I'm 52 and lost the love of my life. What now? [Update]

[artsygirl78]

I went through 6 years of being single before I met my ex, and that was while living in one of the largest cities in the world. I am 41 and have felt terror and suicidal panic over this being "it", and suffered from the self-limiting thinking that I am "too old". It used to be "I am too ugly" or "too fat", but then I lost a ton of weight and started feeling better about myself, so I needed to move onto some other reason for labeling myself unworthy or unloveable - funny how that works!

 

What I am working on now is my own sense of worthiness and self-esteem, and healing the sense of shame I grew up with, because until I fully love and accept myself, and know that I am worthy, I will keep attracting, or CHOOSING, the same kind of guys that are not good for me. The universe mirrors back to you how you feel about yourself. I have learned this in all other parts of my life and am now finally applying it to the part of my life regarding relationships and allowing love to come into my life. Would it be possible to hold yourself with love, kindness, and compassion, to try to figure out where this voice is coming from that is telling you that you can't find companionship due to excuses a/b/c, which is all a way of just saying, "I am not worthy"? Because I think this is the part that is the love addict and chooses the men that fulfill how you see yourself/ feel about your own worth. You are beautiful and vibrant and obviously smart as a whip and can smell bull**** a mile away. You deserve more.

 

In the meantime, I can tell you that:

 

My cousin just moved in with her boyfriend of about a year. She is 63. He is in his late fifties.

 

My aunt, after going through a horrible divorce from my uncle who was physically abusive and a serial cheater, and who had been shacking up with his secretary (who he then married), is currently living together with her boyfriend of several years. She is going to be 65. She met him on a website that was specifically geared towards people over 50.

 

Years ago, the mother of one of my ex-boyfriends, who lived in Tombstone Arizona (where there are more tumbleweeds than people), started dating a guy she met at age 62. After two difficult marriages, she said this guy was the best partner she ever had. She and he traveled to see one another back and forth until one of them moved a little closer to be with one another, and as far as I know, they are still together.

 

A professor I know teaching English in Rome lost his lifetime partner of 17 years unexpectedly, and thought that was it, this was his soulmate and he would be alone for the rest of his life. He met someone unexpectedly at age 65 and they are happily dating.

 

Another Aunt (really a close friend of the family) lost my Uncle to a horrible bout with pneumonia and spent years single. She met my next Uncle at age 54, in rural upstate New York.

 

A very distinguished lady I know, divorced in her late fifties after being in a loveless marriage, after her children were raised. She had a serious relationship in her mid sixties that lasted until her partner's death, and at age 90 she has met someone that she is very in love with and calls her soulmate.

 

There is more than one potential soulmate out there for you. And love is experienced in the moment, in the here and now. It is never too late to meet someone, and the more you love yourself and feel in your heart you are worthy of being treated well, the better quality person will be drawn to you, and you will find yourself choosing over love avoidant schmoes. Be strong and know that you are not alone!!

[ascendotum]

I have so much wrong w/ me, it's daunting. I feel I will never be "together" enough to keep a r'ship no matter how healthy the guy might be. I"m working on it but it's tiring and it's easy to just want to give up.

 

I don't know how much of this is true or you just being depressed and being hard on yourself. Maybe some of both. This would be a good place to start to feel better about yourself (being single) and also to enable you to attract and keep another guy hopefully as good as the one who just left. We don't know how much of this ^ played a part.

Really though requin you should have worked on/overcome those issues in the years you were out of the relationship market, and you really spent too long in the wilderness. It will be harder now than it would have been when you were 40 to find people to connect well with and with mutual attraction....hopefully not way harder though. I would keep in contact with this guy still, you never know, but if he does come back it could easily be a repeat of the past or he might just want a casual FWB thing. good luck.

[Scorpio Chick]

Hi. I'm new here. Spent some time yesterday and today reading some threads on breaking up, etc. So much good stuff here!

 

But here's my thing. I will be 52 on Wed. My (ex)bf is 54. We went out for just over a year, and then out of nowhere I got a breakup text (yea), on May 28th.

 

Welcome to Loveshack! First off, clearly, CLEARLY, age is EXTREMELY important to you! I mean, you do seem to put way too much emphasis on your chronological age, rather than the things that count. You state in your post that you're extremely attractive and 8 guys have already asked you out. Do you realize how far ahead of this dating game that puts you over other women, younger and older? Don't think that isn't something. But even if NO ONE was asking you out, you do have to - get ready, because I hate this expression, but it is true - be happy with yourself. By happy, I mean content, and the opposite of the whole feel of your post, which is that you have no value alone. You talk about this guy like he is some sort of mini god, and you HAVE to not just whip up thoughts that you are a goddess, but unless you're some mean, sadistic person that is evil to people, you have to start being a little bit cocky, if you will, about your value.

