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How to let go of the love of your life

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  • February 21, 2022 at 11:29 am #393235
    Kmittens
    Participant

    I spent all of my 20s with my best friend and who I thought was my soul mate. We were together 10 years. We were engaged and due to travel the world together. But things changed. There were cracks in the relationship – whenever we fought, we would give each other the silent treatment for a long time, he would never take accountability for his actions, I was often the one to apologise. He also liked things done his own way and I would get very frustrated at never being heard or listened to. This would lead to big rows. He also got aroused by me sleeping with other men, and would encourage it one minute and then forbid it the next. When the cracks were showing, I ended up meeting someone else who was kind and wonderful to me. I left my fiancé for this person and now I wonder if I made a big mistake. It’s been one year and I still think of my ex every day and feel pain. He moved on very quickly, and moved in with his new girlfriend a few months after we’d split up. Will I ever stop feeling the pain of losing him and why is it still raw after a year has passed?

    February 21, 2022 at 1:40 pm #393327
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kat:

    You wrote that he was your best friend until “things changed“. I assume that before things changed, when the two of you were best friends- there were no fights, no silent treatments, both of you heard and listened to each other and took accountability for your individual actions. Is my assumption correct?

    anita

    February 21, 2022 at 2:22 pm #393330
    Kmittens
    Participant

    Hi Anita

    Thanks for your reply. no – those problems weee always underlying in our relationship from day one. But I overlooked them as something that was just part of our passionate relationship.

    February 21, 2022 at 2:32 pm #393336
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kat:

    You are welcome.  So… he was your best friend for as long as you overlooked the parts about him that were not at all friendly.

    “Will I ever stop feeling the pain of losing him and why is it still raw after a year has passed?” – I don’t know, but if you want to share more, however more you want to share about the relationship and about yourself, anything that may be relevant to y0ur question, please do and I will be glad to do my best to answer your question further.

    anita

    February 21, 2022 at 5:08 pm #393350
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kmittens:

    “I spent all of my 20s with my best friend and who I thought was my soul mate. We were together 10 years. We were engaged and due to travel the world together... Will I ever stop feeling the pain of losing him and why is it still raw after a year has passed?”-

    – My best guess at the answer is that (1) You spent a lot of time with him, for ten years, starting at the early age of 20, an age when young women are into love and romance, (2) Even though there were fights and silent treatments etc., all along, at times, you felt and imagined that he was your best friend and soul mate. Fast forward, a year after the breakup, and you are still feeling the pain of losing not the man that he was and is, but whom you imagined or wished that he was(?)

    anita

    February 21, 2022 at 11:08 pm #393351
    Tommy
    Participant

    So, the question is how to let go of the love of your life?? Putting the question that way means you thought he was the love of your life. However, all the cracks in the relationship was enough to push you away from him. So would think he was just a love that cut deep. If you spend any time thinking of him then it will in grain in your memories and present thoughts. That will bring up feelings. The more you do that then the more difficult it becomes to let go. One must spend less time thinking of the past. Spend more time in the present. Maybe think about your future. Only if you can spend less and less time thinking of him will the feelings pass and let you move forward. I wish you happiness.

    February 22, 2022 at 8:11 am #393358
    Kmittens
    Participant

    We had a very deep connection where we were best friends, we had lots of mutual friends and were accepted into each other’s families. We built a whole life together. However, the downsides of the relationship were that when we disagreed or had conflict, it could escalate to nastiness and bitterness. He would taunt me sometimes or refuse to apologise, or listen to me. I would also give the silent treatment and lose my temper. We brought out the worst in each other at times. He also wanted things done very much his way and it didn’t feel like we were a team. I realise now, looking back, that we had some unhealthy dynamics but I am still really struggling to move on, let go, and stop thinking of him. It’s been a year and I don’t know if it’s normal to still be feeling this way, and whether I will always feel this way. Perhaps it was a mistake to leave him – because surely I would feel happy and content by now if it was the right thing to do?

    February 22, 2022 at 8:50 am #393359
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kmittens:

    “We were best friends… when we disagreed or had conflict, it could escalate to nastiness and bitterness. He would haunt me… I would also give the silent treatment and lose my temper. We brought out the worst in each other at times” –

    – when good or best friends disagree, or have a conflict, they don’t deescalate into nastiness, but communicate about the disagreement/ conflict with an attitude of EAR, standing for Empathy, Assertiveness and Respect.

