Dear Stacy:

(I am adding the boldface feature to the following quotes): “I really appreciated being chosen by him because he was the type of guy who didn’t go for the conventional types. I respect when a guy isn’t attracted to those types because I have never identified that way. I always knew I was the outcast with alternative quirks…protect myself from bullies. I liked that he not only saw this as special in me, he resonated with it too and it made us feel like a team, us against the world“-

– an outcast: a person who has been rejected by society (online definition). Wikipedia has a long entry on social rejection. It reads in part: “Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection (or peer rejection), romantic rejection and familial estrangement…  rejection can be either active, by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the ‘silent treatment’…<sup id=”cite_ref-2″ class=”reference”></sup>Although humans are social beings, some level of rejection is an inevitable part of life. Nevertheless, rejection can become a problem when it is prolonged or consistent, when the relationship is important, or when the individual is highly sensitive to rejection… <sup id=”cite_ref-3″ class=”reference”></sup>The experience of rejection can lead to a number of adverse psychological consequences such as loneliness, low self-esteem, aggression, and depression. It can also lead to feelings of insecurity and a heightened sensitivity to future rejection…<sup id=”cite_ref-5″ class=”reference”></sup>

“The need for love and belongingness is a fundamental human motivation… Psychologists believe that simple contact or social interaction with others is not enough to fulfill this need. Instead, people have a strong motivational drive to form and maintain caring interpersonal relationships”.

This entry on social isolation makes me understand myself better and it helps me understand you (and other people) better. I now understand your intense and prolonged sensitivity to rejection by him, why- as the title of your thread indicates- the breakup has been so “Extremely painful“.

Like me, you’ve been rejected by peers, and worse: you were bullied by peers.  Plus, like me, you suffered from familial estrangement. In the entry, it reads (again, quoting): “The need for love and belongingness is a fundamental human motivation… Psychologists believe that simple contact or social interaction with others is not enough to fulfill this need. Instead, people have a strong motivational drive to form and maintain caring interpersonal relationships“-

– you lived your whole life with your family, being in daily contact and interacting with family members.. but these interactions were not caring-enough for you: not enough to fulfil your unfulfilled fundamental human need for love and belongingness.

Back to what you wrote, the quote with which I started this post: you felt like he, a fellow outcast of sorts, an unconventional, quirky type, chose you as a positively special person to be “a team, us against the world“. Without this team, you are back to being all alone, back to your prolonged and consistent experience of social isolation.

I now understand why the pain of the breakup has been so intense, prolonged and consistent, why “It feels like a cinderblock on (your) heart“.

“Our third weekend together/date was on October 8th of last year… I’m assuming now in retrospect that he literally meant he had JUST messaged her this that weekend…This further supports my new notion that he lied to me about when things officially ended with his ex. He told me it had been two months before we met. Yet here, he claimed LAST WEEKEND (as in the weekend prior to us meeting) he was heartbroken???… I don’t sense one part of him being remotely in turmoil or ‘heartbroken’ over ME.”-

– I now understand why every word he said, every emotion he expressed.. matters to you so much. From one point on, in your mind, he was the only person in the whole wide world who (you felt) satisfied that “need for love and belongingness“, a need that psychologists refer to as “a fundamental human motivation“.

No wonder you are still so emotionally attached to him, why you don’t let him go. Question is: can you have this fundamental human motivation directed elsewhere..?

anita