 

I read the threads on how to behave after a breakup, here, and of course know all about all that. I am a love addict and he is a love avoidant but that's another topic. Anyway, for the month of June I tried intermittantly to find out why he broke up, as well as just sort of staying in contact via text, and I showed up at his house twice. The most no contact I went was 4 days.

 

Given the fact of HOW he ended it with you, I really wish you hadn't done that. It's done now, but from this second forward, you can make the choice to completely ignore and cut contact with him. You certainly don't WANT to do that, believe me, I know. But focus, really focus on the difference in how hurt you are and the fact that he broke up with you the same way 14 year old boys might break up with a girl they've 'dated' for 3 weeks. That was totally juvenile, disrespectful, icky, and instead of feeling bad about it, I think you need to have the mindset of 'oh, REALLLY?! A text? Well, thank you, buddy, for showing your true colors."

 

I believe you are deeply in love with him, and I bet you were very good to him. You, anyone, deserve just the bare modicum of courtesy when ending a long term relationship such that y'all had. A text?? What a weasel. As an objective bystander, I am sorry to say, he either does not love you to end it like that, or he does love you but is soooo cowardly, geez, he's 54?? that he, well, took the coward's way out of breaking up with you. It isn't THAT he broke up with you, but HOW he broke up with you. He shouldn't get little treats now in the form of you begging for information and explanation from him. Had he wanted to explain, you wouldn't have gotten a text.

 

I could go on and on about what happened etc and I might in subsequent posts but my main issue is this. I am 52. I was alone for 16 years before I met this guy, he was the love of my life. (I have been divorced those 16 years, and really did not date.) My bf also had been alone for many years (or only had short-lived r'ships) after his marriage ended around 10 or so years ago.

 

52 is the new 32, haven't you heard? Do you know how many people are single now, thanks to easy divorce? I think, and it's understandable, that you're overwhelmed at the prospect of having to seemingly start over. Don't look at it as work. If you don't want to be alone, that is a plus in and of itself. Some people have been so hurt and damaged by love (or so they think) that they don't want love anymore, they've given up. Stop telling yourself he's the "love of your life". Your life is FAR from over. And if you have kids or anyone alive that loves you, don't you dare think about ending your life over a man, I mean, a male, who texts his breakup message. Puhleeze!!!

 

We both believed we were finally at the end of the line, he said he finally knew real love for the first time in his life, said we'd be together forever, etc etc. All the classic things a love avoidant says at first ...until he feels threatened or suffocated and bolts. (That is why I think he left, although he nit picked all sorts of reasons, most of which were old wars we already made peace on).

 

I'm not trying to be mean, but I wish you weren't in that temporary fog of pain I know you're in right now, but I feel like you're talking about yourself as if you have one foot in the grave. Good lord, you're 52!!!

 

The advise on this forum and elsewhere is ALWAYS, "Move on. The love of your life is waiting."

 

Okay, I'll say it too, move on! More importantly, move UP from this clown. You can and will! And when you do, and you and your new hot beau run into him, and he sees you both as you're laughing at something funny, smile big at him, take out your cell phone, look at him, and wink. Then walk on, and sashay away. Hahahaha. Try to lighten up, even just a little. Not only is this man NOT worth one more minute of sadness from you, but really, no man is. Not denigrating men, just saying, your happiness is very important. Because you're 52 and could die at any moment. Just kidding!!

 

Well what if you're almost a f'ing senior citizen, like I am,

 

Well, then if nothing else, you senior citizens get pretty damn good coffee discounts, that's ONE thing to be positive about!!

 

and THIS IS the love of your life?

 

YOU are the love of your life. Stop saying he is. The love of your life wouldn't text that it's over.

 

What if you've lived long enough already to KNOW this was it? It took me that long to find him (and him to find me) and now he's gone just like that...and being an avoidant he has immersed himself in work, hobbies, car repairs, helping friends etc to the point of running himself ragged. He has not thought about our r'ship. He has not thought about me. (I know this because he told me so).

 

None of the stuff you mentioned can you possibly truly KNOW for sure. In a world of billions of people, there is no way that you cannot meet someone else now that you can fall in love with. Don't automatically believe these things YOU are telling yourself. Until HE tells you he's the love of your life, he's not the love of your life.

 

After trying off and on during June to stay in touch and get him to explain why etc, I have decided to go no contact and am on day 2.

 

Like everyone else I am struggling very badly and everything EVERYTHING reminds me of him, it is beyond painful, it is hell.

