ex contacts - healing setback.

[once_a_red]

hello everyone,

i came here a couple of months ago to deal with a really bad break up. the girl i had been in an LDR with for an year and a half ended up cheating on me with my best friend. she dumped me for this guy whom she had basically never even met before. i was devastated. i begged and pleaded and promised to change myself for her etc., but all to no avail. after a week of this, i went NC. with the help of some of the posts on enotalone, i started healing gradually but steadily. i was starting to do quite well, but then the ex started contacting me again. it began with a simple email saying hi, which i rebuffed saying she needed to respect my decision to go NC. a couple of days after this, i ran into her. i gave a polite smile, and kept on walking. that night, the girl emails me her new phone number, "just in case you want to talk". i do not respond. the next day, she calls me up and asks to meet me face to face. i meet her that night only. we have a really long conversation in which repeatedly she tells me she is sorry for what she did to me. i try to broach the subject of her new boyfriend(my ex best friend) but she assidously avoids talking about him. (Why? Is it guilt? Is it regret at having let me go?)

after having done so well for the last few weeks, contact with her seems to have taken me back to square one. i seem to think about her a lot, and the what ifs keep going on in my head. i cried like a baby last night, listening to a song that reminded me of the break up. i waited for her to call me last night, willing for the phone to ring, even when she had said she will never contact me again. the emotions of helplessness, of depending on crumbs from her to make me feel better, of waiting for her call/email - everything i had felt immediately after the break up - i felt it again last night.

i fear that this girl will always have the power over me to make me weak in the knees. and i do not want her to have that power. i want to know whether i will always feel the same way. Will this girl always have the ability to make me cry? Or does there come a stage when you can talk heart to heart with the ex and not feel a thing?

[Reilly2856]

I think there is a stage when you can talk heart to heart with an ex and not feel a thing...its a stage when you realize who they truly are. She is not the girl you met, she is the girl who cheated on you and left you for your ex best friend, no less. That is who she is....someone who did not appreciate your love and was unfaithful to you. Every relationship has problems, but that does not mean that it is okay to be unfaithful. The reason why she has this power over you is because you let her. You see her how she use to be...the girl you fell for, the girl you spent countless times with, the girl you saw your future with. Yet, that girl vanished the day THIS GIRL decided to leave you for ur best friend. That girl you once knew does not exist. Don't fall for this lame excused pity act....she wants you to feel sorry so she can weasel back into your life. Do you want to let her? What would be the point....? Can you ever trust her again? Who is to say that she won't hurt you again? What has she really done to deserve that second chance with you....what has she done to deserve you in her life whether it is as a friend or anything else? Nothing. Don't put yourself through this again....be your own best friend and safe yourself from a second round of torture. Things always happen for a reason. She walked out, now keep her out.

[once_a_red]

The reason why she has this power over you is because you let her. You see her how she use to be...the girl you fell for, the girl you spent countless times with, the girl you saw your future with. Yet, that girl vanished the day THIS GIRL decided to leave you for ur best friend. That girl you once knew does not exist.

 

thanks Reilly. the problem with thinking about things this way makes me feel i was in a hollow relationship. can someone change so drastically overnight? i think people change gradually rather than all of a sudden. if she was capable of changing into this new person, i begin to doubt my judgement at having not seen this coming.

 

thing is. i want to keep her out of my life, but i feel helpless when she breaks down infront of me. i cannot see that girl cry infront of me, and be heartless enough not to comfort her. Her "im-so-sorry-i-did-this-to-you" act floors whatever resentment i have towards her. her vulnerability sucks me in. i do not think she is a bad person, but she made a choice, and made my life absolute hell. i had thought i was moving on, and she comes back to ruin a lot of the progress i have made. i felt like calling her up and asking her out to lunch today(we work in the same building, and i eat alone). fortunately, i had deleted her number. but what i worry more is why am i having these feelings all over again. barely a week after i felt i was truly moving on.

[Reilly2856]

It isn't that people change over night, rather it is that over time, they start to show their true colors. For instance, at the beginning of a new relationship, everything is fun but graduallly you start to notice how your partner stops saying i love you as often or takes you for granted, etc. People just stop worrying about trying to be on their good behaviour with you...they show who they truly are. I know that is such a negative picture, but it is true.

 

I know you don't want to come accross as heartless, but you really don't owe her anything. She didn't think twice about being heartless to you, so why r you thinking so much? Especially when being around her is hurting you so much. Aren't you kind of being heartless to yourself? Look at her vulnerability for what it is....its fake...it is only constracted to suck you back in. She knows she can use it on you and so she does. Do you really want to be with someone who likes to control you in that manner>?

 

Basically, you are having these feelings because you are once again open to the idea of her. By this I mean, you are not so closed up about the idea of being with her again because her vulnerability has melted away your resentment towards her and opened you up to false hope of a life with her.