Is my mind working overtime...

[Sad green eyes uk]

Right I have noticed alot of people on this site think that when the ex's move on so quickly and find someone else, a bit like my ex, and alot of you good peoples too, its because "they've emotionally detached themselves" long before we were aware of it.

 

Now my question is, how can someone emotionally detach themselves from a situation they are living in day in and day out with us, feeding us lies and letting us believe them and detach themselves from the fact they are doing it.

 

I really like to analyze these things as I cannot fathom out how someone could do it. How someone can live a lie each day and just get on with it until they drop the bombshell.

 

Another thing I do not believe they can really 'move on' as individuals until they have had their own space for a while. It does not make sense how these just jump in with the next person that takes an interest and project everything they were telling us onto the new improved models. All this with sometimes only a few days or weeks. I know some of you will say, well they detached themselves emotionally of course they can lie, deceit you because they do not care. However You cannot fully detach yourself from a situation you are living.

 

IMO anyway.

 

What do you guys and girls think?

[AltplanB]

that is a perplexing question dude that i would love to hear the answer too. My ex told kept telling me she loved me, then dropped me all of a sudden, and never looked back. It was terrible. I tried so hard to get her back and it back fired. Even worse, shes already seeing someone else. But F@#$, i can't her lying to me that whole time. I feel like she lied about her love for me, only so that she could feel loved in return. From now on, im preaching that you should never tell someone you love them unless you are absolutely positive that they love you equally as much. Its a hard thing to find. But personally, ive realized that you have to analyze it both with emotions involved and from a non-emotional stand point. You need to figure out the motives behind their feelings and yours and decide whether they are honest and true because really everyone, if your here, its because the love didn't work out.

[archbean]

i disagree. while i haven't dated and thus haven't been in this exact situation, i do know what you are talking about. i keep myself emotionally detached from my situation most of the time, because it's easier for me to do so. mostly i do this with my family. even though i am in the situation, and i usually do feel my emotions deep inside, i keep them hidden and irrelevant, instead showing different emotions that they want to see. perhaps this is what these ex's do, is hide their true emotions not only before the breakup, but also after.

[Sad green eyes uk]

Even worse, shes already seeing someone else.

 

So is my ex, and I've come to the realisation that after 3 and a half years she must either be an extremely good actress, or is a compulsive liar. Either way she says she is now 'over me' when in fact 3 weeks ago she was chasing ME.

 

I disagree archbean, like you said you have not dated and have not been in a situation like this, therefore it invalidates your reply, even though it is still welcome. You cannot fully understand what it is until you are there. There is a difference between lying about how you feel, and hiding it.

[omegaRED]

While i too think that they need some time alone before they move on, in the time that they detach they do get it. In my first LTR, i was detached long, long before the break up. To tell the truth, i don`t think i truly loved her. So i was ready to move on to another relationship very soon afterwards. Why? Well i was practically alone when i was detached (granted, the time spent together played a role and made it easier, we spent like 4 hours a week, one day, together). Sooo... i guess it would be harder if people were together every day, most of the day, but then they start to make up excuses not to be there with you. Because they don`t want to.

 

It takes courage to end a relationship. I gathered courage for at least a month or two before i broke up. It was still hard, but honestly, i`m never ever gonna do that to someone. I`ve always been honest, it`s just that i didn`t want to hurt her. And i ended hurting her anyway. There`s no escape from that. So the sooner, the better.

 

I thought my current ex understood that. She knew what happened between me and my former gf, and i told her that the moment she felt her feelings towards me have changed, she should tell me and end it. She didn`t. What`s worse, she lied and strung me along, she didn`t give me a clean break up. Not then, not since.

 

I don`t know what`s like to live together and experience that, i guess it`s much harder, but i tell you that it`s possible. People do fall out of love, or if like, often misinterpret some feelings as love. But what is important is to end it right then and there, honestly, truthfully. It`s not a question of pain and hurt, that will occur anyway, it`s about respect. It`s about being honest.

