The Story of the Three Exes and the Lessons Learned Through Heartbreak

[Asherx]

Hey LSers. First time poster Looong time lurker here. Got an interesting (hopefully) story to tell.

 

 

This is, as you can see... hella long but it's not quite your usual type of post so if you have the inclination and interest then strap in and I hope you gained something from it!

 

I need to vent. Advice is always welcome but I like to try and give some of my own advice as well since I know the process and I know the heartache far too well.

 

I came here back in 2012 when I broke up with my long term (5 years) ex. I was devastated. Absolutely crushed and felt the full force of agonizing pain and suffering due to the loss of her and the life now lost, she represented. She always had underlying feelings for me and it was due to circumstance more than anything that we broke up. She was soon seeing someone else and during this process naturally wanted nothing to do with me. That's just how it works. In the initial stages of their new rebound/relationship you are simply not any sort of priority and a nuisance at best. We went no contact and I didn't hear from her for a long while (to be honest the details of exact time frames is seriously fuzzy now) but eventually established LC after some months and stayed amicable with each other after some initial mud slinging. This was my first big breakup and I had no clue what true heartbreak was all about until that point. I would....

 

I managed to pick up the pieces slowly and starting dating another girl who I had been friends with for some time. This burned bright and fast and burned out just as quick. We were only together a few months but once again I was reeling from MASSIVE pain and shock. Coming so soon after my initial breakup with my long term ex-girlfriend I was hit even harder due to the fact that I now felt doubly rejected, unlovable and a loser to boot. Loneliness and some clear dependency issues reared their ugly heads and I became obsessive and broken once again. There was no respite. None. The maddening thoughts were there every second. I thought of nothing else but the second ex for months. Stalking her on social media, checking her Skype login times, searching for anything to know what she was doing and who she was doing. I am convinced that my ability to snoop and stalk got so good that I probably would have caught The Zodiac Killer had I been on the force chasing him back in the seventies.

 

I could recognize that my behaviour was unhealthy but I couldn't stop. She had replaced the first ex in my mind and I was totally obsessed with her and convinced that I would never get over it and that this turmoil and pain was the default state of my existence from this point forward.

 

During this time I was convinced I was different. That sure, people go through bad breakups and it obviously hurts but MY pain was more intense and devastating than anybody elses. Now, I am not good with breakups and it's certainly true that I probably register on the more intense levels of the spectrum but whatever you are going through right now trust me that we have all been there.

 

I prolonged my suffering. I begged, I rationalized, I wrote long elaborate E-Mails all of which were received with cold indifference at best. Neither of my exes hated me. They didn't want me to suffer and they were not heartless although it sure felt that way at the time but their interest in me was simply not there and no amount of "talking" about it with them was going to change their minds. It's a cruel reality but that's life.

 

After another period of NC with this girl we tried to be friends. Of course, this was not a smart move on my part. My ulterior motives were clear. I would be friends with the express intention of "winning" her back. It didn't work. Every time we would go out I would do my utmost to play it cool, act in a way that would not be obvious that I wanted her and hope that she would just re-spark her attraction for me and everything would go back to "normal." -- You can't pretend. You just can't. THEY KNOW.

 

My life was a daily struggle of pain and longing for someone who didn't feel the same way. I needed to get back together to stop this pain and gain normalcy in my life back. Putting your life and happiness in another's hands is highly dangerous because eventually they will drop it.

 

Once again I don't have specific time frames because time as a concept becomes warped in such situations but it was many months of pain and suffering and after a number of petty fights with the object of all my desires stemming from my own frustration that she didn't want me we ended up going NC again and I eventually got myself out there and the intensity and obsession started to wane for the second girl. This took a damn long time and I probably in hindsight could have shortened it at least a little with smarter behaviour.

 

Then I met the third girl and the current situation. You can see where this is going already, right? Let us continue...

 

 

We started casually dating and I was in to her but not intensely so. I have found that I am not an obsessive lover. I am only obsessive in the end and I never see it coming before the cold hard reality smacks me in the face. I am never jealous when in a relationship and while I obviously enjoy spending lots of time with my girlfriends I am quite content to spend my time alone as well pursuing my interests. As long as there is a girl who is "mine" (note the quote marks) and she is in to me then I am safe. I have someone who loves and cherishes me so I am content with things and never even entertain the idea of it coming to an end. This is clearly flawed behaviour and I will make strides to not act this way again.

