She wasn’t right for me!

[steveng]

After a weekend spent ranting about my ex g/f to family, I’ve realised that she was never good for me, and really not the type of woman I want to be with. The reasons are many and varied but I’ll not go into those now! However, why does this not make me feel much better?!! I unfriended her on FB last night and feel absolutely awful about it for some reason. I know it only takes time and keeping busy but I sort of feel that I’ve gone back weeks in my recovery :(

[Andrina]

You're not a robot. Let yourself feel what you feel. You're cutting off a past you once enjoyed, at least for a while, so you're mourning that now. It will probably take a minimum of 4 months to start the healing process. Just know what you're going through is normal and a necessary step to get to a happy place.

[steveng]

Yeah. I know, it’s just tough and hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes :(

[bluecastle]

You are weaning yourself off of a drug, an addiction. Think of it that way, because that's what all relationships, especially unhealthy ones, are. The pain you feel right now: it's withdrawal, and it's going to continue. Recognizing she wasn't right, removing her from social media—that is all going to hurt initially. For one, it just widens the void. Also, it brings up tough questions about yourself that being in the relationship allowed you to only glance at, and even ignore. Asking those questions is hard, but they need to be asked.

 

Give yourself time to really feel whatever you feel. Miss her one second, hate her the next. Feel empowered, feel weak. Feel like an idiot, feel struck by new wisdom. Go backwards, go forwards. Let those waves come and crash over you. They are all true, can't be fought, and will keep coming. What you'll find over time is that you will go from feeling like you're drowning in them to being surprised at how well you're swimming through them.

 

The truth is that even when you feel you're going backwards you're still going forwards.

[steveng]

Give yourself time to really feel whatever you feel. Miss her one second, hate her the next. Feel empowered, feel weak. Feel like an idiot, feel struck by new wisdom. Go backwards, go forwards. Let those waves come and crash over you. They are all true, can't be fought, and will keep coming. What you'll find over time is that you will go from feeling like you're drowning in them to being surprised at how well you're swimming through them. .

 

Wise words as always! This is exactly how I've been feeling today and yesterday. I was going great with NC for the start of the week, then she messaged me on Friday and opened a can of worms :(

Hopefully now that I've decided/realised that she's not the one for me it'll help me move on, but at the back of my mind at the minute I'm thinking, "...but I WANT her to be the one for me!"

[bluecastle]

That can of worms is going to keep opening. You sound a lot like me: you KNOW you could just block her number etc. but some part of you is still feeding on this. And that's okay too! There are lessons in that, and, believe me, eventually the can of worms is just...well, it's a can of goddamn worms and there's better ways to spend your time.

 

You are still so fresh in this. Some of the best advice I got, but barely understood at first, is just be really compassionate with yourself. Everything you feel, everything you do, every can of worms you entertain—all that is fine. No right, no wrong. No control.

 

I'm literally dealing with my own can of worms right now, in the form of that lame message I got from my ex regarding an Instagram post. Six months ago I would have responded; today I spend a few hours writing her a million versions of the same note before realizing it's just futile; hopefully in a few more months I just won't care at all when she opens the can again (because, like your ex, she will; it's how she works, and she's gotten plenty of affirmation from me that it works).

 

Stay strong, stay weak, realize they are the same things right now.

[steveng]

It's such a struggle to ignore her this early on (7 weeks in today) but I hope I can get there. Generally speaking I don't like offending people so I have a bit of an internal struggle already! She messages me, I wait a while, then eventually respond. This weekend she asked, "Would you prefer it if I didn't contact you" because she could see that I had read the message but didn't respond initially! I, of course, said no I don't want that even though I know I NEED that! Even now when I say that I don't want her back, there's still something in my brain/heart that says otherwise!

 

I've been going from strong to weak to strong for what seems like ages now, I hope it stops soon!

[Young mind]

Wise words as always! This is exactly how I've been feeling today and yesterday. I was going great with NC for the start of the week, then she messaged me on Friday and opened a can of worms :(

Hopefully now that I've decided/realised that she's not the one for me it'll help me move on, but at the back of my mind at the minute I'm thinking, "...but I WANT her to be the one for me!"

 

blue castle, always spot on, very soon you will need to make the decision to move on, and this decision is irrespective of how you feel.

This feels will come as cycles, I still feel the same almost 6 mos later, but I am strong in my resolve, I moved on, my life moved on and I all want to see is the beautiful life ahead.

Hang in there, I wish you the best.

[bluecastle]

It's such a struggle to ignore her this early on (7 weeks in today) but I hope I can get there. Generally speaking I don't like offending people so I have a bit of an internal struggle already! She messages me, I wait a while, then eventually respond. This weekend she asked, "Would you prefer it if I didn't contact you" because she could see that I had read the message but didn't respond initially! I, of course, said no I don't want that even though I know I NEED that! Even now when I say that I don't want her back, there's still something in my brain/heart that says otherwise!

