Dear Stephanie:

You are not easy to forget, your thread has been staying fresh in my mind even though it’s been four days since the last post in it. I hope you are okay with me returning to it. Here are a few quotes from your writing:

“I am an INFP… an unchosen pariah.. I have a rare and  incurable  disease…I am invisible and others immediately dismiss me…  (I) was in an intensely spiritual and metaphysical relationship for 4 years… on my birthday (28), he abruptly abandoned me via communication with my mother, saying ‘I never want to  see her again’.

…all my close old friends… left me… His large Catholic family, whom I spent much time with and developed relationships with, all were ebulliently commenting on it as well. The betrayal was another aspect of me being destroyed… His abandonment left these horrific wounds.

A few weeks before my birthday I had taken a spiritual ‘vow of silence’, similar to what monks do to hear the voice of God… He did not tolerate this and was calling my mother frequently (I did not know this at the time; my mother told me after the break-up). On the phone he was desperate and in a great deal of emotional distress. He expressed how much he missed and cared for me. Then suddenly, a very small period of silence and then him leaving me suddenly on my birthday. It was a total change literally overnight. That is why I suspect he met this woman during this time period. But who seduced who? Knowing this woman’s history, I wonder if he was being taken for a ride.”

My thoughts regarding the last paragraph, from “A few weeks” to “for a ride”:

your information about the man’s state of mind after you took your vow of silence comes from your mother. She told you that he was desperate and distressed over you not talking  to him. Then “suddenly”, you rote, he left you. You concluded that the reason he left you was because the other woman seduced him. I am thinking that the information your mother gave you about her conversations with him was not accurate, that there are parts of the exchanges  with him that she didn’t tell you.

I highly recommend that in a future relationship with a man (and I hope of a man way closer to your age than that man, 36 years your senior), you will keep your mother away from it. Her involvement in this past relationship, I believe, did you a disservice.

I wonder  about that vow of silence and am fascinated by your ways that are unusual, not ordinary, your verbal expressions, vocabulary, speech, even your dress as you describe it. If you respond to me, I will reply again and we can correspond. If not, I will let you be, wishing you well.

anita

Dear Stephanie:

I am glad you are back to your thread. You have expressed lots  of emotional pain on this thread. I do hope your pain lessens. I hope you seek and  find clarity you don’t currently have and  a motivation for a better life ahead.

You wrote: “he abruptly abandoned  me via a phone communication with my mother, saying ‘I never want  to see  her again’. He then immediately cut off contact with me; blocking my phone and ignored e-mails.” Later  you elaborated: “He sent  me a very terse, preliminary break up e-mail the day before my birthday. My mother was devastated to see me like this and sent  him a text reminding him it  was  my birthday. He replied, ‘I never want to see  her again’. He cut off contact and ignored my e-mails during  that time”

You added later: “A few weeks before my birthday I had  taken a spiritual ‘vow of silence’, similar  to  what monks do to hear the voice  of God. I had made  a  vow to not converse to anyone, and  I made  this aware to him. He did not tolerate this and was calling  my mother frequently (I did not know this at the time; my mother told me after the break-up). On the phone  he was  desperate and  in a great deal  of emotional distress. He  expressed  how much he missed and  cared  for me. Then suddenly, a very small period of silence and  then him leaving me suddenly on  my  birthday. It was a total change literally overnight.”

And  later  you added: “My mother … said she  feels ‘used’ by him… The ‘used’ part  comes in when Jim abandoned me, literally overnight, after desperately phoning my mother and begging her for me to talk to him during  my vow of silence.”

My understanding of the events: you took a vow of silence, a monk like vow of silence (or you simply gave him the  more  commonly known silent treatment following being  angry at him, I don’t  know). During that silence he repeatedly talked to your mother, telling her how desperate he was to talk to you. After you ended your vow of silence, he sent you a text the day before your birthday, ending the relationship. Your mother in turn, knowing of this text, called him and  he told her that he doesn’t want to see  you again. After  that she told you for the first time that he repeatedly called her during your vow of silence expressing his desperation to talk to you.

If what she  says is true, that he was desperate to talk to you while you chose to have no contact with him, then the abandonment you accuse him of is something you are guilty of: you abandoned him.

You wrote earlier: “He  did want to  marry me, but I declared the lack of feasibility due to the May-December component”. He wanted to  marry you but you rejected him. Now he is engaged to be married to another woman, one who accepted his proposal and one who has not taken a vow of silence, refusing contact with him.

You asked in  your original post: “How can somebody that claims love for you so deeply suddenly revoke it and commit this nefarious act? Any speculations to his motives?”-

The answer may be then: his motive was being abandoned by you.

