Still Pining

[YSS]

Given you enjoyed the "peaceful warrior", though I would share this free online tool that I stumbled upon. It challenges us to look at our limiting beliefs and while not rocket science -- we all consciously know the power of our thoughts. All that to say, it helped me break down the "meaning" i have attached to my recent break up and other crap and get at what is true and what is not. Must say, a bit liberating. I share it for your consideration and hopefully it will plant a seed for seeing things differently and believing differently. takes about an hour to go through the entire thing.

 

http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store/eliminate-belief-free.php

[mgene15]

hey guys, haven't been on in a week or two.. just thought i'd update you all on my situation.. the ex called me last tuesday askin if we could be "cool" and be friends again..I simply said no thank you... an told her she has no idea what she put me through in september,october and november..at the end of the conversation i simply said im hanging up now we can't be cool goodbye (as she yells stoppppp!) i hang up...she then called about 6 more time but did not answer...then wednesday she called me again i ignored...an it's funny because she's the one that broke up with me and ignored all my attempts to get back with her in the early part of the break up.. i may seem harsh but ajax and GT no what i went through..and i hate even thinking about the pain i was in..

[Gt.ooh]

hey guys, haven't been on in a week or two.. just thought i'd update you all on my situation.. the ex called me last tuesday askin if we could be "cool" and be friends again..I simply said no thank you... an told her she has no idea what she put me through in september,october and november..at the end of the conversation i simply said im hanging up now we can't be cool goodbye (as she yells stoppppp!) i hang up...she then called about 6 more time but did not answer...then wednesday she called me again i ignored...an it's funny because she's the one that broke up with me and ignored all my attempts to get back with her in the early part of the break up.. i may seem harsh but ajax and GT no what i went through..and i hate even thinking about the pain i was in..

 

 

Well I agree 100%. I don't even want a flinch a muscle in my body towards what I've been through. I haven't found anyone yet, still hanging out with girls. I'm not too sure about this online thing anymore, every girl I've met either doesn't look like the pictures, or they're just straight up weird. And the ones that are nice (I've added to FB) just pick and choose when the msg you and never give an answer to meet for coffee..I think I should scratch it for a while maybe come back to it? In the meantime just not look to hard for it. The bad weather is really holding me back. Last week we had some nice weather and I took the dog to a park we hadn't been... there was a nice girl, I asked her out...BUT she had a BF. Oh well, I tried. So in the meantime keeping myself busy workin on my car and going out with friends...and working.

 

Glad to hear you guys are still checkin in here and there. Have a good one guys'

[mgene15]

yea i started an online dating site a few days ago.. the problem is that I don't no which dating sites are best...some of the girls get on maybe once a month for roughly 20 minutes...so it's really hard to communicate that way.. an others jus sometimes bother not to message back or take a while..odd...

[Gt.ooh]

I never have a problem communicating with most of them...I get their numbers, txt back and forth. Some I meet, some I can tell by txting I don't want to meet...The ones I've met so far are not my type. And lastly ones that I can tell I'd like and give it a shot over a coffee or something... Usually hear back in a very spuratic way. Sometimes within 10 minutes of msging, other times like 3 days later.. it varies and it pretty frustrating.

 

The other day at the dog park it was rewarding to actually talk to a girl face to face, and pop the question even though she had a bf. I felt great...At least some of these girls on the internet it'd be nice to meet for a coffee and you can go from there.. I don't know...but all I DO know is I'm ready for summer.

 

Ajax, right there with you. The last 3-4 days I've had a dream...either getting back together, talking to each other about what happened, driving myself across the country and showing up at the condo..just random dreams like that. It's pretty agrivating to say the least.. Work has been slow for me so I find myself sitting around home again like I was 5 months ago...needless to say I'm getting back into a bit of a rut. I'm down but not nearly as far as 5-6 months ago.

 

I am meeting a girl tomorrow evening...She's into cars like I am. So we will see. I'm just not enitrely happy with myself yet because work has slowed right down.

