NC and Emotional Connection

[markie6]

I guess it's a question of how long will you have to wait around as a friend , if you are indeed after more than that ?

 

Is friendship only going to be enough ?

 

If you determine you will wait on the sidelines for months, hoping they change their mind , that is fair enough. How long would you wait before giving up and trying to move on ?

 

Moving on doesn't have to mean you wouldn't try again in the future, if the person who chose to cut you loose wanted another chance does it ? The fact is , we didn't choose it and we have to deal with the fact they may never want to come back. We arrive at the point where we realise there is nothing we can do to force them to come back. Are we open to it if they choose to contact us in the future ? Of course. Do we wait in limbo for that to happen ?

[Streetbob]

Markie:

 

Yeah, Nail on the head: NC should be about moving on first and foremost be remaining open minded to a reconciliation in the long run. That is how I entered NC and it made it way more manageable. Apathy and depression are the enemies in NC. You really must get on with it however hard it seems.

[markie6]

It's the constant confusion that surrounds the term NC , it is a powerful tool for healing purposes and also your ( usualy but not always ) best bet for a reconcilliation if you get a chance. It makes me sad when people see it as a trick or a game as that isn't how it should be viewed at all.

 

If you started NC with a view to making them curious , miss you etc etc then more often than not you will be dissapointed, most BU are indeed broken and cannot be fixed. Sure some people get another chance, but they are the exception to the rule. Often we hear of ex's going back to previous ex's so we know it happens, but as that also proves.. a lot more of us are rebounds than we first suspected.

 

Everybody has a chance, there is always a glimmer of hope, we shouldn't however wait in limbo for ages with all our hopes pinned to it. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[ks1986]

It seems like you're not really reading or comprehending what people are saying. We've given you multiple reasons and pretty clear explainations. It seems like you are a bit in denial and WANTING to see things from the perspective that NC is wrong so that you feel justified sticking around.

 

You are clearly hung up and emotionally invested and trying to be friends now is just going to cause you hurt and you are not in control of your emotions and they will pick up on that and it will just keep pushing them away even if you don't intend it to.

Even those experts that don't agree with NC say you should be IN CONTROL of your actions when you are in contact. I know the exact person you are talking about and their articles. They speak a lot about being mature and adult about relationships and interactions that's all well and good, but that's not how things happen in the real world.

Maybe your ex does NEED you to be their friend, but you know what...that has everything to do with their own selfish needs and nothing to do with yours. Exes want to be friends so that they can slowly ween themselves off of you because they don't want to go cold turkey. They want to ease their guilt and think offering you friendship makes them a "good person". Perhaps it's that they want you to be on the back burner in case they change their mind. Maybe they want you to stick around so they can be friends with benefits...there are a lot of reasons why. But you'll find they aren't so keen on really being friends the second they meet someone new. They will want you to stick around just long enough for them to smoothly transition into the next relationship, but after that you won't hear from them much.

By sticking around, you are helping them move on from you and pushing them away. He said he can't be in a relationship because he is a mess right now...translation: he wants space. Give him space, and then some!

I agree that you shouldn't use NC as a game and after my experience I wish I could have gone back and not "announced" NC because it made my ex sort of view it as a game and got resentful over it.

My advice is to do NC until you feel in control again. For me it took a couple months. I was in your place once thinking all the same things and I know you will think and feel completely differently if you take some time and space from the situation. They WON'T forget you unless they never loved you at all. It's just the way it works and I know from first-hand experience.

[mhowe]

Transmit, will any kind of contact make things worse? Or just the desperate kind? I mean, what if I text him randomly about a common interest, mentioning nothing at all about the break up or relationship or whatever? Something like, "Hey, I finally got to the end of Skyrim. It's epic!" Will that still make things worse? Won't that be just kind of opening the lines of communication so that he and I can reconnect after a month of NC and two months of break up?

 

Any contact will be the desperate kind. And that you know he is seeing someone else --- and she may be the reason he lost feelings for you. There is no random texting w/out an ulterior motive and he will see right through that and you will appear desperate and needy. You broke up w/ each other. You need to accept that it is over.

[saluk]

From experience, being friends with an ex has its ups and downs. I can say that one of my friends with exes experiences was probably a very bad idea. It was in high school, and it made every day there almost unbearable. Cutting the cord in retrospect would have been the better option. I don't think I even was that good of a friend to her, and she certainly wasn't a great friend to me. I should have focused on cultivating the other friendships I had at that time, things would have been better. Towards the end of high school, I did do this a little bit, and have some great memories of the large group of friends in senior year without being so hung up on the one girl. Still, I wasn't able to move on until I left high school and didn't see her any more - and I have a pretty big suspicion that there were a few girls back then who liked me that I might have had a chance with if I hadn't stayed friends.

 

Another friend in college, we never really dated, but I did have feelings for her. They came and went, and again, I probably missed out on opportunities to have a real relationship with some other girls because of the hangup. And yet, she was a really good friend and I had some good times, so I look back on it fondly, and don't regret being friends.

