Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I sent him this:
Yknow what? Its ok.
You hold onto that key. I hope that every time you look at it, that you remember every good moment we had, and I hope it brings you a smile. And if you ever get tired of looking at it, just drop it in the mail, and send it home. And if, after a while, you don’t? Call me and maybe we’ll have a cup of coffee if we can find the time. It was never about the key.
The choice is yours. I’ll be ok either way.
He said: wow ok. It’ll be on your porch when you get home tomorrow.
I said: understood. Thank you.
At least it’s over. Yes. I cried.
I actually can’t change my locks because I live in an apartment complex and I’m pretty sure it’s expensive to do. I wish I would’ve asked you before I sent that because now I regret it. Oh well.
I just need this to be over so I can move on with my life, and let him and all of the plans we had for the future go.
I had a therapy session this morning and I cried the whole time. She did help me come up with a response for him,”you holding onto my key feels you’re trying to keep the door open, so unless that’s what you’re trying to do – I really need it for closure.”
He said it was in his truck and he just needed to find a second to drop it off.
I don’t know why I keep holding onto hope. I know I’m torturing myself and I’m trying so so hard not to. I am reading and exercising, therapy, my sauna blanket, etc. it’s all just so hard.
I hate that I wanted it to work out so badly. I wish I could take that feeling away.
I finally heard from him yesterday. I said I needed it back, and I didn’t care how, that it was giving me a considerable amount of anxiety not knowing when he would return them, and to please let me know one way or the other.
He finally responded and said he’d bring them by sometime this week, and I said that was fine, just not when the girls are home, because I don’t want him to see them and feel more confused.
He said ok. But of course still didn’t tell me when. Fun stuff.
It’s hard to let the idea of this hero we created in our minds. Every time k try to convince myself that he’s not coming back, my brain fights me on it, and that’s typically when I break down. It’s hard to let go of the idea that I found someone who’s willing to do this thing with me, even though it’s complicated, and hard. That someone who loved and talked to me that way is cold and gone.
The girls are processing through it, too. We’re going to try tapping together this afternoon. I also made an appointment for therapy Wednesday and asked my eldest if she’d like me to make one for her, too.
We’re trying to move through this as best we can.
I’m just trying to move through the pain and let it out when I can. Journaling, reading, talking about it, exercising. It’s helping, but it comes in waves.
I know we’ll get past this, it’s just hard right now. Thank you
How do I stop analyzing it? How do I stop feeling devastated that no amount of closure was important to him?
This is a new kind of pain for me. I still feel so confused by it.
I would never treat or leave someone this way, no matter how badly I wanted to let them go. It’s just not how I operate and it’s difficult for me to grasp.
I mostly just miss his company. I miss the way he wanted to be by my side, and the way he checked in on me and told me what he was up to and asked how I was doing all the time. I’m not sure I’d ever had that kind of attention or companionship before, which made it hard to resist, because he was just so available and attentive, and interested.
I don’t think it’s even that anymore. Now it just feels like it was all lies and I was just naive and vulnerable enough to fall for them. I almost wonder if that’s why he aimed for me in the first place.
I read a quote by CS Lewis today that said,”Education without values, useful as it is, seems to make a man a more clever devil.” And I thought it was perfect.
I was attracted to his experience and his past. I was attracted to the books he’d said he read and the progress he said he’d made.
But now I just feel like he did and shared all of that so he can believe the story that he tells himself (and others) that he is the hero, and that he has fully recovered from his life of pain, and is now an absolutely well adjusted adult.
He sold it so well. The authors he’d read. The values he shared. All of it.
But as time went on they all seemed to crumble at his feet, one value at a time. With nothing left but a shell of the man he’d presented me, and not a care in the world that it had become meaningless, and most of all – false.
I had to volunteer at church this morning. It was excruciating. His sister was there.. his cousin (one of the pastors) was there. I cried on and off all through church. I tried so hard not to.
I know this will get easier. I think this weekend was the hardest because he didn’t want to meet, and because it’s the first weekend I’ve not had my daughters since the breakup. So maybe I was holding it all in until now.
And we always went to church together. He was always right next to me all morning. Handing me his coffee, and holding my hand through the whole service while our daughters played together while the preacher spoke.
It felt so scary this morning. But at least I got through it and I know the next time will be easier.
I was definitely married to a narcissist for 10 years. Always minimizing my feelings. Always filling up the whole room with his feelings and leaving no space for mine. I think what hurts the most is after all the months of us having difficult conversations and working through them – that when it mattered, what it got hard, and it really really mattered, he let me down. And then he blamed me for the disconnect. But I never changed. I stayed committed. I stayed engaged. I continued to try to make space for his feelings and show him that I support him despite the distance – and it didn’t matter.
That hurts. A lot. Especially after thinking I was trusting someone who deserved and earned my trust.
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.
So I started reading the man’s guide to women, and I’m almost halfway through it (I’m a fast reader).
And already I’ve noticed things that went wrong here: when I was emotionally upset and seeking validation and listening – he would immediately try to fix it and defend himself, instead of just hearing me (when conflict began to arise in the relationship). This made me feel unsafe, and as it happened repeatedly, I couldn’t get that sense of safety back, and I couldn’t figure out why. I even remember telling him once a few weeks ago when he wanted to talk about us on the phone that I didn’t feel safe enough to do so. Because I needed to see his body language to know that it was safe to share how I was feeling.
The last “talk” we had right before the breakup, felt like a breakup, for this very reason. I’d told him that night afterward that I need a day to process it because I was having some feelings about it that I needed to work through. The next time I spoke to him, we broke up.
In the conversation, though, he kept listing demands and issues within the relationship. I quietly listened to most of it, but I realize now that I felt threatened and discarded because it was an open dialogue. It felt like a monologue he’d been preparing and desired no input, and didn’t even really need me to be present to hear it.
Help me digest this?
Never did text him back. I typed it out and then never sent it. My guess is he’ll come up with some excuse not to meet anyway, so it won’t matter either way. If the last two weeks have served as a reference of who he is and how he’s going to behave from now on.
Can you recommend those books again?
I’ve been reaching out to friends and they’ve been reaching to me, and that’s been helping. I just have to work through it and come out the other side. I know it’s going to take time, I’m just struggling.
As far as the ex goes – I don’t know. I’m going to try my damndest to reach the point that I know and realize that what is meant to be will be, and stop focusing on what I “wish” would happen, because life doesn’t work that way, no matter how badly we want it to.
I’m hurting. It just hurts. I’m embarrassed that it hurts so much, honestly.
I found it on the website you recommended because I thought you wanted me to read that one. Oops. Well it’s a good book lol
I need to read the other one you recommended also.
I don’t know what to do. I hear you and what you’re saying I’m just struggling to let go, because the way we loved each other was nothing like anything I’ve experienced before. The way he embraced me, my family, my kids… even his daughter was a blessing for my children. I keep thinking he’s going to run across the parking lot and tell me he’s been a fool and that he wants to do whatever it takes to make it better.. because the man I fell in love with would have done that, easily. I’m struggling to give up on him even though he’s given up on me, and on us.
I’m always putting too much faith in people. It’s a blessing and a curse.
