Hey Crystal,
First of all, you’re doing an amazing job!! You’re here & your safe 🙂 so well done.

I’ve recently been through a similar situation with my ex, we split in June last year. I was similar to you, in terms of wanting something/someone outside of myself to “fill the empty gap within me”, my relationship with my mother isn’t great either & can relate to 90% of your story.
I’m not going to sit here & say that it’s easy, because it has quite easily been one of my biggest challenges in life, I feel quite annoyed at myself, because I lost my Nan & Grandad a few years ago & I’m sure this feeling has been worse! Anyway, you’ve acknowledged this situation & the triggers you have, which is so amazing! Being aware means you’re half way there! I think one of the main things that has helped me through funnily enough is therapy but mainly meditation. Have you tried it? There’s an app called Headspace which is a good place to start. If you haven’t heard of meditation in the unstigmatised way, it’s basically realising & acknowledgibg your emotions/feelings, sitting with them & not making a story out of them. So realising you feel sad. Even saying it… I feel sad, I am sad, you might cry.. but you don’t need to think “I fell sad because of my ex boyfriend & what happened & how I feel about myself &…” – make a story out of it. You’re sad, just accept it. Meditation really helps with this – it doesn’t happen overnight, they say it takes 21 days to form a habit but I’d say after 2 months I was witnessing a different side to me whereby I stopped making these stories in my mind & I stopped ruminating about ‘what ifs’ & what I should’ve or could’ve done.
As for my self love I realised I had none & I beat myself up a bit, played the victim, but I realised that got me absolutely nowhere as I still felt the same if not worse than before. I owned the fact that yes I left him get away with far more than he should’ve & I put myself second but at the moment I came to that realisation was so powerful because I knew I would find & use the tools & techniques to heal myself.
Before I would seek a new relationship in the hope that someone could fix the parts that, quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to fix myself & I got myself back into a circle with another man who hurt me just as much as the one before. So I cut off all expectations of potential lovers & started, & still am, concertrating solely on myself.
The books I have read have been very powerful & on many occasions I find myself crying in the pages, but I just let it flow.. Usually after 5 minutes I tend to feel released & continue reading (what that fly on the wall must say about me!) I will paste an acceptance quote on her after (don’t want to lose this that I’ve wrote).
Please know that there are no overnight cures (at least I’m yet to find them) & that this is all a working progress (it’s been 8 months for me) & that you get out of it what you put in. So if this is a real problem for you, which sounds like it is, perseverance is key.. just keep going. Those patterns through meditation & work will subside & you’ll come out the other side more awakened. I hope I’ve covered your question, let me know yours thoughts?

The books that have helped me are:
Barbara de angelis – how did I get here?
Brené brown – the gifts of imperfection
Harriet Lerner – the dance of anger
Kristin Neff – self compassion

Well done on where you’re at, you’re doing an amazing job!

Hi Niyata,
Yes, he has issues with himself. Anger comes from unexpressed emotions. Critical people have the most criticism reserved for themselves, they don’t like themselves they’re expressing outwards their own dissatisfaction, and when they do this they show themselves and you, that they are there own worst critic.

Another technique you can use is, when someone says something negative or horrible is to say:

1 – Thank you for sharing that – this will devalue what they’ve said – after all, it’s only their opinion, it’s not fact.
Sometimes that may work, if not step 2…
2 – Sorry, could you repeat that slowly, I didn’t quite hear that – this will give them some thinking time, and 9/10 they will retract what they said.
Sometimes that may work, if not step 3…
3 – Sorry, are you trying to hurt my feelings? – This will illiterate that they may not actually be trying to hurt your feelings, so they may say “no of course not, what I meant was….” (you just understand it differently). Alternatively, if they say Yes, Yes I was trying to hurt your feelings you can go to step 4…
4 – well that’s not going to work because I’m not going to let that in.

and it’s all about letting it in, if you don’t let it inside of you, it can’t hurt.

Those steps came from Marissa Peer – check out her videos on YouTube!

Poppy

Hi dreaming715,
I haven’t read others comments as I don’t want them to impact my response to you – so I apologise if I repeat anything already said.
I’ve felt in this position on occasion, but realise it’s all about me and how I feel about myself.
Do you fully love yourself? Do you fully accept yourself? Do you see yourself as a good person? Can you live without someone? (at the moment I’m not sure you can) what makes you need/want someone now? Have you done everything you want to do, alone?
I’m not wanting a relationship at the moment, so I may be in a different head space than you – however, I have been continuously working on my self because I’ve noticed I answered ‘no’ to most of the above questions and until I can answer yes to most of those questions I cannot find true, pure love.
You cannot compare yourself to people around you.
Friend number 1 has this, friend number 2 has this etc etc… you just shouldn’t compare yourself to others, everyone has and wants different things in different stages of their life. How do you also know that behind closer doors Friend 1 isn’t unhappy in her relationship, Friend 2 didn’t want kids at this age etc – because these are generally things people may not share.
There is no age or limit as and when to complete something by, and you certainly don’t need a relationship to feel whole, regardless of what other people say. I’m not sure I want children, does that make me any less of a woman?