 

We dated for just over a year. I was content. All romantic interest in both the first and the second ex were totally gone. All that pining, obsession and craziness was a hazy memory looked back on with some degree of puzzlement if it ever crossed my mind which it rarely did. I never checked my exes facebooks, or thought about them much at all. I ended up friends with both of them (friends who rarely speak to be fair but friends all the same) because there was no ulterior motive. There was no romantic interest from any of us so it was totally viable. I remember finding out about my second ex dating a new guy and remember the feeling of TOTAL indifference to the fact when if I had found out about her dating a guy during the many months following the breakup I would have been absolutely destroyed. It seems almost unreal that there could be such a paradigm shift in mentalities but there you go.

 

Once there is distance and you are also dating someone new their new relationships are no longer a passive rejection of you. When you have feelings for your ex and they start seeing someone new it's perceived as passive rejection of you as a person and your value in the world. Once you have found someone else or achieved inner peace in some other fashion, which time and distance help with, you are no longer being rejected by their actions and thus you remain indifferent. Sure, some level of curiosity is normal but it's not fuelled by anxiety and EGO.

 

So, the third ex relationship came to an end. It was amicable. I didn't feel much of anything. I was even slightly relieved since I had been going through some low level depression and stress over unrelated things and felt that it was probably good not to have the "burden" of a girlfriend right now. You would think I would be less naive to the looming storm coming my way but once again I was blindsided.

 

We had "broken up" but I really didn't process it whatsoever. We still talked daily, hanged out and did stuff together. As foolish as it seems it simply hadn't been processed. This was classic denial. The first stage of grief. That is until the inevitable distance started to grow. Where as before she would tell me what she was doing and where she was going that was no longer something I had a right to know. She started going out with her friends more, our daily contact tailed off and we stopped hanging out. All this happened gradually.

 

2 months ago I was out and had had a few too many drinks and I run in to her. She's with a guy. I didn't take it well. I didn't create a scene or anything like that but I was talking to her (out of his earshot) questioning why she would be with such a douchebag, ect. She didn't take this well and left in a hurry with him. Then it hit. I realised at that very point she was gone. This wasn't some sort of break we were on. We were really broken up now and she was seeing other people.

 

And it started. The pain of it all hit like a freight train. The obsession was back. The social media stalking began. I was back to Crazyville. Population: Me.

 

We spoke the next day on Facebook. I apologised for my behaviour. She accepted the apology and everything remained amicable from that point until yesterday. Still reading? We'll get there.

 

She is quite the social bunny on Facebook and would always be posting songs and selfies, etc. I would try to glean meaning from everything even though there was none there. I lost my appetite the loneliness started to become unbearable and I couldn't sleep. Obsessive thoughts were my companion every second and have remained so right up to this point that I am writing these words.

 

The guy I saw in the bar was a non-starter which I was greatly relieved about. While I wasn't certain of anything my daily thoughts were on reconciliation and my tactic was faux-NC. What's that you ask? Faux-NC is when you are using No Contact as a direct means to get them back. This wasn't about healing at all. I was still stalking her profiles so while we were not in direct communication it flew in the face of everything that true No Contact is about. If you have been in faux-NC and are wondering why things are not getting better it's because you're really not in true No Contact at all. There is a huge difference.

 

Last week I had my suspicions confirmed that there was another guy in the picture. I was shattered again. Just like I was with the first ex and the second. The same patterns repeating themselves. I decided I would unfriend her on facebook, delete her on Skype and my phone. Was I going true NC? Not quite yet. I had another account that she was friends with so I was still able to stalk her profiles and I was unfriending her as a means to get her to react. It had been 3 weeks since we had spoken and I was frustrated.

 

Well, yesterday she contacted me with a sarcastic reply about unfriending her. We got in to a conversation in which she turned cold, distant and borderline cruel. Told me that she had checked out a long time ago and didn't care at all that I had unfriended her.

 

All the false hope was dashed on the rocks of misery in one fell swoop. There truly wasn't any chance. The person I loved was gone and she didn't care about me at all. I sat there last night staring at the screen... the last message I sent her seen but not even bothered to be replied to. She was gone. Yesterday was the hardest day so far. 5 months post breakup (and 2 months since I really started to process and go through the pain of it) I had the finality. There is nowhere to go with it. There is no tricking myself in to thinking she is coming back. She's not. I've always wondered why they call it a break-up when it feels so much more like a break-down. False hope keeps you on the hook but you are still flailing around.

 

I couldn't stay in the house staring at the walls. I needed to go and sit somewhere, have a beer and vent to SOMEONE about all of this. But who?

 

I panned down my Facebook friends list... no great candidates... had a look on Skype... and hmmm...

 

My second ex's name there. Green light next to her name. Really? Should I ask her to come for a beer with me and actually talk about this with HER? The same girl I went through such similar pain and suffering for a few years back? We don't talk a great deal these days but are legitimate friends now. This nonsense that you can never be friends with your exes is just that. You CERTAINLY can't when you still have feelings for them but once you are truly free of that it's perfectly fine.

