Feeling like I have lost the love of my life and I know it is my fault.

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This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 11 months ago by s.

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October 16, 2013 at 3:14 am #43860

Sarah
Participant

Hello,

I apologize for this being so long. Here it goes…I have been with my ex-boyfriend for almost three years when he moved very far away for a job after college. We were each other’s first serious relationship and we started dating when I was 21 and he was 20. Our relationship started off like a fairy tale. We had our own special language, shared almost every interest, spent all of our time together and both instinctively felt we could spend the rest of our lives together. As a matter of fact, after only a few weeks together, he told me that he would one day marry me. However, as months went on, I have noticed that all of the worst sides of my character began to come out. All of my insecurities came to the surface. I was always a fairly accomplished student and very involved, but my boyfriend was everything I ever wanted to be. He was a straight A student and the founder of two organizations. Everyone that knew this guy, loved him. Ans while deep down I was so happy with him and proud of who he was, what came out to the surface repeatedly was jealousy and competitiveness. I would apologize as soon as I would say or do something wrong, but often times I would do it again. This was in part fueled by the fact that during our relationship I began to have unexplained and debilitating pain and was hardly able to eat anything without doubling over in pain. No one could diagnose me for a year and I grew increasingly depressed and discouraged. Because my boyfriend was the person I spent the most time with, I took most of my frustration out on him. I knew i was hurting him, but he continued to tell me I was the love of his life and continued to take care of me. I thought that he understood and that this phase would just pass. This bad phase of our relationship lasted for about a little over a year.

Almost three years into our relationship, my boyfriend graduated and got a job thousands of miles away, while I decided to stay and go to law school because the prospect of getting a job that would support me in the same place as he was moving was not realistic with my major. Prior to him leaving, we never really had a conversation about where our relationship would go and I tearfully asked him as we were saying good bye if we would continue being together. He said yes. Over the next few months, but for a few exceptions, everything was fine and we continue to talk and he seemed invested in the relationship, even saying we would get married after law school. A couple of months after he left, I went to visit my family in Europe and while I was there I noticed that he was becoming more and more distant. I mentioned it to him and we go into an argument and I told him that I did not wish to argue over facebook chat and that we would talk once I got back to the US and once he had time to think.

Well, we ended up not talking for a few weeks and once I came back and we did talk, I found out that he assumed from the message that I sent him that I broke up with him and that the reason he did not ask more questions is because he felt hurt by my behavior during our relationship. As we talked a lot of things that he has never told me before began to emerge, such as him actually meaning to find a job that far away so he could run away from me and him only staying with me as long as he did because I was sick. i was hurt by those statements and decided to write him a long letter saying that I understood how he felt and explaining why I acted the way I did once again. He seemed to have understood and cried on skype about how much he loved me. We decided to try at our relationship again and for the next few months everything seemed ok and he even came to visit. The visit was not quite what I expected but nevertheless it was my impression that we were still together and it might work. A couple of months after he came back from the visit, after acting distant, he sent me a message saying that he was seeing and sleeping with someone else. As I later on found out, he started seeing this person, who is a co worker of his, the previous summer pretty much right after I sent him the message that he perceived as a break up. The problem was that I already had tickets to come and visit him in a few weeks and I could not lose the money. I decided to go ahead and go to find out what was going on. I realize this situation is ridiculous, but when I came I found out that he broke up with the other girl a few days before I arrived. He acted like we were a couple again and told me he loved me. But on the fourth day, he got angry at me and told me he was hurting someone else too and so he lied to me telling me he was going for a walk, but instead went to see the other girl and spent three hours with her. He ignored my phone calls and text messages and I had no idea where he was. Worse yet, when he came back she continues to call him and ended up coming to his place and he once again spent hours talking to her while I waited. Once he came back he said that he told her he did not want to be with her, but said that she offered to let him spend the night? I got mad and told him that this was not happening because I was by myself with no food and no car. Once again, everything followed with him acting like we were in a relationship and saying he would not be with her and that she was a mistake.

