Called ex who dumped me and told him I'm letting go of the anger. It felt good.

[moon]

Hi,

 

For anybody who has read my story, I was dumped a few months ago by my ex for another woman (as far as I can tell). I realized that I have been so angry about the situation....feeling like such a victim and all that. I am in therapy and trying to work out all the kinks in myself, so I don't attract this type of behavior again. I went to Midnight Mass last night (church) and found even at church I was feeling sadness and anger mixed together. I came home and called my ex (who didn't pick up the phone) and told him I was sick of being angry at him and that I wasn't going to spent time feeling it anymore for him. That's all I said. But it sort of felt good that he knows I am not going to keep harboring all the anger. I doubt I will talk to him again, but I realize somebody who did something as cruel as my ex did to me, must be hurting himself. Not about me, but about how he treats people in general. I think it takes a very wounded person to treat people the way my ex does.

 

I personally want to forgive and forget. And maybe even start dating somebody else again. I think this was a nice Christmas present to myself. I already feel better. Why should he have the satisfaction of thinking that I miss him and I am so angry about what happened to me. I know we could never have again what we once had. I have had no contact for two months, but sometimes, after enough time has passed, I think you have to communicate to them in some way that you're done with the anguish. We don't have any mutual friends really that I can tell this to, so I had to say it directly. But like I said it feels better and I feels like that was my last step in letting it go. I think a dumper does get some satisfaction of knowing they have crushed their ex. But I wanted my ex to know that I will be putting the past behind and I don't want to be mad anymore-------so I can live happy again. I hope it works.

[moon]

By the way, part of the reason I wanted to do this was because I called my ex every bad word I could think of the last time I talked to him. I said things that had never come out of my mouth before to anybody. I told him he was a loser and the lowest person on earth.....a piece of sh*t and all that. I told him so many hateful things. So many mean and abusive things. So I wanted him to know that I wasn't going to keep harboring those feelings anymore and that in a way I'm sorry I said those things (although I didn't say that). I felt bad saying them. It hurt me saying those things to him as well.

[Thinkalot]

Good for you. Letting go of anger like that is a big step towards healing, moving on, and growing as a person. Good luck with it.

[moon]

Thanks Thinkalot. I know it's best just to have no contact with an ex and I have been very diligent with that for the longest time. I've never called or e-mailed, I even moved from the city I had been living in with him. I just picked up and left. So it might have seemed like a mystery to my ex too. So I just had to come clean and now I feel like I sort of unloaded all that energy of anger out of myself. I think part of me was feeling embarrasment about the way I acted towards him the last time I saw him. I freaked out. I think he was able to think I was probably just beside myself hurting everyday. I think it gave some adrenaline to his new relationship. So anyway, I just wanted to say in affect.......I'm not apart of this anymore.

[jellybean]

Hey moon

 

I'm glad to hear you're working your way past the anger.

 

My story is similiar to yours, and I was stuck in the 'filled with rage' stage for months.

 

And like you - my last communication with my ex was me blasting him. I let him know that he can take his lying, cheating, a** and the skank he's with - and the two of them can *cough*...nevermind. I really let him have it with both barrels...and I DON'T REGRET IT.

 

Anyways, I'm coping better now, but my ex doesn't need to know that. It will just boost his ego...he'll just think that his betrayal and cruel dumping of me is something that is easily forgiven and forgotten.

 

You appear to be healing, but I'm wondering why you broke contact with your ex after all these months, instead of maybe writing your feelings and new awareness in a journal, or something like that (talking to a friend, etc).

 

It doesn't make sense to call up an ex, basically saying "hey, I've moved on, I'm over it, and I'm no longer hurting or thinking about you".....

[greenhorn]

Moon,

 

I also agree with others that letting go off your anger is a great way for moving on and in particular for the healing process.

 

But i was thinking from a different perspective ,you said that a dumper gets satisfaction from knowing that they have crushed their ex.I know if you go and ask any dumper they will give you all sorts of justification that they were right and the dumpee was wrong thats why the relationship has to end (atleast in my case this is it..) but i think sometimes when we introspect and look at our inner self even the dumper would know that he/she has done wrong and would feel the guilt and if you go and say that you harbour no bad feelings then aren't you absolving the person of the guilt.

 

Dont you think that the dumper atleast deserves to have this guilt feeling inside???

[moon]

Update:

 

My ex sent me an e-mail back and told me to call him again. I think I will. I know that nothing will ever be right again between us, but I need some answers. I don't need to hear exactly why he broke up with me, I just want to know if his current relationship was really what he wanted. I know this sounds childish and petty, but I must know this. If he tells me that he found what he was looking for (fate/destiny) I'll leave it alone forever. If he starts insulting me I will hang up the phone. No matter what I'll still be in the same position I'm in now---single. I would never get back together with him after what he did to me.

