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I know it’s hard Cindi. This is the first time you are experiencing heartbreak from a type of love you gave all of yourself to. Letting go of that hits you VERY deep, so therefore you need to be more DIRECT in your approach to help yourself heal. Exercising, reading, and talking about it are NOT techniques to help you actually process the pain DIRECTLY. While all of those things are super important and can help you, they are not techniques that work with your pain and the stories sourcing your pain DIRECTLY. Journaling and talking are great ways to just let it all out and that is soooo important. Keep doing that! I’d like to see you take it step further though. You will recover sooooooo much faster when you get more purposeful and direct with your healing.
Techniques that actually work WITH the pain will actually help create relief from the suffering, especially when you have a wave that hits you really hard. Again, look up tapping universe.com or you can go to YouTube and find a TON of videos on EFT for breakups, for hurt, for addictions, for anything you can imagine. Here is a visualization that might help: https://blog.thewellnessuniverse.com/healing-broken-heart-visualization-exercise/
And really, if you just google “how to heal a broken heart” a TON of things pop up. Even type that in YouTube and you will get bombarded with people offering their guidance. Find out what resonates for you. This is about you taking DIRECT action to work with your pain and build a new skillset for how to help yourself heal.
There is more you can do to help yourself Cindi! Now is the time to fight for yourself on a deeper level. DO NOT let this man steel your joy and the beauty of your love and light that you carry. He was your teacher, not your forever person. The pain he has activated in you is causing you to learn and grow in ways that you deeply needed. Now, you can start to develop your SKILLS in how to better manage your pain and help yourself recover.
Keep coming here and venting and letting it all out too! I don’t even have to give guidance back, you can just say “Heidi, I need to vent this time and I need some validation.” I will absolutely support you!!!
Heidi
Hi! I’m glad he reached out and that you guys are meeting up.
The biggest guidance I would give you, is to get CRYSTAL CLEAR about what those assurances are for you. Meaning, where are you drawing your line in the sand and not willing to negotiate away for yourself? That’s what HE needs to know and that’s what you need to know as well. Where are you willing to compromise and where are you set stone?
What assurances are you looking for Laura?
Heidi
Great question! It’s your NEED to understand that is causing the suffering. Your mind thinks that if you just understand, if you could just figure out what went wrong, if you could just be clear about what happened, THEN the pain would subside OR you could possibly figure out a way to get him back. It’s not true. It’s your minds way of actually avoiding the deepest pain of all…it’s over, end of story. Analyzing will not change that it’s time for you to let go of the dream you created around him and the love you felt for him.
You help yourself by STOPPING the stories that come up that feeds the pain. For example, let’s say you start to think “I can’t believe he would ever treat me this way. I thought he loved me. He did…..he said….he showed me…..he told me…..” When you start to notice yourself starting to loop around everything that happened you say “Stop! It’s over Cindi. We are not going that road again. It’s time to embrace that it’s really over.” And you begin to reprogram your mind with the CURRENT reality instead of avoiding it by allowing your looping thoughts, which keeps the pain and confusion alive.
I know you don’t understand how he could treat someone this way. It’s okay! You don’t need to understand. Your only job is to be aware that he can. His version of love is different than yours. His version of integrity is different than yours. That’s ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW! Those differences are deal breakers, end of story. So trying to understand the what and why and how on HIS side, is just a distraction from focusing on yourself. It’s your pattern Cindi. You focus so much not he “other” and you lose yourself over and over and over again. Your focus on the “other” means you don’t have to pay attention to what is within you.
I’ve given you SEVERAL tools, videos, techniques to look up, all to help you, yet you are still allowing yourself to spin and spin and spin around HIM. So…you get to stay in pain as long as you keep this up. You can heal after several months or you can heal in just a few months. It all depends on the inner work you are willing to do and how much you will hold yourself accountable and commit to making deeper changes instead of staying in your typical patterns.
Does this make sense?
