do i miss her, or do i miss being in 'love'

[DeeTeeCee]

its almost 3 months since the breakup, been NC for a while now besides a few recent occasions where she tried to guilt trip me by saying she missed my dog (i guess it was like our dog, but she basically lives with me). anyway, i feel like i was doing alright, gettin on with life, gettin back into school projects, gettin more social and going out with friends...

 

but i just can't help but miss her still. or do i miss being in a relationship? i keep catching myself wondering what she's doing, who she's with, who's taken my place, if she ever regrets breaking up with me, etc.

 

usually its been somewhat easy to feel like the breakup was the best thing for me personally because of all the lousy times she'd make me feel like crap and how much of myself i set aside to make her my whole world. but recently, i just can't help missing her more. ironically its happening more and more as i go out and try to be social with people (granted i'm not super social or anything, but i'm trying).

 

i just came back from a feist show and karaoke with schoolfriends and all that was nagging me in the back of my head somewhere was how i had taken her to concerts and shows and the time we went karaoke-ing. its like she's invading my life with all the memories i have of her, and it's not letting me get on with my life completely. i know, 3 months is a short amount of time, even if it sometimes feels like an eternity. i guess at this point i'm still just kinda bouncing back and forth between the stages of dealing with a breakup.

 

at this stage i just keep asking myself whether i miss her, or if i simply miss having someone in my life that i could love and spend time with and experience things with. all the bad times convinces me that i miss being in a relationship, but all the good times and promises and loving words and actions tell me that i genuinely miss her. but then i go right back around and tell myself that it was all just empty promises and words and that if she really loved me then she wouldn't have done the things she'd done nor say the things she'd said which hurt me.

 

and it goes on and on in a cycle. bah, it's 4am, this sucks.

[tree]

it's both, hun.

[lizer]

let me give you a little perspective.

my boyfriend dumped me 4 months ago.

we havent spoken for 1.5 months.

when i think personally about the question you are posing..

"do i miss her or do i miss having someone"

i think if you have to ask that you dont actually miss her.

my immediate answer to that question for myself is

"him him him" ... the thought of being with anyone else

besides him doesnt exist. the thought of anyone else

taking his place doesnt exist. and if someone did take

his place it would be second rate at that.

 

does that help at all?

i feel like if you missed her you would feel 100% about it being HER and not what she did for you. (i.e. making you feel loved and secure, etc etc)

 

but i suppose boys could think differently then girls

[Daligal83]

When you have that feeling of missing her...what exactly are the thoughts that you are having? Are they of certain things about her? Like her smell, her laugh, her touch? Or are they about things you would do together? Like go to the movies, concerts, cuddling?

 

I ask because my feeling is that if it's more about the things about her, then you miss her. If it's about what you would do together, it's probably about having someone. Or it's a mixture of both. Either way, it's OK to miss her or having a girlfriend. That's completely natural! It'll fade as time goes on, I promise. I think you're doing great by going out and trying to be social.

[Coyote9]

Without even realizing it, our hopes and dreams get wrapped around these ex's who became the object or our affection and devotion. Think about the way a tree is grafted to another type of tree....eventually the new tree is parts of both, you can't really separate them out from each other. That's kind of what has happened for us. We miss specific qualities about our ex's that attracted us and made us feel loved, but we also miss the feeling of connection and the attentiveness and care that we all need in relationships and in general.

 

What I find, at least for a time, is that I have to give up my dreams so I can get them back with someone else. I have to focus on being single and not even dealing with those things that remind me so much of time with my ex, be it about her or about the longing for the "coupleness" we shared.

 

I think we will know we are healing when our dreams for relationship have receded for a time and other things become more important, new hobbies, jobs, friendships. Ironically, as we forget our dreams and our ex's slowly over time and focus on us, we become more available to others and to the possibility of again being in a loving relationship.

 

We become emotionally available to ourselves first and then we are ready to be that for others. I am exactly where you are now DeTeeCee and it's tough. Two months out from relationship that I gave 100% to and that my ex abandoned and came back to a number of times over the last 6 months of it. She's moved on to another and I feel absolutely sad, everything still reminds me of her or of how I felt about me when we were together. But it is getting slightly better and I know from past experience, at about the 4-5 month point, the sharp memories of her will fade somewhat and I'll feel again more like myself, at least the me that I was before I met her. Hang in there and thanks for posting this thread...good stuff.

