Home→Forums→Relationships→Emotional Rollercoaster & Needing Closure
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August 31, 2016 at 8:06 pm #113863
AnonymousGuestDear Butterfly:
You are a very emotional woman. I think the Emotional Rollercoaster (the title of your thread) is your own, your own mental roller coaster.
I think psychotherapy with a competent, empathetic therapist will help you a lot to slow down, to slow down the roller coaster of emotions, to quite down. I think you need peace, peace of mind.
You wrote that you are upset that he did not or is not fighting for you. Butterfly, he is fighting for his health every day. The fact that he is not complaining to you about it is admirable.
You’ve been needing him a lot, needing him to fight for you, to love you intensely and always. I think your expectations of him are unreasonable, unreasonable for anyone. It is like you want him to make it up to you for lack of love in your childhood, to make it up to you for all the years of needing love. Such is impossible for any human to satisfy.
If I was you, I would attend psychotherapy (as I have attended myself). I would have recommended that you do meet with him and talk except that again… I believe you are too emotional and can’t handle a calm, productive conversation. The therapy I suggest is so that you get off that roller coaster of your emotions, so that you can become reasonable.
Reasonable would be to realize he is only a man and then a man with sickle cell anemia, a permanent condition. Have some empathy for him.
And take care of yourself, in therapy. Would like you to get off the roller coaster and have that precious peace of mind.
anita
August 31, 2016 at 8:51 pm #113871
Call Me IshmaelParticipantHi, Butterfly.
She did, on occasion—very rarely—acknowledge a few aspects of her poor behavior, but I suspect that was only after a therapy session. During her push cycles, though, no, she admitted nothing, and blamed me for everything. Projection, blaming, and gaslighting were her go-to tools of misdirection and exculpation.
As I mentioned before, I suggest that he is still trying to get negative attention from you, which (if you reply) he hopes to use to his advantage to turn on the charm again and get you back in the push-pull cycle.
My ex claimed to love and care for me, too, and to a certain extent, I think she did. But more than anything, I think it was mirroring on her part, and going through the motions of something she may have wanted, but didn’t truly know how to achieve or sustain. Whatever her reality was on the matter, I don’t think she truly knew how to love or care on such an in-depth level. I don’t mean that disparagingly; I just don’t think she had ever been shown in-depth love or care by anyone, including her parents, to know what it was, or how to reciprocate it.
My ex never truly apologized either. I don’t think she ever fully allowed herself to believe that she did anything hurtful, either. If she ever acknowledged to herself that she had been hurtful, I think her defenses of projecting, blaming, and gaslighting kicked in before she allowed herself to deal with her own culpability. From the sound of it, I suspect that your ex is doing the same thing.
I also suggest that he is continuing to contact you, not because he cares, but because he is trying to play the game out as far as he can to either get you back into the push-pull cycle, or to string you along as a backup, or as a safety net while he finds someone else to fully take your place. Whenever he gets a replacement for you (I know that sounds harsh, but that is the way it is characterized in the discussions about PDs) I would guess that he will eventually stop contacting you.
If he refuses to admit any wrong-doing on his part, if he is not currently in, and is unwilling to attend therapy, I suggest that there is absolutely no hope for this relationship ever to be a positive and beneficial thing for you.
I know the pain and longing that comes with remembering the “good” times, but you have to be strong and see the whole picture and do what is best for yourself in the long run. Tell yourself that the longing is for the experience of love, closeness, caring, happiness, etc., with someone that is good for you, someone that treats you right, someone with whom you can be in a long-term, positive, beneficial relations ship, but NOT him.
I continue to encourage you to stay strong, and maintain no contact with him. It WILL eventually get easier.
CMI
September 1, 2016 at 5:39 am #113895AnonymousInactiveHi Butterfly,
You are doing well. I support your decision not to contact him and to take care of yourself. Don’t even read his texts. It doesn’t matter what he says, because you know how he is. Block him on everything and if you meet him say “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” and walk away. He did not treat you well. You deserve to be treated well. Treat yourself well, and continue to work on forgetting this guy.
It will get easier with time.