Heidi
It looks like you created a whole new story about him, believing it was all lies. That absolutely is very possible AND it could also be that he truly believes that about himself. We all have our blind spots, which is why it’s so important to have people that are educated, wise, and able to hold us accountable to higher levels of truth. If all he did was read books, that’s just knowledge. It’s a very different level to have a GOOD therapist or a skilled person be able to see past all of our crap AND to allow them to point things out to us. Either way, the “why” behind his choices and behavior and his intent don’t really matter. What matters is the end result. The “why” is for HIM to deal with, not you.
When you start to move a lot of the pain out of your system, you won’t need to create a story which makes him bad and wrong and you won’t be judging yourself anymore. You will see all of this with more open eyes, you won’t need to “figure out” what went wrong anymore and you will just get to a point where all of that stuff just doesn’t matter anymore. Keep working through your anger and hurt. Keep being kind and compassionate towards yourself. Keep learning new ways to fill yourself up, so you no longer allow yourself to head into scarcity, which makes it sooooo easy to have a man fill you up instead of yourself.
Whether he was authentic with his feelings or not, the gift he gave you was opening you up and letting you know what is possible. You NEEDED to have the experience of being treated well, paid attention to, and having open arms greet you. You NEEDED to know what it felt like to have a man excited to be with you and make plans with you. It’s part of your healing journey to never settle for anything less than that!!! He helped you create a new standard for how you want to be treated.
Heidi
I’m so proud of you Cindi. These “firsts” can be really difficult. It’s normal and to be expected AND you made it and you know that are going to create some new memories without him…and it will be okay!
How are you doing with all the stories that have been torturing you? The stories that he is the best thing that ever happened to you and that you are the one that messed things up and so on. Are you able to more easily stay connected and grounded to the truth of the whole situation? Are you able to keep him off of that pedestal you created for him?
Heidi
Well this makes a lot of sense. You have a VERY strong program that engages with narcissism. So when this guy started showing up that way, you immediately went into becoming what you are used to being….small and insignificant and making excuses why that was somehow okay. You stayed with a narcissist for 10 years, so you have a high level of tolerance for it. The hard part about this current guy, is you also had a lot of good, so it was confusing for you. You slipped right back into your comfortable pattern and role of being the listener and staying silent when the man demanded that of you.
It makes me question myself. It makes me feel afraid to trust someone again. It makes me lose faith in men. It makes me feel like this is how it’s going to be. It makes me feel scared that being a single mom with two kids is going to make this harder than I ever imagined. It makes me feel like he left because of the kids. I know most of these things are probably unfounded, but it’s what I’m feeling, and I’m trying to work through it. I understand all of your feelings. Of course you doubt yourself and of course you lost faith in men. You felt like you had never felt before and it turns out that even THAT was not what you thought. It’s crushing.
First and foremost, you need to focus on building self-trust first. Part of doing that, is becoming more educated. I trust myself, because I know A LOT and my skillset and knowledge helps me see someone for who they really are vs. being swept away and buying into whatever a man presents. So developing your knowledge will help you. Then working on your baggage is the 2nd part of building trust. For example, you said you KNEW things were moving too fast and he was the one initiating all of it. Well, that was a red flag and you did recognize it, but you ignored it. He was love bombing you and you fell right into it because of your wounds and your starving energy that desperately wanted to be fed by a man. As you experienced, knowing something does not matter if you are not able to put action to it. 3 years ago I had my college boyfriend enter my life again. We always had chemistry and he came into my life when I was in and out of the hospital having surgery after surgery. I was in bed most of the time and he became my entertainment. I KNEW he was not a good match for me. I KNEW every single red flag that would lead to problems. I KNEW that he was entertaining me at a time that I was having a very difficult time. Just because I knew EXACTLY what I was stepping into, my need for connection and comfort was much higher…and as expected, it brought me a lot of extra pain and frustration. So…becoming educated is JUST THE FIRST STEP. You have to do the work BELOW THE SURFACE to clear your baggage so you can take action on what you know. That’s how you build trust. It’s no different than someone wanting to lose weight and they KNOW that eating ice cream every single night will not help them lose weight, but they do it anyway. That’s what breaks self-trust – when you are not aligning with what you know, but instead doing the exact thing that prevents you from getting what you want. Does that make sense?
