GeeCee

Thanks Rich and Daisy thanks for your advice. Ok, here we go with the waiting game again. I do not know how long he is away, or indeed when he left. He usually goes for a week, so he should be back by next weekend at the latest. G xx

So I made the call last night. Of course, given that my previous thread was entitled Breaking all the Rules, you are right, I broke a few more last night. I called him up and told him that I needed his help with something. Could he call me when he was free. Then I went out and had a date with a new man. Oh lordy lordy lordy!! Truly the most excrutiatingly boring two hours that I have ever spent in my life. Believe me, this torture must have been payment for all my past sins in life - and I think that I am now in credit! To tell you that it was the date from hell would be an understatement. It was horrific. And of course I compared the new guy to the ex constantly!! Mind you Danny de Vito would have scored high against this guy. Which makes me think that I will be delighted when my ex starts dating again. Yes please, let him start comparing me with other women - might be the best and fastest way to get him falling back into my arms!!! Anyways at about 1.30 this morning, drunk with relief that I had not succumbed and died of boredom, I called the ex, and was laughing when I told him that I had just had the worse date of my life, and that i was sure that he was having a great night, and that in the morning he was going to laugh his head off about my dreadful fate. It was all done in a humorous way. Then I called him back and said quickly, I really do need your help tho, and if you ever laugh about my dreadful date, I might not be responsible for my actions!!! So this morning, I got a text from the ex, saying that he was away at the moment, but he would call me as soon as he was back. So, back to the drawing board. In my new patient, under-analysing state, I shall read the words of the text only, and nothing more. Good - he wants to help me. Good - he chose to respond to me quickly even thought he is out of the country. I am feeling quietly secure with this. To be honest, I think that breaking the NC, on my terms, gives me a feeling of empowerment, and the fact that he responds quickly only helps reinforce that. Any thoughts, guys? G xx

Steve Stop beating yourself up about this. Cry, get drunk, rant and rave. But you have done nothing wrong. Don't be afraid of your emotions. Believe me, things will get better, and then worse and then better again. Welcome to the emotional roller-coaster that is called 'being dumped'. It sucks and hurts like bollocks. But believe me, you will come through this and be stronger as a result of it. Personally, I do not think that you should apologise about the text, you said nothing wrong. You were not rude. If you are able to, but only if you are able to do it calmly, take her next call. Of course, you are going to have to sound all chipper and will need to be sure that you can pull that off. If you cannot, let it go to voicemail and then call her when you are able to speak casually and as a friend. Good luck G xx

Stop hating yourself Steve You have replied to her text. Now do nothing. And I really mean that, as bad as it will hurt. Do nothing. Wait and see whether this encourages her to initiate further contact. Good luck and keep yourself busy. G xx

DaisyB Absolutely nothing wrong with what you did the other night - in fact I think that it is perfect in your long-term game-plan. He asked YOU to go there. He has messaged YOU since, saying that it was good to be with you. Perfect. And you are quite right, you have to go back to your long-term view of the situation. Good for you - you are playing a patient game and it is getting you somewhere - I currently feel like I am going backwards FAST. Keep us updated on whether his behaviour changes now. G xx

Thanks Spartan and Daisy you know how much I value both of your opinions. Thanks for replying. G xx

Hi all Have not posted much this week. Have been busy busy busy. Of course the ex is still there in the back of my mind during the busy moments. But that is to be expected. I have gone my longest period without contact (14 days - wahaay!!), but am about to break it!! I know, I know, you will groan and say, oh noooo GeeCee. But, I think that it is now time - do or die. Need to have some clarity, and I think a call will give me that. So ... if there is anyone out there, I would really appreciate any opinions/advice. Every time I have made contact in the past, it has been responded to favourably. But, as I said, this is the longest NC we have had to date. Thanks for any tips. G xx

BridgetJones This is fairly simple really. He clearly has strong feelings for you still, this is evident in his tears. It does not mean that he will come back to you. What I would do, if I were you, would be to give him the space that he has asked for. Do not crowd him the messages and calls. Give him the time to reflect on the decision he has made, and consider whether it is the right one. While you are giving him time, you are also giving yourself time. Think about what you really want, what was causing the constant arguments whilst you were together, and what would be different if you were to get back together. Think about healing yourself and preparing yourself to cope with meeting up with him again, without emotion and sadness clouding you. Good luck. G xx

MC Thanks for your PM. Glad that things are going soooo well for you. I totally agree with RJ. I cannot add anything more. Decide what you want from your ex, and find out what she wants, and aim for a win win situation. I think that you are going to have to take the call. Listen more than you speak and commit to nothing. Good luck. G xx

