Trying to Process and Reconcile in My Mind Who the Ex Is

[Silverbirch]

I know that a lot of people are going to say that I'm overanalysing here and that I should just move on. I hardly slept last night, and as usual, when I did wake, I was thinking about the ex.

 

One of my good friends tells me that I need to be looking at the things the ex has done around and during the breakup and face the fact that those actions define who the real person is. She says she believes I am clinging to a notion of who I thought he was at the beginning of the relationship, and that he has had a lot of power over me because of the nice things he used to say to me. I do admit it's true also when she says that like her, I have ended up in relationships with people I shouldn't have because I let myself get charmed and became bound by what I thought was love and affection, when really I was just being thrown the crumbs and not the cake. She says if I face up to who he really is, that I honestly won't want to be with him anymore and that I will be able to move on.

 

I do believe that following the break-up, I've been like stunned, shocked, hurt and in a type of disbelief thinking where is the person who I was with.

 

Does this make sense to anyone? Has anyone actually been through these processes and did it eventually help you move on more fully? Thanks.

[pumpkinmoon]

It's easy to say that you should just get over it but I think analysing things is quite normal in the early stages, especially when you are trying to work out what the hell happened.

 

I was the same as you with my previous ex. Who he was in the beginning had no resemblance to who he became towards the end of the relationship. This was one of the reasons why I found it so hard to get over him. It just didn't make any sense. He had me believe that he was an honest, loyal person but his actions toward the end of the relationship, during and after the break up really cast him in a new light. The things I discovered he had been saying and doing behind my back disgusted me and I knew there was no way I would ever forgive him for any of it.

 

What helped me eventually was to focus on what he had done, all the disgusting things that made me sick to my stomach.

[chitown9]

Silverbirch, you thought that you knew this man inside out. You didn't. l had a propertly manager that I held in high regard. After knowing him for 3 years it came to my attention that he had cheated as many as 6 people out of money that he owed him. I was completely shocked and saddened when it became clear that he was the complete opposite of what I thought he was. I know it is not the same as your relationship, but I held this man in such high regard and in fact I considered him a friend. So, it is dissapointing to learn that what you thought was so, in fact was not so. I think of it as Dorothy in the Wizzard of OZ. She searched for a wizzard and just found a man operating a machine behind a curtain....

[Eocsor]

It takes a long time for people to really move on after a significant relationship ends. I'm still in the process and it's been close to a year and a half for me. All it really comes down to is they don't want to be with us anymore and we have to accept that. How you get to that acceptance is up to each individual. People change over time. Just because they don't care for us anymore doesn't mean that they didn't once. In the long run it doesn't matter. They are gone and we have to accept that fact in order to move on. You may never understand the why, but you can accept that it's happened and get closure without it.

[Silverbirch]

Hey Thanks you tsf and c9. Yes, I thought he was my best friend and the most wonderful person I knew, but he certainly hasn't treated me like a friend let alone how one should treat a partner.

[LN1987]

Silverbirch I am with you completely. I think the thing that stops me from moving completely on at times is looking back to how he was during our relationship, especially the start, and forgetting his lack of care and cruelty that he showed me when breaking up with me that happened to co-incide with a very difficult time with my family.

 

If I think about his behaviour during the breakup it breaks my heart over and over again so I try to ignore it, but then is this really helping me as he DID do those things?

 

It is really hard to actually face the person that they have become but perhaps it will help as you may realise the person you once knew is now gone, and may never come back.

[Silverbirch]

Thanks Eocsor and LN

[nattpanter]

I think many of us have to accept that we are in love with the memory of a person, bc quite frankly the person I see now (through her actions, neglect and cowardness) is not the one I once fell in love with. At some point you get to be strangers, and I`ve dealt better with breakups before once I see the "natural" side of people. It`s very enlightening to say the least.

[Silverbirch]

Hi Pat, yes my ex is definitely feeling like a stranger now too.

[Timefornc]

I can definitely relate to this. My friends tell me she is not the same woman I was with anymore, and I think of course she is, but just not with me. People do change of course, but I don't thing ending a relationship will change a person. But I Spose all that matters is they have decided to not be that person with you anymore. So either they had a false personna When together or they are creating one now to protect themselves. I am finally realizing that it's thief Loss and not mine... And that is clear because we are the ones on this site looking at anyway to have made it work, whilst they don't care.