 

So that's what I did, I sent her a message, she asked how I was. Told her I wasn't doing great and she agreed to meet up and go for a beer. Told her the whole situation. She gave some good advice and it was a positive experience.

 

We laughed about how crazy it is how things can change so much. How your present state is not indicative of your future state. Just think ... I lost months of my life to pain and suffering to this very girl sitting across of me and she is now here supporting me through the same pain and suffering for my most recent ex. Imagine telling my past self that this would be what was happening a couple years down the road. It would have been completely incomprehensible. What folly!

 

Today, I am in pain. I know the logic and the reasoning behind a lot of this. I have experience with my own history and the co-dependency issues that plague me in the aftermath. I am in true No Contact now. I am not stalking her profile. Nothing good can come of it. I had to finally take that step and trust in the process. I miss her like crazy. I am in mourning for the "normalcy" gone. I am not sleeping well and my appetite is shot. I find it hard to deal with the fact that someone who was so kind and loving is now so cold and distant. The ex I know is dead. I don't know this girl that looks and sounds like her. She's not who I was with. The girl I was with wanted me. This new version wants nothing to do with me. This stark reality is difficult and I have to treat it like a death. In many ways it really is. It's the death of the past and it can't be recaptured. That is a sad thing to have to come to terms with so remember to give yourself a break for feeling the way you do. It IS a big deal and you can't put a timeframe on your healing.

 

This will be a long road. While I know I have felt this bad before for my previous exes after our breakups I still find it almost unfathomable that I will ever be in that place of calm and indifference with my current ex. I will be at some point. It won't be tomorrow and it won't be next week but I will get there.

 

Remember my first ex? She's coming to visit where we live (she moved away some years back) and can't wait to see me and hang out. She even invited me to come and stay with her at some point where she now lives. These two girls were the source of so much agony and now after all the dust has settled there is calm, ease and friendship there. They were also cold and distant with me. Bad things were said on both sides. Emotions are not static. And thus the way people feel is not static. People fall in and out of love. It's how we are wired. Distance and time served to enable me to have meaningful friendships with my ex girlfriends when they at one point wanted nothing to do with me and wished I would go away and stay gone while I lost my mind over them.

 

 

I don't know how to "stop" feeling the anguish of a break up with someone I cared about. I don't remember the days I woke up and stopped feeling hurt the last 2 times. It happens without you even noticing. I don't know if I will end up friends with my current ex in the future. Things are sour and painful now and she wants nothing to do with me but once again... yours and other peoples present states is not indicative of their future states so who the hell knows?

 

I know I have to find a way to become content with myself alone. I love being loved by and loving someone. Who doesn't? I don't have that person in my life who thinks of me every day and can't wait to see me and that's not a good feeling. I can't bring myself to entertain the idea of the next girl because I am hung up on this one right now. My ego is bruised by the rejection. The feelings of love directed at me by another human being are not there anymore or at the very least buried somewhere far down out of sight and mind. I'm miserable and obsessive but KNOW I won't be forever. Today is day 2 of REAL No Contact and I have to trust in the process now.

 

Whatever your anguish now... it is not how you will feel forever. Life really isn't a predictable experience. You are going to be surprised and awed by things in your future. Realities you feel are set in stone will morph in to totally new concepts and opportunities. The love you think is singular has the capacity to love again.

 

 

I know this was super long. There is a reason so many posts are really long on this site. It's cathartic to get it all out there. If you did get this far I hope you gained some insight after reading my story and if it helped you gain even a little perspective on your own situation then it was well worth posting.

 

 

Advice and comments always welcome! Peace and thanks for reading.

[Yummm]

Wow.. your story shed a tear my man.

 

I am so grateful for you posting your experience, it's also quite shocking how you have explained the patterns that people can genuinely stop caring about you and push you out of their life just like that. I just can't imagine me and my personality being able to do that to someone else. If I had a problem I would address it, if my feelings changed I would give them a good shot at trying to help me fix things, this is what honest communication is for (and should be used when entering ANY RELATIONSHIP)!

 

As I always say "It hurts that the person who made you feel so special yesterday, makes you feel so unwanted today" - this is the hard things to come to terms with. Is it true? Do they genuinely not care or want you in their life? I guess so....... and if so why do they give breadcrumbs and try to make contact with you again? Ahh well, i'm not allowing myself to dwell anymore

 

My story is here if you want to have a read: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/breaks-breaking-up/530753-much-appreciated and advice and responses is also greatly appreciated.

 

You will find the person who will love you for who you are and will stay with you through thick and thin man, good job on NC. I'm currently 5.5 weeks post BU and 1.5 weeks strict NC (since I had a setback and eventually deleted & blocked her from Facebook). It definitely does help.

