Coping Log (again)

[moontiger]

So a few weeks ago, he wrote me, finally. It was a long e-mail.

 

He asked to be friends. He told me that he didn't regret leaving because he still thinks we would have had an unhappy marriage, and that breaking up was better than spending a miserable life together. That he only regrets not knowing earlier that we were wrong for each other and that he was so very sorry for all the ways in which he treated me poorly, and that they would be one of the chief regrets in his life. He missed talking to me, he missed knowing what was going on in my life. Could this please be the first step toward being friends?

 

From another man, or outside the context of how he left, I might have been deeply moved.

 

It was all very eloquent and sincere-sounding. He has a way with words. I spent two days crying and missing him and wanting to throw up.

 

But through it all I remembered how similarly gallant and flowery and gracious and humble and compassionate his words were when he was trying to get me to date him. And I remember how, after he got what he wanted, he treated me.

 

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

 

I thought about what he said. And I juxtaposed it in my head with the list of reasons he gave me for leaving. That he found me physically unattractive and physical attraction was important to him, that I didn't like his music, I didn't like art history any more, and that I wanted a family (which he knew long before beginning a relationship with me.)

 

And to me his saying that he didn't regret leaving and we were wrong for each other was just his reiterating those things all over again: "I still think you're fat and ugly, I still don't think you're worth spending my life with. But I feel guilty and I want to clear up that guilt. I'm bored living in the middle of nowhere and I'm lonely not having any friends. I've lost my emotional punching bag. I used to criticize you and it made me feel good about myself; I can't do that any more, so now I'm sad. I want you to entertain me and be my friend/mother/therapist again."

 

I agree, we were unhappy. And if in his heartfelt e-mail he had expressed any regret or any remorse for helping create that unhappiness, and losing me as a partner, I might have been moved. The reason that we *were* unhappy together was not so much inherent incompatibility, as the fact that he chose to mistreat me and devalue me. That he would fill his Smartphone with lists of things he didn't like about me, pick fights continuously, be angry with me not for hurting him but for just being somebody who was a little scared of roller coasters, etc... We were no more "incompatible" than any other couple. He'll discover that someday.

 

I lost two pounds in those two days, while I tried to gather the strength to reply, knowing it was probably the last time I would ever speak to him. And then I replied.

 

In my reply, I was kind to him. I told him that I appreciated his reaching out, but I didn't really feel up to reliving all the painful memories. I told him I'd let him know if my feelings changed someday, but that he should basically consider this goodbye, and not respond. I wished him well, and thanked him for the time and experiences we shared, and told him that he and all of it had meant much to me, and thanked him for the things that he had taught me about life. I wished him happiness.

 

And that was all honest. *sigh* Here's the thing; he was a jerk and a bully some of the time. But he wasn't a jerk and a bully 100% of the time, or I wouldn't have stayed. The 70% of the time when he wasn't being mean, he was a wonderful man. That is the sad part.

 

He had updated me on his life, and asked for an update on mine. I didn't give him one. I don't really need my future to end up a footnote to a story that he tells some other woman--"oh, she was ugly so I dumped her, but she ended up just fine." So I didn't tell him where I was or what I was up to, or that I am well into a relationship with a much nicer man. I figure...it's over. The truth is I am both happy and sad, but there was no sense either in gloating to him or in being pathetic. It just doesn't matter any more.

 

I had a dream about him this week. But it was a dream where I saw something that reminded me of him, and I didn't feel bad. I felt curiously happy, and I felt happy to *feel* happy; I didn't even want to wake up and exit the dream. And I've had other dreams about him that hurt. But he's gone, and he's out of my life, and he feels he made the right decision. More power to him.

 

He left me. I'll never see him again. And I think I can say I've reached the point I thought I would never reach--the point where neither of those things matters any more.

 

I think it's time to look forward, and not to look back. I've mostly stopped posting on this "coping log," and I don't know that I will post too much here any more.

Edited March 4, 2012 by moontiger

[ScienceGal]

I'm always amazed by your restraint and ability to think through and interpret messages (correctly), and your ability to make the best decision/give the best advice. Your clarity is something I will forever admire.

