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I contacted her once in the past two weeks, saying all the usual. I miss you, I love you, if you want to try our love again reach out to me... .For some reason as I "think" I have gained strength and just want to connect as a friend to see how she is (without specific info on what shes doing). it hasn't been that long, and I am still gathering strength for myself, WHAT GOOD WOULD IT DO ANYWAY? she knows where to find me and if she wanted to call me she would right? Even though I did say please don't text me unless you want to try our love again, and she has "respected" that so far.

You already answered the question for yourself :) She knows where to find you. I had many people remind me of this, and I didn't wanna listen. If she really cared, as mine did, then they would have reached out to us. All it will do is hurt us. I can only speak for myself, but a friendship with my ex would have still been take, take, take on her part. I don't know about yours. But that's not a good friendship for me.

Can I ask? What would you want to text her? Would you mind sharing it here first before you decide to send her anything?

Also, she might be "respecting" your words. Or she is so out of tune with her own emotions that it's safer for her to be away from you. Remember, they can turn those feelings on and off like a light switch. The light switch might be off right now.

i wouldnt be so sure as to the reasons why she hasnt, but focus on why you havent (which is?). and, as you say, you asked her not to reach out.

you might find that the feeling passes soon. its usually best to "sleep on it" so to speak, with these urges, then wait and see how you feel.

thanks!

yeah just something like I still think of you and hope we can be friends... .blah blah sort of thing. ill hold off until I am stronger... .thank you

You might be surprised that when you are stronger you might not even want to reach out. Time really does heal all wounds. I know it first hand, and I know that in time this wound will heal. But, for me, any contact will re open that wound. I can see if you sent that to her you would get silence, or, even if you got some type of validation it would probably not lead to anything impactful, and probably some push/pull. It really sucks. I know what you are going through.

You don't have to take my advice. But if I had stayed away once I was discarded 6 months ago who knows where I would be in my life. Don't postpone the inevitable growing and healing pains you will have to go through. But again, maybe you want a reconnection. And that's not for me to judge, or tell you not to. Stay strong. keep sharing here when the emotions come up. It's what is helping me stay NC.

Thanks Roberto... .I still want to call her, but I plan to call her around June 21st or around then. I believe she was on her way out of the relationship anyway, but we left it amicable. I will focus my mind spirit and body as much as I can on goodness so that I will be prepared for the rest of my life without who I thought I would live with until I passed. Obviously I need to like myself as much as I did her, it's just hard. I appreciate you responding because I get dignity and a sense of self every time I hold off. I just miss the friendship, companion and beauty. However she doesn't , so what choice do I have except be a class act in the matter. I understand how people can stalk now, before this I didn't get it... .I haven't looked for her because I DO NOT want to know what she is doing, that way I can think that this was the 2nd best scenario for us. The first being we live happily ever after, the second is that we remain friends and friendly to each other so that the time we spent together remains a good part of my life, not a waste. I accept the situation just "crave" for her at times... .thanks again you gave me the strength to hold off for now... .I'll always remember it.

I held off, "slept on it" and I'm glad I didn't. I will continue to gather strength, and cross this bridge in about 3weeks... .see what's going on then maybe. Until then I will continue to "unlearn what I have learned" (Yoda) and look forward to falling in love with myself again  I missed me as I will be with myself always and forever no matter what. I wonder if she says this to my replacement... .always and forever no matter what, that was our saying and it would be funny to me if she could say this with someone else. Anyway going for my run, wish me luck. Peace

Been 3 weeks no contact and ever since I came back from a weeks vacation all I have been thnking about is her. I seriously can't get this woman out of my head to the point where I look at my phone and get the urge to text her. As others have said though, we would most likely only get silence... .which would cxontinue the pain. I really wish she would reach out, even if just to say a simple Hi, as it would validate that I meant something for her. We gotta push through. woke up at 5am this morning and for 3 hrs I was nonstop thinking of her and what she has been up to, who she might be with... .very unhealthy, but trying to move forward.

Yep this pretty much everything I'm going through. And to be perfectly honest it'm getting so tired of feeling this way - my whole spirit and mind has become so stagnant as all I do is think of her and try not to notice that my phone isn't pinging.

All I want to do is to hear from her or contact her or have some sort of contact no matter how small to know there's some sort of communication between the two of us. Then the pain of no contact would subside a little. And then it would come back over the next couple of days as I get blanked again.

