Anatomy of a Breakup ([Update] - 27 Months Out)

[elephantflower]

I am doing horribly again. I need to vent, I need your support.

 

I am not sleeping again. I feel like I'm going crazy. I'm so mad that he contacted me -- he was mean and then he dumped me. Why would he do that? Why?!?? Why!!!!!!!!

 

I go from hating him one minute. Being completely disgusted that he is contacting me after no apology to then beikg in complete denial and wanting to answer his text, fantasizing that we will hang out and it will feel like it used to. He tried to friend me on Facebook - I want to accept but haven't. I want to believe he cares. I want to believe he still loves me.

 

I do not think he is actually even capable of any of these emotions. I know what I should do is block him on Facebook but I feel bad - I'm not ready to do it. Somewhere in some sick place inside of me I have this hope that he will realize what he has done. This is insane.

 

Please help me. I wonder if he misses me. I miss him and I hate him. I can't take this.

[hela]

Really, don't give in. I know what you're feeling right now and there are pretty much 0 ways it can benefit you. Stop thinking about why he acted the way he did -- we are all capable of good and bad and chose to be bad andput himself first. So you must do so to. To contact him would alleviate any guilt he has (if he has any at all) and keep you firmly mired in your strong feelings about him. Lose-lose for you.

 

Focus on the people that do treat you right! Like most of the people here, I'm also healing from an immense hurt. I found it helped to focus on the other relationships in my life and see where they could fill the gaps left by my ex. I found he left a very little gap. Don't let someone treat you this way -- it's manipulative and bordering on emotional abuse. Keep your head up and move away from this situation. It's toxic for you.

[Jay13094]

My recent ex played these games and would contact me quite frequently at first. This was the first time I had an ex that hoovered around and initiated contact, so I was also perplexed. With all of my other breakups, we just cut contact and moved on. First, I would block him on FB, and don't respond to the request for a dog play date. That is a ludicrous thing to ask on his part, and it's probably a ploy to keep you hooked. My ex would do crazy things like send my parents birthday cards, and he mailed me a decently nice birthday gift and a card on what would have been our anniversary. I actually know of a few people who have said that he claims we are friends.

 

I think that the exes who want to hoover after dumping you are basically trying to hedge their bets. They want to stay in your good graces in case the single life doesn't work out. In my case, I later found out that my ex was keeping me around while he lined things up with another woman. Some people like to keep a harem of exes around for an ego boost. My ex kept all of his exes around and claimed a friendship with them. He would even contact them ever so often.

 

This guy might be the type to really try to bust down your barriers. You have to be strong and not waiver. Even to this day, my ex does passive aggressive stuff to try to get my attention. He will mail pointless things to my parents' house that he says he finds lying around his house. We work together, and, even after I've repeatedly ignored him, he still tries to start a conversation with me or engage me in some way. I've never met someone that was so inappropriate and out of touch with the reality of a breakup, and he's the one who left me and is engaged to someone else. I've read tons of other threads where people are perplexed over the same issues, and it's difficult to understand if you don't think that way. My ex has done some other creepy stuff (related to work) that I haven't mentioned on LS, but I think the only way to fight this stuff is to completely disengage and ignore the person. Don't play the game.

 

wow that is my ex completely... i asked him to leave me alone and that i needed time but time after time he would keep me around and reach out to just "hang out" it wasn't like he was even asking for me back. he was trying to be "friends" whatever that means. I also could not understand how after hurting someone so much, and already having another girl that your entertaining to come back and try being friendly.

[Jay13094]

I am doing horribly again. I need to vent, I need your support.

 

I am not sleeping again. I feel like I'm going crazy. I'm so mad that he contacted me -- he was mean and then he dumped me. Why would he do that? Why?!?? Why!!!!!!!!

 

I go from hating him one minute. Being completely disgusted that he is contacting me after no apology to then beikg in complete denial and wanting to answer his text, fantasizing that we will hang out and it will feel like it used to. He tried to friend me on Facebook - I want to accept but haven't. I want to believe he cares. I want to believe he still loves me.

