Just venting...it's been a month and I give up

Well I am trying my best, but i am still at a loss, I mean I treated her so nice, always a gentleman, always doing things for her and I still got crapped on, makes me think I should not do nice things for a woman anymore, I fear she may have me to where I dont want to do nice stuff for women, that they are just users and abusers!

First off, I need to talk to String! DO NOT let this woman embitter you! She's already done enough damage. Don't let her poison the well, and don't let her ruin things for a woman far more deserving than she! Don't you DARE!!!

I say this because I have been in too many relationships with men who mistreat me or dump me because they've been "burned" by their ex-wives or ex-girlfriends. They can't commit because they're afraid, they can't marry me because they had a bad divorce, they can't take a chance because "she" mistreated, misled, manipulated, ignored, criticized, dismissed and disrespected him. And let me tell you, they're full of stories about how they bent over backwards for a woman -- and I'm not being arrogant here --- for a woman who, frankly, isn't good enough to lick the bottoms of my Keds. But I am the one who ends up paying for her misdeeds!

I told one man who had been divorced twice and taken to the cleaners emotionally and financially both times that I would have held the earth up for him if he had asked, and that I was disgusted and fed up with the way he was treating me. He wasted everything he had on women who didn't care about him, and then thought he could cheat me of what I should have! This last ex told me he couldn't marry me because he didn't want a second divorce! He's already assuming the worst because he was married to the worst for 20 years!

String, you were downright wonderful to that woman, far more than she could appreciate and obviously more than she deserved. Don't go the route of these thickheaded, chickens**t jerks that I always end up with. Give each woman the benefit of the doubt and let her show her true colors. Because she will, sooner or later. Don't give her everything you have until you know that she's worth it. But don't stint on compassion, kindness and respect just because you're mistrustful. I understand your mistrust, believe me! But one day you'll meet a woman who will be worthy of you, someone who's been waiting for a man with such compassion and wisdom that he can counsel a hurt young boy the way that you did.

She only wanted to see you on the weekends?! Hah! That's also the story I get stuck with. Guys who are only available on weekends. Or every other weekend. No, that's not love. That's "casual dating." And god help you if you decide to go out with other people because you're spending most of your life alone! It's selfish and self-serving and it's pointless. If a man actually wanted to see me every day, or wake up in the same bed with me in the morning, I think I'd drop dead from shock.

Did she treat you like a woman treats the man she loves? Hell, no! I've seen dogs treated better. Is this how every woman behaves? Absolutely not. You've been badly hurt, but don't let it stop you from being happy, or from helping someone else to be happy.

Now, to SMF: I love how you put it: my phone isn't ringing and my email isn't dinging! Amen, sister. He knows precisely how to reach me, and if he was feeling the way that I am, and if he remembered in such vivid detail how wonderful it was, then he would be leaving me desperate messages of apology and begging to talk to me. So, obviously, he didn't feel as deeply as he indicated that he did, and has gone on with his life, and if he ever thinks of me at all, it must be fleetingly and without much enthusiasm.

I spent more than an hour with a fantastic woman who is a "spiritual counselor." It was unbelieveable! I found her number in the local Starbucks and her ad just seemed so low key and genuine that I had to give it a try. I got more from her in that brief time than I've gotten from weekly visits with a therapist in a year! I'm getting insights into why I attracted this man to begin with, and why it had to end, and what may have happened if I had married him. I'm also understanding why I was honest with him about his family (which apparently precipitated his dumping of me) and that if I hadn't been honest, I would have been stuck with his awful family in a little suburban backwater hole in the ground and I would have been miserable. I know in my heart that it's better this way...I just wish that things could have been different. Or that I would meet someone with the same wonderful attributes without all the issues.

No, SMF, I haven't been dating. I'm not ready. I had someone interested, but felt nothing in return and asked him not to call anymore. I'm hanging out with the ex before THIS ex (someone I dumped who then called me after a year) and we're doing the "friends with benefits" thing, but I can take it or leave it. The thrill is gone, as BB King says.

