Home→Forums→Relationships→Fight within – will i be able to win self respect over love -Help
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September 10, 2018 at 9:24 am #225027
AnnieParticipantDear Tiny Buddha
I met a guy who fell in love with me and though i did’nt love him but finally ended up in love, he pursued me for some months. I had some traumatic childhood experience and had difficulty growing up and loving myself. My father was very strict with me and i ended up not sharing my problems and troubles with them. I was a very simple girl. When i met a guy who said i was wonderful and that he would love me unconditionally, i fell for him. We had a good chemistry. Got married but things started changing after marriage. He started imposing stuff in name of his culture, went back on his promises, became very irregular in working and didn’t want to have kids and spent all of our income on things he wanted, we ended up taking loans for financing his passion. I had a stable job and burden of running house fell on me. This created tension in my mind since i felt burdened with financial commitments and used to share the same with him. I used to tell him if i fell ill what will happen. He used to sell me a dream where he will make it big and i can take a break, no tension. On this promise, we bought a house again on mortgage, but his dream of being settled always kept moving forward and my hopes kept getting dim. He created misunderstanding between me and my parents and sister. I slowly moved towards a depressed state since i and confided in him. He did nothing except telling me to smoke pot to ease mental pressures which thankfully i did’nt do. I put up with this for 8 years and found out that he had been lying to me on his smoking and drugs habits and my parents. I decided to call it quits without giving any more chances and move on. I have been seperated but i have not been able to forgive myself for my past actions or inactions. I keep going back in mind and reliving moments. It looks like an impossible task to move on and i feel i will loose myself in all this confusion.
September 10, 2018 at 10:26 am #225051
AnonymousGuestDear Annie:
Reads to me that separating from him was a sensible and wise decision on your part. I don’t understand your confusion, can you explain it to me?
Regarding not being able to forgive yourself for your past actions and inactions: what are the major actions and inactions you regret and blame yourself for?
anita
September 10, 2018 at 12:00 pm #225071
PrashParticipantDear Annie,
Your initial decisions seem to have been taken from a position of insecurity and vulnerability. It is great that you have resolved to move away from that decision. Moving on is indeed possible and you have taken the first step forward.
Keep backing yourself just as you did when you took this decision. The past is behind you, don’t let it cloud your present. How are you managing your depression?
September 10, 2018 at 7:08 pm #225103AnnieParticipantDear Anita
Thanks for reading my posts and replying. I am not able to get over him. I dont know what is love now. I am used to justify each of his non sensical action in my head and feel apologetic about my inner voice opinions. Plus in being with him, i have pushed myself in a position where i have lost my original self, my connection with my parents and friends. I am so unsure about everything and i dont know what i want in life. It sounds stupid but daily it is a struggle to survive one more day without thinking about ending it all. My inner self is in constant struggle there are two sides one which wants to run away to what i knew as normal where i had no real connect with my parents or real friends and only him and his family and the other side of mine which wants to stay away because with him i have become a bad person. I was a happy self made girl before i met him. I worked hard throughout my studies and career and i had dreams of doing something for my parents for me for my sister. All those times i lost in last 8-9 years while he did everything to achieve his desires. I was a fool in love. Why do i still keep thinking about him. I feel like i have lost all sense of self worth and respect. I was strong for sometime and then i have become weak.We are separated for a year and i cant seem to stop thinking what if i had maintained status quo, i would have died a slow death but no one would have known. I am now revealed with all my weakness and vulnerabilities. I am not perfect. Will i find someone to call mine. I lost so much time. And these thoughts spiral on. Till time i was paying his bills and acting as per his wishes he was all fine and when i stared asking questions he started behaving differently. I couldnt trust him then and now i feel i should not have done all that. But i want to get over him. Start again. Find myself. I want pain to reduce.
September 10, 2018 at 7:13 pm #225105AnnieParticipantDear Prash
I have taken firm steps to ensure that i move on but in my head and heart i need to move on completely. And if you read above you can see how i am managing. I just hoped if i knew earlier what i was going through. I have got tangled up in too many things because i didnt realise that what was happening to me was not entirlye my fault. I was going through a bad phase. i dont know if i will be able to succeed and this i am saying truly. It is so horribly difficult to challenge yourself when you are so insecure and vulnerable. Realise that you have messed up your life and taking action to change it without knowing what will happen tomorrow.
September 10, 2018 at 8:41 pm #225119PrashParticipantDear Annie,
When there has been so much of doing and thinking something over years in the same way, naturally it becomes difficult to move ahead in different situations. When you keep thinking of the past and regrets that you had it makes it all the more difficult to look at what is there in the present moment.
The past will continue to have its influence but it need not be the defining one. Every moment is a new moment, every day is a new day. You can start afresh with the dreams that you had. By your actions you can prove to yourself and to others that you are still capable of the promise that you once had.
