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Tom

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • #229869
    Tom
    Participant

    Yashoda, there is hope in finding someone else who has respect for you and does not lie to you.  There are others who are single who will look your way.  There are too many people on this planet not to look your way.  I understand your fears though.  I left a relationship where I felt like I was not being treated with respect and it has been the most challenging thing for me to move on from.  I think to myself that I will never find anyone like her.  Why did I leave?  It wasn’t that bad.  She treated me the worst that anyone has ever treated me and I still want to be with her.  The good thing is that you can regain your self respect by not talking to him ever again and making your self happy.  I struggle with this everyday but I do have hope that one day I will meet someone who respects me and I know you will too as long as you say good bye to this guy.

    #229859
    Tom
    Participant

    Anita, thank you for taking the time to write this.  That is interesting what you mentioned about feeling like I have to stay with my girlfriend because I deserve aggression.  That thought had never crossed my mind.  I was just looking at why I would leave when I was getting yelled at, but I failed to look at why I was returning in the first place.  I had accepted the idea that the yelling was just a part of the relationship.  I had spoken to a girlfriend of mine and she said that when things start getting heated her and her husband just take a break and come back to it when they are calm.  I can handle calm arguments where you discuss your viewpoint on a certain situation and figure out a solution.   Yelling at me never brings a solution.  I do feel a better knowing how you explained it that no one does well under these circumstances.  I will have to tell her that I will not tolerate being yelled at again and tell her that I will leave if it happens again.  I am definitely willing to tell her this, but I worry how she is going to take it.  I hope it is enough to cause her to control her anger more.  Thank you again!

    #229633
    Tom
    Participant

    Anita….I found a writing from you a long time ago.  I hope you don’t mind if I share it.

    “The scientific explanation would be that when you are traumatized in childhood, when you are really, really scared and there is nobody to comfort you, and maybe you are scared a lot of the time, that fear STICKS to your brain in the form of connections between brain cells, neurons. That fear is activated during your life even though you are not in the childhood situation any more. It gets activated AS IF the danger still exists, seeing danger where there is not, and seeing way more danger in situations that are not very dangerous. Someone getting angry at you seems dangerous but it is often not dangerous, for example.

    This kind of activation and reactivity is what is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The trauma of the past keeps getting re-activated, somehow, through healing, you relax those pathways and remove the trauma from the present
    to the past.  Once the memories of the trauma, the emotional memory of the trauma moves locations in the brain, from the Present to the Past, you stop being afraid in the present for what happened in the past.”

    I don’t know how old I was at the time, I feel like I was 5 or 6.  My dad had come home and I was in trouble for something.  I knew he was coming for me so I ran to my room and hid under my bed.  I remember trying to be quiet and his legs and shoes is all I could see.  He was very mad at the time.  I could feel his anger in the room.  I had a large toy on the ground and he kicked it and it flew against the wall.  I don’t remember being caught or dragged out after that.  I do remember times where I was in trouble and he had a beat red face and would lower himself to get in my face and start jabbing his finger into my chest.  I remember seeing the anger in his eyes.  It scared me when I was a kid.

    I don’t know if this could be causing me problems in the present but I do know that when I was young I was scared of my dad’s anger.  The change of his complexion, the look in his eyes, everything about it scared me.

    #229627
    Tom
    Participant

    Zoe, I think believe his behavior is awful and it says a lot about him as a person.  He is not the person you should have been with in the first place and I agree with Khasxo that you should not preoccupy your mind with when he is going to make that phone call.  It will do no good to hear excuses or “I’m sorry’s.”  If it means a lot to you maybe you can send that text or letter and let out your thoughts and be done with it and move on.  I don’t think he will ignore your message, I think that he will read it and more than likely he will not respond and that is ok as long as you were able to say your peace.  Even though you are going through a lot of pain I think the idea that he can do this to you is a good sign that he was not the right one for you.