I go out with a girlfriend from time to time, but I don't have many friends. I prefer to have one good friend than lots of friends, and one good friend is hard to find. And maybe all this time alone is helpful in this spiritual pathway through all this crap. I want to make myself ready for the one who has all the good things and none of the bad things about the ex. The spiritual counselor told me to thank the Universe for my ex and all the good things about him, but next time, please add courage, strength, the ability to be honest with himself, true commitment and loyalty! She said that his love was conditional...that I had to love his family and tolerate them or be dumped. She also said when you're in a committed relationship, you're responsible for protecting the emotions of your partner. That you do this even in a friendship. She said that, far from protecting my emotions, he's the one who threatened them. She said that it was for real, he would still be here.

I honestly feel better than I have for a long time. I'm going to have another session with her next week and hope that the effects take hold. I woke up this morning and didn't feel so sluggish and miserable. Almost stirrings of hope. I just want to get over him since its obvious he's not coming back in a new and improved way. He's entangled in his own issues and prefers it that way. He's not going to change anything for me or for anyone else. I think you know how that is, SMF!

And I have people around like your father, who can't understand WHY I would think twice about a pathetic jerk like the ex...and I can't explain why, either, any more than you can. But I guess it's another phase and that one day, even we won't be able to understand why we bothered!

Oh good, I am glad to hear that you are doing better. WAHOO for the spiratual counselor.

I guess its good to get a spiratual perspective.

I do miss my ex so often. I still think about him- he pops into my head here and there- but I don't long for him like I did several weeks/months ago. The urges of calling/emailing have definitely diminished... but I just am still confused how he can be so content being without me. It makes no sense to me.

But why get logical answers from an illogical person.

I also thought that with time, since orgininally I thought he bugged out about the whole future/committment bit that he would come to his senses. I guess I was wrong. i don't know why I would want this person back anyway.

Life is so precious it bothers me that this person threw me away with no remorse and no looking back. The last time I spoke with him - he saids "let me get in contact with you" OH PULEASE don't do me any favors and I don't believe him either. He is a jerk.

Can you tell I am still angry?

Kia, I am so tired of this hurt I feel, I had a job interview close to where the X used to work and when i past her old place I felt my chest tighten, tears came to my eyes, I felt like it was a heart attach, and even now as I type this I have tears in my eyes and running down my face. What did I do that was so bad that she wanted to break it off with me, yes we got into an arguement about once a month, this would happen when I felt insecure with the relationship. This would happen when I would fell that she was withdrawling from me, and I would feel it.

I have had so many people say to me that they too would feel insecure with this relationship. The fact that she still works with the man she had her affair with I was told would be enough for most if not all men to not want anything to do with her. Then if you compound the fact that she takes business trips alone with him would be cause enough for the rest of those that still wanted to see her not to want to see her.

I was told by a psychologist the following:

"You should be concerned that she was cheating on you. Even if she wasn't, she put herself in a vulnerable situation. You shouldn't be naive and think that there isn't a real risk that she is going to cheat on you considering her past. Like I said before, cheating the first time is the hardest - and she was cheating while she was married. She isn't married to you."

And they also said the following about my felling insecure in the relationship:

"I do not think that if you had not been insecure in the relationship that you could have made it work. Your insecurity was a result of some pretty major things that happened in the relationship that would make anyone question and be insecure about where the relationship stood."

I wish someone could talk to her and tell her how much I cared about her, Damn, I would happily give my life to her if she was in need. I would give her the sun and the moon if I had that power. I have loved her more than any woman I have ever been involved with, even more than the mother of my 2 girls. And now I dont feel that I am going to ever want to love another woman. Because I wont go throught this pain ever again!

Today is 6 weeks and 1 day since we have broken up. I have been optimistic and have thought that the I was finally starting to get over her, but with the chilly weather that came across the midwest recently, my thoughts of missing her and feeling lonely have resurfaced. I have been praying a lot recently, and didn't have dreams about her until recently as well. I hate those dreams because I wake up feeling like a mess and thinking about her.