OMFG!!!! I am emailing you IMMEDIATELY!!! G xx

Spatz I don't think that you are being harsh at all. I think that if you want to you can come up with a number of reasons as to why your ex was flirty with you on that first night. Maybe she enjoyed it. Maybe she was testing boundaries. Maybe she was being nostalgic. Maybe she was feeding her own ego. Maybe she wanted to. These are all maybes. My point is that you will never have the answer, if she is not wiling to provide them. Remember I was in the same situation with my ex. Maybe he wanted to get back with me, but did not know how to say it. Maybe he realised it was a big mistake. Maybe I was stroking his ego. Maybe he just wanted to have a great shag. Hell, I don't know, maybe will never know. I don't want to do the NC thing. I don't want to give up hope. I want to call him now. I want to email him now. I want to drive over there now. But to what purpose? I will have no further answers from him at the moment, because for whatever reason he is not willing to provide them. So there are lots of maybes. And ultimately, I will have to let go of hopes. What I said to you is nothing that I don't say to myself every freaking day, every hour of every day. We read too much into what they say and do, because we have nothing else to hold on to. We want to have hope, because without that, we have to accept that there is no more of a relationship for us. You yourself said that in some ways this site holds us back, you should have done things differently. We can all say that with hindsight. We are all struggling to find and make some sense of our reality. I know that you hurt. I know that lots of people on this site hurt. But we also know what advice we would give to our friends in this same situation. Hell, I have said that I will give this six months. I don't know if I can feasibly do that. But I do know that I have to get on with my life, have to continue to build up a life for myself. I have to push thoughts to the back of my mind that that life without the one I want is not the life that I chose. But what choice do I have at the moment. If you are angry with me, that is fine. This is my opinion, and there are many other opinions that you can seek, and then you will weigh them up and decide on the best course of action to take for yourself. Remember lots of opinions were given to me, don't sleep with him, keep him at arms length. Ultimately, I chose to do what I wanted to do in the circumstances. Equally, you had lots of very differing opinions, and you chose to do what you felt best in the circumstances. As to whether you played the right game - who knows. You might never know. There was a point that you said you could not be friends with her, that that would have been an intolerable situation for you. So, you see, as I said, I think that we are struggling to make some sort of reality from the mess we find ourselves in. And that means that we change our thoughts and opinions all the time. All the time. What suits our purpose today, will definitely not be in our game plan tomorrow. I think that you will recall that I was definitely against you having the talk with her. I felt that you were not in the position to do that, either emotionally or physically, in terms of geographics. Beec has some great ideas for long-term seduction. But they are very difficult games to play and they rely on us completely suppressing our own thoughts and desires. Not many of us can do this. They also require the patience of a saint and the fortitude of a gladiator and there is no guaranteed outcome. I still believe that it can be done, but not by many of us. The sheer frustration will send most of us running for the hills. Unless you ask me not to, I will continue to advise on your thread. You let me know. Best wishes G xx

Rich I am sorry that you are sad. You have done everything very well, and we have seen from your posts how much you have evolved, spiritually, emotionally and physically. You are a much stronger person, no matter the outcome. Rich, continue to post, this forum it has a very cathartic quality. You will find the peace that you are looking for, it just might not be in the guise you had expected. G xx

Spatz I agree with Beec inasmuch as you have made your move and you now need to do nothing. There is little you can do now, anyway, you are both still a long way apart from each other. This is the time for you to regroup and collect your thoughts, reflect on what has happened and learn from it. The other guy is an irrelevance. What she feels for you is the important thing, and at the moment you do not know. You can analyse every detail of what she says and does, damnit we are all experts at that. But we are still only guessing at what she says and does. For now, you know that she wants you in her life, and that is a good start. You need to give yourself some time and space and I know that this is agonising. But you have to try not to look for answers that she is not willing to provide. And, for the moment, you have to stop looking for a future with her, because you do not know that that will happen. Yes we all want it to happen, and maybe it will ultimately. But for now, it is over. Who knows what the future holds? Remember that there are lots of choices in life, we do not always see them, because we are sometimes only focused on one thing, to the detriment of others. Give yourself some time and you might find some clarity. Thinking of you. G xx

Dikaia!!! So glad that you are back!!! Cerise .... really deep shade of pink/purple is the best way to describe it really. It is a rich, vibrant colour. Sort of what I am aiming for in life at the moment!!! G xx

Determined You are sounding like your old positive self again. What is remarkable, is the effect that contact from these exes have on us. If we had the time or the inclination, we would see it as ridiculous. However, I know just how you feel, D. G xx

Hi Brit I entirely agree with Sn0man. If the calls are initiated by the both of you, and they are light and friendly, then no contact would serve you no purpose. Carry on doing what you are doing. Good luck. G xx

