How ending NC ended my pain

[searching1951]

I just want to share, briefly, my recent experience. I was dumped last March and suffered the horrible experience of finding out that she was marrying her ex from a third party two weeks later..she never gave me a clue. I was a boy-toy to her but she was my true love to me. After one confrontation at which I returned all the ostentatious stuff she had given me, I went NC. Mutual friends talked about what was happening on her side, so I pulled away. I flailed. I grieved. I tried dating too soon... but I kept strict NC for 4 months, and I didn't seem to be getting better.

 

A week ago I contacted her. She was gracious. She wanted to be very good friends, but was firm about her committment to her ex. We talked and laughed a bit. I confined this exchange of a phone call and several emails to one day..last Monday.

 

Remarkably, this encounter gave me a great sense of relief and closure. Mainly, it dispelled all my fantasies that she and I might rejoin. I think these fantasies retarded my getting over her. It was painful, and I even said to her in an email that day that it was clear I loved her and she not me. She dodged it, seemed a bit defensive, but didn't really deny it. I did sense of twinge of sentiment from her, but mainly our relationship never existed in her mind based upon her communications to me. Also, she was a heavy smoker and I

could hear her cracked voice and the sounds of her puffing as we talked...it conjured up the images of the oxy-bottle that awaits her, or worse.

 

The past week I've had little of the pain, little of the ruminating. I've felt a whole lot better and freer. I think this was therapeutic breaking of NC. I had created a boogey-man of my ex in my mind that was ever-present and terrorizing me with rejection. The breaking of NC seems to have ended that..it really wasn't worth it all.

 

I can't say what will work for the rest of you, but it is really a matter of mental dissociation that we face..just getting certain thoughts out of our heads. That's all ex's are..thoughts in our heads. Whatever works is the solution.

[therealshrek]

glad to read it has helped you move on a bit.

[Orlander]

I hope this allows you to really move on and find a new, more powerful, love.