Can't accept it is over..

[Zemmma]

There is a part of me that just can not accept that it is over.

Even with all of these facts:
-he has tried to leave me about 15 times during our six year r/s (starting from the first six months in)
-some of our separations have lasted 6 to 9 months
-each recycle he showed more and more negativity and more detachment... began to keep our r/s separate from certain aspects of his life (esp. family, his kids, mine)
-he has been gone 6 months and only had one 2 week period of contact (wherein he said goodbye and wished me well as though he would never talk to me again, and even said that if we saw each other everything would get worse and we would have to repeat another "horrible cycle")
-when I asked if we could just see each other in person (since he was texting me like a madman for a couple of weeks), he said he had absolutely "no desire to catch up" and said that he would be far worse off for that
-he has since been silent

What is with my denial? It makes me crazy. He squashed my hope. I told him to stop contacting me. "No more." I forbid him to text or email me. He has complied.

What is with my fanciful thinking?

And okay, in my defence...
-he came back every time before so I have been conditioned to think he will come back again
-his refusal to see me: every time he has actually seen me after one of his big discards (usually text), he actually SEES me... And he apologizes and wants me back- I guess this is in the back of my head... that he is basing his decision to leave on this fictitious version of me (no object permanence). So if he could only see me...

But erode, erode... he has said there is no future for us. What am I even hoping for?

I wish I could find something so magical and warm as what I had with him when he was good, but I seriously doubt I ever will. I spoke to a woman on the weekend who was divorced and it took her SIX YEARS to find someone else! Six years! I am 48! I don't have time.

I had really just discovered my true sexuality with this man after a more or less platonic marriage (wasn't in the beginning, but the past 15 years, everything died down). I really don't want to wait six years to get all of that back, if ever! I also thought I had found my person in him. He was over the top perfect in the ways I needed him to be. This sucks.

[Turkish]

I'm 47. I hear you about the time... .My T told me a few years ago,  "she's am independent entity free to make her own choices." So I  left alone as an independent entity free to make me own choices as well.  True,  but not comforting. 

[Getoverit]

Hi Zemmma,

I am going through something similar where I was the one who told him it's over and now that I see that it's really over I'm feeling things I haven't before. It took him a day to get back on dating sites after he had just said that he will never be able to move on, etc.

How does one get to this point where you know it will not work--these based on actual experiences, and yet there is hope that maybe it will. I've thought about this endlessly and I think the answer may be so simple as that one idea: hope. The entire relationship is based on hope from start to finish and is therefore intangible.

I wish I could tell you what to do to let go and move on. I'm trying all sorts of things myself.

In terms of your age and the difficulty in being with someone else, have you considered the fact that you may be better off alone than settling for a relationship and coping with the negative outweighing the positive?

I say this, but trust me when I write I understand how you're feeling.

[Zemmma]

I have no urge to be living without sex, love, companionship and affection. That sounds far too much like the last decade of my marriage (with the man before the BPDex).

I think I’m going to have to start dating again.

I think the only way I can get over this feeling of loss is to find something to replace it. I know it will never be the same but I need something else to focus on.

It is disappointing to date and not find that magic- but it’s a new way to experience hope and it is distracting. I hate online dating but I think I have no choice but to try again- sometime within the next six months.

So so scared I won’t find something as beautiful. We had such a close relationship and intense bond- it still baffles me that he would choose to leave.