I absolutely know that God has a plan for me in all of this, and I trust Him. But at times I like to question that plan I guess whenever I start to think about her. It is tough. I know that I will find love again one day, but I guess I need to continue to lick my wounds in the meantime and take care of me. Take care - man, those were some of the last words my ex said to me. I hate that phrase. I hear that and I just start to wonder what went wrong. I have not learned anything yet from that relationship. We both were madly in love with one another, and then 2 rough weeks happen and she says that her felings aren't as strong. Then the whole, "maybe we took things too fast." I hate that expression as well. Like other persons mentioned, SHE was the one that really chased after me, wanted to keep moving things forward, and then this happens. She just ran away. Didn't want to try. Didn't want to put forth the effort. And she told me all of this. And that really hurts. What could have possibly changed her that much? She said she wasn't happy anymore, yet says we had a very healthy relationship. Some of the very best memories.

It took my a few years to really open myself up to someone again like I did with her. Years ago I had my heart ripped out from my chest and it took a long time to get over that. I dated many girls afterwards, but refused a single one to get close to me. As soon as they started to, I took off running for fear of getting hurt. Now I finally was able to let go of that, and opened myself up, found love again, and made myself vulnerable, and really gave it my all. Looking back, I could have handled a couple of things better, but that was during our break-up and days leading up to that. If it's meant to be, then that is in God's hands. If it's not, then that is in God's hands as well. She came into my life for a reason, and she left my life for a reason - in due time both will be revealed to me.

I know exactly the way you feel because I feel the same way. I too opened up my heart, I too had it ripped from my chest, I too could have done a few things different. But I too am still in love with her and maybe I always will be, maybe she has ruined me for who God really wanted me to be with.

String

String, my heart is breaking for you. And I feel so badly that you're locked into that place I was in not too long ago: longing, hurting, wondering what I could have done differently, what did I do wrong. But you're missing the point, just as I missed it for weeks and weeks of what seemed like endless suffering: SHE left YOU. SHE threw YOU away. SHE destroyed her own chance for happiness, not YOURS.

Your therapist is dead right, and this is something you need to put forefront in your mind, ahead of the hurt: If this woman could cheat on her husband and go on with her life, she could betray you as well. Yes, by cheating on you. But not necessarily. What I'm saying is that she broke her trust with her own husband, the man she promised before other human beings and (if it was a church or religious ceremony) before God Itself that she would be faithful to him. She broke that vow.

Just like any other behavior, betrayal is a skill that comes easier and easier over time. Even a serial killer has to start somewhere...and any criminal expert will tell you it gets easier and easier each time they murder someone. Unless you're a special person, and unless you do some soul-searching and make amends, you find it easier each time to hurt others. She screwed her husband over, so how much easier would it be to screw you (a mere boyfriend) over?

My ex cheated on his wife (with a stripper, no less). She stayed with him for 10 years afterwards, mainly because she didn't want to have to support herself. She made life miserable for him because of what he did, but she didn't have the guts to leave him. The point is that he betrayed her. His own wife. While he didn't cheat on me, he betrayed me none the less. He betrayed my trust, just as he betrayed her trust. Looking back on it, I should have seen that this was a person who had experience in betrayal. He certainly didn't hang himself in remorse for what he did to his wife. He got through it, and it was that much easier for him to lie to me, abandon me and betray all the trust I had given him. Face it...would you trust Benedict Arnold? No? Why not? Because if he would betray his country, he would betray you, too, right? There you go.

I'm not saying, once a cheater, always a cheater. People can and do change. But the fact of the matter is, that if you encounter someone who has turned on another person in their life, there's a chance they'll turn on you, too. It's easier to do the second and third and fourth time than it was the first time. That's the risk you're running with people like this.

String, you didn't do anything wrong, and you couldn't have done anything better. And you can't entertain the idea any longer that she has ruined you for the woman that God meant you to be with! If indeed God or some other Entity has someone for you, it's up to YOU whether you'll lie down now and let this experience ruin you, or whether you'll go forward. My ex was given a wonderful opportunity to have me in his life. He threw it away. Because he has free will. So do you. Don't throw away other opportunities because you've been hurt.

