Feeling so unhappy

[sparkle222]

Well most people aren't up for listening to someone cry for hours on end so I'm letting it out here, I've often found the responses really helpful..

 

This isn't just about relationships (although it is a large part). I just had a really miserable day. I did poorly on important exams that I really thought (after much post mortum-ing with classmates) had gone very well; I was aiming for a top mark and now am suddenly scraping the minimum I needed. This was soon after hearing about the details for a friend's funeral. For some reason this just spiralled into everything feeling awful. I got in an argument with my ex, who'd been helping me with course (we have a messed up relationship), and who (after listening to me being miserable about my results) basically said he didn't want to deal with me. Everything had been going so well over the past month, having a great time with friends, ex and I had been talking about slowly reconciling, I thought my work was going well -- and all of a sudden it's just been slammed in my face again. I've been told/reminded that I'm not doing that well, that my ex doesn't care about me (or at least not enough to be care when I'm unhappy and need his support, despite me supporting him through his supposed prolonged 'depression'; irrationally i almost feel like his rejection of me is validation of my unworthiness), I feel like crap compared to my friends, who always teased me about working hard and not having enough fun, and yet who all seem to have done better.. it all just makes me feel like a kind of worthless and unlovable person, as if I'm not particularly intelligent, loveable, or really of any value/interest to anyone.

 

I don't see the ex as potential dating material, I don't have patience for his indecision about his actual 'romantic' feelings towards me, but I do really need the outside support as a friend (he knows me far better than anyone) from time to time. Things had been really good between us for a couple weeks, and I guess I just thought he'd give me more comfort when I actually really needed it. I'm still so swamped and I hate that I have to put on a happy face tomorrow and pretend to be bold and together when I'll just be up all night exhausted and crying. I'm not even sure what the main cause/trigger of this unhappiness is; I am very disappointed by the exams, but usually that sort of thing makes me angry/want to work harder, not curl up in a ball and cry. This all seems so irrational as well; the results don't stop me getting a job or anything; in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't 'matter' so much.

 

Advice? Or just words of comfort?

[Raina314]

Hey, you're not being irrational. Those are all really good reasons to cry and be sad, and when all that bad stuff happens at once it can really feel like the whole world is out to get you. There's nothing more frustrating than knowing you did your absolute best and then not getting the results you'd hoped for. it's okay to be sad about all that. I went through a similar time a few months back when I got dumped and lost my long time best friend to a falling out at the same time. But it will pass. If you just need to hide in your room for a weekend, do it. Just don't let it stop you from getting back up and continuing to work hard in the future. Not everything will turn out this way. You'll be okay. *hug* for you.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Raina314

[RocketQueen]

You're not being irrational. Everyone needs support and the outlet to be able to vent and ideally its with someone you care about and who is supposed to care about you.

 

I have been in a situation very much like yours- strange dynamic with my Ex who spoke about us reconciling. We had a 'friendship' too and I was happy to take it slowly towards getting back together.

 

What I have come to realise is that the friendship had unspoken conditions...venting or any kind of emotional outburst was acceptable ONLY if it came from him. He was more than happy to be my friend if I was happy and carefree and loving life. If he was in the mood for jokes-I had to be a comedian. If he was feeling down I could be his shoulder to cry on etc etc there were times we could talk about our feelings- on his terms.

 

The fact that you have had a succession of bad news has just highlighted what is lacking and how one sided the friendship is.

 

Keep coming here and talking to us & take care xxx

[sparkle222]

Thanks for the responses. They actually brought (another) tear to my eye. It is really nice to hear such comforting, empathetic words. It was even harder today, since my close friends all did exceptionally well and hit the top marks, so I don't really have anyone to talk to about this. I want to feel happy for them but I'd consistently done quite a lot better than them in past exams, and on all of our mock exams for the set we just got back, so their news just compounded the shock. I just feel really thrown, ashamed, and a bit hard done by, because now I look like the slacker/dumb one, when in reality it could have been nothing more than bad luck (e.g. I got a harsher examiner). I can't get a remark or any explanation of what went wrong, which is even more frustrating.

 

I can talk to my parents who obviously just (very reasonably) tell me to buck up, get perspective and move on, but I can't shake the feeling of wounded pride at how stuck I feel. I set out this year intending to do my best work-wise, and I worked so hard and was predicted such good marks, and it feels like a complete mockery and waste of that effort. I feel like I'm back to square one.

 

This is compounded by the feeling that my personal life has gone nowhere; here I am, still relying on my ex for support-- an ex who point blank refuses to date me because he thinks we have too messy a past. The ex is on a gap year now, so effectively he's told me that while he can't (logistically) date anyone right now, he will in a few months once he starts his masters. So he's choosing a hypothetical girl he'll meet on his masters course over someone he knows inside out who's stuck by him for years throughout his depression, his mistakes, everything. He's given me crumbs of hope of us reconciling but at the end of the day, nothing. I *know* it's a waste of my inner self to share it with him, but I'm feeling so upset and battered by everything else that I haven't really got anyone else I can turn to, and he's the one who knows me best.