Coyote

[DeeTeeCee]

I think we will know we are healing when our dreams for relationship have receded for a time and other things become more important, new hobbies, jobs, friendships. Ironically, as we forget our dreams and our ex's slowly over time and focus on us, we become more available to others and to the possibility of again being in a loving relationship.

 

Thanks for that reply, it's good to be reminded that i need to focus on myself and my priorities in order to heal and move forward and thus eventually become emotionally available again.

 

Before this relationship, i really was at a place where i wasn't relying on anyone's attention or approval to feel like i was worth something. and i also had never been in a relationship. I had gotten into the art school of my desire despite art not being a 'safe' choice, i was pursuing the field of graphic design which is perhaps the only area i have an interest and some talent for, and i was feeling good about where i was at/going.

 

then she stepped into my life and for reasons unknown i let my guard down and allowed myself to be so vulnerable with her. i shared my dreams, my desires, my weaknesses, my joys, my fears, my love with her and longed to know and share hers as well. i accepted her for who she was, i was willing to accept her past no matter how different it was from mine, i was willing to let myself be hurt by her in order for her to be happy, because i had made her happiness a priority.

 

maybe its because theres a feeling of failing both her and myself in making her happy, that the relationship failed because of my part. but at the same time i know that's just her manipulating words attacking me, blaming me for all of it. i dunno, why am i spewing all this out right now? i think the short version of all this mumbo jumbo is that i'm trying to acknowledge why it seems hard for me to continue moving on and focusing on myself.

 

i know its difficult for anyone in this situation to do so, but maybe realizing key factors as to why each one of us may be struggling with certain issues and stages can be helpful? also, just wanted to say thanks to everyone again who gave their input on the topic.

[benga]

I think its just a function of time. We tend to put our ex's on a pedestal after they break it.

 

Do you remember your last couple of days together. Were you really happy? Did you love everything about him/her? I think not! Were you feeling fulfilled with the relationship?

 

Read this post I came accross somewhile ago. I keep referring to it when I want to kick my self on the rear....Each time I wonder why I feel the way I am.

 

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Having read an amazing post on a subscription only relationship help forum, I knew that it would be invaluable to this site. Moderators, I think you'll agree and maybe make this one a 'sticky', I think everyone should read it. All credit due to the author - username of 'Whitestreet2000' on the 'Lifted Hearts' community - thanks!

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"I've been on this site for almost four months now. When I found it, I was sure that absolutely no one in the world had ever, or would ever, experience the pain that I was feeling after my break up. Funny. I found a virtual world full of folks who have gone through and experienced the same things and felt the same feelings that I did. That helped a lot.

 

So, for all you newbies who ask the questions, "Will the hurting ever stop," or "Will my ex come back," or "Why did he/she do this," this is how it typically goes down.

 

You two break up--doesn't matter who does it. You immediately panic and begin chasing, begging, pleading, harassing, phoning, e-mailing, IMing, stalking (okay not all of them, just pick whichever one you did). Most of us will likely do some things during this stage that will make you cringe when you think back on it, say after about 3 months.

 

You lose weight. You neglect yourself, your house, your job (how many hours do we all log on this site while we are at work?). You drive your friends and family crazy talking about the break up. You cry at the drop of a dime. You can't even comprehend that your life might not again include that "special person." You begin putting them on a pedestal, forgetting all of the nagging things about them that used to drive you crazy. In your mind, they have become omnipotent, all encompasing, all everything.

 

You convince yourself that you are a loser who just screwed up a relationship with "the best person in the world." You KNOW without a doubt that you will never EVER love like that again. You know no one else will come along who even comes close to being as marvelous as your ex (excuse me while I chuckle to myself here). You wear a sad face for the world to see (you should see my work ID taken 2 days after my breakup, it's just pitiful).

 

They (the ex's) remain steadfast in their denial to get back together. Many of them leapfrog into new relationships, immediately being exclusive with a new person. For those that do leapfrog, they appear to just "replace" you with a new model. All of the things you two used to do, they now do with someone else. Bowling, cuddling watching television, motorcycle riding, antiquing. Whatever you two did, likely they will just begin doing those things with someone new.

 

You hear about them and their new life. You are desperate for any crumbs of news about their life. Many of us make things worse here by trying to use manipulation to get them back--yet they stay away from us like we are the plague.

 

For those of us who do still have contact with our ex's we begin selling ourselves short. Doing stupid things like allowing them access to our bodies and then wanting to strangle them afterward when they remind us that "Sex does not imply hope."