You can become a stronger, more compassionate, deeper and greater person if you choose to, and you'll be that much more precious to the one who's looking for you right now. I'm not a Christian, and I'm not all that conversent with the Bible, but isn't there a phrase in there somewhere that says you will be tried and come forth as gold? Well, here's your chance. Come forth as gold and shine, boy! When you find the one you're looking for, she'll appreciate the hurt and hardship you've overcome to make you such a wonderful man. Are you going to let that dysfunctional woman take that away from you, too?

I know. You want to lay down and die. I did, too. But now I'm good and mad, and also beginning to put things into perspective. You'll be there, too, but you can't quit now. Feel as bad as you want to feel, but keep putting one foot in front of the other. I am thinking good thoughts for you and for me, and for all the rest of us currently paddling this lousy boat. And there's some beauty in that...none of us is alone!

Kia, Do you feel I did something wrong or does she has issues!!!!!!

Kaia, you could email her and tell her what you really think about her, I would let you do that, her mail addy is [email protected]

By the way, my name is Steve

Hello, Steve...aka Stringfellow.

Thanks for the offer to tell your ex what I really think, but that wouldn't be my place! She may, however, get some unsolicited email from others picking up her email address from your post. If I were you, I'd edit it out! That's violating her privacy, which, even for the worst of us, is an unalienable right. Her anonymity should be protected.

I can't keep telling you that you did nothing wrong if you refuse to accept that! The sad fact is that there are people out there who are emotional Typhoid Marys. You know the concept of Typhoid Mary -- a person who's immune to a disease, but can spread it to others. My ex is an emotional Typhoid Mary. He has major issues stemming from his dysfunctional family (and what family AIN'T dysfunctional?!) and from his "problematic relationship" with his mother. These major issues remain, to this day as far as I know, unresolved.

This man hasn't sought counseling, therapy, psychological or psychiatric intervention. He hasn't confronted his mother or siblings. He hasn't gone within himself to clear out all the negativity and damage he's sustained in dealing with these toxic people. Instead, he drags his sickness (which he doesn't address or attempt to cure) into MY life and infects ME. I am the one working on HIS issues with therapists and counselors and (until I quit them) with medication.

These people are like dog-owners who walk their dogs onto someone else's lawn and let them take a steaming dump there instead of on their own property. These people are like homeless vagrants with all of their nasty trash in a shopping cart that they haul into YOUR house and start unpacking in YOUR living room. They're so busy pitching THEIR s**t over YOUR back fence that if you aren't running around like a crazy person cleaning it up, you end up knee deep in it.

You can get good and mad, or you can forgive and forget and MOVE ON, but the bottom line is that these people need to be gotten rid of, one way or another. And if they take it upon themselves to exit your life on their own power, then God bless them for doing something useful! At least you don't have to waste years of your life trying to cure an addiction to them and scrape them off like the leeches that they are. She's done you a favor. The Universe itself has done you a favor. Make good use of it, and let her go. As long as you hold onto her this way, you're connected to her, and no one else can come in. Believe me, I know whereof I speak!

Wash that woman right outta your hair!

Thanks Kaia, I did contact the LS admin to have them edit that addy.

You are correct, tiem to move on and up!

Well it has now been 3 months and I have not heard a peep from my X. Guess I must have not meant anything to her at all. I miss her, and I know I will always have a place deep in my heart for her. What I did wrong must have been really bad for her to not want to even see if I am ok or not. I only wish I knew what I did do wrong so I don't make the same mistake!

String

Originally posted by Stringfellow

Well it has now been 3 months and I have not heard a peep from my X. Guess I must have not meant anything to her at all. I miss her, and I know I will always have a place deep in my heart for her. What I did wrong must have been really bad for her to not want to even see if I am ok or not. I only wish I knew what I did do wrong so I don't make the same mistake!

 

String

I feel for ya, man, but I tell you this: It's better that she not call at all than call sporadically here and there for no apparent reason. My ex is doing that, and I don't like whatever game she's trying to play. I know it's tough, but at least you have a pretty good idea that she is unhappy with you. When it comes to issues of the heart, concrete facts are always so valuable because they are often the rarest.

