NC and Emotional Connection

I have a question. With each day of NC that passes, the emotional connection you have with your ex dissolves. That is true on their side as well. So how can you get back together if you no longer have any emotional connection with each other? How will his "lost feelings" come back if he no longer knows you?

I guess the point is that the negative feelings will be stripped away and the good memories will be left.

That's human nature isn't it?

As somebody said on here some time ago: Everybody remembers the good bits of a past holiday....Not the queueing at the airport and the tummy bug.

I struggle with this as well emotionally, but logically...

1. He's not going to forget you.

2. I've read plenty of times about two people meeting up after a lot of time apart, and the old feelings come back because they were buried beneath the surface.

3. If you do see each other in the future, as Streetbob said the negative feelings fade away, and you two have a fresh start. However, if you were with him before and things were overall positive until the end....then you're probably his type. A fresh start is what you need, and that takes time and hitting the reset button. You know how you wish you could go back to the "good times" with them in the early honeymoon part of the relationship? Well letting a lot of time pass is the best way to hit the reset button.

4. I think people tend to miss and think of their ex's after a break-up or traumatic event. After my break-up 2.5 months ago I've thought a lot about a girl I felt strongly for 4 years ago that I lost contact with after an argument! I guess sometimes suppressed feelings can resurface after a life event, but it seems to vary. I've read about some ex's who see the person they dumped is no longer single and suddenly they freak out. Others could care less.

On the negative side, I also often read about ex's moving on and just not feeling anything for someone anymore when they see them next way down the line. This seems to be the case for dumpees and dumpers. Hence why letting them go and holding onto hope they'll come back is a big crapshoot.

If there's one thing I've learned is that those bad feelings and negativity go away with time, at least they have for me. Despite the fact that I was the dumpee, I had a lot of resentment and anger toward him. I was a huge jumble of emotions, and now after all those negative feelings worked themselves out and faded away, the love is still there. I still remember our connection and that will never go away. True love doesn't just get "lost" with time and space.

NC is important because your ex has made their decision to end things and them carrying it out means they are going to stick to it stubbornly. They are now on the total defensive. Any attempt to get close to them or get them back will have them pushing you further away. They use those bad memories and feelings as a weapon and a tool to distance themselves from you. They cling to those bad feelings on a subconscious level to protect themselves. What do you do? You remove the source of those bad feelings by going NC. When the reminder isn't there for them to trigger that defensive thought process, it isn't exercised anymore and those feelings start to fade away.

But the thing is, we don't have bad memories that need fading away... except for the break up of course. People may not believe me, but even if you ask my ex, nothing happened. Nothing happened. He broke up with me because he seemed to have lost his feelings-- in two weeks!! Nothing major happened. It was just 'poof' gone. I don't understand. We argued often thatt month, but we always made up right after. Two weeks before the break up, we were fine. He was bragging about us to his friends, etc. And then poof, two weeks later he broke up with me and gave me crap reasons like "It's not you, it's me". And he wouldn't be talked out of it.

Now I hear he's been spending time with a girl. I'm not sure if they're romantically involved or if he's interested in her that way. But I'm scared that while I'm here hiding away with NC, that girl is taking my place as his emotional support, his best friend, the person he can tell anything to. And maybe he won't forget me. But we're not connected anymore. He knows nothing about what I'm going through now, and I know nothing about him! That's my problem. How is he supposed to recover his lost feelings for me if the very foundation of our relationship--- our deep friendship and understanding for each other--- is gone?

But Elephants:

I am in the same situation as you. I was dumped....But it's not about you or me. My ex left me for exactly the same reasons. She had lost her feelings. Losing them was based on something and if they are going to come back, they need to forget the reasons why they wanted to leave. Try not to concentrate on the ex right now and solely focus on you.

Oh, Streetbob, I was doing well for the past week! I could smile and laugh and be talkative again. And then some insensitive guy told me this rumor and I feel like I've lost most of my progress. I woke up today feeling gutted again

Why do people so suddenly lose their feelings? I mean, even when nothing happens, can someone just lose their feelings? Are the feelings really gone, or are they just there being suppressed by one reason or another? This happened to my ex before but after a while the feelings came back, but when I asked him after what made the feelings come back, he told me he didn't know, that just as soon as the feelings went away, they came back suddenly on their own.

I'm so scared that maybe he really still loves me and doesn't realize it, but he's doing his best to kill the feelings, and I don't understand why! We were happy together, and even he doesn't understand what happened to make him not want me anymore. And it's so sad. Why would he want to move on from me? Why would he want to replace me? Can't he just like, take his time on his own and try to figure himself out? I feel like he's actively forcing himself to forget about me already... which is so unfair, because I didn't do anything to deserve being forgotten or replaced so quickly! I was a wonderful girlfriend to him

Maybe I'm overreacting here. I'm not even sure if he's romantically interested in that new girl, but it just hurts so bad. It makes me sick to my stomach that he might be liking someone else now. Not me. When it has always been me. Oh god I want to curl up and cry and just forget the world

It's tough elephants - it really is. I broke 2 months NC because somebody said something that diverted me from my course, She is now mailing me (just) but I really want to go back into NC.