Once I left, he spent the next five months telling me he needed time to think about our relationship, but that the other girl was not a factor. Fast forward to this August, and I find out he is once again spending all his time with her. However he still says that they are just friends. Come September, he begins saying they are in a relationship. This is after months of practically verbal abuse and manipulating my feelings and leading me on. And saying he would never be with person. But now he says things like “she fills my hear.” Anytime we have spoken our conversations have ranged from him insulting me to crying and saying he still loves me but cannot be with me and wants to be with her. The problem lies in the fact that I feel he is the love of my life and I would do anything to be with him. I also feel so much guilt for how I was towards him, combined with the anger over how he treated me. It hurts me so much to think he is with this girl, who from everything he has told me about her is just a way for him not to be alone and has manipulated him to be mean and hurtful to me. He even still says I am much more beautiful than her. He has no other friends and she is the only one he spends all his time with and I know that she tells him what to do about me and not to talk to me. I am so confused. I know this is very long and complicated, but I spend every day obsessing over him and whether his relationship with this girl will work. I even considered moving just to try to mend our relationship. I am going through a very bad depression as a result of all of this and I cannot imagine my life without him. Is it realistic for me to think that anything could ever be between us? Can he really love this girl after saying so many things about her and breaking up with her four times over the course of a year? I just feel they are both playing a cruel joke on me.

October 16, 2013 at 4:44 am #43862

Sarah
Participant

Another thing I should mention is that my ex tells me he still holds resentment towards me for how I treated him during our relationship. Nothing I do or say has changed that. I have begged for forgiveness, written letters and tried so hard to re-establish communication. But he is still holding a grudge and is holding on to so much anger. It is keeping me from moving on even if I wanted to.

October 16, 2013 at 6:01 am #43863

Jeff
Participant

My question is- why do you let him control whether you move on or not? Look back at everything you wrote above and tell me what in that entire thing makes it your fault that HE cheated on you several times, HE treated you like dirt, HE ran away, and HE only comes back when he needs an ego boost. HE holds the resentment, HE holds the grudge. And he called you sick? Would someone who truly loved you pull all that stuff? Sounds to me like he’s a manipulator and is the one who needs to look in the mirror here.

The time has come for you to take control back because even though you are not with him, he still knows that he can keep stringing you along. You don’t need his forgiveness or permission to move forward with your life. Try this- write him another letter. Spill everything out- your anger, your hurt, how you feel about the lousy way he treated you. DO NOT SEND IT. Wait 24 hours and read it again. Grieve the loss and the pain. Then burn the letter. Burn away the anger and loss and his control over you. I promise you will feel better.

I’m the first one to admit I struggled with many of the things you do. I felt the breakup of my marriage was all on me, that I did everything wrong. It took me a long time to see that I can only control my own side of things. I’m working on those things I need to work on. Those things that she tried to put on my head are just her point of view. That doesn’t make them true. Once I accepted that, then I started to find my way forward again with my life.

Good luck to you.

October 19, 2013 at 10:40 pm #44024
Alexander
Participant
Do not feel guilty for the past, you are a young girl and still have a lot to learn how to behave with a man. My ex-girlfriend for example was very competitive with me too, I just saw it as silly and never bothered with it too much. My mom for example when she was young women just like yourself and married to my father went and applied to a job as a secretary in a place where my father dreamed to work in all his life. He eventually got the job there after finishing his training, but he was frustrated with what my mom did. lol

It is just what you young girls do it seems. But you have learned, matured and know that it is not a good thing to do. This is what it is all about, learning and growing up. And yes a lot of things we learn in life is through mistakes. That is why it is very important to forgive one another.

The fact is that now you are looking back on your life, and see that you would have done thing differently. Shows you have grown up.

What your bf seems to be doing is trying to look for someone better or fool around, yet he does not want to loose you. He is being selfish though as he does not realize how it is effecting you. He tries to get away from being responsible by using statement like, “but I though we broke up, this is why I went with her”, that is a mind game and he is immature. It does not work that way. Love has its own rules and you can not cheat it by such non-sense. You know that girl, you know in your heart that he did not actually believe that. He just used that an excuse to cheat that love and responsibility you have between and towards one another.

Now I do not know what you have been doing yourself all this time. But if you guys have been seeing other people and fooling around. The relationship is pretty much over by this point. Best I can suggest is salvage what you have. The more you keep contact now the more bad experience you will gather between one another and baggage you will have to deal with later on. You and him.

Leave now, cut all contact. Give him time and yourself. And I mean no contact. Let him get his crap together and head/heart straight. Let him understand that he cannot treat someone you love like that, TRUST me you will do a benefit to him and yourself, this in the long run will make him a better person. You yourself go out there and have fun. But I mean good fun, not sleeping with every guy you meet to fill the void and try to end the pain with idea that there is no return.

The thing is, the stuff you went through now, is baggage, the longer you stay together the more bad stuff will happen right now between you two. In the future if you ever want to get back together this will stand between you two. That is why I’m saying it is pointless to stay in relationship now. Leave and salvage what you have, and do not do more bad things to him and avoid him as he might do bad things to you now. If he is a good young guy, he will man up mature up and perhaps in a year or two you will meet up again. And he will marry you.