When you build that self-trust, THEN you can begin to build trust with a man. Because the truth is, no matter how healthy and amazing a relationship is, HE WILL BREAK YOUR TRUST and vice versa. We are human and going to mess things up. So WHEN he breaks your trust, you have your own self-trust to fall back on. When you don’t have self-trust to fall back on, your whole world ends up being turned upside down, just like you are experiencing now.
Heidi
Hi Cindi,
It sounds like he is INCREDIBLY fragile and demonstrating strong narcissistic tendencies. That basically means that there is NO room for being wrong or at fault for anything. People like that are always gaslighting….somehow turning things around to always have the blame landing on the other person and they are somehow always right and get validated by that. It’s incredibly toxic and dysfunctional and absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to have a healthy relationship with that pattern. So of course you didn’t feel open and safe. He broke trust by not making you matter and making you his punching bag.
He was not giving you one of your core, fundamental needs, which was for you to feel safe – and to do that, a guy needs to create a container for the woman to express herself as well. He needs to listen, he needs to validate you, he needs to take ownership for his contribution…anything less than that will break trust and safety.
You should listen to this podcast…I found it on Spotify, but I’m sure it’s other places as well – I think it’s even on YouTube. It’s called “Know Thyself.” Listen to episode 82 with Dr. Ramani Durasula. She is one of the top experts on narcissism. She is great and I believe has 1 or 2 books about it. She really brought the narcissistic pattern to the common world and started educating many people about it. I think, at the very least, it’s good to understand and know about, so you can keep your eye out for it.
In the end though Cindi, what matters more than anything, whether you label it narcissistic or something else, how he made you feel was NOT okay. It’s NOT a dynamic that is healthy and it will literally start to steel your life force from you over time.
One of the questions I always have my clients ask themselves…Is it love to ME to love this person? Is it a loving, kind, compassionate, nourishing thing for YOU to offer your very valuable heart to this guy?? Nope. Not how he treated you as you guy navigated this challenge. There is NO WAY it’s a loving thing for YOU to be ignored, not valued, blamed, and not feeling emotionally safe with him. So…that’s not what you want to call love. Like I keep saying, it’s trauma bonding and coupling, NOT love.
Does this help? I’m sure it might have been hard for you to share this about him, because you probably knew what I would say – and it’s NOT what you want to hear. I keep trying to knock him off the pedestal you put him on and you are holding onto it for dear life and going through the normal rollercoaster ride of letting go. Thank you for sharing Cindi. Your vulnerability is beautiful!!! I’m honored to be a part of your journey through this very difficult time!
Heidi
Hi Laura,
Well, I have 2 different thoughts. If I were in your situation, there would be a part of me wondering “How long is it going to take for this guy to be ready?” Obviously there is no answer to this question, because HE doesn’t even know that. But what I do know, is that I want a guy who has NOTHING stopping him from being with me and I would have limited patience waiting for a guy who needs to figure his stuff out. If it’s taking sooooo long, then I would be less and less motivated to even try, no matter how great things were. So how long YOU are willing to wait around for him, is a personal thing, but it IS something to consider and think about. Because waiting for HIM, means you are putting your life on hold. So make sure that you pay attention to yourself in the meantime. Make YOUR timeline matter as well. Make YOUR feelings matter as well, not just his.
I would say to wait at least 2 weeks. Make that your goal, but also check in with yourself daily and make sure that feels okay for you. When you get to the 2 week mark, see how you feel. You might feel like you want to go longer or you might feel ready to extend an olive branch. A LOT can happen in a couple of weeks, so the most important thing to do is stay connected to how you are feeling. If you reach 2 weeks and your fear is BIG and it makes you want to reach out, face your fear instead. The ideal way to handle this whole thing is to NOT make any decisions until the fear is gone. I’m sure there are a lot of layers in it, but by facing it and growing your trust that it’s all going to work out for the best, the fear will subside and THEN…you will be sooooooo much more clear to know what you feel like doing, because fear won’t be clouding you. Does this make sense? However long it takes, take it. And if you make clearing your fear your main goal and the determining factor as to how and when you reach out, then it really puts you in a higher functioning mindset for the next best steps. Does that make sense?
