Thanks Anita for the detailed reply. And I think you’re right, all such statements are too extreme to be valid across situations.

I just think I’m going through a vulnerable couple of days lately. I’ve actually felt that the saying that healing is not linear is true. Some days I feel fine and progressing and some days are a bit difficult. I changed my number today finally, so I am sure that in the absence of any calls from him, I’ll move on quicker. I cannot take the wishy-washy calling anymore.
Thanks for all the help.

Love
Jenny

Hi Anita,

How are you? I hope you’re doing good. I have been doing a lot of thinking ever since we began talking and I feel as if finally I am reaching slowly to some kind of a closure and a future course of action for me. I just wanted to write it down and discuss it with you. I have begun a few sessions with a therapist in the last two weeks but due to Covid, they are mostly over calls and skype. Also, consciously I have tried talking more about my parents and childhood with her so as to not let my feelings about my romantic relationship take over the entire therapy, thus, I feel maybe I can talk it out here.

After one of your early posts about how I’d also been argumentative and abusive towards my ex which fuelled his abuse, I was very disturbed for a while. I began micro-analysing everything I ever did to instigate him. Sometimes I’d think all night. I concluded that I had problematic behaviour of my own, more than I’d let on to myself or you.
– I was lacking in self-love and self-esteem and thus, was clingy, needy and smothering. I didn’t give my partner space or rather I gave him space but was anxious and resentful whenever he wanted to be away from me.
– My emotions drove me, all the time. So when I was happy with him, I was over-the-top happy but when I was upset, I was a mess, thereby had no control over calling him incessantly and crying uncontrollably.
– I did not have healthy conflict resolution mechanisms. I had seen my mom cry, shout, blame, dig out older issues in arguments with my father and I did the same with my ex.
For the first time in the last many years with my ex, I saw the problems that I had. But simultaneously I also realised this which honestly I think I had never seen before- MY EX DID NOT MAKE ME DO ANY OF THIS. He didn’t make me clingy, he didn’t force me to shout, to cry to call him a 100 times. Yes, he definitely behaved in ways that were not particularly loving and were  inconsiderate and very rude towards me but the way I dealt with them were my own choice. My ex did not make me into a crying, begging woman. At max he triggered the tendencies that were already very much present inside my brain due to childhood/life experiences. So even if it weren’t for him, I would have dealt in the same way with other unpleasant things in life too.
And this realisation Anita, this freed me from the question I always asked me, was I at fault, will he be better with someone else, someone who won’t make him do all this?
I realised that just as my Ex didn’t make me argumentative, I didn’t make him verbally abusive, rude and conflict avoidant. Yes, I may have triggered those by arguing and wanting more affection from him, but I didn’t put those tendencies in him, like he always claimed. They were already  present and so even if instead of me there was some other girl who was not argumentative, those tendencies would have still come out when he’d go through unpleasant times.
So, I realised that my problems were of my own causing, and also my ex’s problems were of his own causing. So I am responsible for my arguing and crying but not for him abusing and ignoring. So I didn’t make him whatever he became at the end of the relationship. So as long as I work on myself and make sure I learn healthier conflict resolution ways and develop self-love, I am fine, in my own life, with or without a man. And likewise my wondering of will he be this, will he be that is redundant as if he realises his mistakes and corrects them, he will be a better man irrespective of who he is with and if he doesn’t, he’ll be the same man that he was with me, again irrespective of who he is with.

I honestly had this realisation after this one time that I answered his call a week or so ago. I had decided that I will be calmer than ever before, no matter what I will not let my previous behaviour take over. But as we talked, and I refused to let him in again, he abused me verbally and disconnected. That was when I realised that the abuse is his problem. Not mine. Weirdly, it also changed my feeling towards him. Seeing that more than a year has passed, I am also trying to realise my faults and change my behaviour, but he is the same person that abuses when things don’t go his way, specially when I had done nothing now to instigate him as he always claimed, made me lose respect for him.

I am now focussed on my growth Anita because I do have issues and so far I thought I am this way because of him and that a better guy will not be like this but there are behavioural patters that I have to change or they’ll come up even with the best of guys. Does this make sense?

Love,

Jenny.

Okay, you got me. I have indeed been minimising Anita because honestly, I am embarrassed. I don’t share these thoughts with anyone in person because I know these thoughts are useless, obsessive and I don’t like anyone I know seeing me as the girl ‘who’s still even thinking about the man who ill-treated her so much’, but I am that person. With you, I am less embarrassed because of the comfort of anonymity the platform provides and seeing so many other people having problems but still, I just don’t like seeing myself like this nagging, irritating person that needs to be repeatedly told something like a child and is asking questions that are nonsensical to say the least. So yeah, on point about that one.