 

Stay strong!

[Pastmen]

Wow man, what a story. You're definitely not the luckiest person in love. To overcome three of such breakups has to be so hard. Thank you for sharing your experiences it helps me to look towards a brighter future with another girl. Good luck in your healing process I know you can do it and you know it as well.

[kasop]

That was an awesome read and thank you for sharing your story. There were parts where i thought we were the same person. Especially where you mentioned that you were convinced that you are different. I always thought i was the only one who can be hurt so much by another. Ive been through several devastating break ups including the one im in now. I love it when readers post about hope in moving on. It helps me fuel my drive to the beautiful day that i wont feel for my ex anymore. Stay positive ☺

[aboucher21]

That post distracted me for several minutes and would like to thank you for that haha. It sucks how much heartache you have had to endure but you are turning that in to positives which is all you can do. I have experienced heart break multiple times but not to your level it seems. Your story should remind people that things will always get better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

[Plaster]

Wonderful post. Good luck with your current journey mate.

[learnbyliving]

I read every single word and I so appreciate you posting it. I see a lot of myself in your story, especially the part about just needing to feel 'safe' in the knowing that someone is mine. I am also not needy outwardly in the relationship but I am fully emotionally invested, and when it ends, it feels more devastating than it should be objectively.

 

It has helped to recognize most of my suffering has entirely to do with how I perceive it. As in, now I get over the obsessive analyzing phase quicker, but I struggle with controlling my emotions.

 

Like you, those exes of mine that did not wrong me, I can (and for some do) lean on them for support and company. They are in my life and I am so grateful I have them in a way where I don't long for them anymore. So yes, I know everything will be fine but it the emotional toll in each NEW breakup is still awful (like struggling to be a functional person awful).

 

Conventional dating wisdom says I should not be so readily emotionally invested, especially since I am a woman and men like challenges. Hate to admit that is true in a lot of cases, and yet I still don't feel like I should have to change; that is just not me. I'd rather think that I'm willing to suffer and survive each 'failure' and eventually find someone who is completely right for me, but that each time I deal with it a little better. In fact, I think that because I showed myself to be such a loving and caring person that I still have my exes in my life in a positive way.

 

As someone who is also working on being at peace alone but really wants to be loved, I agree with working on yourself and coping but not letting fear of pain hold you back from putting your heart in.

[justsounsure]

Okay, first off, I am soooo irritated as I wrote out a huge response to this and got logged out (timed out?) when I went to post it, response erased. This has happened to me 3 times on here now. I need to contact the administrators on that one, and remember to always copy and paste before I submit. Grrrrr.

 

Okay, let me try this again.

 

Asher,

 

I think you may just be my "heartbreak soulmate". I mean everything you have posted is me to a tee, all the way down to feeling like I must feel heartache more intensely than everyone else. I mean no one else seems to have the months of devastation, weight loss, obsession, etc, that I go through (or if they do, they are REALLY good at hiding it).

 

I have now been in this position FIVE TIMES in the past 7 years. I could pretty much have my doctorate at heartache at this point, even googling was the scientific name is for that literally pain that is stabbing you right in the heart the moment you awaken from a night of crying yourself to sleep.

 

I also, like you, count a previous ex of mine as one of my best friends. She calls me twice a week right now to check in on how I am dealing with my current heartache. Five years ago, when I was losing 20lbs over her, stalking and living life staring at my phone for her to text, I never ever would have fathomed that she and I would be in this position today, completely and totally platonic. I attended her wedding last fall with my girlfriend. It's just crazy.

 

And so I do know that what is happening now isn't necessarily how it's going to be forever. But man, when you are in the thick of it, it sure is hard to see the light. I have grown so much after each heartbreak, and I'm thankful for that. However, as I told a friend last night, I am so tired of growing due to pain, loneliness, and rejection. I am so ready to grow WITH someone. I am in my early 30s, have a great career, great everything really, and am really ready to find someone to share all these great things with, and eventually start a family.

 

I know this won't be forever, as someone with a doctorate in heartache will tell you that time, rest, and plenty of xanax are the cure. And I know that I can and will love again. But each time I am forced to let go, the biggest obstacle for me is not WANTING to let go. I have said from my first major heartbreak that I don't WANT to let time heal and fall out of love. I want to BE in love. And right now, I want to be in love with my current ex. I know that I have said this of ex's before, but it's just such a curious thing when it's happening. I don't want our bond to die. I think this is what the stalking and faux-nc is, really. A way to hold on. When I let go, it's truly over. It's so hard to accept, especially when it wasn't something that you wanted. I guess I am still in denial. I don't know. I understand that many people go through this, but I just feel like I have gone through it more than your average bear, and I want to know why. I have so much to give.