 

I do not think he is actually even capable of any of these emotions. I know what I should do is block him on Facebook but I feel bad - I'm not ready to do it. Somewhere in some sick place inside of me I have this hope that he will realize what he has done. This is insane.

 

Please help me. I wonder if he misses me. I miss him and I hate him. I can't take this.

 

i was in your exact same situation 2 months ago.. and those two months while i healed i still thought about him in some sorts everyday. You honestly really do have to block him and delete him off all social media because that is SERIOUSLY the only way you will be able to heal. Believe me, I tried to do poke holes around it and just "ignore him" whenever he contacted me.. but that also set me back because it was a form of contact. You need to go NC forreal.

[ZiggyZoo]

i was in your exact same situation 2 months ago.. and those two months while i healed i still thought about him in some sorts everyday. You honestly really do have to block him and delete him off all social media because that is SERIOUSLY the only way you will be able to heal. Believe me, I tried to do poke holes around it and just "ignore him" whenever he contacted me.. but that also set me back because it was a form of contact. You need to go NC forreal.

 

I completely second this advice. I had blocked my ex and all that, but would still creep around it all. It wasn't until I sucked it up and really used my willpower to stop even this, that I could finally stop all the thinking and wondering and move on. And he never tried to contact me, that's how damaging even passively breaking NC can be.

 

I've been where you are with going between knowing you don't/shouldn't want to have anything to do with him and still hoping he'll pull his head out of his ass and come around. But you know your ex isn't, and it is the very best thing for him to not even be able to throw out these hurtful breadcrumbs. If he really wanted to, blocking him wouldn't stop him from finding you and getting ahold of you anyway. Show him that you know your worth and deserve better that how he was, and that he is no longer welcome to contact you. And it'll stop all these sh*tty setbacks too.

 

If it helps, what you're going through is completely normal. Getting over heartbreak is a bumpy road. But I think you're doing great, you're (mainly ) to the point where you can see hat its better without him. And missing him is normal too, of course there'll be good times and things that you remember. Just don't let them translate to making an effort to go against what you know isn't in your best interests, and try to get back together...hang in there!

[elephantflower]

I can say at least although I'm thinking all of these crazy things I have not accepted his Facebook request or answered his text.

 

I don't know why I'm having a hard time blocking him all together. I think I feel bad and think he will think I was mean (even though he treated me horribly) and I don't know I don't feel strong enough. I feel like I might regret it and then won't be able to take it back once I block him.

 

I think in my mind I picture 6 months from now reconnecting. I realize this is really u healthy but it's what I'm thinking. I'm having such a hard time not responding to the text - I desperately want to see him. This is so hard ((

 

What if I texted him and reconnected? Why do I think this could be a good idea? Ugh.

[LifeNomad]

if he misses you and wanted you back he would tell you straight up and go look for you. Continue healing, block him completely like others suggested. If he has true remorse and wants to work it out he will do what he can to make it right, when and if that happens don't sit around waiting, continue your life and value yourself, remind yourself what your worth, he will see it soon enough whether he comes back or not, whether you take him back or not.

 

 

Goodluck

[elephantflower]

Ugh. I am back to blaming myself again. I know logically I didn't cause his ****ty behavior but I keep thinking maybe I could have done something else or maybe if I had opened up more. I miss him so much right now. One text 4 days ago and this is what happens. I still haven't responded or accepted his friend request.

 

I try to keep reading here and thinking about the fact that I'm trying to heal. I keep thinking about the fact that he not only ended it but beforehand was being emotionally abusive and cruel. I think its just hard - when he was ending it he was saying I was his best friend and he loved me and he was happy...

 

For some reason I can't block him on Facebook. I have blocked his phone number. Blocking on Facebook seems to extreme for some reason.

 

This is so difficult. I cried for 2 hours last night. Sobbing.

