Dreams

[Bill]

Not only was I hurt back in December of 2001 when my ex girlfriend broke up with me, but I re-live a lot of our experiences in my dreams, including the breakup. During the day, I do not think about her. My dreams are something I have no control over, but I wake up very sad. This girl who I had given everything to over a 2 year period, keeps showing up in my dreams. I will not lie, the girl was beautiful. I just do not want the pain of her being in my dreams. The only time when my dreams were not of her, is when I dated another girl for a month, but then that girl left me for her abusive ex (which I recently found out she cheated on him and left him). It's just so sad to think about, because that relationship with my first ex was perfect.

I believe she found someone else at the end of the relationship, and started to see that person. There is no other way that could have ended. She could not even break up with me in person, she did it by email. The last date we went on was mid-November, where upon entering my car, she seemed VERY distant. She would not even look at me. I had no idea what was going on, but she was distant. After eating dinner and going back to my house. We went to hang out in my room. For some reason she started being distant again, until she turned around and kissed me. One thing led to another then........ after that she was sitting on my floor, wrapped up in my blanket crying, and I was asking her what was wrong. It was like she knew she had met someone else, but didn't want to break the news to me. Two weeks prior to this, she was seeming weird and would not talk to me as much.

She suddenly had to get off the phone, as someone was calling. I got suspicious, as this happened very frequently. I know it was wrong, but I had opened up her email box, where I saw messages from some other guy, who was going to see her. I did confront her with those, and that made her start to get weird. But she broke up with me because she said it would never work. I do believe she found someone else, and I know she had a boyfriend as early as a month after she left me. She may have been with him right after this. She will not even talk to me anymore, as she has my IM names blocked, and said if I ever needed to contact her I could email, but I will not. I have nothing that I could say to her.

It was the most difficult moments of my life then, and I have to re-live them almost every night. It is so painful. Has anyone else been through anything like this? What can I do?

[Tony T]

What you're going through is very normal for some people. It seems you were never able to get complete closure from this relationship and you still have feelings for this lady.

 

Dreams are a way your subconscious mind works through issues and resolves them in some way. Just let them happen.

 

You are incorrect that we don't have control over what we dream about. There is significant research on what is called "lucid dreaming" and how a person can actually program their dream content prior to sleep.

 

Go to a good search engine, such as http://www.google.com and enter "lucid dreams" without the quotes. You will find hundreds of sites with information that will be very helpful to you.

 

For your information, the majority of people (that's better than 50 percent) don't break up with a partner unless they have someone else lined up. It seems females are better at this than males. However, you are so much better off being away from this lady and it's good that you are having absolutely no communication with her. She was not the right person for you and though her loss now is painful to you...one day you will celebrate this entire episode.

 

She is actually doing you a major favor by blocking you from her instant messages. And unless you want to write her a gigantic email to get things totally off your chest, avoid communicating with her at all cost. It may be good closure for you to write her just once and tell her off. Don't dare make the letter mushy in any way, be very to the point, and don't expect a reply. If you get a reply, don't answer it.

 

It may take some time for you to work through this but, again, do not be alarmed by these dreams. They are not permanent. Sooner or later you will get sick of seeing her in the middle of your sleep and you'll switch the subject matter of your dreams.

 

Be sure to look up the material on lucid dreaming. And there have been books in the past on the subject. You might find them in the resell section at http://www.amazon.com Lucid dreaming is a fun way to create great entertainment for yourself while you're asleep.

[Bill]

thank you, i will look up about the dreaming.

 

I will not be emailing her or anything, I do not want to do that. I realize that will only bring more pain towards me. Thank you for your help in this matter.

[midori]

Hi Bill,

 

My heart goes out to you, I've been exactly where you are. When someone breaks up with you from out of the blue and then won't communicate, you're left in the lurch. It's no wonder she shows up in your dreams. My hat is off to you for being able to keep her out of your head during your waking hours, you probably are much more productive than I was in the months after my ex broke up with me "from out of the blue." Except that it wasn't from out of the blue. There were warning signs, just as you've indicated you saw with your ex.

