3 weeks + 2 days… + 9 months...

[hellon]

I'm realizing this is going to be a process.

Here is my original post (i.e. the long story), if anyone's interested:

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t274049/

I still want to ask him why he said what he said... But I know I can't do that, so instead I'm just going to keep rambling on here, journal style.

 

3 weeks + 2 days… + 9 months...

 

Having a rough day. I think about him less often, but when I do, it is 10 times worse. Having too much free time, and being in the apartment we shared is god awful. I think I need to move.

 

Does this really ever get easier? It took me all of my dating life to feel about someone the way I did for him. I compare everyone to him, and no one measures up… I think my biggest fear is never finding that again. I’m 30, I’ve done the single thing, and I’m over it… but I had my chance at happiness, and I mangled it. I can’t believe this is my reality now... maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself.

 

I think about him moving full-speed ahead with this other girl, getting completely wrapped-up in her the way he was with me, forgetting that anyone else before her mattered… And I think she must be so much better than me. He put me on a pedestal, then didn’t like finding out that I was human and imperfect, but maybe she is perfect… at least for him. She must be, for him to think he never loved me.

[aypforever]

You sound a lot like me. We are imperfect, but sometimes they don't realize that other people have their flaws as well. It will take them time to realize that, at which point, they will move onto another someone. It happens all the time. If this is the type of person he is, he'll end up being the miserable one who thought he could find someone else that was somewhat like you, but didn't have those flaws. You will have moved on and found someone that respects you, loves you, and cares for you even if you have faults.

 

I'm 25 and am not ready to settle down anymore. I thought I was. Now I realize I have a lot to learn about the world and myself before I can really dive into a relationship.

 

It will get easier if you want it to get easier. No one but yourself is holding you from moving on to better things.

[D-Lish]

Sounds like you still have your ex on a pedestal! If you want to really start healing, you have to take him off that pedestal.

[hellon]

D-Lish, you're so right- I'm sure there are things about him that I didn't like, but I can't think of a single one lately! I'll have to make a list...

 

Aypforever, I went through a breakup when I was about 25 too- it was hard, but I did A LOT of living between then and now, and afterwards realized I wouldn't have had any of those life experiences or become the person I am today had I still been with that guy.

 

I sometimes wonder/hope that this recent ex is just repeating some pattern, but in the entire time I've known him, he hasn't been public about being in another relationship like he is now, I think that's why it's such a shock. Seems like he's met "the one." I guess we'll see...

[hellon]

I chopped 5 inches off of my hair last night...

 

If anyone out there is listening, take it from me- do NOT try to give yourself a makeover in the midst of a crappy breakup. Get a manicure. Go Shopping. But for the love of god, put the scissors down. I repeat: PUT THE SCISSORS DOWN!

 

Between this and the weight loss, I now look like a 12 year old boy.

[hellon]

Was feeling better for a day or two, now I feel the void all over again. Who would've thought nice weather and free time would be bad things?

 

Trying to stay positive.

 

"Where something becomes extremely difficult and unbearable, there we also stand already quite near its transformation."

 

— Rainer Maria Rilke

[hellon]

I was doing so much better, eating, keeping super busy, socializing, feeling a bit more like myself again. Thinking of him less and less, too, trying to turn my attention to the possibility of other guys (not as successfully in that one). Yesterday I graduated from a certification program that took me 8 months of 9-5 to get through. My career is picking up momentum, I've been getting awesome jobs left and right. So...

 

Why do I feel like such crap again, all of a sudden? I woke up this morning feeling so alone, and so pointless.

 

Maybe it's because despite the fact that congrats are pouring in, his is absent. Not that I expected to hear from him (after the way we left things, I doubt I ever will again). But still, the fact that he doesn't know what's going on in my life, and doesn't even care, really, really hurts.

 

Or maybe it's because, even though I'm moving forward with some aspects of my life, I feel like I'm back to square one in others. Yeah, so I just got another certificate. I look on facebook, and every day one of my friends is getting engaged, married, having a baby, buying a house with their significant other... what does work and school matter, compared to that? I would trade in my awesome job to have that feeling that I'm living with the love of my life back, in a second.

 

Or maybe I'm just PMSing. I guess only time will tell. In any case, I HATE that I'm still thinking about him, still lonely, while he is off being happy and forgetting that I ever existed.

 

It probably doesn't help that through all of this, my best guy friend has been noticeably absent as well, for about 3 weeks now (I posted about it here: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t274435/). Even more than the ex, it hurts me that this friend didn't say a word to me about graduating. Nada.

Yet another guy that's abandoned me... lame.