[GreenPolicy]

yea i started an online dating site a few days ago.. the problem is that I don't no which dating sites are best...some of the girls get on maybe once a month for roughly 20 minutes...so it's really hard to communicate that way.. an others jus sometimes bother not to message back or take a while..odd...

 

OKCupid is free. Match and eharmony are probably the best of the pay sites.

[Ajax]

I actually met up with a girl I found on OK Cupid last night. We were supposed to get coffee but the cafe was closed for renovation. We ended up going to a bar that of course was one that my ex and I went to on one of our first dates. But I digress...

 

She was fun and really cute. We had really good chemistry, but I got the impression that I'm more in the settling down phase and she's not. We do have a second date lined up for tomorrow night. I figure I enjoyed her company, and if she's not looking to get serious any year soon then I just won't hold that expectation.

[GreenPolicy]

I actually met up with a girl I found on OK Cupid last night. We were supposed to get coffee but the cafe was closed for renovation. We ended up going to a bar that of course was one that my ex and I went to on one of our first dates. But I digress...

 

She was fun and really cute. We had really good chemistry, but I got the impression that I'm more in the settling down phase and she's not. We do have a second date lined up for tomorrow night. I figure I enjoyed her company, and if she's not looking to get serious any year soon then I just won't hold that expectation.

 

Yeah I avoid the Belmont Hotel here in Dallas because that is where my ex and I had our first date, had a couple more dates there over the course of our time together. Too bad, because it's a great place to take a girl. I'm at that stage where I have to "reclaim" certain places because they either remind me too much of her or I think there's a decent chance I could run into her. For example I live two blocks from an entertainment district called the Bishop Arts District. My ex's office is about 10 minutes from my apartment and I know she often lunches there. It's a "safe" place at night but not during the weekday lunch rush.

[mgene15]

very nice ajax...i'm looking on okcupid as well...we shall see...i found one girl on there that lives near me that looks really good, and seems cool..so i writer her...lol no response...it says on the site that 1 in 3 messages only get responded 2...hmm...well... i'll keep looking...

[Gt.ooh]

Well nothing ventured nothing gained. We don't know until we try. The way I see it with the online dating thing just msg any of the girls that interest you...as many as you can and go from there. Some will never get back to you, others you may strike a conversation... Just have to keep on trucking.

[mgene15]

yea... at this point in my life I'm like a beat up truck..just keep movin' along though...I just wanna be happy again..haven't been happy in 5 and a half months... not to bust out the TMI but I plan to have sex with a female that I have been talkin to for a few months this weekend to get past the physical part... don't no how good it will do but part of my brain is tellin me it will help get over my ex a bit.. we shall see..lol if anyone on here is ofended by me putting that I'm sorry but.. i gotta express my feelings..I'm a good dude also and respect women..but i think this has to be done..everyone has to be a little bit selfish at times.. right?

[Ajax]

So tonight's date number two with this new lady. I got her address today to pick her up. Guess where she lives guys. Take a guess.

 

Yeah she lives right around the corner from my ex, who lives around another corner from another girl I dated a few years ago. This is a decent sized city. I need to find a new neighborhood to date in.

[GreenPolicy]

So tonight's date number two with this new lady. I got her address today to pick her up. Guess where she lives guys. Take a guess.

 

Yeah she lives right around the corner from my ex, who lives around another corner from another girl I dated a few years ago. This is a decent sized city. I need to find a new neighborhood to date in.

 

I've been struggling with this kind of thing. I talked it over with my therapist yesterday. My ex lives very close to Cowboys Stadium and the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, and it's the easiest and most convenient route to take to my parent's house in Ft. Worth from my apartment in Dallas. Yet for the past four months I've taken a different route. I have so many memories of this area of town that preceded her (it's also home to two amusement parks, my first job as as a teenager was working at the Ballpark in Arlington, and it was part of a commute to a previous job.) Yet it's become imprinted with HER.

 

My therapist said I have no choice but to use this route when it's most convenient, because by going out of my way to avoid it, I am letting my ex control me and my behavior.

