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Stop feeling angry at my ex


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Right so it's nothing too major really. Me and my ex were together for just under 4 years (lived together for a while). 5 weeks ago we broke up, basically because he wasn't there for me when a close relative of mine got very ill. Which obviously upset me, so I said to him over the phone one day that maybe we should go on a break and he just said okay. Since then he hasn't contacted me to see how my relative is or how I am. Clearly he must know we're not just on a break anymore. He's always been selfish and I just got sick of it in the end.

 

I have no plans to talk/ see to him ever again now. But this week I have been feeling really angry, when anyone asks me about him I say I hate him and regret the whole relationship. I'm exhausting myself with all this anger, really I just want to find peace with it and be happy. Like I said I don't want him back or to have any kind of friendship with him now, so what I'm asking is does anyone have any healthy advice they can give me? How to stop being so angry at him? I hate when people slag off their exes when they break up but I'm finding it really hard to now do the same thing now!

 

I do know that being angry is a healthy thing to feel after a break up - but I think that over a month is too long to be feeling this degree of anger still.

 

Any advice would be great, thanks

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I have found that I have really conflicting feelings about holding onto anger towards my ex. It's been about 7 weeks now since I decided to go NC with him after an apparently failed attempt at reconciliation after three months (he lead me on, I thought we were reconciling, he did not). Since that time, I've been desperately trying to find anger towards him. I thought that if I could find my anger, it would be easier to let him go, and see him as a bad, selfish person that I shouldn't waste any energy on. I also find anger to be more productive than sadness.

 

However, all I could find up until last week was hurt. I am so hurt by what he did to me. He treated me like crap, over and over again, I've made lists that I revisit of all the bad things he did, and I don't understand why there's only been hurt and sadness and no anger. I'm just sad, and beat myself up about the whole thing constantly when I know that what he really deserves is anger. My friends seem to have carried the anger for me thus far.

 

But then I had an unexpected run in with him last Thursday night and he ignored me and left without saying a thing. After a spell of crying that night, I realized that *this* made me angry. Over the weekend I was so, so angry. I was bashing him to anyone who would listen -- like you, telling them I hate him and regret the relationship, plus mocking him, immaturely posting about how much I hate him on Facebook (luckily I have a small account I created after he dumped me. Still, not great.), I resisted the urge to key his car, the whole works. And I finally felt the anger... so much negative energy.

 

I woke up on Monday feeling so bad about it all. So out of control with rage. As much as I believe I'm entitled to directing anger towards him, maybe even towards hating him... I don't want to carry around that energy. I don't want to be the one spewing insults left and right. I feel like the anger reduced me to a high schooler. So I wrote him a brief text in which I said that I was disappointed about how things went on Thursday, I wanted him to know that, and I hoped all was well. I know some would say that I shouldn't have broken NC, but so far, it's felt like a relief. He didn't respond and I do not expect him to, but sending the text seemed to dissipate a great deal of anger. I've also decided that any residual negative energy I'm holding onto is going to be channeled into my workouts at the gym. Running, spinning, yoga... that's what I did when we initially broke up, and it was really a great release for it all.

 

I don't know if there's really any advice in there, but I definitely empathize with you in the anger!!

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Anger at it's core is often really deep hurt. So recognize that you were deeply hurt by his lack of compassion, support, love, in your relationship.

 

At some point you will get tired of being angry and bitter all the time. It really infects you with negativity, and at some point people will have a hard time supporting you through this if you are not making strides to work it through.

 

When people ask about him, you could simply say that you are grieving the loss of your relationship and that you are working on healing and moving on.

 

Focus your thoughts now on yourself and your healing, moving forward into better territory. The negative thoughts will serve no purpose after a point, and it is best to change those thoughts to something positive for yourself.

 

But do keep in mind that the grief/hurt/loss/anger will drift in and out from time to time, as memories and situations will trigger those feelings.

 

Hope your family member is doing better

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Thank you both for your replies! They were very helpful, I am defiantly going to try to channel my anger into doing something productive. Think it will also take my mind off of him. And am going to try – very hard – to keep my anger/ hatred towards him to myself when I talk to others. I only end up annoyed at myself when I slag him off, which I hate feeling like!

 

Thank you again for your advice, hope you are both well

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