a huge desire to break NC this past Saturday. I thought those desires were generally trending downward, and there I was a wreck.

 

I just posted this in another thread... something I read recently that said, ~"we can't guarantee whether our ex will miss us or not. We can only guarantee they won't miss us by being in contact."

 

Don't have such a defeatist attitude saying, "but it's obvious that isn't going to happen" (him missing you) You don't know that! We dumpees, we let our mind run wild speculating how our ex thinks of us. At first I was convinced she will miss me immediately - wrong. Now I am in a similar boat, I don't expect her to ever call or get in touch because of the "type of person" she is, just like you and your ex. But the truth is I have NO CLUE. I have no idea how happy she is right now, what she's doing, who she's seeing, and the crazy thing is I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

Slowly but surely my focus is coming back to me. It's been 55 days since I heard from my ex. I miss deeply what we had, just mourned it a few days ago... don't even know how I would react if she ever got in touch again but I tell myself I will cross that bridge if/when I ever come to it. I feel really strongly, speaking from experience, you will not be able to move or heal until you cut him out of your life. Blocking my ex on FB was the true beginning of NC. No point in associating with or having a pseudo-friendship with someone you have such strong feelings for.

 

btw... I am SO glad I didn't contact my ex on Saturday. Even had a text message typed out, could've had a weak moment and hit, "send" easily. Especially now that a few days have passed I can see how big of a setback it would have been and how much I'd be kicking myself for it. So, so glad.

Edited September 19, 2013 by lylat333

[nasc88]

Hi back lylat333...

No, I haven't blocked him on FB. I haven't been able to do it. For some reason it just seems so final and I can't do it. He NEVER posts and the only things he has on there are photos of us and our check-ins. I had unfriended his Mom after everything happened and he emailed me he thought it was unnecessary. This was before I asked him to not contact me for good. I feel the same way that he is the kind of person who if you ask them not to contact you - they won't. I just wish that he would. I miss him so much I can't believe it. Thank you for the response and the encouragement. I guess I have two biggest issues that keep replaying in my head.

1) What IF I hadn't made him talk to me? What IF I had met him the following week to talk like he had asked. Would anything have been different?

2) He said I was one of the most important people in his life. That he wanted me to be in his life (obviously not as part of a relationship though) and I just can't help wishing that he thought I/WE were worth it and he could have tried.

A few friends have said maybe reaching out to him would give me the peace that I am looking for but at the same time I know (I think) in my heart it would just set me back.

I just can't help wondering why I wasn't good enough for him to want to make it work and I am having the hardest time trying to move forward because I just want HIM back.

[lylat333]

Hi back lylat333...

No, I haven't blocked him on FB. I haven't been able to do it. For some reason it just seems so final and I can't do it. He NEVER posts and the only things he has on there are photos of us and our check-ins.

 

You're probably the person here who most closely reflects what I've been going through so I really understand. It killed me to lose contact with my ex, I wanted it to work so bad at the end. It felt like the passing of a loved one, and I saw the dwindling chances of reconciliation as the only way to make things right.

 

First about blocking on FB. Yes, it does seem final but that's also why it is so powerful. I don't like to frame things in terms of how it will affect your ex - your decisions should be motivated by what's best for you. (it has taken me a long time to start realizing that.) Thankfully it so happens what's best for you is also best for your ex.

 

The best, most attractive thing for a dumpee to do is move on. Faking it doesn't work very well, our exes and people have a keen, subconscious sense on what is genuine. Blocking on Facebook is a sincere form of moving on. Again, it shouldn't be about what will push their buttons but I can about promise you if you block your ex on FB he will probably not shrug his shoulders and move on - his heart will sink, it forces him to realize yes, he is losing something, and that's how you miss someone. If you can go through with blocking him it will free up so much of your precious mental energy. I created a thread to try and find out how blocking an ex on FB affects them, when I made it I had no intention of ever doing it. I'm so, so glad I did. If you missed it, I included a piece of information I saw online in a study: (bolding by me)

 

Researchers asked 464 people to answer questions about a past distressing breakup, including how much time had passed since the split, which partner initiated it, and how much contact they’ve had with their ex since calling it quits. After crunching the data, researchers found that remaining friends on Facebook actually resulted in less desire, attraction, and longing for the ex.

 

I know I'm harping on it, only because I see it as that important.

 

1) What IF I hadn't made him talk to me? What IF I had met him the following week to talk like he had asked. Would anything have been different?

I have my scenarios I replay too. I wonder what IF I had declined to meet for what turned out to be the last time I saw her? I should have known she wasn't really listening to me by that point and it would do no good, instead I did everything she would have expected me to. It led to the night I begged, pleaded, and cried. Did I seal my fate that night?

 

I don't like to hear it, I don't like to say it either, but replaying these scenarios doesn't accomplish anything. Other than us the dumpees beating ourselves up and shifting the blame on ourselves. We did the best we could those days... we can't expect to always do and say the perfect things.

 

2) He said I was one of the most important people in his life. That he wanted me to be in his life (obviously not as part of a relationship though) and I just can't help wishing that he thought I/WE were worth it and he could have tried.

Same here. It wasn't but 3 weeks or so before things fell apart my ex was still expressing she wanted to increase the commitment between us, she even told me she recently had a talk with her sisters and realized she does love me and wants to be with me. How does it change so fast? What about all the things she wrote me and and sent me indicating this was for real, how can she forget everything we shared? What about all the missed potential? Our ex is obviously not in the same state of mind we are, and us trying to fight with them and bring them to where we are only serves to push them away.

 

My outlook is to find peace of mind knowing it's not in my power to change my ex, so I don't worry about what I can do or say. My part in the matter is to 1) excuse myself from their life 2) Get myself back and improve, for me and whoever my future partner will be. I do still feel my feelings were/are valid, we were worth fighting for. Maybe she will feel the same way some day, I don't know.

 

A few friends have said maybe reaching out to him would give me the peace that I am looking for but at the same time I know (I think) in my heart it would just set me back.

I just can't help wondering why I wasn't good enough for him to want to make it work and I am having the hardest time trying to move forward because I just want HIM back.

The only reason you would ever want to reach out is as a last resort to make it painfully clear you and your ex will never reconcile so you can move on - not because you want hope to find out they miss you. I feel strongly breaking NC does nothing to further reconciliation. One of my notes to myself is if I ever did break NC and my ex miraculously responded positively, it would only because she had started to genuinely miss me and would have ended up contacting me anyway. It still doesn't mean I did the right thing, it would still be 100x better if they would have broken the silence first.

Edited September 20, 2013 by lylat333