It is so trite, but:

1. Time heals all wounds and

2. Living well is the best revenge.

Nicole, I can almost promise you that in a year he will talk to and treat his current girlfriend as badly as he has to you. And that in a year after that, they won’t be together. In fact, in five years don’t be surprised if you run into her and you compare horrible notes.

Two stories to make you feel better:

My first love had treated me a little shabby and at his worst would say things like, “Go back to the people who love you” and crap like that. He, of course, was gorgeous. Cue fifteen years later. We see each other again. He had lost all his looks, and it looked like life had treated him about as well as he had treated me. He had a chip on his shoulder because the world may give good looking people a free pass on bad behavior, but ugly looking people the world will usually give no pass at all. I’m there with my tall, blonde, handsome, kind husband who loves me. He mutters sarcastically, looking at him: “Who wears a tie?” and stalks away.

The second story.. Me and my sister are in a bar and my ex-brother-in-law’s now ex-girlfriend is there. We start comparing notes. We say, “No, it’s not your imagination, he is really like that”. She says he had dumped her last year and she will still get texts from him, giving her crap. At that moment her cell phone chirps. It’s him! She says, “Oh, by the way, I’m sitting here with your old sister-in-law and your ex-wife!” He hears us three burst out laughing at him! He was all, “Why are you friends?!?” He never called to bother her again!

Chin up! You are all that and he knows it! Otherwise he wouldn’t have tried so, so hard to bring you down!!

Karma will work out in your favor for you to see it, you’ll see!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Inky.

I think Anita is right with this quote, “A radish is just a radish. His words: monster. Unattractive. These are just words. They mean so much to you but in themselves they don’t mean that much.” If someone was saying these words to you in a language you didn’t understand, you’d walk away oblivious and un-impacted.

Speak to yourself as if you were speaking to a friend or a small child. Trying saying things like, “You’re not a monster, you’re a good person. You’re not unattractive, you’re beautiful.” Re-affirm that your ex doesn’t have the last word, because he really doesn’t. What he says will never be the end all be all.

And I also agree that people tend to project their own negative feelings onto others. These words reflected more about him than you.

I understand what you’re going through, Nicole. I’ve been in a similar situation and it has totally removed my inner peace. I’m in a lot of a better space now, but only because I don’t think about it. For days, I walked around feeling like the lowest and ugliest person on earth, and neither is true of me. But I believed it of myself.

I’m guessing from the way you write, that what’s happened is relatively recent. Slowly some distance between you and the horror will develop. I believe, small tiny steps could help you to get better.

Matt nailed it on the head – the harsh words from your abuser are a result of his problems, rather than an accurate assessment of your value\self-worth as a person.

My humble two cents: Do not outsource your self-worth\validation to another who doesn’t value you. A very important question to ask yourself is, why do you need the validation\approval of someone that does not value you & chooses cruel words towards you? Since he doesn’t value your body, respond by choosing another, who does.

I’m getting in on this post about a year after it was originally made, but I hope that my comments will still be useful to someone who visits the page. I looked at the previous eight comments which all seemed to echo each other, and I looked at the OP’s questions and imagined myself in her shoes.

I can tell you from experience that it is extremely difficult to diminish the value of a person’s hurtful words against you. You can say to yourself, “Sticks and Stones!” all day long, and still, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt you because…

1. It comes from someone familiar, not a stranger.
2. It comes from someone who has an opinion you still care about.
3. It comes from someone who has been in intimate proximity to you, and therefore the opinion/judgment has some qualification to it.

Again, it’s extremely difficult to diminish or invalidate the value of such words from such a person. I am someone who has been called a monster. I have dealt with this personally, and I know that devaluation of that emotional currency is much more easily spoken of than accomplished.

Everyone shapes their reality with their thoughts. Telling yourself “oh, it’s just words” is a trick people try to play with their minds to diminish the value of the opinion and reshape the reality that they’re living in, just a little bit. Just enough to make it bearable. Just enough to move forward. You may be completely successful with this, and if so, the rest of my post is worthless to you. But if this trick isn’t working for you, like it didn’t work for me, then you’re still going to feel some pain.

So what to do? Here’s what I did.

Admit to yourself that, no matter what YOUR opinion is of your own actions, YOU DID make the other person believe, somehow, that you’re a monster. Post break-up advice that prescribes unilateral self-boosting and ego care COMPLETELY ignores this aspect, because it is totally (and in my opinion, blindly) self-centered. This is a problem for you because you’re trying to puff up your ego and strut your stuff while being at odds with YOUR CONSCIENCE about what transpired. They indict, you feel guilt or indignation, that conflicts with your self-care, you second-guess yourself, one step forward two steps back. You need to stop this cycle by facing what you fear.

Maybe you messed up. Maybe you did things that cannot be excused. Or, maybe you’re super-sweet and the other person is just bonkers and delusional. Either way, they think you’re a monster. Were you a monster, or not? Well, that’s a matter of opinion (label stemming from moral/ethical judgment of actions), not a matter of fact, and you cannot change opinions. If you SAID AND DID THINGS you regret, that’s a matter of fact (transpired events), not a matter of opinion, and you cannot change the facts.

What’s past is past. Whether you were a saint or a mass murderer YESTERDAY, it is your actions TODAY that will shape your self-identity TOMORROW. You need to remember this as you are healing, and let your past be your past. The way Moses and Saul of Tarsus did after committing murder. If you cannot get rid of pain, you have to use it constructively or else it will cripple your thought process and prolong or prevent healing without emotional scarring. So if you have regrets for your past, or you regret that someone else may have been hurt by your actions in the past, please realize that…

1. It’s your past. Not your present, or your future, unless you keep on living each day in the past.
2. You could very well repeat what you did yesterday. But you don’t have to. If you remain self-aware, then it remains a choice.
3. You will never be perfect. But you have always had the capacity to be great.
4. Greatness and making mistakes are not mutually exclusive. The greatest, kindest, sharpest, most thoughtful and most benevolent people STILL make mistakes.

TLDR: Come to terms with your identity as an ex-monster to someone. Examine the past and recognize facts for facts, opinions for opinions. Let your past be your past, and let tomorrow be itself. Remember what’s been said about you and felt from you by someone who was close, and let it remind you to be a great person each day moving forward.

Sometimes the insults speaks truth. People are entitled to say what they want. You’re at liberty to believe or reject it. If you did nothing wrong and this person is talking nosense, then it shouldn’t leave you wounded. Tone down what he said and see what the underlying messages means. And see how you can improve yourself.