String, I don't know WHY you hang onto this illusion that your ex was some sort of prize and that you "did something wrong" -- something so heart-cripplingly hideous that the poor girl can't bring herself to even speak to you, but if it gets you through the night then who am I to protest?

My ex hasn't spoken to me in 4 months and I know damn well that he's nothing more than a pathetic chickens**t who is so stupid he needs an instruction manual to figure out how to get out of bed in the morning. The only thing I did wrong was to even lower myself to speak to him in the first place. Pooh! Your attitude is like when someone dies, no matter what a mean-spirited, conniving scumbucket they were when living, suddenly they're some kind of saint. Just because someone dumps you doesn't mean YOU are the one with s**t for brains.

I've earned someone far better than my ex, and am happily looking forward to meeting him. Hopefully you'll be in this position much sooner than you seem to think.

Hi Kaia,

I was thinking about you today and its funny that you posted something.... How are you doing? Still moving on being strong??!!!??

Actually about 3 weeks ago my father underwent an unexpected quadruple bypass and I impulsively emailed and called my ex. when my father was hospitalized.. basically saying that my father is in the hospital it is his heart- the ex replied, i am sorry to hear... Then when I found out that my father was undergoing major heart surgery - i panicked and called my ex.. no idea why- bc I shouldn't seek comfort from an illogical, piece of garbage... but my cries on the phone explaining what was going on and asking him to call me back did nothing.. HE DID NOT CALL ME BACK!!! Not once while i was waiting to see if my father was going to live or DIE!!!

That was the icing on my cake.. HE is a rotton piece. It was all I needed.

I wrote him the nastiest note telling him congrats- if it was his goal for me to hold him in the lowest regard and have me think of him as the wimpiest, lifeless, inhuman person on the planet- I DO!!!!!! You have achieved that goal!

No response... nothing. SOOOO over it...

How are you doing?

So, hit me on the head with your frying pan why don't you. I am starting to feel better about all this. I know that I treated her very well, probably better than she has ever been treated, more love than she has ever had or may ever have.

I will find a woman that will love me for all that I will do for her and you have read what all I do and I do so freely. I have been told that I am a wonderful man, she even said that to the minister and my feeling insecure was caused by her and her actions or what she said. If I die tomorrow, I die free of guilt that I did something wrong because I did it right, maybe not by the book all the time but I did it right.

She on the other hand well she will have to live with the way she treated me and all the men that have been in her life.

String

SMF...first things first. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your father, and I hope that he's recovering swiftly and strongly! The fact that you're there for him is sure to enhance that process. My thoughts are with you!

Now, to the bottom -- and I mean the BOTTOM -- of the barrel. The place where all the debris settles. Like your ex. How sad to be so inhuman and uncaring not to respond with more kindness and warmth to the distress of a woman he claimed at one time to love so dearly! Even worse is the fact that he set you up and knocked you down again...by telling you he'd call back and didn't. If that situation has changed, well, I'll eat crow. But at this point, all I can say is that his sterling qualities of unreliability and disingenuousness remain intact!

Cripes! I've had exes call me with tragic tales and I was better to them than he was to you! And I had far less reason to behave with civility and kindness, since I had been the dumpee in those situations! Oh! Some woman is going to be weeping into her Corn Flakes one of these days, once she's married this prizewinner and gets good and stuck with him! Be glad it ain't YOU.

Well, this probably frees up a great deal of emotional energy you may have been expending on him at some level. Once someone pushes you past a certain point, it's like the last vestiges of anything positive you felt for them suddenly vanish. Twink-a-twink-a-twink -- you know, like Samantha wiggling her nose on Bewitched. It's all over, just like that.

I've been doing a lot of reading about finding a companion or soul mate and how the universe may operate on a system of laws resembling physics. How you may attract a certain kind of person because of the energetic vibrations you send out. And that you have to clean up and elevate those vibrations to attract the type of person you want instead of the type of person you keep getting.

One danger is that once a relationship is over, your emotional energy is still tied into that person...because you're angry with them, or because you miss them, or because you still want them. This universal law interprets your attachment to this person -- whether they're around or not, alive, dead, or hanging from a telephone pole -- as you being unavailable. Taken. Engaged. Whatever. So that it becomes absolutely essential that you cut this attachment and disentangle your energy from this person so that you are seen as available for a relationship which the universal law will send to you.