[Sad green eyes uk]

Respect and honesty all the way. Thats what i wish for. I got an email from the ex the other week stating how she had not lied about 'important' things in our relationship, er how about lying about the fact you told me you loved me, were in love with me. Yet the reason I walked away was because she lied. However it wasn't about the whole 'in love with me issue'.

 

No she waited 2 whole days to tell me, and promptly told me she had found someone else, that quick hey. Oh well its been 5 days of NC now, and i have had to resist the urge several times to either call or email her, I'm trying to be strong but she's cut me off like a useless limb, like i never existed and I am asking so many questions I know cannot be answered.

[chocolate_boy]

It is really odd, my recent ex and I were a couple who spent a LOT of time together, she has been my best friend this year, and she always wanted to stay at my place every night (I did find her a bit clingy though), we literally saw each other and spoke every single day this year til we split on sept 23.

 

That was the hardest bit for me to deal with, how could she go from needing to see me all the time and us sharing everything to cold-turkey nothing and seemingly not care? She did admit recently she did miss me occasionally but not enough to call me etc.

 

She says she's over me now and doesn't love me, and said she did this cos she "emotionally detached" herself from me the day we split (apparently she was head over heels in love til before our argument that day).

 

However I look back and she did this with her two ex's, they were also very heavily involved (but both short relationships) one of them is now her "best friend" (but is desperate for her back) the other one she just cut off, even though they lived together, she went from being his partner to ignoring him in the same house a week later.

 

I personally find it amazing, I don't get how you can do it? I hate being on bad terms with her, but we are (by her choosing and not wanting to talk about why we split etc. preferring just to sweep it under the carpet and "not mope") said she has no regrets even though "we could have sorted it out if we talked about things".

 

It is odd cos I miss lots about her, even though everyone thought when we were together that she was a lot more into me.. even I thought that and worried I might break her heart one day. Yet she just suddenly changed, now she can hear about me with other girls and it not bother her at all, one of her friends told her I was seeing someone new (I have been casually) and she told me she's happy and "it's crazy cos I'm not even remotely jealous!" (although the look on her face suggests otherwise). She also visits my neighbor and stays in the room next to mine every week, it doesn't bother her that we're not talking or make her miss me (parking her car in the same parking space she did for the last year when staying over mine for romantic nights).

 

I seriously cannot imagine how someone can just cut someone who was so close to them out of their lives and be seemingly not bothered or miss them much at all, even if it was a friend or a lover.

 

If we ever talk about our split she cries and gets angry at me for "bringing it back up", although apparently she has never felt heartache in her life and only gets depressed about break-ups cos she "cares about the other person and how they feel" and she feels nothing.

 

Really strange, wish I knew how to be like that!

[Sad green eyes uk]

Yep would make it so easy if i could just detach myself like that.

 

My ex is guilty of saying to me in the past when I have appeared aloof that unlike me she can't turn on her feelings like a tap, she even told me that the night she told me she was with someone new, I mean wtf is that all about?

 

I can't stand this mindf***ery. I know for a fact that since i left her, she has joined no less than 6 dating sites on each of them she says she is single, and she logs on everyday. I realise i should not be checking up on her before anyone says anything, but its too hard to resist at this stage and tbh it did not make me feel any worse than her telling me she had my replacement 2 days after.

 

In my post in the break up forum, I wrote how she has still has some of my things, and a birth certifcate of mine too. I need these things back she has ignored all my efforts to contact her about ONLY this. She said she would think about it, and then promtly blocked any contact from there on in. I was adult about it, I asked her to be an adult about it and could she just let me pick up my things so we could both move on without unfinished business.

 

Honestly sometimes I feel as though I'm banging my head against a brick wall

 

[chocolate_boy]

The keeping possessions thing is like her trying to keep you in her life in a way cos it's not truly over until you have them back. Mine just gave me them all back a week later and she deleted my phone number the night we split... so odd, she made me feel like the most important person in the world to her.

 

Mine has the advantage of being very good looking, cute and blonde, and she is still at uni and works in a gymn so she has loads of guys coming on to her and she has already had two mini-flings with guys she works with who liked her when we were together (which also pisses me off), social life like that makes it really easy just to pick up the next guy and go off with him, she's never short of options.