I don’t want him anymore Anita. And I swear this is honest truth. He’s come back so many times now in the past one year, he’s done everything that I used to want when he initially left, but I just don’t want him anymore, because now I can see the little things that I couldn’t earlier. I can see that he ‘almost lashed out’ at me in the last call, could see that he has been calling me despite my telling him that I don’t want to talk so he is totally again negating what I want and just doing what he wants. Seeing all this, I just can’t unseen them and I Think I have made one step ahead of where I was 3 months ago when I first reached out here, I now want to let go, I have in fact let go a future with him, I don’t want it anymore not because I don’t have any feelings left but because now I can see this man cannot is not right for me. I loved a man who is not the best/good partner for me and I can’t go back to that now, knowing that.

So that part, honestly, is behind me.

But, what is still there is an interest in figuring the relation and him out. I don’t know why, like honestly I don’t know why. Maybe I want a validation that it meant something to him, that he won’t find another like me, I don’t know what, but I will admit that there is an interest in understanding the why(s) and how(s) of his thoughts and conduct towards me. It’s like I want answers to what happened in my relationship. I want to know is he a very complicated man and loved me but is really complex and can’t see beyond himself or is just a plain asshole who played with my emotions. Either ways, its over and I cannot have a happy life with him but knowing which one was it makes a difference to me, and I don’t know why, but it does, so I have questions. I did ask him in the last conversation we had and he gave me answers but they seemed to be coming from a place of him wanting me back, seemed less genuine. I just need someone to tell me what just happened in my relationship. Maybe I shouldn’t bother, I know I shouldn’t bother I don’t know. Like take my mother, after you told me stuff about my parents, I talked to my mom, I talked to dad, I told them what I felt, she told me what she felt, what he felt, they apologised for what each of them did and explained where they were coming from and understood that it affected me and it helped me close that chapter and I am able to look at my relation with them from a renewed place and I know now what actually happened between us, why my mom said what she said, why my dad didn’t stand up for me, it helped me see them as humans who made mistakes like we all do and as people who love me but had their own psychological issues that they projected onto me. It helped me close that.

With him, what I am not able to do is close it, because I don’t know what happened, so these questions rotate in my head and I want answers. Maybe as you said earlier, these questions will lead to new questions and its an unending pit but I don’t know how can I close this with a clear head until I have it sorted and then left behind. I think I just need answers to know what it was and what he indeed felt for me and why he did or is doing what he did/is doing. I think that’s that.

Now, please tell me, what do I do? Should I ask you the questions or is there some other way that’ll help me close this?

Love,

Jenny.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by jenny.

You’re right Anita. I don’t have any evidence on my phone right now as I delete all his calls and texts to just not have to see them but I’ll get my call logs and records out, I’ll arrange for those and definitely keep any record of any further communication with him (I hope not) and take it to legal institutions.

I’ve been reading these days Anita, about OCD, about having constant self-doubt etc and it’s helping. I’m not able to take out much time now as work has resumed but I’m making little progress. I’d just read in one another thread here about you advising the person concerned to consider her thread as a journal and say what she wants to let out, so this post is mainly about that, just a rant. I’ll understand if you don’t address it, I realise I am going in circles and still obsessing to a degree ( tho I’d want to pat my back and say, less frequently) but at the cost of sounding irritating, I’ll just say it.

I’m just so disappointed Anita, in him, in the relationship. It all seems like a joke, I can’t even believe now that the man who said such big lofty things to me and a relation that I thought (wrongly, obviously) was so beautiful has turned to this. Leaving is a choice, yes, but isn’t there a way to do it? It’s been a year to the breakup and his constant calls but not once, not once Anita has he apologised for leaving me crying, not once has it been a genuine apology. The most he got to saying just once was ‘I never wanted to hurt you’. That’s all. He calls me and the few times I answered he actually had the audacity to call me mean and selfish and childish and stupid for not chasing after him, for not bothering to contact him after he left me high and dry for the umpteenth time. He literally taunted me that ‘thank you for showing me what you truly are’. I mean seriously? Does he seriously not see it or is he just one massively manipulative man! He seriously has the audacity to again turn it around on me.
And what is all this? Anita he’s sent random urgent messages, he’s made up stories, could he just not have been direct with whatever he had to say, what is this childish conduct. Is this a joke? 1 year gone and he cannot say things without hiding behind excuses. Just write a goddam text saying what you actually have to or call me and just say what you genuinely want calling me like this again and again. But No, None of that. He’ll keep dragging and running in circles. It all seems like a joke. I don’t even know know how to look back at my relationship.
And the worst thing, god this drives me mad. Whenever, I have replied to him, like the last time or a few times previously, there is no acknowledgement of my texts. I’ll be saying something and he’ll reply with something else only, not even addressing what I have said. It seems as if he thinks I am some barking dog whose messages don’t need to be addressed. Take the last message, I said what I felt, I said he can’t come and go, I said that my answer is a big No and instead of saying anything anything about it or even acknowledging it, or being silent, he is sending me a totally unrelated picture, as if what I said doesn’t even matter. It’s like he just wants a reply from me, the content of which doesn’t matter. What is that! When you are hell-bent on talking to me, why not talk when I am responding to you. If I imagine myself in his place and I am so desperate to talk to a person, I would take any opportunity that they reply to me to engage in meaningful conversation with them. What the hell is this man doing! Is this a joke? You keep calling me, then when I text you and say something, instead of understanding it you just are on our own trip. I mean, if the first time I’d texted that don’t contact me etc, months ago, if instead of just replying random stuff and keeping on calling, if he’d replied to it and said whatever, asked me why I don’t want him to contact, or said that he understands and is willing to give me time, or anything, just any human worthy reply, I would have felt some at least some respect for him as an ex-bf.

