One thing I realized, this whole time I never actually grieved the end of our relationship. between trying to get back together with her and then my daughter being born and going to court, there was never time to grieve.
It's more difficult to properly grieve the relationship since you never got to experience life without her. The fact that you spent so much time trying to fix things and have regular contact because of your daughter makes it much harder to move on. Your ex has forced you to accept that you are not together in real life, so you've gotten used to that, but inside you've never actually let go and
you don't want to. When I think of her with someone else it bothers me, I keep telling myself that its because I don't want my daughter around someone new yet. But I think its more then that , I feel jealousy, I feel like it should be me with her doing all the relationship things. I think if I was back with her I would be able to see my daughter everyday and give her both mom and dad, All this is a fantasy. I might as well be imagining winning the lottery and how I would spend the money.
So you justify your discomfort with someone else being in your exes life with the well being of you daughter, but really it's because your ideal fantasy of being a family is being shattered by the situation. This guy keeps poking holes in your dream life.
You've never let go of that fantasy. But that's the thing. It's a fantasy. It's comparable to how your ex saw you in the first two months. A fantasy of who she wanted to be with. Then reality started hitting and it turns out the relationship was the same as all the ones before it.
I keep reminding myself of how abusive my ex was and how miserable she made life, I ask myself why I would want to be back in that situation? My stomach always in knots, constantly worried if I would make her mad or do something wrong, walking on eggshells and feeling worthless.
My ex isn't as nasty as she usually is right now, and I see the side that I fell in love with but I know its more then likely her false self and only a front. But I still find myself longing for that fantasy with her.
It's not a front or a false self. It's the positive sides of her. It's her when she isn't dysregulating or unhappy. It's not that you fell in love with someone who doesn't exist but rather you fell in love with the best parts of her. They exist, but they are often overshadowed by the negative, more often than not.
Seeing only her good sides is a
fantasy. That person
doesn't exist. It's wishful thinking. Remind yourself of who she's
not and never will be, all the ways that she was a terrible partner.
You could love someone who has positive qualities and none of the negatives your ex represented. You should start by loving the person in the mirror.
Currently I feel tormented because of these feelings, I think I want to be with my ex when she is in her current mood then I don't when her true self shows up. Its a push pull made within myself not by her.
You have to stop referring to it as true self. This isn't a monster that crawls out of her when you least expect it. It's her defense mechanisms, her coping habits, her dysregulation, the basis of how she deals with life.
It's like buying a car that hasn't been properly fixed and putting it in your garage and washing it and shining it up and doing detailing on it.
You only like it while it's sitting in your garage and you can look at it. If you try to drive it though, it's ridiculously loud because the muffler's broken, there's smoke coming out from under the mask, the gears don't shift properly.
So you put it back in the garage and deem it the perfect car, and go in denial because as long as you don't drive it, it's perfect. You started the journey of grieving your ex. You just got stuck on the denial phase.