Heidi
But now that he’s come back and told me he feels this way about me , only to now be asking me to postpone plans and put off seeing me to cool off from everything is in line with what you’re saying he needs to do , work this out emotionally before he comes badk. Let’s talk about this a little more. It’s a little suspect with what he is saying about NOT having feelings for his ex anymore, because he has those feelings for you. To me, he has replaced his feelings for her, with feelings for you. What I wonder, is if you were not in the picture, would he still have feelings for his ex? That’s obviously something you are him will NEVER know because that’s just not how the situation has turned, but I can tell you it would be a common thing and wouldn’t be that far off the mark. So be careful with him and BE CAUTIOUS!!! He said sooooo many things to you before and wanted a commitment with you before, but then wasn’t honest about what he was going through. No doubt he was scared and confused – as any person would be. My issue is that he didn’t communicate anything to you until YOU brought it up.
My other concern is that he says he doesn’t have feelings for you and that he wants to be with YOU, yet he is still asking for space to cool off from everything. That just means he is still in a confused place and not really sure what he wants to do. He absolutely needs some time and I’m glad he is asking for that right now. He gets points for that one!
My fear still lies in the fact that he said he knows I want a long term relationship that he needs to make sure he’s ready for , and I didn’t realize expressing that could push him away as I could see how both sides of this situation could be stressful for a man and cause him to run. I understand your fear. It’s valid AND the best way to master ANY fear, is to step into it. You DO NOT want to let fear run your life or make decisions for you. If you did NOT have any fear and you fully and completely trusted that however things turn out, you are going to be okay, then would you be spending any time trying to figure out how to influence his choice and come back to you? Nope. You would just trust in HIS process and trust that you are going to fall in love again, whether it’s with him or someone else, and all is going to work out in the way it’s meant to work out. Your desire to get techniques, to learn how to encourage him to come back to you, is being driven by your fear. When fear gets activated, our need to control the outcomes will elevate. I would like to encourage you to face your fear. Work with it, embrace it, get to know it and get control over your fear instead of letting fear control you and finding ways to have the outcome you want. Just something to think about.
I’m wondering if there’s anything I can to do invite less fear into what stepping back into a connection with me would be . So that it doesn’t feel like this massive decision that needs to be made upfront Well in a way, you have set it up that way. You want a commitment. You want a guy who is 100% available and able to offer that to you. And that’s absolutely okay to want that. And you should not accept anything less than that. But you are saying you just want him to explore with you again, which means you guys would be taking a step backwards from where you ended. That’s not really possible. You guys instantly connected and you guys really invested in each other right from the beginning. What I would suggest is to set some boundaries for how you guys connect. You could BOTH agree to set some ground rules, so as to take the pressure off of him. So maybe you guys only see each other once per week. No texting or talking in between. That’s what date night is for. No intimacy. Your goal is to just build a friendship and really take things slow. You could maybe text and invite him to a cup of coffee or to happy hour or something and then present him with this. “I understand you are in a place right now where you need some space to figure things out. I get it and I appreciate that you are asking for some time. Yes, I want to be in a long term relationship, but I also understand that you may not be ready for that right now. So I want to make a proposal. How about we completely focus on our friendship. How about we just meet up once a week and have dinner somewhere together. We can just talk about all things life and then head home. No intimacy, no texting or talking in between, other than setting up our next dinner plans. Let’s stay connected, but let’s keep it light. That way, you can still have your space and we can get to know each other again, but in a different way while also taking things a lot slower this time. Let’s commit to 8 dinner dates and then we can talk about how we BOTH are feeling at that point. What do you think?”
How does this approach feel for you? This way, you are NOT compromising on what you need and want from him. You are still getting to know him AND he still gets to have some time to process how he is feeling about everything without the pressure.
Heidi
Here are the books I recommended: They also have a TON of information, so read through their blogs and videos etc. This is an INCREDIBLE resource for you to really start to understand what a healthy relationship looks like, far beyond the feeling of love.
This book can really help you make a much stronger connection to yourself and build self-love. She offers a lot of techniques and methods to help you work through disappointments, traumas, and she also offers a lot of relationship advice on her blog. She also is a good person to learn from and is spot on! https://www.michaelaboehm.com/the-book/
There are A LOT more experts I can recommend, so if these don’t resonate for you, let me know!
