Thanks @Genie and @shelby. I appreciate the encouragement a lot! Soon after I posted that I started feeling bad about being angry and berating myself for all the mistakes I made during the relationship. This always happens, even when the anger towards someone  is justified. I think it speaks to my lack of self worth again in that I always focus on what I’ve done wrong rather than giving myself space to feel when others have hurt me.

So the anger has just turned to sadness, which I find even more annoying because at least anger feels more productive. I think the sadness this time is about the realisation that I am likely going to have to cut all contact if I really want to move on. Not having her in my life still seems daunting but I think everyone who has said that contact doesn’t help while the emotional connection is there is right. My brain knows this and yet I can almost hear my poor hopeful hert go “but…”

You’re definitely right Shelby that keeping busy helps! One thing I made sure to do, even immediately after the break up was find as many ways to distract myself as I could. The one silver lining of this is that it has meant I have connected with friends who kinda fell into the background when my ex and I were together, and they have shared their own stories of heartbreak which has made us closer. I talked to one the other day who was helpful reminding me that my ex is not always worthy of the pedestal I put her on.  Of course, that’s only my side of the story but it’s been a good way to get my rose coloured glasses off. She did say that it took her close to two years to get over her first heartbreak which on one hand is very alarming to me and in the other is comforting because it makes me feel like I’m doing okay in the scheme of things. Like, despite feeling quite sad the past few days I did have pockets of happiness and functioned fairly well at work. One of my colleagues told me yesterday that I am a great person to talk to when she needs a pep talk, which I find funny because I have hardly been in a pep talk mood. If only I could give more to myself!

I don’t really have anything planned this weekend so hopefully I can keep myself distracted enough. I think I am at the stage you were at awhile ago where you were too scared to contact your ex because you knew it likely wouldn’t give you the reaction you wanted. I guess that’s better than having to resist the urge to contact them eh.

Thanks for enabling me to come into your thread and dump so many of my thoughts. I can understand the feeling like an imposter when you are still struggling yourself but your replies really have helped me. 🙂

Genie – the insights you shared about finding new purpose and self worth resonated with me also. Thanks for sharing. I hope things continue to go well with the new guy!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Adelaide1.

@Shelby thank you so much for taking the time to offer that perspective. It makes a lot of sense to me and I can almost hear my ex saying the same thing about being able to still have all the enjoyable aspects of our relationship without the romance. In fact she used the term “emotionally mature” when we first discussed remaining in contact after we broke up.

Your insights about the ‘pull’ are also very helpful, and even though I don’t want to believe it, I know rationally you are right that it is a security blanket that in the long term will hurt. Ultimately it is a question of how much I value myself – how much emotional pain I put myself through for others’ benefit – and I still have a lot of work to do with that but your advice has helped immeasurably, thank you! Thanks too for your recommendation to look up attachment styles – a useful framework for sure (I’m definitely anxious-preoccupied).

It sounds like unfortunately you have a difficult decision of your own to make in regards to your friend. I hope that you are kind to yourself in the process. xx

@genie Thank you for your kind words! I am indeed proud of myself for opening my heart despite the risks, and consider myself lucky to have such a capacity to love deeply in different ways, even though the pay off is that the pain is deep too. Whinging can be good. 🙂

@rob – so sorry to hear about your unimaginable pain. I too don’t have anything useful to say. You have done so well to get this far. I hope posting here can at least make you feel a little less alone. Love to you!

Hi fellow heartbroken peeps

I found this forum when I was having one of those desperate nights we all have. Read the first 10 or so pages and then skipped to the end which was very interesting!

My story will be familiar in parts to a lot of you. Basically, just trying to get over my first heartbreak.

I dated a girl (for context, I am also a woman) for almost 5 months and she broke up with me 2.5 months ago. I feel silly for being so cut up about something that wasn’t long, but here we are.

It was my first proper relationship, and actually first kiss, first everything. She was also what prompted me to come out as queer… which added a whole other level of complexity!

For context,  never really saw a relationship happening for me- I have major self-confidence issues due to using a wheelchair – I had been on dates, but nothing really went anywhere and no one really expressed any real interest in me except a close childhood friend of mine (who is still a close friend but we decided it was nothing more).

so when this happened I really couldn’t believe my luck. I never knew what people meant about ‘sparks flying’ or ‘butterflies’ til I met her. We had our work cut out for us from the start in that she had chronic health conditions herself and it meant that she had to cancel dates a lot due to being sick. To make things worse, I couldn’t go and see her at her house because it wasn’t accessible. This led to a lot of anxiety on my part – expecting her to cancel all the time, feeling so frustrated at the logistics etc.

Still, I truly thought I had finally found my person, had just met her parents and she was supposed to meet mine. She helped me through a lot emotionally and encouraged me to get counselling after many years of struggling with anxiety. Over the course of a few short months she became one of the most important people in my life.

But long story short she cut things off because she said she realised she did not have strong feelings for me. Deep down, I think I knew this but I was also anxious a lot of the time so didn’t trust my judgement. Still, I felt really blindsided and hurt- for me, things were only just beginning. I was supposed to go up to her parents’ place after Christmas, for example. She also claimed I was the ‘perfect’ person for her yet could not give me the connection I wanted. For some reason this has been really hurtful. She said she still wanted me in her life and that I was a ‘one of her favourite people’ But also that she’s pretty content on being solitary.

Since then I have experienced the pain of heartbreak. All the things you all know so well. I just feel so annoyed because before this happened I was actually fairly content with being single. By all accounts I have many good friends and am not short on people who care for me. But now it feels like a box has been opened and I can’t shut it. She is always on my mind and I hate that I am giving someone so much of my headspace when they made the conscious choice to not be with me.

I tried to keep up contact with her for the first couple of weeks after the breakup but then forced myself to have almost a month of no contact because it felt like torture. Now we are back in contact again and I am perplexed as to why my mind and brain is so intent on trying to be friends with her when rationally I know I am not over her and contacting and seeing he won’t make me feel better. We have seen each other a few times and each time afterwards I have felt upset that we aren’t together anymore. Yet we are meeting again tomorrow for lunch – at my suggestion!! I also seem to be anxious about her not keeping me in her life – but I’m unsure why I care so much. After all, if she is content on being solitary, nothing I do is going to change that.I know rationally to heal I need to let go of the idea of her, of us, of being in each others’ lives, but my heart and brain is not ready it seems….

Anyway, I feel like this might be a good place to hold myself to account and connect with others going through the same pain, as endless as it feels. Thanks again for sharing your stories here. It has made me feel so much less insane and alone.

x