I meant what I wrote in the last text. Could he not have been direct, could he not have been respectful, did the relation not even deserve that! How can anyone be like this! You know why I sometimes think that maybe I was wrong, because I just cannot fathom how can someone be so twisted, nothing makes sense, there is no logical flow to his conduct. He’ll madly keep contacting and then reply nonchalantly when I finally reply.

I mean why, why could you not have just written to me what you feel, what you want and done it respectfully, instead of calling like this and talking wishy washy. Till date, I do not know, what this man really wants.

It seems as if it’s just one joke to him, or just that he wants me to fall back into speaking to him without much effort and without any accountability on his part. How big an ego do you need to be such. I wasn’t perfect, far from it, I realised with your help that my argumentativeness was wrong but I genuinely loved him and I am so disappointed with his behaviour. I don’t even know what my entire past relation meant. The man I thought knew in the beginning versus the man he became in the end verses the man he looks like now, they are all so different and confusing. Ughh.
I just want him to stop. Just stop. Just stop contacting me if this is what you are. Let there at least remain one tiny thread of mutual respect. Let there be silence.

– Jenny

Yay! This makes me so happy Anita. It’s like a much needed assurance that now my thinking is on the right track.

Oh and just an update, he called again yesterday, shortly after our exchange and I stuck to silence. That is what I’ll do always though I now really wish he stops contacting Anita. I am moving ahead and I don’t want reminders of the past relationship in form of his calls.

Lastly and I know I’m saying it again and again but thank you so much Anita. It might be small to you as I see you help hundreds of people here but for me, you are someone I’ll never forget throughout my life. I asked you the most bizarre obsessive thoughts I had and you gave me detailed answers to even those and helped me disengage from a relationship that I was stuck in since the last 5 years. In the last 1 month, my day-to-day life has improved by leaps and bounds. Thank You.

Also, Anita, and correct me if I’m wrong in my thinking, I think this breakup has made me change my approach to instances when I feel disrespected, wronged. Earlier I would speak up, and when the person refused to listen, speak up even more which turned into an argument. Over time I learnt that telling someone who doesn’t care they hurt you, that they have hurt you, is like banging your head against a wall: serves no purpose. So now I choose silence. I read somewhere that sometimes silence is the loudest reply and your biggest strength. That is what I have done with VR. I voiced my concerns for as long as I could. I started with speaking up politely, went on to arguing, dropped down to taking in quietly and ultimately went down to begging and crying. And saw that none of them works. I’ve learnt that when someone disrespects me once, it may be a fault and if it is, speaking up will see a solution to it. But if someone disrespects me repetitively, and refuses to see me when I speak up, its best to disengage and be silent.
At this point, I feel any word from me will be like fuel and fodder to VR, something to twist and manipulate me again as he’s done every time I did answer his calls after the breakup. So I like silence. It makes me feel good about myself for two reasons: I am not saying anything bitter which is out of character for me or which I may regret later and secondly I feel that someone who’s hurt me so much doesn’t deserve any more explanations from me, he deserves nothing from me except silence. So I think now and forever, if he ever reaches out ever again, dignified silence is going to be my only reply to him. I’ve spent years saying things that fell on deaf ears and now I am done.

Hi Anita,

I am feeling very anxious right now and will be really happy to have some guidance.

So, I’m moving on, have clarity, working on myself.
Amid all that my ex calls day before yesterday and yesterday. Yesterday after a couple of calls, he leaves this message:

Hi, please call, I have to tell you something, something I’ve to convey.

What is this Anita, if he has to say something, just say it on text. If there’s actually a message, just convey it. On one hand this makes me feel that its another of his lame excuses to just make me talk but on the other, I am human, it does bother me that what is it that he has to convey. If I imagine myself in his place, if there’s actually something to say to a person who’s not answering my calls, I’d just write it down and send it to them. What is going on Anita? I obviously didn’t answer his calls because every time that I’ve talked to him, it’s ended badly, but seriously what is this? Why does he not text if its actually something urgent/important, why does he keep calling and then leave these provocative/hinting texts? I just don’t need this in my life anymore.

Regards,

Jenny.