Something going on subconsciously I can't pinpoint/need help

[quirky]

I had some contact with my ex last week and it messed me up big deal. I have done NC, LC, cyberstalking, blocking, ignoring, sent a letter last year, stayed single for a long time to get myself back, had some counselling, slept with 2 people after him. I have done everything to get over this. I have changed career direction which makes me feel great, I have grown as a person and matured. Yet I still have some feelings for the guy. What the hell is wrong with me. It was 2 years ago we split up. From what I know he hasn't had an LTR either but I sensed he might have started dating recently.

 

On one of his latest texts he told me he's still trying to figure out what happened between us and that the loss was very big and it's relevant. We then talked on the phone to catch up for 3 hours and since then I have been in a dark hole feeling friggin rejected again. We just caught up on our lives, anytime he has expressed some feelings about the relationship he quickly withdraws and doesn't talk about it. If he contacts me and I don't reply (rarely nowadays) he will persist and ask if I am ignoring him. But he doesn't ask for anything more.

 

I don't know what is keeping me there on a deeper level, this doesn't make sense to me anymore..He was SO important to me, not just a bf, I felt like I really lost a part of me with the end of this relationship. For the first year I noticed that any guy I fancied had his traits. I am trying very hard and consciously to make a different choice, so far I haven't met anyone I wanted to invest in long term.

 

What's going on..why am I still feeling things for him? Our BU was somewhat unresolved and when I saw him a year later he didn't seem happy or anything.

 

Tough love usually works for me but I am not sure it will in this instance because I feel quite low as it is and somehow alone too.

[Cheetarah]

I remember this guy...I think the contact was just something you were not ready for. I had a guy it took me a couple years to get over. I also did everything 'right' and consciously made efforts to try to keep my life busy and fulfilled. It just...took a long time. When we had some contact(and I thought I was good), it was a setback. Not as bad as it had been, but I did feel like I got pushed back a few steps. He and I realized we just could not talk. Not then, not in the near future. It was just one of those things that was too stirring.

 

I think all this contact has stirred up things for you. Some people are meant to be left in the past. I remember your difficulties in trying to move past this relationship. I don't think anything is wrong with you, but some relationships leave such a mark that they're not meant to be revisited, quirky, in any fashion. At least not now.

 

I think he needs to be the one to go figure out this large and relevant loss, on his own - Not try to pull you into it. And I think you should tell him that.

[quirky]

I read his messages then I said I feel that loss too and he did/said nothing about it. I was just reading the texts crying. Last time I had initiated a conversation a year ago he was very angry and resentful, at least now he seemed better.

 

This relationship has done such a big number on me..

 

I felt I was ready for the contact and was in a good place and wanted to show him how much I have grown, how well I'm doing and childishly wanted rub it in that I am not so distraught any more, guess who's laughing now ha?

 

I have indeed decided to not talk to him now for a year and I will tell him that if he asks. Did you eventually get over that guy, did you ever talk again?

[Cheetarah]

Aww, quirks. You weren't ready if that was your motive, love.

 

I think it's the perfect decision for you to ease away from him again but I wouldn't be setting any time frames on it. I think it is important to let go completely. In the back of your head you will always be thinking "in a year" and that kind of tie keeps a little bit of everything alive. You may or may not talk to him ever again but I think it is pertinent to move on in a way where you expect that you won't.

 

Yes, I did. I still think about him sometimes as I would anyone who was a very significant part of my life but I'm no longer overcome with the pain and grief or longing feelings. I let him go with love. Took a long time. And took a lot of silence.

[ParisPaulette]

On one of his latest texts he told me he's still trying to figure out what happened between us and that the loss was very big and it's relevant. We then talked on the phone to catch up for 3 hours and since then I have been in a dark hole feeling friggin rejected again.

 

Here is the problem. You're still in contact with him. As long as he texts you, as long as you both talk on the phone, as long as you have any contact at all you won't and don't really move on. If you still have feelings for them and they won't commit to getting back together the only way to fully heal is to cut the cord for good. That means you block and delete him on every channel, you delete any texts or messages that get through, you don't pick up the phone, you don't initiate any contact. It's not fair to either of you and you need to let him go and get him out of your life completely. That's how you heal and I know that from my own hard-won experience.

 

It's hard to do I know, but it's also the only way to sometimes fully move on and get someone out of your system. The reason you feel like crap is because being in touch with him keeps hope alive, keeps you hooked into old feelings and then you get upset when your expectations of and for him don't come to fruition.