Heidi
Oh my goodness! DO NOT be embarrassed at all that it hurts so much!!! It’s the beauty of your heart. For people who deeply invest, it also means that they deeply hurt as well. The hurt just shows your strength to open up and connect. The hurt just shows the value of him and what he meant to you. You loved him and you built your entire future around him, so the hurt is FAR beyond just the loss of him, it’s also about the loss of your future. You thought you were done and had finally “figured it out and done it right this time.” And that didn’t turn out to be the case and it crushes the heart. So again, be kind and gentle and compassionate with yourself. Just like if your kid came home crying and really hurt from an event at school, you wouldn’t shame them and tell them they should feel embarrassed for crying!! You would hug them. You would comfort them. You would encourage them. You would be gentle with them. YOU DESERVE THE SAME LEVEL OF LOVE!!! This is how self-love and self-esteem is built. It’s moments like these where you learn how to fill yourself up with YOUR love instead of doing what you are used to doing and outsourcing that love from a man. Does this make sense??
I can see a man being scared that jumping into a relationship could bring similar emotional pain or challenges and pressure and stress. Yes, you are 100% correct in this. Being that he is still dealing with some unresolved feelings, it means he is NOT 100% emotionally available for you in the way that you want. By stepping into a relationship with a guy that has not let go of his last love, means you are choosing to be with a guy whose heart is NOT 100% yours. You will be sharing him with her. Is that what you want?
I just want an opportunity to show how it would be with me , I need a chance. Yes, it would be different with you, but he will have problems with you as well. Just because you are a different experience doesn’t mean that you are a better experience for him. You guys have only known each other for a handful of months and it’s NOT enough time to actually know how well you guys move through life together. That takes a lot more time than 5 months.
Because I agree with everyone you’ve said and I’ve told it to myself but isn’t the best things worth fighting for and is there a way to get what I want. Let’s look at this a little more. You are agreeing with everything I am saying as you have said the same thing to yourself, but then it gets completely disregarded with the 2nd half of your statement by saying “aren’t the best things worth fighting for? They cannot BOTH exist. You cannot say that this guy needs to figure himself out and know that he is not 100% emotionally available for you and then call him the BEST experience that is worth fighting for. You guys were great for a period of time, until you weren’t. He was getting all cozied up with you, spending a TON of time with you, all while still having feelings for another woman. What does that tell you about him? You believe that is the BEST thing worth fighting for? Who knows how real it was for him. He easily could have met you, really liked you and decided to throw himself full on into a relationship with you, not because he was available for you, but because he was running from his feelings for her. It would be a way of “forcing” himself to get over his ex by being with you. It could have been a passive aggressive way of him showing her that he has moved on, knowing it might hurt her. I’m not saying any of this IS what happened. I’m just saying that the one thing you DO know, is that he had feelings for her still, all the while building a relationship with you. He KNEW he wasn’t 100% invested in you. He KNEW that his heart was not 100% yours, but didn’t say anything about it until you brought up the conversation. Who knows why he chose to do that to you, all you know is that he did and it’s exposing his lack of integrity, no matter how wonderful he is and no matter how wonderful the connection felt for you. So again, would you say that it’s the BEST thing worth fighting for when looking at it from this perspective?
I mean the course literally advertised itself as helping you to get someone back , why would the advice now be to continue this logic of he’s not chasing me so bye … Yes, I know this is how the course is advertised. What we do here in the forum though, is to help bring deeper truths to a situation and try to help a person best navigate whatever is happening…even if that means saying goodbye and NOT getting what they want. When it comes to love Laura, what you want may not actually be the best thing for you. If you were a parent and your kid was screaming at you saying “I want more cookies” would you give it to them, knowing that more cookies meant an upset stomach and a little kid bounding off the walls because of the excess sugar running in their system? I’m here making an attempt at helping you stay connected to a deeper truth of your situation.