That, SMF, is where I am right now. Disentangling myself. Cleaning up my energy. Sitting down and making a "scorecard" of what I'm looking for in a companion. And, importantly, trying NOT to think about the ex any longer or what rotten things he did. Because, unfortunately, if you give a lot of attention and emotional energy to those rotten traits, you'll attract someone with the same rotten traits. If I have to think about him at length, I try to think of the good things about him, and then cut it short. It's not easy. It's hard work. But I'm willing to do whatever I have to do in order to have a good husband. So I can't think of what I don't want anymore. I have to think only of what I do want.

Things ain't so bad. My job, which was in jeopardy for a while due to the situation with the ex, has turned around. I'm being praised to the skies. Doesn't change the fact that I'm looking elsewhere because I don't forget that, like my ex, my bosses kicked me when I was down. That they're changed their tune doesn't change my mind!

I feel better. I'm starting to work out again and get back into shape. I got so lazy and sad and sedentary in the period of loneliness and mourning that, while I didn't gain much weight, I lost a lot of my fitness. I didn't work out. Just sat there. Now I feel more like me...I used to be a much more active person. I want to be that way again. I'm making my apartment a completely different place than it was when I was with my ex. Not to exorcise his ghost, but just because I want new surroundings for me. I'm finding more and more that the things I'm doing -- like working out, and trying to start a business with my sister, and redecorating -- I'm doing for me. Not with his support and encouragement, and not to spite him. Just purely for me. Because I deserve it.

And that's the other thing. I think I mentioned that I had had several sessions with a "spiritual counselor". Man. That was a real eye-opener. She also agrees with the universal laws concept and said that one important thing was to know that you deserve better! I remember one day I completely broke down over the ex and was crying and crying angrily. I kept repeating one thing over and over: "I deserve better than this! I deserve better than this!" And I DO.

It's getting colder and darker, and winter is approaching, but that doesn't really bother me. I can use the quiet time of the seasons to build from within. Slowly and carefully, so that I will attract a trustworthy, reliable, honest, loving man who wants to be with me and will not let obstacles defeat him. I'll open myself to the opportunities and options that I overlooked because I was going full-speed down a dead end street.

And to String...I wasn't going to hit you with my frying pan. I was thinking more along the lines of a good dose of rock salt delivered from a double-barrel shotgun! Won't kill you, but it'll make you THINK. You're right: you have earned peaceful sleep at night, while someday, if she has the emotional integrity, your ex may wake up in a sweaty panic at 3 am and realize what she's done.

GREAT POST!!!!

You don't have to eat a crow-... bc he has never called!

It puts a smile on my face that you are doing a lot for yourself. I am too!!! I am working out again, listening to music, I can say his name without cringing, i can even glance at an old picture without getting so upset.. TIMES they are a changing!!!

AND YES it was the flick of a switch, twinkle of my nose that led me to believe what a selfish, inhuman person i was with for a long period of time... "i see your true colors shining thru and that's why i HATE YOU" that is how the song should have GONE!!!! He is so rotten.

Our exes, String, Kaia- they are just rotten... We are so much better off. And yes, one day in a cold sweat they will awake and say what in the world did I DO. They certainly lost the best thing and they will never find better and we will bc we are better from this experience. they still harbor rotteness.. once an apple is rotten you can't really save it.

i do belive in universal signs as well.... things just have a way of working out... the person that i didn't think would be there for me when my father was ill was my ex ex boyfriend... we dated on and off for 6 years. 2 boyfriends later.... and 2 heartaches later.... his feelings haven't changed for me... he wants to be back together and he loves me unconditionally. unfortunatley i am not ready to be with someone BUT it feels fabulous to know that love exists for me.

You are both right, someday they will see what they have done, maybe not next month, maybe not even a year, but someday they will, and then at that moment we will be in control and tell them to *&^% off. There is a country song that I heard, something about you wont break my heart a second time. Well the X wont ever break my heart again.