Hope you feel better soon.

SB

NC is to forget their world, who they might be seeing, avoid those situations. NC means not hearing that they're seeing a new person, because of course they're seeing a new person, and that hurts. But it's also natural, and doesn't mean anything about you. You're special and amazing and unique, and this is helping you find someone better, who the relationship will be even stronger with. Be happy for him, remember who you are, and move on with silent confidence.

Dumpers and Dumpee's go through an entirely different set of emotions from each other. Often the raw feeling that the dumpee feels right away is delayed in the dumper. I don't think that the emotional connection can really have irreparable damage done to it for a very, very long time (years) though.

Whether they are seeing somebody or not they came to a choice to break-up. That means that they weighed the options and being single (or with somebody else) was preferable to staying in the relationship. Sometimes it is the best thing for them, sometimes not. They are currently exploring the novelty and trying to figure it out for themselves. This is a very pre-occupying time. While we pine away in the past they are trying to explore the future. Once the novelty of their new situation starts to fade and you had a close emotional bond with the other person they WILL start to think about you more and more and become more and more curious. We have to let them get to that point of missing us and we all know NC is the only way to do that.

It stings really badly to think about them with somebody else. I really know because I can currently feel it while I type this but we didn't just stop being special to them even though it REALLY feels like we don't matter right now.

This whole thing is a long road. We will get through it though.

It really has nothing to due with a time frame of NC and what it does NOW ...its more a function of what went on BEFORE, in the dumpers mind.

Dumpers losing and emotional connection due to NC is backwards logic; they lost the emotional connection BEFORE NC began, hence the split, the jump to someone else, etc....and sadly, their silence thru NC now is indicative of their decision.

We were removed from their life - whether it be by another person, or the dumper's own individual reason for freedom..... we were given a "forced NC" , we surely didn't chose to be dumped or cut off from their lives....they chose to enforce it on their end all we can do is keep our dignity and respect that while we use the time to better ourselves.

Asher, but how can there be no irreparable damage done to the emotional connection when you're no longer connecting at all? I mean, aren't dumpees doing NC to get rid of that connection and therefore move on? Doesn't it follow that the same process happens to the dumper too? Meaning, if NC gets the dumpee to a place where s/he doesn't care anymore about getting back together, isn't it doing the same to the dumper?

Secondchance67, so if the emotional connection was lost or damaged before the split, what can we do to repair it or bring it back? What does NC do in terms of that? Does NC help in repairing the connection, or in damaging it further? Or does NC do nothing at all?

You can not do anything to repair the emotional connection right now - you can only make it worse. Unfortunately you can not control whether or not the dumper cares about getting back together. That is completely up to them, and contacting them will only influence their decision in negative ways.

The only thing you can do is go on with your own life and be happy. If you and your ex ever reconnect in a good way, it WON'T be because you were waiting around/prodding them for their decision.

Transmit, will any kind of contact make things worse? Or just the desperate kind? I mean, what if I text him randomly about a common interest, mentioning nothing at all about the break up or relationship or whatever? Something like, "Hey, I finally got to the end of Skyrim. It's epic!" Will that still make things worse? Won't that be just kind of opening the lines of communication so that he and I can reconnect after a month of NC and two months of break up?

I would say absolutely no contact.

When my ex and I broke up, I was blowing up his phone and emailing him constantly. He told me later that he did not want to hear about my life, my drama or my feelings. He just wanted time to be mad and to heal.

I believe that you just need to take this time and do some healing too. It will NOT be easy, but it is important.

Contact construed as pursuit (which contradicts what he wants) will make things worse. At two months post-BU, even innocent contact would probably be construed that way. Random meaningless contact holds back your healing, and at least in the near-term delays any chance that he will miss you enough to want to reconnect. I don't think limited contact after a period of time is necessarily harmful to your chances, but it will make you miserable and keep you from getting better. It also increases the risk you hear something about him that you don't want to hear, which causes you to panic and pursue.

Here's my take. I've never been a dumper, so I could be wrong here Dumpers and dumpees have a different process for healing, because they have a different kind of experience, and a different kind of pain to heal. A breakup is inherently one sided, the dumper made a CHOICE to push the dumpee out of their life. Their pain has to do more with whether they made the right choice or not, and it's human nature to try and always assume we did make the right choice and rationalize it.

