I have almost zero leverage in my situation.

[Depression = 72% of members]

I usually post on the leaving board because my partner left me, threatened me with a PPO, and has made no attempt to contact me in about 7 weeks.  In other words, I have almost zero leverage in the situation.

However, we are both members of a social media site where we can RSVP for events posted by local groups.  One of those groups is our shared group of friends.

My ex nearly recycled me about 7 weeks ago, and that's the last anyone has seen him.  As of very recently, he did not have a replacement.  Since then, I've discovered that the only website where we can see each other logs people's visits.  I have been watching his visiting patterns carefully.  

At first he just visited daily.  He checked in to the couple groups that I was most active in, and then a couple others that he was using to try to find new friends.

But in the past two weeks or so, a new pattern has emerged in his visits.  He will suddenly start visiting the site 2-3 times per day, focused on the groups that I'm most active in.  He will literally log in morning, noon, and night.  He does it when he arrives home from work, from appointments, or when he gets up in the morning -- I know his routine well enough to see this.  Then suddenly, he will stop visiting my pages at all, focus on the ones where he hopes to find a replacement (like a local singles group) and disappear for about 2 days.  Then he comes back and slowly works up to the manic checking again.  This pattern has been very predictable for a while now, a little over two weeks.

Personally, I think that something has tripped the switch on his abandonment fears, and he wants to come back but knows that he can't just pretend nothing happened after threatening me with a PPO.  It almost feels like his stalking pattern is indicative of working up the nerve to come back or contact me, triggering himself, seeking a replacement elsewhere, then rinse and repeat.

Has anyone else seen something like this before?  Any interpretations?

[GreenEyedMonster]

I usually post on the leaving board because my partner left me, threatened me with a PPO, and has made no attempt to contact me in about 7 weeks.  In other words, I have almost zero leverage in the situation.

However, we are both members of a social media site where we can RSVP for events posted by local groups.  One of those groups is our shared group of friends.

My ex nearly recycled me about 7 weeks ago, and that's the last anyone has seen him.  As of very recently, he did not have a replacement.  Since then, I've discovered that the only website where we can see each other logs people's visits.  I have been watching his visiting patterns carefully.  

At first he just visited daily.  He checked in to the couple groups that I was most active in, and then a couple others that he was using to try to find new friends.

But in the past two weeks or so, a new pattern has emerged in his visits.  He will suddenly start visiting the site 2-3 times per day, focused on the groups that I'm most active in.  He will literally log in morning, noon, and night.  He does it when he arrives home from work, from appointments, or when he gets up in the morning -- I know his routine well enough to see this.  Then suddenly, he will stop visiting my pages at all, focus on the ones where he hopes to find a replacement (like a local singles group) and disappear for about 2 days.  Then he comes back and slowly works up to the manic checking again.  This pattern has been very predictable for a while now, a little over two weeks.

Personally, I think that something has tripped the switch on his abandonment fears, and he wants to come back but knows that he can't just pretend nothing happened after threatening me with a PPO.  It almost feels like his stalking pattern is indicative of working up the nerve to come back or contact me, triggering himself, seeking a replacement elsewhere, then rinse and repeat.

Has anyone else seen something like this before?  Any interpretations?

[Skip]

Putting the page-visit issue aside for a minute... .

... .why did he end the relationship... .what was deal breaking from him.

Do you want to salvage it?

Seven weeks is a common time period for having second thoughts.

[GreenEyedMonster]

I am not sure about salvaging it.  I miss him terribly, but the relationship was intensely stressful.

My ex had never been in a serious relationship before other than a long-distance internet relationship.  It was his first in-person relationship, at nearly age 40.  Needless to say, he was clueless about how to conduct himself in a lot of situations.  He decided to go on a vacation without me, to a destination I really wanted to visit, and acted like I couldn't come along.  Every time I would bring it up, he obviously felt guilty about going, but would shut down the conversation and make sure I couldn't criticize him.  He was there with close sleeping/bathroom quarters with other single women who had a lot in common with him.  He knew I had abandonment issues and that it was important for him to call me and communicate with me frequently, and . . . he dropped the ball.  I got angry at him, and that was it.  He turned off his phone on me.

He developed a strange delusion that I was stalking him after the breakup.  He then reunited with me six weeks later, was very flirtatious and a little clingy, and acted quite sheepish about his earlier delusional behavior.  Then a week later painted me black again and again began accusing me of stalking him.  This is when he threatened me with a PPO.

It seems like the worse he treats me, the blacker I become, and this time it's almost impossible for him to crawl back because he will have to own up to what he did.  But his life is pretty bleak.  Minimal socializing, his band broke up, he's alienated from our whole group of friends, and he hasn't found a replacement despite some clear attempts in that direction.  It wouldn't surprise me if he is wondering what, if anything, he can salvage.

[Skip]

He developed a strange delusion that I was stalking him after the breakup.

I am not sure about salvaging it.  I miss him terribly, but the relationship was intensely stressful.

Maybe you are both at an impasse (too good to leave, too bad to stay) wondering if the other will back down and you can go another round?

Problem with this, you (and he) need to change if the relationship is not going to repeat the same pattern and you both are solidly entrenched in your positions.

As for the his cyber activity, he may be doing the same thing you are... .

Well I won't back down, no I won't back down

You could stand me up at the gates of hell

But I won't back down

Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around

                       ~ Tom Petty

[GreenEyedMonster]

My hands are bound because I don't particularly want to go to court against him.

I can only make an educated guess about his situation, but judging from what I know about him and his previous behavior, I am guessing he is at an impasse.

My ex was certainly capable, in select moments, of reflecting on things he did and feeling bad for them, but only within certain limits.  After a round of anxiety, he becomes lucid again about what he's done, and feels bad about it.  He turns to rationalization then.  He creates a narrative of why he "had" to do what he did, he had no other choice, and nothing that happened was really his fault or avoidable or anything like that.  He did this with his previous ex despite the fact that his strong feelings for her were just below the surface.  His rationalizations are very fragile; when he would explain them to me, I could read his anxiety that I might disagree and challenge them.  I think that he knew them to be untrue and made a conscious effort to choose to believe them anyway.

With me, though, that narrative is more difficult to build, in part because I don't give him much negative material to work with.  He is trapped between two choices -- building a narrative about me as a devil-woman, whom he had to escape, didn't have any choice, and none of it was his fault, OR repenting and trying to get me back.  I feel like his cyberstalking pattern reflects his catch-22 decision between losing me and eating crow, neither of which he really wants to do.  The last time he came back, he could almost pretend like nothing happened, but I think he knows that the PPO threat is serious enough that I will hold him accountable for it somehow.

He's telling himself that he doesn't want me at all, and that's not sticking.

He might sometimes tell himself that he's going to grow a spine and apologize, but that doesn't really stick either.

That's my personal theory of what's happening.  Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do to tip him in one direction or the other.  I've been trying to disappear in the hopes that this will create some sense of urgency on his part, and it might be working, but how well, I don't know.