Should be glad, but empty feeling inside...

[GreenCap]

My ex left me in Sept. last year and I established no contact since December. Prior to her leaving, she said many bad things about my not treating her well etc. so blamed myself for the break in the relationship. While I figured out that she was seeing another when we were still living together (too lazy to regurgitate story that have been posted previously) but still wanted her back for I felt that if I changed, she would be happy with me etc.

 

Anyway, today, I found out that she was indeed with someone when we were together. It was her boss' boss! She was screwing him to get ahead at work and put me down badly when she left to justify her own actions. Bells should have gone on in my head when her sister was dating a married man and breaking up the marriage and she had no reaction whatsoever.

 

I am should be glad I did not get a chance to propose this past holiday season but yet, I have this empty feeling as well as a feeling of disgust how I came to love someone like that. I can fathom how someone can change so drastically..this guy is somewhat older than her, a divorcee and non-asian - profile that she would not even consider previously. But sleeping with the boss' boss to get ahead at work is what kills me. She is a smart gal and hardworking and she had a meteoric rise at her firm, now I know why. And she put me down for not earning as much as her, all this self-righteous crap!

 

I don't know where to laugh or cry but either way, I do feel glad that I have seen the true side of her before we got too far. But then again, in my mind, we were already married. I am at a lost for words but just had to come on to post this down to clear some thoughts. I thought I knew her but I don't anymore, not sure when I stopped understanding or knowing her, perhaps I never did. My friends keep telling me that I should be glad that this whore left you...and I see the wisdom in their words but I am caught between disbelief due to my love her (waning by the minute) and amazement as to what ends she would take to break the glass ceiling etc.

 

ARRGHHHHHH! This is just pure crazy!

[ConfusedAgainn]

I am in the same place as you. She totaly took advantage of me and left me with nothing. But yet.. I don't know... All we can do is let time take the pain away, keep out heads up, and move on. If it takes two days to move one step ahead, atleast we took that step. Don't worry, you will get past this and find someone who really appreciates who you are.

[SpaceCoyote]

That's tough GreenCap, and I understand your mixed feelings. Regardless of who and what she is, and regardless of the way your relationship ultimately ended, the bottom line is that she was someone whom you loved greatly and were devoted to. That is not something that is easy to forget or let go of.

 

Life is about change (an unfortunate fact of life for people who don't deal with change easily, like me) and people change. Don't beat yourself up thinking about how and when she changed from the person you knew. Change is a force that is bound to happen and you have little means to stop it. What might make things a little easier for you is to know that you aren't missing out on anything good. The pain you feel is for memories of your past, but for your life now and in the future, you really are better off without her because she isn't a good person. I know, that doesn't help ease your pain. Trust me, I know. But you are slightly better off than someone who looks at his ex and still believes she is a good person.

[GreenCap]

When I was a student and renting a room from a family, they would always watch telenovellas on Univision or Telemundo. Sometimes the plots seem so ridiculous that you just have to laugh. And then my thing happened as it is like a page out of those inane plots.

 

Man, it is crazy. My disgust has reduced quite a bit from yesterday. She is out of my life and whatever she does is her thing and if she can look herself in the mirror everyday, then more power to her. Perhaps you need to have a heart of a skank to succeed in the business world.

 

My host mum was telling me that she is so mad my ex treated me this way. She was a classmate of mine and it was she who initially came after me, cooked for me, seduced me (I do like this part), wash my clothes etc. And overtime, I saw a life partner in her but it was all pretense. Being a foreign student, she was having troubles with her immigration status at her company and since I was there, she hung on to me as insurance so that I can marry her if worse came to worse. Then I helped her with her English, her work, encouraged her etc., and due to her smarts (and I guess sex) she did very well at work...then she found someone better...not just better, more established and her boss' boss, then she high-tailed it out of there and looked down on me.

 

I am not regretting anything I did or did not do. My love for her was like a good roast, cooking over time with the sauces marinating the romance of our life and got better and better; it allowed me a glimpse of what unconditional love is (sound like a martyr yet?), and made me distinguish what is puppy-love, what is infatuation, what is love. Anyway, I wanted to thank you both for the kind words. Sunrise sunset, slowly letting go.

[xxsilverdragonxx]

Greencap-

 

Whenever I read your posts your thoughts and feelings reflect my own. Our situation is similar..and I also find myself questioning how I could come to love my ex soooooo much that even when red flags and bells and whistles and all that jazz go off, I still thought to myself, "This is who I was meant to be with".