September 1, 2016 at 6:42 am #113898
ButterflyParticipantAnita,
Yes, I can be emotional, but I normally keep it in. I am not outwardly emotional. So the roller coaster I was on with him…is in fact due in part to his bad treatment of me. It’s not “all in my head” as you make it sound. I do agree that therapy could help but in reference to him as much as anything else. I do need & want peace. I respectfully disagree with your opinion that my expectations are unreasonable. Who gets into a relationship to mistreat and NOT love someone? HE asked ME to be in a relationship with him and then he mistreated me. So I don’t understand how you can say that I was unreasonable. No I don’t expect him to do anything except what he SAID he would do. LOVE me and treat me right; which his did half heartedly also while he was disappearing & lying to me about MANY things. I have been in several other relationships that were fine and I had no issues such as these because the men actually loved me and treated me well. So I know for a fact I can be in a normal healthy relationship. We have never gotten into a bad “fight” where we yelled at each other; neither of us have raised our voices ever. We always “discuss” our issues calmly and rationally so that is not an issue either. The problem is that although I am willing to admit MY faults he will NEVER admit that he does anything wrong ever. He blames me. And in his previous relationships he blames is Ex’s it’s never him according to him. I am a reasonable person. All I ever expected from him was to be honest, trustworthy, and loving. He was NOT. So Again he was unreasonable thinking that I should be HAPPY and satisfied with being mistreated. I have an extreme amount of empathy for his illness that’s one reason I stayed so long even though he mistreated me because I took that into account and it’s one reason why I still worry about him. Because I do love him and want him to be ok. I am taking care of myself. I want nothing more than for BOTH of us to be happy. I am working on myself and I when and if the time is right I will talk to him and have a calm & rational conversation with him. SO we can both have closure & peace of mind.
Butterfly
September 1, 2016 at 6:48 am #113900ButterflyParticipantHello Monklet80,
Thank you for your reply. Thank you I am trying. I have him blocked but I struggle not to go to my blocked message folder to see if he text. I am secretly hoping he would actually apologize (sigh). Thank goodness I don’t have to see him anywhere we don’t live or work in the same state. Thank you, no he did not treat me well and I need to keep reminding myself of that. I deserve to be loved, & not half heartedly. I am working on it. Thank you again. I pray everyday it gets easier.
Butterfly
September 1, 2016 at 7:41 am #113908ButterflyParticipantCMI,
“I know the pain and longing that comes with remembering the “good” times, but you have to be strong and see the whole picture and do what is best for yourself in the long run. Tell yourself that the longing is for the experience of love, closeness, caring, happiness, etc., with someone that is good for you, someone that treats you right, someone with whom you can be in a long-term, positive, beneficial relations ship, but NOT him.” THIS is so true. I have to keep telling myself this everyday. There is someone out there who will not lie to me, disappear on me and blame me. Someone who will be honest, trustworthy, caring & loving. Someone who will treat me the way I deserve to be treated. Thank you again. I pray it does get easier.
Butterfly
September 1, 2016 at 9:00 am #113914AnonymousGuestDear Butterfly:
You are definitely reasonable when you Respectfully disagree with me and I do appreciate it.
I don’t know the guy so I am not making assumptions about him. He may be an unkind, unloving man. I don’t know.
I know you feel unloved and mistreated by him.You wrote: “The problem is that although I am willing to admit MY faults he will NEVER admit that he does anything wrong ever”-
My questions to you is: what were your faults in the context of the relationship with him?
anita
September 1, 2016 at 9:23 am #113917ButterflyParticipantAnita,
You’re welcome. He was sometimes unkind & unloving & yes I felt mistreated by him at times. You know how they say “we teach people how to treat us?” Well my major fault was that I saw the read flags in the very beginning and I didn’t walk away then. I had such incredible chemistry & attraction to him that I completely jumped head first into the relationship. When he did mistreat me early on by “ghosting” I would take him back after he apologized and I did it over and over. I am sure after this he had little respect for me because I allowed him to mistreat me yet I stayed. I believed him when he said all the good things. But I disregarded that fact that at least half the time his actions did not match his words. I let him change me in ways; he was a very good manipulator often made me pull away from my friends and family. Again this was my fault because I allowed him to do it.
Butterfly
September 1, 2016 at 9:39 am #113919AnonymousGuestDear Butterfly:
I suggested some things to you in my post to you yesterday, may suggested analysis. You rejected my analysis as incorrect. And you did so respectfully, so I have no complaints. I must abandon my analysis then, simply because you disagree; not push it further, that is.
Reading your most recent post above, you are saying that other than allowing him to treat you badly, you did not mistreat him in any way, at no time throughout the relationship, is that correct?
anita
September 1, 2016 at 9:49 am #113920ButterflyParticipantAnita,
Absolutely not. I treat people how I want to be treated. I did not lie to him. I never disappeared on him. If he called or texted I answered. I went out my way to accommodate him, (driving to him most of the time). The only thing I did was QUESTION him about why he would treat me bad and why & where he would disappear to which I think is reasonable being that we were in a relationship. I would ask him daily if he was getting enough rest, eating properly. When I was there at his house I would help him with things (laundry, dishes cleaning etc). I would encourage him not to drink alcohol (which is bad for his health even more due to his disease). So I am being honest when I say I did not mistreat him. I ONLY desired his true love & affection; which I believed at the time he had in him. But as time went on I was not so sure if he was capable of healthy love.
