Eight months out - thoughts

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

 

I was a regular contributor to this board over the first months that my ex and I broke up. It was a messy, terrible breakup - sinister, confusing and out of the blue. It took me months to finally get my thoughts in order - in fact, it's only really this month that I can say I'm starting to feel okay again. I thought I was going insane, honestly. Imagine, one minute you're in love, you really believe that your partner is madly in love with you, too, and out of nowhere you break up and the reasons he gives make zero sense (and are incredibly hurtful to boot). We were planning a life together, and yet he was engaged to someone else within less than two months of us breaking up.

I've finally made peace with the fact that I'll probably never know 100 per cent what the real reasons were, but I do now see that it's definitely an interaction between cultural pressures (his family clearly didn't want me to marry him, which is evidenced in things that were said and the fact I didn't hear a word out of any of them after we broke up - not really the way you treat someone who you claimed to like and you thought would be part of your family some day) and the BPD traits he has. They all threw a load of smoke and mirrors at me, in order to keep me away, which is awful - until last year I never knew the extent people will go to to get their own way. He, lacking in the emotional maturity he needed to stand up for me, ran the other way. And he did me a favour - I realise now that I need to be with someone strong and stable.

I spent a long time on here trying to figure out if he was BPD or not, and it got to the point where I had to tell myself that it didn't really matter - at the end of the day, what happened happened, and the kind of behaviour he exhibited is not the kind of behaviour you'd expect from an emotionally healthy person. End of. Whether it was due to BPD, depression or complex PTSD - they're just labels to me now. The fact is, the guy needed help and he didn't get it (and most probably still hasn't). He chose to regress and head back to a dysfunctional family unit - that's his choice, and I realised I also have a choice: to ensure I rebuild my life stronger and better than ever.

My reason for posting is to hopefully give you all a bit of hope. Things do get better and easier, although not overnight. As long as you keep putting one foot ahead of the other, you will, slowly but surely, get to a place of acceptance and peace. Keep doing things that make you feel good. For me these things were anything from daily yoga, meditation, reading self-help books, therapy, speaking to close friends whom I trust, travelling - doing everything I can in order to heal. I also took a long and hard look at why I accepted the things I accepted in the relationship, mourned my childhood and looked at ways in which I can let go of the past - all of it.

The one thing I've learnt (out of many) is that letting go is a process - you don't just wake up one morning and think 'I'm ready to let go now' and that's it. You do it bit by bit, day by day, by doing things like the above - anything to fill your buckets so to speak. You also do it by talking about it a little less, day by day. Thinking about it a bit less, day by day. And soon enough it starts to take up less and less of your headspace and you start looking forward. It starts to hurt less and less, day by day, and I look forward to the day in which it won't hurt at all - I feel it's within reach now :-)

I don't post on here anymore; in all honesty, it became too confusing at one point. Having other people's opinions is great, but sometimes you're so messed up that if one person says the wrong thing it can really set you back. I, unfortunately, had an experience like that on here, so the only other thing I'd say is take everything as 'lightly' as you can - people can only offer you advice on the basis of what you've told them, and there's likely a huge backstory that preludes any of these 'cases' - backstories none of us are ever going to fully get online. But this board also helped me tremendously, so a big thank you to all the people over the months who took the time to write thoughtful replies to my posts.

And one final note: I haven't heard from my ex in seven months, but I have received reports from friends of photos he and the new fiancee have posted on Facebook. They all said a variation of the same thing: "He looks ill" "He looks terrible" "He looks like he's on death row" "He looks like misery on legs" "He looks nothing like he did with you" "He looks ten years older than he did a year ago". And no, none of them are saying these things to make me feel better - I told them to be completely honest.

I'm not writing this to gloat; in fact, hearing this didn't bring me any happiness - it just confirmed for me what I already knew, that whatever happened happened while he was either under duress or very messed up. I'm not justifying his actions (we're all adults and we're all responsible for what we do) but I want to show you how some of our exes may never find true happiness unless they're willing to face up to the fact they need professional help. I find that incredibly sad - at least we really have a choice, and I know from many posts on here that most of us want to be happy again, and we're willing to put in the work in order to get to that place - on stable foundations. That to me is better than any fake engagement or 'band aid' solution these guys come up with.

So, keep putting that foot forward, and I promise you you'll be posting something similar on here some day.

Hopeful

[Hopeful83]

 

I was a regular contributor to this board over the first months that my ex and I broke up. It was a messy, terrible breakup - sinister, confusing and out of the blue. It took me months to finally get my thoughts in order - in fact, it's only really this month that I can say I'm starting to feel okay again. I thought I was going insane, honestly. Imagine, one minute you're in love, you really believe that your partner is madly in love with you, too, and out of nowhere you break up and the reasons he gives make zero sense (and are incredibly hurtful to boot). We were planning a life together, and yet he was engaged to someone else within less than two months of us breaking up.

I've finally made peace with the fact that I'll probably never know 100 per cent what the real reasons were, but I do now see that it's definitely an interaction between cultural pressures (his family clearly didn't want me to marry him, which is evidenced in things that were said and the fact I didn't hear a word out of any of them after we broke up - not really the way you treat someone who you claimed to like and you thought would be part of your family some day) and the BPD traits he has. They all threw a load of smoke and mirrors at me, in order to keep me away, which is awful - until last year I never knew the extent people will go to to get their own way. He, lacking in the emotional maturity he needed to stand up for me, ran the other way. And he did me a favour - I realise now that I need to be with someone strong and stable.

