A Good Exercise To Try

[ludovico]

... well, it helped me

 

Enough time has passed since the break-up that I can objectively look at what happened, and be honest with myself about my role, even though I was dumped in a very disrespectful way.

 

But the key in this exercise is to be honest - no matter how much you might feel like a fool, embarassed, worthless, resentful or guilty. You have to be honest with yourself because you are not perfect, you are always learning. But at the same time, it is not fair for your ex to blame you and only you without taking any responsibility for their role.

 

So that's basically what this is, a way to take responsibility for your role.

 

 

I made 2 columns...

 

Column 1 is titled 'Things I Justified/Rationalized'...

 

I wrote down everything that I convinced myself of - even if it went against my core values/beliefs. All the "I'm a nice guy and I need your approval" behaviour that I was exhibiting, and all the things I allowed her to do during the course of the relationship with absolutely no consequences. This was a huge part of changing the idea that she was forced to dump me because I didn't change certain things about myself for her to be happy with me - which is the main reason why she left.

 

 

Column 2 is titled 'The Truth'... at least, the truth according to my values/beliefs...

 

For each justification I wrote down in column 1, there was an actual truth that I was blinded to, or chose to ignore during the relationship.

 

 

For example:

 

She is 10 years older than me. When we first started dating I rationalized (column 1) that our age difference didn't matter. But the truth (column 2) is, that I was extremely naive, and she was extremely headstrong. We didn't really know it at the time, but she was attracted to me because she could teach me things about life, and I was eager to learn all about life and be less naive. As the relationship progressed, I became more headstrong, and I believe she became more insecure that one day I would end up leaving her. So in the end, the age difference affected us more than we ever dreamed it would.

 

But the thing is, we had no idea. Maybe she did, but I certainly didn't.

 

 

The point is... doing this exercise will show you that you simply weren't compatible. And that is ok. It might take some time before you can do this honestly and objectively but once you can see it like that, and accept it, you will be amazed how good you feel after.

 

Forgive your ex. And forgive yourself.