No contact is killing me. Doesn't it hurt him?

All our years of being so close, so close, us against the world, you know? Everyone thought we were dating or should because we did everything together – all the things we have been through, deep things, and the experiences we’ve had, and the power and chemistry of finally taking things further, and dating and sex and intimacy and bonding and sharing things that I shared because I thought we were going somewhere – he might have to move across country and I was 100% ready to go with him and start a new life together —

All this time, all this meaning, all this effort, all this connection, all this intimacy, this closeness and everything he means to me and the joy and companionship we bring to each other.

Our story ends with some very plain young girl (everyone thought she was a lesbian and apparently she is bi too) coming into the picture destroys that and that’s how it ends? That’s how our story ends? With me totally excluded, replaced, and everyone getting together for fun events and parties and like I hadn’t ever been there to begin with.

Like it’s a big deal for me and not for anyone else. How humiliating. To find that no one really cares or thinks you are important, but your replacement is thrown a birthday party and treated like a queen, and adored and worshipped, and I’m just like there alone crying in my sneakers.

So I face whatever comes my way now totally alone.She faces it totally surrounded by love and friends and adoration and energy and new things. What I wouldn’t give to be in her shoes.

Stop talking about the other girl and her being your “replacement”. You seem more concerned about her than anything. Enough already. You keep saying the same thing over and over. It’s his choice no matter what so you can call her names or make comments about her looks or whatever but at the end of the day he’s chosen her for now and all you’re doing is making yourself look like the bitter ex. Honestly good riddance to him and her.

Your time would be better spent focusing on you and moving on. The more you keep focusing on him and her the longer you remain stuck.

Guys I think the only thing is for me to accept that our friendship and our relationship is gone forever. To assume he is dating this girl and ending up with her and my friends support it and do everything I can to avoid all our mutual friends and him and wish him well.

And to grieve that loss and try to eradicate it from my mind as much as possible. I’m sad that its gone because I think I’m the only one who is sad it is gone. And I am sad every day I forget it a little more and will forget completely. And I am sad that we will become new people. It all went by so fast and I miss those people.

But I just can’t have any hope and I can’t have any contact and I can’t have any friends and I can’t think about how much fun they are having and will have, I know they will, they are fun people, with her at her house and in her life and all going out exploring together.

I probably need to move away so I will never see them – although I don’t know where and my family is here and I just moved here (with his total help, he packed and moved every single piece of my belongings for me) to be near him.

That future is just a blank wall and I face it alone without any real direction.

You’re right. I am insecurity issues about never being good enough, never being enough, that someone will always choose someone else, so if that is what he is doing (he says he isn’t) and others say it is in my imagination but they seem super shady and oblivious to his desires. This other girl just reinforced that feeling of “someone will always leave me because I’m not enough” —

So that’s why I’m obsessing. I don’t know the skills it takes to stop. I don’t know the skills it takes to learn a new way, of seeing myself as enough, as worthy of something, as not having to maintain something but rather just be an enjoyable confident happy person.

Perhaps in my imagination I am making her to be something she’s not, but perhaps then these fears are confirmed. Perhaps she represents to me my own limitations and failings. But mostly I don’t understand because he likes earthy, hippy, intellectual, yoga-ish, feminine, curvy, sensual long haired brunettes… it’s always the same type for him and that’s what I am. She has a pretty face but she is very boyish, wears sweatshirts and jeans and sneakers, isn’t into earthy things, doesn’t seem sensual, has short hair, is thin, I just don’t get it. I guess she is a cute, young, cheerful, smart girl who gives him good vibes its that simple. Hurts that that is enough to distract him from a woman with a meaningful connection.

ANyway there I go obsessing again.

You’re right I’ll make some changes. Moving would be so hard right now – all my friends and him are the ones who would help me and helped me move here just two months ago to be near him. I can’t believe she moved to the same neighborhood. Killing me. So now he has someone near him to walk over to and have telecommuting days and walks and parties and outdoor game nights and such, the very fantasy I had hoped for with him in moving closer.

I’ll read about codependency and try to be my best friend and grow the parts of me that aren’t defined by them.I know there is much much more to me.