I spent a long time on here trying to figure out if he was BPD or not, and it got to the point where I had to tell myself that it didn't really matter - at the end of the day, what happened happened, and the kind of behaviour he exhibited is not the kind of behaviour you'd expect from an emotionally healthy person. End of. Whether it was due to BPD, depression or complex PTSD - they're just labels to me now. The fact is, the guy needed help and he didn't get it (and most probably still hasn't). He chose to regress and head back to a dysfunctional family unit - that's his choice, and I realised I also have a choice: to ensure I rebuild my life stronger and better than ever.

My reason for posting is to hopefully give you all a bit of hope. Things do get better and easier, although not overnight. As long as you keep putting one foot ahead of the other, you will, slowly but surely, get to a place of acceptance and peace. Keep doing things that make you feel good. For me these things were anything from daily yoga, meditation, reading self-help books, therapy, speaking to close friends whom I trust, travelling - doing everything I can in order to heal. I also took a long and hard look at why I accepted the things I accepted in the relationship, mourned my childhood and looked at ways in which I can let go of the past - all of it.

The one thing I've learnt (out of many) is that letting go is a process - you don't just wake up one morning and think 'I'm ready to let go now' and that's it. You do it bit by bit, day by day, by doing things like the above - anything to fill your buckets so to speak. You also do it by talking about it a little less, day by day. Thinking about it a bit less, day by day. And soon enough it starts to take up less and less of your headspace and you start looking forward. It starts to hurt less and less, day by day, and I look forward to the day in which it won't hurt at all - I feel it's within reach now :-)

I don't post on here anymore; in all honesty, it became too confusing at one point. Having other people's opinions is great, but sometimes you're so messed up that if one person says the wrong thing it can really set you back. I, unfortunately, had an experience like that on here, so the only other thing I'd say is take everything as 'lightly' as you can - people can only offer you advice on the basis of what you've told them, and there's likely a huge backstory that preludes any of these 'cases' - backstories none of us are ever going to fully get online. But this board also helped me tremendously, so a big thank you to all the people over the months who took the time to write thoughtful replies to my posts.

And one final note: I haven't heard from my ex in seven months, but I have received reports from friends of photos he and the new fiancee have posted on Facebook. They all said a variation of the same thing: "He looks ill" "He looks terrible" "He looks like he's on death row" "He looks like misery on legs" "He looks nothing like he did with you" "He looks ten years older than he did a year ago". And no, none of them are saying these things to make me feel better - I told them to be completely honest.

I'm not writing this to gloat; in fact, hearing this didn't bring me any happiness - it just confirmed for me what I already knew, that whatever happened happened while he was either under duress or very messed up. I'm not justifying his actions (we're all adults and we're all responsible for what we do) but I want to show you how some of our exes may never find true happiness unless they're willing to face up to the fact they need professional help. I find that incredibly sad - at least we really have a choice, and I know from many posts on here that most of us want to be happy again, and we're willing to put in the work in order to get to that place - on stable foundations. That to me is better than any fake engagement or 'band aid' solution these guys come up with.

So, keep putting that foot forward, and I promise you you'll be posting something similar on here some day.

Hopeful

[hopealways]

Thank you for taking the time to post this, it really helps to hear from you.

[Anez]

congrats, hopeful. that is really good stuff. thanks for sharing.

[bschooled]

Thank-you for sharing. I always find comfort in these update posts, they remind me that I'm not defective or weak because I couldn't just immediately pick up and "move on".

[Finnegan]

Hi Hopeful, thank you for writing your update.  You talk a lot of sense which I can relate to.  I long for the day I can stop thinking about him mist of the day.  We have 3 kids so I camps never be truely free but I am hoping that in future months I have detached enough from him to cope with parenting with him.  X

[Fr4nz]

Thank-you for sharing. I always find comfort in these update posts, they remind me that I'm not defective or weak because I couldn't just immediately pick up and "move on".

Absolutely. Only disordered people can move on so quickly, and seemingly without any empathy (even if many BPDs can feel it, even if only for things that do not conflict with their needs), from people who loved and cared about them deeply.

[Hopeful83]

Thanks, guys.

And, bschooled, you're absolutely not defective for finding it difficult to move on - it makes you someone who had deep feelings, and someone who had invested in a relationship with another person, only for that person to withdraw their love suddenly and unexpectedly. It would be strange for you not to feel the way you do right now.

I definitely found that being harsh on myself for the way I was feeling did not help at all. At around the 6-month mark I was getting incredibly frustrated with myself for not having moved on. In my mind, he'd been a callous, horrible person in the end, so why the hell was I still mourning my relationship with him? I thought I should have had an "I don't give a sh*t" attitude.

I then realised a couple of things. Firstly, this stream of thought within itself wasn't helping. The more you tell yourself you shouldn't be thinking about something the more you invariably think about it. Also, by berating yourself, you're also giving another battering to your already fragile self-esteem. This is the last thing you need! Thirdly, if you feel something it means you need to feel it - I've learnt to 'lean into' my pain and allowing myself to feel crappy if I need to feel crappy, without paying too much attention to the narrative that's playing in my head. Sure enough by doing this, I found myself starting to feel better over time. And lastly - I was authentic in my relationship. I loved him and I really did believe we'd be together for the rest of our lives. I would have been shocked had I not found it difficult to move on.

I cannot stress enough how much this is a process. I know people say that they realised they got over someone when they woke up one day and found that that person was no longer the first thing that comes to mind - but it's still a process. You don't go to bed one night obsessing over your ex and what happened, feeling like a mess, and then wake up the next morning feeling great/like nothing has happened. If only it worked that way... .

I read a lot of articles like these. I found they help:

www.tinybuddha.com/blog/forgiveness-gift-release-past/

www.tinybuddha.com/blog/let-yourself-off-the-hook-its-okay-to-be-right-where-you-are/

Hang in there, guys. As long as you're doing the right work, it does get easier.

Hopeful