The dumpers time is spent, not trying to forget you, but in wondering whether they made the right choice. If things get a lot better for them, and they feel happier without you than they did with you, and they feel good about their decision without any false rationalization, then things probably weren't meant to be, and it's unlikely they will change their mind. If they start to miss you, if they start to forget why they dumped in the first place, if over time they see their false rationalization as false, then they may be drawn back.

Dumpees on the other hand, have to deal with the rejection. The process of healing involves getting to a point where you are HAPPY to be without the other person. Pretty much everything you do and focus on is on making yourself OK that the other person is not in your life and that they walked out of it. You aren't just not keeping that connection alive, you are denying it's existence altogether.

Contact is dangerous for 2 reasons. Number 1, it halts you in your tracks as you try to be OK without the other person in your life. Number 2, it gives the dumper more things that they can use to rationalize and tell themselves that they made the right decision. Even if the justifications they come up with are not logical, they can still reenforce their incorrect thinking. The best bet for reconciliation is for the dumper to get to a point where they regret not having the dumpee in their life, and for the dumpee to get to a point where they aren't still angry at the dumper for hurting them. It's still a bet, but the more I think about it, the more I think NC is the best way to go. There are probably exceptions of course, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Transmit, will any kind of contact make things worse? Or just the desperate kind? I mean, what if I text him randomly about a common interest, mentioning nothing at all about the break up or relationship or whatever? Something like, "Hey, I finally got to the end of Skyrim. It's epic!" Will that still make things worse? Won't that be just kind of opening the lines of communication so that he and I can reconnect after a month of NC and two months of break up?

trust me, I made this mistake a few weeks ago by sending a very casual "how's it going" e-mail. It's not going to work the way you want, because your ex will see right through it. You were dumped recently, you were in agony, now suddenly you're calmly writing to them? My ex sent me a very brief reply after a delay, asked how I was, and when I responded he ignored it. There you go.

You ask how someone can lose feelings so suddenly. Trust me, it's not sudden. The other person has had unvoiced doubts for a while that they rolled around in their own minds.

Unless there was betrayal, I believe that it isn't that the connection is severed. There are reasons that one has for deciding that the relationship can be no more. They aren't necessarily logical although I think that there is time spent attempting to rationalize the emotions or feelings that are stirred. I think that the emotions and feelings that cause one to question a relationship if all is going well come from a place of fear. Fear is a very very powerful human emotion and one that the person experiencing it has to have the strength and make the conscious effort and commitment to overcome. Unfortunately, fear is so strong and not rational.

It doesn't mean that they didn't love you or that they don't love you any more. If they are suffering from insecurities and self esteem issues, it may be a fear of loving you too much and losing you. That they do not feel worthy of you and have fear that you will eventually leave them and that would be something they could never bare to experience.

If a breakup happens for this reason, I believe that there will always be a connection. Maybe not as intense as it is no longer experienced and nurtured the same way that it is within a relationship. It is just "paused." There are people that you can be friends with eventually after a relationship ends. Then there are those that you just cannot ever be friends with. Because the connection is still there just paused. Perhaps over a great amount of time the connection can morph into feelings of endearment. So that you look back at that person with love and care although there is always a slight tinge of sadness for it's never having a chance to be more - and left abandoned.

While I no longer pine for my ex. I do not want to be friends with him. I wish we could be. But given that our relationship ended so abruptly and although we both had very strong feelings for each other, it was something he never had the courage to reverse. Now he is seeing someone else, or at least I think he is still seeing her - I don't know and I don't really care. I will always have love for him in my heart but I don't want to see him or speak with him again. The last time we spoke, when he told me that after 1.5 years of missing me, he was seeing someone else in an attempt to get over me, he told me he loved me more times than I ever heard those words from his lips when we were together. The connection was still there. 1.5 years later even 3 weeks into his new relationship. It doesn't die. There was nothing to cause it to end. He just ended things and walked away. This time it was me that told him I could no longer be in contact. The tables were turned. As much as I wish that I could have the friendship we shared before we got involved - as he was my confidant and someone I enjoyed spending time talking to, the ending of the relationship and the existence of the connection between us that remains prevents me from being able to ever be able to participate in that way with him again. I miss him from time to time. Not as a lover but as a friend. I know that I could have that back if I wanted it but I would rather not kill the connection. I would rather just walk away and leave it where it is and let it be. I would rather not risk re-exposing myself to him where my heart could get attached again and where I would end up resenting his not wanting to try again. I can't change his mind. I can't remove his fears. I can't convince him we are good together. So I let him go.

The irony is that I don't know that I look forward to a new relationship with someone else. While I fear that I won't feel that again with someone else as it is so rare, I have a greater fear that I will and I will hurt the same if not more than I did with him and I don't know if I can go through that again. I know the saying of no pain no gain and you don't know unless you try - I guess I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it and this time it will be me having to gather up the courage to forge ahead vs. run away.