[Strength in Healing]

Sorry to hear that. I feel your pain. It's such a gut wrenching, twisted despair inside.

 

But you achieve nothing from blaming yourself.

 

Instead, decide you want to proceed with a different approach, and begin turning the pain into strength. Feed off of it and grow. Accept the pain, no matter how hellish, accept it. Accept it every day and embrace it.

[Twigyy]

Sorry to hear that. I feel your pain. It's such a gut wrenching, twisted despair inside.

 

But you achieve nothing from blaming yourself.

 

Instead, decide you want to proceed with a different approach, and begin turning the pain into strength. Feed off of it and grow. Accept the pain, no matter how hellish, accept it. Accept it every day and embrace it.

 

This just made my day better.

[marky00]

Is funny coz I am just over 30 days NC after being dumped by a girl (10 years overseas relationship).

 

The ending was brutal, my novel will be called "The Butchery in Bangkok". Another guy appeared on the scene in a 6 week gap between holidays.

 

Anyway, she is a very strong slef-obsessed rock (like most Thai women) but I was hoping for some contact for a bit of an ego boost lol.

 

I did tell her during the breakup to not contact me about how I was feeling but I did state that I was still open to other forms of contact (mainly to not look too wounded and also because I wanted to keep the door slightly ajar if she had a chnage in heart).

 

Her last words were that she wanted to try and contact me but its almost 35 days and still NC.

 

I know you guys are all going to say this is the best outcome for me, but given how awful the ending was, I needed the ego boost or at least to know that she is human. No westener girl could have dfone to me what this Thai girl did without some sort of apology or they would have jumped a cliff out of guilt for sure.So far all she has done is post a new pic with her new guy so either she really doesn't care in the slightest is a bit suprised I havent broken NC.

 

I just wnat her to conatct me but I wont reply lol.

[marky00]

Repeat post, sorry.

[elephantflower]

I realize I’m coming here and essentially writing the same thing over and over but sometimes it is the only thing stopping me from breaking NC or accepting his friend request on FB.

 

I had my therapy appt this morning which always makes me feel better. I speak to friends and family everyday and also am involved in many activities so it’s not as if I’m just sitting around doing nothing but this is on my mind constantly. I am 6 weeks out from the breakup. 3 weeks of no contact (he has tried though to text me/facebook friend me).

 

Sometimes when I start to feel better, I feel like maybe I could friendly text him back or accept his request –I feel like, I’m doing FINE and I could handle it but I know I’m not stable enough.

 

When did people start feeling better after breakup? Do you ever speak to your ex?

[elephantflower]

I am in need of some serious intervention help right now. I can’t stop thinking about this. I seriously can’t believe ONE text from him 4 days ago is doing this to me.

 

I’m not having thoughts of answering and being nice and asking him if he wants to get dinner or go to the dog park. I miss him. I know he will answer and he will probably say yes.

[ZiggyZoo]

It is perfectly normal to miss and love someone you know you shouldn't after a breakup. I think that's one of the hardest things, trying to get your brain to convince your heart to knock it off. So don't make it harder for you by beating yourself up. I'd say 90% of the people on here have gone through that exact same thing. I sure did...any relationship wasn't all bad all the time, and for some reason we remember the good times more than the bad.

 

You're doing great, you should be proud of yourself. But you see how this one FB friend request has upset you so much? Go right now and block him. It's not worth this turmoil, and leaving any avenue for him to contact you through only makes it possible to keep hurting over and over. Be strong, look at how sad you are, and do it. Look at it like this, yeah it hurts to make that step and block that method of communication, but THIS pain is going to help you. The other kind, from hearing from him and missing him all over again won't. Isn't it better to help yourself here and do what's best?

 

And don't worry about coming on here and writing the same thing. Been there, done that too. Holy crap, I was a broken record for months. But the fastest way to get over him is to block him completely. Hell yes it hurts, but it works wonders. It took me about three months with my last breakup to be over him enough where I could accept that it was over and see that ot wasn't a healthy relationship. But the awful breakup before that took about two years to get there. The difference was experience and NC. Like they say, it'll take as long as it takes. But agood rule of thumb is about three or four weeks aftergoing true NC to see an improvement.

