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I ended something – need support

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  • #144789
    J
    Participant

    Three hours ago I ended a 3-month relationship/affair/something with a woman who was just not available, emotionally.

    I feel like I stepped on a landmine and heard the click and froze…. the explosion and hurt and pain is still to come, still ahead of me, big and fiery and full of splinters and blood and pain. I don’t dare to move yet.

    Please help me get through the next couple of weeks.

     

    I’m 42, she’s 31, we met, we clicked, we fell in love – at the wrong time. She’d just recently separated from her long time boyfriend/father of their daughter and was not in a place to begin something new. She knew it deep down, I knew it deep down, yet I still hoped and she wanted to hope and we were too caught up in the click, the pull, the magic and the feeling of YesYesYesYouNow.

    I fell in love despite it all, so hard. She fell in love. But of course it didn’t work… she has no space for me at this time in her life, a fact that we both understand and cannot change. So I told her that this has no future, it needs two and it only has one and a little bit. I’m pulling back, I’m ending it. I’m hoping she will figure her life out with the space and time she needs. And we agree, with great sadness, that now is not the time for us. There will likely not be another time.

    And I’m so sad. This is the beginning of “after” and “over” and I feel as if that’s all there ever will be, a she-shaped hole in the world that will not, cannot be filled. I deleted everything everything and I am so afraid for the clock to move forward and make it “the day after” which I can’t face. It will be dawn in four hours and she will be gone and she will not come back and it breaks my heart harder and harder every minute.

     

    I need to get over the next few weeks somehow.

    #144805
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear J:

    Three months, such a short time. Must have been an intense romance. I hope the explosion you fear is not going to happen, only sadness.

    Post again, anytime. You can use this thread as a journal of sorts, share how you feel and what is going on in your life. There is more to your life than the loss of this woman, isn’t is so?

    anita

    #144835
    J
    Participant

    Thank you Anita.

    An explosion of sadness if you will. It is hard to come to terms with the end of hope and future that was associated with her. I’m old and aware enough of all the strategies to cope with such heartbreak… but it still hurts bad, despite age and experience 🙂 The months ahead of me scare me, the dredging-myself-through-molasses feeling. I wanted to be happy, together.

    Well. My life holds many other things and they will serve their role and help in getting me through this. Nothing compares and everything pales though.

    I guess what I need is the *feeling* not the *knowledge* that this will get better. If know that it will, but that does not help one iota. All I can think of is her and I cannot belive that this will change, even though I know it will.

    Love’s a bummer.

    #144837
    Whirlwind147
    Participant

    I can resonate with your feelings although my story is slightly different. I ended a 7 month relationship last week, mainly because i just didn’t feel it was right for me and timing was not ideal. She was heartbroken but i had to be true to myself and the reason i didn’t feel the pull to her is due to my failed relationship over a year ago that i never gave time to recover from. I bounced straight back into dating and it has taught me a lesson as i have not felt emotionally myself ever since which is unfair to any partner i’m involved with.

    In your case she was not ready just like me and you have made the right decision even though it hurts like hell as she needs time to process her thoughts and feelings and you deserve someone that is 100% committed and emotionally available. I currently feel a lot of guilt as i am sure you may do but when we look at it logically, its for the best as it always needs 2 people in tune with themselves and wanting the same things.

    I have learnt the hard way and will not enter another relationship until i am completely happy with myself and ready. Timing really is everything and you’ve done the right thing given the situation. This pain will pass.

    #144841
    pinchofattitude
    Participant

    Hey J:)

    You did the most wonderful thing by opening up and looking for support. I love that about anyone who has the courage to do that as most people I came across don’t have that in them. So Kudo to you!

    Though it is a 3 months period, sometimes when you find that someone who click with you and make you feel like yourself, I understand why you fall in love so intensely.

    The good thing is that now you know what you want and what makes you happy, though it will be hard in the next few weeks, remember that each person your encounter in life will teach you something. So you have the support from Tiny Buddha’s community to get you through this and this too shall pass:)

    Hang in there!

    Love

    #144887
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear J:

    I am thinking that “hope and future that was associated with her,” of being happy with her, that hope was as strong as the sadness you knew before you met her. And now, that sadness is back.

