Falling apart again

[willowthewisp]

Willow,

I just get the feeling that he is interested! You need more confidence and test those waters!

Look at me, met the love of my life at 35, now he's gone. Who would want me at 50 with a 4yo son? No-one!

Take care and give him a whirl! x

 

I'm sorry for what you are going through, I've read your story and it must be incrediably hard. I'm sure there will be someone who will cherish you and your son.

 

Well, can I ask what makes you think he is interested? Does anyone else think he is? I just don't think it would be wise for me to "test the waters" even if I knew how to, more than likely I will end up making an absolute fool of myself. At uni with much younger people, the gossip is terrible and they are still all gossiping about what happened at the club 3 weeks ago! I was hoping to live it down, but it still keeps getting mentionned and now I find out someone told my crush about it yesterday and now he is asking questions. I don't want to make another *** of myself.

[just_some_guy]

I'd love to go out with the 24 year old, he's a really nice guy and VERY attractive, but I don't think I can ask him out. We are at school together and hang out in a group, it would be awkard to say the least if he knocked me back, which I think is likely.

 

Maybe I should flirt with him a bit and see if he's really interested? The problem is, how do I tell? He already hugs me, puts his head on my shoulder, winks at me etc, but yet does not make a move. Friends who know him say he is just an affectionate kind of guy, so I keep thinking I am reading way too much into it. But then he keeps saying how he likes older women? So confused.

 

What you said about it just being a date has made me feel a bit better. I declined the online guy last night, he said he was happy to keep chatting, but the reason I freaked, I think, is because I am unsure if I find him physically attractive from his photos (not too be shallow, but there does need to be some attraction). Now I feel bad for chatting to him, I keep thinking if I meet him and don't find him attractive then I will be knocking him back and I feel obligated to be sure before I agree to a date. WHy is that? Why do I have this feeling of responsibility to be clear before I agree?

 

I really do sound nuts don't I? I'm so lost. Maybe I'm just not healthy enough yet to date.

 

Well, you'll know it when you are ready. You're not nuts. Just learning how to be alive again. Hopefully working on healing all the things that got you into a bad relationship in the first place.

 

Remember, there's nothing wrong with casual dating. Not a darn thing. You can date several people at the same time. It's just a way to test the waters, get acquainted and see if there's more. It really isn't even courting.

 

That's one of the things that I think the so-called, "sexual revolution" has taken away from us, the pleasure of dating without entering other strings. Some people think there's supposed to be sex on the third date. I think that's just crazy. Too damn much pressure. I think there should be dessert with two spoons on the third date!

[willowthewisp]

Well, you'll know it when you are ready. You're not nuts. Just learning how to be alive again. Hopefully working on healing all the things that got you into a bad relationship in the first place.

 

Remember, there's nothing wrong with casual dating. Not a darn thing. You can date several people at the same time. It's just a way to test the waters, get acquainted and see if there's more. It really isn't even courting.

 

That's one of the things that I think the so-called, "sexual revolution" has taken away from us, the pleasure of dating without entering other strings. Some people think there's supposed to be sex on the third date. I think that's just crazy. Too damn much pressure. I think there should be dessert with two spoons on the third date!

 

Well in my case, my relationship with my X wasn't a bad one, my IC tells me it was actually very good and healthy but that my X has serious issues of his own which he has choosen to run from rather than deal with, sadly. That's not to say I am perfect, and a lot of positive has come out of him abandoning me suddenly, like my profession which I would never have begun and I am addressing self esteem issues, if anything I put up with way too much from my X. My IC tells me it is actually OK to not be perfect, which according to my X is why he left me "I couldn't be in a relationship that wasn't perfect"!

 

Anyway, if people expect sex on the third date they are in for a shock with me! I've only been with one man, I was with him for nearly 20 years and I have no intention of jumping into bed with anyone, that is something that I share with someone I love, wouldn't feel right otherwise. If they can't handle that, it's their loss, and they aren't right for me either.

[willowthewisp]

No, he's not interested, so glad I didn't make a fool of myself, he was encouraging me to go on the date with the guy online today.

 

I'm so down, I just look at these men on the dating site, or any men for that matter and I just don't fancy any of them and you know why? I figured it, they aren't my X.

 

:-( Why I am I still so damm soul consumingly in love with my X?

 

I'm never going to get over him am I? People keep saying give it time, but it's been nearly 2 years since he left me, he's moved his GF in and proposed and I am still in love with him, so much so that I don't find any other guy attractive.

 

I have an IC session tomorrow and I'm wondering if it is worth continuing with it? I just don't see how this pain is ever going to get better, I just have to resign myself that I am going to feel unhappy and in pain like this for the rest of my life.

[just_some_guy]

No, he's not interested, so glad I didn't make a fool of myself, he was encouraging me to go on the date with the guy online today.

 

I'm so down, I just look at these men on the dating site, or any men for that matter and I just don't fancy any of them and you know why? I figured it, they aren't my X.