 

I hope that J takes your response and does leave you alone. And, if you do leave LS, I wish you all the best.

[chelsea2011]

Wow, I went back and read your orginal posts in this thread and it appears that you were involved with a narcissist. I've btdt and it was one of the most emotionally draining and soul depleting experiences of my life. Everything was a battle and I always ended up feeling like it was my fault until I hit bottom and asked myself, "where and when did I lose myself?" When I finally got out of that relationship, I felt completely sucked dry and nothing more than a mere shell of a woman.

 

Be thankful you are out and be rest assured, he will be the same with the next woman. He will try to force her to submit to all of his obsessions and steal away her sense of identity. There will always be something wrong with the women he is involved with...no doubt about it.

[moontiger]

I'm always amazed by your restraint and ability to think through and interpret messages (correctly), and your ability to make the best decision/give the best advice. Your clarity is something I will forever admire.

 

I hope that J takes your response and does leave you alone. And, if you do leave LS, I wish you all the best.

 

SG, I believe he will leave me alone. He's that kind of guy; he has a rigid moral code about what is right and wrong. Given that I've now explicitly asked him to stay away from me, I believe he will respect that. And if he doesn't, it doesn't matter.

 

Thank you for the compliments on my advice. It is funny how sometimes I can see other people's situations so clearly, but not my own. More to the point I can see my own but somehow I ignore what I know.... I predicted the future with this ex before I met him. I told him not to even come and visit me--we were not long-term compatible--he would find I did not give him the constant adrenaline rushes he craved, and ultimately he would become unhappy. If only I had listened to myself.

 

By the end of things, every bone in my body was screaming at me not to marry him. I felt it that strongly. To my credit I didn't move forward with a wedding, no matter how much he pushed. Yet I kept hoping things would get better, that he would go back to the sweet man I knew in the beginning, so I didn't leave, either.

 

Hope you're well SG! Thanks for stopping by.

[moontiger]

Wow, I went back and read your orginal posts in this thread and it appears that you were involved with a narcissist. I've btdt and it was one of the most emotionally draining and soul depleting experiences of my life. Everything was a battle and I always ended up feeling like it was my fault until I hit bottom and asked myself, "where and when did I lose myself?" When I finally got out of that relationship, I felt completely sucked dry and nothing more than a mere shell of a woman.

 

Be thankful you are out and be rest assured, he will be the same with the next woman. He will try to force her to submit to all of his obsessions and steal away her sense of identity. There will always be something wrong with the women he is involved with...no doubt about it.

 

Thanks Chelsea. I'm glad your message came right now; actually I had slid again into thinking of all the things I did wrong.

 

Here is the awful part--he was on the outside a clean-cut sweet, mild man until I got to know him for six or seven months.

 

A professional had diagnosed him as dysthymic, although he disagreed with the assessment.

 

He had self-diagnosed as possibly having Aspergers. I'm not a professional. But he definitely had traits. He spoke in a monotone. He had written whole essays about how he had problems reading social cues. He would say things like "I'd love you more if you were thinner" and genuinely, honestly, not understand why they were hurtful. He knew he didn't get along well with people and it made him really down on himself.

 

He'd talk in full paragraphs, using "five dollar words," and get agitated if interrupted. People at work called him "professor." He had a total lack of anything I would call "common sense." He was routinely 5+ hours late because he absolutely HAD to finish whatever he was doing before leaving. He was pushy and obsessive and didn't understand why it annoyed people. He had a lot of trouble with time; he would underestimate by hours the time it would take to finish something.

 

He sounds like such a nut when I describe the bad things, but he was gorgeous, he was well-spoken and very intelligent and if you met him you would not realize there was anything different about him. If he saw trash on the street he would pick it up and throw it out; if he saw someone in need of help he would stop. Despite his awful qualities, he could also be so very sweet.

 

Anyway, you are right--people don't change, and he won't change. I'm glad he's out of my life and he would not have made a good husband. That said, I am sad sometimes for the good times--for the man who never forgot a monthly anniversary, who never ended a phone conversation without telling me he loved me, who two months in had given me all his passwords, credit card numbers, keys, bank account info, and never asked for mine. Who kept a list in his phone of all the things I liked and info about me, and gifts he wanted to buy me, right down to the end. I miss him--just not badly enough that I want to be hurt any more. So I will live with the missing, until one day it goes away.