[YSS]

So tonight's date number two with this new lady. I got her address today to pick her up. Guess where she lives guys. Take a guess.

 

Yeah she lives right around the corner from my ex, who lives around another corner from another girl I dated a few years ago. This is a decent sized city. I need to find a new neighborhood to date in.

 

Focus on the fact that is "Date #2" :bunny: and not the neighbourhood.

[Ajax]

Focus on the fact that is "Date #2" :bunny: and not the neighbourhood.

 

Doesn't matter anyway. She's a dunce and possibly an alcoholic. She really didn't have anything intelligent to say and spent a good half hour talking about drinking until she blacks out.

 

And yeah, I had to drive by the ex's. Doesn't look like she moved to North Carolina like she wanted afterall since her car was there. That's where I wanted to be though. It hurt a bit. Nostalgia and such. Lame night overall.

[broken-and-lost]

Hey Ajax

 

Been reading this whole thread and it's amazing to see the various emotions you have been going through, give me some hope of being able to stick with NC and try to move on unlike you i stayed in contact with the ex for 5 months and this is my first week of NC after being totally broken on valentines day by her.

 

I keep getting the dreams which then ruin my day and get me thinking about her i wish i'd gone NC from the start would have saved me a lot of pain.

 

 

Just wanted to say reading your thoughts have really helped me today as it's been very hard this week to stay focused. keep it up

[Ajax]

Hey Ajax

 

Been reading this whole thread and it's amazing to see the various emotions you have been going through, give me some hope of being able to stick with NC and try to move on unlike you i stayed in contact with the ex for 5 months and this is my first week of NC after being totally broken on valentines day by her.

 

I keep getting the dreams which then ruin my day and get me thinking about her i wish i'd gone NC from the start would have saved me a lot of pain.

 

 

Just wanted to say reading your thoughts have really helped me today as it's been very hard this week to stay focused. keep it up

 

Thanks Broken! NC isn't fun. I think the only reason I was able to pull off NC was the fact that I had a lot of support. I knew that there really was nothing I could to to get her back, but I could still push her further away. In any case, she's as far away as she can be anyway, but at least I feel that I went out with my dignity intact.

 

I still have dreams a lot too. Sometimes they bother me, sometimes I can shrug them off. It's been six months since the breakup so I actually feel like I wouldn't really know her anymore anyway.

 

My new feelings and thoughts are this: Having been on some dates and having such dismal results, I actually hopethat Colleen's been on dates and had similar experiences. Not that she'd come back, but hopefully she'll realize how hard it is to find someone you really connect with.

 

Good luck with NC, Broken. If you need any moral support let us know.

[YSS]

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My new feelings and thoughts are this: Having been on some dates and having such dismal results, I actually hopethat Colleen's been on dates and had similar experiences. Not that she'd come back, but hopefully she'll realize how hard it is to find someone you really connect with.

 

Good luck with NC, Broken. If you need any moral support let us know.

Ajax

I completely understand your current thoughts and feelings. Lately I am just consumed with anger. Simply cause my ex puts himself out there and bang, he is with someone again. First time date, hit it off like a bang. Arggggggh I just need to vent and say how unfair it feels that he can just easily find someone to connect with. Makes me feel like the connection we had was evidently not that grand for him. Do not mean to hijack your post, I understand how you want Colleen to experience the difficulty of finding someone to connect with. Sorry date 2 was a bust.

[ShannonMI]

Ajax

I completely understand your current thoughts and feelings. Lately I am just consumed with anger. Simply cause my ex puts himself out there and bang, he is with someone again. First time date, hit it off like a bang. Arggggggh I just need to vent and say how unfair it feels that he can just easily find someone to connect with. Makes me feel like the connection we had was evidently not that grand for him. Do not mean to hijack your post, I understand how you want Colleen to experience the difficulty of finding someone to connect with. Sorry date 2 was a bust.

