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Why does it matter if they still care or not?

To be indifferent or "not to care" is in my language literally translated to "be equally happy". Like being if being asked "what do you prefer a or b?", the indifferent answer would be "I'm equallyhappy (with both solutions)". Same word is used in other contexts like "I don't care about the feelings of that person", would be "I am equallyhappy about how that person feels" - i.e. I am happy, no matter how the person feels. Not to care, means to be happy either way.

Why is this so bad? Why the wish for someone else to be unhappy too, just because we are/were? If two people break up, is it really better that BOTH are unhappy for X months/years. Or is it better, that only ONE person has to suffer for a period of time?

Wishing that the other person cares (is equally UNhappy), is egoistic and comes from emotions of anger and revenge. Do we really need that?

What matters is that they cared DURING the relationship. The relationship is now over and no one, needs to care anymore. Goal is for both persons to be "equallyhappy". So what if one got there faster? Our job is to catch up.

Hope someone can use this rambling, for something purposeful.

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I'm with you on this one. If I looked at the entire relationship, it wasn't always extremes from one end of the pendelum to the other. There where genuine moments with the ex, or what felt like it to me. I take those moments away from the r/s and I don't get hung up if she cared or not, due to this being a disorder. What helped me is reading as much as I could about BPD, by doing that for myself, I learned how it works, it's a disorder and I have empathy for her. I let the anger for her, go. Thanks for sharing GuiltHaunted.

It's only natural to care about someone you loved dearly and the r/s didn't work out.

Having empathy to your former best friend's pain is independent of being happy and moving on.

And if they don't, well it's quite sad.

Sad for us and equallysad for them :-/

But it's theirs and we cannot change it.

So the challenge is to accept that even without being able to rationalize it.

TIL

It's natural to first and foremost care about yourself. We are not very good at doing so, they are excellent in doing so. You wrote "love" in past tense, they don't love us anymore and there is no relationship anymore. They are only doing what is natural, and are extremely good at it due to preconditioning.


What you are describing is rather "sympathy".

Wiki:

"Empathy refers to the understanding and sharing of a specific emotional state with another person. Sympathy does not require the sharing of the same emotional state. Instead, sympathy is a concern for the well-being of another."

They don't share your emotional state, as they already detached. If they indeed do sympathies with your emotional state, they are showing the most compassion, by not engaging with you or showing emotions.

Wiki:

"Compassion is the emotion that we feel in response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help."

As they are the trigger of our suffering, they are not helping by engaging you.

In reality, it is perfectly normal NOT to care, after a breakup. If they had cared, the relationship wouldn't have ended. My ex certainly couldn't have helped me. The only way she could have shown sympathy, empathy and compassion (in that order) would have been by not breaking up with me and finding someone else - clearly something she wasn't willing to do... . She chose to care about herself. Her way of doing so, logically or not, from my point of view nevertheless.


It's sad for both that it didn't work out the way both parties wanted. Indeed the challenge is to accept it... .