    To FEEL that things will get better, rather than to know it rationally, if only there was a way to make ourselves feel what we desire to feel- wait…, there is a way, one is drugs, that is the fast and easy but the cost is more suffering a bit after the high, much more pain. So I am not referring to that way. The way I am referring to is processing and healing from the sadness from before you met her. That is the long… long way. At times along the way, there are good feelings.

    anita

    #145089
    J
    Participant

    Thank you Luke and pinchofattitude – it helps tremendously to read from others and feel a bit of support and understanding. Makes me feel not so alone in all of this. Which does seem to be a pervasive feeling, alone, staring down this huge hole full of heartbreak that suddenly appeared. And the hole seems to whisper “You better get used to me ’cause I ain’t going anywhere soon.” Sigh.

    I find myself wanting to cry every few hours, which is hard with my two little boys around and a job to go to. When I find some quiet time to myself the tears just come. It hurts and it helps, afterwards there’s a bit of calm and quiet inside.

    And I find my brain or heart plotting escapes from the reality… “You can let her know that emails are ok…” “Just keep it relaxed and a bit distant… but you can stay in touch” “Occasional contact is ok, much better than this No and Never that you feel now”. I picture glorious reunion scenes a year down the road, after she cleaned up her life, realizes she has space and love for me still and comes rushing into my arms. I laugh about these scenes because they are so cheap and predictable… but my heart wants to believe them, wants to hang on and hold onto the tiniest shred of hope. Accepting that it is, in fact, over seems such an insurmountable task. Just over. Not over and maybe later, not over and slowly start again… just over and never again. Period. How does one accept that fact??

    It helps to know that me letting her go two days ago is still right. Anything else would have prolonged a false hope… there was and is nothing for me to gain here, now. Sometimes I also have five-minute glimpses into a seemingly alternate reality, where I see – and can briefly feel – myself being fine and ok and happy with the way things are. Where, for a few moments, I have a feeling of “This is ok.. I can just be happy if I want” and it really does feel this way for a minute or so… but then the window closes again and I just miss her and would give anything to just have her here again, with me.

    And I’m never sure how much I should let myself allow to be sad, allow myself to cry… it helps, but I don’t want to give this pain and sadness too much undue space, maybe.

    Reading the blogs and forums here helps a lot. As do your responses here, so thank you.

    J.

    #146119
    J
    Participant

    I miss her so much… some hours are better than other, most are not and the mornings – like today – are worst. I wake up and miss her, miss her, miss her and it’s such a heavy load to bear.

    I’m starting to deal with the “sadness from before”, this will help me in the long term. I’m trying to be realistic about what is, I’m trying to focus on the now and not the past or future and it’s all tiny baby steps towards feeling ok at some point.

    But right now I just miss her so much. Nothing helps.

    #146205
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear J:

    It might be a good idea for you to enter competent psychotherapy at this point, so to process and heal from that “sadness from before”- and combine that work with focusing on the now. Both: past (which still exists, in the present, because it is recorded in our brain) and the now, otherwise.

    anita

    #146613
    J
    Participant

    Thank you Anita. I actually did (re)start psychotherapy last week, to get at the root of this issue. Strong emotional attachement causes a lot of grief when things end, so I am willing to work on this – to rely more on myself and not ‘need’ a relationship like this to fill the perceived holes in myself.

    Still, right now I’m just trying to get over the loss and longing … I’m simply lovesick and heartbroken, very badly so. I’ve cut all ties and stopped all contact, over a week now. Everything I know tells me that this will work, that No Contact will reduce my feelings and longing for her over time… but it’s so hard to believe this will ever feel different.

    I guess I just want the universe to tell me “It’ll be alright J. Just stay out of touch and don’t worry and in a few months this pain will be gone.” Will it? It will, right?

    J.

    #146681
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear J:

    I hope you find your re-starting of therapy beneficial to you. When you started this thread you didn’t feel the heartbreak yet but you were expecting it. In the most recent post you expressed the fear that the pain will stay forever. This leads me to suggest that you try to change your relationship with your heartache: to not be scared of it, to not expect anything in regard to when and for how long you will feel it.

    When a person gets an injection by a nurse, the nurse often says to relax the arm, because tensing it will hurt more, correct? In a similar way, if you get tense fearing the feeling to start or last for a lifetime, that hurts more.

    Do your best to accept the pain on its own terms, not to predict how long it will last and how badly it will feel. Try to not manage your pain that way- nature does a better job managing our emotions than our thinking does.

    anita

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