I toooootally agree with Anita. You should not be responsible for taking care of her kids. They are HER kids, and if she is too low income to be able to pay for child care, she should look into state funding for that sort of thing. That’s why it’s there. I cannot imagine sticking my boyfriend with dad duties when he is a boyfriend and not a STEPDAD.  You two are not married, so you have no obligation to take on those sorts of duties, and if it is making you miserable and leaving you with no time for self-care or to be with friends and relax, then I agree with Anita and say you shouldn’t do it.  Or maybe even just do it less. See if she can get state help to get them in daycare or to a babysitter more of the time so that you don’t have all of that responsibility.

Then i thought… SEE!  This is what started to mess everything up in my head in the first place!  Anytime she did anything, I started to overthink every little thing and assume shit.  Instead of just thinking she did what she did for reasons i don’t know.

You’re starting to catch yourself! That is a great sign and that’s how you heal and let go. As soon as you catch yourself starting to overthink things or wonder about things you couldn’t possibly figure out the true answer to, you just say “whoa, wait, I’m overthinking again” and then focus on something else.  It doesn’t matter what your ex does or why she does the things she does because none of that stuff is going to get you two back together. The ONLY thing that will matter is if she messages you saying “I made a mistake…” or whatever and you go from there, but no matter what, overthinking and over analyzing will only drive you crazy.

You ARE still letting yourself ruminate on the things you miss about your ex, though, so that’s something you’ll want to work on, too. Same thing “whoa, I’m ruminating again, better focus on something else for a bit.”  Eventually you’ll just stop doing those things or definitely not nearly as often. She’ll just kind of pop into your mind here and there and then the thoughts will flow peacefully back out, and that’s what you’re aiming for here.

she was a little funny that way.  Basically what was the final straw or her excuse was that I copied and pasted a text she had sent to me, and I accidentally sent it to back to her by mistake.  She is very private and isn’t one to “parade” her feelings, ect..  Anything said or done was special, just between us.  So the idea of me sharing that text, especially with her friend “talking behind her back”  Felt like a huge betrayal to her, and that I lied to her about it, then also lied to her about how i felt.  I never told her how i really felt about things when they went south.  I always told her, it was okay and I understand.  Which was a lie.  It wasn’t and I didn’t.

She has a really big issue with lying.  She told me from the beginning about that.  So in a way i was lying to her for a little while.

Here’s the thing, though. I’m that way too. The difference is that I understand that people need comfort, and you seeking that comfort and answers with someone you know SHE trusts was better than you just venting that text to whoever or even one of your friends or someone she doesn’t necessarily like. I just think it’s possible she blew that out of proportion to ease her own guilt over what she did to you, making it seem like now you’ve done something to her so she can feel better about what she did. You know?  Trying to cover it up with a lie was definitely the wrong move, but still not so big a deal that it can’t be forgiven. You just kind of have to look at the big picture of the situation and see it for what it is, including everyone’s emotions at the time. Heartbreak can make people do some uncharacteristic things and I feel like that should be understandable, at least to a point.  It would be different if you did that every time you guys had a fight (while you were together), just blabbing private information to whomever, but in this case, she had just seemingly flipped her feelings and blindsided you with a breakup. That’s different.

 I still feel like she lied to me and betrayed my trust.  I trusted her with my heart.  I trusted that she would be upfront and honest with me about things.

Yep, she absolutely did betray your trust. You were under the impression that you guys would be together for the long haul, right? She broke promises she made to you. That alone would be enough to cause her to feel guilty. On top of that, she basically made the decision to end things without even discussing it with you, which creates a lack of trust in that, if you got back together in the future, you would wonder if she would just do it again and you’d be left blindsided… again. She also seemingly allowed herself to start an emotional relationship with someone else while she was with you. Huge breach of trust.  It’s really a case where, if you guys are ever meant to get back together, SHE needs to do the leg work and earn YOUR trust back… not the other way around. Meanwhile, that’s yet another great reason to let the past go and let yourself move forward without an eye on the past, because, if she did come back, you’d be strong enough and detached enough to make sure she had to earn your trust back rather than just accepting her right back with open arms before proving to you that she’s changed. Without clear change in both of you, the same will just happen again, so you have to make sure that change is there.

Lets say down the road, maybe years from now or not.  Having that feeling of betrayal.  Even though it was nothing like cheating or anything.  But feeling like you were lied to and betrayed.  Is that something you would be able to overcome and over look, or would you always have an issue?

No, I wouldn’t always have an issue, but my ex did far more to me than just confiding in a friend of mine and I’d still be willing to work things out, so I’m not sure my thoughts on this are comparable to your ex. I kind of think it’s silly she considers that betraying her trust anyway. Does she not confide in her own friends? Wouldn’t that friend have already known it all anyway? So I don’t really understand why she felt betrayed by that to begin with unless she was just saying she did to ease some of her own guilt over what she did to you. You were just trying to figure out what in the world was happening and I think that should’ve been understandable.