 

I don't know anything about Tony's suggestion regarding lucid dreams, but I do agree that you've got to get this off your chest if you want to get her out of your dreams. I think a letter is a good thing. Take a while and write out all of the things you'd like to say to this woman, perhaps that will include her lack of respect for your feelings and for your intelligence by refusing to discuss things with you like a normal adult rather than making a unilateral decision to end things and blindsiding you. Other things too, I'm sure. Perhaps part of the reason she's been avoiding you is because she knows that she's been awful and would prefer to not be reminded of it. Very irresponsible of her, very selfish -- and not something you need to go along with. Write her a letter, better a letter than an email. It's more substantial, and it will require you to think about what you want to say rather than pouring some stuff out and hitting the send button before you've thought it through. Write a draft, get it as good as you can. Then leave it alone for a day or two but let it steep in your mind a bit. Go back to it and see if there's anything you'd like to change or add. Then send it off. Keep a copy. Don't expect a reply. If you get one ... respond with caution.

 

And bear in mind: if she was cheating on you and/or withdrawing from you then the relationship was not perfect, no matter how much it seemed so (to you) at the time. I'll bet that as time goes by, especially if you deal with this upfront instead of consigning it to your dreams, you'll find that there were some real problems that you'd been ignoring, perhaps in the hope that someday they would resolve themselves. It's weird what you end up repressing and ignoring in the service of a relationship. When I look back on my 3-year relationship with my ex (now over for more than a year) I see so many problems that I never allowed myself to see at the time. At the time I genuinely thought we had a wonderful relationship. And to tell the truth, I was a fabulous girlfriend: supportive, patient, loving, forgiving, undemanding, loyal, passionate, etc. Except that I wasn't getting what I needed. So not only was the relationship not good for me, it was not good, period. It could not have gone on like that, with me giving and giving, receiving little in return. If you let yourself look back on your relationship with clear eyes, rather than with an agenda to prove that it shouldn't have ended, you may find that it was not the perfect thing you believed it to be. You believed in it because you needed to believe in it. If you hadn't believed in it, it probably wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. It doesn't sound like your ex was putting much into it at all. The only way it can end for you(as it needs to) will be when you decide to stop believing in it.

 

It's awful. I know. I'm so sorry. It will get better. Writing the letter might really help you: help you convey your pain and resentment to her (she deserves to hear it), and help you see the relationship through a different lens, one not clouded by unrealistic optimism. Good luck.

[Bill]

I also need to mention what happened a month after the breakup. My friends messaged her a month after the breakup because I told them how she cheated and then broke up with me. They also found out information that she said I abused her. This really pissed off my friends, because they know that I would never do that. Her friends were even jealous of how well I treated her when we went out. They asked her if I really did treat her well and all, she told them yes, but she doesn't care if she tells everyone else differently. She has told all of her friends that I treated her bad, and possibly everyone else that knew we had a relationship. My friends were very mad at this. They decided one night to steal her screen name on AOL Instant Messenger, even though I said that they should not, and I left my friends house because I could not stop them.

Before I left I got a call at my friend's house saying my ex girlfriend's new boyfriend called my house and said I hacked her computer. This really made me mad, because I didn't do it. After I went home, I was studying for school. I got another call, this time from her, she told me to stop. I told her that I wasn't doing this, that my friends were mad from what she was telling everyone about me. I told her that I would try again to get them to stop. I finally got my friends to stop.

About 1 month ago, I did message her from another screen name I have. She was not mad at me, she talked to me. I was just asking her how things were going, about her college etc. She said that she would continue to talk to me, but was busy with her new boyfriend. I just told her that I just wanted to keep in contact over a period of time to see how she was doing. I appologized again for my friends doing that, and she said she understood from what was going on, and that she doesn't blame me because she knows how they were. We said our goodbye for that chat session and I never saw her again (on that screen name that is, meaning she blocked that screen name).