[Jellostick]

When my ex broke up w/ me in mid-October, I was hurt but it hurt more when she went from loving me to pretty much not give two craps about me. One week she was the most caring and loving person and the next she was the complete opposite.

 

I was w/ her pretty much everyday for almost 4 months. We talked everyday, pretty much saw each other everyday and I didn't mind that. Yes, she clung to me too, once saying when I mentioned how I wanted to stay home one night that, "Be over your place, watching TV and hanging out w/ you is better than me staying home alone".

 

Unfortunately, when she broke up w/ me she became someone different and it sucked and that's what hurt the most. The last thing she told me was in an email 2 weeks ago when she said she didn't want me contacting her 'cause "that's the only way my life can get back to the way it was".

 

That really bothered me 'cause it was a very uncaring comment from a person who I thought couldn't get that way. That hurt a lot and I still analyze that comment.

 

I hung out w/ her friends on Wednesday night and one of them told me she loves drama in her life. He also didn't understand her statement about getting her life back to the way it was 'cause he said she was a miserable person before her and I started dating. He said he likes her as a friend but he would never hook anyone up w/ her 'cause of the type of person she is.

 

I'm actually surprised w/ myself that I'm over the relationship but I'm not over the breaking up of the friendship 'cause her and I had a lot in common and out of all her friends, none of them were into anything her and I are into.

 

Like you, I don't know why people act that way. From stuff I have heard from her friends, if I knew the type of person she would turn out to be, I probably would never have gotten w/ her. She has a ton of issues that she refuses to resolve and frankly, I don't hate her and I'm not bitter but rather I feel sorry for her.

 

I know I wouldn't have treated her that way or anyone unless they deserved to be treated that way which I know I didn't deserve to be treated that way.

 

It still bothers me how things turned out, how someone can go from Jekyll to Hyde and think that's ok.

 

I'm trying to fix myself by going to therapy so I can stop picking lemons in the garden of love but I'll tell you, when things end w/ me and a girl I'm w/, I always think of what I'll be missing out of it afterwards and if it's worth to salvage something.

 

Cheers.

[Sad green eyes uk]

I hear what you are saying chocolate boy about it not being over til i get my things back, but she is blocking every avenue I have used to tell her to let me come get them. I do not understand.

 

My ex is unlike yours, she is 40 next year ok she just turned 39, maybe she's havign a mid life crisis, I don't know. I have sat and reread our conversations via msn, and admittedly she seemed to be blowing hot and cold, to the point of me telling her I wanted it over, and she told me she loved me and wanted to be with me, she knew that for sure...a whole 16 days ago!!!

 

I'd like to flick a switch and just forget everything, she is consuming my thoughts 24-7. She has made no attempt to contact me but having only spoken last week 5 days is not a long time. When I did speak to her, she said that she had been writing poetry the whole day before, about me and in her words and I quote "so she could get rid of the feelings she had for me". I don't know maybe I reacted wrongly when her stupid friend told me she was having sex with someone else, i said I did not care, i was hiding MY feelings, because wtf is it to him how I feel? He does not matter to me, but when she told me I said the same thing, lame maybe? I don't know all I know is that i wasn't going to let her know it had affected me.

 

 

Jellostick, if i were you I'd count my blessings it was only for months and not almost 4 years like me and my ex. This way you can heal quicker, it does not make it easier or any less painful because you will be feeling the same way I do. The not understanding makes it the hardest I think, especially when they seem to sweep you under the carpet like you never existed. It sucks. I could not let someone I loved go, without an explanation. The same way I explained to her WHY I left her.

 

 

I do think if she had not found someone else, something i am not 100% convinced of and even if she has I cannot believe she is in love, which she was writing in her personal msg on msn, one of the many reasons I blocked and deleted her. For a 39 year old women I'd have thought she'd be a bit more mature. Nope.

[Jellostick]

I hear ya, SGE UK. And yes, you're right that I'm glad it was only a few months and not years. It's just disappointing, is all.