 

You, in further panic mode, begin frantically searching the internet using phrases such as "break ups," "divorce stopper," whatever. You stumble upon this site, pay your money because your curious and lo and behold, you find all of us folks in various stages of this whole breakup bullsh*t.

 

You voraciously read the posts. You search for news of those who "got their mates back." You're on the site constantly. You'll read the books and think "Ah I can do this. I can get this person back." You begin your "no contact" and for some of us, this will get a reaction from our ex's. For the rest, no contact is and will continue to be what you'll get and receive.

 

Time goes by. You'll do some stupid things. You'll call your ex when you shouldn't. You'll call when you've had to much to drink. You'll call even after 50 people on this site tell you not to. You'll show up on their doorstep, hating yourself all the time. Then you'll come back to this site and ask everyone to tell you why you were so stupid as to do whatever it was you did.

 

Then you'll get serious about no contact. It'll hurt, but you try to stick to it. Here's the turning point for most. For those folks who have contact with their ex's, your no contact will either bring them sniffing curiously around or they'll be somewhere high fiving their friends thanking the God's that you haven't called.

 

Now's the tough time. Nothing but time works. Everday the ache in your heart grows a little less. It's only nanobits that it dies down by. But everyday it will get slowly better. You'll have setbacks. You'll run into your ex accidently. You'll run into mutual friends who'll tell you something about your ex that'll have you high-tailing it home for a good cry. You'll see your ex with their new "friend." You'll receive a phone call or an e-mail from your ex who "doesn't want to be in a relationship but still wants to be friends (with benefits if you allow).

 

Here's another important part. You need to truly sit down and truthfully look back at the relationship and understand what you did to help with it's demise. If you miss this part, you go through all the suffering for nothing because Buddy, you'll be back here again. This site is to teach you about you. To teach you how to be a better partner, a better person. Missing that lesson is detrimental to the whole process. It's the REASON that you're going through this. God (or whatever your higher power is) needed you to learn something about YOU. Don't miss out on the lesson.

 

Then one day you'll smile because you didn't immediately check your answering machine when you came in. And one day you'll decide to clean the muck that has accumulated in your house. And one day you'll go outside and admit to the universe that you surrender what control you thought you had.

 

And one day you'll decide to date again. And one day you'll go out on your first date and it will likely be a disaster. And then you'll either force yourself to continue dating or you'll decide that you aren't ready to date but you are ready to be out amongst people again. And many of you will have some quick reconcillations with your ex's. Many of us won't. But one day, it won't matter as much. Because time will allow you to catch yourself going minutes and then hours without thinking of the ex. And you'll begin to be able to think of life possibly without that person and not dissolve into a puddle of nothingness because of the thought.

 

And for most of us, sadly, life will go on without that mate. That's the truth, amigos. Don't want to dash your hopes but probably less than 3% of the people on this site get back with their mates. Sobering isn't it? But, as the site instructs, you must accept this before you can truly begin to heal or draw your ex back to you. For the lucky (maybe unlucky one's depending on how much work it will take to keep a mate that has wandered back) who get back with their ex's, many will find that the paradise they envisioned isn't reality and what they once thought was gold has a certain tarnish to it now. But they stay and try and make it work because it's comfortable or, if they are really lucky, it's meant to be.

 

But for most of us. Life goes on. And one day you'll find yourself having a gut busting laugh over something totally stupid and you'll think to yourself "I am getting better." And finally (thank God) you'll have sex with some new and find that a) if it wasn't good, at least you did it or b) it was so much better than with your ex you wonder why you waited so long to get back out there. And you'll know you're one the road to recovery.

 

I guess what I'm trying to convey here is, while each situation is unique, the characteristics of most of our situations are the same. Most of us will go through at least something that I've written here. So, when someone tells you on this site that time will help you get through it, believe them. When they tell you that "trust me, it will get better and you will stop hurting eventually," believe them. And when they give you good advice that your head understands but your heart rejects, take a moment to think before you react.

 

Don't beat yourself up if you do something that you wished you hadn't (calling, contacting, etc) WE ALL DID AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER. Be kind to yourself. Be forgiving of yourself. And most of all remember that being happily single is an alternative. Even if society is beating it into your head that you MUST have a mate, take some time to heal before going back out there. There are plenty of good people to love, but don't go back out there broken, jaded about love, etc. Accept realty. Experience the pain. Learn the lesson. Actively try to heal. Remember the person you were when you first met your ex and get that person back.

 

And the universe will take care of the rest."

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