I'm feeling antsy (NC) so I'm just going to dump my heart right here

[WrinkledForehead]

We were together for 22 months, the first 6 months of it was an affair, and he left his ex (they had a LTR, never married, never lived together). He felt a lot of guilt surrounding it and never integrated me into his life fully which caused my insecurity issues. I resolved one issue through therapy--my issues with self-worth. The affair was devestating and damaging to say the least. Despite that, we had a lot of love and made a lot of progress in the R. We talked marriage and kids and he even drew up blueprints to build an addition onto his house. We built love and connection with each other.

 

His mother got very sick in the fall. She hasn't improved with treatment, and although there is a possibility the treatment may work, her health is still slowly declining. He is experiencing anticipatory grief. He started withdrawing. He told me how very depressed he was. The withdrawing scared me because of my insecurities, & I pushed. Then I'd stop, we'd talk, things would smooth over, and after a few weeks we'd argue again.

 

He left on a business trip and then to go home. During this time, a friend of mine passed suddenly. We both were under massive amounts of stress from work, we were both being supports for close friends experiencing difficult times (death, cancer ). I also take FT classes and have 2 young children, and caught a cold last week. Stress, stress, stress. I was miserable and with our busy schedules and him being gone, communication deteriorated, we bickered, and the stress increased. I got upset one morning when he didn't answer his texts because I was so frustrated with feeling isolated from my partner. I wasn't pleasant. He woke up, and sent me a long text about how stressed he was, and at the end wrote, "I love you. I need you to love me enough to let me go. Be well." And that was the last I heard from him, last sunday.

 

I obviously went bananas and blew up his phone the first two days. I wept and wailed and texted and called way too many times. I stopped talking for a few days, and sent a last few messages on Thursday that were calm and rational. He hasn't answered or responded, and so I've quit talking also.

 

Everything he is dealing with in regards to his mother is tearing him apart. He's talked about staying out there temporarily to be there for her. He needs space from the R, so he took it. The stress in our relationship became too much for me and for him. So I've spent the last few days relying on friends to hold me when I sob and listen to me mull over everything. I'm journaling. I've got my face in my books a lot. I don't have my children on the weekends so that is a very difficult time for me. I'm pouring over the boards on NC and ex's missing you and so on and so forth. I'm simulaneously hoping he'll contact me (he's still out of state as far as I know, but I don't actually know. He's been gone 3 weeks now) and resigning myself to the fact he may not. I feel relief and I feel sorrow and I feel empowered and I feel weak over the span of an hour. It's tough. I could use some words and support right now. I'm doing mostly okay and the tears have lessened, but I'm heartbroken.

Edited February 16, 2015 by WrinkledForehead

[WrinkledForehead]

Please. I need some responses. I'm having an incredibly difficult time.

[questionsforthenouns]

Hey there. I'm no expert but I think you should accept that the relationship is over. I mean, he said it right there in that text, that he wants to be let go. I know this is very difficult and heartbreaking. And I don't know for certain what is going on. But think about the situation: he texts you a goodbye, you haven't heard back from him, so I think you should just take that as the closure right there. But I am so sorry that you are hurting and I wish I could take the pain away. I have been heartbroken and cheated on before so I know where you are coming from. But consider this; maybe this relationship wasn't the most healthy one to begin with. I mean, it started off as an affair. And there is all this stress and complications surrounding it, so try to focus on how much it was stressing you out, and use that as your springboard to move on from all this. Stay strong and please remind yourself that everything is going to be okay. Much love

[Omalley92]

Don't misunderstand me when I say that the relationship didn't start off fairly well either, coming from an affair and him leaving his gf. A Person who is able to do this once, no matter how much regret he has, will never have an issue doing this again. Why would you want to surround yourself with a Person like that in the first Place? I don't consider this type very loyal. Okay... Then there's the heart, Love and all and it happened. But tough times show the true nature of a relationship and I know that it would have greatly helped you to still be with him regardless of anything, but fact is, he chose not to. He chose to be alone, at the end of all this is his choice. Let him go. Leave him alone, stay NC. A small Part of you is perhaps even slightly glad it's over. Focus on yourself now. Grief, Anger, Sobbing, all of these will follow and continue for a while but one day you'll have learned to deal with it all. Stay Strong, Meditate, Get Distracted in any way.

[WrinkledForehead]

Don't misunderstand me when I say that the relationship didn't start off fairly well either, coming from an affair and him leaving his gf. A Person who is able to do this once, no matter how much regret he has, will never have an issue doing this again. Why would you want to surround yourself with a Person like that in the first Place? I don't consider this type very loyal. Okay... Then there's the heart, Love and all and it happened. But tough times show the true nature of a relationship and I know that it would have greatly helped you to still be with him regardless of anything, but fact is, he chose not to. He chose to be alone, at the end of all this is his choice. Let him go. Leave him alone, stay NC. A small Part of you is perhaps even slightly glad it's over. Focus on yourself now. Grief, Anger, Sobbing, all of these will follow and continue for a while but one day you'll have learned to deal with it all. Stay Strong, Meditate, Get Distracted in any way.

 

 

 

I do know this. It's not hard to go NC with him because he doesn't do social media and he's out of state.

 

I recognize this is best. We were broken. I know the affair probably messed things up and we just disconnected. He's very broken; he's stated as much. And as much as I want to believe in all the love we had, we'd engaged in unhealthy relationship patterns and I was incredibly insecure due to the non-integration. I don't think he ever truly listened to me to understand just how much, but I don't think I ever listened to just how much his guilt was eating at him.

 

I am partly relieved it's over. On Sunday I felt this strange sense of inner peace and contentment. It held through about mid afternoon yesterday and then the pain of losing this incredible man just hit me all over again.

 

I know that this is when the healing begins. For me, for him. I'm running through all the things I want to improve about myself and I find myself wanting to text him to tell him, but this isn't for him anymore. This needs to be about me now.

 

As far as distractions? I've got a million. Fortunately classes resume today after the long weekend and my children are back home now, so those distractions are going to be fundamental to my growth. After all, kids and school are pretty much the two most important things in my life right now besides work. I work up in a cold sweat last night and found it hard to fall back asleep, but instead of ruminating on the relationship I made myself name organic molecules. it helped.

 

I have this huge void in my heart. There was so much passion and fun, and he was the person I shared so much of my life with. I'm trying to fill that void with the love of my friends. You know, just before the split I noticed I wasn't singing as much anymore. It bugged me. And now, with all this ache, I can sing again. But it's not just because of the ache; it's partial liberation. The relationship was slowly sucking my happiness away. I need to find that woman again, the one that *I* fell in love with many years ago after my last break up (the split from the father of my children). I took a few years off after that one to find myself again, and I know I can get back to that woman now, also.

 

F*** if it doesn't hurt so badly though.

[WrinkledForehead]

It does speak volumes as to the kind of person he is. As much as I had going on in my life, I still tried so hard to be there for him when things got tough with his mom. But see, he didn't want me there. When things got tough in my life, he was too consumed with grieving the loss of her (even though she isn't gone yet) to listen when I said I needed a support. Or perhaps he was incapable of being that strong for me.

 

His silence and disappearance speaks to how strong he can be for himself. There were two people in the relationship, however, and what kind of partner just boogies out with his peace sign in the air when things get *really* tough? As strong as I was trying to be while supporting my partner during his tough time, he didn't return the favor. I'm working on focusing that strength and applying it solely to my own life. For years people have told me I'm the strongest person they know: I need to believe that fully now.

 

He can't break that which isn't his.