 

I think what hurt the most is that you finally find someone you connected w/ so freakin' well, ya know? Like other than the fact we had so much in common, she lived right around the corner from me, she was older than me which is what I've been looking for (she's 31), was attractive, enjoyed sex as much as I did (there were times she attacked me!) and was just such a caring girlfriend.

 

I look at the age thing too in that she's in her 30's, has been single for over 2 years prior to meeting me and I'm the best guy to have come into her life in those 2 years. I feel bad because she's not getting any younger and she'll totally ruin things for herself because of her insecurities and that's unfortunate. I look at her as someone that will never be truly happy w/ how her life is and she'll prevent herself some being truly happy or try to be happy.

 

That's why I feel sorry for her because frankly, I don't want to be her age and have my issues ruin my life and the good things I have in it. At some point when you get older you should really think about your life and where it's at and what you want from it, not sabotage your life 'cause of your issues.

 

Fortunately for me, I try to worry about me and not her. I want to be happy and she's not going to bring me down. I was in a little rut for a few days 'cause I miss our friendship but other than that the most important person in all of this is me so I'm going to worry about me. I'll let her worry about herself and why she's content w/ being a miserable person.

 

Cheers.

[NoFaith05]

I'm with Sad Green Eyes and Jello Stick.

 

My situation is very similar to Jello Sticks. I do NOT understand how a person can just erase you from their life- especially after being so close- without even blinking an eye. Perhaps this is their way of getting over us? Or perhaps it's the only way they can justify what they have done? My recent ex admitted to me that she shut me out completely because any thoughts that she had of me would always make her feel guilty (as she should be!)

 

I understand the whole "emotional detachment" thing. I was in a relationship once where I began to become emotionally detached because things were not going all that well. But I couldn't hide it. My ex knew that there was something wrong, and the break-up wasn't such a big surprise. I also never treated her the way my current ex has treated me. This first ex is actually still friends with me, because I handled the situation like an adult. But this most recent ex- oh my God! She did the entire Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde thing- turning from a loving, caring, adoring girlfriend to some sort of inhuman monster. It just makes me wonder- are people like her just putting on an act throughout the ENTIRE relationship? Just so that they will feel loved and needed by someone? But then as soon as someone else comes along- boom! They're gone, and you're quickly forgotten.

 

I think that people who move on that quickly, without showing any "emotional detachment" during the end of the relationship are trying to mask their pain and shame. They don't have very high self-esteem, and they do not respect themselves (my ex even admitted this to me!)

[Sad green eyes uk]

I can relate to that No Faith, the no respect for themselves, low self esteem.

 

I think really people like this have always been detached so to speak, from who they really are, maybe I'm wrong. I still think its inexcusable they should spend months or years living a lie. Christsake I even questioned my own sanity a few times in the relationship, wondering what I was doing wrong, as of course there is always twos sides to the coin. I now see that many things I blamed myself for alot of the time was not always down to me.

[AltplanB]

This goes back to my point of questioning their love for you in the first place. People can fall out of love, i understand that. But what i dont understand are people that say they are in love, find a problem, and instead of trying to fix it, they drop you like that, never look back, and meet someone almost immediatly to fill the void. Its a very painful experiance that i am never, ever gonna put myself into the position to have to go through again unless i am absolutely sure that the person will be willing to work on our problems with me. That is something i think we should all ask our next relationships. When things are going great, just ask if when things arent going great, which they will at somepoint, if the other person would be willing to step back, and work on it with you. Find out their true feelings on how they would go about breaking up and find out if they the type that are willing to fight for love.

[omegaRED]

In theory, asking what`d happen if things weren`t great is a sound idea. However, there`s no point in saying that a person "Will try to fix it". It takes action. No matter how many times my ex said "If we hit a rough spot, i won`t give up, i don`t give up on people i love" she gave up. Moral of the story? You cannot know until it comes to that. Words are often meaningless.

 

Such as "love". Love actually means sticking through thick and thin. To put it simple, they don`t know what love is. They think they know, but they don`t (if they honestly mean it when they say "I love you"). It`ll happen to them at some point in life, hope sooner rather than later, and they`ll know what it is like to truly love. Some wont. Untill it`s too late. I really do feel sorry for them.