 

MIXED FEELINGS is exactly where I am at. I can push most of them out, like, I to want to laugh at her for the person she has become. The guy she chose over me totaled her car with her inside....And I can't imagine what she sees in him that is so wonderful, other than its different from me. I think my ex is worse off than me right now, but that doesn't comfort my inner struggle to regain my esteem and balance in my life. She did seem to balance my life, but I QUESTION everything I ever thought of her now.

 

Like a post I made earlier today, I hate how my own mind seems to work against me. I don't know where the madness ends, the love begins, or even where that "happy" medium is. Today seems bad for me, so I'm trying to take it easy. I wanted to go over to my ex's house and have a talk with her, mostly because we haven't said much to one another since we broke up. Mostly because half the time I don't care enough about it, and other times I go insane trying to think of a way to ease my suffering.

 

I'm still having the rollercoaster effect...so obviously something is still being triggered to make me upset. Maybe its being alone, or missing that closeness you can have...but damnit I'm rambling..and we could all probably write books on this stuff.

 

take care....and i am in some desparate need for a hug or two.

[Merin]

I can understand why you have those feelings that you "should" be happy that you learned who she "really is" but empty at the loss..

 

You were/are in love with the person she "presented" herself to be.. it now turns out she wasn't quite the person you had believed her to be or who she showed you.. she did something you coulnd't imagine her ever doing.. so now you're in a tail spin of sorts wondering what else wasn't real.. know what I mean?

 

I do believe whenever there is a break up, people sit and question everything.. you check yourself.. wonder outloud.. how could she/he have said this BUT then done that.. did he/she ever mean anything they said to me.. it changes everything in your "reality"

 

Obvioulsy it hurts a lot to think that someone you thought you knew so well could do f*ked up things that you never thought them capable of... and I think it's a "grieving process" when the relationship ends.. you long for the happier times with the person you thought you knew so well...

 

I hope you're feeling better very soon...

[SpaceCoyote]

You were/are in love with the person she "presented" herself to be.. it now turns out she wasn't quite the person you had believed her to be or who she showed you.. she did something you coulnd't imagine her ever doing.. so now you're in a tail spin of sorts wondering what else wasn't real.. know what I mean?

 

I do believe whenever there is a break up, people sit and question everything.. you check yourself.. wonder outloud.. how could she/he have said this BUT then done that.. did he/she ever mean anything they said to me.. it changes everything in your "reality"

 

That contrast between the past/the present, your memories/reality, is truly a killer. I know my ex is no longer the person that I was in love with. She left me for another man and tells me she has found true love for the first time in her life, the implication being that she wasn't ever truly in love with me. But my memories of our time together are vivid, and I know I felt her love and I know it was real. It is just easier for her to walk away from it and into something else if she totally forgets the past and convinces herself that it wasn't anything big. But as you say, I do get all kinds of mixed feelings, and question everything about myself and what has happened. My friends tell me that she is a terrible person and some days I agree and totally hate who she is now.

 

But the worst and/or most confusing part about it is, I still cry sometimes over my loss. Considering some of the terrible things she has said to me since we broke up, especially the part about not loving me, I am not even sure why I cry anymore. I look myself in the eye in the mirror as tears roll down my face and ask myself "What am I grieving over?" And I haven't the slightest idea.

[ion]

It's normal to express your emotions after a tramatic loss like that SpaceCoyote. You invested in the relationship and your ex devalued that investment by re-writing history.

 

You're crying because of this rewrite in history and how the breakup occurred.

 

Give yourself time and space to come to terms with your loss and remember you choose who to love and no one can take away the strength and value in your feelings, ie they can not devalue you or what you experienced, even if it is different for what they experienced.

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by SpaceCoyote

That contrast between the past/the present, your memories/reality, is truly a killer. I know my ex is no longer the person that I was in love with. She left me for another man and tells me she has found true love for the first time in her life, the implication being that she wasn't ever truly in love with me. But my memories of our time together are vivid, and I know I felt her love and I know it was real. It is just easier for her to walk away from it and into something else if she totally forgets the past and convinces herself that it wasn't anything big. But as you say, I do get all kinds of mixed feelings, and question everything about myself and what has happened. My friends tell me that she is a terrible person and some days I agree and totally hate who she is now.

 

But the worst and/or most confusing part about it is, I still cry sometimes over my loss. Considering some of the terrible things she has said to me since we broke up, especially the part about not loving me, I am not even sure why I cry anymore. I look myself in the eye in the mirror as tears roll down my face and ask myself "What am I grieving over?" And I haven't the slightest idea.

[greenhorn]

Hey Greencap,

 

I am back again had to be off LS for few days as i had one important meeting on 14th and had to prepare for it.

