Hello, there... I am a 20-year-old male. I was in a long term relationship that ended like a "car crash" about two months ago. Of course, I was knocked off of my feet; it still seems like I am living in some kind of horrible nightmare or a twisted alternative reality. However, it is finally starting to sink in that this is normalcy now and that my life will never be the same again. Don't get me wrong, I have dealt with loss before. My dad died last year, so dealing with the loss of a person is something that isn't new to me. However, losing someone to death is much different than losing them to... whatever. I wish that I could erase her from my memories because she has tainted them with negativity. She seems so irrelevant to me and my life now, but I still feel a strong sense of disappointment. I still feel like she is there... at the very fringes of my life... taunting me and controlling me. I don't know if I will ever be able to completely detached myself from her mentally and that scares me. I just want to know for sure that she is gone forever so I never have to think about her again. All I can feel nowadays is jealousy, anger, and hatred. I realize that these negative and useless emotions will do me no good in the long run, but I cannot help but to feel them. I feel like a victim and I hate that feeling more than anything. I see no value in the time I spent with her for five years. It just seems like it was a complete waste of time. I came out of the relationship without a single shred of knowledge about myself or life... In fact, I would have to say that I have learned more about myself after breaking up with her than I ever did while we were together. She was just an illusion of stability and comfort. And when that was pulled away from me brutally, the stark naked reality of my state of existence was once again apparent to me. I feel like I did as a child -- alone. And unlike before, I know that this is permanent, or that this is going to last a very long time. I can never live that kind of life again because I know for a fact that it would just be another convenient lie. When two people love each other, then why do they lie to each other... why do they grow to hate each other? Why do we even try when everything seems to end in tragedy, over the top drama, and bitter resentment?
I think that most of us can say that if they had known from the very beginning how everything would have turned out they would have never dated that person. I can say that, too. I feel like it was an unbelievable waste of my adolescence. I feel like I made some terrible decisions and that I have ruined a portion of my life over nothing. At this point in my life, I do not want to be in another relationship. Of course, if I met a girl and we hit it off right away, I would be available. But, I am not actually searching... I feel like a jumbled mess of contradictions. I feel like my identity has been erased. I know that I had problems before she left, but those problems have now been emphasized. I can no longer hide from them because they are problems that plague my day to day existence. I just never realized it before. But, I just wanted to say that reading this forum helps... I think that most of us have this ideal image in our minds of what love is and what it is supposed to be, but the actual reality of the matter is a different story. We believe that there can never be any faults and that the people we love will never ever betray us... They are, after all, ideal and utterly important people to us.
I have always been a very reserved person. I never let many people into my life because I have always had to pay dearly for it. All of the people I have let into my life have ended up betraying me in the end. Why? I don't want to become even more jaded with life, but I cannot help it. I think that one of the only reasons why I have survived for so long is because I have developed these survival mechanisms. Apathy is my best friend. Maybe it is my only true friend. Perhaps, maybe I feel too much... maybe I should just be cold, indifferent, manipulative, and deceptive like everyone else. Maybe then I would get ahead. Maybe then I wouldn't always be the victim and the loser. Just maybe.