[LooperDooper]

ZiggyZoo is right.

 

It takes a hell of a lot of courage to block the person from whatsapp, from your phone, from facebook. Heck I only had the strength to do it drunk and surprised myself but maintaining it that way. But bottom line is this...

 

You cannot continue expecting him. The more you maintain a door open for him to contact you easily is just a sign you will hurt again. He could've said "hi" and you'd still be going through every single puzzle piece as to why? how? does he want me? does he hate me? did I do something? did I not do something? should I do something? You need to block him out of your life for the simple reason that YOU need to move on, YOU need to stop thinking about this, and YOU need to let go completely without waiting for an easy step for him to take. Something so simple can throw everything you've worked for backwards... You do NOT need that kind of vulnerability yet or else it will drive you mad. He might be doing this just to see if you still miss him, it doesn't mean he's the person for you nor does it mean your relationship would work.

 

Do it. Trust me, once you do it and set your mind to it, you start changing the way you think. If you block him, maybe for a the first couple of days you'll be thinking if he has written but then you remind yourself that you don't care. Instead of leaving that possibility open and going back on your recovery, remove that possibility and STOP thinking about it. The point I decided to do it was when every single time my phone vibrated I was eager to check "if" it was her. That's a mistake, I removed that possibility completely by blocking her and since then I have not looked back nor will it affect me anymore.

 

My way of thinking is this...

If she wrote, she took the easy way out of doing things and well you want somebody to fight and go beyond the comfortable circle to show you they love you.

If she didn't write (which I'll never know) then who cares. At this point I'll always have a doubt if she wrote or not.

 

But who cares, if they write back you'll go into emotional and thinking turmoil, if they don't write back you go into depression mode because they don't care about you. But what if you just remove both of those? If they want to contact you, there are far harder ways that involve more work for them and involve more sacrifice from them. That's what I expect to see if they even want to hear a "hi" back. Don't ever settle for less and make sure you think of you only.

 

You deserve much better and you deserve to recover at your own pace and correctly without interruptions like these. Start now. I agree with Ziggy, keep doing yourself and maintain NC.

[ZiggyZoo]

^^yep, yep to all that!^^ I told myself that I deserved nothing less than a face-to-face "I'm so sorry, I want to make it work more than anything" effort before I would even consider getting back with my ex. And so do you. Eff letting him take the easy way. If he wants you back, you DESERVE some serious work put into it.

 

And I had a flashback to that excited/nervous/dreaded feeling of having the phone vibrate and hoping it was him, LooperDooper. I do not miss it at all. That nasty little zing of adrenaline, then the horrible disappointment when it wasn't him...if this is you too, elephantflower, you won't miss that feeling at all.

[smellysocksuni]

I don't know if this will help you, but what I did was change my number and change my email address. I couldn't bear the feeling of waiting for her to contact me, and I couldn't bear the sight of no new messages or emails from her. So I just removed both of the options and now, I feel a lot better.

 

Block him, it will be hard and of course you don't want to. But you need to be on your own side, now. To look after yourself and your heart. You can do it!

[elephantflower]

Having a hard day. It’s still up and down. Going back to not understanding what happened.

 

When we were breaking up he told me he loved me, we had a great relationship, he was happy but he was “confused” and wasn’t sure what he wanted. He had recently decided to buy a house and was taking over a business and was stressed – I never pressured him at all. I think he was putting pressure on himself. It just sucks. It sucks that he took that stress and took it out on me and then we broke up.

 

I miss him terribly. I feel like I want to text him.

[elephantflower]

I’m writing again so I don’t go crazy.

 

I guess I’m confused – I realize reach out to him is not the answer.