[quirky]

I see what you mean..we're not in much contact at all, every few months, maybe 4-5 times last year ? Birthdays, Xmas, Easter and the odd random time or two.

 

I know that from my own hard-won experience.

 

Is there someone that took you ages to let go too?

 

I let him go with love. Took a long time. And took a lot of silence.

 

I will really try that. Hurts me just reading it but I will. I just have to. Sometimes it's like I want to replicate that feeling I had with him, feeling so alive and at home. But it just didn't work. I forget it didn't, sometimes I just want to be close to him again and that's all. After all we shared. And you know what I hate? All teh things I have learnt and accomplished seem to go out of the window when I speak to him. My fear, ego and insecurity all come back and I freeze.

[90_hour_sleep]

I will really try that. Hurts me just reading it but I will. I just have to. Sometimes it's like I want to replicate that feeling I had with him, feeling so alive and at home. But it just didn't work. I forget it didn't, sometimes I just want to be close to him again and that's all. After all we shared. And you know what I hate? All teh things I have learnt and accomplished seem to go out of the window when I speak to him. My fear, ego and insecurity all come back and I freeze.

 

3 steps forward...2.5 steps back. 1.5 steps forward...1 step back.

 

It's hard...

 

What you've said here reminds me of some words from Pema Chodron. She's talking about her daughter-in-law...and how she almost died from alcohol poisoning. She'd end up in the hospital...they'd pump her stomach...and as soon as they'd allow her to go home she'd go home and start drinking again. Here's what she said:

 

"Why do we do those things. We all do those things to that degree or lesser. Why? It's stupid. But the reason we do it, is because we imbue that drink, or that scratching in whatever form, with comfort. And we all have a lot of situations like that. Like for instance, I remember seeing my ex-husband, who I was so in love with when we were married, and then he left me and it was such a trauma. It was years later, and you know, my life had gone in such a better direction for me. Things had opened up so much...and I didn't associate that marriage or him or anything anymore with happiness. And yet, if I would get a letter from him and see his handwriting or something, this deep yearning and longing would come up. And then I realized, it's not even Jim, he's the archetypal one who loves you, you know. And you're yearning for that. And that was the shenpa there. In order to move away from the basic uneasiness, we find comfort in certain things which become imbued with addictive quality. And then all we're getting is this short-term symptom relief. And we are willing to sometimes die to keep getting short-term symptom relief..."

 

This guy...like you've said...you don't even really associate him with happiness anymore. You know it didn't work...that it can't work...that your life has gone in a positive direction since you parted ways. But, as Pema says...there's something in your memory of him that has been imbued with comfort. There's a feeling that you associate with him. But it's not actually him. It's the feeling of comfort. The feeling of being loved.

 

So hard, quirky. I don't envy anyone who has a persistent ex who just kind of lingers in the shadows. It really puts the healing journey into perspective.

 

Don't be too hard on yourself for the freezing. It's the hook that grabs you. And...it grabs us all. We all have those things that hook us...and seem to pull us under. And it just happens...before we even realize that it's happening.

 

But you know...there's a certain wisdom in being able to see that it's happened to you. You see that you freeze up when you talk to him. It's exposed. Don't despair! There can be a certain delight in seeing the things that hook you...the things that make you freeze up. It's like a doorway to freedom. Finding some liberation in seeing things with some clarity.

[itsallgrand]

I was wondering how you were doing with this.

 

I have always gone by what Paris has said - - but I want to add something. Cause i did all that. For years, as you know. And then finally did talk to the ex - because I wasn't really moving on anyways. I thought; maybe talking to him will help me resolve it.

 

And it kinda did. Because I was so pissed off for years. I couldn't see anything. I sort of blocked myself and froze myself in time, emotionally. Talking to him brought things to the surface for me. To deal with. Or not. But at least in my awareness. Because if - when - people would ask if I was still hung up on him, I would have - did - say NO and strongly believe it. But the truth was I have been and was denying myself the chance to really see that. And why I felt like that. Why I still felt a draw - a draw I felt I had to fight - towards him.

 

So I think the insidei s what really counts when it comes down to it. Getting the outside consistent with the inside; and we want both to be on the same track. My blocking him for years was consistent with the anger I felt towards him. But it wasn't consistent with how I really felt all in all. I desperately wanted a happy resolution; but it never came. And this was a hope that was not about logic at all; just about feelings. Because I KNEW in my head it couldn't be achieved; not with how things are now.