Truth be told there's no amount of contact that would ever satiate my desire to be with her or be around her other than to actually be with her forever - and that simply isn't going to happen, nor would I let it happen given the chance.

I have no doubt that I meant something to my ex. I met her when she was 17, I didn't do anything physical with her until she was 18 however. We lived together for 7 years, and lots of ups and downs, but I'm sure she still remembers some of this from time to time. I am beginning to get used to the idea of her being in another relationship. When I KNOW I am strong enough I will try to reach out to her and send her some love, with no expectations with what she will do. I am figuring out my co dependency and sketching my soul back in my mind, as it has slowly been erased for the past 7 years. I don't begrudge my ex, it was my choice to get involved and I am very thankful for the good memories with her, and am learning from the not so good. Good luck all in sketching your own spirits back, I know you can do it with endeavor and diligence!

I can relate. I even recall yesterday night telling myself "God I'm so tired of this." I feel like with my last BPD ex over 5 years ago that I woke up one day and just felt better. I have a feeling our brains are going to do the boy who cried wolf eventually and finally have enough. I can already feel it a little. Because i have no desire to contact her. Just the missing what we had, bouts of loneliness. I'm also probably making it worse because i don't want to numb the feelings. I don't want to just occupy myself until the thoughts go away. I don't see that as healing for me. So I will keep trudging ahead. I'll share here as often and as frequently as I need to, and I will look back and see that I saw a pool of crap, and I dove in, and swam across instead of walking around it.

My therapist told me to mourn the loss for at least 2 seasons, roughly 6 months... .so I am going to focus on my self at least until the winter and not get involved in a relationship with anyone but myself... .by then I will be able to make clear decisions on what I want and hopefully go after it. I need to feel the loneliness (in a healthy way) but also get out of my box. I have been going to al anon meetings and recommend if you are just sitting around feeling depressed, try to check these out as they can help get me unstuck... .Roberto it seems we are kind of in the same timeline of things, I'm glad you are sharing with me and we can walk our paths simultaneously... .keep posting it helps me a lot, and the pool of poop comment even made me smile... .sink or swim guys, I'm gonna keep swimming til I hit still waters!

Guy Smiley and Emotions,

I applaud you both for being open about your conflicted feelings.  Our emotions tend to shift based on many outside factors, and I urge you to ponder what in your lives at this moment could be triggering these emotions to surface (or are they always there?).

It is natural to experience both withdrawals and grief, and it is possible that the grief over this relationship will never completely leave.  That being said, there is obviously grief to consider in terms of how the relationship has damaged YOUR life, and this, with careful steps, can be managed and you can overcome it.  You can also move on.  I promise.  

These six thoughts come to mind:
*Observe where your triggers may be coming from and be kind to yourself by honoring your feelings and talking about them, just as you are doing now.  This is important because your feelings were likely put on a back burner in most of your relationship and you need to unlearn that tendency.  
*Most of the time you reach out to your BPSO or EX-SO, you are enabling them to believe they are okay the way they are and do not need to change.  This will make it much harder for them to ever achieve emotional maturity or heave healthy relationships. It also hurts your cause if you have any interest in having a relationship with them other than as an acquaintance (if that is even possible).
*Make a little note tab in your phone about what you want in life (healthy goals) other than this relationship.  List the things you want to do and the kind of support system you need to accomplish these things.
*Find, stalk, and study a role model couple to serve as inspiration towards achieving healthy relationship dynamics.  Note how this couple is both similar and different from what you had with your ex.  
*Now that you know what you want and don't want, don't feed into your old fantasy and feelings of nostalgia towards your ex.  Remember: the past cannot love you like the present. So feed your present!
*Pray :)

--calledandchosen
  

 
this is an excellent point. quite often, our urges to make contact are a resistance to feelings of grief settling in, which is part of the Bargaining stage of grieving.

if you sit with these feelings and observe them, there is usually something uncomfortable that we are avoiding.

usually, these feelings, like most feelings, will pass.

The only feelings I do feel are ones of grief and massive loss. But they're always there. Sometimes they're stronger, sometimes less so, but it's always grief. Grieving that I'll never have the life I wanted with her and grieving that someone else is having it.

And I know I'm personally not a failure because of this, but I do and always have the feeling that I just will not ever have that feeling of contentment that I want. And no amount of therapy or counselling etc is going to make that go away - it may help me deal with it and try to make sense of it, but I know I will never ever not feel empty because she's not with me.