Another point: it is not a  nefarious act, a wicked  or criminal act, to end a relationship except for a parent ending a relationship with his/her minor child. The latter is indeed a nefarious act of abandonment. When a man or a woman ends a relationship with a girlfriend/ boyfriend, it  is not wicked or criminal act of abandonment.

One more point: the relationship with him had troubles  for a long  time before your vow of silence and the breakup. You wrote: “Now that I am thinking  of it, toward  the  end of relationship this past year when he was  emotionally withdrawing from me, I felt  his retreat and responded with pain”. And  you wrote: “Towards the end, he became intolerant of me and  said he wasn’t going to listen to my health problems anymore because he didn’t want  to  feel ‘responsible'”

In your  last post you wrote: “What  am I sustaining  myself for when there is nothing  or no  one? I don’t have anyone that cares or loves me. I do have my parents… but I am referring   to somebody who KNOWS me… somebody that cares and loves that knows me. I don’t know if I should keep on fighting or surrender, accept, and remain a hermit.”

You made it clear in that last post that your parents do not know you. When you grow up unknown, in your family of origin, you become  a stranger to  yourself. And you experience an intense aloneness,  one not  congruent with mental health. I suggest you do fight in the sense of  becoming  known to someone. A quality psychotherapist will be best.

Lots of what you think you are, this cerebral old  soul, spiritual, metaphysical, out of this world hermit, outcast, is what you became as a result  of a very lonely childhood. Who you are, what is yet to be known to you, and  to another, is the child-like, young, loving and lovable woman that you are, reaching out for love, craving for what you did not yet experience.

anita

Dear Stephanie:

I am a  member here, like you. I am not able to  delete your thread neither do I have the authority to do  so. I do not know if it is at all possible for a thread to be deleted. I do know that it is possible for you to have your username deleted and that  “Anonymous” will appear  in its  place.

What I  can do, following this very post, is  to no longer respond to your posts here  or  on any other thread you may start or  post in. If you do not add to this thread it will go back in record and take  its place  among the thousands of threads no longer attended  to.

If I receive no response from you, I  will no longer respond to any post by you, and so, you will be  protected from any  upset resulting from my input.

I understand your pain and regret that you are experiencing it.

anita

Hi Stephanie, I just saw this thread and wanted to share that you are not alone in how you feel. I have gone through a similar experience in the past (being suddenly dumped, seemingly out of the blue, to find out later that he met someone else while we were together, who he is now married to). I was devastated and unable to recover, much like what you have described. I went to a therapist and very often could not stop crying. I had no interest in anyone else, and no amount of “forcing” myself to get out and be active seemed to help.

I think we have similar backgrounds – I was rejected, ostracized, made fun of as a child, and I did not have any friends for long stretches of life. I felt this acutely and painfully. I was very smart, and did not have social skills to allow me to “fit in” with most/normal kids/people. Having a close romantic relationship later in life was thus extremely important to me – it was everything. Without it, I had no reason to believe I would ever find that again. It took me well over two years to recover from this breakup, and probably three years before I felt like a functional person again.

I don’t really have words of advice for you; very little anyone said to me at the time was able to help. Sometimes, the only way out is through. To get past the pain, you have to go through the pain. It is terrible — but in the long run, I promise you it is worth it. I can tell you are extremely intelligent and deep-thinking. It seems almost no one is that way in the world anymore. It is very rare! I have been so fortunate to have found a few friends along the way who are this way – they are few and far between, but they are out there! And they are essential to me now having a somewhat healthy and emotionally stable life, as well as a very sweet boyfriend (after six years of being single after the last breakup) who I am fully confident in.

I just felt compelled to write to you because I feel like I “know” you – I felt much like you did/do about life and people for a very long time. I have always been “different”. I think I still would feel that way, if I hadn’t been determined and resilient through all my brokenness and pain and all the times I felt fully and utterly lost. Please be determined and resilient, or at least realize that suffering will, eventually pass, at least the acutely felt parts of it, and if you keep trying, life WILL get better. There is much more life ahead of you, even if that’s impossible to see now. And it may take years before the “better” gets here.

If you are ever in the DC area, I would love to have some tea and show you that there ARE people out there who will hear you, see you, and value your incredible capacity for thoughtfulness, reflection, deep thoughts, insight, creativity, and feeling. I really hope that you stay with it, keep feeling the pain as long as it takes, keep trying. I think life will be a whole amazing level of fulfilling for people like you who finally get it right. Sometimes, time is what it takes. I would not go back to my youth or my 20s for anything. In my 30s, things started to come together. Now, at 36, I might actually have found where I “fit.”  I truly believe that you will too.