Desperately want to break the no contact rule. !!!

[paddington bear]

Was just reading to the end of MagicRat's post here - tips for moving on. And it's worked out well for him, but I'm kind of stuck. And sorry for the long post, I just have to get this stuff off my chest because I'm going crazy here.

 

I've mentioned this on numerous previous posts, but male friend I fell for has basically got together again with his ex wife...well, he kind of has, she's determined to get him back and has been working on doing just that over the last year. He's dithering, but he's been dithering for months now. She's a very determined person (to put it politely) i.e. she's a total control freak, will not ever take no for an answer, hounds everyone until she gets what she wants. Emotionally blackmails you, guilt-trips you, totally ties your head up in knots until you don't know whether you're coming or going. Gets herself into crazy situations and expects others to pick up the pieces, which they do because she's manouvered you into a position of feeling like you 'owe her'.

 

After experiencing a small amount of her behaviour and on observing how he's treated, blamed for her past errors and choices, blamed for everything, guilt-tripped, screamed at, then nice as pie, then the same nasty abnormal behaviour again. I've realised that he's in an emotionally abusive relationship. And she tried to use the same tricks on me, and it worked, I felt guilty and pushed around, but also guilty enough to feel obliged to do what she wanted even if it wasn't what I wanted. She is a one-woman brainwashing machine and she has now alienated me from his life and his other friends as everyone avoids her like the plague and is uncomfortable with her behaviour and no one can see him without her there any more. So he has no outside perspective any more on life, relationships, anything.

 

Anyway, due to being basically blackmailed and of course a sense of loyalty and love for her, and a child there, he's always there for her, drops everything for her, totally p****whipped, but they are not back together per se. Due to her treating me very shoddily . He told me that she is 'like that' and he had spent years getting used to it. I started pulling waaaaay back. Argument was resolved, tried to mend fences, she treated me in the same way again, so I realised that this would be a repeat pattern, her treating me and others like s***, expecting us to get over it, go back to normal, her being as sweet as pie, doing nice things for you only to demand payback down the line. People are pawns for her to use, me and everyone else around her are only seen in terms of what use they can be put to and she does what is necessary in order to keep those useful people around and to then make them do what she wants. In any case, if you keep falling for the side of her being nice it leads to her behaving in the same nasty way over and over. And I can't have someone like that in my life. Life is too short.

 

So I'm dealing with the double-whammy of someone who I don't know that well (ie his ex) acting well, crazy, to be honest towards me and me churning up with anger at her treatment of me, but also her treatment of my (former) friend. I'm worried sick about him. He can't seem to see how she's manouvered him into a position where it will be very difficult for him to get out of, she's taking his identity away, his dignity, his time, his own thoughts, independence, everything. And I know from the past that she will use any underhand tactic to keep him where she wants him, false accusations, denying him access to his child and so on. So obviously I need to keep clear of her and so should he...but he's trapped in a web, as I see it.

 

So along with trying to avoif her like the plague I am also trying to do NC with my friend because I fell for him and he doesn't want me, he's still obviously trying to figure things out with his very controlling ex and even if he ever decides to leave her, which I imagine she would make very difficult, he did it once and she pulled a lot of nasty stunts in order to force him back into her life, in any case if he should manage to escape, he would no doubt find someone else other than me (which I hope to God he does, someone normal, who treats him with respect), so there's no point hanging around waiting for him to realise that I am the woman of his dreams.

 

So, I know all of this, but my main problem is now that I keep going through justified anger, hurt and lonliness (he was a very big part of my life), confusion, then thinking 'this is ok, I can handle this' and then back through the whole gamut of emotions again. I'm not getting to the acceptance stage at all. I'm not falling out of love with him.

 

I'm really not coping with the NC thing in any way shape or form. It feels so strange not to try to resolve things with him somehow. It feels strange to simply leave him to drown in a very horrible relationship without trying to help somehow. But I already mentioned that I didn't like how she treated me and nothing changed, he said I'd put him in an awkward position and while acknowledging a lot of stuff about her behaviour, he basically took her side, so he actually can't see how bad things are.

 

He realises they are bad, but I don't think he realises the extent of it, because day after day he's being told that he's not good enough, that it's his fault for this and that and that he'd better make up for it. He's so guilty that he keeps telling me that he treated her like s***, when in fact I've only seen him supporting her through her self-created dramas, bailing her out of self-created crazy situations, when she acts without any thoughts of the consequences. So she has him brainwashed into thinking he's a bad guy, when he's not, he's one of the good ones, just a nice guy who got swallowed up by a very controlling, mentally unstable woman.

 

So, there is no point talking to him about her and her behaviour again as he can't see or won't acknowledge what she's like. So I simply can't tell him that she's a manipulative bitch, he will simply not belive me right now. But then, since I'm not talking to him, should things hit rock bottom with her, I feel like he doesn't know that when he should extracate himself from this situation that I'm there for him if he needs support, because right now, I've disappeared as much as possible. I don't know what to do. Walking away without leaving the door slightly open feels really like the wrong thing to do.

 

The second problem is of course that he will never fall in love with me, or indeed anyone else, as he's no longer allowed out of her sight for one moment. I realise it is his choice to stay in this situation, I realise he should suffer the consequences of being so stupid to not realise the situation he's gotten himself into, I realise that by agreeing to be his friend when I wanted more has now got me into this big emotional mess and that his feelings towards me are unlikely to change...and even if they did, the ex would exact some kind of terrible revenge upon me were I to ever get together with him.

