Hey Michael

I am sorry its still so hard. I am going to try to share some things from a past break up that was years ago, but it was the one that broke my heart and took me a long time to put myself back together from. It is something I have a lot of perspective on now as so much time has elapsed, whereas at the time it felt like hell, which sounds like you are feeling now.

I know exactly what you are feeling, its an attachment to an idea and a hope, and an imagined future, that you are clinging to. Something you really, really wanted. But its not real. The person you wanted to face that future with is not the person in your mind. Be very careful to stop carrying around this imaginary person with you. She has made her decision, and as hard as that is, you have to make your own decision now to stop. Your ‘imagined’ future was a happy one with someone you loved and who loved you too, not with someone who ultimately couldn’t give you back what you could give to her. So you haven’t in fact lost what you think you have lost. Does that make sense? Once I’d realised that I hadn’t in fact lost my ‘one great love’ or the ‘one I was meant to be with’, it was much easier to move on, because I kept telling myself “he wasn’t what I thought he was” or “it wasn’t the relationship I thought it was”. That was the first stage.

IT still hurt. I still cried, woke up every day with him in my mind, etc etc. But I could start taking small steps to the outside world again. Please, if you can, stop looking inwards and start looking outwards. Look up, you will see more, than if you look down. I spent years looking inside, wondering what was wrong with me, why I was so mired in the past. It didn’t help my progress, not one bit. As soon as I started focusing on the outside world again, things moved forward much more quickly. A practical example- I’d spent months turning down social engagements which involved new people, because I wanted to only be with people who I knew really well and would not think any less of me for being a bit down/boring/anti social. That didn’t help- I needed to throw myself into meeting new people and putting on a bit of a front for a while. It was tiring, but I did it, and now I have all kinds of new people in my life, and its good! It was hard, but had to happen.

You have said in your post you are waking each day trying to be positive. That is good. Keep trying, you are doing better than you think I reckon. But you are also saying that you have ‘moments’ when it feels too much or you want to give up. Realise that you can cope with these moments. They are, simply, moments. Let them come and go. Don’t fight them. But don’t wallow in them either. Allow yourself some self pity time, but keep it in perspective. Then get out the house, just physically move around, shake yourself a bit.

Look at people on the bus or train or in the street, and you will realise that everyone is having some kind of ‘moments’ themselves. Or have had in the past. Or will have in the future. Its what makes us all human. Look how popular this site is, we are all seeking solutions and trying our best to make things better for ourselves.

You feel used and lied to and broken. its ok to feel anger, but you have to channel that somehow. That’s your mind starting to see things maybe a bit differently. Maybe this wasn’t the perfect person for you. Should relationships make you feel lied to and broken? No, but they do sometimes. I still feel a degree of anger towards someone in my past, and I am still working on that, but I feel now a complete indifference to him. That took me a long time. But it has meant that in this most recent situation I’ve been posting about, I recognised immediately that I wasn’t being treated well. And you will, next time, too. you need to tell yourself that you deserve that future you wanted. You deserve the person who says- yes Michael I feel that way too let’s just go for it. She wasn’t able to do that. Poor her. What a loss. Say goodbye to that and focus on yourself and other people around you a bit more. You can’t live your life in someone else’s head, or through memories.

I hope that doesn’t sound too much like rambling and has been of some use. My heart goes out to you.

TZ