 

I've been going from strong to weak to strong for what seems like ages now, I hope it stops soon!

 

It's not ages, it's 7 weeks. But I feel for you. Something you said really resonated: you don't want to offend/disappoint people. I suffer from that affliction. I'm very much a selfish, ego-driven guy, but I'm also a people-pleaser, often bending myself into the wrong shapes so others are comfortable. Thanks to therapy, and no shortage of heartbreak (felt and delivered), I've started to confront this in myself, realizing that offering others short term relief (the reply) at the expense of my own health (the agony) doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. Because, well, it's dishonest. And perhaps that dishonest dynamic was reinforced in your relationship, and part of why you're clinging to it hard right now (aside from the primal) is that you don't totally want to own that you were both part of a dishonest pact.

[steveng]

blue castle, always spot on, very soon you will need to make the decision to move on, and this decision is irrespective of how you feel.

This feels will come as cycles, I still feel the same almost 6 mos later, but I am strong in my resolve, I moved on, my life moved on and I all want to see is the beautiful life ahead.

Hang in there, I wish you the best.

 

Thanks! I hope it all works out for you too. I think my main problem is not wanting to be alone, that's what I need to work on I think.

[steveng]

It's not ages, it's 7 weeks. But I feel for you. Something you said really resonated: you don't want to offend/disappoint people. I suffer from that affliction. I'm very much a selfish, ego-driven guy, but I'm also a people-pleaser, often bending myself into the wrong shapes so others are comfortable. Thanks to therapy, and no shortage of heartbreak (felt and delivered), I've started to confront this in myself, realizing that offering others short term relief (the reply) at the expense of my own health (the agony) doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. Because, well, it's dishonest. And perhaps that dishonest dynamic was reinforced in your relationship, and part of why you're clinging to it hard right now (aside from the primal) is that you don't totally want to own that you were both part of a dishonest pact.

 

I know 7 weeks isn't long, I meant more that it FEELS like ages, the days and weeks just drag in. The short term relief for her vs my own agony is a good way to think about it because it really is, not every time, but mostly the agony just comes back in floods.

[Andrina]

It's really not a mean or cold thing to ask for no communication if you state it in a good way, like: I've actually realized it's better for closure if we no longer speak. But I'll have good memories of the time we were together and I hope you have a happy life.

 

It's not fun to be alone when you like companionship, but just think of it as a time you can try to learn to be happy solo for a while. When you do that, the chances of success for a relationship will be higher because a better state of mind should enable you to spot red flags, as well as recognizing a better match for yourself.

[steveng]

It's that being happy as a singleton that feels foreign to me at the minute. I'm trying though! I know that if I'm unhappy now, it doesn't necessarily mean I'll be happy with someone in my life, I need to work on myself, sort out the unhappy feelings in my head and THEN think about finding someone better for me. That'll make for a much better future. That's of course, my current calm rational brain thinking, once the anxiety kicks in again it's hard to remind myself!!

[bluecastle]

Just accept the anxiety. Seriously. Accept it, but don't react to it. Let it coexist wit that calm, rational brain. Let the two dance and converse for as long as they need.

 

Five months ago I was such a mess. I complained to a friend, "Dude, I'm just in this emotional purgatory and I want out!" His response: "Dude, an emotional purgatory is a good thing." That little sentence was a kind of lifeline. There was nothing to solve, nothing to fix. Just a turbulent place to be in until it passed. A big, gaping void to keep open, so it could heal as needed rather than being stuffed with a million bandaids.

 

It allowed me to find some comfort in the turbulence, and before I knew it I was feeling a new kind of strength: the strength of not really knowing what's next, the strength of being soft, the strength of being at the mercy of fate instead of at the mercy of my confused, volatile, attention-seeking ex. The strength, maybe for the first time in my life, of just being alone.

 

Plenty of that turbulence still remains, but it's a lot more manageable. I'm not really eager to stuff the void. The void is kind of my friend now; we can look each other in the eye, have coffee together in the mornings in peace. For instance, I've been going on a few dates with a new woman—she's cool, interested, but I'm taking things slow. Much as I desperately miss physical intimacy, last week I found myself putting that off with her. Just wasn't ready, was okay with not being ready because I'm now okay with being alone. A small step for many people, but given my history not so small.

 

If you're open to it, and if you can afford it, I can't recommend therapy enough. I initially started going, hilariously enough, when we were still together; it was a way of encouraging me ex to go without harping on her. Within two sessions I realized how desperately overdue this was in my life.

[steveng]

To be honest, I'm literally just back from seeing a counsellor about this. It was good to be able to talk to someone who doesn't know the other person and can't sway me one way or the other. It was interesting to hear how her behaviour could be traced back to previous relationships, both romantic and family.

