polaris

Thanks, that's kind. I've been on both sides of that type of behaviour, and I know how crazy-making it can be, so I'm happy to be able to give an honest account. From my point of view, I'm just glad I was able to get a decent therapist years ago and recognise the behaviour and learn to manage it.

I've been S in this situation in the past. Exactly as you describe: insecure in the relationship as a whole, wanting a level of reassurance that's just not possible. The sex life was, to her at least, amazing; she was absolutely resolute from the first to the last time we did it that it was way better than anything she'd experienced before. She'd told me about her previous lovers and the things they had done and the things they hadn't, and I made a point of giving her new and hopefully better experiences. If I look back now, I have no reason to think she was lying; I'm pretty sure she was being honest when she said it really was the best in that area. At the time, though, outside of actually having sex my insecurity would focus on what? On how much sex we were having, and the quality of it, and who was initiating it. It sounds ridiculous now, and in many ways it is, but someone on here once said: men need to have sex to feel loved, women need to feel loved to have sex. A generalisation perhaps, but with a lot of truth. For me, and perhaps for S, sex was a proxy for feeling loved, and "why didn't you initiate sex?" really means "why don't you love me?". Of course, you did love him, and my gf probably did love me, but my insecurity at the time, my need to feel like a victim, drowned out everything else. My gf could have taken a full page ad in a national newspaper stating how great our sex life was, and I would still have convinced myself that she didn't really want to have sex because she didn't really love me, she was just humoring me. The most self-defeating attitude you can ever have in a relationship. There was nothing my gf could have done to rescue that situation, and there was nothing you could have done. Like you, she gave up eventually, for the benefit of both of us. It was the right thing to do. The irony being, of course, that she didn't give up because of the sex, she gave up in spite of the sex, and because of the insecurity.

It will. Practically no relationship which starts with cheating is still going a year later, which means they have a whole load of pain to go through sometime soon, while you'll be feeling a lot better.

This is it, really. If someone who broke up with you has changed their mind and wants to get back into the relationship with you, they'll get in touch. They won't just sit around waiting and hoping that you're going to come begging again. The bottom line is that they did the breaking up, and depending on the particular situation they may also have made it clear that they don't want you to be in touch with them. They know these things because they said them, so they'll also know that any restoration of the relationship has to be initiated by them. After all, how would you trust them again even if they did take you back after you asked? You'd be constantly wondering if they were about to do it again, given that they were not invested enough even to bother to try to fix things and instead left it to you. Rule of thumb: the one who does the breaking up has to do the asking if things are going to work again.

Day 31 today; a full month. I'm in a much better place than I was 31 days ago, that's for sure. Can eat and sleep okay (probably too much of both actually!), can get work done, can do enjoyable things by myself or with friends and not think about her 24/7. I'm a long way from healed, though, and I know it. I've not attempted to make contact with her at all in the last month, and she hasn't with me. I've seen her out twice with her new/old bf; first time hurt like hell, second time was also pretty bruising but not quite as bad. Those encounters remind me that I'm in a holding pattern to some degree, that I have to see her again in a work context in less than a month now, and I'd damn well better be ready to play it absolutely straight, focusing exclusively on work and suppressing any hint of personal stuff from either side. That's going to be tough and I'm not looking forward to it, but I have nearly another four weeks yet for that, during which I intend to remain in no contact (and for some of which I will be away on vacation anyway). Hopefully by the time I finally have to have that encounter I'll be sufficiently far along the healing process that I won't get dragged back into this. For anyone in the first week or two of NC, I can tell it does get easier with time. You think about them less (i.e. not 24/7), you think about other things more, you can eat better, sleep better, work better, look after yourself better. You cry less often (been about a week since I cried now), you feel emotional pain less often. On the other hand, your curiosity may increase (I'm quite curious to know how she will react to me when I see her, as in curious about her emotional resources and approach to the situation), and you'll probably feel a deep and indescribable ache lurking in the background. It lessens over time, though. Anyway, onwards and upwards.

Goodness me. I think if I'd received such a rude response after sending 24 roses, I'd have sent 72 the next day just to really annoy him.