 

Would you believe that 2 months ago I was crushed to the core? One night I cried so hard (over love) that I was having a hard time catching my breath. Over a guy. A guy I've known a looooong time and thought THE WORLD of, and I was in love with. I will never have him, but that's how it should be. But focusing only on my pain, it was so bad, I didn't think I would get over it. 2 months later, I am feeling perfectly fine. All that's left now is some anger, and I know I'll reach that indifference point. I did decide, and it was a decision, to focus on everything he did wrong. I decided to stop thinking of him in that way, and fantasizing and pining. And I cut contact swift, etc... and I haven't looked back, and I won't. YOU CAN DO THAT TOO.

 

I'm not trying to give you hope, but no one can say this soon that y'all's story IS over. However, I would give you the advice that it simply will not help YOU to pine over him right now. I've done a little trick with past relationships that I decide to keep some hope on the back burner while simultaneously moving on. In fact, use that hope to better anything about yourself that might need improvement, LIKE YOUR SILLY OBSESSION WITH BEING OLD. You really are as old as you feel OR THINK.

 

I wish the best for you.

[OnwardandUpward]

Elle ... felt like you were talking to me. Thank you

[requin]

I absolutely agree that it's addiction--and we should treat the end of unhealthy relationships the same way we teach addicts to recover from their addictions. Turn to a higher power, find a group of support, identify one primary support to whom you are accountable...

 

My r'ship was not one of addiction. The 16 years before him when I did not date, was one of addiction. In that case I was addicted to a long-distance (very long distance...I live in new england, he was in the south, and being in the military he travelled/lived all over the world), married, extremely narcisstic (NPD) man, one who kept me on a string to feed his ego. Year after year I stayed emotionally attached to that NPD, instead of dating.

 

I don't want to go into all the ways that was A MESS (I already know that!!!!). I mentioned it to show that I do know the difference firsthand between a r'ship which is nothing but an addiction and the real deal.

 

My bf of one year was the real thing. Our r'ship was solid and my behavior within the r'ship was not the addict "acting out". However, not knowing he was avoidant, I didn't realize just how important his "guy time" or "alone time" was to him. Being an addict (or anxious type) being apart was hard for me but since we lived 40 mins apart we always had to plan our time together and this made it even tougher. All of our time together was precious to me, but to him after a while it became a burden due to the distance and the planning. He felt there were so many things he could be fixing or doing while instead he was driving 40 mins to see me (or waiting for me to go there, or whatever). At the end he said, "I don't have time for a r'ship." .....

 

And he has, in the month we've been broken up, filled every min of his time w/ stuff other than a r'ship--working overtime as much as possible, fixing his own vehicles, his daughter's car, working in his yard, helping a friend move, joining a gun club, going fishing. Etc. No time for love is pretty sad, imo. He will eventually get into his "I need a girlfriend" mode and when that happens he becomes very driven to find someone (he was in that mode when we met). Then the cycle repeats itself when "something" is always wrong w/ the woman.

 

We were very much in love for a long time, I never wavered in how I felt.

 

But I do know the difference and I'm sorry to disagree w/ you (and the other poster) but this was love not a dysfunctional addictive r'ship.

 

It probably sounds that way because I"m writing now out of a miserable black hole of despair due to the breakup.

[requin]

I'm losing it today. Day 3 of no contact has always been one of the hardest for me (not sure why). Even though I wasn't in touch w/ my ex all the time in June, I didn't go long w/ NC ...I always caved in some way after a few days.

 

I absolutely do not want to cave and won't!!! but i feel horrible today. My hands are shaking and I keep feeling like I want to cry (at work). This is bad.

 

This may be the addiction acting up, but whatever, I'm still in it and it's horrible. I feel so scared and simply hollow inside.

 

Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply to my long winded post. I'll try to reply to more responses later. I have so much work to do and I cannot concentrate my brain has been like mush for the past month. It's still like mush. I feel so overwhelmed at work because I"m so far behind and yet I still cannot get much done. I'm still stuck.

 

It doesn't help that i've started dreaming about him at night. Oddly for the first several weeks after the breakup, I didn't. Probably a protective mechanism. Now I am, a lot. Horrible.

 

I'm trying to think more of his "bad behavior" and negative qualities or whatever in order not to miss him so much but the fact is, we had a great r'ship. I thought so anyway. I did not see the things that were issues w/ him as being worth breaking up over. In that way I think I handled things better and more maturely than he did. I really was in it for the long haul or at least to try for the long haul. He bails after one year. I just can't stop thinking how unexpected and crazy that is, to me No working it out, or even talking it out, just hoarding things that bothered him and then wham, he's done.

 

We had fun, we talked, we laughed, we went places, we did things, we broadened each other's horizons, we had great affection and great sex, we really enjoyed each other. We didn't fight. We only had one really bad fight, back in March. We always talked things out. Well, until we didn't I guess.