And because of that everything else seems so pointless. There's literally nothing that can mask these feelings. The highs were too high. And I don't want to hear that it wasn't heathy, I know that. But the highs were too high to pretend that thats not what I want in life.

Essentially, I'm f*cked.

I should know better. But a part of me still thinks this way. I'm slowly coming out of the FOG. But as someone who feels like you do a lot we should both take my past BPD relationship into account. That was over 5 years ago. I loved her so much. She was perfect for me. We shared everything. She understood me, supported me, etc. etc. etc. And before I allowed myself to fall for this recent one I was content a few months after the breakup. More content than I ever was in my life. I didn't want to be with anyone, and I loved it. I could do my own things, hobbies, and overall have complete control of my life. And she didn't even enter into my thoughts anymore (even though she did the classic find her replacement before leaving me).

It will get better for both of us. It has to. But I understand. I truly think I believe relationship are supposed to be like the 2 I experienced. I guess it's the addict part of my personality  :) . So I get it. I love the initial highs and when my brain gets something it likes it can be pretty darn stubborn in having to accept that I won't get it anymore.

My friend gave me some sage wisdom which I shall pass onto you. "How can you cope with the idea of never being treated like crap by her again?" When I read that it kinda jolted me back into reality.

Grieving is natural. Don't deprive yourself of that. Today you can't imagine life without her. I have thought that today too. Who knows tomorrow though? Who knows in 1 hour?

Hang in there my friend. As you said, let's walk this path together  

I feel your pain.  I am grieving those highs too--which seem to be irreplaceable at this moment.  I appreciate your self-awareness and loyalty to your ex-SO.  Honestly, when I read your post I thought you were my ex because he sounds exactly like you and would write exactly what you wrote.  Recently I've begun to think about how to find these highs again without getting back together with my ex.  I think the relationship dynamics were so good and so high because of the sensitive way we responded to each other and the sort of die-hard loyal feelings we had towards each other. I'm hoping to have enough courage to try this dynamic with someone a lot healthier than my ex and see where it leads. 

Once Removed,
Can you give us an example of something uncomfortable I might be avoiding?
Could one example possibly be experiencing being alone/loneliness/solitude/independence?
And then unpacking this: what makes us afraid to be alone?  When in the past have we experienced loneliness?
This sort of thing?

--calledandchosen

any of the above can apply, i think; the reasons may be unique to each us. in my case there was no urge to contact once she was in a relationship, but the urge i felt beforehand could be described as fear, an overwhelming feeling of a "need" to act, confusion, helplessness, powerlessness. it was hard for me to sit with those feelings.

we do this in other ways. frankly, a lot of the time we declare "NC", its to restore an illusion of power.

from one of my favorite articles on the subject:

If you really don't want to "disconnect", if you're hurt and timid and it's not a high priority get healthy, you will find many reasons not to do the obvious. Or, even more common, if you are still holding out some hope, or are strugglng with uncertainty, you will likely fear the permanence of such action and purposely select something ineffective and secretly hope that it fails.

Let's call all of this, "dubious intent."

https://bpdfamily.com/content/no-contact-right-way-wrong-way

There are a couple of really intense times in my life when I can remember feeling SO afraid of being alone / single.

The first time was right before I met my uBPDw - I was in my 20s - I was absolutely sure I was going to be alone the rest of my life. It felt like it would never end. In retrospect, this feeling of dread and loneliness was a key factor in why I ignored early warning signs that the relationship I was entering wasn't right for me. I distinctly remembering "well, at least I'm not alone."

Then, several years later, she left the marriage. I went heads-down into ALL of the online dating sites at the time. Nothing happening. I was, again, desperately lonely, scared, frightened. So I went through Herculean efforts to reestablish contact with my pwBPD, and when her new relationship fizzled, I was there to step right back in. So now, in addition to the early warning signs, I now had even MORE to tell me this wasn't the relationship I really wanted for my life.

The loneliness completely clouded my judgement, I ignored everything I felt, saw, and experienced in an effort to avoid being alone.


Emotions - this is a GREAT perspective. Do NOT underestimate the power of this advice, and I would highly recommend you listen carefully to what this therapist has to say. I think it's great advice for EVERYONE here to (1) think about how long you need to work through the process of detaching, then (2) multiply it by at least 10   :)

Thank you for the encouragement! I will listen to him and to you  peace daddy bear