NC must be total. do NOT repeat my mistake and send gifts or anything as a token of goodwill. it WILL backfire at you.

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

A little over a week ago we had a final conversation (already some two months into the breakup) where she made it clear to me that the many messages I was sending her trying to analyze our past relationship (even as I knew already she had moved on and found someone else) were too much and not helpful. I agree with this fully in retrospect. However, this was while I was still traveling, and seeing as all my thoughts were occupied with her I found a few things here and there that I thought/knew she would be into (no purchased gifts, more like interesting things I found on the streets). I felt that since I wanted to be friends in the future it was okay to give her these gifts along with some things she had left at my house and wanted back. I announced this to her during our last conversation and asked how she felt about it, and she said it was thoughtful and she wouldn't reject them. So when I returned to my home I put the gifts and things in a box, wrote a note apologizing for my messages and talking about the gifts and where I found them a bit, and sent the box with a common friend.

This was a mistake. Do not do this. Sure, I still think of the gifts as a token of appreciation for her soul. But this will reset your NC recovery and create a link in your mind that you will then need more time still to undo. And you will need to undo it, otherwise you won't be able to move on.

What's worse is, you will feel bad about this. Your mind will set off wandering, obsessively thinking: what if she misunderstands this? If you write a note, things you wrote or forgot to write in the note will haunt you. Even if you think you've crafted the perfect message, it isn't because such a thing doesn't exist, you can and WILL find flaws and terrible mistakes in everything. You will inevitably screw up somehow. Take me. I was so confused and not thinking straight that I used some of my t-shirts as a safety wrapping for the gifts. Thinking about that now makes my skin crawl: that's WAY too intimate. I wasn't thinking about it this way at all at the time, yet it backfired at me.

If you have stuff you would like to give to her/him, don't. Put it somewhere if you must but don't send it. NC needs to be total. Not just no messages and no emails, no phone calls. No gifts, either, no snail mail, no checking them on social, don't even talk about them to common friends. DEFINITELY don't ask anyone who knows them how they are doing. All of this will reset your NC process.

Think about it this way: is whatever you are about to do worth resetting your NC process to day one? It is most likely not. You are shooting yourself in the foot, and not really creating much good at all.

If you are like me, you might also feel bad for not showing enough affection IN the relationship. And part of you might want to make up for it because you genuinely feel sorry about that. But the game has changed now. You are no longer in a situation where your affection is needed or wanted. If you feel you have messed up then work on yourself so you can do better in the future. Sending gifts is not "working on yourself" because the net result will be keeping yourself longer in a situation where real work on yourself is not possible, or made very difficult.

You get the gist. NC will work and eventually make you feel better. Do not break it.

Besides, it will make them feel awkward. But the primary reason not to do this is you. Don't shoot yourself in the foot, you aren't doing anyone in the world any favors.

Edited March 12, 2021 by StoryOfMyLifeYes

[LuckyM]

I got it and agree to a point. If you are the obsessive OCD type then NC. probably won't work so well. Gifts are unwanted. By obsessing you are holding onto the memory of the past feeling it is better than nothing.  Easy to analyze and give advice. Much harder to practice it!!  For me too

[Marc878]

Getting this advice is great but most will ignore it. Hopium addictions are strong.

Most have to live and learn unfortunately.  There are some that never learn.

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

13 hours ago, Marc878 said:

Getting this advice is great but most will ignore it. Hopium addictions are strong.

Most have to live and learn unfortunately.  There are some that never learn.

I think we all learn eventually. I can say now, 14 days after sending those gifts, that they've set me back considerably, and even more than I had thought. It wasn't just the raw number of days I lost, my mind also just kept cycling back to the gifts, what she would have thought of them, etc.

Right now I'm finally moving away from that episode and the gifts barely ever cross my mind anymore. Still, it was massive self-sabotage. At least it taught me, though. I'm now scared as hell of any contact with my ex, and definitely not in any danger of breaking NC no matter how much a part of me might want to once in a while.

Honestly, I've been worse before, and I wish that during some of those earlier situations someone would had hammered this advice into my head. This time around I found some solid self-help and while I originally started NC almost as a favor to her, I quickly turned around and realized it was best for me. Still hurts like hell but I believe I would be way worse were I still trying to initiate contact.

Edited March 22, 2021 by StoryOfMyLifeYes