[hellon]

It’s funny how the smallest, most random thing can trigger emotions. I was talking about finishing school with another girl, saying how I was dreading going back to pick up all my stuff. She said that when she finished, she had her boyfriend meet her with a cab, he helped her throw it all in and they took off. Well, that little thought of not having someone to help me out with my stuff just sent me into a downward spiral. It’s been about a week now of just feeling miserable. When I started school, half of it was because of him. I wanted some consistency in my life, so that I could spend time with him, and I thought I would have his support throughout the year. I imagined meeting him for lunches, coming home to him, and I imagined that moment of finally being finished, and spending it with him.

 

So I’ve been missing him a lot lately, but also facing what may be the ugly truth of what was, and what wasn’t. He was infatuated with me for so long, was the first to say “I love you,” was the one who wanted to move in with me… because of these things, I always believed that he loved me as much as I loved him. Now I’m accepting the possibility that he never really felt the way he said that he did.

 

I’ve often looked back on the last weekend we spent together and thought “if only I had said this instead of that” or “if only I hadn’t been in a bad mood.” But lately I’ve been looking back on it, and seeing signs that he was pulling away- we were bickering about stupid things. When I got frustrated, he got annoyed with me, instead of being supportive. It felt like normal relationship stuff, but I guess the whole time, he was questioning his feelings for me. And yet, he’s made me like it was all my fault…

 

And now looking back on the last few months, I see that he really was just stringing me along, out of boredom and loneliness. Yeah, so he would text me “I love you so much” “I really miss you,” “I effed up and want to fix things,” and all unsolicited. But it was all just words, never actions. At one point (a day before he told me that he never actually loved me), he told me that all I ever had to do was ask, and he would have come back to me. Because of this, I have blamed myself all along.

 

Realizing all of this doesn’t exactly make me feel better. I’m sort of mad at him for the way he handled things, from the time we broke up until the time he “forgot” to mention to me that he was with someone else, and we stopped contact. The thing is, I’m still just as mad at myself for how I handled things, on my end. I really wonder if had I been less angry and more open, things may have worked out. But thinking about him never loving me- that just makes me feel rejected, and generally not good enough for the person who I thought adored me. I think I liked it better when I was in denial.

[hellon]

Post-therapy session.

 

I have been feeling particularly low and miserable the last couple of days, but some things are starting to sink in.

 

Yes, he was physically perfect for me, smart, made me laugh, was charismatic and won over all of my friends. He made me feel like the most clever, beautiful, girl in the world. He “got” me. We had an intense connection. I miss him for what we were, and for who he was to me, not just the idea of who he was. BUT, I know now that need to let go of thinking that this was an ideal relationship, which just ended mysteriously for no reason.

 

If it was ideal, it wouldn’t have ended.

 

And in the end, he broke up with me, and never explained why. In the end, he kept me stringing along. In the end, he “didn’t know how to tell me” that he had moved on, and let me find out through a picture. In the end, he couldn’t even acknowledge the feelings he had once felt for me. He wrote everything off.

 

I have blamed myself for too long.

 

He convinced me that if I had just asked him to come back, he would have. He made me feel guilty for being defensive, for keeping my walls up, for being angry…

But I was angry because he broke up with me. There are things I could have done differently, and I’ve never denied that. But I am definitely done with feeling like it was 100% my fault. As much as it hurts, facing the truth- that his feelings were questionable- is allowing me to finally start being mad at him, and not just myself.

[giuliano-3]

It’s funny how the smallest, most random thing can trigger emotions. I was talking about finishing school with another girl, saying how I was dreading going back to pick up all my stuff. She said that when she finished, she had her boyfriend meet her with a cab, he helped her throw it all in and they took off. Well, that little thought of not having someone to help me out with my stuff just sent me into a downward spiral. It’s been about a week now of just feeling miserable. When I started school, half of it was because of him. I wanted some consistency in my life, so that I could spend time with him, and I thought I would have his support throughout the year. I imagined meeting him for lunches, coming home to him, and I imagined that moment of finally being finished, and spending it with him.

 

So I’ve been missing him a lot lately, but also facing what may be the ugly truth of what was, and what wasn’t. He was infatuated with me for so long, was the first to say “I love you,” was the one who wanted to move in with me… because of these things, I always believed that he loved me as much as I loved him. Now I’m accepting the possibility that he never really felt the way he said that he did.

 

I’ve often looked back on the last weekend we spent together and thought “if only I had said this instead of that” or “if only I hadn’t been in a bad mood.” But lately I’ve been looking back on it, and seeing signs that he was pulling away- we were bickering about stupid things. When I got frustrated, he got annoyed with me, instead of being supportive. It felt like normal relationship stuff, but I guess the whole time, he was questioning his feelings for me. And yet, he’s made me like it was all my fault…

 

And now looking back on the last few months, I see that he really was just stringing me along, out of boredom and loneliness. Yeah, so he would text me “I love you so much” “I really miss you,” “I effed up and want to fix things,” and all unsolicited. But it was all just words, never actions. At one point (a day before he told me that he never actually loved me), he told me that all I ever had to do was ask, and he would have come back to me. Because of this, I have blamed myself all along.

