Me and myself

Yeah, I'm doing fine about this particular relationship...this happened 7 years ago and, as I've told you, I don't feel nothing about this girl anymore...but I don't feel the same about the last one. that's another story.

Cyprian, I had a relationship of 15 years....we were bf/gf for 7 years and we used to spend most of the day together...after, we lived together for 6 years...we went to live to another town, we went throught a lot of things together, some good, some really nasty...we had two children who are living with me...she cheated on me and I broke up with her...it was really really bad for me, I was really hurting but 4 years later I was completely over her...today I have contact with her just because we have our kids but everytime I see her I don't feel absolutely nothing. So, I understand what you are going throught but I can't do nothing more than identify with your situation and tell you that everything is is going to be allright, believe me!

tastycake Do you realized what you're feeling is not love for this guy? Please think like this...If it was love what you are feeling, you would be hurting much, much more. It's good to feel anger for the relationship...that means a lot of energy waiting to be released....just use it! I'm glad to know that you are able to cry about it...let it all out..it doesn't matter if your relationship finished 3, 6 months, 1,2 or 4 years ago....if you need to cry, just do it! I can see you are aware of what the relationship was doing to you. Use this knowledge in your life and your next relationship. Now it's time to get a lot of "amunition" to fight for a better future!

My oppinion is that, if you let them know your opened to a reconciliation, it is helpfull for your healing. That way, at least you can say to yourself "They know my position, so let them decide!".

This break-up made me look to the relationship trying to understand what went wrong...what I discovered made then look to all my past relationships. I noticed some issues about myself, some behaviour patterns, lack of confidence, self-esteem, etc. So, this made me want to improve myself....I'm reading books, practicing self-improvements methods and I'm starting to be really interested about this, not only to improve myself, but also because I'm finding it fascinating. Other than this, I post here, go out at the weekends with friends, spend more time alone and enjoying my own company.

Using majord23's words, and quoting someone's from ENA signature: "Sometimes the ex comes back when we don't remember them anymore". I think that's the best definition of a successfull NC process.

ColdWinterForest It seems we are in the same boat. I'm also feeling ups and downs and this is mking feel really confused, mainly because I don't see her for almost two months. I think this should have gone already. Just like you, I have found confort in learning and practicing self-improvement technics. It helps me to go through the few free times I have and I feel I'm looking to myself and working to myself, which gives a self-cherish good feeling.. I really don't know if I started doing that just to prove my ex anything...I really don't know, but I think not. My last break-up made me look objectively, and for the first time, to all my attitudes and ways of thinking and I noticed that I have been giving myself a lot of hurt since I can remember. So, even if I started my self-improvement because I wanted some kind of revenge, finally I have embraced it because I understood I really need it. I'm enjoying it and I've discovered (and experienced also) that our mind is an amazing thing. Keep your inner looking and you'll find a new whole world. Good luck!

From what you've written it seems a problem that can be solved, if you both really want that. I don't think that's odd. I was reading it and I thought you were talking about me. What you are talking about is one of the things that gives me more hurting. Sometimes it seems I cannot give or receive love from anyone. I think I just don't know how to do it and it hurts me because only a few people in my life made a real effort to understand what I really feel and why I do certain things. My ex was the first person to whom I explained what was going inside me, regarding this issue. I felt I needed to tell her that.I really don't know the importance she gave to it but I felt so relieved. Maybe this is your main issue on the relationship... I think most of us felt, when our relationships were over, that we were able to salvage our relationships by acting differently. But the "statistics" show the opposite...You don't have to wait for a month, you must wait for as long as you need...some people need more time, depending on the person and the relationship...taking your own words: "...having a hard time trusting my thoughts because they change so rapidly...". From these words I can tell you need more time...Let your thoughts settle down. When you fell ready, you'll notice it. Good luck!

Hi HDD, glad to see you here again. That's funny but sometimes I think the same. But I keep coming here...sometimes I write without any other purpose than just put it out of my chest, other just to post in someone else's thread just to retribute all the help I've received here. It really makes me feel good, to have the opportunity to share my experiences so that, maybe, it will help someone. Let me just tell you that you seems to be a very courageous woman. It will give a level of confidence that you still need to face the changes in your life. Keep being a brave girl! You've reached the stage where all hopes are gone, you don't know what to do more...Do you know why? Because there's nothing much more you can do except face your life. I'm also entering into this stage now and I'm also scared about what the future might bring me...I feel empty, without any motivation and, just like you, a few days ago, I gave my future to the "destiny", since I didn't had nothing more to hold on to. Something or someone's missing, even though I don't remember her that much. Today I'm using my faith to face my fear about the future but I've discovered that I get a lot of confort in reading self confidence books which are teaching me to look life trough another perspective. Today, all the small victories are great victories to me, even the most common goals I'm using to give a hug to myself. This means now, together with faith, I know I can do something about my future, instead of giving it completely. I can tell, from your words, that you both must have loved each other very much and, when I read it, it almost made me cry. I'm really happy for you because you can desire the best for him without any regrets or anger. That's a major point to achieve an healthy healing. I believe that, at this point, your ego doesn't matter anymore. The more you can say to him (and him to you), in an honest and trully way, the best the future will be. There's always so many things to be said, at the end of a relationship.... This is a really long process, so long as starting to build a new person. Keep the focus in yourself, and don't worry about finding a new love...it will find you!

