It's been one week since I found out we broke up

[Enfin libre]

A week ago today I found out he's in a relationship with someone else through facebook. He didn't even have the courage to tell me after I stuck with him for 8 years through good and bad. I had a feeling it was coming, and I had already started detaching, but the fact that he didn't even tell me ticks me off. He used me for those 8 years, and some part of me knew that but didn't want to face it. All the way up until I found out he was still coming around like normal, having lunch with me, talking about things he wanted to do with me in the future and pretending nothing was wrong. We were laughing and carrying on just hours before I found out he had been with someone new for a month.

 

I know I'm better off without the leech, but I still feel sad. I haven't had any contact with him since Monday and I don't plan to. He still has stuff at my house that we're going to have to deal with sooner or later, but I don't know when that will be. I'd really like to hurt him (emotionally) somehow, but I'm trying to be the bigger person and just move on and improve myself. I suspect he's a sociopath...he lies about everything, is controlling, and has most of the other traits I have researched on sociopaths. I'm a good person...loyal, fun, honest...probably just the sort of target he was after. It only lasted 8 years because I kept forgiving him for being a jerk most of the time. I know I'm better off without him, but I just wish I could wake up magically 100% healed from this whole mess.

[KittyBoo]

I am sorry to hear that you are going through this Enfin Libre. I sort of experience the same thing. My ex had confessed to me last summer that he had become involved in an affair with a co-worker and it had been going on for 3 months. I was devastated but loved him and wanted to work it out. He hand-wrote me a lovely letter of apology and we went away at the end of the summer on a planned vacation and had a wonderful time. He would send me emails telling me how special I was and that he wanted to build a life with me. Then he would tell me "I know I don't say it often but I want you to know that I really love you a lot". So even though I sometimes had an uneasy feeling that something wasn't right, I told myself I was imagining things because he was telling me all the things I wanted to hear. So you can imagine the shock when he ended the relationship telling me that he just didn't feel attracted to me and wasn't sure if he ever really was (we were together for over 2 years). He said lots of other crummy things to me also but yet 3 months after the fact I still miss him even though I know that I am better off without someone like him.

 

Be strong. It will get easier.

[Enfin libre]

Thank you Kittyboo. I know it will get better. He was such an arse most of the time, and he was only out for what he could get out of me. When I started pulling that back, he found someone else. He's a user and I'm sure he will use any woman he can get. He uses his friends, he lies to everyone about everything. He has a mental problem, I know that. I must have some kind of issue too, to have put up with it for so long. I was in love with the person I first met, who turned out to be a facade. He did some really nasty things in our relationship. Why can't I dwell on those instead of the happy times, which were fake anyway? He played me and I feel stupid. I'm determined to pull up my bootstraps and move on to be happy though, even if I'm alone.

 

Good luck to you in your situation. It sounds like we both had losers, charming maybe, but losers. I think it's going to be a long long time before I'm ready to open up to another one, if I ever do. This isn't my first time around the block, but it might be my last.

[KittyBoo]

He did some really nasty things in our relationship. Why can't I dwell on those instead of the happy times, which were fake anyway? He played me and I feel stupid. I'm determined to pull up my bootstraps and move on to be happy though, even if I'm alone.

 

Good luck to you in your situation. It sounds like we both had losers, charming maybe, but losers. I think it's going to be a long long time before I'm ready to open up to another one, if I ever do. This isn't my first time around the block, but it might be my last.

 

We don't dwell on the negative things because we are grieving the loss of the relationship and it is a coping mechanism not to deal with that which hurts us so much.

 

I also feel like a fool at times but then I tell myself that I was not the one who lacked the maturity to openly communicate with my partner and to honest. I can look back at the experience and know that I gave everything I could and that I cannot control the behavior of someone else. He is the one that will live with the knowledge that his actions deeply hurt another human being who was loyal and loving and supportive and never deserved what he did to me.

 

For right now I am working on myself and trying to make it so that I have a rich and fulfilling life without anyone else. That way I will have more to offer a partner and maybe (hopefully) someone really wonderful is going to be a part of my future. This whole experience is helping me to grow as a person. I hate that I had to go through it but I have to believe that it is all part of a master plan that is going to see me having more happiness than I ever could have imagined.