People can still love you when they are no longer with you. What we need to remember despite the love song and movies is that love is not enough to sustain a relationship. The connection doesn't stop - it just remains or morphs into something less intense and more nostalgic.

"trust me, I made this mistake a few weeks ago by sending a very casual "how's it going" e-mail. It's not going to work the way you want, because your ex will see right through it. You were dumped recently, you were in agony, now suddenly you're calmly writing to them? My ex sent me a very brief reply after a delay, asked how I was, and when I responded he ignored it. There you go."

Yes. I sent the "breadcrumb" email last week after 2 months NC. Although it was received well by the ex and she did say some positive things in her reply, it has set my recovery back and made me focus and obsess again. I wish I had stuck with NC. Not too much damage done except to me. Lesson learnt!

"trust me, I made this mistake a few weeks ago by sending a very casual "how's it going" e-mail. It's not going to work the way you want, because your ex will see right through it. You were dumped recently, you were in agony, now suddenly you're calmly writing to them? My ex sent me a very brief reply after a delay, asked how I was, and when I responded he ignored it. There you go."

 

 

 

 

Yes. I sent the "breadcrumb" email last week after 2 months NC. Although it was received well by the ex and she did say some positive things in her reply, it has set my recovery back and made me focus and obsess again. I wish I had stuck with NC. Not too much damage done except to me. Lesson learnt!

I just had the exact thing happen to me as Streetbob said. Sent a casual email after 2.5 months NC, week and a half later I got a brief response saying he didn't know what to say, but wanted to say hi. When I replied, nothing.

I don't feel like it really set either of us back and I feel fine about the whole situation, but it's the last time I'll initiate contact. The whole email was to switch tactics because I felt that announced NC was backfiring and I was starting to feel pressured that I was the one expected to break NC. So I basically wanted to take the rules, restrictions, expectations and pressure or NC and just throw it out the window...only continue exactly what I've been doing.

I'm not trying to undermine the experience or wisdom of the people here, so I apologize for asking so many questions, but I want to understand fully. Isn't it just logical that when you're no longer seeing a person, whether it's an ex or a friend, you necessarily lose any connection you may have had? And isn't connection a requirement of a relationship?

I mean, how can you even think about wanting to get back together with someone if you don't know that person anymore? Isn't going total NC like leaving a dying plant on its own? Like, after the break up, the connection isn't completely gone, but it's dying as you become more awkward with each other, and then you go total NC and you kill any remaining connection between you? Isn't going NC forcing your ex to feel that void inside him, and while it may drive him to miss you, it might also drive him into the arms of a new partner?

Well, of course, "being there" won't stop him either from getting involved with a new person if that's what he really wants or thinks he needs, and it will hurt like crazy. Uhhh I'm so confused.

Is any of you familiar with Yangki Christine Akiteng? She's anti-NC unless it's done purely for moving on. I've been reading her articles, and it's confusing me a lot because she makes a lot of sense. But then, NC advocates on here make a lot of sense as well. We all know NC shouldn't be used as a "get your ex back" tactic, but I'm pretty sure everyone starts NC with that agenda in mind anyway.

I'm not ready to give up on my ex. I'm scared to continue with NC for too long because who knows how he thinks? Maybe he feels like I'm being a stranger, and that's only fortifying his decision to move on from me?

I just had the exact thing happen to me as Streetbob said. Sent a casual email after 2.5 months NC, week and a half later I got a brief response saying he didn't know what to say, but wanted to say hi. When I replied, nothing.

 

I don't feel like it really set either of us back and I feel fine about the whole situation, but it's the last time I'll initiate contact. The whole email was to switch tactics because I felt that announced NC was backfiring and I was starting to feel pressured that I was the one expected to break NC. So I basically wanted to take the rules, restrictions, expectations and pressure or NC and just throw it out the window...only continue exactly what I've been doing.

KS: I ultimately felt pressurised by a mutual friend to let the ex know that all was ok as she had mentioned that she was wondering about me. I got quite an elaborate reply that left me in no doubt that she wanted me in the friend zone. I regret sending that message now. I have thought about her reply quite a bit recently and I wonder if I am just being shelved until a later date. I wish I had listened on here and stuck with the NC. Somebody mentioned on here yesterday that any casual "how are you email" will be seen straight through by the dumper. Lesson: don't send

But why is it wrong to be friends with the ex for now? What if that's what s/he needs? Especially in my case where my ex said that he can't be in a relationship because he is a mess right now. He had been initiating contact until I stopped replying. Now, I'm conflicted. Was he trying to be friendly to keep the connection alive while he's sorting through his life and then I pushed him away and made him feel rejected?