 

But I guess if he feels everything else in his life is more important than spending time w/ a woman who loves him, what can i do, right? I told him, "Dont be a lonely old man, because that's where you are headed." He said nothing to that of course, but he has thought it himself many times. He takes care of his mother, but she's gonna die eventually. And his daughter who's 19 is going to up and leave and have a life of her own. And he's a caretaker. He'll be alone. But I know that's not my problem. I get that. It's just that i wanted to be the one to keep him company. And I wanted him to keep me company too. We're both young for our age, attractive and active. It all fit.

 

sigh.

 

You guys talk about how 52 isn't old. Perhaps not. And you guys also think this guy isn't so special because of how things turned out. Perhaps you are right in some ways about that too. But you also don't know but a tiny piece of the story. Believe it when I say it was good, it was great for a long time..I did not KNOW he was unavailable (an avoidant). So the theories some of you have that I chose him on purpose because I"m an addict, --no, not this time. This guy is single, my age, and seemed to really have his act together. Not addicted to anything except work, not a womanizer, hard working, etc. All seemed too good to be true--and then I discovered he's an avoidant (and avoidants are made because of enmeshment w/ a parent as a child, which he had and still has, so that was an ongoing probem, but I won't get into all of that.)

 

He's charming, handsome, laid back and very sincere. He's not a player. He's not a skeezy slimey lying scumbag. He's not a d0uche. He's a genuine caring, helpful, funny, kind, fun guy. He was extremely (extremely) loving, affectionate, and caring, for most of our year together.

 

And-- he has commitment issues. Yay! What a great combination.

 

No matter what, there's no way I could have known he was so messed up, I will never blame myself for falling for him, and being w/ him, it was the best year of my life (and I"ve lived a while). But I do wish, now that it has ended so abruptly, that I could erase EVERY MEMORY of it.

[GoBlue]

The term "love of my life" probably needs to be looked at. As you know, relationships require two willing participants. I know that you want him back but answer this question, do you really want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't want to be in that relationship? I understand what you are saying when you talk about being 54 and not having many men around. I am 49 and have been divorced for five years. I see no prospects anywhere I look for a relationship any time soon. I am a Christian though and I have settled the issue within my heart - I would rather be single and alone than to be in a relationship and miserable. I do pray that the Lord grants you the desire of your heart. Have you considered online dating?

[requin]

When my bf of just over 1 year broke us up 6 weeks ago, he went back and forth w/ whether we'd be on a time out, give him space, or done and over with. Each time I asked or we talked about it, his answer was different (even in the same conversation).

 

He broke us up the end of May, and for a month I stayed in intermittant contact because I wanted answers to why, and of course to try to get him to change his mind. That was when the above conversations happened.

 

Fast forward to last Sat..The last text I sent said, at the end, "I guess I don't know if we're on a time out or done forever."

 

I received no reply, and have since decided to go complete No Contact. Day 5 is today. [it is hell.]

 

I keep wondering if we are on a time out or it's a done deal. His lack of response is maddening and could mean anything.

 

He's an avoidant attachment type and needs TONS of space. He does not have another girl..he never cheated. It's not about that. He said he doesn't have time for a r'ship and so far, has proven that because since we split he's been filling every min w/ activities including working overtime, fixing cars, helping a friend move, fishing, etc. As an avoidant I"m sure the r'ship was suffocating him even though we lived 40 mins apart and only saw each other on weekends (didn't even have sleepovers most of the time) and sometimes once during the week.

 

So he was telling the truth when he said he wants space and needs a time out in that he felt all his other stuff was suffering due to the time he spent w/ me. What's annoying of course is that for most of our year together he didnt' complain about the time we spent and said it was the best time he had. Apparently all the driving back and forth started to bother him; he felt he could be getting things done instead of "wasting time" driving.

 

Our plan was that I'd move in w/ him in the not too distant future (when his daughter moved out...timeframe uncertain). We both talked of that --it was NOT me pushing for it. But he seemed to lose sight of the big picture and ended our r'ship.

 

The question is do you guys think he's on a timeout or is he done? I know I have to give him a lot of space w/ complete no contact for him to reset, at least that, before he might come around again.

 

Also I am not going to accept a 'just friends' situation. I think that's what he's aiming for at least for the interim (if this is a 'time out'), but that's a no go.

 

I'm going to to continue to hope he comes back so we can start over based on all the reading, educating, and hopefully improving of myself I"ve been doing. That hope won't stop and I can continue to somehow get on w/ my life while I still hope he's not gone for good. (I'm having a lot of trouble, as I am very depressed..but I'm trying).

 

What's your thoughts? A time out, or is he gone? I know no one can really answer this except him. In fact at this early stage he may not even know.

By the way he is 54 and I am 52.