The truth is, even if you did get him back, it DOESN’T change that he has unresolved feelings for his ex. It DOESN’T change that he mislead you. If he did that now, it means he will do it again. He wasn’t honest and authentic with you and wasn’t living in his integrity…and he will do it again and again and again until he really looks at himself and the baggage he is carrying around, that is causing him to hide himself. It’s a deeper issue going on inside of HIM, that is far beyond him having feelings for his ex. Whatever that deeper issue is that’s caused him to break his integrity, it’s an issue that you will be inviting into your life. We all have issues and baggage, of course. It’s less about the issue itself and more about what a person does with it. What makes any issue workable in a relationship, is the person owning it, learning about it, and taking ACTION to heal the hurt that is causing the issue in the first place. So while he was not honest with you and mislead you, yes he needs to figure out how he feels before entering back into your life, but MORESO – he needs to really own his lack of integrity and understand what was happening inside of him that he chose to show up that way in the first place. And then work on it so he doesn’t do that again. THAT is what it means to truly build trust in a relationship.
So all I am trying to do here, is help you connect to more than just helping you “get what you want.” As an expert, I’m seeing the huge potential for a train wreck down the road. I’m trying to warn you about what you are stepping into instead of giving you what you THINK you want. I know that what you want is to feel how it was BEFORE that conversation. It’s sooooo so powerful and beautiful and I sure don’t blame you for wanting that back. You thought you were building a future with a guy who was 100% available to you, but that just was not the case and still is not the case. He is NOT who you built him up in your mind to be. But again, if that’s what you want to fight for, I get it. I’ve done it MANY times, however when I chose to fight for a guy, I did it in an honest way with myself. I KNEW and completely owned the fact that I was fighting for a guy that not available for me in the way I wanted and I KNEW I was going to get hurt again…and I always did. But I owned my choices and made sure I was not operating under any kind of fantasy that the guy was different than who he really was.
Thoughts on all of this?
Since you are here and you want what you want, I would still recommend giving him space for a few more weeks. What he NEEDS to feel most, is the absence of you. Absence can make the heart grow fonder, right? If he is really going to know and feel the value you offer in his life, he needs to know what it means to have you completely disconnect from him, so he has complete clarity of what you mean to him. Then in a few weeks, I would recommend re-inviting him back into connection with you, by asking for his help with something. This is the 12 word text thing. You will re-connect with him by asking him for advice or asking for his help with something he knows how to do. Whatever you ask for help with, it needs to be something he is good at. If he LOVES fixing things, ask for his help to fix something broken at your place. If he is a foodie, ask for his advice about the best restaurant to take a friend to. If he is masterful at technology, ask for his help with your computer or how to use something technology related. The point is, you are activating his “hero” where he gets to come help make your life easier and then you appreciate him for it and really help him feel like he did a SUPER wonderful thing for you. This typically will open up a guy and make him want to connect more. However, I will tell you that there are plenty of guys out there that don’t respond to this, because they don’t WANT to be the girl’s hero and they don’t WANT to interact. I’m guessing this won’t be your guy, but it’s still a potential outcome and I really like to make that clear so there are no expectations that this method works every single time.
How does this approach feel to you?
Heidi
That’s strange. I’m not sure what website I sent you that has that book on it. Either way, I’m glad it’s working for you! That’s all that matters!
I don’t know what to do. Of course you know what to do. It’s very clear. You just don’t want to do it and that’s where the “confusion” comes in. Your feelings are sooooo strong and you are used to letting your feelings guide you through life. It’s what most people do actually, hence the 52% divorce rate. Like I said, what you are feeling are NOT the facts. Like I said, the love you experienced with him had a very short shelf life and you call that love, but it’s not love. It’s connection, but it’s not REAL love. That’s why time will always expose the truth about the level of “love” a person is actually offering. And ESPECIALLY because it’s your first experience of being connected to in that way, it makes it even that more powerful for you. But again, it’s a dysfunctional design, even with this powerful connection you guys had in the beginning. Like YOU said…you knew it was too fast. You threw yourself into it and lost who you were. He led you into a connection and future that he had no capability of following through on. It’s not a sustainable design, no matter how good it felt.