 

But I can't take it. Urge to talk to him is building. I want to clear things up. I want to tell him that he's in an emotionally abusive relationship. I want to tell him to get out. I want to scream at him for being so stupid and ignoring the supportive, attractive woman (i.e. me) who totally 'gets' him, who would have been a good partner for him, who he had fun with, who he could laugh with, who treated him with respect, who he could talk to (ex 'why does he talk to you? He has been totally silent for the whole of our relationship, why is it that he talks to you? I've never seen him like this before, it's....interesting).

 

I simply cannot bear the awkward hellos when we see each other, can't bear hearing her saying 'we' this and 'we' that as if they are a loving couple, when in fact she treats him like crap and when in fact she'd brainwashed me into thinking they were back together when in fact they are not really.

 

The worst thing about NC is that, and I'll admit it, a small part of me is hoping that if I leave him to lie in the bed he's made that he might realise what he's missing, might see the contrast between how I treated him and how she treats him and finally leave her and come to me. I know this will not happen, but I'm annoyed with myself for even allowing that thought to enter my head. No point doing NC if you're hoping it will lead to your getting the love you wanted, it's supposed to help get that person out of your head and allow you to move on to find someone who does want you.

 

I haven't fallen out of love with him, I'm worried sick about him and can see things going gradually downhill for him and am powerless to do anything about it. I know I've really hurt him by abruptly stopping talking to him and I just want this horribleness to end and for things to go back the way they were before.

 

So, somebody please tell me that I'm doing the right thing here. It doesn't feel right, it feels very very wrong

[MagicRat09]

My gut reaction is to tell you that it's not your responsibility.

 

I worry about mine too, she's got emotional problems and she was devastated when I "left" her. But he has to learn his own lessons. If you try to save a drowning person, you tend to get pulled in with them.

[paddington bear]

Thanks for the reply MR...didn't realise I'd written a bloody novel till I pressed 'submit reply', so thanks for taking the time to read. I'm obviously still very wound up about this whole thing.

 

Ok...deep breaths, never thought about it that way, trying to save a drowning person could result in you being pulled under as well. Yes I've gotten the 'we'll be friends forever right? No matter what? I'd prefer to argue with you and have you in my life forever, than to not argue with you' and on and on and it breaks my heart to, well basically, not give him what he wants.

 

Anyway, gotcha, I'll try to keep the NC up.

[WTRanger]

Plain and simple, if you didn't care about this person then you wouldn't care But you do care, and you can't turn that off like a bad movie which in turn makes this situation even harder.

 

A lot of the copy and past posts on this forum involve strict no contact, and it's 100% applicable for everything. That is simply not true. No contact is there ONLY for YOU to heal. If being on no contact isn't helping you heal then it's not the thing to do. It's like if you are sick, and keep taking the wrong medicine that only makes you sicker. Why would you keep taking it? You'd want to try something different.

 

If you feel you need to clear things up, then do so. I think this might be a case where a good talk would help at least clear things up with you. However, this is a good case to use limited contact, which means much less contact that you are used to but there isn't dead silence between the two of you. You can check in every so often to know that he's alive and well, but in it's limited form it allows you to move on as well.

 

Do what your heart tells you to do and you cannot go wrong, even if people on this board tell you it's wrong.

[Trialbyfire]

Keep telling yourself the truth.

• He's fully cognizant of the situation and has chosen to enable her actions by turning a blind eye.
  
• There are ties that bind the two together.
  
• If he cared enough about you, he would be with you now.
  
• Reentering this drama triangle, will cause you more grief than it's worth.
  
• You cannot fix him.
  
• You cannot "expose" her.
  
• She is not your competition, since he doesn't feel romantically inclined towards you.
  

Stick to NC, paddington. This is a highly volatile "lose" situation for you.

 

While I don't normally believe in sticking to NC, just because. This situation is a recipe for extreme heartache and is unhealthy for you.

[paddington bear]

Sigh...right I'm confused now. I agree with both WT Ranger and Trilbyfire.

 

Before now I was so angry about things that had happened that I knew if I talked to him that I'd simply explode, after that came the part where I knew that instead of exploding I would make nasty sarky comments instead, which I didn't want to do either. So the NC thing started totally abruptly. He wanted to talk and I didn't because I knew I'd explode, seem irrational and emotional and that it wouldn't solve anything, so I just avoided him instead.

 

Guess I'm at the point now where although I'm obviously totally confused, I could at least have an adult conversation without my emotions totally spilling over.

 

I am considering talking with him, just once, not saying all the your wife is a bitch, why don't you want me stuff (much as I'd love to simply get that off my chest). Simply to say that I'm sorry that I abruptly dropped him, but that I've already said everything I needed to say and nothing changed, so I don't think there is any point in us trying to fix this as discussing it to death isn't ultimately going to change anything.

 

That he has made the choice to bind his life to hers once again, and if that's what he wants to do, he can go do it, but that it's not a good situation for me, and much as it breaks my heart, it means we can't be so close any more. That he should get on with his life and I should get on with mine and that I wish him luck.

 

I do agree with TF totally, all that is true, but I also feel I never drew some kind of a line under the thing before doing NC. I'd like to draw the line so that he knows where he stands and I can get some kind of closure. It just feels like I can't move on right now, that we're still in some kind of unresolved transition period. I know I need to move on, and I don't want to have the talk with him to re-ignite something. I am aware that speaking with him may twist my mind again into thinking he's such a nice guy and maybe we can still be good friends, but really, it's more like I just have to get closure for me before I can go forward. If he knows where he stands and knows why I'm not hanging out with him any more, then I can do it with more ease. At least that's my thoughts on the matter right now. Just want to get out of this feeling like everything is still somehow up in the air.