[KaiaMahina]

Moon, gotta tell you that I know precisely how you feel. I've been filled with incredible and terrifying rage for months now, which is slowly softening into a strange sort of paralysis, an emotional numbness as though I've been submerged in cold water up to my neck. Everything on auto-pilot.

 

And I can agree with you that this anger is absolutely debilitating! I've been so exhausted by being on the razor's edge of titanic rage that I can barely move. It's almost as though your mind is racing 24/7, but your body is having its energy sapped almost as soon as it can produce it. Weird.

 

Unlike you, however, I didn't get a word in edgewise when that filthy, cowardly, heartless sack of s**t who wanted so badly to marry me that you could see his handprints all over my back from PUSHING me so hard, called me on the phone while I was at work to dump me! Shock and consternation kinda leave you speechless, especially when someone is screaming hysterically at you for 10 minutes and then hangs up on you. So there was no sense of what people refer to as "closure" and which I refer to as getting a few good licks in.

 

Face it. People who do these mean-spirited things (whether that's dumping you abruptly for no good reason after nearly dragging you by your hair to the altar, or dumping you for someone else they're been nudging on the sly) deserve to have some nasty words flung their way. It's the least they could tolerate given the hell their victims are going to go through. When you've been treated so poorly by someone who professed to love you, anger is not only appropriate, but has been earned.

 

It's been 6 months and I haven't emailed or called that jackass even once. Although, suspiciously, there have been a lot of strange numbers on my caller ID and what I call "clickity-click" voice mails. Meaning, you get a voice mail that consists of 5 - 10 seconds of silence, followed by "clickity-click" as the person hangs up. May or may not be the sneaky little bastard calling my voice mail and then not having the guts to do anything but the one thing he does so well: hanging up on me. Who knows. Who cares.

 

The point is, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. As far as he knows, I'm married to someone else! Let his imagination run riot, if he even thinks of me at all. And as for "forgive and forget" .... I do neither. I couldn't forget what he did to me even if I made a determined effort to do so. Only a blow to the head, resulting in amnesia, is ever going to make me forget.

 

And forgiveness is highly overrated! I know that well-meaning people advise that you forgive those who have injured you, and that forgiveness is for your own peace of mind, not for theirs. But I am completely incapable of genuine forgiveness. For one thing, strictly speaking, you can't forgive someone unless they first apologize, and then ask for forgiveness. Apologizing is all good and well, but it's not the same as asking for forgiveness. Forgiveness also requires making amends and being genuinely sorry for what you've done. I've had neither an apology, nor has my ex made any sort of reparation to me for what he did. I owe him nothing. And forgiving him in my heart isn't going to change how I feel one bit. This is a matter of justice. He did to me what he literally begged me not to do to him: "Please don't leave me," he said once, out of the blue. I had no intention of doing so, but apparently he had no scruples about leaving me.

 

I've felt sorry for that sorry dips**t, and I've felt compassion for him, but it was short-lived. And forgiveness is entirely out of the question without an apology and reparation. And since it looks as though I'll never have either one, it's something I will have to "burn out" on. At some point, the anger will dissipate and turn to indifference and he'll be a memory, instead of a current event. I can live with that.

 

Forgive and forget if you're capable. But if you're like me, indifference is the answer.

[Nick14]

Well as MJ and Wierd know about my situation, it just got worse. ok so I am at the gym and my ex is there, I just go bike and kept on texting my current girl i am seeing at the moment. My ex sees me and is sort of shocked i am at the gym and just goes the other way to the other bikes and excersies. I think to myself, well fine dont' say hi *side note, my ex dumped me 4 months ago and has not been in contact w/me, I send occasional emails to say hi and how your doing and most recently sent her a graduation e-card and a happy holidays e-card, thats cause i am a good nice caring guy still*. So, she leaves 15 mins later w/out looking at me but i can tell she looked sort of mad probably because I showed up. So, I go home and text her and ask "wish youwould of said hi, would of been nice to talk again", so of course no reply. A hour later, I see her away message on AIM and it says "****ing, psycho stalking ex's, Lesson of the day: Kick em in the balls when you have a chance". I read that and litterly blew a gasket in my head. My first thought is, "what a biatch and wow I feel stupid for even being a good guy with sending happy e-cards". I swear guys I regret the last 2.5 years, so what did I do, I IM her and said "I hope your proud of that away message and I hope it kicks you in the balls in the future when your grow up. I said everything in the book from, you should get ****ed, **** off, I hope you have a terrible life etc...theni said GOODBYE in caps. Of course she read this and instantly blocked me, but she made a grave mistake with calling me a stalker. Wow, now how can I be a stalker when I am not truly stalking. Just because I send her e-cards from time to time, thats stalking? Just because I go to the gym at the same time(because i can't go at peak times) that makes me a stalker? I mean wow just because i am being a good caring guy, unlike other a-holes that makes me a stalker too? Bottom line, i am sick of being the good guy and getting trashed on and its time to go on Jerk mode with only her. She tries to weasel back in my life, shes going to do alot of ass kissing for sure. Funny how I go to the gym last night at the same time and she is there, I go upstairs and she leaves after 15 mins of her working out. Man, proves my point that 1.She's not adult and can't dish it 2. she's not grown up and 3. she's a brat. Again, she made a grave mistake with that away message and she loss a great guy in the process. What a idiot!!