[moontiger]

Checking in, just for old times' sake.

 

Saw this article and was a little reminded of myself...figured I'd post it here so I could find it again when I thought of my old relationship.

 

http://www.anxietyzone.com/index.php?topic=28274.0

 

It's been almost a year. I do still remember him every day, but it doesn't really hurt. I regret some of the mistakes I made. I think I have learned from them and improved as a partner. With my new partner, I'm more open to travel and trying new things. I try and be more supportive of his dreams, even if they are at odds with mine. I try not to shut him out and build walls.

 

But I also realize that the failure of things was mostly not my fault, because I'm the same person, and yet things are so much easier and smoother with another man--who isn't a bully.

 

There are things I miss. I miss his directness and his intensity. I miss his job. Even though I don't think we worked as a couple, I've often wished he would come back and tell me he regretted leaving...though these days more and more I find I don't care. I guess with NC the interaction ultimately dries up and withers until there's nothing left of it, and you don't really know the person or care any more. I wonder if he's met someone. I wonder what she's like. Maybe she makes him happy. It hurts to think about that, but it doesn't hurt too much. I don't feel like he's mine any more.

 

Whatever else I've thought, not for one single moment since he left have I thought that I wanted to be back with him, or that I would if he came back. I guess that's the same way he feels about me. Maybe this was more of a mutual breakup than it seemed like on the surface, although I let him have the ego boost of dumping me.

 

So, that's where I'm at these days. Wishing all of you well.

[moontiger]

Tomorrow will be a year.

 

I've moved on with life. Kept NC. Been with someone else a while. Mostly, I'm totally over you.

 

But every now and then, I still miss you. Like tonight.

 

Our un-iversary hurts. I've been afraid of it for a week. Tonight I finally got rid of the photos. I filtered all of your pictures out of mine, zipped them, and stored them where I'll never see them unless I search. Thankfully it's been a year--I've accepted that you're gone. It didn't hurt too much to go through them all. There were a lot of photos. We were very deep in each others' lives.

 

Looking through the photos, I found that in a year, I hadn't forgotten at all what you looked like. You were very handsome. I had forgotten how handsome. I saw myself from two years ago. I wasn't fat or unattractive, like you tried to tell me I was.

 

You are sure we would not have worked in the long term. I don't know the answer to that. Actually that was one of your phrases: "I don't know the answer to that." I find I say them sometimes.

 

You weren't an awesome partner--but you weren't the monster I tried to convince myself you were, after you left. A lot of our problems were my fault, too. I still wonder...if I had been a better partner...

 

I don't think you were good for me, overall. But I miss your intensity and your eloquence, and your intelligence. We bared our souls to each other. There are ways I connected to you that I will never connect to anyone else in this world.

 

I hope one day you realize what we had. And that maybe we could have worked, if we opened our hearts. It's not that I'm unhappy now, but there is a raw edge. A feeling of things unfinished, unsaid. In a secret corner of my heart I hope we meet again someday--although I would never seek you out.

 

One year on, I wish you happiness. I feel guilty that I still think of you sometimes. I guess I always will, though I try not to dwell on it.

 

I heard you are still single. I wonder why. You are so handsome, and so smart, and have so many things going for you. I wonder if our breakup hurt you as much as it did me.

 

I hope you meet someone. I hope she's wonderful.

 

Don't forget me.

[moontiger]

Happy un-niversary babe. I was sitting right here in this building waiting for you today, exactly a year ago. You said you'd come but your ETA got later and later. I knew something was wrong.

 

You showed up at 7 p.m.--and dumped me.

 

It's been a year. I'm OK. I still have to throw out our bedsheets. I'd have done it today. I just didn't have time.

 

Back when you were with me you told me you always felt a twinge when you thought of any of your ex-es. I told you I didn't, and it was true for the others before you. But it isn't true for you. I do feel that twinge. Guess you do, too.

 

Hope you're well, wherever you are.

[moontiger]

I wonder if you remembered that today was a year. I wondered if you might write today. But the day has come to an end.

 

You never did regret leaving, did you?