 

My plan is just to knuckle down and finish the rest of this year, trying to keep in perspective that it doesn't actually matter provided I hit the minimum mark and that the markers are idiots anyway.. and to cut off all contact with the ex once I'm done with my final exams. I know I should do it now/should have done it a long time ago, but I guess I'm just a really weak character. I still need that support from him, now more than ever, but it's killing me too.

 

What do I do? Any more words of comfort?

[Raina314]

I understand. I clung to one of my exes for a long time. Just get through the next few weeks and then do your best to get away, at least mentally, for the summer. I know what kind of exam you had to take, but remember that it's not the only one and that even if your friends did better on this one, I'm sure you have done or will do better on others. You'll be okay, you'll get through this. Its a bad time, but you did pass and you'll come out of it. Things'll be better before you know it.

[preraph]

I'm sorry. It does seem like once one thing goes wrong, then it just starts raining crap upon us, doesn't it? And becomes overwhelming.

 

Start with the exams. You did the best you could. That's all you can do. Never ever waste time dwelling upon something that you have done your best on or something that you can't change. Ask yourself, "Is there anything I can do to salvage these grades?" If the answer is no, stop thinking about it and put it behind you. Next time if you think something personal could derail a test, ask to reschedule ahead of time.

 

Your ex is your ex for a reason. He's not the support you need, and you know it. So you're just stuck in the mud with him, in what sounds like kind of co-dependence, afraid of being without him even though you know he's not right for you.

 

At your age, there is NO reason to get stuck on one man. At your age, there will be many opportunities for men.

 

If your friends are telling you you worry too much, are too serious, don't play enough, then I think they're right. You know, we DO function better when we give ourselves a balance of discipline and leisure. We do! So if you're methodical, which i am assuming, then schedule in a day or night off to relax or go out with friends every week. Then that will lead to a new man, new friends, better support, and lots of good distractions.

 

Other than that, anytime I'm overwhelmed, which is often at my old age, I just have to start penciling in when I will deal with what. One thing at a time.

 

I have heard some advice about worrying that I think is good: Never worry about everything all at once and try to figure out the ending. Keep it simple. Deal with one thing at a time, and just take each day to be a new day.

 

Never forget you do control your own life's path. No one has more influence over how your life will go but you. We all have obstacles. Keep your eye on the most important goal and move around the obstacles. Don't let failure make you sit down and say "I'll just wait and see what happens." Take the wheel.

 

Things will get better -- and worse -- and better. That's life. Make changes. don't stay in the rut you're in and expect anything to change for the better. You have to get out of the rut, make changes, and move in another direction for it to get better. Now, go.

[Raina314]

I understand. I clung to one of my exes for a long time. Just get through the next few weeks and then do your best to get away, at least mentally, for the summer. I know what kind of exam you had to take, but remember that it's not the only one and that even if your friends did better on this one, I'm sure you have done or will do better on others. You'll be okay, you'll get through this. Its a bad time, but you did pass and you'll come out of it. Things'll be better before you know it.

 

*I *don't* know what kind of exam you had to take. Oops lol.

[SixxChick]

I'm sorry. It does seem like once one thing goes wrong, then it just starts raining crap upon us, doesn't it? And becomes overwhelming.

 

Start with the exams. You did the best you could. That's all you can do. Never ever waste time dwelling upon something that you have done your best on or something that you can't change. Ask yourself, "Is there anything I can do to salvage these grades?" If the answer is no, stop thinking about it and put it behind you. Next time if you think something personal could derail a test, ask to reschedule ahead of time.

 

Your ex is your ex for a reason. He's not the support you need, and you know it. So you're just stuck in the mud with him, in what sounds like kind of co-dependence, afraid of being without him even though you know he's not right for you.

 

At your age, there is NO reason to get stuck on one man. At your age, there will be many opportunities for men.

 

If your friends are telling you you worry too much, are too serious, don't play enough, then I think they're right. You know, we DO function better when we give ourselves a balance of discipline and leisure. We do! So if you're methodical, which i am assuming, then schedule in a day or night off to relax or go out with friends every week. Then that will lead to a new man, new friends, better support, and lots of good distractions.

 

Other than that, anytime I'm overwhelmed, which is often at my old age, I just have to start penciling in when I will deal with what. One thing at a time.

 

I have heard some advice about worrying that I think is good: Never worry about everything all at once and try to figure out the ending. Keep it simple. Deal with one thing at a time, and just take each day to be a new day.

 

Never forget you do control your own life's path. No one has more influence over how your life will go but you. We all have obstacles. Keep your eye on the most important goal and move around the obstacles. Don't let failure make you sit down and say "I'll just wait and see what happens." Take the wheel.

