should i break NC to thank him for break up?

[bluberry]

Hi all.. it's almost 3 weeks since the break up and i have up days and down days.

 

Today is a mixed day. I feel thankful for the break up but i miss him so much. i've been feeling like this for some time but i'm not sure why (if its cos i want him to reply saying he wants me back or for closure)

 

I found this thread under divorce and i think that person is exactly what my ex felt:

 

Should i break NC and send him an email of thanks and i understand and blah blah blah..??

[waveseer]

Do you want to have some sort of exes but friends relationship with him?

[bluberry]

i dont know to be honest.. i think i do but i dont know if i do because i'm holding out that we migth work out somewhere down the line or something?

[waveseer]

I strongly advise you to spend some time with yourself and your friends and family doing the things you like to do and postpone contacting him until you feel more settled.

[moving]

Probably not the best idea within three weeks, as long as you're still having ups and downs, and may be looking for an excuse to have any sort of contact with him. Give it another month or two, and see if you still want to contact him then.

[MikNomis]

I agree with waveseer and moving, 3 weeks is still early after the breakup. For the sake of helping you both move on, keep yourself from contacting him.

[bluberry]

thanks all - i think you are right. i just needed outside perspective.

[alienas]

Blueberry, i have been feeling the same. I was thinking of calling him some time soon..its been 8 days....I miss him. But sometimes I wonder if he misses me too. Do you think they go thru what we are going thru?

[bluberry]

well alienas.. i think day 8 is really early. I'm at day 18 and i'm still struggling but less now..

 

i think u need to really stay NC.

 

also with what they are thinking - i can honestly say i dont know. Mine drunk dialled me at day 7. but i didn't pick up and he never rang again. But after reading that thread i found under divorce i'd say he is happier. Honestly i dont know if finding that thread helped or hampered me. Because now it seems like he really is happier without me and that i was the only living in disillusions.

 

but you know what.. it shouldn't matter! it doesnt matter what they think. we need to heal ourselves. You should watch the medea gives relationship advice clip. It's good..

[MsDexter]

Don't it's not worth it I did it yesterday and I am like "you idiot" lol.

[iBroken]

I think you are just grasping at a reason to contact him and break NC.

 

Deep down inside, Im not sure that anyone is ever "thankful" for being dumped. At least not when the emotions are still raw. I think one might be thankful after living life and realizing it is better without their ex, or if they met someone better then their ex, but not right now. Do you really want to thank this person for the pain they caused you? For the trauma you are dealing with?

 

I dont really think you do.

 

Dont break NC. If you send that email and he ignores it, it will only set you back.

[Mustachio]

I agree with ibroken.

 

You are too early on to be contacting if there are still unresolved feelings. And it would seem quite sure that there definitely are unresolved feelings.

 

I will tell you that I am at almost 5 months of NC, 10 months since the breakup, and I still struggle at times, still coming up with reasons to contact. I know I could handle it just fine, but after this amount of time and having remembered with it was like a mere 2-3 weeks out of the breakup, I advise you wait a few months before entertaining this idea again... then see how you feel.

[baxxter]

I was feeling exactly the same, blueberry! Glad to hear some people are think in the same line x

 

It's been a week for me, and I know I am not ready for it, but maybe in a while?

then again I have been spending so much time thinking over things and I change my mind about it daily.

 

I think, if you are to do it, with some hopes to reconcile, make sure you only do it when you can handle the rejection!

 

Personally I keep seeing his face when he pushed me away from my room door to get away, over and over, that face full of despite, bitterness... I just can't take that again any time soon.

[moving]

I should say - I actually had a different experience in my last breakup. We initially were NOT NC, as he had pushed me for a conversation about friendship. In advance of our conversation, I sent him a very long (eight, single-spaced pages - lol) email which, in essence, laid out all my thoughts on the relationship. It was probably 95 percent of the "closure" that I needed. It first said everything I'd enjoyed about the relationship and learned from him. It then laid out, in several itemized bullet points, the reasons why I thought his decision to end the relationship was right - all of the confusion and frustration I'd felt during the relationship, the ways in which he hadn't been the boyfriend I had wanted. It essentially said, "If you want to be friends with me, you should at least know what I'm feeling." And then it concluded with my thoughts on the possibility of friendship in the future.

