Jump to content

Just when you feel like you can't take the pain anymore...

xpaperxcutx

By xpaperxcutx
in Breaks and Breaking Up

 Share
While the thread author can add an update and reopen discussion, this thread was last posted in over a month ago. Want to continue the conversation? Feel free to start a new thread instead!

Recommended Posts

xpaperxcutx Established Member

xpaperxcutx

Posted
Posted

I want to remind every one of my fellow dumpees that when you feel like you can't stand the loneliness, the sadness, and the hurt, just remember-

 

Love is a choice, not a feeling

 

I can't tell you how liberating finally knowing this.

 

I can say, from my present experience, having been going through my personal sadness, experiencing NC and dealing with the loss of my relationship, I almost gave up on myself.

 

I was crying everyday, and feeling so lost. Sometimes i sunk into a bad depression that I almost contemplated hurting myself ( cutting myself) but I had friends who were there to support me, guide me, and console me. I know I was a burden to them, but they were there every step of the way to guide me. Even co-workers who I wasn't close with, they lend a listening ear.

 

But oftentimes, i find myself disregarding their advice. It's hard to accept others help, when you hopeless. And everyday felt hopeless. But don't let the hopelessness win.

 

I read all I could about breakups. Those win your ex back advices. But those only made me anxious and more stressed.

 

Recently, I started turning to religion. I started reading about God and the concept of love. And one thing I read and I tell myself everyday- love is a choice, not a feeling.

 

When you fall in love, its a choice, and when you leave a relationship, it was a choice to leave. Love is not an emotion, although it may well seem like we are consumed by the concept of love and being in love.

 

I'm trying to get my hands on The Road Less Travelled, by Scott Peck, as that's where the saying originated from. And as far as feeling hopeless, it's because any of us having been dumped almost always feel like we can't live without our exes.

 

We're living without them. Every morning you wake up, you are living a new day without them. So stop feeling hopeless.

 

And if you feel like you can't take the pain anymore, remember that it's not them causing you pain. They broke up with you but you who's hurting yourself.

 

Just remember love is a choice, not a feeling.

 

Choose to stop loving them, just like they chose to stop loving us. And start loving yourself. That's the best choice you can do. All that energy you put into thinking about what they are doing, what they are thinking, etc. is wasted energy.

 

And if we, as human beings, are beings made of energy, why not take that energy and start focusing on yourself? Instead of thinking about them, turn that focus onto yourself. Instead of thinking who they are with, think about how to love yourselves a little more.

 

I find when I'm talking to my friends now, I pay more attention to them. I give them eye contact and I absorb what they have to say. Whatever task I'm applying myself to, I try to apply myself 100%. When I start focusing on other things, I find myself thinking of my ex alot less than I used to.

 

Everything is in our head. Our need to think about our exes to wonder about them, it's all our choice.

 

Choose to stop thinking about them. Choose to take your mind off of them. And choose to love yourself.

  • Like 7
xUnknown Established Member

xUnknown

Posted
Posted

Great read. Thank you for this. I may choose to print this out and put it on my wall to remind myself every day.

  • Author
xpaperxcutx Established Member

xpaperxcutx

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Great read. Thank you for this. I may choose to print this out and put it on my wall to remind myself every day.

 

Hey thanks. If you have time on your hands, I recommend you to this article I found online today. I thought it was very informational

 

Love is Not a Feeling | What Is Real True Love?

xUnknown Established Member

xUnknown

Posted
Posted
Hey thanks. If you have time on your hands, I recommend you to this article I found online today. I thought it was very informational

 

Love is Not a Feeling | What Is Real True Love?

 

Believe me, I'll read it. Which one is it though? There is like 8 articles on that link you posted.

alex007 Member

alex007

Posted
Posted

You are 100% wrong. Love is most definitly an emotion. You dont chose to either love or not love your new born child. It just happens because you have an emotional attachment to them. Same thing with love. Thats why if it was a choice people that have been dumped could just chose not to care and never care right away but it is hard because sometimes you can not controle your emotions...

  • Like 1
sambo77 Established Member

sambo77

Posted
Posted
You are 100% wrong. Love is most definitly an emotion. You dont chose to either love or not love your new born child. It just happens because you have an emotional attachment to them. Same thing with love. Thats why if it was a choice people that have been dumped could just chose not to care and never care right away but it is hard because sometimes you can not controle your emotions...

 

Really like your post paper cut...but I think I agree with Alex on this point. I struggle to understand how "love" (and I don't think we're 100% clear WTF it even IS) is a choice. If it were a choice, then believe me, I WOULD NOT still love my ex! I would have "chosen" to shut that feeling down soon after she ended it...absolutely. Just like I've chosen not to contact her or look at her social media. But my feelings for her are a different proposition.