String

PS, Kia, I owe you for all of your standing by me when I was down. Sometimes I still fall down, but I remember how she treated me and the things she did and I pick myself back up, dust myself off on go forward. I will thank God for a penpal like you Kia, someday I hope we meet so i can hug you and thank you in person.

String

You're very welcome, String, if I've said anything that's brought some comfort to your situation! Any time.

I think there's not only safety in numbers, but also comfort and comraderie. Which is why it's so good to be able to talk with other people in the same lousy situation and keep each other going when things are bleak.

Here's to the happiness that we deserve!

It is too bad we live in different area's of the country as we could all meet at a bar and drink to finding that special person that will love us for who we are and what we have to offer. You sound so much like a woman that I would want in a relationship and have yet to find.

Do you think we will ever find that person, I thought I had as you know, but I was wrong. I put trust in a woman who from all indications from her past cannot be trusted, you trsuted a man that trashed your trust as well it seems.

String

Well, here's to you in a "virtual" bar where all of us can meet and congratulate one another on the fact that we're not being toasted at our respective weddings to the walking disaster areas that, happily, walked out of our lives!

Yes, I steadfastly believe that there is that special one we're looking for, no matter how many chaotic and malfunctioning test runs we have to endure. I have to believe that everyone comes into your life for a reason...and that you attract certain people into your life, and that there's something essential to be learned about yourself from your interaction with them.

For instance, you're quite right that this man completely and utterly betrayed my trust. Because of his fear -- his fear that I would abandon or reject him (so he made a pre-emptive strike and abandoned me first) -- fear that he would have to deal with his clannish and smothering family and his controlling mother, and that, in that process, he would lose them (because they would have turned against him if he had stood up to them) -- and fear that somehow he would disappoint me or fail to live up to expectations that existed only in his own imagination (because I never criticized or ridiculed him about anything he did or felt or said). I should feel sorry for someone so totally consumed by fear, and perhaps one day I will when I'm complete again.

But I had to think...why did I attract someone who is so damned fearful?! And I had to realize that, although I was willing to move forward in a relationship and live with him and be his wife, I was also afraid. I simply express my fear in a different way. He always felt that I was someone "distant" from him...I did, I think, resist being as emotionally intimate and vulnerable with him as I could have been and wanted to be, out of fear. I thought I hid it much better than I did. At any rate, I attracted someone so fearful and paranoid that it made me look within myself for those very traits which I hated so much in him. Seeing these things in another person made me realize how limiting and miserable they are, and I want to rid myself of them, too.

I also attracted someone who was willing to abandon me because I focused so much on being abandoned. I had little or no security as a child growing up, and so I seek out security and have a great fear of being abandoned. I don't show it -- I'm independent and far from clingy. I'm not the type. But I THINK it all the time. Which may be one reason why I do resist being intimate and vulnerable to the fullest extent to which I'm capable...it hurts too much when you're then abandoned by the person you made yourself so vulnerable to. I'm being taught that whatever you focus on, you bring into your life. In the last few years I have been focused on being fearful of being alone, or of being abandoned. So I've been attracting men who have little or no time for me, or who end up leaving me altogether.

So, to some extent, I brought this wretched person into my life with the vibrations I was sending out subconsciously (but certainly NOT unconciously!). But I'm trying to learn from the experience so that I don't repeat it. Haven't you known people who keep getting the same relationship over and over again, just with different people? Why? Because there are so many rotten, dysfunctional, just plain awful people out there? Or because you keep attracting the same type of person because you aren't learning NOT TO?

I don't want this kind of man in my life again. I'm determined now to rid myself of whatever it is about me that's sending out signals to this kind of person, and to start paying attention to my intuition -- my gut, as it were -- because it sent up flares early on about this guy which I chose to ignore. There were things about him that felt wrong...no matter what his words were, his actions didn't bear him out. I had a "feeling" the very first time we had a long conversation that somehow I was always going to be second fiddle to his family, but I ignored it. And believed his WORDS when he denied it. But his actions spoke much louder. Maybe he was smart to dump me...maybe, being pretty intuitive himself, he could foresee that one day I would wake up and boot him out.

