IN GENERAL: Is it childish and pathetic to reject friendship with ex?

[reinventmyself]

I'm over him but I crave that "realizion" I want him to realize what he's lost and I want him to feel that loss and I want to feel powerful after he made me feel small.

 

I feel like I let him watch me break and I want to show that I'm still standing if that makes sense.

 

I was humiliated. He made me feel small. He watched me in pain and didn't offer a hand. He criticized my intelligence. My weight. He shared personal information about my mental health with his friends. I was thrown out of cars. I was yelled at. I was gaslighted. I was isolated from friends and family. And after all of that I left the situation defeated and felt like I didn't matter.

 

I just want his last encounter with me to be me standing tall and untouched. I crave that before moving on and I crave it for personal reasons...

 

If that makes sense

The biggest payback ever in a situation like this. . is to no longer care about any of the above mentioned ^^

 

All that you just wrote ties your self worth to him. As if `if he could see me now!' you'd feel better about yourself.

 

But it's an inside job. Getting back at him will leave you feeling just as empty.

 

Besides, he's abusive. Who is he to define you and why on worth would you want that?

 

The best response . . is silence.

The best payback is to no longer care whatsoever - what he thinks.

 

Work on detaching from him. Period.

[Rabican]

If you were over him you wouldn't care what he did or thought. He would hold no more thought in your mind that an ant you stepped on.

[catfeeder]

I keep feeling pathetic. it feels like I'm saying "well since you don't want to be with me, you don't get me in your life" and it makes me feel manipulative and pushy.

 

There's nothing 'wrong' or pathetic or petty about this, at all. You're outgrowing the conditioning we all grew up with when we were in forced socialization with the people we dated in high school and college. We had to share classes, the campus, social circles with our exes, so the ground rules were that we dated knowing going in that if we broke up, we would need to function socially with the person afterward--or otherwise we would be isolating ourselves.

 

As adults, those days are over, and so it occurs to healthy people that nothing productive can come from hanging onto contact with exes. It positions us badly. It either sets us up to stagnate in limbo with them, or it sets us up for more heartbreak from another 'breakup' when one or there other wants to begin a new relationship.

 

No healthy person will involve themselves with anyone who's still tied to an ex beyond coparenting shared children. It makes no sense. So what's the point in playing friendlies with an ex, really?

 

So the problem you're facing isn't one of making the healthy choice to move forward, it's what you're doing to your own head with your choice to beat yourself up about it. I'd quit THAT in a hurry, and I'd decide instead to be on my own side.

 

If we don't support ourselves in making decisions, who will? The time for seeking approval from an ex can be officially over if you're willing to stand on your own two feet.

 

Head high.