 

But if you are hoping to stay friends and turn the feelings back on again somehow, I think that is much less likely to happen than for NC to enable you both to be at a better place for reconciliation later, if that's even in the cards at all. When you are friends, you will be party to information about his life that may hurt you, and he will come to you for support but not offer the kind of relationship you are hoping for. If you keep hoping for a relationship that never happens, you may miss other life opportunities. What if you get an offer that takes you to another town? Are you going to reject that offer so you can stay near to the person you love? I have done this before. Many years later I wonder what my life would have been like if I had taken that offer.

 

If you are able to truly move on and stay friends more power to you... I have seen some rare couples who go onto being really great friends, so it's not out of the question. I know people who went NC for a time and got back together (my parents are an example). I've never met anyone in real life who dated, went to friends, and then went back to dating - but I wouldn't say it never happens.

[RFB]

Being friends with anyone who you still have romantic feelings for is an invitation for pain and suffering. It never works. It just leads to more heartache.

 

A friendship has to be based on equality of feelings. Most of us can't do that, we are still emotionally invested hoping to rekindle a romance.

 

If thats how you feel save yourself the suffering and just accept the end and go NC to heal.

[Mizz]

Being friends only prolongs healing. Who knows what could happen further down the road but NC is crucial post break up for your own good/healing and even his.

 

NC is good to heal for YOU. This is time to get your own emotions under control. Time to reflect on the relationship and yourself. Time for you to consider what’s best for you and what you deserve and need.

 

NC ironically allows time for an ex to possibly miss you too. Which later opens possibilities for either talking to gain closure or working it out (if the dumpee wishes to even acknowledge the ex in the first place, and given the dumper actually contacts the dumpee).

 

Not contacting an ex allows for a spark of curiosity. You once were reaching out to them after the break up and now you’ve gone MIA, disappeared. Your ex might wonder what happened, be curious if YOU are over them, if you have moved on. They might think you are happy with out them and possibly have some fear or anxiety and feel they need to reach out to you to see how you are or what’s going on. It’s up to you if you wish to reply. I’d advise not to for a while though until you have healed and get your emotions in check. Hey, you might not even care to reply to your ex if this happens. If it’s been some time and you moved on ;D. Remember, it was/is they’re loss!

 

Some individuals stay NC for good after a break up, even after an ex might realize what’s happened, feel bad, and try to contact the dumpee. Others in time may have no problems talking to an ex later down the road, either talking about what happened, or perhaps some try working it out or getting back together. It’s up to the individual and the circumstances of the break up, if it’s worth trying again or not, it’s up to the individuals. There’s always the possibility the ex won’t even come back or reach out anyway. It’s just best to save yourself, forget about them, focus on yourself, move on.

[P l u t o]

So very familiar..

[elephants]

I guess I understand what you are saying. Those are all the reasons I went NC in the first place. I never announced NC. One day, I just deleted him from Facebook and then when he texted me I didn't reply.

 

But it has always bothered me that I didn't reply to that one text. It was an innocent question about an item I may have accidentally taken from his place. Now I fear I made him feel rejected, and I don't want him to feel that from me because he already has depression and probably already feels worthless without my help. Isn't it that because from "civil" terms I was the one who went all out cold and indifferent, it is now my job to re-open the lines of communication? Just to let him know that I don't hate him, and that I'm open to talk if he wants? I'm thinking of sending a text saying, "Hi, sorry I wasn't able to reply before. The [item] isn't with me. Hope you are doing well."

 

Is that a bad idea? I feel kind of guilty for ignoring him like that when he wasn't doing anything to harass me.

[transmit]

You need to stop worrying about his feelings. You're afraid you made HIM feel rejected? He didn't want to be in a relationship anymore, and until he contacts you stating otherwise, he still doesn't. I'm sorry but you're not going to get any new information out of contacting him, and you should not be this worried about him. You really need to think about YOUR feelings right now.

[elephants]

But of course I worry about how he feels, I want to get back together with him. I don't want him to think badly of me. Isn't being a b*tch for no reason just as bad as begging, crying, and pushing him?

 

I mean, sure he dumped me, but he wasn't being an a**hole about it. It's just what made sense to him at that time. He was doing it for self-preservation. And I told him I understood. Somehow, I do understand. Over the past two months, I have more and more woken up to the realization that the break up was just as much my fault-- I kept pushing him to give me answers he already explicitly told me he wasn't ready to give. He asked for space, and I kept bugging him. So while it was his "issues" and his depression that probably ended things for good, I wasn't purely a victim of circumstance. I kind of brought it upon myself.

 

When we broke up, we decided to go NC on each other, but that was broken by him soon after. We went on LC for a while until he started hiding again. Our last contact with each other was civil, but not too friendly. After that, I decided to go back to NC, unannounced. He liked one of my posts on Facebook a week after and sent me one text message. And I reacted to those by deleting him from Facebook and ignoring his innocent question.

 

I'm just thinking, am I not being a b*tch here? If he were being mean to me, or if he were harassing me, I understand why it doesn't matter how he feels. But he was being decent. Plus the depressive episode he is in now should also be taken in consideration, I think. I guess what I'm trying to say here is, my ex is a nice guy. He's not mean-spirited and I very much doubt that his occasional texts were done out of trying to "string me along".

