Tangled messages from heart / logic / "gut" / people in my life

[Zapbasket]

This week was eight months since my boyfriend and I broke up after 3.5 years together. About a month after we broke up, I made one last-ditch effort and emailed him, saying I'd like to go to couples counseling with him (we were seeing the same therapist individually, originally with the idea that we'd also have couples counseling sessions but we broke up before that could happen). I closed the email saying I'd like to talk about it with him in person, rather than email. Two weeks later he emailed me effectively severing everything forever and refusing to talk with me again. He also abruptly quit going to therapy. I was shocked and crushed. There has been no contact since then and it doesn't seem like there ever is going to be.

 

All throughout the relationship I had this nagging intuition that said the relationship wasn't working and could not work mainly owing to a web of serious emotional issues on my bf's part. I detailed some of that three years ago, in this thread: https://www.loveshack.org/forums/romantic/marriage-life-partnerships/275367-s-possible-i-might-done. My intuition even back then screamed that I should walk away. Even though the dynamic I outlined in that thread never went away, I stayed.

 

I have continued in weekly therapy in these months and have come to understand much more about why I keep choosing men who can't commit to me and how I need to define and enforce my personal boundaries, as well as what kinds of attributes I should look for in men with whom I become involved. I can clearly see that my ex does not fill these criteria and as my therapist has drilled into me, I can see how my ex was "incapable" of meeting me at the level I need/want to be met in an intimate relationship. I also see how I dashed in and picked up his slack, time and time again. So rationally I see it: he isn't the guy for me. And as suggested by his quitting therapy, he's not trying to work on his issues nor is he trying to understand the dynamics of our relationship. He just shut down and quit and as all my close friends, my mother, and my therapist say over and over, he's most likely in the same stuck place he was in the whole time we dated. I know he's still living in a garage apartment at his parents' house; I know he's still working the same job that he claimed to hate the whole time we dated; I know he's not exactly a social butterfly and that hasn't changed. And I can't imagine that his attitude could have changed or his self-insight grown, because he abruptly cut himself off from the help he had claimed to need and want so much (from a therapist).

 

So I see all that, understand my role much better, and yet I still hurt over our breakup and still feel love for my ex. In spite of myself I find myself still wishing and hoping for him to reach out, wishing and hoping that he's down the street from me in his apartment still loving and missing me. I try to snap myself out of these thoughts by saying, "Face it, GC, anyone who is willing to write you and your whole 3.5-year relationship off with an email and then to make no effort to contact you after 8 months never REALLY loved you, and does not love or miss you. If he really loved you, he'd make contact; it's that simple." And then, I say to myself, if this is true how could I possibly love myself like I should and continue to want to him; why would I want to be with anyone who is so willing to just drop me from his life? Why, I demand to myself, would I want to ever revisit anything with someone who dragged me along for over three years, let me get really close with his family, let me think he had both feet in when in retrospect maybe he never had so much as a toe fully in?

 

But...even this harsh truth doesn't kill my wishing and thinking maybe, maybe it's possible. And also confusing is that in the "truth" of my heart's data, I really felt that he loved me and that even in the midst of all the problems I detailed in the above and other LS threads, we had a bond. I truly never expected him to slam the door on our relationship or any communication between us. It really took me by surprise and seems to go against everything I ever felt while with him, though through the lens of what my logic perceived all along to be his level of emotional strength and maturity I suppose it's not one bit surprising. But in terms of what I felt was between us, it's shocking.

 

My mother, my friends, my therapist all make no bones about the fact that I am much, much better off without this man, even though his family was wonderful and I become very close with them. That's added another confusing / challenging dimension to this, his family. They all really loved me and said so many times, and I them, and as far as we were concerned, I was already family. I do keep up with his mom; she calls me regularly and has told me that my ex avoids her because he knows she disagrees with how he has handled things. She has told me he is not dating and has not dated anyone, that he has yelled at her that he'd "rather be alone" rather than "fight with someone all the time." Knowing this is how he has summed up our relationship in his mind, even months later, makes it even more obviously unlikely that he will reach out to me.

 

All these mixed feelings among my logic, heart, intuition, the fact of the ever-growing silence between us, the fact of the very palpable bond formed with his family especially his mom, the fact of being able to SEE how he is not suitable for me because a) why would I want to be with someone so in denial about themselves and so unwilling to work on themselves and b) why would I want to be with / pine after someone whose feeling for me is so little that he'd be willing to let me go from his life forever?--all these pieces of data make it very hard to move on and finally surmount this breakup. It seems like no matter what I try I can't break myself free of the hurt and the longing. When my two previous long-term relationships ended, part of how I dealt with it was by moving to another city. I vowed not to do that in response to this breakup, and instead get to work with a good therapist so that next time I make a better decision to be with a man who treats me better and who can offer me the committed relationship I seek. The other times, moving seemed to "help" in the short-term, but clearly it didn't help in guiding me to better relationship choices; moving in the previous cases proved only to be a distraction and nothing more.