 

It's not that you were perfect, but so much was my fault, wasn't it? I recognize that I still have some of the same flaws. I have to improve myself.

 

Despite everything, I still miss you.

 

It's been a year. I respected your decision. At no point did I chase after you. I was kind to you. I said only good things to your family, when they contacted me. I declined the friendship, but I believe I did so with compassion. I hurt, but I gave up any right to hurt you back.

 

I wish we had been together and been happy. I don't have you any more, as a partner or as a friend. But I have this: I read somewhere that the way you act during a break up is a test of integrity. A year later, I believe I passed.

Edited July 16, 2012 by moontiger

[moontiger]

There used to be days I missed you, and to be honest now and then there still are some. But you are part of my past. I've gone days without even thinking of you, and when I do it doesn't really hurt any more. Sometimes I even find myself thinking of the happy times, fondly--they are so far away now, and part of the past. In the months after our breakup, I just wanted to erase all the memories--but if you asked me now if I would want to erase the memories, I wouldn't.

 

A year ago I couldn't envision how I would ever be happy without you, but here I am. I don't really want you back as a friend, either. It's not that I hate you; it's just that there's just no need. So you and your family stay blocked on FB and everywhere else, and always will.

 

I would never have left you, because I loved you. Even though you weren't quite what I wanted, I would never have thought to trade you in for someone better for me. So I'm grateful that you left. You set me free to meet someone who was a much better match for me. He wants what I want; he lives where I live; he works days and sleeps nights; he also wants to do another degree, but unlike you he isn't irrational about it, and I agree that it'll benefit us in the long term. In short, life isn't an endless battle, like it was with you.

 

You knew that would happen, if you left--that we'd both meet people who were better for us. You even told me that, once...you told me I was an incredible catch for someone else--just not for you. You aren't a bad man, J. I found the right person, and I hope you find a good woman, too.

[moontiger]

Happy birthday. You'll have gotten together with your family, I know.

 

Our old lease is up and I'm moving out of our apartment, finally. It's a relief. It's such a nice place, but the memories of you dumping me here have weighed me down for a year--and long after you were gone, and it was *my* place and I was spending twice the rent, I wasn't able to forget. It was here on this couch that we first cuddled, and that we were first intimate--and it was here on this couch that you told me that you were having second thoughts about marriage. I'm going to dump the couch. I wish I could dump everything that you'd ever touched.

 

I opened an old box of bedsheets yesterday and--thirteen months after you left--found them full of your cat's hair. I wonder how your cat is. I guess it doesn't matter. I wish you'd go away.

 

I stopped loving you or missing you long ago. I hope moving somewhere else finally sets me free of thinking of you now and then, too.

Edited August 25, 2012 by moontiger

[Arcanum]

This is an amazing thread and I'm blown away by your courage to be so expressive.

Thank you for sharing it. So much of it resonated with me, I think we may be simialr in the way we deal with things.I would love your opinion on my situation at the moment. I'm just over 2 weeks into a break up and not coping well at all.

Thanks again for sharing.

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/coping/343065-aaarrgghh

[moontiger]

I just checked; we have now been broken up longer than we were together. I haven't been keeping track. But eerily, almost as though I sensed the date, last week out of nowhere I had some vivid thoughts of you.

 

It seems like centuries ago that you left me. So much has happened in my life since. Gosh, we were together a long time, weren't we?

 

I don't flinch too badly when I hear the name of your hometown on the news anymore. I think at this point I could even go back there and be just fine.

 

I do miss you. But it's OK.

 

Someone told me that a loss like this--well, it's like losing a branch off a tree. Ultimately a new branch sprouts and grows in a different place, and maybe it's a way better branch. But it's still a different branch, and the old one doesn't grow back. And that's why we grieve. So in my case it's been true--the new branch has been great. But losing an entire branch of my future still hurt. It was one of the worst things I've been through.

 

I'm glad it's behind me now.

[Miss Vee]

Hi Moontiger

 

This post has been a long time in the making...my ex and I split in April. Like you and your ex, me and mine we're on the verge of starting a new life together. We'd bought our dream home and there was talk of marriage and children and then, 4 days before the move he came over and told me it was over. I'd already rented out the home I owned and was staying in and most of my stuff was boxed up and ready to go. I didn't see it coming, I had no idea anything was wrong...

