How do I get rid of feelings of resentment and arrogance? (a bit long)

[quirky]

So it's the feelings above that keep playing in my mind and prevent me from fully moving on. I have been doing more things lately and I'm not going to stop.

 

The feelings above...I have to be honest on this board because my aim is to be healthy inside. When we first started dating my ex had no sense of identity. No idea about banks, taxes, food shopping, bill arrangements. He had a baby bank account at 27. He also wasn't experienced enough sexually, emotionally, hadn't taken any big risks. I didn't see him as weak though. But I did see him as a bit "behind" me. And so did my friends. I thought he was very funny and cool but above all we had an incredible connection.

 

He has learning difficulties that prevented him from being practical with his stuff and also with helping me. So he did what he could. He'd give me lots of compliments, massage me, open the door to our house but he could rarely help me with the big stuff. That was difficult for me because I always doubted whether he'd be there in a moment of crisis. He probably would be...but I'd have to tell him what to do. His awfull memory and lack of practicality translated to me on a deeper level that he didn't care for me enough.

 

Nevertheless we stayed together until I moved back to my home country when slowly everything fell appart. I felt so lonely here after 9 years abroad. And he wasn't there for me..too snappy, too busy..so I left him, took him back 2 months later, left him again 6 months later. He almost wanted reconciliation again but we closed the door together in January. He called sometimes to cry and say he missed me but couldn't give it his all with establishing trust again.

 

I am still struggling with the feeling of "how could he do this to me". Which is juvenille and arrogant of me, I know. I was there in the sh*t when his hair smelled, when I was helping him with his cv, when he was changing professions every 2 months, when he had no sense of identity. I feel so bitter..I can't trust men at the moment. I know in my mind that he didn't owe me anything but in my heart I can't believe it. I feel so used just so he finds his identity. Now he has friends. I don't know any of them didn't have them when I was there. Which was putting another strain on the relationship. Now he reads like a lunatic. He's reading "the Power of Now". He seems more charitable, more open emotionally. I feel like he STOLE my identity. I was this person. He quotes Aristotle and Plato as if they are his buddies when he didn't even KNOW them when we met.

 

In a nutshell. I feel like he gained SO MUCH MORE from the relationship than I did. And I feel resentful for it. Most of all I think I'm jealous of him. Because he's very handsome and more simple. He seems to have his life on some track whereas I have completely lost any balance since the move and the breakup. And because of it I am not any more that person that he found so inspiring. I've become tainted because for the first time I saw that someone you love can indeed toss you. Not necessarily because they are mean but because of life/identity changes.

 

My close people say that he didn't reject me and I shouldn't see it like that. That we simply weren't right for each other. But I'm struggling to be rational.

 

How can I get over of these feelings..?

 

thanks for reading

[Seraphim]

Why not look at it in the way that you helped another human being become more productive? Is that not our purpose in life? To help and love one another and not seek what we want for our own ends? I know what you mean about resentment but we have to look above it to get better.

[quirky]

Yeah, I wish I could see it like that..I guess I'm not that selfless. I am trying.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

He seems to have his life on some track whereas I have completely lost any balance since the move and the breakup. And because of it I am not any more that person that he found so inspiring.

 

So why not get back to being that person you once were. You didn't transfer your personality and life over to him, he just saw things he liked and decided to adopt them as his own. We all do that to a certain degree (or we should)...learn from others, adopt certain things that others do that we would like to do as well. You are still you even though he adopted some of your good points. You were debating whether or not you wanted to move back to Britain. Did you stay put in Greece? Perhaps you are simply not that happy being back home in Greece so that is why things feel and look so bleak for you.

[Seraphim]

Ok but does resentment get you anywhere? Does it bother him? I bet not. People were put here to love and co operate and help each other and not look for what they can gain for themself. That ALWAYS leads to discontent, because you do not get what you feel you "deserve".

[quirky]

So why not get back to being that person you once were.