 

Things will get better -- and worse -- and better. That's life. Make changes. don't stay in the rut you're in and expect anything to change for the better. You have to get out of the rut, make changes, and move in another direction for it to get better. Now, go.

 

preraph's right, you guys.

[sparkle222]

Hey guys, thanks so much again for the responses. They are really helpful. I hope you don't mind that I'm using this as a space to vent/get support. I haven't lose my drive to keep going, but I do feel much more overwhelmed and a bit embittered by it all. Especially after a long day, late in the evening/night, it sort of all builds up and I can't help ruminating on all these little 'injustices'.

 

The exams are professional qualifying exams (think accounting, law, finance). So while they don't 'matter' provided I pass them (which I have), as I have a job lined up, it is really demoralising to put in all the effort and then scrape by. Especially since I'd been right at the top of my cohort on previous exams and the mock exams for this set. It was a shock to drop down so much (I wasn't expecting it all, still don't know why, and usually can gauge these things), and the company does see the marks. Annoyingly, however, they don't see the mocks and therefore won't know that I was so on top of it. So from their perspective it'll look like I didn't prepare or didn't really get the material that well. Even worse they'll see my marks compared to my friends (who are going to the same company and all received top marks). I know once I start working exams won't matter and job performance will. But it's difficult not to feel hard done by, especially since this happened so late in the year, and we've been working towards these exams for several months.

 

Sorry, I know I'm just complaining, but it might be nice to get perspective from anyone who's been through something similar and is now working!

 

The ex situation is just so frustrating because it's something else I wanted to move on, but I've become so stuck in this co-dependence. He continually says he doesn't want to date because our past is too messy and he wants a fresh start. But then he wants to spend time together etc, claiming that he 'emotionally craves' it. I keep trying to cut him off, but I don't really have a 'support' system of when other things go wrong (as all my friends are basically people I study/am going to work with), so I end up falling back on him as my outlet. Which means I'm dependent on him (I think it's reciprocal to a certain extent, but not as much) and putting up with his constant rejection of me. He acts like a sweet, nice, 'complicated' guy, and always gets so upset whenever I tell him that I can't deal with our messy relationship (and then says it's just our past/his own issues that mean he can't date me, but also that even when he's ready to date he won't date me). It's frustrating that I'm enabling a guy to treat me so flippantly; I would never let anyone else treat me this way. And while I've met/gone on dates with other guys, I haven't met anyone whom I like who seems interested in making a proper relationship *work*, through the good and bad (maybe it's the age group--mid 20s), and that's really depressing. (One guy did but I really didn't get a good vibe about him--not being picky, he was good on paper, just something off about him as a person.)

 

So yeah I just feel stuck, like I haven't really progressed in any way or made myself proud in any way, like I'm just stuck in the mud trying to tick off boxes in my professional life.. and when other things like a friend's death are thrown in, it's just all feeling not very good. I feel a bit envious of my friends who get to feel pride in their accomplishments or stable personal lives or whatever; I really miss that feeling.

 

Any more advice/words of encouragement/etc would be great; I know this isn't that big of a deal but I just want to be able to be more resilient!

[sparkle222]

(also part of the reason my ex makes me so unhappy is that he seems to treat me like I'm just completely undateable for him, you know like the token friend you have who is kind of awkward, unattractive, the one everyone makes fun of, etc, but whom you somehow have inadvertently become friendly with and are nice to because he/she is an ok person. Honestly when I think of the way he treats me I feel that I could only behave that way to someone I really didn't respect).

[sparkle222]

Well, just figured I'd update this since everyone on this thread was right..

 

With exams, still don't really have a clear answer on what went wrong, but turns out a few others were equally flummoxed, so right now have just chalked it up to a dodgy marker and moved on.

 

With ex, unfortunately, I've sort of fallen flat on my face and could really use some support. At first it seemed like we'd agreed to some sort of pleasant friend-type thing and we're communicating. I accepted his story that he'd just had a casual thing with some girl last summer (my friend had implied it was a lot more serious/longer than that). He asked if he could see me in a few days when he's in my city.

 

We're chatting and making plans this evening and then he suddenly sends a message out of the blue saying "I should probably tell you this, but I actually have been seeing and regularly hooking up with that girl all year, up until about a week ago". So yep, turned out he completely lied about it all: they had actually had a thing that had kept on going all year. It was technically open but apparently she didn't want to know about any other girls he's hooked up with (me a couple of times, another girl a couple of times).