 

I understand this too. My ex dumped me for the girl he is with now. He actually cheated on me with her. It's been almost a year since we broke up. It'll be a year at the end of May. I still miss him so much. I dated one guy for a few months, but I felt absolutely no emotional connection to him at all. It was lame. I broke up with him because I was getting nothing from the "relationship." If you could even call it that. It was a waste of time. It bothers me that my ex had such an easy time finding someone new while it's so hard for me. I don't even really want to date anymore. I'm back to feeling like I'd be better off single for the rest of my life. I hope it gets easier.

[broken-and-lost]

Thanks Broken! NC isn't fun. I think the only reason I was able to pull off NC was the fact that I had a lot of support. I knew that there really was nothing I could to to get her back, but I could still push her further away. In any case, she's as far away as she can be anyway, but at least I feel that I went out with my dignity intact.

 

I still have dreams a lot too. Sometimes they bother me, sometimes I can shrug them off. It's been six months since the breakup so I actually feel like I wouldn't really know her anymore anyway.

 

My new feelings and thoughts are this: Having been on some dates and having such dismal results, I actually hopethat Colleen's been on dates and had similar experiences. Not that she'd come back, but hopefully she'll realize how hard it is to find someone you really connect with.

 

Good luck with NC, Broken. If you need any moral support let us know.

 

Cheers bro really appreciate the offer of moral support, feeling it every day and trying to stay as strong as i can, i think she is seeing someone else too which is why she is so cold and gave her the strength to break it off in the first place, so last night didn't sleep at all as all i could do was think about that.

[broken-and-lost]

I understand this too. My ex dumped me for the girl he is with now. He actually cheated on me with her. It's been almost a year since we broke up. It'll be a year at the end of May. I still miss him so much. I dated one guy for a few months, but I felt absolutely no emotional connection to him at all. It was lame. I broke up with him because I was getting nothing from the "relationship." If you could even call it that. It was a waste of time. It bothers me that my ex had such an easy time finding someone new while it's so hard for me. I don't even really want to date anymore. I'm back to feeling like I'd be better off single for the rest of my life. I hope it gets easier.

 

Hey i hope it get easier for you too i'm hoping i'm not in so much pain in a year from now......... really hope things change for everyone on here who is feeling this

[ShannonMI]

Hey i hope it get easier for you too i'm hoping i'm not in so much pain in a year from now......... really hope things change for everyone on here who is feeling this

 

Thanks...yeah it stinks that I still feel so much pain. I guess it's because I was with my ex for 8 years and it was a complete shock when he dumped me. I'm definitely doing a lot better then I was at the beginning of the breakup, but I still think about him all the time and that bothers me. I wish I could just get over it, you know? He's over me, so why can't I just get over him? It's frustrating.

[Ajax]

Ajax

I completely understand your current thoughts and feelings. Lately I am just consumed with anger. Simply cause my ex puts himself out there and bang, he is with someone again. First time date, hit it off like a bang. Arggggggh I just need to vent and say how unfair it feels that he can just easily find someone to connect with. Makes me feel like the connection we had was evidently not that grand for him. Do not mean to hijack your post, I understand how you want Colleen to experience the difficulty of finding someone to connect with. Sorry date 2 was a bust.

 

You can vent here any time YSS. Maybe that cnnection your ex has with the new girl isn't all that and a bag of chips either. It's hard finding someone who you can connect with on a deeper level. It's rare that you find someone with whom you can blend your lives together seemlessly. That's how I felt with Colleen and I'm sure that's how you felt with your ex. With Colleen I just want her to think back on what we had and realize that it was special, even if it doesn't motivate her to come back.

 

I'm back to feeling like I'd be better off single for the rest of my life. I hope it gets easier.

 

I have these moments a lot. But I don't want to be bitter about relationships and I do want to be with someone that I can connect with. But dating does seem like a big waste of energy and time. People say that dating should boost my confidence and help me get over my ex, but all it seems to do is reinforce how special she was to me. That's not what I need.

 

It's also hard because I am a bit of an introvert and don't meet a lot of women in the first place. And while I'm only 27 and have "my whole life ahead of me" as some people say, it seems that all of the women I do meet are either married or engaged.