I feel if she wasn’t in the picture he and I would have worked through things and not given up.

I’ll keep going to therapy. I’m in such a limbo right now I don’t know where to turn or what to do.

Thanks for trying to help me stop these thoughts. I really want to. Maybe I’ll express them all out to the point I get sick to death of them. And stop.

Wow, listen to yourself. You have learned so much about yourself with this situation. You are acknowledging your true feelings instead of masking them to pretend to be someone you aren’t. Sometimes I think we are meant to experience these losses to strengthen us for whatever our purpose is on Earth. Whether it’s to cheer someone else up or to learn for ourselves. Everyone impacts something in someone else. Learn from your feelings and insecurities. You said you don’t know the skills it takes but truly there aren’t really skills or books to truly know how to be confident. Different strokes for different folks (pretty sure you’ve heard that before). Get to know yourself, you are worthy, you don’t need a book to tell you that!

Even if I go away I will be sad I think, to some degree, because he and I had planned to be taking a travel meditation and spa trip together right now. And if I move away I know I will still be somewhere with no friends and no love – I won’t have to see them – but I also won’t see my family. And I will still think of him all the time and miss his texts and emails and communication. He’s my best friend. But I couldn’t do it knowing he is touching and pursuing and getting smitten with and excited about other people and I’m just fading into the background of forgotten people :(

Kathleen are you dating anyone? Have you? Why isn’t he? Is he looking? Did you know they were seeing each other during NC and did you then find out they weren’t seeing each other? And then you made the first move?

Do you hope to rekindle your relationship through this friendship? Does he? Or is he painfully clear there is no chance and you are just acting like its okay because the alternative, silence, hurts too much?

Thank you so much for sharing this with me it really helps and sounds like my situation.

Did he apologize for the fling despite promising not to do it? Why are women irresistible to men if they have feelings for other women? Did he end it with her? Why don’t they see each other at all anymore? In my case, even if they never hook up he will always want to I think, and if they do hook up they will still always see each other even if he moves away, for the next two years, because any visit to our mutual friends will include a visit with her since my friends are such jerks they see an inexplicable need to include her in everything and not me. And since she is essentially taking over his work role she will always need to contact him for help on the cases he is leaving her. And I’ll never be okay with her. She flirted with and tempted my boyfriend even while I was there and made it clear how much I liked him.

I have been on a few dates here and there and had minor hookups with other people (no sex), but I know that I’m not in a position to put myself out there for a serious relationship yet. I think he has also put himself out there on dating apps but is not looking for anything serious now either. He is not the type to pick up girls at bars and has generally only dated people in the past who he was already friends with first.

I found out about him and this other girl after they had already had their falling out. She began flirting with him when he became single but she wasn’t over her ex at all and was basically only using him/leading him on. He got offended by that and they are no longer friends. So I totally get where you’re coming from. Even if this relationship with your ex and the new girl never happens, it still stings to know that he was hoping it might happen.

I reached out to my ex at first just to get the story straight, and we continued no-contact for a few weeks after while I digested my feelings of betrayal and hurt. Afterwards, I reached out again (when we had previously agreed to resume talking, before he had even started talking to this girl) and we both felt we were at the point where we just needed to move on from the past and start with a clean slate. However, I do still have feelings for him which is hard. I’m not sure if he even realizes, but we have slipped and hooked up on a couple occasions since and he has been really affectionate with me at times. It is definitely a slippery slope to try to be friends with someone you aren’t over yet, and not really something I’d recommend.

The reason I’m trying my best now to ignore my feelings and be his friend is because we currently live right down the street from each other, work near each other, and have the same group of friends (mainly his friends from work). He is starting a new job and moving elsewhere at the end of spring, and I know we’ll be seeing each other much less after that so I’m kind of hoping to just enjoy the time I can spend with him now since I know it won’t last.

I know there’s no chance of us getting back together permanently since we both want different things/have different lifestyles. I think eventually when we no longer have to be around each other all the time it will be easier to get over him and not feel like my social life is suffocated by him and his group of friends. I hope I can get to the point where I’m okay with just being friends, but it’s painful because I know he’ll be in a new relationship eventually and I’ll no longer be the one he talks to all the time.

