balletomane, I'm so sorry you're hurting and missing him.
That's completely understandable. I was triggered by significant dates, too, and hurt and confused by my replacement's success. And I still have moments where I miss him, although fleeting and rare. But I well remember those days when the ache and loss felt almost overwhelming.
You loved him, and he was an important part of your life. You're still detaching and healing. The good news is that the bad days will pass, and eventually become much less frequent. You're in a better place with yourself already, and will only continue to heal and recover.
The second trigger is that he has now been with my replacement for five and a half months. Our relationship was almost destroyed by this point.
I know that's painful, I'm so sorry.
My exbf has been with my replacement for over a year and a half now. They're engaged, actually probably married by now. The last I heard, a couple of months ago, he told a mutual friend that "things were great" with them. It hurts. It makes me doubt myself sometimes, even beat myself up for not being a good supportive partner for him. But at the same time, I want him to find stability and happiness and love. And I realize that what he does has no effect on who I am or what my worth is.
That is the same truth for you, too. Whether or not his new relationship is long-lasting and/or 'successful,' that doesn't reflect at all on you. You are a beautiful person with worth and importance. You loved him, and you tried.
Both times I felt as you do I think -- according a lot of importance to the apparent staying power of these other women, wondering what they were doing right that I did not, wondering what he valued in them enough to do more work and make more effort than he did with me.
It turns out that those were largely my own "not good enough" tracks playing out in my head. In both cases, the relationships blew up in ugly ways, devastating the women. But until it happened, I insisted with my friends and my therapist that everything must be going great with them. I remember very well the awful shame and hurt and confusion of it seeming that he would show up differently for/with them.
^ This.
I finally looked at her FB page myself. When I did, I recall starting to involuntarily shake and tremble. It went on for quite a while. I ascribe it to opening a door I had had to kept sealed hermetically shut in order to feel at all good about myself and stop making his actions and choices some sort of verdict on my value and worth.
When I looked it was some sort of acknowledgment that his shenanigans with her could matter, could matter to me, say something about my life, about us, about my value. As it happened, what I saw was not hurtful. But the point is, not caring about what was happening with them had been critical to my well-being and to being functional in the interim. My body knew (and knows) that caring what he's doing and with whom is very, very dangerous to me.
patientandclear, thank you for posting this. These are very important points and insightful realizations.
I was the same way. The few times I would succumb to temptation and peek at the very limited 'public' info there was, I had a strong visceral reaction. I realized, like you, that it meant my psyche knew that it was a very dangerous mindset for me to tempt.
I haven't had the urge to peek in a while now. I finally feel like I have truly let go of that mindspace. He is no longer an important part of my life, even on an unconscious level. I will always have love for him, but I no longer struggle with keeping myself from slipping into my old mindset.
Recognizing that it was a dangerous place for me, and digging into why it was so hard for me to get away from it, helped me get here. It took a while. It was hard and painful to go there. And my psyche takes a while to catch up with my brain - even though I logically understood it, I still had to process it in that visceral way. It left me feeling skinned alive, but afterwards I felt cleansed and beautiful.
We all have it within ourselves to feel better and be healthier. It just takes time and work. We heal in our own individual ways, at our own pace. There is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long and dark it seems.