I know these bad feelings come up and down, like waves but I still can't identify what made me feel bad last night after being so well in the past 4 days. This just shows me I'm still hurting more than it seems. I hope I can take all the hidden bad feelings out from myself... Through the years I have been a master in repressing my emotions and I don't want to be like that anymore....I won't be like that anymore!!!!

Hi my friends As some of you might remember I broke one month NC when I sent an e-mail to my ex because she started to text me at the weekends. Without going into the details, I asked her to stop calling me if she only wants a friendship. She replied and I replied again...in this second e-mail I was brutally honest with her and told her I was unconsciously playing games with her just to know if she would fight for me (breaking up with her twice was part of the game and it turned as one of the resons she didn't accepted me back when I asked her, after she dumped me ). Of course she replied to this one too and confessed her mistake: I was a rebound. This confession of hers didn't caught me by surprise because I was suspicious about that, since the beginning of the relationship. At the beginning of our relationship she told me she had been sleepig with her previous ex until the weekend before. All the butterflies disapeared on that precise moment, exactly when we were about to make love for the first time. This event has determined all my acts in the relationship. I am a kind of shy guy but when I feel confortable enough, I can be the most caring person. Since that event I became closed, I could talk about my feelings but not show them, I got suspicious and afraid...even hold her hand was very difficult for me. I can tell you I was hurting deeply since the beginning of the relationship. Of all the things I had to tell her after the break-up, this is the one that remained to be said. All the rest I've told her in those e-mails....and that made me feel so good, to make things get out of my chest. Suddenly I became almost a free man. The last 4 days were great, I was not obcessing about her, there were times when I didn't even thought about her. I was almost the guy I'm used to be, and I say almost because, every now and then, I remember her. I have found a lot of consolation in my self improvement...I've been learning and working in issues like increasing my self-esteem and confidence 'cause I will need them to find and enjoy my next relationship. I've been practicing a lot of exercises to make you see yourself differently and make you act accordingly. I've started them almost two months ago and I'm seeing our mind as something amazing: it can be our best friend as well as our worst enemy. Today I feel myself differently, it seems I'm now more aware of what I want and don't want. I feel more confident...but I know I'm far from being ready to meet my ex (I don't see her for almost two months) and to experience a new relationship. I simply don't want...I'm not prepared to go through it. I still don't understand why this girl caught me this way. We only dated for a month...our break-up was pacific, without fights and I'm not feeling angry with her. For some reason, I feel I can trust her... In the meanwhile, I'll keep NC until I'll be ready to meet her....If I know myself, it will take a long, long time to stop these feelings for her. When she asked me if I was going away forever I told her that I din't knew but deeply I was thinking that, probably, it will be like that. Anyway, I'm feeling more confident and more aware of my value as a person but, right now, I'm feeling very sad and, after the last good days, suddenly I feel the need to cry...and if I need it, I must do it. I need to relieve myself the most I can...

I agree with what's been said about being open about flirting but I believe you might find usefull one thing called "rapport". Do google search about "NLP+rapport". It must be used as an aid instead of substituting open "communication".

If he doesn't need her, that's because he's confident about his capabilities and, as you know, women are attracted to confident men. But he can also be a jerk. If that's the case, read the following: Let’s talk about the difference between belligerence and confidence, using relationships as an example. Sometimes, women are apparently attracted to ‘jerks’. I’m sure that many of us have seen examples of this in our lives, or know someone in this situation. On the surface the jerk exhibits some ‘bad boy’ traits that some women may perceive as confidence. The jerk himself has probably convinced himself that he has it all ‘going on.’ What masquerades as confidence in the jerk is just belligerence and a super-aggressive attitude. You can and should always assert yourself whenever you deem it as necessary. However, this does not mean bullying people and trampling over them. The jerk in this example does not realize this. Belligerence is what makes a jerk just that. The jerk is abrasive and cares little for the relationships he forms with others, but bulldozes his way through life. True confidence, however, allows you to go through life easily, to efficiently get the results you want and make people feel good when you deal with them. Make people feel good. Do this because you can. Quoted from the book "Unstoppable Confidence" by Kent Sayre

Basically you just have to think positively everytime you start thinking negatively. That's easier said than done because you must always be aware of waht you're thinking to make the substitution (and your mind, is always, unconsciously, trying to make you think negatively). I say them between teeth 'cause I don't want to be listen to my children...I don't want them to think I'm some kind of lunatic. Some people say that the best is to say them loud, in front of a mirror.

Affirmations are a thecnic to change you beliefs. You are always telling to yourself you're not good enough 'cause your mind is associating the outcome of a bad experience, and generalizing it to all the similar experiences you've had or might have in the future. Since that belief is installed in your brain, everytime you got yourself into a similar experience, unconsciously you "prepare" your self to fail, and you act accordingly. So you must change those beliefs by contradicting them by telling yourself the opposite (by saying the affirmations). I got a list of affirmations which I'm telling to myself twice a day (sometimes three or four). They wark since you believe in what they say...even during the day you don't believe them fully, at least when you're saying them you must do an effort to believe in what they say. You must do it consistently for a long time. I've been doing this for almost two months and I can notice my speech is different, I noticed now I'm more aware of what I really want to myself. But nothe this is a long process and it may take a lot of time.