Just be a good girl darn it. Do not fight, do not create more problems, leave. And let him grow up. And do NOT go into revenge mode, you will ruin him and yourself.

And try most importantly understand that your boyfriend is a human being too, he is just young and foolish, and hopefully will grow up to be a good man one day. Who understand how this stuff works, and that he can not play games, try to cheat your love like he is doing now. Thus he does not understand the pain he caused you.

As ironic as it sound, but “if you really love him you will let them go”. At this point of your life is where this saying applies most true now. And I mean let him go, be a good girl and just go, take no revenge, leave all these games behind. Be the better person here.

And besides, the best revenge is moving on. lol
- This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by Alexander.
- This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by Alexander.
October 20, 2013 at 3:47 am #44031

Sarah
Participant

Thank you so much to both of you for your kind advice. Jeff, I have written plenty of letters to him that were never sent just to get out my frustration. But in teh end it was not enough. What hurts the most is that he does not seem to realize the pain he caused and I keep wanting to somehow show him, and he still does not think he did anything wrong and calls me sick and a pest. Of course I realize that at this point I should simply give up on ever being with him and live my own life for a change instead of living in the past. But this is easier said than done. This man and I were very good friends and relied on each other heavily for many years before we were in a relationship. He is the person I trusted the most and I truly considered him my best friend. I have not spoken to him in over a week now and I am trying very hard to keep it that way, but all I think about is him and how things got so bad. I know that he played mind games with me. But it still does not change the fact that he now seems to be in a very serious relationship with the woman he cheated on me with, even though he repeatedly told me I am better than her in many ways. Moreover, this woman told him that she wants to get married in a year or two, but that she does not want to marry HIM. And I know he does not want marriage or children either, at least not anytime soon. So it almost seems like he is doing this to prove something to me and hurt me on purpose. Even if I have mostly come to terms with not being with him, I still have so many questions and no answers. I feel like all of this confusion is just eating away at me and will continue to do so. He never gave me a clear explanation and told me so many contradictory things. I just don’t know where to go from here. This is all so hurtful. Him saying those mean things to me and him moving on so quickly in particular. I just feel like he idealizes this new person he is with and thinks she is all better, when judging at least from the very limited “interaction” I had with her she is manipulative and is using him. To clarify, while he and I were having a conversation on skype she walked into the room and seeing that I could see her on webcam started hugging him and asked in a mocking tone if I wanted to speak to her. I just don’t understand what he is doing with his life and because I still care so much about him, I cannot stop thinking about it. To Alexander, I agree that the best revenge is moving on and that I should just cut all contact with him. But I highly doubt that he will marry me or want anything to do with me when he seems to be “in love” with another person now. And I have not been seeing anyone since all of this started. I just want to know how it could be possible for me to stop caring and thinking about him, because it is still all I do. I feel stupid and like I am wasting my life away, but I cannot stop. I still remember him for the person he was while we were in a relationship and do not want to believe that he has changed so much…

October 21, 2013 at 11:46 am #44077

Jeff
Participant

My therapist said something to me that may help a little. Who says you HAVE to stop caring or thinking about him? You were together a long time and it’s natural that your thoughts will be dominated by him. I think we do ourselves a disservice when we try to forget something that hurt us. It’s not about if you stop caring or if you do or do not move forward on any given day. You are not stupid for caring. Grieve the loss. The relationship deserves to be grieved.

But I promise you– there will be a day when the hurt will be less. There will come a time where he no longer dominates your thoughts. I have no intention of ever “getting over” my wife. We spent over 18 years together and I don’t want to get over that. But I will learn from it and move on from it when the timing is right. Until then, I’ll grieve in my own way and at my own pace, and not feel stupid for caring.