You, as a parent, understand what it means to protect your kids from themselves, right? Let’s use sugar as an example. You make a batch of cookies and you allow your kids to have 2 and that’s it. They finish their 2 cookies and ask for more. You say no. Why? Because you want to protect them from a belly ache and you don’t want to overload their system with sugar, right? But if it were up to the kid, they would eat as many as they possibly could, because they taste soooooo good! They WANT what they WANT and they don’t care or really connect to the consequences of how 10 cookies will make them feel. But you, as the parent, deal with their tantrums and hold firm, because you are protecting them from themselves. You understand this, right? You are not different right now. You have a little girl inside of you wanting that love back soooooo badly. It felt amazing and you don’t want it to stop. I’m here telling you, there are consequences you are going to face, by stepping back in. It’s going to hurt. No matter how much I educate you about why and what’s happening, it doesn’t matter to your little girl, because all she knows is that it hurts not to have it and she wants what she wants NOW. You are NOT parenting her Cindi. You, as the adult, are letting her run the show. It would be the same as if you let your kids have as many cookies as they wanted, without limits. You are letting the little girl part of you, throw a tantrum and as the adult you are saying, “Okay okay. I get it. I want you to have everything you want and I will let you decide what’s best” all while KNOWING as the parent, that what she wants is actually going to harm her. Like I have said many times, you are wanting HIM to fix you, instead of doing it yourself. You are not willing to do the work. So in essence, you are no different than him, right? You are so hurt and angry about his choices to disconnect from you. He is NOT willing to do the work to face his fears and because of that, it hurts you. Well…you should understand his choice, because you are not willing to face the fire either. You want to keep holding onto your fantasy about who you think he is and the love that he offered you. You are not willing to face your fears, or deal with your insecurities. You are not willing to make a different choice. You have a history of always choosing unavailable men and here you are, making that same exact choice – this time KNOWING that you are doing it. You want to be mad at HIM, but you are doing the same exact thing as he is. So if anything, you should completely understand why he is choosing to run. His fear and his feelings are sooooo big and he has not control over them….just like you, except your fears and feelings are different. So watching yourself struggle the way you are, should help you understand his struggle as well, right? Why get mad at him? You get how powerful fears are. You get how powerful feelings are, even if what you feel is not accurate. He is an exact mirror to you. He is running and so are you. He is running from himself and running from you, and you are running from yourself and running to him. Either way, it’s the same exact thing and the same exact result…a dysfunctional, harmful, sabotaging pattern. You want this powerful, intimate, deep, amazing love – but to have something like that means you have to love and treat yourself like that FIRST, before you can receive it from someone else. So right now, you are choosing to love the connection and this idea of “love” that you guys HAD, more than loving and caring and protecting yourself. I sure don’t blame you for wanting that Cindi. It’s very common and what most people would choose. It takes and INCREDIBLE amount of strength to make a new kind of choice that you have never done before. You have a lot of baggage and that makes letting go of this wonderful connection you guys had, near impossible. It can be done, but by no means is it easy. So I wouldn’t fault you for holding on for dear life. Hopefully, you will keep learning and maybe someday, you will be ready to go about it in a different way.
I’m always putting too much faith in people. It’s a blessing and a curse. Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses…ALWAYS. You have a gift Cindi. Seeing the best in someone and knowing the beautiful light that lives within them, is special. And as you already know, it definitely gets you into trouble as well. It will cause you to hold onto to someone way past the expiration date. It’s you staying connected to their “potential” vs. who they actually are in reality. All of us need to really be careful with our gifts. For me, I’m a gifted teacher and communicator and I have a super high emotional intelligence. I have the ability to see and understand people in a second. AND…the shadow side to that, is I teach waaaaaaay too much sometimes, I will over teach, meaning I will bombard someone with information far beyond what they are ready for, I will see things about someone that they are not ready to have seen, and it absolutely has ruined relationships. I can be way too much for some people. So over the years, and even working in the forum, I’ve had to develop the skillset of meeting someone where they are at, instead of showing them 100 steps down the road. So…knowing you attach easily and always see the best in people, start working on seeing the worst in them too and make THAT matter just as much as seeing the good. It’s important. It allows you to see ALL of the person, BOTH the light and the dark, and so when you decide to interact with someone or invite them into your life, you are doing so by seeing the fullness that they offer, not just the good in them.
Thoughts?