 

I'm just coming to the real peace that this isn't about failures or lack of trying or lack of desire or anything liek that. HE CAN"T GIVE ME WHAT I WANT. Plain and simple. Even yearning for me, and anything he says or does - he still CAN NOT. Because of who he is , and who I am. And I needed to get square with that.

 

What 90 posted struck some chordds for me. Where what is it about becomes not anymore so much about the person. It's like a centerpiece for some emotional drama of our own. An object, or something, we have almost created in our mind. Giving it almost a supernatural quality, magical qualities. All this power - it's wild!

 

I know now I want something real and to share my life in an important way with someone again. I know it can't be with the ex. And that is where I am at now.

 

Maybe it is because we didn't mourn the end of the relationship properly. "properly" - I don't mean we didn't do what the instruction manual tells us to do. But internally - going through what one needs to do, as a process, to get through it and to the other side without denying all that is changing and being lost.

 

I know you will get there though.

[FreeFallFeelin]

Hi Quirky!

 

If it helps at all, I'm also two years (exactly) on from my BU, and I still think of my ex often. In fact, I had a very vivid dream about my ex last week that really upset me for a few days. Then a few days later I saw a woman that looked so much like my ex, I had to do a triple take (it wasn't her)! It absolutely shook me for hours. It is crazy how someone who is no longer in our lives can still have such an impact!

 

My whole thing is "surrendering" to the journey. There's no figuring out the past, no changing the past, no rushing into the future. There's nothing you can do about any of it, really. The hard thing to deal with this far along is the fact that the pain has persisted for so long. It's hard to not think that there's something wrong with you, or that you'll be this way forever. Believe me, I know! This is how I came to the point where I say "To hell with it. I"ll be alone forever. I could die tomorrow. I don't know what to do and I don't care anymore. I just want to be happy RIGHT NOW." And oddly, that attitude helps.

[quirky]

Thank you all for your comments, you helped me and made me think.

 

I have been far too busy and haven't got the time to reflect on my emotions at the moment but I will come back with thoughts and comments when I do.

[quirky]

He texted me today about having tea before Christmas, asking when I am free. Believe it or not it will take so much strength for me to say no, I have already thought of the dress I would wear o_O. I feel such a pull to see him..to show him how long my hair is, how great that dress looks on me, how much I have learnt. I need to be very strong and stay away because most likely at the end of out meetup I'll just feel that pain of rejection again I think I should say no and explain why too. Or just ignore. Or go and deal with it, experience him not wanting me any more and really digest it.

[quirky]

I will do a little synopsis though I would love to erase from my memory the text interaction that took place with my ex.

 

On Saturday night I decided to tell him everything that is on my mind without filtering it. This was the first time in 2 years I did that, I have never been rude to him or done anything extreme like calls etc after the BU.

 

He accused me of being abusive, that he will only talk to me if I act a certain way otherwise not to bother him and once again took no responsibility and turned it around like he was the healthy mature one. I reminded him that when I had sent him the letter a year ago and he had come out with tons of resentment and blame/anger that I didn't dismiss him or call him abusive. I stayed with him to express it all and apologised for my own shortcomings. Now that I said something less than perfect he is calling it a bickering drama, abuse and all sorts.

 

I reminded him that I had sent that letter from a place of love, wanting to put a lid on things and owning up to what I had done wrong. He never did that. He always says there's noone to blame. He had sent me a 26 page letter to get back together, I told him I will not consider it unless he sees long term, said he did and a year later blames me and the relationship for his own panic mess. Why is he not taking any responsibility for anything...it is just so wrong he isn't. I did.

 

He told me he only mentioned that the loss was very big and that he's not sure what happened with us only because Isaid I was over him. So yeah...as far as I am concerned he is dead to me. This is totally indicative of the relationship I had with him. My needs not mattering and words being twisted against me to look like I am unreasonable. Still never taking any responsibility, still insisting that I didn't understand his decay..I just feel like a crazy woman.

 

He wants to build on a friendship and I know you may all also think I am the crazy one here because that is how it was with him, I could never find a sense of logic.

 

I do feel like an idiot. But I can truly see now that I imagined he had more feelings than he did and ultimately that we have a totally different frame of reference and I will never get a sorry or some ownership for his mistakes from him. He will never understand..it's as simple as that.

[Cheetarah]

Depends what exactly the unfiltered things were on your mind...If it was no holds barred, perhaps he was put on the defensive.

 

The lack of accountability sucks. So much. And in a perfect world, it would be both people who could own that. But the ego is bigger than everything else for many.

 

Perhaps this was what you finally needed to do to put it behind you. HUGS.