 

That's what I am trying to do, get back in touch with myself. But I feel like I don't know who I am any more. Like there's another person inside..tainted. It sucks, dunno how this happened. It was also probably my arrogance believing that it would never happen to me because everyone had told me I was so unique and inspiring. Me and them were wrong I guess. I don't give up, I'm gonna go and plant some trees next weekend in an area affected by fires last summer.

 

Did you stay put in Greece? Perhaps you are simply not that happy being back home in Greece so that is why things feel and look so bleak for you

 

Yes I did. Recently I decided to commit to it though. I've been going out more, trying to meet musicians, get a job away from my mum's shop, redecorating the room. Yes it does look bleak. And lonely. I went to the gigs by myself. I spend most time by myself and it is unatural for me.

[Seraphim]

"It was also probably my arrogance believing that it would never happen to me because everyone had told me I was so unique and inspiring."

 

Why are you less that now because a relationship did not work out? Do you not see how inspiring you actually were? You inspired another human being to a higher plane, is there not a greater gift than that?

[itsallgrand]

Do you feel maybe you settled for him bc he seemed safe? Not intellectually but maybe deep inside?

 

Maybe you sold yourself short.

 

I don't think any of this takes away from who you are, it just gives you the opportunity to go deeper and sluff off some crap. One of the beauties of having lived some in life. We are all human under the skin. I guess if you were holding onto the idea of specialness and (even if not consciously but emotionally) measuring to a degree your place and worth based on how you saw that, it could feel like having your identity ripped away from you or something when things start to become more challenging and you no longer see yourself as quite so inspiring, but more like the rest of the chumps.

 

Far be it from me to assume any of this is true, and god knows i've done my fair share of it myself and judged myself harshly bc of it, but somewhere deep inside I really feel that the most beautiful and inspiring parts of humanity, a person, is when they go through the ringer and how they manage to come out of it.

 

No doubt you will come through it, and if it is anything like I experienced, first you seem to go through the mud and poo, and then you eventually come out transformed and like a cleaner version of yourself.

 

tc

[catfeeder]

First, you're smart for recognizing these feelings and brave for attempting to negotiate them into something more constructive for yourself. I've been down this road. I learned the pitfalls of taking on another person as a project, but there are actual benefits to you in this uncomfortable aftermath.

 

The perception that someone is weaker than you in important areas, while being a turnoff for most, is actually catnip for a fixer. That is, until the fixer grows tired of playing out a parental or therapeutic role and just craves a relationship of equals.

 

Well, that's a healthy lesson to learn, but it requires letting go the attachment to the role--and as you've noticed, it's often a role that self-perpetuates beyond what it really ever needed to be. The guy is fine on his own. He played into your perceptions of inefficacy, not because he was trying to use you or screw you over, but because you so effectively played YOUR part in the dynamic.

 

This isn't a criticism, it's a practical observation of your effective cure for what could have otherwise become a pattern throughout your lifetime. I can relate to the angst of leaving behind one you fear will fall apart without you, only to have them thrive under liberation. Hah! I get it, it feels sucky--but it's also the best possible outcome for both of you.

 

You've benefited from this more than you think. You learned a huge difference between caring about someone and caring for them, and given your courageous self-awareness, this is likely a clean cure of any fixer tendencies and these probably will not become a pattern in your life that repeats. You're well aware of the dismal feeling of someone being dependent on you while catering to their own dysfunction, and while it may be infuriating to learn that you were robbed of this transformation during the course of your relationship, you also know that trying to retool the thing to enjoy the new him would likely just sink you both back into the habitual patterns you developed.

 

Good news is, you sound too smart for that trap. You know you'll get past this and will actually be better in your next relationship for it. You'll start off with someone who balances your life skills and compliments your talents--and you'll never settle for less than healthy equality in your relationships again. THAT value to you is priceless.

 

In your corner.

[quirky]

Thank you for the replies

 

itsallgrand and catfeeder you are both very right and I don't know what to quote first.