Anyway, though, if she clung onto any sort of betrayal that happened while you were heartbroken and emotional, I’m not sure she’d be worth having back anyway because there’s a certain lack of understanding there, especially since she’s the one who betrayed your trust to begin with. So I wouldn’t worry about that too much. It’s likely she just wanted to point a finger at you to ease her own guilt but it actually wasn’t that big of a deal.

Valora, How did you get so smart?  Seriously.  You have so much good and wise advice.  I really appreciate it.

You make a really good point of letting go of the past.  If i’m understanding this right.  I can let go of what i had with her.  with everything.  But i don’t have to let go of her or still having feelings for her?  I hope that’s what you meant.  That’s what i’m getting from it.  I’m sure I will always love her and letting go of the past doesn’t mean i’m deleting her from my heart?

Thank you!  And yes, exactly. You don’t have to push her out of your heart. I don’t think I could push my ex out of my heart if I tried and I think, if I tried to, that would be going against what my heart wants and would just cause me a ton of grief. You just can’t let yourself continue to ache for her.  Think of it like this…. just make a nice little spot on a shelf in the back of your mind for the memory of your love and leave it there while you move on with your life. If she does come back around, as you guys get to know each other, that love for her will still be there on that shelf and you’ll be able to pull it right back down and let those feelings grow again if that’s what you want… so you don’t have to have that fear of her coming back and you feeling nothing. If it’s meant to be, you will still want it to be.  This is just something that will allow you to move on and be open to other love, but you deeeefinitely don’t have to delete her from your heart.  Frankly, I have a nice little shelf for all of my ex’s in memory, even the ones I’m good friends with now. It’s a different kind of love for them now, but they will always be special to me in their own ways. And that’s totally okay!

  Instead of making myself better for her, or to be the man she wants.  I need to make myself better for me.  To be the man I want to be.

Yesssssss! This is exactly what you need to do. Do it for you.  And then believe it or not, doing things for your own well-being and self-improvement for the sake of your own wants rather than someone else’s will actually attract the things you truly want into your life… which is basically just that feeling you had with your ex. You want all of those feelings back, not the old relationship with the turmoil and issues and maybe not even specifically your ex. You want those feelings she gave you and the good experiences you had. Improve yourself and get to a place where you are truly feeling good, confident, secure, and happy with the life path you’re on, and that’s when you can attract that love and those feelings that you want back into your life, and it may be with your ex or someone new entirely, but you won’t care because whoever it is will give you those feelings that you loved so much AND you’ll know that that person likes the REAL you because you’ll have done the work on yourself and won’t be trying to change yourself for someone else anymore.

This is why it’s so important to just work on yourself and go with the flow… cause think about it… if you have to work to get her back or convince her to come back, you will ALWAYS feel insecure about the connection/relationship…. but if you let her go for now and work on yourself to get to a point where you really love where you’re at and you’re confident and secure in yourself and the direction you want to take your life in and THEN she comes back naturally, then you’ll know it wasn’t because you talked her into giving you another shot… it’ll be because she genuinely was attracted back to you. And you kind of just have to leave the HOW up to God, the universe, fate, whatever you believe and just have faith that it’ll happen on its own if it’s supposed to, but it’s so important that you both do the work to change any issues beforehand or you’ll just have the same problems again.

I need to learn how to be happy with what i have and forget about what i had.  It is so hard to do though.  So hard to get out of the mindset of thinking that i need to be this certain guy and say the right things instead of just being myself.

Honestly, I think it’s only hard for you because you keep telling yourself it’s hard. All it really takes is a firm decision and then suddenly it gets easier. Trust me on that. I was literally sobbing to my therapist one day about needing closure, and then the next day I asked myself why?? What would that REALLY do for me?? It likely wouldn’t change anything and I know I still have work to do on myself and my own issues, so I made the decision that day to just let things go and it was like a weight lifted and everything got easier. I quit crying every day. Thoughts of him are fewer and far between and really don’t have any emotional impact, they’re just kind of thoughts that pass through and I don’t mind them so much. I’m not fighting with myself anymore. All because I made the decision to take him off the pedestal, put him in a nice little space on a shelf in the back of my mind, and let the past go.  Things got a lot easier after that.  But if you keep telling yourself it’s hard to do, you’re going to keep believing that it’s hard to do… when it doesn’t have to be.  Start telling yourself it’s easy and you can do it… over and over.  Seriously. You have no idea the psychological affect that can have. It’s a mind trick that truly works. 🙂   Google Kerwin Rae “This is simple. This is easy. This is fun.” to learn more about that. I’m a psychology major and I’ve learned what he says is absolutely true.

You’ve learned a lot of lessons from this. Just take them to heart and remember them and recognize the value this experience has given you. It sucks, but it has been valuable.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Valora.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Valora.

She’s a student nurse redoing her 2nd year. She’s also on a nursing internship, she has a part time job and rugby practice/matches.

