Dealing with sadness a year after the breakup

[belle_bones]

We were together for four years. It ended almost a year ago. He had become severely depressed and had something like a mid-life crisis and walked away. He absolutely broke my heart, and in the months leading up to the breakup, he became as mean as he could possibly be. I think he did that because he wanted me to break up with him - I kept fighting to keep us together until the second he walked out the door and didn't come back. Even then, I wanted to fix us - he didn't.

 

I grieved horribly for the first month. In those first few weeks, I don't think I went more than two hours without crying. I cried everywhere from work to the grocery store. I lost over 30 pounds in five weeks. I can't even begin to put the pain into words. It was horrible. We lived together, so contact had to be maintained - although it was limited - during the process of him moving out.

 

I slowly started to get a grip on my life in early January. The tears had pretty much stopped, my weight stabilized, I was actively re-connecting with friends, focusing on my job, focusing on school and starting to explore new interests. While I struggled with it at first, I soon found that I wasn't just pretending to enjoy all the new stuff - I was actually seriously having fun. I went on trips with my friends, I started working out and got in the best shape of my life and found myself walking around smiling for no reason in particular. I just felt good. I created this whole new life for myself that I've been happy with - really and truly happy with. I'm not really interested in dating seriously right now, but I have gone on a few dates over the last couple of months. I was excited to go on those to dates - to meet new people and to see who else was out there. I felt like I was moving forward and letting go of the past.

 

I hear from the ex every so often. I think the longest period of no contact has been about a month. Now, he'll reach out every two weeks (or less). If I respond, he'll usually respond within an hour (if not instantly) probably 90% of the time. We've seen each other once since the split (about a month ago) and he asked me if I'd have dinner with him again soon. When we did see each other a month ago, he asked me numerous times what my plans for the next year were, if I was planning on staying in the city we both currently live in and other questions about my life. He asked a lot about my family as well, which was odd because when we were together, he never really wanted anything to do with them.

 

I've been doing so well. I've been happy, but I can feel the sadness start to creep back in. I don't know if it's because I'm aware that the one year mark is coming up so soon and it's stirring up feelings or what. I still miss him, but I know the reality is that he did so much damage that I don't know how I'd even begin to trust him again. I think trust can be repaired, but I don't even know how I'd start that with him.

 

For the past few days, he's started to dominate every thought. Plus, his name, his birth date and the city we were planning on moving to keep popping up (like every cashier who helped me at the five different stores I ran errands at had the same name as him). Additionally, out of no where, a car which is identical to his (it's an old classic in a very specific and uncommon color) has been showing up everywhere I go - almost to the point where I'm kind of uncomfortable about it. It's like I suddenly can't get away from reminders/signs of him. It's just creating so much sadness again.

 

How do you deal with still missing a person, and now with feeling sad again, a year after the split happened?

[Reels]

I feel that life is very small to think about our losses, and we should instead think about the profits.

 

Whenever you feel lost, just take some break from what you are doing.

[Itspointless]

How do you deal with still missing a person, and now with feeling sad again, a year after the split happened?

I was only a few months with my ex and still feel sad, or better said somewhat empty. She got ill and pushed me away. It brought me back to things I felt when I was 19 and lost my mother to an illness after some horrible years of illness. The first few months my ex kept contacting me once a month, it kept me hooked. I am afraid you have to take distance again. I get that he misses you, but he had his chance when he had his crisis. Now it is about you and you still have to heal from him.

 

I am sorry that life sometimes presents us sometimes with such black and white choices. You now have to choose for your own sanity. Good luck, you can do it!

[Standard-Fare]

You're still feeling this pain a year later because he's still a part of your life. And your in-person meetup with him recently is exactly what's triggered this deeper sadness you're feeling now.

 

If he's demonstrated no movement toward getting back together, and you don't even feel that you'd want that... it would be best to stay out of each other's lives for a while so you can both do your healing. It's difficult, but it's the best thing for both of you. Maybe you can have a talk with him about that.

 

A friendship may be possible later, after the healing is done.

[Gatema]

If you find the answer to the question for how to stop the sad memories from flooding your thoughts about an ex: one, five, ten years post break up, then please share.

 

That's probably one of the hardest challenges to ever completely achieve or to control. It doesn't really matter if you have moved on with someone else. When a specific trigger hits you with a fond memory from a time that you shared with an ex, I can guarantee that one, or all of, these three things are going to happen.

 

Your personal recollection about your relationship together is going to reappear, several feelings that you've manage to bury in attempt to move on are going to resurrect, and the emotional losses that you had to endure for getting over someone that you use to, or still possibly do love, will show back up again; forcibly uninvited.

 

What I've learned over the years to cope is that the only control you'll ever going to realistically have over the past memories coming back around again and again and again; is acceptance.

 

 

To be in control the best way that you can you'll have to gracefully, but steadfastly, start planting the mindset by conditioning yourself with a new reality. That is....

 

This relationship that you were in did happen for a reason.

This relationship that you had did come to you for a specific season in your life.

This relationship that you were in provided you with some valuable lessons about yourself; take an inventory of those lessons, then apply them in the next season.

 

Allow yourself the opportunity to continue to grow increasingly better, so when a new relationship enters your life it will flourish.

 

Which means it's going to be your job now to make peace with the past and to let it go. Be devoted even fiercely determined that you are going to start living your life free from the regrets from your past.

 

It was a season for a reason, keep telling yourself.

 

Be well, and there's nothing in this life worth experiencing that's ever going to be easy to profit from without the appropriate perception it takes for you to get there.

In other words, count your blessings.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Gatema

[belle_bones]

You're still feeling this pain a year later because he's still a part of your life. And your in-person meetup with him recently is exactly what's triggered this deeper sadness you're feeling now.

 

If he's demonstrated no movement toward getting back together, and you don't even feel that you'd want that... it would be best to stay out of each other's lives for a while so you can both do your healing. It's difficult, but it's the best thing for both of you. Maybe you can have a talk with him about that.

 

A friendship may be possible later, after the healing is done.

 

I know it's made harder because I do want him back. I do want to try again. Until his depression happened (it was triggered by events surrounding his job), we had a great relationship. It wasn't perfect, because no relationship is ever perfect, but there no major issues. Prior to his depression robbing him of his personality, our biggest disagreement had been over what color to paint the bathroom. It wasn't a relationship that was filled with drama or that clearly wasn't going to work out.

 

I don't know how to tell him that I want to try again without breaking down. I don't want to cry and be emotional - I want it to be a rational conversation.