 

:-( Why I am I still so damm soul consumingly in love with my X?

 

I'm never going to get over him am I? People keep saying give it time, but it's been nearly 2 years since he left me, he's moved his GF in and proposed and I am still in love with him, so much so that I don't find any other guy attractive.

 

I have an IC session tomorrow and I'm wondering if it is worth continuing with it? I just don't see how this pain is ever going to get better, I just have to resign myself that I am going to feel unhappy and in pain like this for the rest of my life.

 

 

 

I've been in IC pretty intensely for months. I was fortunate to have come across a very, very good therapist.

 

Thing is we get into these unhealthy relationships because we want to heal some hurt we got in childhood all over again. We provide to others what we wished that we had, and treat ourselves to the same pain and hurt we carry around.

 

For me, I tend to become the "good father" figure that I never had. Yet I treat myself so toughly inside. I am also susceptible to emotional manipulation, which is the relationship I had with my mother. I see it now, very clearly. I don't know how to have a good relationship. My "comfort zone" is in unhealthy relationships. It isn't good, but I know how to "play" that game. It is all that I know. The notion of having a fully adult, healthy relationship is intimidating to me. I just flat out, don't know how.

 

Perhaps it is time to look into a different therapist? If you aren't working on what hurts, why it hurts and how to heal it, then what are you working on? I know some theories of therapy and counseling are in the palliative school of thought - to make the patient feel better. But more useful in my experience, is getting to the why, confronting it, dealing with and healing it, and overcoming. That's a lot of hard, painful work.

 

I had always held my growing in good regard. Sure, my dad was "strict", but so were other goods and I defended it all as "good." In reality, I was put through physical abuse and some very severe emotional abuse. My mother probably should have been on medication and in therapy herself. As my father essentially abandoned the family for work, I became her emotional caretaker. It was my job to always be an adult for her, to be her companion and not allowed to simply be a kid. The twisted part was that if her emotional manipulation didn't work out, she would turn me over to my father for "discipline" or in return for doing what she wanted, I was protected from his anger and abuse.

 

It was in reality pretty effed up.

 

Fast forward to middle age. Is it any wonder I have a lifetime of severely screwed up, unhealthy relationships behind me?

 

Finally realizing this, I've made a very conscious effort to work on it. This work is not at all easy. In fact, it is very painful at times. There have been days when I was so shook up from dredging up the past, that I was a mess for days.

 

I can't diagnose what is going on with your IC, but you might look into whether any of this applicable to you and whether your counselor is really helping you work on the issues, or just trying to make you feel better.

[willowthewisp]

I can't diagnose what is going on with your IC, but you might look into whether any of this applicable to you and whether your counselor is really helping you work on the issues, or just trying to make you feel better.

 

Thanks. My IC is trying to help me "weed out" from my sub-conscious almost unconscious, what it is that is bothering me and causing me so much anxiety and pain that I am unable to let go of my X. He explainned it to me this morning at my session. He isn't trying to just make me feel better, it's Humanistic counselling and involves a lot of going over the past and childhood experiences.

 

My situation is very different from yours, my relationship with my X was healthy between us. My X has some sort of emotional intimacy/committment problem that he refuses to acknowledge let alone address and he is running from himself and continues to run with his OW. That doesn't mean our relationship wasn't healthy, it means he has a problem and if I had not asked him to honour the engagement he had made with me years earlier, I have no doubt I would still be with him now, just carrying on the same.

 

For me, I think I had a bit of breakthrough today, I have very low self esteem and due to my upbringing I strive to be perfect. Sometimes people really are just selfish b******s and have committment problems and other issues of their own which are easier to blame someone else for rather than acknowledge them and deal with them. Me taking on the blame results from my belief that no one else could possibly be wrong in their assessment of me, bc I am just worthless crap that no one could ever love, so if he says it was me it must me, I am just not being good enough for him. I now realise, this is simply not true.

[willowthewisp]

Has anyone else here reached the stage yet where you have moments of clarity and little pain where you feel like you really, really want to get on with your life?

 

I really want to find someone, then I get this sense of loss, not for him, but for the closeness, the intimacy of the relationship I had with him. I long to have that again, with someone else.

 

The only other man that has ever come close to making me feel that way was my rebound shortly after my X left. Although he was a rebound and things ended badly there to say the least, I think those feelings were genuine bc I do miss him sometimes. It's a shame things worked out like they did as we were good friends after the fact but then I had little choice to cut contact with him (don't really wnat to go into detail).

 

Does anyone else at all get what I am talking about? One moment I feel dreadful, I miss my X so badly and another I am ready to plough forward and find a happy relationship with someone else and with clarity.

[Fufu]

I definitely have not not reach the stage of 100% getting on with my life.

 

I do still wake up feeling rejection and abandonment on some mornings.

 

However, in time to come we will recover

 

Don't rush into a relationship just to forget him, it's a rebound situation. Not only you do harm to yourself, you also will do harm to your new bf.