 

I was always governed by a need to save the world and because I couldn't I'd try to "save" partners. I never dated someone that I considered was fully what I wanted or needed. Because I was afraid that this person would leave. I wanted to be in control and I wanted to be inspiring. But in a way I wanted them to save me as well. I know all these come from a fear of abandonment and commitment. I wasn't ready up until now to go for that kind of person, where none of us are gonna save each other. Being creative as well, I was drawn to dramatic feelings.

 

My last ex seemed more confident and sorted than others I was with and I had actually thought "that's great I can have a more normal relationship". Little did I know this would be where I did the most for someone. And it was done in doses so I didn't quite realise. And when I would realise and try to leave he'd cry and beg that he wants to be a better man. That I am amazing. I wanted to be with him I believed in the potential. When that potential was obtained I was not there any more..I mean the stuff I heard, words one dreams to hear.

 

I know I've learned to be more healthy but it seems like I have lost myself, my belief system and my ex. This what personal growth is I guess. Lately I really feel "him" slipping away. It makes me very sad, I sense the inevitability of it all.

 

I know I can't approach relationships in that way any more. Anything else is very new to me. And not only am I scared of how I'll love again, I'm also not inspired.

[catfeeder]

[...] I know I've learned to be more healthy but it seems like I have lost myself, my belief system and my ex. This what personal growth is I guess.

 

Yep. Consider it a combo plate of growth and grief. Grieving a breakup is natural, and grief can topple your beliefs. But if not this, then something else will do it, eventually.

 

I tend to view it as a rite of passage that everyone's belief bubble gets popped at some point in order for each to decide how to reconstruct some semblance of it from scratch. That's how we learn the difference between being spoon-fed versus Knowing The Self and where you really stand. Nothing about your beliefs will be rote ever again, you'll have selected every single aspect of them with care, and you'll be clear that you've earned them.

 

When you use this growth constructively, as I believe you're doing, you'll come out the other side with new confidence. There's a certain fearlessness that comes from having gone where we all fear most, a face-off with the Self. All the compulsive behaviors people adopt to avoid that place go ~poof!~ because once you know you're able to withstand 'as bad as it gets' and you also know how to climb out of there, it's no longer a mystery to be feared--and so that fear no longer drives you. That's liberation.

 

I know I can't approach relationships in that way any more. Anything else is very new to me. And not only am I scared of how I'll love again, I'm also not inspired.

 

Nobody is inspired to love again when they're grieving. It takes as long as it takes. If you're one of the rare few who can hold out to heal properly before reaching for next relationship, the glimpses of love that will inspire you first will have less to do with how to love another and more to do with loving the Self. Might help to think in terms of those zenny airline attendants who give clear instructions: when the oxygen mask falls, you must place it over your own face first to be of any conscious use to anyone else.

 

Your purpose on the planet is not to save the world, but rather to Know The Self. Your job won't be to save anybody but to develop your own full potential. You'll operate in ways you can't conceive of yet, as all your suffering lands a new perspective and you're given x-ray vision into the suffering of others--not as something you're meant to 'fix' but as something to respect as part of a process as valid as your own.

 

The hardest thing for me to accept was that nobody is going to come along to inspire me until I've learned to inspire myself. This was a deliberate decision I needed to make--every single day. I gave myself permission to take baby steps forward rather than holding to my stubborn entitlement. I mumbled an affirmation every morning and challenged myself to live up to it that day. I dropped my old habits of attention-seeking in order to relax into an unexplored power of invisibility. I went quiet, and as I started seeing the world in new ways, I started becoming effective in new ways.

 

Every baby step is cumulative, and each one is important in its own way. No need to shoot ahead to focus beyond your very next step, because you'll need exactly what you learn from it in order to progress to the place after that. You're doing fine--and no matter how crappy you feel, a part of you knows this, and nobody can ever take your progress away from you.

 

Head high.