 

I am aware of your situation and how you would be feeling now in light of the new fact that your ex is now engaged to her boss'boss.

 

Prior to this post i was not having the full picture of what happened to you and i guess you also got to know it recently.Now when i look at your situation i find my story to be exactly similar to yours and i am feeling the same as you and SpaceCoyote.

 

It happened the same with my ex she came to me i helped her in everything ,sacrificed a lot of my personal life and helped her and i never felt that i was doing something special for her i thought you take care of each other when you are in love.I helped her reach to this position where she reached now and when she reached there she started comparing me with the guys there and started thinking low of me.

 

She started to avoid me and when i would confront her she would say that she was too busy and this and that and one day she told me that she never loved me and denied all that we had between us.I still continued with her for she always blamed me for all this saying that i always trouble her and make life difficult for her and i am very demanding so i thought that may be i was wrong and i would change myself.I was also getting the alarm bells but i always thoght it was my fault and i would have done something wrong so she behaved in this manner.

 

I was feeling very insecure and i once or twice made this feeling of insecurity known to her and she said that there is no one else in her life and i would feel better for one or two days till she would hurt me again and blame me for that.In the month of december i found her behaviour quite strange(i guess you know my whole story it is there in my long post) so i hacked her email id and i found that she was having a good relationship with a guy whom she considered too high in career and all.I saw that she had written to her and i could not beleive myself and cried like hell .I was feeling betrayed and cheated and then i called her and said to her that i have hacked your mail and read those mails and asked her why you broke my trust of 7 years.

 

And you know what she replied ,instead of being apologetic she said that i have done a cheap act to hack her mail and she is disgusted and she hates me for this and would never forgive me for this.I could not imagine how can a person change so much.I helped her reach to this position and now when she reached there she kicked me out and one more thing she said to me -- she said that she had done lot for me and cant do anything more for me.I was stunned and shocked i did so much for her but i never said anything to her and she is the one who is saying me this.

 

I only know how broke i felt and tried to commit suicide and my friend had to take me to doctor and i was admitted in the mental ward and kept there for 3 days under sedatives.

 

Like you and Spacecoyote i know that she was not good to me and she cheated to me and betrayed me and always blamed me instead yet i cry for my loss.I cry that how can be so bad to somone who was so good to her.How can she forget and deny relationsip of past 7 years for someone whom she met now and how one can be so materialistic.How one can be so cruel? I still go through roller coaster and you know i have saved her mails to that guy and whenver i read those mails i again go back into depression.Today also i read them and again started feeling low.

 

Everyday i wake up with her memory and i couldnt believe she would treat me this way.

 

But as someone said things have changed so i also need to change.

 

There is one good book i think most of us would have read that

 

"WHO MOVED MY CHEESE" by Dr Spencer Johnston. It is a fantastic book and if you have not read it then read it now it is a thin book and would take just an hour to finish it.It tells us how we need to change with the change or else we would be extinct.

 

And i also can imagine how you would be feeling after knowing today that she is engaged to that person but please think it this way.You were already broken with her and your relationship was ended so there wasnt anything you would have got ,so why are you depressed now on knowing that she is engaged.She had to marry someone one day whether this person or someone else.Just see the end result when once your relationship has ended it is not good to pain you more due to her.

 

I know it is easier said than done and i was also feeling the same but do we have an option..now we dont have so we need to follow it and make ourselves strong.

 

Please avoid her completely dont let any of her news come to you. I have stopped contact with all those from where i could know about her.Sometimes i feel like knowing about her but i restrain myself thinking that i wont allow myself to be treated like that again.

 

No one can truly help you except yourself and the best thing that you can do now is to talk more and more and share your feelings.The more you talk and more you vent out your feelings you would feel better.Talk to your close friends come and write on this post and talk to us this is the way we are going to help each other.

 

Good luck buddy take care and hang in there .Be strong !!!!

[SpaceCoyote]

Ion - thanks for the advice and kind words. No matter how many times someone offers me advice at this forum, I can always use more. And it always warms me to get advice from people who have undergone or are going through similar agonies. It helps to know I'm not alone, which is what I feel like so often. I just wish I could follow others' advice (or my own for that matter) as easily I can dispense it for others. I guess it's always easier when it's not you

 

Greenhorn - nice to hear from you again. I remember your story well but I didn't know that part about what you went through after your breakup. It saddens me to hear you got that far down, although I'd be lying if I said the idea hasn't crossed my own mind too. But you did make it and that is a testament to your own strength. You have probably been to hell and back - almost literally - and you are probably a stronger person for it. From your post, it sounds as though you have made some strides since I last heard from you. I think I am making small steps too but it is agonizingly slow. I want her to be gone from my mind but my mind isn't cooperating.