 

Sadly, the problem is that love ISN'T a choice. We are compulsively pulled towards, attracted to, and magnetically drawn to those who somehow "fit" with the strange set of criteria we've been sculpted to "love" during the course of our lives. We can deny such feelings, repress them, ignore them...but we can't "choose" not to have them...

 

Someone once said...there's no point asserting and reasserting that which the heart does not want to hear.

  • Like 4
seekingpeaceinlove Established Member

seekingpeaceinlove

Posted
Posted

I'd have to agree with the last few posts. I've accepted that my ex was and is not the right person for me and I've proactively done everything I could to remove him from my life. NC, throwing out/filing away/boxing mementos, trying to hate him/feel sorry for him..but to no avail.

 

I still love him. I cannot choose to stop loving him. I have chosen to ACT as if I no longer love him by trying to trick my mind into thinking he no longer exists...but I still love him. Only time or another relationship will make that love fade. Even then...I think I will still have love for him.

 

I wish I could choose to not love but if it were that simple, this forum wouldn't exist.

  • Like 4
reddragon588 Established Member

reddragon588

Posted
Posted

No offense, but I don't think I could disagree more. Love is not a choice. You love who you love. Saying love is a choice is what many people who bully and harass LGBT individuals claim.

xUnknown Established Member

xUnknown

Posted
Posted (edited)

I hear where you guys are coming from. For me, I'm trying to convince myself its a choice. Yeah, I still love my ex. But maybe if I convince myself its a choice...it will help me get over her.

 

 

I'm going to keep the following mindset: I CHOOSE not to think about the past, I CHOOSE not to think about her, I CHOOSE to move on, I CHOOSE to find love elsewhere, I CHOOSE to love myself, I CHOOSE to be strong, I CHOOSE to remember the bad times, I CHOOSE to remember what she did to me and how she hurt me, I CHOOSE never to forgive her, I CHOOSE to let my heart breath a sigh of relief that I no longer have to worry about two people in the relationship - only myself.

Edited by xUnknown
  • Like 2
MoooOinkBaaa Established Member

MoooOinkBaaa

Posted
Posted (edited)

Love isn't a choice because you didn't choose to love them, it just happened naturally. You can't escape you can only try and separate yourself from the dream you were once living before they decided to remove themselves from your life.

 

I wanna tell you a little secret. No one needs to tell you you are in love, you just know it, through and through.

Edited by MoooOinkBaaa
  • Like 1
sambo77 Established Member

sambo77

Posted
Posted
I hear where you guys are coming from. For me, I'm trying to convince myself its a choice. Yeah, I still love my ex. But maybe if I convince myself its a choice...it will help me get over her.

 

 

I'm going to keep the following mindset: I CHOOSE not to think about the past, I CHOOSE not to think about her, I CHOOSE to move on, I CHOOSE to find love elsewhere, I CHOOSE to love myself, I CHOOSE to be strong, I CHOOSE to remember the bad times, I CHOOSE to remember what she did to me and how she hurt me, I CHOOSE never to forgive her, I CHOOSE to let my heart breath a sigh of relief that I no longer have to worry about two people in the relationship - only myself.

 

This is an interesting post unknown...I do see why you'd say that all this would help you get over her. But...I'm just not convinced it'd help me get over her...here's why...

 

(1) I choose not to think about the past - It's impossible to STOP your brain conjuring up memories of the past...that is automatic and happens outside of conscious control. You might be able to avoid getting caught up in analysing and dwelling on those memories when they pop up...but I'm not so sure it's helpful to avoid them anyway. Maybe getting caught up in them is how we ultimately resolve them and move on?

 

(2) I choose to move on - We all have NO choice BUT to move on (if moving on means "to continue living outside of the relationship"). It has just become folklore on here that you're only "moving on" if you're forcing yourself to look live as though you aren't heartbroken anymore. Truth is, we're all moving on.

 

(3) I choose to find love elsewhere - I'd say you might be able to choose to SEEK it...finding it isn't your choice though.

 

(4) I choose to be strong - Depends what "being strong" means. Again, on here, the mythical idea of "manning up" "getting out there" seems to be the meaning of strength. But that's entirely subjective...the person who chooses to wallow in their pain, head-on, may be even stronger in many ways.

 

(5) I choose to remember what she did to me and the hurt and pain and never to forgive her - I know these feelings....but they are often aggressive, defensive denial, protecting us from the pain we KNOW we feel in there. The abandoned child is furious at the parents who left him BECAUSE he knows he cannot choose just to stop loving or needing them.

  • Like 1
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...