Heidi
I understand you are struggling to let go. I’ve been there a million times. You absolutely get to hold on for dear life. You get to send those texts and you get to keep trying. I can’t tell you how many times I did that same exact thing. I KNEW that what I was fighting for, was limited and was going to hurt me again and again and again as long as I kept engaging.
Here is what is important to understand about your choice Cindi. It means you have a high pain tolerance. It means, that you are willing to negotiate away standards as to how you require someone to treat you. It means that you are actually MORE in relationship with pain and chasing an emotionally unavailable man, than you are fighting for peace, respect, clarity, and love towards yourself. People who have a high pain tolerance means that are willing to suffer and go through pain, at the expense of themselves. Remember when you said this? I want to make sure I never let this happen to me again. I don’t like the way this feels, at all. Well, fighting for him and not letting go IS you letting this happen to you again. You may get him back and the romance may return, but I guarantee you…you will end up right back where you are now…begging him to open up and talk to you, begging him to stay connected and work through things with you. So if you want to go through a couple more rounds of this, you absolutely get to do that. The core truth here is, you are not in enough pain to make a different decision.
Here is an analogy I like to use. Imagine I gave you a recipe for an award winning cake. I gave the EXACT instructions, the highest quality ingredients AND….I gave you one cup of shit that you HAD to put into the recipe. The recipe itself is incredible, but adding in 1 cup of shit changes everything. No matter what you do, no matter how beautiful that cake will look, it won’t change that there is 1 cup of shit in it and it ruins the recipe. So here you are, wanting to make this beautiful cake. You want it to taste amazing and look beautiful and it was all of that to start. But then challenge showed up and now 1 cup of shit is is being added to your recipe and there is no way around that. So…you can stay in the kitchen and keep researching, keep trying to add different ingredients and what not and do everything you can to make your cake taste amazing. When in reality, the healthy thing to do and the loving thing to do for yourself, is to get yourself out of the kitchen and stop trying to make your cake.
I do understand though, that you are not ready for that. And that’s okay. I have done it a million times and 100% always ended up right back where I started….in pain and dealing with a breakup. It was never a surprise to me though. I knew full well what I was stepping into. Every single time, I eventually got to the point where the level of pain was great enough for me to face truly disconnecting. And maybe that’s what you need to go through. Maybe you need to go through more rejection. Maybe you need to go another round with him to finally be convinced that he is not available.
On the other hand, if you are interested in becoming more healthy, it means LOWERING your pain tolerance. Now, I have soooooo much peace and ease in my life, that the moment someone dishes out their limitations and they are blaming me or are not willing to work through it, I immediately cut ties. I have such a lot tolerance now for having any kind of relationship that is not high functioning, respectful, and honoring of me and themselves. BUT…it took a lot for me to get here. It took MANY, MANY times of me fighting for a guy I knew was not healthy or available for me, to finally get me to a place where I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I took a lot of work to really deal with my wounds and the pain I was carrying around, that was leading me into the those unhealthy connections.
So I understand why you want to keep fighting. You are the only one who truly knows when you are done. I can tell you that you are heading for train wreck again, but it may be a year from now, or it may be a few months away. Who knows, but YOU are the one that has to go through it and learn from it, for it to be a valuable lesson. I imagine that once his life calms down more and he has more capacity, he will most likely reach out to you again and you will get to have your chance again.
Until then, I STILL suggest that you keep facing your fears. Keep learning, keep asking me questions, and stay open to other possibilities.
I actually don’t know that book you mentioned. Do you like it? Is it helpful?
Heidi
And Cindi, if a month goes by and he still hasn’t done it, then let go of the key and earrings and just change your locks. There is no need to continue asking him for those things. If he doesn’t return those items to you sooner than later, then it’s just ANOTHER confirmation of the lack of care he is capable of. It’s ONE MORE REASON to validate why he is NOT a good match for you.
You are going to get through this! The pain will begin to subside and you will find your new normal again. Remember to be gentle and compassionate with yourself. Remember to fill the holes that he left with YOUR love, by getting back to all your practices that filled you up. Get out in nature, get into your body, fill your mind with powerful truths, keep working on your feelings of rejection. You can do this! He is NOT your end all be all Cindi. Nobody holds that spot EVER except for you.
Heidi