 

I completely DID NOT expect this, at all, and I felt completely flabbergasted; he'd made me feel guilty about not being a 'close' friend to him over the past few months, not seeing him in person, etc etc (and the whole time he was sleeping with someone else?!). I'd completely believed him when he told me that was it after last summer (and I did ask). I asked him if he'd hooked up with anyone else; he said no; I then later asked him how many hook-ups he'd had this year, and he admitted he'd hooked up with another girl too (and then about 20 minutes later admitted that had happened more than once). He even tried to shift the blame on me, saying that I should've asked him as it's an obvious thing to ask your ex if he's continually hooking up with someone else while wanting to hook up with you.

 

So what to do now?

1) Initially said he still wanted to do exclusive fwb with me, and that he'd ended it with the other girl because he knew he could only do fwb with me if it was exclusive.

2) Then after this talk he decided he didn't want fwb anymore because he thought it was too messy/emotional.

3) He wants to be friends, and is willing not to see anyone else for four weeks, but doesn't want to restrict any possibilities after that. He admitted that once he started seeing someone else we wouldn't really be able to be friends anymore because no girlfriend would be ok with how close we are. And of course, it's pretty difficult to be friends when the other person is hooking up with someone else.

4) Or of course, we could just go no contact.

 

So I know the obvious answer is 4. I've known that for two years. I'm not stupid. I'm in shock that he thinks he deserves to be in my life and that the way he acts is remotely acceptable. But I keep slipping on it every time other things in my life get really hard. I guess there's still a part of me that thinks I'm atoning for once breaking up with him. Maybe part of me doesn't believe that he can really be this bad. Part of me also just wants revenge, and I feel like NC doesn't achieve that. Another part of the problem is, I can't even hate him enough to go NC because I'm just at the point of helpless apathy. I almost want to laugh. He's so condescending too; he said he'd stay on Skype with me because he still really cares about me and wanted to check I wasn't going to do anything hurtful to myself (WTF as if he's that important in my life that I would do that?! He claims he's had mental health issues so I guess that was projection.)

 

It also weirdly annoys me that he doesn't want fwb. I feel like 1) that should be my choice, and 2) he's been hooking up with some other girl continually but won't hook up with me?? Is it weird that this somehow makes me feel even lower, like I'm not attractive enough sexually or something? I think this is maybe because he made me feel insecure about that kind of stuff before.

 

I just can't believe this; I trusted what he said and thought at least we could move towards being pleasant and then just end being friends on good terms (we had a tentative plan to be on good terms and then just make a mutual clean break over the summer), and yet it turns out he's been lying to me all along. What's worse is just how he didn't seem to think what he had done was bad at all, even as a 'friend'. Am I crazy? I feel so deceived and betrayed!

 

I know what the 'right' thing to do is, but I really need some other people to bash him for me and convince me that I'm not crazy in thinking he's awful.. I can't seem to muster up the pure hatred/willpower to go NC.. a strange part of me wants to keep him in my life so I can somehow figure out a way of exacting emotional revenge (a crazy part of me *wants* to do fwb just so i can toss him aside after a few weeks), but he seems completely impervious to everything, and just oh so calmly tells me not to lose my temper and that he cares about me and all this crap. I also feel like an absolute, total idiot, like I've backslid about 2 years. I said this and he just kind of soothingly (and totally genuinely) said "yes, this must be really upsetting for you". can someone explain to me HOW he can rationalise his crap and yet still say all this calming, sympathetic, mollifying stuff with a straight face?!?! And why on EARTH do I buy into this kind friend act and HOW do i stop doing it?! :/

[sparkle222]

realised this needed some context: a few weeks ago my friend told me that my ex had had/is having a serious fling with a girl for several months (which would've overlapped with the couple times i've hooked up with my ex). i flipped out at ex (because he's talked about us maybe dating, hooking up, etc), he completely denied it and said it was just a casual thing last summer (when we weren't speaking) that ended in the fall, no emotions involved. he's now admitted he completely lied about that--he 'ended' it a week ago (when he thought he was going to start something exclusive with me, which he's now decided against post my reaction to this).

 

total shock--and i feel like there's no going back. This feels like a huge betrayal of trust. He blames me for not having 'asked' if he was seeing anyone else (!!). I feel helpless; even if I cut off contact with him (which I find virtually impossible to do), he doesn't lose anything, he just goes straight back to the other girl. I also feel like such a massive fool for having trusted him as a friend (let alone anyone else)--that's a really, really big thing to keep secret.

 

Also part of me wants to contact this girl (who apparently doesn't think he's hooked up with anyone else this year) and tell her, but I'm almost worried that'll bring them closer together (I'll be the crazy ex ex gf) and he'll just feed her the same ---- he fed me... what do I do?

[sparkle222]

Any responses? I generally just feel pretty low and could use some boosting :s it's hard to resist the temptation to lash out :/

[Robert]

As there is another thread running currently on the same topic here: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/breaks-breaking-up/576313-my-ex-my-best-friend-s-eating-me-up-inside we'll close this one up and ask members to post to that thread. Thanks. ~6