Although I would like to write her a letter, I do not think it would do much good with what's happened. About that cheating, I just saw some guy emailing her at that time saying "love hisname". Things just got weird after that. The relationship was fine except for those emails. I am serious about that, it was really fine. That is why I think she had someone else lined up. It hurts a lot to even think about her with someone else, but not as much as it did back then. It just hurts that someone that you saved their life at one time, will not want to even talk to you.

I just hope I can find someone else. I tried a dating site, but the wrong kind of girls message me. I get messages like "you're hot". Although the message itself does not bother me, the type of girl sending it does. I'm not very outgoing, nor am I like most of the other guys on these sites. I do not like sports, I hate them actually. Playing Ice Hockey is fun, but watching, no way. My major in college is quite odd, with electrical engineering w/ control systems. I had only found one nice girl on this site, but she is in Russia while I'm in the US. Travel would be difficult for the both of us. I am still stuck in my situation.

[Tony T]

Midori makes a compelling argument for writing this lady and doing it via regular mail. Read her entire post above carefully. I know I learned a lot from it.

 

I wish I had the advantage of her advice a few times in the past where I rushed out a nasty letter rather than holding onto it a few days, letting myself think things through, and making the letter more thought and word efficient.

 

I really do think you'll feel lots better and heal much more quickly if you communicate your feelings to her. The only thing I disagree with Midori about is responding to any answer you might receive. There's no good reason for a continuing dialogue because she's with somebody new. Of course, if her response is so glaringly rational and kind...then, of course, thank her for it.

[velvet]

Dont you hate it when that happens! I dont have any words of wisdom. Although, writting your feelings down may help you but I dont see how actually sending a strong worded letter out to her would make a difference. How can you make a person like her understand and learn from it?

 

She left the way she did becuase shes weak and didnt want to have to talk about it. Thats why some people leave with out explination. Because they do not want to discuss it, Period.

How do you train her to prevent her from doing it again to someone elese in the future? Who knows! I dont know! But if you were to try and send a letter, it would help you, but it wouldnt change anything on her part, at least thats what I think about it. Its like talking to mailbox. How can you make a mailbox understand you. Shes emotionally equal to a mailbox. No feelings, no compasion or sorrow.

 

Just know that everyone gets hurt, she will get hers as well.

As far as dreaming about her, if it is a problem that continues, you need to find alternative ways to prepare yourself for sleep. Some herbal tea, a good book, bubble bath (yea, you could try a bubble bath) something different other than your regular routine before going off to dream land. If all doenst work, than you could ask a doctor some sleep aid. But it would be better to conquire it naturally.

 

Good luck to you honey, and when you pull the covers up over you tonight have good thoughts and sweet dreams.

[Rebecca]

If I were you, I would NOT write her a letter or e-mail. Simply because I have been there and found it didnft work. No, NOT AT ALL! As long as you make a contact with her, you just prolong your pain for this breakup.

Now I quite regret why I have made a contact with my ex and wished to hear from him. How foolish I was. In fact, if you use your ration to think about it, you will know if they really had cared about you, they would not have had broken up with you at the first place. So why to care so much about her? What is the benefit for you?

 

I am so sorry this happened to you. I can feel the pain you have. But you got to face the music. No matter how much you mourn for the past relationship, they wonft come back. Even now while you are discussing how to catch up with her or how to forget about her, she IS ENJOYING her new life with another man. So donft try to get her back and donft even take one minute to think about her. It is just not worth doing.

 

For now, I urge you to learn something new or do something different from your routine life to get some inspiration. Go hiking or enjoy the beauty of nature. Take a look at the shoots out of a tree or a flower. You will know everything has its own course to run. And now it is time for you to plan your new life.

 

Donft try to change the breakup. A breakup is a breakup. Accept the fact and forget about her. You will be fine.

 

Hope this helps. Good luck!