    #229623
    Tom
    Participant

    Zoe, thank you for responding.  What you wrote is a perfect description of what I go through.  I freeze up when the anger has gotten to its highest point.  I couldn’t say anything when this happened.  It was written all over my face that I was angry but I couldn’t say anything.  I couldn’t have written the way I feel better than you.  And even after the anger has subsided I go through the exact process that you mentioned where I lose momentum and go home to my safe zone.  It is painful to even think of how inept I am at being a regular person and dealing with issues like most people do.  I usually wait until I have calmed down and try and express my feelings and she always gets defensive and makes me feel like I don’t have a reason to be hurt.  I care about her feelings and show her respect when she is telling me something that is bothering her, but I don’t feel the same back to me.

    Marnie, thank you for responding also.  I will try to set boundaries like you suggested and see if that helps out.  I understand that it is not going to work perfect every time but I think it could help.

    #229457
    Tom
    Participant

    Khasxo, it’s been 3 months since my relationship ended and it has been a struggle to enjoy the things I like most.  I can’t sleep at night.  It has been extremely challenging.  I was hoping to get more info from you if you don’t mind.  Was it mutual?  Were there problems on both ends?  Also, I am sure you go through the idealizing part of the breakup where you constantly remember the best times and the moments where you were happy but do you also take time to think about the tough times?  For my breakup I was able to see that my ex was never willing to listen to me talk about my feelings.  She always got defensive and was uncaring.  She had anger issues and blamed her anger on me a lot.  I don’t know if this would help but I remember the times when I was not heard, or my feelings were invalidated.  I make a list of the things that were bad in the relationship and then I make a list of the things I want in the next relationship.  This has helped me.  I hope you are taking it one day at a time and staying hopeful for the future.

    #229455
    Tom
    Participant

    You wrote, “He broke up with me and I’m mad at myself that it should have been me breaking up with him, not setting boundaries and putting up with the crap. ” And, “I’m angry that I let someone determine my self worth and that I was too weak to walk away in the first place when he showed me behaviors that were not acceptable to me.”

    It has been 3 months since my relationship ended and it has been very challenging for me to move forward.  I was treated very poorly, blamed for things, belittled, put down, and treated in a controlling way.  I also did not assert my boundaries at all.  Not once.  I attempted to explain why my feelings were hurt and how I didn’t appreciate certain things but this was not helpful because she was unwilling to listen.  I also am angry at myself for not sticking up for myself, being more assertive to how I was being treated.  It pisses me off to think that there were double standards in our relationship and how she could not see the hurtful things she did to me.  Your comment hit home for me and I have been struggling to come to terms with my inability to stand up for how I should be treated.  Because I continued to put up with it my self worth kept getting lower and lower.  The lower it got the harder it was to fight for my respect.  It is hard for me to acknowledge but it happened.  What I am trying to say is you have to take these thoughts, this regret and anger you have towards yourself and promise yourself that you will never let that happen again.  We both need to stand taller, more fully aware of our self worth and understand that at any time if someone wants to treat you less than that you will call them out and set a boundary that you are not willing to be a part of a relationship where it is not equal.  We all deserve respect and if our partner is not willing to hold that same belief then I think we are better off without them.

    #229445
    Tom
    Participant

    Shelbyville, I am a 36 year old male and it has been 3 months since my relationship ended with my 32 year old girlfriend.  Our ages are similar to yours and your ex’s.  It has been the hardest process for me to handle.  The pain is there all the time.  Even trying to do activities alone that we used to do together makes me almost break down.  I have read that it takes half the length of your relationship to recover.  I do not know if this is true.  I still have trouble sleeping.  I wake up 3 or 4 times a night thinking of her.  We have not contacted one another since it ended.  I have not “made it through” the breakup and I don’t want my story to cause you sadness.  I just want you to remember in the difficult times that your relationship was not moving forward…it is the reason it ended.  You deserve to be in a relationship with someone who is willing to move forward with you.  We all deserve that.  I am the same as you and I thought the same thing, that my ex was the “one” for me.  It makes things too heavy and painful to think like that now.  Now the focus needs to be on you taking each day at a time.  You will get through this.

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)