 

When you broke up with your ex – did you know it was coming? I was completely blinded but the ENTIRE thing. I went away on vacation for a few days (by myself) and when I came back it was like a different person. The day before I left he gave me a card telling me how much he loved me, I was his best friend, best relationship. Days before we were looking at houses and he was touching my stomach talking about our future kids. I just don’t understand. We had a really great relationship – he even admits we do/did. Why then?

 

He even told a mutual friend that he was still in love with me and when the friend said “then why did you break up with her?” he couldn’t answer.

 

It just feels awful to lose your best friend and lose them for an unknown reason…

[wizer]

He sounds mentally unstable and he treated you like crap.

 

Stay the course.

[elephantflower]

I’m having a really down day today. For me, obviously the break up has been hard, just like everyone else on this site. But in the end of my relationship (last 1-2 months) there was very heavy emotional abuse. This is taking a serious toll on my every day ability to function – it is hard to explain to other people who have not been through it. I feel like I should just “get over it” but it haunts me… even though I know that the things he was saying about me/to me are not true they hurt me.

 

The first 1.5 years of our relationship was actually wonderful and in the end it’s as if he turned into a different person… that side was in him all along but I didn’t see it until the end. He would tell me I was lazy (for wearing PJs after I got home from work), he would tell me I couldn’t do anything right, I didn’t know how to do anything. I am hurt by it. I’m hurt and angry. I’m angry that I now have to avoid social situation where he will be because I’m terrified to run into him but then also some sick part of me still also wants to see him…

 

His behavior is so unpredictable that I am scared I wont be able to handle it if I see him. I have never seen him act like this around his friends or family – I’m not saying it hasn’t happened but people that meet him describe him as “such a nice guy.” There is anger there too that I feel like he “got away” with hurting me. I had to completely move my life to a different place to live, I almost lost my job.

 

To make matters worse, I was even willing to try and work through things in the end even after how he had been treating me. He ended up dumping me. I found out he was back on OKC and met some girl at a party… I feel like he went out to “look” and then when he found someone he thought might be “better” he just tossed me aside. After 2 years, living together, planning a future, all of this facilitates by him I was blindsided.

 

I feel depressed and sometimes suicidal… not suicidal because I miss him but I’ve been through a situation like this in the past. I feel hopeless for trusting people. As it is it took me a LONG time to even commit to a relationship with him. I was single for 5 years before this. I feel used and lead on. I don’t know how to cope – I’m in therapy, talk to friends and family. I go out and do activities and keep busy but there is an underlying sadness.

[elephantflower]

*Bumping this thread**

[irresolute]

You need to stop repeating over and over what this guy did to you.

You're still in shock, but the only way to heal is to forgive him.

Forgive him and move on. And you are not forgiving him because of him, you are doing this for yourself.

 

So, stop accusing him of being abusive, crazy, whatever, and start focusing on you, so next time you'll be best prepared for a relationship and you won't end with a scumbag again.

[ZiggyZoo]

I'm getting that part of your trouble is that you don't feel like you should miss him, because he was emotionally abusive and broke it off in such an abrupt manner. It's ok to miss someone, even if they ARE a complete as*hole. There are good memories tied in with the bad, and there's the whole life that you had planned together to mourn too. That right there is a toughie, I'm currently stuck on getting over the relationship I had projected and imagined to myself. But it's ok to miss him still. It's ok to be sad that you're not together. I think you're making it a little harder on yourself by feeling guilty for that, and you absolutely shouldn't. Emotions aren't rational, they're just there. So miss him and miss the relationship.

 

You sound to me like you have a really good grip on things, you aren't scheming to get him back. And it seems like you've accepted that it's over. So you're just ahead in the logical part of recovery and waiting for the emotional to catch up. That's pretty common, I'm noticing. Have you told your therapist about the emotional abuse? That'll take some time to get over, but I know you can. I've been there, and it is possible to recover and trust again. It takes longer, but it will happen.

 

I hope your next few days are better. Hang in there, you'll get through this.