 

I'm so sorry this is so long. I haven't visited LS in a while and I can say these past months have been some of the most challenging and painful I have ever experienced. I'm looking hard at myself and my habits and choices and perceptions, and even then, I just can't shed the grip this whole relationship had on me. I've even thought about contacting my ex, but my personal dignity won't allow me to do it and besides, if he wanted to talk to me, he would make contact. He has not contacted me once; there hasn't been a call-and-hang-up like with two exes ago, no email, nothing, and even though we live less than a mile down the road in a rural area we have not once bumped into each other (which is a good thing. If we have contact I want it to be where he initiates it, not where we bump into each other at the grocery or something and he can be affable while I feel confused and destroyed inside).

 

Can anyone relate? I really just can't seem to shake this and I don't understand why. I can't even tell the difference anymore between my heart and my gut. Again, sorry this is so long.

Edited April 27, 2014 by GreenCove

[NoodleNuts]

I can absolutely relate to this post. The whole 'intution screaming at me thing', wow I could have written this 6 years ago.

 

All I can say is, as hard as it is....trust your intuition. People rarely do and it causes so much grief and self doubt.

 

And for a relationship to work, TWO people have to be fully invested and doing the work. It does not sound like your ex was fully invested. Yes, he probably DID love you. But not enough.

 

Something was big enough for your intuition to start clamouring. I have learned to trust mine. It has never been wrong. When I look back over the years not once has it been wrong.

 

Love is not enough. As much as we'd like to believe the romantic notion, love does not conquer all. You also need a certain degree of emotional maturity, self awareness, courage, compassion and compatibility for any relationship to have a fighting chance in hell. I'm sorry you're hurting, it sounds the way he broke things off was very cold and calculated.

 

I honestly think he probably wanted to 'end' things for a long while but was afraid to hurt you.

 

Accept that it's over and fill your life with new and productive ventures. Good luck.

[TiredFamilyGuy]

Most of us can relate to a broken heart. It is worse when you invest your feelings, you attach, but the other person does so less. This is worse as when it ends you feel stuck and unresolved.

 

Keeping in touch with your ex's mom is not going to help you as it reminds you of the lost attachment, inevitably. Seems to be partly hope that keeps you doing it. Sorry to say, you must quell that in order to move on. Almost all here will say, you would benefit from focusing your energies elsewhere and thus moving on with your life. It will happen eventually. Sorry for your hurt, OP.

Edited April 27, 2014 by TiredFamilyGuy

[Zapbasket]

 

Accept that it's over and fill your life with new and productive ventures. Good luck.

 

The second part, I've been doing in spades, from the first moment we broke up. New job. Meeting athletic and other goals. Making new friends. And that's the thing. I'm DOING all the right things, but my mind/heart/intuition are still all tangled up. And going through this breakup has made me realize that the breakup of a 5-year relationship that really hurt me back in 2007 and that brought me to LS, I never *truly* got over. My theory was that it was because instead of getting with a good therapist back then and really buckling down to some hard self-examination, I up and moved and got in a horrible rebound relationship that really messed up my life for a while. So this time, I'm with a good therapist, taking that hard look...and still I'm finding it near impossible to shake myself out of the hurt and hope. And what's confusing is that this is true EVEN WHILE I now am well aware--with the full supporting opinions of my friends, my family, and my therapist--of my ex's significant emotional shortcomings that are ENDEMIC TO HIM and not REFLECTIVE OF ME OR MY LOVEABILITY. I see it, I get it, on the outside I look like I've fully moved on with my life...and yet still I hurt, and still I hope. And DEEPLY. It affects my sleep, it makes me unable to concentrate on projects when I'm home (at work I fake it all really well; I'm good at that). And I just don't understand why I am so hung up and hurting so badly when it's simultaneously clear to me that HE IS NOT WORTH IT.

[Zapbasket]

 

Keeping in touch with your ex's mom is not going to help you as it reminds you of the lost attachment, inevitably. Seems to be partly hope that keeps you doing it. Sorry to say, you must quell that in order to move on.

 

I have thought this many times over the months. Thing is, it's a small, small town where everybody knows everybody and if that didn't make it near impossible to make a clean break, the fact that his mom and I work in the same division of the same company certainly does. I've discovered, living here four years now, that you just have to find other solutions than to completely cut other people off. I agree it makes it difficult to move on--and especially because I really, really love her: she by far is the best person I have met since moving to this state six years ago. She is the kind of high-quality person you want to keep around. I know she will always have my back and to cut that tie would affect a lot of aspects of my life here, plus--and I can't explain it any other way--it just feels organically wrong, somehow.

 

Almost all here will say, you would benefit from focusing your energies elsewhere and thus moving on with your life.