 

Realizing all of this doesn’t exactly make me feel better. I’m sort of mad at him for the way he handled things, from the time we broke up until the time he “forgot” to mention to me that he was with someone else, and we stopped contact. The thing is, I’m still just as mad at myself for how I handled things, on my end. I really wonder if had I been less angry and more open, things may have worked out. But thinking about him never loving me- that just makes me feel rejected, and generally not good enough for the person who I thought adored me. I think I liked it better when I was in denial.

 

Wow, I've gone through some of the exact same scenarios. She would tell me how badly she felt about what she did, how she still loved me - but her actions told a different story. When the chips were down, she folded. The week before breaking up we also bickered about some stupid stuff, and we never argued about anything. She was leaving to go overseas, I had premonitions about her meeting a guy/cheating/feeling guilty then not calling or writing because of her shame. I told her all of this, she of course said she would never do anything like that to me. She loved me more than anyone she'd ever known, or so she said. Well, it ended up going exactly as I thought it would. The day I dropped her off at the airport I was pissed, although not showing it outwardly. I wish I had been nicer. I wish I hadn't told her of my Nostradamus moment, almost making it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

What I am starting to realize is that no matter what I did in that last week it wouldn't have changed things long term. She is who she is. She would have eventually done something similar. She needed to experience life her own way (even though I'm still mad that she used the "needing space" bit with her friends/family despite shacking up with a new guy after 5 days apart from me). She wasn't ready for the real-life experience and responsibility that comes with a truly intimate relationship. I am better off without her. Honestly. Thankfully we didn't get married and have kids. Yes, I want those things badly right now also. My best friend just got married last week and it brought a lot of those feelings back. But I'm glad that I didn't have to go through this after getting engaged or something. That seems to happen a lot. She freed me. I thank her for that.

[hellon]

Giuliano, your story does sound a lot like mine, and I'm sorry for what you've gone through! I too sometimes have premonitions/strong feelings, then when they do happen, I wonder if it's just self-fulfilled prophecy. There's a lot to be said for positive thinking, but it definitely sounds like your ex was young and immature and had some things she needed to get out of her system, so it would've gone down that way, regardless. My ex said all the same things, but I think he just didn't have the emotional maturity to understand/realize what he was saying at the time.

 

The thing that kills me is that he's with someone else now, after all the "I really love you I just need to figure my life out" crap. So I imagine him having figured it all out, just in time to meet this girl and start the life with her that I wanted. Ugh.

[giuliano-3]

Ah, the whole "I wonder if they figured it all out despite me" bit. Or "to spite me." Before starting my total and complete NC rule I would look at the pictures of her and the other guy and wonder the same things you described. They sure seemed happy. Or are they? They might be in an exotic locale, but there is always a beer in hand. She obviously hasn't given up her need for that. For the good time. So, she hasn't figured it all out with this guy - although I can tell she is going to try a hell of a lot harder with this one because of the shame/guilt she feels about what she did to me. And that sucks I guess. But F it.

 

She was great. We had wonderful times. I still can close my eyes and envision us lying together in a perfect moment. But she is also an immature a-hole. I deserve way better. And I will find that better person some day. So will you. All in good time...

[hellon]

It is a trap, isn't it? Well I don't know for sure how happy he is now, but I'm sure he's a lot happier than I am, at the moment. I need to work on that.

I finally just blocked him from fb, after all this time. Was getting really tired of that totally tacky profile picture of him kissing his new girl popping up every time I scanned through pics that he'd commented on. I doubt he'll even notice, or care. But in all the time I've known him, he's never once put up a picture of him with a girl, or changed his relationship status. Not once. So why now? In a weird way, I like to believe that he actually did put that picture up to spite me, somehow. That would at least mean he's thinking of me... twisted, right?

[giuliano-3]

Wow, this is really weird. Mine just changed her profile to "in a relationship" two days ago. I blocked her yesterday after a year of torturing myself. We never posted lovey-dovey pictures on there either. Two weeks ago she put up about 100 pictures of them travelling and her profile pic was the two of them snuggling. I also wondered whether it was intended to spite me. I know she still thinks about me, but am starting to not really care. Blocking feels great. Even if she doesn't notice/care it was essential for me to move on.

