Slowly healing ... I think

[jetset]

I posted on this board a while ago about what I have been going through these past 3 months or so:

link removed

 

I have recently started to feel like I am slowly starting to heal and wanted to share that with everyone here.

 

I saw my ex last week, after a pause of over a month during which we did not see each other and we did not talk. I was very apprehensive about it, because I thought my wounds would open up again and I would fall apart afterwards. I was surprised to find out that I felt OK afterwards: not great, but OK. Our conversation was stilted and not very positive despite the fact that I went to the meeting with every good intention I could muster; it is probable that we are both still reflecting unresolved pain and it comes accross despite our best intentions.

 

Today, I saw her again with her new boyfriend(?). Again, I thought that I would fall apart (I used to get this feeling that a knife was cutting right through me when I would see her with him or when she would laugh nonchalantly at his jokes as if nothing had happened), and I was again surprised to notice that I did not feel as bad as before. I still felt a deep, dull pain, but it is nothing like what I used to feel before when it would literally crush me.

 

For the first time in a while I am starting to wonder and think that I will get through this. I still have some trouble sleeping at night, I still feel empty and unmotivated, and I still feel pain when I think that she is sleeping with someone else, but I can only trust that it will pass.

 

Our situation is a little different from other situations described here in that I initiated the break-up while she would say that she still wanted to fix the relationship. A month after we broke up, she started to see someone else and I started my slow descent into my private angst-ridden and pain-filled hell. Although I was the leaver, I ended up feeling betrayed and carrying a great deal more pain than she appears to have done. During our most recent conversation, she told me that she never really felt like we had great chemistry from the beginning; this statement, combined with the fact that she appears to have moved on so easily makes me wonder how much of what we shared in the past 6 years was real. I sometimes feel like if what she felt towards me was lukewarm, she should have had the courage to leave, instead of slowly bringing us to a situation where I almost feel like I had to do it for her.

 

A good friend of mine told me that I am hanging onto a rope tied behind a ship; the ship is moving towards the shore and I must trust that it will get there eventually and not let go of the rope no matter what happens. Somedays, I feel like I am a broken TV set: most of the time, I see white, meaningless noise, and sometimes the image comes into focus and I can smile because I am able to see glimpses of what it means to be happy.

 

Thank you everyone for all your advice, insight, and courage to share such personal stories with everyone here. I have spent a great deal of time reading about other people's experiences, and it helped me tremendously to know that I am not alone in what I am feeling and going through right now.

 

To everyone who is feeling such unbearable pain and emptiness that they wonder how they can go on another day, please hang in there. Read these forums, read books like "Chicken soup for the single soul", watch movies like "The Fisher King", cry your heart out, make yourself some warm tea or hot chocolate, take a hot bath, and then force yourself to go out into the world, exercise, and smile. For the first time in a long time, I feel like not all hope is lost; this is something that was completely unfathomable to me even two weeks ago. You can and will feel that way too, in time.

[medtranusa]

I know exactly how you feel. My emotions seem to go up and down but it slowly gets better. My ex left me after 9 years for someone he had only met about 2 weeks earlier. He too, though not to me, has said that his new love is more than what we ever had. Funny how people forget that at the beginning of a relationship you can feel like this is the best it has ever been. Those new love feelings fade with time. My ex calls and tells me that he had a bad fight with his girlfriend the other night so just be glad that your ex has let you go because it makes it easier to heal.

[roseyonnex]

Jetset,

 

I, too, was married five years, together about eight, and divorced nine years ago (wow, time has flown by).

 

I don't want to get too "spiritual", but I feel this is worth mentioning because I believe it is how I got over the horrible depression you must be feeling about now:

 

Jesus Christ's atonement for mankind covers two areas. One is to be forgiven for your sins, the other is the ability for you to forgive others. He will help you forgive and understand why your wife/girlfriend is acting like this and he will take away the pain. I have felt this healing power in my life, and it is a liberating feeling. I can honestly say I was in the pitts of a dark depression hating my ex for everything and anything I could come up with, and now I can look at him and realize how human he is, why he did the things he did, and just love him for who he is and hope the best for him. But the best thing about totally forgiving him is I am set free from the bondage of hatred.

 

Anyway, I know everybody is not Christian, and you may think I am full of it and I understand that. I feel I am sensative about trying to push religion down people's throats. But, at the same time, I know what happened to me through the atonment of Jesus Christ, and I am thankful every day for that blessing.