Butterfly
September 1, 2016 at 10:39 am #113924AnonymousGuestDear Butterfy:
So what you stated so far in the last post and before it is that you have done nothing wrong to him, never mistreated him in any way. He has mistreated you repeatedly. The only thing you regret in the relationship is that you allowed him to mistreat you.
You also wrote that in past love relationships you weren’t mistreated, if I remember correctly.
And you didn’t respond to my suggestion yesterday that you may have been mistreated as a child and projecting that mistreatment into him.
All these lead me to the unusual yet possible reality that this is your first time being significantly mistreated and you are stunned at this reality: that you were all loving all the time to this man and he repeatedly mistreated you.
Being mistreated is unfortunately, a reality. Often happens to children who can not exit the mistreatment situation, having no place to go. Mistreated children try very hard to change the mistreating parent, be a good girl or boy and earn a good treatment. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen as the mistreating parent continues to mistreat for his/ her own reasons (the child never deserved it).
And so, you are fortunate that the first significant mistreatment occurred to you as an adult (if I understand it correctly at this point)- because you can, as an adult who lives away from the mistreating party, exit the relationship.
I wrote “fortunate”- we are never fortunate to be mistreated. Only it seems to me no one in this world is fortunate enough to never be mistreated.
anita
September 2, 2016 at 7:55 am #113999ButterflyParticipantAnita,
I was not what I would consider mistreated as a child; was my life perfect? By no means. But was I abused etc, No. Were all of my previous relationships perfect? No they were not but, were any of them like I felt in this one? No. Was I mentally abused in my other relationships? No. So YES I would definitely agree that I was STUNNED that a man of this age who told me everything I wanted to hear about how good he would treat me… then turned around and treated the worst mentally & emotionally I had EVER been treated by anyone in my life? Yes, I am/was stunned. I DO think that when I was younger if I was in a “bad” relationship I was quicker to get out and just move on BECAUSE I was young and I figured I still had my whole life ahead of me. I am not OLD now per se but I am not 22 either. I was HOPING when I met this man that this would be the LAST man I would ever be with, we would spend the rest of our lives together and grow old together. I GUESS THAT part was my fault because I believed he wanted the same thing. So, here I am OLDER and wiser but longing to be truly loved BY ONE man who I can love and grow old with. I guess I am fortunate to have not seriously been mistreated in many ways by many people but THIS was the most painful experience of MY life. So I don’t FEEL fortunate. And again I FEEL crazy because I still love and miss him. I miss hearing his voice, his smell, his touch. So I am upset with myself that It’s so hard to let go of a person who MAY not even miss me as well and put on quite an ACT of “loving & caring” for me?! THAT is unfortunate.
Butterfly
September 2, 2016 at 8:09 am #114002AnonymousGuestDear Butterfly:
You need closure, this is part of the title of your thread: “needing closure.”
For closure, you need to close the door on your past hopes and dreams about a life with this man. As long as you hope for such, you are not closing the door and you cannot have closure.
So far you have been still resisting and fighting- in your own head- against closing the door. You state he mistreated you and you suffered a great deal from mistreatment but at the same time you still want him to change, to regret his behavior, to apologize to you and again, to change. You keep No Contact as a way to get him to regret and change, not so much so for you to move on and close the door.
When you stop hoping and stop trying (to cause him to apologize and change), then you will be able to have closure. Not before.
anita
September 2, 2016 at 8:47 am #114006AnonymousInactiveButterfly,
Smart, capable, experienced people get trapped in bad relationships all the time. I hope you’re not too hard on yourself.
Try to make peace with the part of you that still loves and misses the part of him that was good and loving. You’re not crazy for having that love still within you. But also, you know better than to act on it and allow him to play games with you again.
Care for your poor, confused heart, and keep walking away. It will get easier with time.
September 2, 2016 at 9:02 am #114012ButterflyParticipantAnita,
You ARE absolutely 100% correct. I totally agree with you. And as I am working on myself and trying my best to move on with my life. I will admit that it is very hard to completely let go. It is a process and I am getting stronger day by day. I have some days were I struggle but I am confident that I will successfully move on and be open to meet a man who will love me and treat me the way I deserve to be treated with honesty, loyal, respect etc. I WANT & need closure from this. I know everything happens for a reason SO I can only PRAY that this was to teach me valuable lessons (which it did). Thank you.
Butterfly
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