The bottom line is that although it wasn't me who asked him to choose between me and his family, he fearfully chose them because he couldn't envision being able to survive without them and projected a divorce for us into the future. Being a coward must be a hard row to hoe...which is why I want to rid myself of my own fearfulness so that I don't abandon the best thing that may ever happen to me the way that he did, just because I'm scared! I guess you could say that he taught me about the importance of courage.

took too long to find your post, but better late than never. you are cool and i enjoyed what yhou have had to say. keep it up girl

You are like a mirror of myself, I too was in a relationship where her family played way to much of a role in her life. She works for her Mom, so what Mom says, goes.

Not only in business, but in her personal life, she is too afraid to tell her Mom no becasue of what she says is "disrespect". So he will continue to do what Mom wants when Mom wants at whatever cost in order to keep Mom happy, maybe becasue if she were to cross Mom, then Mom may not want her daughter to work for her anymore, thus daughters income would be gone. I remember there were so many times we had to do what Mom wanted without reguards to what we had planned already, I can remember Mom being upset becasue we had made a trip out of town and were not home to do something Mom wanted to be done right away.

This much I know, I am getting tired of doing all the giving and not getting in return, maybe someday I will find a gal that will give to the relationship and then there will be an equal give and take. My giving bag is so empty right now and I see it is wearing thin and I am afraid that a hole might develop and then becasue of all the giving my bag will never be filled becasue of the hole in it.

So, here is to all of the takers in life like I had, may they all find other takers and take each other for the ride of their lives, as for me, I only want to find a giver like myself, then I will be in heaven, at least I hope I will.

String, it's funny. If you look at nature, or the cosmos, you can see that everything rides on perfect balance. Yeah, things slip a little too far one way, and then slide back a little too far the other, but it all evens out into a perfect balance. Volcanoes erupt and scorch the earth, destroying acres of forest and drying up lakes. But 10 years later, the earth is more fertile than it was before and lush forests are beginning to grow where there was once only devastation. It's all about give and take.

Which is why I'm hopeful that people like you will achieve some of that balance, and you'll find someone who will give back to you instead of taking. A little reciprocity, don't you know. That old phrase, "what goes around, comes around," doesn't just refer to nasty deeds and malicious tricks. It applies to whatever goes around. I think that one day, when you least expect it, some of that which you've given out will come back to you.

For right now, you have to fill the well. I was told once by a writing teacher that in order to write, you have to have something to write about. Which means, don't write for a while and instead READ. Then you fill your well. And you have something to draw on. Same goes for you. You have to do some good things for yourself for a while. Take a short trip and do something you enjoy. Buy something for yourself that you've always wanted. Stuff like that.

But it doesn't have to mean that you have to focus purely on yourself or that you have to stop giving. You can go out and give to someone for the pure joy of giving...and what you get back is happiness. Goes into the well. Little things you wouldn't even think of. Walking a dog whose owner can't or doesn't take it out often. You always get something back immediately from any animal that you are kind to. The same usually with small children (unless they're takers-in-training). The problem was that you were giving to someone who apparently didn't even give back simple gratitude or express pleasure in being treated nicely. No wonder your bag is empty!

And as for the "family thing." Ugh. You'd think that people who are grown up enough to marry, serve in the military, drive a car, vote, pay taxes, raise children, etc., would be grown up enough not to have to call their Mama every time they need to use the bathroom! Being close to your family is nice, but when your family is the predominant system in your life, and when your family is the yard stick by which you measure every decision, and when you don't dare "cross" them by doing what you want to do, that's sick and weird. My ex's family were a world unto themselves and made it quite clear that "outsiders" -- like the siblings husbands, wives, boyfriends or girlfriends -- were expendable. I've always thought my ex's father drank himself to death because there was no other way out!

My ex and I spent Thanksgiving alone together last year and had a wonderful time...but I'm sure he never heard the end of it from his mother! Well, this year she's got him all to herself and I hope they're all very happy. Your ex was obviously fearful of having to depend on herself for her income. What sad, trapped way to live! I guess you can feel sorry for her in some ways.

Hey, joebannon, thanks for the good words!