If I have missed the point somewhere, it all seems down to self love, self appreciation, self confidence and self worth. When you are what I like to call ‘full/whole’ it will come and it will be wonderful – believe in this. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and playing the victim with an attitude that you’re never going to find it. Do you think people that have achieved great accomplishments just so happened to land these things in their lap? No, they worked for them and failed in the process, before succeeding. ( https://www.wanderlustworker.com/12-famous-people-who-failed-before-succeeding/ – (I haven’t referred to ‘famous’ people for any reason – just putting showing achievemensts some can make but becoming famous isn’t something you need to be to obtain true happiness etc)

Once you take this area of your life away and focus on other things, yourself, your career, what YOU want to do, where YOU want to go, you will meet someone unexpectedly, but you will be whole and full in yourself because you’ve spent the time on yourself to become your best self and you won’t accept any bad or negative behaviours from people.

I have been in 3 different relationships for the past 10 years with the same type of man, it’s taken me 10 years to realise this, so please know I’m not just spilling you some crap. I am not in a relationship at the moment, nor do I want to be, but I know that when I want it and when I am whole it will come to me when I’m not expecting it. Try not to put to much on your shoulders. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve just brought a book called Self Compassion by Kristin Neff – check it out!

While you struggle day-in and day-out towards the fulfillment of your hopes and your dreams, know this: “If there is no struggle there is no progress.”

I have a slight different angle on this, so here it is..

Friend J – I’m not sure of your age but yes generally if you would like to do something for your birthday I would take it that you plan/arrange or put something past someone – depending on how good friends you are – and how old you are – some people, as they get older, don’t like to celebrate their birthdays, for various reasons. I do think it would’ve been a nice gesture for her to have paid for your tea and cake though – however, she may be struggling money wise and didn’t want to say – so came to be a kind friend, but could only afford to pay for herself? In regards to the social media, I’m not sure I agree with that, however, did she take any photos of you, or both of you? Or your joint tea and cake? I must admit, I would’ve thought she would’ve include your name at least to say “Birthday Tea & Cake with Bakedbean” – however, what is her social posting like? Does she normally include people, does she normally post?
I’m just wondering if you’ve taken a negative look on this?

Friend L – she came two hours away to see her daughter, she invited you to join her – she didn’t have too? Maybe she hadn’t seen her daughter in a while either and if it was planned last minute then understandable why nothing else was put in place. If it was planned in advance maybe you could’ve taken the opportunity to put forward a plan of what YOU wanted to do. Her daughter then text (which yes your friend should have text, not her daughter) to treat you for your birthday – maybe they felt bad that you declined, realising that actually it was your birthday. You said “what she meant was pay for cake at a place they had chosen to suit themselves” did they actually say they would take you for cake at ‘so and so place’? At which point you could’ve said – lovely and gone .. they are paying for you to have cake and tea after all?! Unless you have had a bad experience and this particular place, then why would you not want to go? Or at this point assert yourself and say “oh what a lovely idea, but would you mind if we went to …….. instead? It’s just I (either don’t like that place/ can’t eat anything there/ have an allergy – insert as appropriate)

Friend D – she was ill over your birthday. Ok, I guess it depends over what period because you could say she could have handed it to you first, before your birthday, but if she was planning on being in work (not ill) on your birthday, then she wouldn’t give it to you beforehand anyway? You got a present out of it at the end of it, so, actually, is she ok? Was it just a cold, she could be ill from something serious?

In my opinion, it seems to me that your expectations from your friends may be a little high. You need to remember as human beings we all work in different ways and you wanting to be taken to a certain place, on a certain day and paid for, may not be someone else’s idea of a nice birthday – they might just like a card and no fuss. So, if you want something, ask for it – or plan a get together and invite them all. It seems that you look at the negative on things instead of the positive and that you need to assert yourself more.
Your friend invited you out and declined on the fact you couldn’t go where you wanted, so rather than discuss other options etc with her you decline, say no, resent her and what’s just happened and feel like you don’t have good friendships – just as an example.

Let me hear what you think of this look on it?
Poppy

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Poppyxo.