Athon Posted December 19, 2015 Posted December 19, 2015 I used to pride myself on my ability to quickly get over a girl. I usually needed no more than 2-3 weeks to feel fine. However, in June I met someone and things quickly got serious. The relationship was as traumatic as it was stupid. She was a Hindu and I was not prepared for her emotional chaos and confusion, her addiction to drama, and especially her disgusting family and her slave-like obedience to them. The relationship was well over by late September, but we still talked. I did not get over her until recently, mid-December. It took me two and a half months to recover completely from what she did to me. Now, I'm very happy to say I don't have a pinch of feeling for this muck. I feel exactly the same as I did before we met. But not before I completely screwed up at school and made a fool of myself in front of almost everyone I know. I dropped two courses and barely got by in the other two, and before this I was an A+ student. I was a freelance writer and I totally burned that too, I had two dozen pissed-off customers. My finances and my credit, which were previously good, crashed as well. Everyone from my parents to my friends to profs at school knew about the relationship. This whole period I was miserable, burned out, angry and frustrated, shot to pieces with anxiety, and scatterbrained. I was simply unable to give any thought or effort to my responsibilities. I realize now that I must have seemed deranged to people. When I think about her, I can't believe I ever saw anything in her that was worthy of love. I want to beat myself up for everything I put into the relationship. She was, and is, garbage. The thing is, I would never have recovered if I had just cut off contact with her as is suggested here. I often told her exactly what I thought of her, and I minced no words. To the end I was a verbally abusive, even vulgar rageaholic, but this was how I coped. She was the best liar, emotional abuser and manipulator I've ever met, she traumatized me royally, and if words were going to hurt her I was going to fight back all I could. I vented until there was nothing left to vent (for some reason she always listened). If I had just stopped talking to her, I would've bottled up all my rotten feelings until they devoured me with long-term depression and disability. Venting definitely accelerated recovery. I see a lot of people here who remain respectful of their exes' wishes, no matter what happens. One example is forcing yourself not to contact your ex at all, not even to press for an explanation or show any hurt, after you get dumped. There've been folks here who pounded entire volumes on the site for months and refused to say any of it to their exes, when the latter would've helped much more. Even if they said anything, they would do so meekly. Another example is keeping what happened from people. I've seen situations where guys who were about to get married and had a great relationship with mutual friends and future in-laws, got cheated on and dumped like trash and yet respected their exes so much they agreed to participate in a cover-up story. Being such a willing victim is not the way to go. I'm concerned that such advice actually prolongs the recovery process by putting a person in a long-term state of suppressed agony, all for the sake of someone who doesn't deserve such consideration. I think the human body is such that the adrenaline rush of a powerful vent brings relief. It's also exhausting, so you can't do it forever. Each time you do it, after a while you (perhaps subconsciously) care less and less. That is closure. If you never let it out, it manifests itself in other ways -- on you. It's a huge, unresolved issue and it doesn't leave your mind, no matter how hard you try. Forcing yourself to put a lid on your feelings instead of letting them come out and die is wrong. I think the second is the natural, healthy way to recover.
Zapbasket Posted December 19, 2015 Posted December 19, 2015 It's not so much respecting their exes' wishes as respecting THEMSELVES too much to keep trying with someone who has made it clear they don't want them. I'm one of the people who has written volumes (I don't even put that in quotes because it's literally true ) about my ex, wishing all the while that I COULD say these things directly to HIM. But there was no point, as I saw it. When someone no longer wants to participate in an interaction with you, then there can be nothing left to say on your part. Your ex was willing to receive your vitriol, so your situation is different. Did you get the response you wanted from her? What response did you want? It sounds like you let yourself get totally undone in a way that only hurt YOU, so I'm not sure your open expression of anger really helped you. What do you think, now that you have a bit of a mess to clean up regarding your practical affairs?
Author Athon Posted December 19, 2015 Author Posted December 19, 2015 Respecting yourself doesn't mean keeping silent and running away when someone rips you apart. It means standing up for yourself. People owe it to themselves to vent. I didn't say anyone should keep trying. I said people shouldn't force themselves to keep their bad feelings suppressed from exes who treated them like crap. I'm going to compare our experiences for a sec, and I mean no offense in this, I'm just analyzing. Your breakup was back in mid-2013, you say you haven't vented directly, and you're still talking about it 2.5 years later. Now, I usually vent and I can't even remember who I was dating that long ago, without taking some time to work it back in my head. The memory is distant and the emotional effect is gone. I got different responses from her, from dismissiveness to anger to apologies. Honestly, her responses didn't matter. What mattered is that venting helped me. I tried to let things go the "gentlemanly" way and I realized that was only hurting more. The knowledge that I had been deceived, neglected, toyed with, and treated like garbage the whole time, for all my efforts and consideration in the relationship, always came back. The anger came back and needed to be released, not toward my family or friends or life (because I was constantly taking it out on people too) but at the direct cause. So I released it and it left me. I would actually be more of a mess if I hadn't done this. So would my life. Recovering the other way is much slower and less sure.
Zapbasket Posted December 19, 2015 Posted December 19, 2015 I wasn't challenging you, just genuinely asking. We each have to do what feels right to us and to our situation. There's no competition or ideal way one processes a breakup; we all just do what we must. For you, venting directly to the source helped. For me, it was clear in the end that he'd not have heard or understood anything I could have tried to say; our relationship ended BECAUSE I kept trying and he was putting in zero effort. So there would have been no good in continuing that dynamic. I absolutely agree that sometimes you have to speak your mind, and good for you for doing what was best for you.
Amelie1980 Posted December 19, 2015 Posted December 19, 2015 It depends on the break up and the relationship. I found out one of my exes lied to me about the reason for the break up. He blamed me for the break up for totally illogical reasons. He took advantage of a silly argument to say he didnt love me any more and walk out. I was devastated, apologized said Id make it up to him. ....it seemed like a massive over reaction to such a silly argument. I didnt understand why he threw our otherwise very happy relationship away over this. I found out a year later that he had been cheating on me. He didnt have the guts to break up with me and I hadn't done anything wrong. So he waited until he had a reason to blame me. He took advantage of that silly disagreement to use it to blame me for the break up. When I found that out I gave him hell. I told him I knew what he had done, I never knew him, I had thought the world of him but the reality was he was a liar and a fraud. God that felt good and i struck a nerve with him and I am glad I said it. The next one the circumstances were different and I wish I hadn't ever shown him I cared. I wish I'd kept it to myself.
marky00 Posted December 20, 2015 Posted December 20, 2015 The only issue with showing anger is that although it makes you feel better... long term it most likely make the dumper feel better. Think about it.... Someone does something bad to you and if you walk and never say anything again... the dumper gets to own all the guilt and bad karma. If you turn around and lash out, that does release some of their guilt and shifts a small amount of bad karma towards you (at least in their eyes). So yeh... if nothing is said, both parties are forced to deal with their guilt and heartache on their own. If some angry words are said by the dumpee, the guilt and heartache may diminish a little (at least in the short-term).
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