 

The fact that they appear outwardly happier than us doesn't mean they actually are. Her mom told me a while back this isn't the first time she's done something like this to a boyfriend - just that she'd never been as close to one as me. So, who knows? Happier, maybe short term. But we don't have to live with the guilt and wonder about "what if I hadn't made that decision" the rest of our lives. As we move on, get stronger and healthier they will be the ones asking themselves "what ifs." Our ceiling is the sky, we were in the right and everyone knows it. They will have to deal with past demons to move forward in any kind of positive way. I'm starting to pity her actually, instead of myself.

 

OK, its a beautiful day out here - donezo with this 'til tomorrow. Gonna get some sun, take the dog for a run in the park and spend some quality time with the moms. She deserves my attention and energy more than my ex does.

 

Take care, go do something for yourself - something you haven't done for a long time. You have one of the best cities in the world at your disposal, take advantage of that and get lost in the process of starting over. Change is a wonderful thing, as long as that change brings you happiness.

[hellon]

Thanks G, and congrats on the blocking. I'm headed out into the world for the rest of the day. Baby steps.

[hellon]

Phew. Finally, feeling a little better today. I woke up and went to brunch, came home and cleaned the s**! out of the apartment, purged some stuff, re-decorated a little… as I was finishing, it occurred to me that it was the first time I’d done this without the thought of “what would he think?” in the back of my head. Of course, as soon as I had this realization, I was thinking about him again. Damn the roller coaster. But I’m working on just completely blocking thoughts of him. He doesn’t count the weeks since we've talked. He doesn't spend his days thinking and writing about this. Why should I? I’m more committed than ever to just getting past this. I feel like I’m in a race to be happy again. If for some reason I ever have to hear of him or from him or see him again, I want to be in such a good place that it doesn't phase me for a second.

[hellon]

I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

 

... I miss him.

 

F#*!!

[giuliano-3]

Substitute "him" for "her" and I'm right there with ya.

 

[hellon]

Another week down.

 

I've been forcing myself to "get out there," be social, even go on some dates (ugh)... Well, the good news is, I went out with someone the other night, and actually had a fun time. I was afraid that I wasn't ready, that I wouldn't be able to get through a drink with someone without comparing him to my ex and being totally disappointed and depressed... Au contraire! I don't think I thought about my ex once, at least not in a positive light.

The bad news? Well, I still hate/suck at dating. He said he had a great time, wanted to see me again soon, kissed me goodnight, etc. Good, right? Well, we've texted a bit since then, he's mentioned wanting to hang out, but he hasn't asked me when I'm available, which is driving me freakin' crazy. I'm so not a dater. It feels like a game. I don't want to seem desperate/needy, and I'm sure there are some rules of etiquette I'm supposed to follow, but I have no idea what they are. So for now, i guess I'll just wait...

In any case, I guess I've traded one fixation for another, for now. But better to obsess over this than the ex, right?

[0hpenelope]

Another week down.

 

I've been forcing myself to "get out there," be social, even go on some dates (ugh)... Well, the good news is, I went out with someone the other night, and actually had a fun time. I was afraid that I wasn't ready, that I wouldn't be able to get through a drink with someone without comparing him to my ex and being totally disappointed and depressed... Au contraire! I don't think I thought about my ex once, at least not in a positive light.

The bad news? Well, I still hate/suck at dating. He said he had a great time, wanted to see me again soon, kissed me goodnight, etc. Good, right? Well, we've texted a bit since then, he's mentioned wanting to hang out, but he hasn't asked me when I'm available, which is driving me freakin' crazy. I'm so not a dater. It feels like a game. I don't want to seem desperate/needy, and I'm sure there are some rules of etiquette I'm supposed to follow, but I have no idea what they are. So for now, i guess I'll just wait...

In any case, I guess I've traded one fixation for another, for now. But better to obsess over this than the ex, right?

The game is the game, hellon. I went on dates after the break up too and they served for nice distractions, I agree.

 

Better than the ex.

[hellon]

And another week down. More hanging out with a new guy, which is serving as a good distraction, but still only as a distraction. He's extremely busy and I'm extremely busy and also about to go out of town, sooo... that's that.

 

Day by day, and week by week, it is easier to feel more "normal." I've gotten pretty good at blocking negative thoughts, at not dwelling, at getting out and even genuinely enjoying things. I know that I'll be OK. I go days without thinking about him much at all now, and then I'm fine. But when the memories sneak back in...

It always comes back to this-

 

What if I never feel that intense of a connection again, with anyone? It just doesn't seem possible... And how did things with someone I was so strongly connected to, end up like this? This also seems impossible. I still feel, as illogical as it sounds, that I somehow messed up my chance with "The One."

 

So I know that I'll be OK, that maybe eventually I'll even be pretty good... But will I ever truly be happy again? I'm not without hope... I just sometimes wonder if it's false hope.