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How to move on from the past once and for all?

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Viewing 15 posts - 61 through 75 (of 98 total)
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  • #279509
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laeithia:

    You are welcome to answer the above questions, or not. I don’t think it matters if you contact him or not, I mean, the relationship is over and has been over for some time, unlikely to resume, so if you contact him it will not damage a relationship because such doesn’t exist, and is highly unlikely to result in resuming a relationship, and even if it does, such a relationship is … highly unlikely to last.

    Realistically, it doesn’t matter for your life and not only that, but your obsession with him is not likely to end as a result. But you are welcome to try (if you do decide to contact him, the questions I asked will be helpful for you to answer).

    The nature of your obsession with this man, let’s look at it, yesterday’s post: “I know no matter what he will never apologize”- replace him with your mother and it is: I know no matter what, my mother will never apologize.

    “and I will never get acknowledgement on his part of the pain he caused me”- replace, again: and I will never get acknowledgement of her part of the pain she caused me.

    “I feel I have done a disservice to myself to have never spoken up for myself to him”, again, replace and adjusted: I feel I have done a disservice to myself to have never spoken up loud-and-clear for myself to her, and instead, pretending everything was fine.

    “it has been almost a year now, and although I believe I have finally put the relationship behind me”- replaced and adjusted, again: it has been almost thirty years (or so) now and a few days since I talked to her some, and although I believe I put the relationship with my mother behind me, I really didn’t.

    In summary: the conflict with your mother, that doesn’t feel “alive” for you, you don’t feel distressed by it, as if the matter is closed and doesn’t bother you anymore. But what happened in the reality of the neuropathways of your brain, is that she is replaced by this man and the conflict with her has been transferred and projected into him.

    So you feel very much that the problem is about him, convinced it is, but it is not.

    anita

     

     

    #279761
    laelithia
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    I started answering your questions about contacting him, but in doing so I realized how ridiculous an idea it really is. I suppose in my mind, I was grasping at the hope that if I just called him, confronted him with how I felt, and then hung up, I would somehow magically have a weight lifted from me and finally be able to move on with my life. But I think this is just a fantasy, and I think more likely a) he wouldn’t pick up, and b) it wouldn’t change anything as you said even if he did.

    When I think about the past with him, I am most upset that I didn’t stand up for myself throughout the relationship, that I didn’t stick with it whenever I tried to leave due to his poor treatment of me.  This I have a hard time equating with the relationship with my mother, as with what happened with her, I was a child, helpless to stand up for myself or leave. This situation was different, I was a grown adult and more than capable of removing myself from such a toxic dynamic, but I didn’t. I suppose the true anger and frustration I feel is with myself, not even him.

    My mother sent me a text today that said: “You are constantly on my mind–I feel so helpless to help. I love you so much. Right now your happiness is paramount in our life.” I simply said thank you and that I loved them as well. I don’t know what else to say in these moments, I feel starting an argument or attempting to address my concerns with her simply causes more problems for me, and does not ever provide me with any closure.

    I see your points, Anita, about how it seems my brain is projecting past issues with my mother onto the previous ex. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like that’s all that there is. For instance, I was physically attracted to this person, obviously, I was never physically attracted to my mother. I saw this person as a partner that would bring me happiness in the long term, if only he had committed to me. He asked me multiple times to let him take his time, to not “push” him into a relationship with me, but I did not listen. It seems like his current partner does, she and he have never posted a picture together in their 2 years of being together. I suppose she respected his privacy and need for time whereas I did not.

    #279811
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laelithia:

    I will be able to reply to your recent post in about 11 hours.

    anita

    #279839
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laelithia:

    “I was physically attracted to this person, obviously, I was never physically attracted to my mother”- your relationship with any man is not and cannot be identical to the one you had or have with your mother. The sexual factor in your relationship with a man did not exist in your relationship with your mother, for one. And still, nothing in a romantic relationship in an adult’s life is more powerful than a troubled, unresolved childhood relationship with a parent.

    Feb 5, you wrote that you had a conversation with your mother on the phone the day before, that is Feb 4: “I did get angry, and she said she ‘doesn’t understand what else I want from her’ after she finally said ‘fine, I’m sorry I was such an horrible mother to you, I’m sorry for whatever I did that upset you so much!!!’ And then said she was having another chest pain episode… I feel guilty that she got so upset… but on the  other hand I am glad I stood up for myself”.

    Seven days after that phone conversation, Feb 11, she sent you a text that said: “You are constantly on my mind- I feel so helpless to help. I love you so much. Right now your happiness is paramount in our life”.

    My input: if your happiness was paramount in her life, she wouldn’t have said what she did Feb 4: “I’m sorry for whatever I did that upset you so much!!!”- she would have acknowledged that there was something she did that upset you, she would have listened to you when you told her about the nature of that something or some things that she did and if you didn’t tell her, she would have asked and listened to you.

    If your happiness was a priority for her, she wouldn’t have turned that Feb 4 conversation from being about your hurts to being about her hurt, emotional and physical. She would have kept the conversation about you, not turning it to being about her.

    Feb 11 she texted you: “I feel so helpless to help”- but she never was helpless to help you, she didn’t want to feel the discomfort and distress it would have taken to help you, didn’t want to listen to you, to examine what you told her, to look into herself.