 

Your advice is sound but as you guessed, it is easier said than done. I don't contact my ex anymore but it pains me not to. She was also my best friend and losing that plus my romantic interest together has put a HUGE void in my life. And I do have an unhealthy fascination with knowing what is going on in her life even though that doesn't do anything good for me. She is moving in with her new guy and is hoping to marry him someday, and that is excruciating to hear. It seems like it wasn't that long ago that I thought I'd be the guy she'd marry. I try not to think about her or wonder what she is doing but as I said, the mind plays tricks. Argh.

 

I'll have to check out that book you mention. You are the second person who has recommended it to me for exactly the same reason.

[moon]

I think it is the MOST hard when somebody leaves you for somebody else. I had the unlucky privilage of meeting the girl my ex hooked up with after me. She was like a younger version of me. Physically we look similar (except I am better looking---come on that was obvious right there). I am also taller, but she wore these high platform type shoes that made her look taller.

 

She likes to travel, I love to travel and have been all over the world. I don't think she's done a lot of international travel like me. I've been everywhere (bragging just a bit here). She and I are both sort of gypsies in a way. But I have done a lot more. I have way more education and his current girlfriend (I can only assume) has the morals of an alley cat. She felt perfectly fine hooking up with my ex right way and trying to coax me and him out of the relationship. I still get mad sometimes when I think of what a b*tch she was for playing me like she did. She had it all figured out for herself. I hate that girl. My ex I don't hold in very high regard either. Man....I am starting to vent anger again. It comes and goes with me. I can go for a number of days feeling okay and talking myself out of any grief or hurt. Then, like last night, I couldn't sleep. I was very upset all of a sudden. I had a fight with my mother earlier and it reminded me that I don't have the greatest relationship with my mother. My mother and my ex are so similar. My therapist pointed that out yesterday. That killed! It really hurt to make that connection.

 

I hate that my ex went and found somebody else like me (physically and lifestyle-wise). It makes a person feel like they were just simply replaced. My ex is so co-dependent he can't be alone. I think my ex's new girlfriend was just happy to fill the shoes.

 

But you know I remember when another ex and I broke up and he found a girlfriend after like 9 months of being broken up and I still wished he hadn't found anybody else. So I think if you are really in love, your ex with other people just hurts and makes you angry until.....until you give yourself enough time to grieve and feel angry and decide to date somebody else. I guess it's as simple as that.

[greenhorn]

Hi All,

 

Yeah SpaceCoyote i am back again and i know we all are in hurt and pain and as Moon said it quite correctly we are in more pain cause our ex left us for someone else.

 

SpaceCoyote the book is very good and very helpful in all the situations.It is relevant in personal life as well as professional life.Yes you are true that i am making strides since my breakup but i am in roller coaster.In one week for 6 days i would take 6 steps further and one day of week i would take 10 steps backward so i would be in worse position than i was.

 

It is now 5 weeks of my breakup and NC and still the wounds are as green and fresh as it was the first day.I say all these and suggest so many things to you all but frankly speaking i find them diffcult to implement myself.I dont know why i am finding it so difficult to come out of this.

 

But only good thing is that my resolve is strong as rock that i am not going to contact her and i have stopped contact with all the mutual friends and any channel through which i could get news about her.Still i long to hear about her and you know what i do in desperation is that i search her on google ,search her on blog sites search on anywhere on net where i could hear about her but still i dont contact her.My hurt and pain has strengthen my resolve not to contact her.

 

I guess you are also going through the same phase but what i think is better for all of us is that we maintain NC.Slowly slowly we would come to terms.You know before this weak i couldnt refer to her as 'Ex' it would hurt me but now i find that i refer to her as 'Ex' with ease.I guess my recovery would follow this path.But life now is quite excruciating and scary.

 

There is nothing we can do except to move on.....

[SpaceCoyote]

Moon - It would be tough for me to hear that my replacement was a clone of me. But is my situation any better - my ex's new guy is very different from me. Specifically, my weaknesses or flaws (as she perceived them) appear to be his strengths. So it's almost like she knew what she didn't like about me and then went out to find someone who didn't have those characteristics. I can see both yours and my situation as being very maddening, but in my case, it is a shot to my self-esteem because now I am fixated on those flaws. But you have a very low view of both your ex and his new love interest and I think that is a good thing. I am trying to build up some hate for my ex as well so that I don't want her back as much.

