It's gonna be a long night.

[damage control]

It's almost 7pm here and I am locked with my doggie in my room ... I have no resolutions other than to get through this godawful night.

The ex sent some texts a few hours ago to let me know that he will be back tomorrow ... I haven't replied.

I don't want to be dramatic or dismissive by not responding but I just cannot deal with him right now ... I wish more than anything else that I could be just 'gone' to my new place when he got here ... I wish more than anything that he wasn't so detached. I wish more than anything that I didn't want him so terribly much.

I wish that I had never met him.

I wish I wasn't me.

[pecia]

  I am so sorry. My heart truly goes out to you. I know you must feel very vulnerable knowing that he is going to be there. I wish I knew something to say to help you with this.  -pecia

[damage control]

Thank you Pecia.

It is truly going to be a long NYE ... I just have to accept that.

[patientandclear]

Hiya DC.  You're not alone.  I wish you'd never met him, too.  I wish I'd never met the man who brought me here either.

But.  He's done what he's done, he's doing what he's doing (this applies to both of the guys in question).  These are facts.  We therefore have to do other things than we'd expected or hoped.  Eventually, that will be OK, because it will have led to something exquisite that we cannot guess at yet.  I'm not saying a relationship, though, maybe so.  Just ... .something that wouldn't have happened had we remained in thrall of this intense, ultimately sick, bond.

Happy New Year.  Let's make it one.

[damage control]

I would love to believe those words P+C ... but things have yet to be exquisite for me ever ... I just cannot summon the hope to think that this will change simply by moving on from him ... sorry, not trying to be a downer ... just a realist.

I hate the holiday season with a passion and this year has just compounded that ... .how DARE he text me asking if I have 'vanished' after 3 days of silence ... .how DARE he speak to me ... how DARE he exist ...

[patientandclear]

A suggestion: respond asking him what he's been doing for the past three days.  Let's pull all this out into the open.  His innuendo that he is innocent & maybe you have let down the side by straying away from contact is just too mindbending.  Why not call it out & see what you get?  I don't think he'll like it too much, as my ex was super uncomfortable and made it my fault when I told him it was my sense he'd deprioritized us in favor of other people this fall. But what he was doing for the past 5 days is such a simple, direct, immediately relevant question if he's asking you about being silent ... .it might be illuminating what he'd say. Sunlight seems helpful here.

I hear you about blithe assurances that things will get better, that you'll meet someone better, blah blah blah.  I hate it when people say things like that because I know it may very well not be true.  I wasn't meaning better things in a r/s necessarily, though I really hope for that for you. And I just had to come back to edit this to omit some groundless optimism about how something that is good & true will undoubtedly occur in your life, or you'll be able to take advantage of it, because you will not be all captivated and bound up with this man.  I know we can't know.  I know this is just our own brand of wishful thinking.

What I do know is that nothing good WILL happen without you being true to yourself.  He doesn't seem to help with that.

[damage control]

I think P+C that I would love to ask him where HE has beeen ... however, as you yourself have pointed out (correctly) I have managed to take myself to a place whereby what he does (or what I do) in our 'private' time is ... well ... it's private ... I have been thinking about this the last hour or so and realised that this is what the sex thing is all about for me - sex is when he lets through all those emotions that he otherwise hides ... so, by withdrawing that, he has made it so that he and I are  ... well, f&ck knows what we are ...

I don't want to talk to him, I don't want to engage him ... I don't want to risk texting him back only to have him not answer until tomorrow ... I just wish I could be gone tomorrow ... a ghost ... an apparition, a fantasy that is no more ...

[damage control]

9:20pm and the famous Sydney fireworks have begun ... I can hear them but not see them ... .how fitting that is.

[patientandclear]

Wow, I feel so strongly that I have been where you are right now -- I spent a LOT of time there.  My ex and I never ever ever discussed his goings on with other women after we split, nor that I was dating.  I felt we couldn't somehow, that I would lose something if we did or it would just be too painful.

Now I wonder if anything worth having would have been lost.  Yes, it would have put an end to our "understanding."  I don't think we could have so easily carried on with our sense of unspoken "specialness" if I had called this stuff out into the open.  But.  That's because the specialness would not have survived the actual information, because he actually didn't treat me or us like we were all that special.  I didn't want to capsize that boat I guess so I didn't ask.

I don't want to push you at all to ask -- it was just a thought exercise, about why can't you ask?  Why does he get to pretend he didn't just leave, and go silent himself, and undoubtedly spend time with someone else?  That pretending seems like such a violation of you & your trust.

I am shaking my head because he is really an epically effective mind___er! Subtle, and very effective.

[damage control]

P+C

I have no idea if you understand the merit of your words or the symbiosis I feel when you reply ... yes ... the unspoken bond or specialness that isn't really so special after all.

I am not here right now ... I can only think in numbers. 1 plus 1 million and three equals infinity which means that I am not here ... If I am not here then none of this is happening, it's just another night to get through, another wave of emotion to ride. The numbers tell me that things were not real and never will be ... the black is the only thing that I can count on in the end ... .for if I am not real then then he is not real and I have not allowed this to happen yet again. I allowed hope and that is unforgivable ... .hope is the death knell... but I am preaching to the converted aren't I?

[really]

Hi DC.  Two years ago I cried myself to sleep on nye in the UK.  Last

Year I had a pretty awful nye and reached out to my ex with no response.  This nye is still tough but i won't contact her.   This year I am back in my home country (north of the border to you).  I still hate being me - giving a stuff about her and thinking it was once real when it wasn't.  But tomorrow is the start of a new year and one I know will be better than this one and certainly better than the one before.   

[damage control]

Hope your NYE is a better one for your really, I truly do ...