 

That said, I'm afraid that being so strict with NC may have come accross as me not being as mature as he had always thought I was. I feel guilty that I told him after we found out about his depression (after the break up) that "I'm always just a text away", and I just proved by alienating him that I don't keep my word.

 

My intention for sending a text, if ever I do push through with that, is not to get any new information, but to show him that I haven't gone away for good. That I'm still here, that he can come to me if he wants, and also that I am actively addressing my issues with neediness and impatience by not bugging him even though I'm just there. In short, I want him to feel that he can safely come to me when he's more emotionally stable.

 

Al Turtle talks about making someone feel safe to open up to you. I can't say I completely understand his articles, but I'm trying to learn how to be an emphatic person. I used to wish that my ex would come crawling and beg me back, but now I'm thinking that maybe there's another way for reconciliation to be possible, and that's through being a person that your ex can feel safe with and eventually trust. Not saying it's a surefire way, but that it could be an alternative to just hoping your ex will regret and miss you.

 

I mean, I guess what I'm getting at here is if there is a middle ground? It seems that the common trend here is that there are only two ways to deal with an ex-- go total NC or keep pushing until he's sick of you. Can't there be a middle ground? Where you are giving space but aren't dropping off the face of the planet either?

 

I've been reading the success stories here on ENA, and my favorite so far is mhowe's. I only read her success thread, so I have no idea how she dealt with the break for the entire 4 months they were apart, but I know she did not initiate any contact except for that one text she sent him that she was there if he needed anyone to talk to when their mutual friend got fatally sick. In other words, she did give him space, a lot of it, but she didn't become a stranger-- she knew when to break NC.

 

Now, my ex and I don't have a mutual friend in a coma, but I'm wondering if my situation also warrants that I text my ex, just to get rid of the negativity that my ignoring him had probably put between us. Then after that, I'll let him come to me if he wishes, but I wouldn't push.

 

Am I making sense? Sorry for the long ramble.

[RFB]

You can't really do anything but accept it's over and move on. When I reconciled it was after close to a year apart with no contact at all and I'd moved on emotionally by then. This was after going out for 4 years.

 

If they miss you they miss you. If they don't nothing you can say will alter how they feel.

 

When you break up initially, you let them know how you feel and then just move on with your life. IF they contact you, you can see how you feel about them at that time. If you still feel like you may want to try, you'll have to open yourself up to the possibility of being hurt again because theres no garuntee that any communication from them will be meaningful. They may just be dropping you a line to see how you are but are uninterested in reconciling. You'll have to assess their intentions and make a descision based on how you see things going.

 

BUT, and I stress this, waiting around for someone to come back is the absolute worst move you can make. No one can predict who will and who won't reconcile. It's all too random. So get out there and live your life as if they aren't coming back. The future will take care of itself.

[learning2relax]

Trust me the connection remains. It just does - again, unless there was betrayal. I didn't want to believe or subscribe to NC at first for some of the same reasons that you state but what I learned is that it only hurt me more to stay in contact. Mostly because if I would contact and he would not respond, it was rejection all over again. Once I tired of knocking my head against that brick wall and only making my head bloody, I had the sense to stop. It was the best thing I did for myself. It allowed me to get the separation that I needed. I got to the point that it was so long since I had any contact with him that when I did think of contacting him, it just felt weird or awkward. We hadn't been in contact and trying to reach out and say anything would be odd - he was the one that ended things and went from being in constant contact with me to none.

 

Beside getting your emotions under control, it is helpful for both to get the separation from each other that is very necessary after a breakup when emotions tend to be high. For the dumper - due to guilt, resolve to stick to their decision, etc.... For the dumpee - to gain control over the need for contact, the risk of begging, etc. I especially think it is important because as a dumpee, if you keep attempting contact, they know that you are always right there, waiting in the wings. They can move on with their life and if they tire of it or get anxious, they can reach out and grab their life preserver (you, the dumpee) and that is more damaging in the end. They aren't with you because they want you, they are sending you breadcrumbs or attempting contact to soothe their ruffled emotions at the time and it tends to be a dead end or very short lived. There are tons of stories on here that prove that point. They need to sit with the discomfort just as they left us to do. If anything is going to cause them to rethink their decision, it would be their attempt to reach out without response. They reach for the life preserver and someone moved it/removed it. Only then are they left to contemplate the consequences of their actions. Now, that doesn't mean they will act on it. Some do and some don't. Some never reach out and there could be a myriad of reasons for that as well.

 

The best that you can do for you, even wanting them back in your life as a SO, you have to take care of yourself. You have to concern yourself with your feelings, your life and your actions. Concerning yourself with the other persons actions just keeps you distracted and hovering between pain and healing. Do yourself a favor and consider NC to allow yourself to heal. To move towards letting go and not let your life hang in the balance in hopes that they might return as you hope. It may never happen. If it does, you are in a better place to consider it when it happens to make the best decision for you. If it doesn't, you have already moved down the path to heal, grow and gain the benefits that come from these painful experiences - you better yourself and give yourself a chance for a loving relationship somewhere in the future.