These are astute observations. In my experience, even the most empathetic people still primarily engage in what I call mirror behaviour. That is, they behave in a way that they would like their partner to behave towards them. For example, if you want more affection from a partner, you tend to be more affectionate, or if you want them to do more around the house, you start to do more around the house in front of them. It's leading by example, if you like. When someone goes to unusual lengths to try and impress you or make you feel happy early on, you can see it as a reasonable indication that this is what they want from you as well, and sooner or later that's going to come out. If they have really gone above and beyond, it may indicate that they have expectations themselves which are ultimately going to be impossible to meet. I agree with the comment that it wouldn't/shouldn't necessarily cause a break up straight away (it wouldn't with me either), as they might be just be going OTT with the early infatuation, and these are after all quite nice things to have someone do for you, but it would certainly alert me to the possibility that someone is going to become very emotionally demanding somewhere down the line. The obvious question that follows is: if you do encounter that, can you do anything about it? Probably not, but thinking back to when I used to be like that, I would say that remaining relatively cool early on, so that you don't back off at any point later on, would be one to try. People who are very insecure and have attachment issues are hyper-alert to any possible sign of backing off, and the natural cooling after the initial honeymoon phase is consequently a form of torture for them, and inevitably leads to fights. I'm not sure that's really a viable long-term strategy, mind you, and I suspect these problems will out one or the other over time, but it's all I can think of at the moment.

Yep. I have the exact same thought and feeling about my ex as well.

LOL! I guess it comes from having experienced both sides of it, and being able to look at the situation more objectively afterwards. Don't beat yourself up over it; the MO of the insecure person seeking reassurance is precisely to make you feel like it's your problem, that if only you would offer one more thing then they will feel okay, and if you don't, then you're being cold and selfish. It makes you doubt yourself, and you don't want the conflict, so you try to fix it by offering that one thing, it sounds so reasonable. Problem is, that thing didn't work or wasn't enough, and you're told you need to offer just one more thing. That doesn't work either, though, and then it's constantly just a bit more, just a bit more. Sometimes it will seem like enough, but then it will blow up again and they'll need more, and more, and eventually you get to a point where your own self-confidence is shattered and you're being made to feel like a terrible person because you can't seem to make the other person happy no matter how hard you try. Sometimes, the other person has something specific in mind that they want from you and will keep going until they get it (if you happen to successfully guess what it is), sometimes nothing at all will satisfy them and it will literally keep going until you run out of options or run out of patience. It's no good appealing to the goodwill of the other party in this situation, either; they are in a very bad place during this, the misery you see in them is very real. It's not conscious manipulation (in most cases anyway), it's that they genuinely feel like they need rescuing, and are oblivious to the fact that there is nothing you can do that will actually rescue them. In the end, only you can shut it down; you have to choose what you think is a normal/reasonable level of reassurance, draw the line there, and not budge no matter how upset they get. You'll feel guilty when you do it, but it's the only way out of that situation. If they're sensible, they'll acknowledge this after they've calmed down and returned to normality, and look to avoid getting in that state in future (and probably get therapy etc. to address the underlying insecurity). If they're not, it will keep happening. If it does, a break up is absolutely the only solution; fundamentally you're incompatible because they are unable to feel secure in the relationship because of their issues, not because of you. So here's the mantra: it's not your fault. It really isn't your fault. There's nothing you could have done, and the break up is actually helping both of you ultimately, because it would have just kept happening over and over, and probably getting worse each time. It's his issue primarily, and he needs to address it in deep therapy, before he's fit to have a relationship with anyone. When I used to be like that, eventually one of my exes exploded at me and told me she was tired of being made to feel guilty and like crap all the time by my emotional demands, and couldn't stand being with me anymore. It was a real wake-up call for me, and I had a lot of therapy afterwards to explore the issues around my background to help me understand why I was like that and what I could do about it. I won't say I'm entirely "cured" - that's not really possible - but I know how to manage the situation and ultimately I know objectively what I regard as a reasonable standard of behaviour. It did come up again in my most recent break up, and I can hold up my hand to my part in that, but on the other hand my ex was definitely behaving in a way that crossed reasonable boundaries (essentially spending more time one on one with her ex than she did with me, and eventually rediscovering her feelings for him as a result, which I warned her would happen), so my insecurity was inevitably provoked by that. In your case, it sounds like you didn't do anything to provoke the insecurity, and so there was nothing you could have done to prevent the situation. The break up was inevitable, and ultimately, months away perhaps, you'll be thankful that it happened.

