why am i so scared?

[Jessemina]

i really cannot imagine finding love again.

fear. i really am scared. why am i so scared?

i have only had one real boyfriend - a 13 year relationship that began when i was 20 and a couple of months ago.

i am trying to free myself of the pain and attachment, to liberate myself and open my heart. but it's hard.

i just can't imagine meeting someone else and falling in love because i only had one person in my life and missed out on the usual ups and downs that most people go through in their 20s.

i'm a hopeless romantic and liked the idea of a the one love.

now i realise that the one love idea is a dream in my case. i have to be open to number 2. for some reason, i hate that. i have never been curious in the love arena.

at the same time, i love love and i know that i cannot be alone for long. i am a couple person.

but i cannot imagine it. i cannot imagine feeling the same way about someone else.

anyone else have these 'issues'? any tips on how to free myself from my own myths and fears?

[camus154]

i just can't imagine meeting someone else and falling in love because i only had one person in my life and missed out on the usual ups and downs that most people go through in their 20s.

 

Your life isn't over yet. Now you have a chance to get back some of those times that normally would have been in your 20s. I experienced the same thing at 32/33 and it was fantastic.

 

i'm a hopeless romantic and liked the idea of a the one love.

now i realise that the one love idea is a dream in my case. i have to be open to number 2.

 

The whole "one love" thing isn't about a number--it's about finding that one love that is enough. Whether that person is 1st or 20th doesn't matter.

 

at the same time, i love love and i know that i cannot be alone for long. i am a couple person.

 

Be careful with this. Real love isn't really about butterflies in the stomach and soul mates.

 

but i cannot imagine it. i cannot imagine feeling the same way about someone else.

 

That's absolutely normal. Don't worry, it comes with time.

[Deciduous]

Hi Jessemina,

 

You are still in shock, Sweetie. Don' be so hard on yourself. This is a massive life change. And it is still fresh. You grew up with this person and now it has ended. This is a massive adjustment. No-one expects you to feel positive about love and romance right now. It's like receiving a stab to the gut. It's hard to imagine even walking again, let alone running, but wounds heal.

 

You haven't been in this situation before so it is hard to imagine you will have another love. And that is okay. You are expecting too much of yourself right now. It's okay to feel shaken to the gut and very negative about love right now. It comes with the territory of heartbreak. What you are feeling is entirely normal.

 

When I was 30 my 10 year relationship broke up. I didn't know who I was outside of the relationship. But I got to find out. Suffice to say I wasn't grateful for the learning curve at first. I felt terrible for many months, but little by little I began to re-build myself. And lo and behold found a very different person to the one I was in the relationship. There was a happy ending.

 

Right now you are the walking wounded and your thought patterns are highly influenced by what has just happened. It will not always be this way, I can promise you that. The heart heals over time and it does take the chance to love again, but only when it has been given ample to time to grieve, and feel anger and despair over what happened. It will reset itself but not right away. Don't be frightened about the way you see things right now. It just your instincts protecting you when you are at your most vulnerable. Chances are you wouldn't be able to deal with a relationship right now. That is all it is trying to tell you.

 

It is not the way you will always see things in future. This part is temporary. We grow and change. We get to know ourselves and get to a point of strength when we have something to offer a new relationship. But not right now, which is why you can't imagine it.

 

Give it time. Don't force yourself to move on just yet. It will do so eventually, at its own pace, I promise you.

 

Just so you have an idea of what some people go through when dealing with a break-up, I've enclosed a link below.

link removed.

 

Don't know if it will help, but if it convinces you that none of your thoughts are abnormal, well its done it's job.

 

All the best to you

 

Deci

[italiannmf24]

any tips on how to free myself from my own myths and fears?

 

This is probably the base of your problems and concerns regarding your ex.

 

Self-mind games.

 

It's the typical post break-up situation that someone goes through. Once your ex has up and left, you feel as though you have zero self-worth and you need to fill that void with something other than your ex. You know, it's possible to fully heal without another partner, right?

 

If you keep on searching for that missing piece to the puzzle of your life, you'll only keep on hurting yourself and delaying your healing. Being alone after a break-up for a significant amount of time will work wonders on your life, goals, plans for the future etc. and you'll really start to understand what its like to be fully independent. You can't keep trying to convince yourself that you need someone to lean on, because you don't. I'm not saying "Be alone! Now!" - I'm saying that before entering another relationship you really need to understand the underlying points that caused your split in the first place. Make sure that you have yourself settled before you even attempt to find another love.