As I said above, I'm doing all the right things, but it's my mind/heart/I-don't-know-what that's keeping me sad and confused. Will this, too, pass with time? I used to be sure of this but now that I see how my hurt and confusion never abated with my ex from 2007, but rather I just moved forward into new circumstances while my mind and heart stayed in the same place in certain respects, I honestly don't know how to get myself over to the other side of this breakup, where I fully embrace that HE WAS NOT THE GUY FOR ME and genuinely feel only, "It's too bad, but at least now I'm free to find someone with whom I can build the relationship I want." What am I missing here? Is it a self-esteem thing I need to deal with...or (and this is where my thoughts lead) is this confusion created by my heart that's telling me there was a real connection there that is not broken like I think it is? (I know, crazy. But that's where I get confused: is that my heart, telling me lies as a way to ward off the hurt, or is that intuition, telling me that while the relationship was super-dysfunctional, there was and is something there that he might just come around and recognize, resulting in reaching out to me. Again, I know: nuts.) Edited April 27, 2014 by GreenCove

[proactivedreamer]

I read over your threads, and have been cogitating for hours on how to respond. I think, despite what you know, it is difficult to commit, and act on what you know. I, like you, am tenacious, and fight for my relationships even when it no longer makes sense to. Perhaps it is hope that deceives you? Perhaps it is hope that is the very thing that is hurting you? It is difficult to see the grand picture when your heart shows you something else.

I think this will be a sore spot for you for some time. I say that cause I went through a similar process with one of my exes, and that break up is still a sore spot for me. I still don't agree with his reasons for ending things, but I accept that we will live our lives apart. I know how hurt you feel, GC, but you will survive this. Reading your post made me feel sad.

I remember the confusion, and the feeling that I was fighting myself for someone who didn't want to fight for me. And maybe him not fighting for you is what keeps you up at night. I think you are still processing things, and in time you will see the good in the ending of that relationship.

Edited April 28, 2014 by proactivedreamer

[Zapbasket]

I think this will be a sore spot for you for some time.

 

I think so, too. My fear is not so much the natural process of grief, but not processing it properly. I didn't realize it at the time, but back in 2007 when another bf broke up with me after 5 years, I moved forward in my life in some respects, but really never "got over" the hurt. When I got involved with a narcissist and moved cross-country for him in 2008, I did so not realizing he was a rebound for me, that I did not love him and that he was a narcissist and therefore a horrible choice in every respect. The aftermath of how that man ended things with me (in 2009) was not hurtful (because I did not love him) so much as it was deeply humiliating and left me stranded in a new city far away from family and friends, with no job, no home, no car. And then I got involved with my most recent ex, K., in 2010 and I think, in retrospect, that I still had not come anywhere near regaining my equilibrium after the 2007 ex. I have felt underwater for a very long time, and I think that contributed to my inability to exit this most recent relationship back when I first noticed serious trouble. Which, I'm ashamed to say, was in the first months of our being together, in the summer of 2010. I have a LS thread entitled, "Handling Teasing" that I started at that time, seeking advice.

 

All this, I see now, very likely stemmed from the residual hurt over the 2007 ex, who ended our relationship in a very cold and unexpected way and with a terribly cruel email that I still have memorized. That's what I'm afraid of happening here: that the hurt will stay with me and even though I'll move forward in my life (I already have in many respects), the inability to understand or perhaps fully accept that someone--someone I loved and with whom I was intimately involved for years--could truly act like such a jerk and never look back will keep me emotionally stuck in ways of which I won't even be aware until I find myself in evidence that my life is stuck/not working and then am forced to try to figure out why.

 

I mean, I just can't manage to shut off the "love pipes." K. gave me every reason over the years to say, "He's not good enough for me" / "He will not make a good long-term partner for me nor anyone else" / "He is not capable of showing up for a committed relationship with maturity and self-awareness." I ought to be not the least bit surprised that he would have walked away the way he did, insulting my mother, me, our time together, his family, just...everyone and everything. And yet, I AM surprised. I DO, still, feel love for him. I know that other people can turn it off after someone has betrayed their love and trust; they just banish the offending person from their minds and never look back. I so want to do that because it seems to be what the situation deserves, but I can't and therefore I'm afraid I'm only going to be more hurt. Like, if he moves from here. Or stays here and openly gets on with another girlfriend. He does live only a mile down the road from me, after all. Maybe not even a mile.

 

I don't know what to do beyond what I'm already doing.

 

the feeling that I was fighting myself for someone who didn't want to fight for me.

 

That's EXACTLY it. Well put. We betrayed ourselves for people who ultimately did not love us. We loved them more than ourselves, and it should NEVER be that way.

 

And maybe him not fighting for you is what keeps you up at night. I think you are still processing things, and in time you will see the good in the ending of that relationship.

 

That's it. I already know that I"m better off out of this relationship. I gave it 3.5 years and it never went anywhere. He seemed to have potential but it never even glimmered in our relationship. He was a stagnant, belittling, childish person with me and I have to believe that that won't go away with the next woman he's with. Even recognizing this, I can't help desperately wanting a different outcome than having put myself into the position to be so hurt by him. He ought never to have had the chance to hurt me. I so wish I could go back to 2010 and tell the GC of that time to follow through and put on my shoes and leave his apartment like I almost did one time that summer, in indignance. I put on my shoes thinking, "This is it. I'm done." And he convinced me not to leave. And now I see that I should have left then, and never looked back--something I would have been capable of then because I wasn't so invested. And if I'd done that one thing, I could have been spared all this hurt, all of it. :(