[Painwraith]

I think in alot of cases the reason ex's do that is its a defense mechanism. they move onto other people quickly to take the pain away and forget about their ex. lets face it if you had someone else in your life to concentrate on you wont be thinking about your ex much if at all. its the same as throwing yourself into work and not giving yourself time to think about it.

 

Its in a lot of cases used to take away guilt... the problem is if you dont spend your time thinking about why it went wrong and resolving issues yousee in yourself then those issues will just reserface.

 

My ex did the same but she for some apparent reason dropped her new boyfriends name in at any opertunity, I think it was a way to tell me on how great she is. problem is when you think about it she was actually trying to convice herself. thats why I am NC'ing her. I still think about her alot but I just remind myself what she has done to be the past year and I say to myself 'dont be a doormat'.

 

Always be an adult, if they have a go resist the temptation to explode just shrug and say your choice.... they are more likely to spend time then thinking about it rather than watching you go nuts and saying to themselves 'He / she was always like that'.

 

Dont react, think about what you want to do, and if it gets hard visualise stuffing your ex in a box and sticking them in a vault then walking away. its an odd technique but I find it helps me a little.....

[Sad green eyes uk]

 

Dont react, think about what you want to do, and if it gets hard visualise stuffing your ex in a box and sticking them in a vault then walking away. its an odd technique but I find it helps me a little.....

 

 

You know, I just did that, made me laugh out loud.

 

 

I stopped reacting to her, Now today I found out she's been checking out a profile of me, before she could remove her tracks, you can see who's viewed your profile but when you view someone elses get to remove the tracks so that they don't know you've seen it. Well she removed them after I'd noticed she had lol. If she does not care why is she bothering to look lol.

 

Everyday I feel I'm getting stronger.

[Painwraith]

She is checking on you because she is human.

 

No matter what people say they do care. they may say they dont give a damn but they do deep down. which is why they tend to keep quite tabs on you in many cases.

 

Keep the faith, and if talking is what you need then give me a shout at [email protected] and ill be happy to chat. I must admit I am also a bit lost... its good to talk!

[Sad green eyes uk]

Is it ok to add you to msn if you have it pain?

 

I'm happy to listen to you too

[Painwraith]

go for it matey. im on now

[In Sync]

I have been driving myself nuts trying to figure that question of how a person whom you were intimately involved with go from hot to completely wiping the memory bank of the relationship completely clean. It seems to operate on many levels this behavior. I agree there is an element of shame in this action. The inability to be able to deal with you the person whom they've cowardly ended the relationship with, so not to be reminded and feel guilt they must rid themselves of their memory of you. It is a rather pathological. I mean don't you suspect there are alot of people who behave cruelly or cowardly and can't live with themselves and their behavior so they do all kinds of things to distance themselves from their actions. And there's the sheer possibilty they have never look at the relationship as other than a superficial passing of time with a person, they were never emotionally invested in it from the get go. Spending time with (you/I ) was like going to the cinema, the movie is over and that's it.

 

I personally can't wipe people out like that. Maybe that's a fault and that's why I had a difficult time letting go of even letting go this bad relationship.

[Painwraith]

aww honey

 

 

((Hugs))

 

The best thing to do is not to wonder why. you will never get a decent answer to that question, I have ranted and raged over that same thought for months. but now I understand that its down to them not you.

 

Take solace in the fact that they will probably do it again, and again and again because they never faced up to their own responsibilities.

 

you are better than this. be better and spend your time thinking about how YOU can improve and not why the ex did what they did.

 

youll only beat yourself into a corner trust me... plus even though I still do it (lately late at night which is my worst time).

 

give me a shout sometime and maybe we can talk, sad green eyes is on my MSN so give me a shout.

 

Perhaps we can all beat this together, with msn you can talk real time as the feelings come up, on forums although they are great you have to wait for an answer......

[Sad green eyes uk]

I'm totally with Painwraith on this one hun, these people will do it again and again, and probably end up sad and alone! You on the other hand have been given the opportunity to be happy, embrace it and start working on yourself