[XNemesisX]

Do NOT ever tell an ex that you forgive him/her unless they ASK for forgiveness!

 

It is a GRAVE mistake to do this.

 

They treated us like SH*T -why be nice and tell them you won't harbor anger anymore? Personally I doubt they really care if we are angry, happy, sad, mad, or glad. The way they treated us shows that they don't care about our feelings..so why would they care if we are mad? If they were sorry they would say so. Don't TELL someone you forgive them when they didn't apologize or they will be thinking this to their self -

 

I did this same thing, Moon. And I can tell you it was a mistake. When we first broke up I let him have it. I called him every name in the book, told him what an awful person he was. A week later he calls back telling me he didn't want me to hate him. I tell him I forgive him soon after that and he knew he had won then. He didn't want to talk anymore after I said that I wanted to forgive and forget. Basically he started treating me even worse because I made it look like he could walk all over me and spit in my face and I would still forgive him.

 

Also, the dumpers should KNOW they did something wrong and they were not faultless in the relationship so by saying that you aren't going to be mad anymore etc then you are relieving them of that guilt as others have said on here. They will no longer feel bad about themselves (if they didn't feel the slightest bit bad about it then they are an egotistical monster - which..heh, some are).

 

I can tell you guys from personal experience that you should never tell someone you forgive them if they don't apologize. It makes you look weak and like you will accept that behavior from them. As someone else said, indifference is what will get to them more than anything. If you call them up specifically to tell them for no apparent reason that you forgive and won't harbor anger anymore it just shows them how much you STILL CARE as messed up as that sounds. Don't call and when you do talk to them act like you don't give a rat's behind what they do, and it will eat them up inside, if they even care.

 

Don't make this easy for someone who throws you to the side and treats you poorly. If it makes you feel better to forgive them, do it in your own mind...don't tell them unless they specifically apologize and even then you should make it hard for them.

 

I sure learned my lesson about this. Now my ex thinks that he is a little angel and can do whatever he wants to me and basically I took on full blame for the failure of the relationship when I know better. Now he will never see his own faults because I let him believe he was in the clear. Everyone, don't make the mistake I did.

[moon]

I haven't called him yet. But I hear what you guys are saying. But I've found it hard to live with myself too. I feel bad for a lot of the things I did to him. I feel like I just want to let things be with him. If we only knew each other a year or two---that would be one thing, but I met him four years ago. It feels like a big chunk of my life and to remain bitter and angry about it just seems useless. I broke down and called him on Christmas. I didn't even realize what I was doing. I just reached for the phone (after a few beers), dialed his number, got his answering machine, told him I was sick of being mad at him and call if he wanted. Nowhere did I say let's hook up again. I just wanted to clear the air. I know that's not appropriate, but I felt like after 2 plus months of this (N/C), I could handle hearing whatever he had to say about it. Like we could both forgive each other and move on from that---separately. He did send an e-mail today mentioning the tsunami in Thailand and telling me to call him. I've spent a lot of time out there and I could have been there this Christmas if I haven't gone a few months ago. If I hadn't gone to go live with my ex I would have been out in that region for sure. So it sort of hit home I think for him and me.

 

But no I haven't called him yet. Maybe tomorrow. I want to get my head together. I do have to practice sounding really chipper and happy if I do call him. I'll tell him that I wish him luck in his life and hope he does the same for me (bad?). He and I had an up hill /down hill relationship. We were on and off and this last time that we were going to live together we both flipped out. I did some dreadful things to him too.......just words and meaness. I don't really know the whole story behind our break up. Did he really hook up with his neighbor?? He aluded to it, but sometimes I just want to get the facts. Very bad of me, I know. I knew my ex wouldn't have called me if I didn't call him because I basically told him to find the highest cliff he could find and jump off (when he broke up with me). I told him I had more respect for my toilet. I screamed, yelled, bitched. So sometimes I regret my bad behavior. I know I am weak!!!! But I know sometimes I hurt people with my words and people have told me that. I can turn into a ball of flames and sting people. But I don't want him anymore anyway. I guess I am so so happy that he even wants to talk about this. I won't be begging for forgiveness I promise.