[ShannonMI]

I second this completely. The guy I dated made me miss my ex so much. While my ex is obviously an a**hole for cheating and dumping me, he still had some really incredible qualities. I felt very comfortable with him and he knew me inside and out. I didn't feel comfortable with the new guy and I couldn't open up like I could with my ex. He also did and said some things that really turned me off. Things my ex would have never done or said. It was horrible how I compared the two, but I couldn't help it. I was with Deric (my ex) for so long, that that was what I was used to. Like you said, having that lame relationship reinforced how special Deric was to me. Even though he did me wrong in the end, it doesn't take away from the fact that we had a great relationship for many years.

[GreenPolicy]

 

 

 

I have these moments a lot. But I don't want to be bitter about relationships and I do want to be with someone that I can connect with. But dating does seem like a big waste of energy and time. People say that dating should boost my confidence and help me get over my ex, but all it seems to do is reinforce how special she was to me. That's not what I need.

 

My experience with dating so far post-ex is that I still "got it," so to speak, even not having my mojo back 100 percent. I haven't had one date where the woman didn't respond positively to me. But like you, I find myself looking for my ex in my dates, and comparing them to her. Probably the "worst" date, and it wasn't even a bad date, was a woman whose personality and demeanor was the polar opposite of my ex. In a different time and medium, I might have been into her, but the whole time I couldn't help thinking she was 180 degrees different from my ex and I couldn't wait for the date to be over. It's what we're used to and what we're comfortable with.

 

We have to understand that no two people are going to make us feel exactly the same, and no two relationships are going to be exactly the same. No woman is ever going to make you feel exactly the same way Colleen made you feel. You will not love another woman exactly the same way you loved Colleen. But it's better to think in terms of "different" instead of "better" or "worse." Your ex and mine both deserve to be taken down off the pedestal for how they ended things. They demonstrated through their actions that they don't have the courage to love like we do, and we both deserve somebody who does.

 

Another LS'er likened our ability to love in a PM to me, and it really struck a chord. Being able to love is like filling up a balloon, and when you get dumped, the air gets let out. Our recovery is filling that balloon back up. If you want to love again, you have to do the hard work of grief recovery so that balloon gets filled back up and you have the capacity to love fully again. You're six months removed from a traumatic breakup with the woman you thought you had a long future with, so be gentle with yourself. You can either choose to be bitter and jaded and never fill that balloon back up, or you can assign great meaning to your life by rebuilding your capacity to love.

 

What keeps me going is some of the stories from my friends. I'll share some here:

 

Friend #1- fiancee dumped him in an extremely heartless and cruel way. He struggled for a long time to come to terms with it, but he is now happily married with twin daughters.

 

Friend # 2 - passionate romance right out of college with the woman he thought would be his wife. She dumped him. She had family drama and a whole host of other issues. A year and a half later Friend #2 met his current wife.

 

Friend # 3 - Went through a hard divorce with jerk ex-husband. They had a child together. She now has a long-term boyfriend who treats her right and is a good father figure to her son. So her divorce was totally worth getting the opportunity to meet the current man in her life.

 

Friend # 4 - Had a serious boyfriend for two years. They were convinced they were soulmates and were planning on getting married. He dumped her. She now has a boyfriend that she considers a much better fit than the ex, and she said that she even came to the epiphany that she was better off without the ex before she met her current guy.

 

I know what you mean about how you want your ex to realize the value of what you had together, and how hard it is to have that kind of connection. Both our exes have some growing up to do, so they're not capable of seeing that right now. If there is any meaning at all in our suffering, it is to be a good example to others on this board who are not as far along in their journey and need comfort and advice, and to rebuild our capacity to love to even greater than what it was before.

 

 

It's also hard because I am a bit of an introvert and don't meet a lot of women in the first place. And while I'm only 27 and have "my whole life ahead of me" as some people say, it seems that all of the women I do meet are either married or engaged.

 

Don't give into despair or panic. You WILL love again, and in time you will be glad you had this experience with Colleen.