October 22, 2013 at 4:12 pm #44187

Candy
Participant

Hi-I am new to site but have been reading thru. I was glad to read what you just wrote Jeff, as it made me feel better. You see, I was with my partner (72 yrs old) for 35 years until summer of 2012 when she became infatuated and cheated on me with someone her daughter’s age (49) and then arbitrarily ended our relationship. I am 62 and before she did this, she proposed that we go to NY and get married so that “if anything happens to me (her) you will be taken care of.” She had cancer 2x since 2005. We got thru her illnesses as well as deaths of both my parents ad my brother and she retired in 2010. We discussed our plans for travel, etc and I was semi-retired. After the betrayal, I considered our 35 yrs of fidelity together as well as her illnesses. I forgave her but she claimed that her girlfriend told her I could never forgive her. As you can imagine, life had been a heartbreaking and tortous experience for me over a year; she came back and forth, telling me she still loved me and was not leaving me, then going back to her, etc. I had never had a long term relationship before and had loved and trusted her all these years. You develop an “interdependence” with someone you’ve shared life with for that long of a time; we always “had each other’s back”. And altho its been a year now that she abandoned me (and our 2 cats) I still think about her every day and yes, despite the cruelty, I do care about her too. I know that, try as hard as I have, (reading, meditating,praying,etc) I will never forget her nor the love and laughter that we shared together; and I miss this dearly. People tell me in time she won’t matter but I know in my heart, she always will. I am saddened that we will both probably leave this earth without seeing each other again when in 2010 our wills specified that our ashes be blended together and spread out over the ocean and the woods that we hiked in together for years. Her daughter is so disappointed in her mother’s behavior too but nothing she can do. I now realize that my partner is still trying to find happiness thru another human being and as I had told her many times, it must be within first and only then shared with another. I find solace in my artwork but still have much heartache, not so much in that she left, as I gave her that option if she was unhappy, but in the way that she chose to do it, by lies, cheating and backstabbing. It will always hurt when someone you love tells you by their behavior that you don’t matter to them anymore. So what do we do? I told her daughter that I will always keep an open heart for her mother but I will not allow myself to be manipulated nor mentally and emotionally abused again. I have physically distanced myself and not disclosed my whereabouts, as in the past several months she has been bullying and mean in her scant communications to me. I felt it best this way, in order for me to heal. Thanks for all of the insightful messages form everyone and I hope we can all heal. I still find irony in the fact that something as wonderful as “Love” as also cause so much pain.

October 22, 2013 at 4:30 pm #44191

Candy
Participant

BTW as for the Title of this Forum, I want to note that I DO NOT feel that any of this was my fault. In fact, I had asked, “what did I do”? and the reply was “You did nothing at all.” I know that it takes 2 people to make a relationship and I shared in that responsibility but I cannot make another person “happy” within themselves;
no one can do that. Besides, there is really NO justification for lies and cheating on your partner, your friend. As adults, we are each accountable for our own behavior. Yes I feel compassion, as we are all human and can make mistakes, but we cannot protect another from the consequences of their behavior.

October 24, 2013 at 6:25 am #44286

Francis V
Participant

Sarah,

I’m sorry to hear about the breakup and i know that you are going through a tough time right now. If you are going to ask me, why don’t you respect his wishes for space as of the moment. That would allow both of you to rethink and reevaluate the relationship. The more you send him letters out of frustration will just lead to another negative emotions. Take some time to heal yourself from the pain and hurt feelings caused by the breakup. And this is the time to forgive yourself as well. It is not all your fault. It take two to tango.

I’d like to share some videos that might shed some light on your situation. take some time to watch it. 🙂
Forgiving Yourself for the Breakup >>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFfMKh1ibtU

October 24, 2013 at 8:58 am #44292

Joanna Warwick
Participant

Hi Sarah,

All Im going to say is come visit my site

Set Yourself Free ~Become Your Own Woman
http://www.rediscoverthemagic.com

I have worked with so many women like you and firstly let me say ~ you are not bad and neither is he!
You haven’t ruined anything… you are not perfect, you both made mistakes and you are still very young.

What makes me most sad is that I would put a £1000 on me being able to help you heal the pain you have been in physically.
Its rage and desire to grow and be seen and become a woman being repressed and it was eating away at your stomach!
What you were crying out for was SPACE and that was what you got in the end..

Please come visit my site, so that you can get the professional help you deserve you come into your power and mature into a secure confident young woman who know her worth !

Jo x

October 24, 2013 at 1:55 pm #44308

Barbara
Participant

Hi Candy

Thats really hard going. It must be so difficult, after all those years together. My longest relationship has been 5 years, but 35 years – is an absolutely amazing and wonderful amount of time to spend with another person. It also sounds like you built a lovely life together, and it is very sad that things happen as they did. Very heart wrenching. My heart goes out to you, as you seemed to have had a great relationship, and she did a serious u – turn. This is confusing, hurtful, bewildering, and no doubt caused you much devastation when it happened, after all you had shared.

It seems that really and truly you have no part to play in her side of the equation, her decision to make these choices were clearly from whatever she had going on – and I guess that is her side of it all – nothing to do with you, in a way. To wonder why she did what she did is hurtful, and maybe she herself dosent know why she did it. Maybe she feels she is coming to an age where she missed something, and in this fear, ran to the arms of another, but I really cant say. It seems like a sudden and rash decision, and yet she has done it now, so here you are trying to heal.