 

Maybe I'll call back tomorrow. He told me to call because he erased my number. I know he was really mad at me too, but he's the one who did the breaking up. I can accept that and I realize we are totally not suited for one another. So I must move on. I have realized that in the time we haven't talked. I just want the ashes to clear and to go on with my life not feeling guilty or regretful. I know he's a compassionate person, I just had to give him the chance to be one last time. But he's not coming back into my life....no way. We live hundreds of miles away from each other anyway now (I moved)....so there is no chance of that. Seriously.

[XNemesisX]

Moon,

 

That is completely understandable. You may be at a point where you feel you have nothing to lose. You don't want him back, so you don't have to worry about "playing your cards right" so to speak. My ex and I were only together for 2 years so if I doubled that time together I would probably be doing the same as you. 4 years is a very long time to spend with someone.

 

I guess you might be feeling similar to how I feel. I know that I did some bad things to my ex. Mostly verbally as you did and I can have a horrible mouth on me and make people feel in an inch tall after I go off on them (at least I have been told)

 

I'm sure my ex and I aren't really suited for one another either but I also think that love is worth fighting for. You and your ex seemed to have a lot of passion and love to have been together for so long. I guess sometimes it becomes a hopeless situation and its better to walk away but I also think that if enough love is there and both people are willing, then couples can overcome their problems and be even better than before. But this is not always the case... I tried so hard to make things right with my ex but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

 

I understand why you would do what you did now. You need answers and a proper closure after 4 years. You deserve to know what happened with the other girl. I hope you find these answers and make some sense of things. It may have been the best thing to do by calling him and leaving him the message. After saying the things that you did to him he probably felt that you would never want to talk to him ever again. You needed this time to cool off so you could talk to him about all of this in a calm fashion. I think you did the best thing. Now he at least knows you are open to talk to him about things. I'm glad he is reciprocating and willing to give you the answers you need.

 

 

I knew my ex wouldn't have called me if I didn't call him because I basically told him to find the highest cliff he could find and jump off (when he broke up with me). I told him I had more respect for my toilet.

 

 

The comment about having more respect for your toilet made me laugh so hard! I have to say Moon, that is by far one of the best insults I have ever heard! I did tell my ex once that I had more respect for dog sh*t than him. I told him one side of his face didn't match the other and his head looked like it had been steamrolled because it was so flat in the back. I told him that if he could find someone to like his shrunken mummy head, his flat pimply behind, and his contorted faces (inside joke I guess) then to go for it. I get kind of creative with the insults ..and mean I guess. Ugh..he deserved all of that at the time though.

 

Sorry I just had to say something about that. If that didn't make him feel like a jackass with the toilet comment then I don't know what would. I think you are handling this great. And he deserved that! But I know where you are coming from, sometimes we do have to be the first to swallow our pride and initiate contact again or else we would never get answers.

 

I hope you continue to feel better about all of this Moon. I may be trying the counseling again here soon. But with a woman psychologist next time around!

[moon]

YX32Nemesis,

 

Yeah, I am sort of confused now. I feel sort of scared to call and talk to my ex. I think I'll wait a day or two. I think we're just going to patch up our f*ck off relationship and maybe let go of the anger. But I know he's not "the one" for me at all.

 

It's funny because when I met my ex I used to be so sweet and let many things slide. I actually consciously did this because I didn't want us to have a angry type of relationship. I wanted things to be good. The way I acted right before and after we broke up was sort of new. I never used to get that mad. And this was before we broke up too. I was getting mad at him about many things that he'd promised me that maybe weren't even realistic for him to change. He and I would but heads forever if we were back together. I know this. So part of my healing has been to accept that I was so crazily trying to change him and at the same time I was getting a guy who was a). defending himself b). not accepting me as I was c). not changeable.

 

But in the whole sceme of things I just wanted to clear the air. That's about it. I thought Christmas was a good time to do that. I don't want him to remember me as an fing b*tch. I would rather him think of me as that girl who got away. You know? It's a thin line between love and hate. I fully realized this after my last break up. But yeah......forgiving my ex is just going to make me move on faster in my opinion. Me keeping all that anger stored up just progresses my healing. I know that sounds sort of new agey, but it's what I feel. So might as well let him know he hasn't --got me-- anymore in that way. My ex actually told me he was scared of me the last time we saw each other. I think it takes a lot for a man to tell his girlfriend he's scared of her (and mean it). But he can get out from under his bed now because I forgive him and want to get on with my life now TOO.... After a while of dating my ex (in the beginning) I was sort of scared of him! So the tables turned. Felt sort of good for a change.

 

Yeah, I liked that one too...."I respect my toilet more than you." Man I was mad that day. I must have been pmsing.

[moon]

Nick14, Get your new girlfriend a membership to your gym. Problem solved.

[Nick14]

lol Moon, I would but she's already signed up at another gym as it is. Ya, I guess its still hard to believe, that she is claiming me as a stalker. Wow, that girl needs to look thru some tapes of some real stalking going on!