You wrote that you don’t know if you will succeed, what is it that you want to succeed in?
Any person who starts life fresh has the same doubts and no person knows for certain what the tomorrow holds for them. It is in your small actions today that you create tomorrow. You are a brave person. When many people would have maintained a status quo you took the bold step to move away from a toxic relationship. With time the pain will reduce and as you discover yourself and allow yourself to flourish, you will meet someone who is well suited to your reality at that point in time.
Take care.
September 10, 2018 at 9:19 pm #225125AnnieParticipantHi Prash
People say i am brave and strong for doing. But i feel i am used up all my strength. I hope i find strength to go through this, right now it feels i am making all bad choices.
September 10, 2018 at 11:42 pm #225129PrashParticipantDear Annie,
What are the bad choices that you feel you are making?
September 11, 2018 at 7:59 am #225169AnonymousGuestDear Annie:
What was before you met him, that is now gone. You got used to living with him, you adjusted well, best you could and that adjustment is making your life now painful.
It is similar to a person who spent years in prison, often miserable to be locked up but he or she got used to it, adjusted well, found comfort in the structure of prison life, in the predictability. Then being released, that structure, that life is all gone and life feels scary “on the outside”. Often prisoners released re-offend on purpose so to go back to prison.
The best solution, as I see it, is that you do not resume the relationship with him. Going back to the prisoner example, when the released prisoner returns to prison, it may be worse for him, conditions made worse. So it is in your case: if you had a child with him, for example, that would make it worse for you.
Don’t resume a relationship with him. Instead, slowly start a life with a new structure. Look at your day and structure it: add a daily visit to the gym, or a daily walk outside. This is a beginning of a new structure. Attend a weekly or bi-weekly visit to a support group (such as Codependent Anonymous) where you can meet people and share. Visit this site and post daily, another structure. It takes time and patience, but a new structure will bring you that feeling of relative safety and you can take it from there.
If available to you, good psychotherapy/ counseling can be very helpful.
What do you think?
anita
September 14, 2018 at 3:08 am #225645AnnieParticipantHi Pash
I am unable to love myself that is foremost bad choice. I feel extremely guilty to point i feel i have hurt so many people. I forget the times i used to feel sad and let down and so much tension that i cant tell you. Seeing the bank balances going negative within first week used to give jitters. I had reached a stage of indifference and his demands were not reducing. There was a point where he wanted to take a loan of 22 l again to buy a vehicle and i literally begged him that i cant afford this lifestyle. We were showing to world that we are luxurious and have no happiness in life. I was under so much pressure that I used to feel guilty if i buy anything for myself. I kept all his family happy loved them as mine even more but when time came they all including my soulmate sided to take over property. Made stories. It broke me to core to see my life of 8 years crumble before me. For first time i was angry for being right. No amount of compensation can make me same or right or feel ok again. But as i said there is this other inner voice which wants to live so bad, it keeps telling me to move one and there is other which still follows him on social media only to tell myself that i am responsible for troubles he is going through. I should have jus stayed and he would have been happy at my expense. Its a feeling like talking to wall. I used to tell him all my troubles and he will say its in your mind or you dont know how lucky you are dont complain people are in worse situations.
So the biggest bad choice is feeling guilty all the time and in my imaginary world where i am not ready to accept that he didnt love me. If he did only thing which mattered would have been is that we should be together at this very moment. But that happens in movies.
September 14, 2018 at 4:36 am #225655AnnieParticipantDear Anita
That is the case may be. Because i am fighting within because it is so difficult to forget everything. There are good memories which only i recall with him. I easily forget the times i was hurt or unsure living with him. And that drives me mad because i initiated everything. I want a second chance at life.
September 14, 2018 at 5:14 am #225663AnonymousGuestDear Annie:
A second chance in life is available for you away from him.
The “good memories .. with him”, those give you a good feeling but life with him is not good for you. There are almost always good memories in bad situations. Let’s say a person is starving day after day for a week, then on the seventh day he gets to eat a piece of bread, that is a good memory!
Do you then live this kind of life: starving for six days so to enjoy a piece of bread (even a cake!) on the seventh day, then starve again and so on and on and on?
You wrote about talking to him: “talking to a wall. I used to tell him all my troubles and he will say its in your mind or you don’t know how lucky you are..”- this is a kind of starving, starving to be heard, to be treated like a person who matters, a person who has value.
anita
September 15, 2018 at 4:15 am #225759PrashParticipantDear Annie,
Every person has their own unique way of dealing with difficult situations. I understand that what applies to me may not apply to you, even then I thought I will share how my thinking goes.
I feel guilty many times over, there are many things that I regret and feel I shouldn’t have done those. I wish that I could go back in time and be able to correct those mistakes. That is like courting the impossible. It is never going to happen.