    Best friends never bring out the worst in each other, best friends try to bring out the best in each other with that EAR attitude.

    “It’s been a year and I don’t know if it’s normal to still be feeling this way, and whether I will always feel this way. Perhaps it was a mistake to leave him – because surely, I would feel happy and content by now if it was the right thing to do?” – no, you wouldn’t surely feel happy and content by now if ending the relationship was the right thing to do. As adults, when our childhoods were troubled, we keep re-living our childhood emotional experience. So, if you were often unhappy and discontented as a child, chances are that you often feel unhappy and discontented as an adult.

    Will you always feel this way? Not always: if you unearth the true origins of this feeling, and then gradually and patiently heal what needs to be healed in your heart and mind, you will feel better and better.

    anita

    March 31, 2022 at 9:42 am #396634
    Anonymous
    Guest

    How are you, Kmittens?

    anita

    April 1, 2022 at 1:39 am #396657
    Kmittens
    Participant

    Hello Anita

    thank you so much for checking in. I am struggling at the moment with depression. I think you are right about feelings of unhappiness and discontentment from childhood leading to unhappiness and discontentment in adulthood. I am still hurting and find life very difficult. I feel like I will never be okay again and I can’t work out why this is.

    April 1, 2022 at 7:45 am #396667
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Kmittens:

    You are very welcome. I hope that you will feel better soon! You wrote that you think that I am right about “feelings of unhappiness and discontentment from childhood leading to unhappiness and discontentment in adulthood“, this means to me that you were indeed unhappy and discontented as a child. I too was an unhappy and discontented child- lonely, sad, anxious, conflicted and angry, and these feelings/ states of mind carried on into my adulthood and persisted for many years.

    You didn’t share anything about your childhood in your 4 short posts. I want to re-read them and see what I can guess happened in your childhood based on what happened in your 10 years relationship with your ex:

    “We fought… I would get very frustrated at never being heard or listened to. This would lead to big rows… When we disagreed or had conflict, it could escalate to nastiness and bitterness… I would also give the silent treatment and lose my temper” –

    – I am guessing that as a child, you were not heard or listened to, that you repeatedly tried to tell your parent or parents things that were important to you but again and again, they did not listen to you. As a result, you felt alone and angry. Maybe at some point you gave up on trying to be heard, so when asked a question, you didn’t bother answering, or you didn’t bother answering truthfully.

    “I am still really struggling to move on, let go, and stop thinking of him. It’s been a year and I don’t know if it’s normal to still be feeling this way, and whether I will always feel this way (Feb 22) … I am still hurting and find life very difficult. I feel like I will never be okay again and I can’t work out why this is (April 1)” – my answer to your why-this-is question is: unfinished business from childhood. Let’s say that my guess above is correct, and currently you live with, or you regularly visit your parents, and he/she/they still talk about themselves or other people, but they don’t listen to you or talk about you, and so, you still feel invisible with them, unheard, unseen… as if you don’t exist. Let’s say that this is true (again, I am only guessing here), then every such visit reinforces your unhappy and discontented state of mind.

    If I am correct, then because you experienced a severe lack of positive attention as a child, and because you experienced many good moments with your ex over the span of 10 years, intoxicating moments (in between the fights) when you felt heard, moments of a very deep connection that led you to think of him as your best friend and soulmate (“I spent all of my 20s with my best friend and who I thought was my soul mate… We had a very deep connection“)- you still long for those moments a year after the breakup with him.

    It is also possible that some of the ways your ex treated you from day 1 were similar to the ways your parents treated you (“those problems were always underlying in our relationship from day one… He would never take accountability for his actions… would taunt me sometimes or refuse to apologise, or listen to me“), and these similarities got you hooked on him as you tried, by proxy (through a substitute), to make your parents take accountability for their actions, to make your parents apologise, to make your parents listen to you. In other words, you tried to finish your childhood unfinished business in the context of your romantic relationship (a very common subconscious motivation).

    What do you think/ feel about what I wrote here?

    anita

     

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