Oooh KathyK Surgery next week. How exciting for you!!! Shall think about you then. Perhaps when I have finished renovating my house, I shall start to renovate my face and body. This morning, after reading your post, I asked my daughter if I should have some surgery. She gave me a snort of derision and told me that I really was spending too much time on the computer and starting to have fantastical illusions. Hmmm ... out of the mouths of babes!! I think I shall delay my surgery for a few more years. But, who knows ... I have always said that I will demand to have that wind-tunnel look that some American women of a 'certain age' so favour, when I am a grandmother. Oooooh I can't wait to be a deliciously wicked grandmother!! What fun we shall have! Today is very dull outside, but my goodness it is a riot of colour in MY house. We have bought lots of paint - red, purple, cerise and silver!!! I can only promise you that it shall be very tasteful. Really. And so to thoughts of my ex. Of course I think of him all the time, but he is no longer my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. Thankfully I do not remember my dreams, because I would be slightly pissed off if he invaded those too. I certainly did not invite him to THAT party! But every now and then, when I am doing the most mundane thing, my thoughts wander over to him, before I can pull myself together. And interestingly enough, they are no longer angry thoughts, I no longer have conversations with him in my head that all end in 'off'. So, amateur phsychologists .... what do we make of this? What do we make of this? Oh don't get me wrong, those moments of extreme darkness shall come, crashing down on me like a ton of bricks, and I shall feel like I don't want to breath because the pain is too much. I find that happens when I am out and enjoying myself with friends, laughing and having fun. Those are the times that I seem to miss him acutely. Have not decided on the weekend activities yet - my children are away and this is usually the perfect time for the mouse to go out and play. But am kind of looking forward to spending some quiet, reflective time, curled up with a book, my favourite video and lots of red! Just my rambling thoughts for the day. And how are YOU doing? G xx

Ok SincerelyHurt Hope that today goes well. I think that you will be just fine, close to the ex for three hours, much better than her actually!! G xx

Oh DaisyB, DaisyB This is good, this is very good. You are surely moving on and developing very, very nicely. I totally agree with you - take up a new hobby - only don't take up the one I am currently enjoying soooo much - shopping!!!! Gotta cut up those credit cards! G xx

SH OK the lack of the response from the Unicorn is slightly disappointing. You have left a message on her voicemail, so really I would not try calling her again today or even tomorrow. At the earliest I would not try and call her on Friday. Just catching up before the weekend. I know that this might not be what you want to do, given that you would like to have ade plans for the weekend. But slow down. There is all the time in the world. Enjoy your light date tonight - I think that should be a lot of fun. And keep us updated. Talk later. G xx P.S. name change, name change, name change - people will start to say that I am a nag!!!!

Spatz There could be a million reasons why your ex is playing the new guy down so much. The obvious one to me, though, is that she simply does not want to hurt you any more than she has. From what you have said, I think that she has moved on with her life, as agonising as it may be, you have to do the same. None of us have all the answers as to why our exes left us. We most likely never will. Recently, I have taken to making up a reason just so that I can stop torturing myself: My jokes got a bigger laugh than his!!! Ha, pathetic loser!! Tomorrow, no doubt, I will think of another reason why he dumped me!! In fact I already have: His car is diesel, MINE is NOT!!! You see, Spatz, no matter what the reason - and I am like you - I WANT TO KNOW. I DEMAND TO KNOW. I HAVE EVERY REASON TO KNOW WHEY HE DUMPED ME. They do not have to tell us. And so, I make up random reasons, because I too could not myself from questioning why. Shall talk later. G xx

Ok SincerelyHurt Let us hope that the ex does not exercise her superpowers!! Or maybe, for CPA-girlie's sake, we should hope that she does!!! Shall think of you tomorrow. Everything will be just fine. G xx

So SincerelyHurt ... I am going to say this one more time ... CHANGE YOUR DAMNED NAME!!!!! G xx

I am so sorry Spatz, I know that this is the last thing that you wanted to hear from your ex. And I know that you will be suffering now, analysing every conversation and detail of what she said. You know it could just possibly be exactly as she said it. It could be that she values you very much as a person, and wants to remain friends with you. It could be that the new guy is simply a casual thing, and that that is all she wants right now. It could be that she has not been as up front with you as she could have been for fear of hurting you. This is the problem. It could be lots of things. But you may never know what is actually going on inside her head. And this is what makes this soooo frustrating. You have got to try and get yourself together and look forward, you are going to face some dark times ahead, and want to know the answers to things that don't make sense. Sometimes you will be able to make your own sense of things, with time, and some things you are going to have to accept that you will never understand. It will be hard and it will be painful. But I think that, for now, you should create some distance between the two of you, because her presense is going to cause you further pain. Leave things for a while, and then see how you feel about everything in, say, two months. What do you think? G xx

And so SincerelyHurt, life with must be like living with Alice in Wonderland - it just gets curiouser and curiouser!!! And so the ex has nothing to say, but she just wants to talk. Hmmmm ... I wonder what the next turn of events shall be?! G xx