 

Interesting to hear you're dating, even with the turbulence still there. I had thought about getting back out there myself and decided it was probably too soon and definitely not fair on the other person if I'm just thinking about my ex all the time. On the other hand, if I'm decided that I don't want my ex back then perhaps it's a good thing?! Think I'll sit on that idea for a bit though!

[steveng]

I initially started going, hilariously enough, when we were still together; it was a way of encouraging me ex to go without harping on her. Within two sessions I realized how desperately overdue this was in my life.

 

We had discussed this before we split and I really think it would be interesting to see what got unearthed.

[bluecastle]

Yeah, it's funny. Now all I want is to date people in therapy—to me, it speaks to someone trying to get a handle on their own demons, and lessens the risk of them turning to me as a blanket for those demons. I've played that role in the past, enjoyed it in the early stages, but, lo and behold, demons always find the tear in the fabric.

 

I'm dating very, very cautiously. I feel genuinely ready to explore it, genuinely ready to connect after 7 monastic months, and my turbulence is less about conflicting feelings about my ex than it is the guilt and shame she triggers in her occasionally hostile pokes.

 

But I do want to be fair to the other person. I admit that I kind of used my last relationship, at least in the early stages, to numb a layer of pain from the one that came before, and that sowed some seeds of resentment that surfaced years later in the form of a number of nukes. It was not fair, and I won't do it again. But, alas, I'm a human, with the baggage of humans, so it's kind of about not hiding that baggage and feeling that it isn't too much for whatever new people I meet.

[bluecastle]

And yes about your ex's behavior being connected to the past. Thing is, that's for HER to become aware of and for HER to change, if she wants to. It's like someone who is chronically obese: they know eating fast food isn't going to get them what they really want, but damn is it tasty and rewarding in the moment, and so they go for the value meal instead of the salad. At some point they realize that immediate gratification is making it really hard to see anything inspiring on the horizon, and so they change their habits.

 

Attention is your ex's value meal. She wants it all, in all forms. Somewhere, though, it's not really sating her. Mine is the same way. Maybe she changes, maybe not. That's their journey now; ours is figuring out what little wounded child in us wanted to play that role so we can step up to a better, more sustainable role next time.

[wgmitch]

Just accept the anxiety. Seriously. Accept it, but don't react to it. Let it coexist wit that calm, rational brain. Let the two dance and converse for as long as they need.

 

Five months ago I was such a mess. I complained to a friend, "Dude, I'm just in this emotional purgatory and I want out!" His response: "Dude, an emotional purgatory is a good thing." That little sentence was a kind of lifeline. There was nothing to solve, nothing to fix. Just a turbulent place to be in until it passed. A big, gaping void to keep open, so it could heal as needed rather than being stuffed with a million bandaids.

 

It allowed me to find some comfort in the turbulence, and before I knew it I was feeling a new kind of strength: the strength of not really knowing what's next, the strength of being soft, the strength of being at the mercy of fate instead of at the mercy of my confused, volatile, attention-seeking ex. The strength, maybe for the first time in my life, of just being alone.

 

Plenty of that turbulence still remains, but it's a lot more manageable. I'm not really eager to stuff the void. The void is kind of my friend now; we can look each other in the eye, have coffee together in the mornings in peace. For instance, I've been going on a few dates with a new woman—she's cool, interested, but I'm taking things slow. Much as I desperately miss physical intimacy, last week I found myself putting that off with her. Just wasn't ready, was okay with not being ready because I'm now okay with being alone. A small step for many people, but given my history not so small.

 

If you're open to it, and if you can afford it, I can't recommend therapy enough. I initially started going, hilariously enough, when we were still together; it was a way of encouraging me ex to go without harping on her. Within two sessions I realized how desperately overdue this was in my life.

 

Good stuff BlueCastle. "Dude, an emotional purgatory is a good thing." You have a smart friend. You have learned a lot. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[steveng]

She is actually going to counselling herself. I suspect it may be a bit of an eye opener for her but as you say, that’s her thing now, I’m just looking after number one!

[bluecastle]

She is actually going to counselling herself. I suspect it may be a bit of an eye opener for her but as you say, that’s her thing now, I’m just looking after number one!

 

Good for her, good for you! Hold compassionate thoughts for both of you, and keep the focus on yourself. If you stay this path, you're going to look back on this as a really special time: a husk being shed, growth to be savored once the growing pains have passed.

 

My ex is in therapy as well. Sadly, last I heard she has chosen to edit out a lot of her own truths—like, um, the fact that she cheated on me with two dudes over 6 months—so it seems she's using it more as a mirror for the story that allows her to remain the saint and me the sinner. Again, another one of those gems that at this point propels me forward, though of course I wish her out of her spiral. It's a sad way to live, but a weight I have no more interest in carrying.