 

Greenhorn - I guess that roller coaster will continue for a while. It has been 2 months since my breakup (but only 4 days of NC - until last week, she and I worked together which thankfully is over now), and I am still on the roller coaster too. For me, the lows are still as deep as they ever were, but I can say that they occur further apart now. And I am right there with you in trying to keep my resolve of not contacting her. Good luck with your battle on that... I feel everything you are going through.

[GreenCap]

Guys

 

This occurred to me the other day while reading the posts on this thread because I wanted to add further to my original posts indicating that on Tuesday this week, I learnt that she was already engaged to her boss' boss and they have in fact gone home to see her parents. It pains me but she is out of my life and what she does is none of my business - regardless of whether she was cheating on me when we were together. I live in a small city so people tell people stuff and invariably the news come back to me. I have since told all my friends to stop telling me anything about her. I don't want to care about her anymore. The pain is too deep and I want my life back after stupidly giving her the reins for three years.

 

Anyway, what I learnt was that we should reflect on ourselves and what we learned from the bad relationships and hope to apply them well to the next one. Can't cry over split milk although it is sad that I have now become a statistic in her life and what we learned together she will use it to find happiness with somebody else. I digress, however.

 

Whether her leaving was justified for immoral purposes or just plain no reason, we should learn from our mistakes and forget about them. People who don't know history will be doomed to repeat them and that's what I have been reflecting on this entire month. Between Sept and Dec of last year was a grieving period for me and was turning over to a new leaf until Friday the 14 and Tuesday the 18th. But I want to get back on track and reflect more on what I learn to ensure a future relationship will work out better. By harping on our exes selfishness we lose sight of our role in the breakup of the relationship (whether justified or not) and not improve. I am not sure whether this makes much sense as it did me when I was thinking it through. Another day of no contact since Dec. 18, so it is a little over a month now.

[SpaceCoyote]

Well said Greencap. You sound very optimistic and positive and I can't applaud that enough. I hope someday when my pain and the memories start to fade, I can have such an outlook myself. And I will keep up the fight until I can get to that point.

[GreenCap]

Space

 

I am not quite there yet, but I am going for repeated confirmation to my mind. The more I say it, the more I will believe it I guess. I have to believe it. I want to move on so I have to accept that she has moved on, she is not coming back and I have move on.

 

The year is still young and why waste another year, I already squandered Oct to Dec. I have to take control again...day by day, minute by minute.

[greenhorn]

Greencap and SpaceCoyote you both are very helpful with your encouraging words.Keep chipping in buddy with more such words it actually helps.

 

I am also trying to move on but i hate these relapses.Actually there are so many things that bring back the memories and put me in the vicious cycle of despair.The more i think not to think of past the more i think.I donno why even god is not helping with not giving me relapses when god knows wha was correct and who was wrong.

 

But i guess i am paying the price of being too emotional and too vulnerable.

 

But i have to move on and i would move on....

[SpaceCoyote]

Greenhorn - don't look at it as a price you pay. Being emotional is not a bad thing. You feel very deeply about things and obviously have very strong feelings. I'd rather be that than someone who was disconnected from their feelings and felt nothing all the time. This experience will make you stronger and wiser, not just for your next relationship but for life in general. It's a small comfort, but at least there is a silver lining somewhere.

 

I wish I could help you with those vicious cycles, but I get them too and I have no answers for them. She is on my mind all the time and I can't make it go away. I wish I could help you because your pain and my pain are the same. But like Greencap said, you have to try to take control any way you can, even if it is just little by little. I think it starts with thinking positively into the future, and less into the past.

[greenhorn]

SpaceCoyote i would tell you one incident which makes me think i am too emotional.Actually these days i am contemplating about me a lot.It was time when i was a student and i was staying in hostel.We had rooms with single occupancies and there was telephone kept in lobby and your parents or your friends can call on that phone and anyone would pick up and call you.

 

Most of the guys had cell phones with them but i was not having and i was mostly getting my calls on that phone.I was getting more phone calls than anyone else cause my mom would invariably call me every morning.So when i completed the course and i was leaving the hostel with my bag and baggage and while i crossed the lobby i took a last look at the telephone and went and picked it up and felt missing it as well !!! Now this i think is too much why the hell would one get attached to a telephone.I never thought of this but now this incident came into my mind and made me conclude that i am too emotional.

 

Yeah as suggested by Greencap i would take control of myself and the only way i think i can atleast stop these vicious cycles is to keep my time occupied. Problem is that i am in a foreign country so dont have friends but i am thinking of going out on trip to these European countries starting with trip to Sweden and Norway.As the case is i dont need visa for most of the countries and i think i would enjoy the places even if i go alone with my digicam of course.

 

Hmm lets see how much my plans materialises but i know i have to come out of it and take control of myself and leave on god rest of the things....