 

He read the email, with all its conflict/hurt/anger ... and HE, the dumper who had blithely proposed friendship, came back and asked for a period of no contact, realizing "there's no way it would be a good idea for us to hang out for the foreseeable future." I was pretty upset when I heard that, but realized within days that he was completely right. We took a two month break after that, and it was completely necessary. We then had three, awkward months of LC before, somehow, our friendship dynamic somehow resumed almost intact. We were fine since then until the recent mini-drama that brought me onto ENA, in which I had to tell him that I wasn't ready to hear about his new love interest/dating. Having navigated that, we're fine again.

 

I actually think it was really healthy for me to tell him off at such length right after the breakup, BECAUSE we at all times had planned to fight our way back to a friendship. (And, because he wanted the friendship, he was perhaps more willing to deal with the fact that I'd verbally reamed him ... I think a dumper who didn't care about staying in touch would probably have chosen to ignore the letter.) If I'd held that stuff in, I think a later friendship would have been impossible, because I'd have had so much unaired angst. And although the letter was sent a mere four days after the split, it had been thoroughly read, reread, and slept on - I've never regretted sending it, and when I looked back it much later, I was thrilled and amazed that I had the directness to share with him what I did.

 

Reflecting on that experience - I have a hard time believing that a dumpee could, within a couple weeks, get to the point where they purely wanted to say, "Thank you for the breakup - I'm so much happier now." More likely, even if you decide that the dumper made the right decision (as I did), you still have a lot of unresolved stuff there. If they made the right decision because there were problems in the relationship, then you may be angry or hurt about those earlier problems, too. It may be the right decision to express any of that stuff to him, but just consider (1) the potentially negative impact of contact on you, since you did go to NC already; (2) whether he's likely to respond in a helpful way; (3) how it will make you feel if he responds badly, or doesn't respond; (4) what, if any, interaction you plan to have with him in future, and whether that'll be made more or less possible by what you choose to say to him now.

 

Good luck.

[rapunzel]

Agree with the others that it is too soon to contact and if you were dumped, then you should not contact at all. You are still holding out hope it appears so initiating contact is not a good idea.

 

If he contacts YOU, you then have the opportunity to not thank him for the break up, but simply agree with the break up in a matter of fact, unemotional way and that it was the best thing to do. Even if you do not truly believe this, fake it till you make it - pretend that you do as it disarms the dumper as he does not expect this. Eventually you will even believe this yourself. I missed my opportunity to agree with the break up and feel that in a sense I blew it because my dumper initiated a talk with me and got to see MONTHS after he dumped me that I was still emotionally not over it and it really set me back. I regret this and if I could do it all over again, I would not wear my heart on my sleeve, I would calmly agree with the break up as the best situation for both of us, walk away and let him wonder.

[bluberry]

thank you all so much for your input! I am SO THANKFUL for having found this forum!

 

moving - you have made a great logical argument which i really need to consider.

 

But generally i think i do have alot of unresolved issues with him that i want to bring up and you guys are right. I do not actually want to thanks him for causing all that hurt but rather give him a piece of my mind which i think would be unhealthy.

 

i don't think there is anything he can actaully say to make things better and if i didn't hear from him i don't think i can handle it because that would just reinforce the fact he is happier without me.

[MissyMolly]

lol Brokennnnn.... yep. That's how I feel everytime I start back on day ONE of NC.

Best advice is to hang in there and not reach out. It will NEVER pay off the way you imagine it will in your head... or your heart. More pain ahead.

[bluberry]

i've also been wondering this:

 

What did i do to make him give up?

 

I'm one of those persons that when i have a problem i just need to dive in and fix things. And while i don't view this breakup as a 'fixable problem' i want to fix myself but i dont know where i went wrong?? I knew where he went wrong but i kinda wish i could ask him where i went wrong (not to get back but to know what happened and how to fix myself)..

 

Anybody else feel that way? Has anybody actaully asked the ex that question before?