Very interesting the way you describe his relationships in his past. Waits until a woman falls for him…then decides he is moving on. That is very very interesting.

And you believed it would be different with you….because you were friends….

Well, I think you have to get another definition of a real friend. A good friend will bail you out of jail…a real friend will be in jail with you.

As for feeling worthy…by your definition what makes a person “worthy”?

Is it money? Power? Beauty? A good heart? What defines being worthy to you?

Then how do we measure it? A million dollars? Model looks? Being the president of the United States? Giving all your possessions to the poor?

Then what does that mean for a person…if they could measure their worth? Will they be stronger than some but weaker than others. Wealthy to a point? Beautiful but with some flaws…how many flaws?

You can see the “worth” of a person is not easily defined or measured…and yet we hold ourselves to some “standard” and call ourselves unworthy…but of what?

I suggest you release this imaginary set of beliefs and call yourself worthy of anything and at anytime.

Juniper I’m so glad you are self aware and recognize the obsessive thoughts. Also that you are working on it and are taking on board everyone’s great advice.

You asked how you could stop your obsessive mind, then demonstrated perfectly how to do it. By recognizing your thinking is unhealthy and forcing yourself to just stop. By changing your perspective. This is great and the work you are doing now won’t just help you through this situation, but the rest of your life.

I want you to know you have every right to feel hurt by your ex and your friends. A lot of what your feeling is totally normal and natural.

I lost all my friends after a break up too. They didn’t do anything wrong so I wasn’t hurt but, like you I was totally alone. I lost my home, bf and friends all in one go and it fept so terribly loney. My ex had been abusive so I had no choice but to leave. Yet there he was with at least his friends around him while I had nothing.

I reached out to friends not part of my main social group and got back in touch with others I hadn’t spoken to for a while, but they all lived far away and mostly I was loney. It took 9 months, but then through work friends I met a whole new social group and had SO much fun with them! Through that I also met my husband!

Have faith that things will get better because they will! You are currently at your lowest point so it can only be upwards from here. This pain will lessen with time. You will have a full and happy life again. You just have to get through this dark period to get there.

I will try Pamela. I wasn’t raised this way. I was always a caregiver in my family. No one ever took care of me and I was told I was selfish if I thought of myself. I’m used to taking care of others or putting my energy in others.

I agree with you though. I’m smothering myself. I will talk about obsession in therapy. It is also something I was trained in or encouraged in my field – postdoctoral theory and whatnot – to obsess about a topic is how you become successful. But I agree with you. I’m so sad, I need to shake myself out of this. It is not as easy as one might think, I have some real hurdles.

Having more friends would help that is for sure.

Thank you for sharing that post Hannah! I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It really helps to hear other people’s stories and to know some of my reactions are normal – just maybe I can reign in the degree of intensity.

And okay for obsessive thoughts, I’ll just stop. I don’t know how to do that though. That’s why I hope meditation will help me learn to push thoughts away.

I don’t want to be this person guys, believe me. And I wasn’t always.

I don’t want to be this grumpy, quiet, unhappy person wherever I go. It doesn’t help that I am almost solely responsible for a mother with dementia (the same one who was sadistic to me as a child), a sibling has a terminal disease, my family is falling apart, I had to give up my career to take care of my mother so now I need to figure out a new career and somehow get passionate or invested in it, and I don’t have many friends since moving here from a thousand miles away. It also doesn’t help that part of my job is fighting animal abuse.

I want to bring light and warmth and energy to every room I enter. For others and myself. How I become that woman and that part of me please god let me know. Is she in there?

Yea, I don’t have a lot of love anywhere and never had. So yea, I am scared of losing it.

I’m really worried all the dark things (there is more!) in my life have broken me irrevocably. He sort of hinted as much.

I may never be okay in an adult relationship, I may never be happy. None of it is easy.

But I still hope – in the happiness I take in things like my dog, his company, and being outdoors. But that’s not very fun and cheerful and exciting. Just peaceful and solitary.