 

Also, don't act like you're running "out of time". You're only 33-years-old and there are plenty of opportunities out there for you, you just can't keep on trying to rush through the pain and "safely" get into another relationship, it just doesn't work like that.

 

Why? Why not enter another relationship while still under the "spell" of your ex?

 

Most people look for quick relationships after a split in order to find a replacement for their exes and prove to themselves that there is still love out there. If you do this, you'll only temporarily feel better about yourself until you start comparing your current partner to your ex and then your right back at square one, again. It's not manditory to find a suitable partner soon after a break-up, but it is manditory to learn after a break-up before you start looking for another person to share your life with.

 

Alone time is peaceful time is healing time.

 

Don't delay it any longer, accept the circumstances and start re-building. Period.

[Jessemina]

Thank you for your thoughts. I think I am in denial about how incredibly huge this change is. I don't want to fully admit to myself what has happened. I don't want to be 'single and on the look out', the idea of getting together with anyone else makes me feel sick. At the same time I lost my respect for my ex-boyfriend and he hurt me so much so I have very strange mixed feelings about him, I miss the old him (11 years in which he seemed to be committed and was my best friend) and I am repulsed by the selfish, anxiety ridden, weak person he became. I don't know what happened to him. He really changed. I find it hard to understand how someone can love someone like he appeared to for over a decade and then suddenly perceive them as 'problems' when they (i.e. me) didn't change their behaviour. I cannot understand. People say that it's because he was mentally unstable but the person I knew for all those years appeared very sane and wise. He was my rock and then he dissolved into somebody else. I loved him dearly. He was my everything. The only thing a bit lacking was 'physical passion', it was never the main thing that I took from the relationship, though it was what brought us together as he initially pursued me for that. But i loved him so much that the fact that he didn't inspire me hugely in that way was not important. Then he changed. He became distant and didn't need me anymore, he had lots of problems with his career and he didn't come to me for help. I haven't spoken to him for months now and I am very angry that he wasn't honest with me. How can you stay with someone for all that time and then say that you think we are not compatible and that he doesn't feel the same, just when we are trying to have a baby? It's immoral. He should have realised that sooner. How difficult is it to understand something so basic? I couldn't understand as I believed that we loved each other absolutely; an end to our relationship was inconceivable to me. I couldn't believe that he could have been thinking about it. It still seems incredible to me. We had so many plans, we had fought so much to be together (we're from different states) and we had a lot going for us (according to most). I couldn't understand why we saw our relationship so negatively. He was suffering from anxiety/depression for about a year but I don't know if that made him see things negatively or if he was depressed because he wanted out of our relationship. I really have no idea. But the bottom line is that he really hurt me and I didn't recognise him at the end. He seemed like a selfish, superficial child who had lost himself completely. Who had lost his heart. I can't imagine what he is doing now, how he is living in a selfish, emotionless way. He started taking anti-depressants and he has gone back to doing things he did as a child. He just lost himself. His mother said he had lost the only good thing he had; me. But I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know who he is. I feel like I spent over a decade with a stranger who pretended to love me. So ridiculous! I miss the enormous affection he gave me for all those years. I am so sad that he didn't come to me for help and that he turned against me.

[Jessemina]

ps: i think i am in the wrong forum - is should be in healing after a breakup!

[camus154]

You'll never be able to fully understand another person and where they're coming from or why they make the choices they make. You can't control their actions or emotions and you can't control whether they'll change.

 

I've found that the best weapon against resentment and hurt is gratitude. Think of your ex as another soul on its own journey, just like you are. Be grateful that you got to share the same path for the time that you had with them. Be grateful for all they gave you, all they taught you. And most importantly, wish them well on the remainder of their journey, even if there's a fork in the road and the two of you must carry on separately.

[LoveGuru9]

"Soul mate" is a figurative and abstract concept.

 

99.5% of individuals do not find there TRUE match. Does not mean they are miserable, some are more happier then they would be with there "soul mate"

 

If you live your life with the thought that when you meet someone, it will be in the intention of friends, and that person will hold the responsibility of making room for him in your heart, then there will be so fear in your heart about this situation. There IS someone out there waiting to love and be loved.

 

I'm the type to stay to myself and not open up, (keeping your guard at alert at all times) but ive recently met someone who is pushing to make space for him in my heart.

 

You WILL, be in love again. Think positive and thus will happen. Thinking negative puts you in a sad place in life.

 

Smile, your beautiful!

 

 

(Also, there is wisdom behind every person you meet, and when you find what that wisdom was, you live your life by it)