With all of this, I could tooootally see her being extremely busy, too busy to find much free time. My life has been like this pretty much since the end of August and I’ve had a hard time getting out to see my friends at all. I think I may have been able to get out once? haha.  Sometimes when the schedule is overloaded, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get anything extra done.  It’s probably going to be like this a lot while she is in school but the good thing about nursing is that it’s generally less time in school than a lot of other careers, so you’ll only have to wait it out for so long and then her internship will hopefully become a job and she won’t need the extra part-time job anymore.

I am trying to get it in my head that no matter what I did that it wouldn’t of worked.  It is very hard though when I changed into someone else during our relationship.  However, I do think if i would of stood up to her, she may have still felt guilty and such.  Making it to a point where she would want to end things.

Like I said, i will never really know for sure.  It’s just hard to let those thoughts go.  Hard to move on and enjoy life now.  Fridays are the worst.  That’s when i got most excited, cause I was going to see her.  I’m trying to be that way now with my girlfriend cause we only get fridays and saturdays together.

Yeah, I really don’t think you standing up to her would’ve made any difference. Think about it this way… the way you were acting was a reaction to her seemingly backing off, right?  That means she made her decision to change things and back off BEFORE you started acting differently. She was already in the process of making up her mind without talking to you about it, so your opinion or thoughts wouldn’t have changed anything, and, who knows, it might’ve made things even worse.  You may be finding it hard to let it go, but all it really takes is making the decision to let it go, and then it’s easier after that. You might want to ask yourself WHY you don’t want to let it go. Is it possible you are afraid you’ll get over her if you let all of this go and then she’ll come back after you do and you won’t want her anymore?

You also seem to compare your current relationship with your girlfriend with your relationship with your ex a lot, which is not helping because they are two completely different types of relationships (long-distance weekend relationship vs. every day real life), and two completely different people, so it’s comparing apples with oranges, you know?  I think it’d help if you’d get yourself into a situation you ARE happy with, even if you just make improvements to your life outside of your current relationship if you don’t want to leave that right now.  You’ll have an easier time changing your mindset if you focus on YOU rather than your girlfriend or your ex although you still do need to think about your girlfriend too, because you’re with her, but I hope you know what I mean… just find some things you truly enjoy and that improve your life.

Valora, i’m trying to forget those thoughts when they hit.  Honestly it feels like they are coming more and more now though.  I don’t know what’s going on with my head.  I think  i have cried everyday this week.  twice one day.

It’s likely they’re coming more and more because you’re still very heavily focusing on her. You’re constantly thinking about how you reacted or what you did or what you should’ve done or what she did, that you aren’t giving yourself a chance to let the thoughts go because you ruminate on them when they come in.  You are also clearly frustrated with how you’re feeling, which means you’re still fighting the thoughts and you are the one who is allowing it to consume you. You don’t have to do that. You just seriously have to try to relax and let the thoughts go out as soon as they come.  Literally have a self-dialogue of “hey, there’s another one of those thoughts. That’s okay. I’m just going to let that thought go and focus my attention elsewhere” and then start thinking of something else. It is a psychological fact that we can only pay attention to or truly focus on one thing at a time, so if you shift your focus intensely toward something else, an activity, a TV show, a really good book that interests you, etc., every time you think of her, switching to something else, those thoughts WILL slow down, but you can’t fight them either.  Like I said, let them come and go like a stream passing through a tunnel.

How do you let go of those kind of regrets?

You let them go by forgiving yourself, realizing that doing things differently likely would’ve changed nothing, realize this happened because you had an important lesson to learn and moving forward. You cannot change the pass, so regrets serve absolutely no purpose other than to drive you insane. You have to learn to let go. I think it might help you to read some blogs or books or anything on learning HOW to let go until you find something that works for you. We cannot live in the past, and you will never get over this until you can learn how to let the past go.

Valora,

You’re absolutely right. One of my biggest challenges in life has always been to just try and accept things when they are not as I want them to be. I feel the need to control, fix, change. Things outside my control seems like an alien concept.

I agree, I will keep experiencing that lesson until I get it, but I have no clue how. Have you any advice about how to come around to that level of acceptance?

I think listening to Kyle Cease’s YouTube videos has helped me with that more than anything. That and just reading things on the internet about how to let go of control. It takes some work and a lot of self-talk, and you kind of have to reprogram the way you think, but it helps. I still have moments where I fall back into feeling like I need to know an outcome or like I want some sort of control over a situation, but that’s just where I have to remind myself that I don’t really NEED that and question WHY I want it. If I can figure out WHY I want to know that or what I think I’ll gain from it, I can sort of look at things more objectively and figure out if I really neeeed to know it or if I’m hoping something else will come from it and what the likelihood of that something I want happening is and then if it DOESN’T happen, how will I feel? Better or worse? Then I usually decide that the not knowing is better and I should just leave the past behind me and do my best to move forward.