I guess the main thing is that you are looking after you now, being respectful to your needs at this time – and that is so commendable, as you have to do that to be healthy and well, and ok in yourself. You are right that you will still think of her for as long as it takes, and you may always think of her, which is natural. That is really inevitable after all the years together. The only thing to say is that yes, it’s ok to still love her, it’s ok to still think of her, and its ok to miss her forever, if thats what happens, but it will ease in time, and become more part of the universal feeling of loss and cycles, and you will see that things will work out for you in a way maybe that you never imagined. Im guessing the missing feeling will fade away, like the loss of every relationship, and it will be much easier in time (cliche but true )

I hope, and I get the feeling that you have, good family, friends, cats (cats are great in a crisis – their zen mode can soothe and guide us to be more like them, I heard a wise person once say !! ), and are doing all the things you like, to nourish yourself.

The relationship can never be replaced, and no relationship for either of you will ever be the same again – all that you went through was your story, your book of love.
I love that movie ‘Eat Love Pray’ and it always makes me cry when the wise person says ” then miss him” when the julia roberts character is heartbroken – meaning if you have to let go , then let go, and just sit with the missing feeling, and with the loving feeling, even from a distance. For now, to detatch and let go, and letting things flow sounds right.

Many blessings, and Namaste,
Keep well,
Barbs.

January 3, 2014 at 5:29 pm #48343

s
Participant

well, my story is very different but i understand your heartache. after not seeing her 6 months, i began dating a friend, we had known each other for the previous 11 or 12 years and after spending the night together, decided we liked each other and wanted to be together. we were both in positions where we had to move from the places we were living and had both just lost our jobs… we moved from michigan to florida on a whim after dating for a week. clearly not the most responsible decision, and as i recall telling my best (and mutual) friends, we’ve known each other forever, i can’t imagine anything coming between us now. how incredibly naive that sounds now.

she and i lived in florida with her best friend (a guy) for about 2 weeks before our fighting got me kicked out. we were on and off for months, both abusing alcohol to incredible extents, regularly having fights where she would scream at me, in front of neighbors and friends, at the top of her lungs, refusing to calm down and talk to me in a rational manner. she hit me, broke my phone, she had all my belongings in her car and threw nearly everything i owned away. it was a horribly dysfunctional, toxic relationship.

that all being said i was a selfish jerk, i wasn’t taking care of myself, wasn’t working,i was broke, i cheated on her (though it was, at least in part because she took home one of my best friends to stay at her house where i wasn’t allowed). she’s diagnosed at bipolar, but my friend who has know us both for years and is just shy of having his psychology phd thinks she has borderline personality disorder. whether or not that’s true, she and i both have issues, we’re both alcoholics, both have serious personal issues. it’s both our faults, we agreed we’re terrible for each other.

i left her alone for a week, moved home to michigan, decided not to tell her and that she would know when she cared enough to actually ask. on new years eve i decided to message her, apologize, told her i know i was selfish and that i hoped that us being apart gave her a chance to be happier. i truly wished the best for her… she said she was with someone else already, she hoped i suffered and she haunted my dreams. all i said in return was i still loved her and i didn’t care what she had to say to me or how spiteful it was, i just wanted her to be happy.

a week before we broke up she said she wanted to have a baby and to move to key west (florida). that’s how crazy she was, and i hate the term crazy, but i don’t know what else to say. nothing happened between her saying that and us breaking up that was upsetting except me being mad at her for driving drunk (we got pulled over, i was sober, the cop let us go and let me drive her home, despite there being an open beer in the car, which i didn’t know, it was dark, and i didn’t know she was drunk). and all of that doesn’t even begin to truly break the ice or exemplify how insane out relationship was…

yet i still love her and can’t her go. my friends who know her and about the situation hate her, my parents think she’s awful, and i still defend her because i’m in love with her, her and all her issues. even her mom, before we moved said “you know my daughter is crazy and she will ruin your life, you should stay away in your own best interest”. this girl almost got me killed, i was homeless, broke, everything you can imagine i suffered it all to try to make things work just to have her leave, the same night she said “i don’t want to bail on you, i love you”.

January 3, 2014 at 5:34 pm #48344

s
Participant

wow that was long, poorly written and probably makes my ex and i sound insane, which we probably are. i’m just still in the midst of it, not even close to having made my peace with it, and really needed to let some of it out cathartically.

January 3, 2014 at 5:47 pm #48345

s
Participant

i neglected to say, i told her i thought she was the love of my life, still do and that i thought she and i would be together be able to be together when we got our lives together… i didn’t get any response to that.

i know it’s time to let it go and that’s what anyone who responds will say. much easier said than done though.
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