 

To say I was devastated would be a gross understatement. What followed were the worst months of my whole life. On LS i found lots of posts saying that things would get better in time, but i didnt believe them. It honestly felt like my life was over and id never be happy - or loved - again. And the reason I'm writing is to say that stumbling across your coping log, seeing your progression was the very first time I felt any hope, it was the first little speck of light at the end of the tunnel. And I returned to it every time I needed some hope or a little lift. I would read it, trace your progress and think: ok, I can do this!

 

So I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU, you have no idea how much you've helped me. I'm sorry you had to go through what you did but, a year later your journey was a huge inspiration for me. This is probably one of my last visits to his site - life moves on. All of the best to you

[moontiger]

Hi Moontiger

 

This post has been a long time in the making...my ex and I split in April. Like you and your ex, me and mine we're on the verge of starting a new life together. We'd bought our dream home and there was talk of marriage and children and then, 4 days before the move he came over and told me it was over. I'd already rented out the home I owned and was staying in and most of my stuff was boxed up and ready to go. I didn't see it coming, I had no idea anything was wrong...

 

To say I was devastated would be a gross understatement. What followed were the worst months of my whole life. On LS i found lots of posts saying that things would get better in time, but i didnt believe them. It honestly felt like my life was over and id never be happy - or loved - again. And the reason I'm writing is to say that stumbling across your coping log, seeing your progression was the very first time I felt any hope, it was the first little speck of light at the end of the tunnel. And I returned to it every time I needed some hope or a little lift. I would read it, trace your progress and think: ok, I can do this!

 

So I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU, you have no idea how much you've helped me. I'm sorry you had to go through what you did but, a year later your journey was a huge inspiration for me. This is probably one of my last visits to his site - life moves on. All of the best to you

 

*hug* Miss Vee, I'm so happy and touched by your message. I had no idea anyone was even still reading this thing. Often when I posted, I felt ashamed and like I was making no progress at all. As for you, those months post-breakup were the worst months of my life, but looking back I see that they were also months in which I grew tremendously as a person.

 

And I'm OK now. In fact I'm great, and really happy. I met someone so much--oh, so much better. And I can see clearly now that some part of the problem with my last relationship was my own behavior--but also that very honestly, a huge part of it wasn't.

 

In healing, I guess I made the error of thinking that I wasn't healed until one day I magically woke up and didn't ever think of J. any more, and of thinking that I'd emerge from my breakup someday and be exactly the same person I was before I met him. It didn't happen like that. It never did go away entirely, in that sense; I guess endings and life aren't that clean, and ultimately I am learning to forgive myself for that. Almost 1.5 years later, I still do think of it all and I believe I will always--and when I do there may always be some sad feelings there--feelings that I lost something and someone who was so close to me once.

 

But I did move on with my life and find happiness. And I am grateful every day that I have such a kind and loving man in my life. I'm sorry for the years I wasted on men who weren't, but maybe I learned what I *did* need in a man, and maybe I appreciate him more because of all the things I went through before. And anyway, if I wasted some years of my life, that's all the more reason to live the rest well.

 

Miss Vee, I'm so happy for you that things are looking up, and that you have "graduated" from LS and are feeling that you don't need this site any more (though sometimes people stay anyway; it is a nice place.) Keep on keepin' on, and lots of love.

Edited November 19, 2012 by moontiger

[moontiger]

Yesterday was two years. I didn't even remember.

 

I think of you sometimes, but mostly just to think I dodged a bullet.

 

I hate to admit that you were right that we should break up, but you were. I can't even imagine what my life would be like if we had gotten married; we were so completely incompatible, and I would have been so unhappy. I wonder how I could've been so blinded to something that is so obvious in retrospect.

 

I am blissfully happily married, and have a baby girl on the way.

 

So I guess I ought to be grateful to you--thank you for leaving my life. You didn't do it for my sake; you did it so that you could find happiness. But the end result was that I found happiness. I don't know whether you did, or what happened to you--and it doesn't matter.

[youngnlove89]

What a painfully beautiful thread.