Where does that leave me? What can I do?
I can accept that I have made mistakes, accept that going forward I am still likely to make mistakes however careful I am, however cautiously I take my steps.
I see two choices in moving forwards. I can berate myself up over past mistakes or I can support myself. I think the latter is the better option. Here I take care of myself by awareness, by being mindful of how I am – to others and to myself. It is not a fast track process. It is slow and tedious. But by keeping those things that I have over my control – my thought process and my behaviours, I know I will progress. Mistakes that are likely to happen will be seen as lessons that will help me and not as proofs of my worthlessness.
Break all contact with your past when it is not serving you at all. Your fight within is between self respect over love. Create a win win by loving yourself, by respecting yourself.
Take care
September 18, 2018 at 11:29 pm #226265AnnieParticipantPrash and Anita
I seem to be losing that fight. Because i don’t know in which dark place i am. When he initially tried to reconcile i felt it is not genuine concern, he values me the least or i am of no concern to him. I was appalled at that since he used to say that he loves me the most and he will not be able to live without me. I used to believe that he loves me though my gut feeling was opposite since i was not feeling it is right. Everything which i got was a privilege, that was issue and fight within.
I let him go and then when i was proved right in terms of his behavior i am in shock more. It seems i was blind while everyone could sense that something is wrong. I keep going back and thinking i could have corrected something or stayed with him. I had a nice house, a routine and a luxury of people believing i have got everything so i was ok normal and invisible . I had everything but i was not happy then also.
I have convinced myself that he has won, he got the money what he wanted. He is happy, while i knew living with him that he used to do things and leave them halfway. Be frustrated. But in my mind everyone is happy and i am loser. I don’t see what i have, keep comparing constantly. I had achieved what i wanted in life within 3 years of working and then lost it all within 3 days. He didn’t do much work and enjoyed life. He ensured he is in touch with his family while i got so busy working that i lost all time. now i am disconnected with my parents and find myself doing stupid things. Is this jealousy or what is love. Till when will i feel this. while writing above also i feel like a fool, but what i did was out of love and no greed then why i am suffering while he enjoys. I am still young as everyone says but i feel i have lost life. I keep convincing myself that people have lost more, times will change. i am not in worse off situation. I am independent, can rebuild a life for me, but it all goes waste because all thoughts come back. No one can make me happy unless i am happy. Am i selfish, what did i do wrong. How he has peace which i don’t. Why i have so many questions while he doesn’t. Is it because i moved out of house and all changed for me. I feel stupid. is it ego. I have spoken to friends at length and sought counselling but i am reaching a point of no return and i feel i will take a stupid decision at end of this road. i dont know if i made sense. do i still love him is that the issue i dont want to admit but if yes then how can i love a person who didnt care about my safety and dignity as a husband, who broke promises of starting a family, who spent lavishly and irresponsibly while i slogged in office. Why cant i accept that it was not love because if it was then he would have come back for us no matter what or does it only happen in movies. All i wanted was love and i am here sitting alone still looking for it. Is world so scary place devoid of all this. Where am i stuck.
September 19, 2018 at 3:30 am #226285AnonymousGuestDear Annie:
“I don’t know in which dark place I am”, you wrote. You are probably in the same dark place you were in as a child (“I had some traumatic childhood experience”, a quote from your original post). Unless we heal from a traumatic childhood, we keep experiencing it emotionally.
“But in my mind everyone is happy and I am loser”- true to me and everyone else, in my experience, that when we feel that we are losers we see everyone else as winners. It is not true to reality, but this is how it seems to the one depressed, it seems like everyone, or almost everyone is happy.
“now I am disconnected with my parents”- this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is often a very good thing if your parents hurt you by causing that “traumatic childhood experience” you mentioned.
You wrote: “I feel I will take a stupid decision at the end of this road”. Can you tell me what stupid decision you are referring to?
“how can I love a person who didn’t care about my safety and dignity as a husband, who broke promises of starting a family, who spent lavishly and irresponsibly while I slogged in office. Why can’t I accept that it was not love… All I wanted was love and I am here sitting alone still looking for it. Is world so scary place devoid of all this”-
My input: there is lots of aggression in the world and not enough love. So yes, the world is scary that way. You asked how can you love a man who didn’t love you- my answer: if you experienced love within your family of origin or elsewhere before you met him, then you would have been able to compare and see that he didn’t love you. But because you didn’t have such an experience, you held on and still, you hold on to any memory of what appears like love. The little love you experienced with him seems like a lot because of the emptiness before him and after him.
Love is available for you, not with him. There is a man out there who will love you, you just didn’t meet him yet. Please don’t lose hope, and instead of making that stupid decision you referred to, make wise decisions that will get you closer to the love you still need, the love we all need.
anita
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