Good for you. You know she's heading for a fall anyway; the challenge for you is to get into the head space where you can tell her to shove it when she comes back with her tail between her legs. Sounds like you're getting there already, which is great. Onwards and upwards.

I'll admit that I've been on both sides of this before, and it's really not nice either side. He clearly felt insecure, probably as a result of something in his past or maybe just his character, and was (yet again) looking for something to reassure him (you to initiate sex at a specific time). You had no idea that he needed this very specific thing (how could you?). Once he didn't get it, it triggered his insecurity, and it was off to the races (I'm inclined to say once again; I'm assuming this was quite a regular fixture for you at this point?). Now he was in full insecurity mode, and essentially nothing you could say or do would be enough to reassure him, unless you came up with something really quite spectacular and over the top, and you shouldn't have to. He was literally inconsolable. You threw a lot of affection his way to try to make him feel better, but of course inadvertently it was feeding his insecurity and reinforcing his negative behaviour; he had learned that to get the attention from you he so craved he could throw a tantrum like this. It's utterly destructive behaviour on his part, but while he's in the moment, there is absolutely no way to see it. On your side, you really did your absolute best, but it was an impossible situation. When I've been in your position, I've ended up losing patience with the other person and putting very clear limits on what I'll tolerate and for how long, and tried to avoid getting into that situation as much as possible. When I've been in his position, inevitably the relationship has broken up (and normally fairly quickly after the insecure behaviour started), and usually ended by the other person, but somewhat to my relief as well (after I'm healed at least). What is clear is that there really wasn't anything you could have done here. The mistrustful passive aggressive insecurity ultimately cannot be satiated, and it would have crashed one way or the other in the end. I'm sorry you had to go through it.

Day 23, and rather difficult today. Almost the first time I'd felt tempted to get in touch. Not THAT tempted, mind you, but it's the first time I'd actively entertained the notion. Really wasn't expecting that; it's four weeks since we broke up today but that doesn't seem particularly significant, and I can't really think what else has caused it. Hope tomorrow is better.

Yeah, I find this is a good not to open the floodgates; if send one thing and get no response (or you don't like the response you get), it creates a panic and makes it much harder not to send another, and then another, and you feel worse with each one. It's like an alcoholic falling off the wagon; once you've had the first drink, it's very hard not to have more. Much better to try and resist the first one. It really is the most horrible feeling in the world, i know, and you want to do anything you can to ease the pain. 2 months is still early days. There will probably come a point when you are mad at her, and embrace it when it happens; replace the sadness with anger to help healing. Until then, it's a waiting game; one day at a time, doing whatever you can in other areas of your life to ease the passage as much as possible, and distract yourself.

Good job, and glad it made you feel better. Now you don't have to deal with the "why hasn't she responded?" stuff either.

Except by sending that, you're not giving her what she wanted, which was to be left alone. I know it hurts, I know it's impossible to believe that she doesn't feel anything; how can she not respond? I'll be honest with you, when I was in her situation once, i.e. when I'd moved on with someone else, anything I heard from the person I'd broken up with simply annoyed me. Those feelings vanished pretty much overnight because all I could think about was the new person. Eventually, after a few months with the new person, when the honeymoon feelings were dropping off, I did feel something for the ex again. Not enough to go back, but it was then, and only then, that I would have been open to communication again. Do yourself a favour, and give her time to get over her excitement with the new guy and to actually miss having you around. Don't constantly remind her that you're there on the backburner waiting for her; it will simply encourage her to know that she can jump in with both feet to her new relationship safe in the knowledge that you're around if it goes wrong. Believe me, I know how hard it is to let go, even temporarily. I'm in more or less the same situation - my ex left me and went straight back to her ex, and is with him right now for all I know. It's not a nice thought, but what's even worse would be thinking that the two of them are there laughing at sad old me who apparently can't get over her even after she's moved on disrespectfully fast. I'm not going to give her that satisfaction, and I would urge you not to either.