    I think your mother is dishonestly manipulative. I think she is a dishonest person, that her words cannot be trusted to be her truth. I think she wants you in her life her way, I think that her priority is her comfort, not your emotional well-being. She is and has been willing to sacrifice the latter for the former.

    anita

     

     

    #280021
    laelithia
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    Thank you for your detailed reply. I think you are right, my mother will always do what she believes is best and right, not what I ask or need from her. I have been trying to make peace with this, as I know now more than ever that I cannot changer her, or anyone for that matter. I have taken your advice and tried to remain as cordial as possible with her, without going into too much detail about my life or my feelings anymore. That being said, I do talk to my father quite a bit about my life and my feelings, and because they are always together, she sometimes chimes in. I try not to pay attention to what she says.

    I have been trying to make the link you have mentioned between my past relationship and the one with my mother more clear in my mind, as I would like nothing more than to forget about that past relationship, or at least put it to rest. But at the same time, I have so many fears attached to it, I can’t seem to let go. I know (I think most of the time!) that these fears are irrational, yet they still remain. For instance, I am terrified that I will never feel the way I felt about anyone the way I did about him, how attracted I was to him, how much I wanted to be around him, how happy he made me whenever we were together. I worry I will never find anyone else that was as easy going as he was, forever cheerful and in a good mood, even when I wasn’t. Someone I actually like as well as love, someone I find as intelligent, ambitious, fun, and adventurous. I am so saddened how our relationship unravelled, I have so much shame and embarrassment over how quickly I was discarded for someone new, someone I do not see as overwhelmingly “better” than me. I cannot seem to understand how he (someone I considered my best friend, my closest confidant and person I trusted the most) could end things the way they did. I’m worried that after 2 years, if I am still attached to this person in some way, after no contact from him, that I might always be.

    I also worry about what this means for me going forward. As I turn 30 next month, and all my friends and siblings (younger and older) and extended family members are married or in serious committed relationships, I feel as though I have failed at something so basic. I simply could not make any of my previous relationships last, and there were many that I tried so hard to continue. I’m worried that heartbreak will always be in my life, and I worry that I will never experience a true connection with someone who loves me as much as I love them, who would want to be with me together forever. I’m not sure how to move forward with my life with these fears and still have hope for something better. Worst of all, I worry somehow by not making the previous relationship work, by not sorting out my issues and being more present, I have destroyed any chance I would have had in happiness and contentedness in a relationship with a man.

    Even though it has been 2 years, it feels like only yesterday this person I was so infatuated with, that I adored so much, called me his baby and that if I was just a little patient, we could have the future we both always dreamed of. I know it is borderline delusional at this point, but it truly does feel like no time has passed at all.

    #280041
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laelithia:

    “it truly does feel like no time has passed at all”- it is my understanding that you have never resolved your relationship with your mother. The relationship with her following the Feb 4 phone conversation is the same as before that conversation, nothing has changed. Your regret regarding the ex of two years ago is just the same. The relationship with the guy in Switzerland is just the same.

    Which brings me to the title of your thread: “How to move on from the past  once and for all?”-

    -my answer: long term psychotherapy with a capable therapist.

    I see no way for you to get unstuck from your past without you getting angry at your mother. You tried to resolve your troubled relationship with her so far bypassing your anger. I don’t think your relationship with your mother can be resolved without your anger at her being acknowledged and brought to the surface.

    Your anger is there, locked in, but it is fueling your obsessions, your regrets, keeping you stuck in projecting her into men and then trying to resolve your distress in the wrong contexts. Better bring your anger to the context where it originated, where it belongs and resolve it in that context. I don’t see how that can be done outside quality, long term therapy.

    anita

     

    #280447
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Laelithia:

    I have a bit more to say regarding the Feb 11 text your mother sent you: “You are constantly on my mind- I feel so helpless to help. I love you so much. Right now your happiness is paramount in our life”-

    -what she is saying in this text is that she is a good, loving and capable mother but she is helpless to help you because you are in such a bad shape that she, the capable good mother can’t help you. She is puzzled, has no idea why you are troubled, nothing she did, nothing she had a part in.

    This message is congruent with her previous communications to you: she is puzzled, has no idea why you are experiencing any problems.

    This message, which she keeps delivering to you, is harmful to you. It cements the idea that the problem in the relationship between you and her is you, not her, never has been her. It keeps you in the position of the problematic person, the one who needs help. It keeps her in the position of the eternally good, loving mother whose daughter is too troubled to be helped.

    These messages are not true to Reality and they keep you stuck in sickness because reality, she has created a sickness in you by treating you as if you were one of her own childhood’s bullies, frowning at you, disapproving of you, and she did this throughout your formative years.

    I can’t think of any contact that you can have with her that will prevent her from sending you these messages. Maybe blocking her from your phone, maybe talking to your father when she is not at all present there, so that she cannot deliver more of these messages.

    anita

    #280939
    laelithia
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    Thank you for your message. I regret to report after taking some time away to think about and process what you have written to me, I am not doing much better. I am still plagued by daily (nightly?) nightmares of my ex disapproving of me in some way, or being with his current girlfriend in front of me, etc. and not much has seemed to help. I tried for a few weeks to totally refrain from checking up on their social media, but even then the dreams continued. The constant thoughts continued. I did some research, and there is a psychologist that calls this obsessive overthinking of an ex “limerance”. I suppose I have this. I am angry and embarrassed most of the time that I cannot kick this, that I should be able to given my expertise and knowledge in psychology, yet here I am.

    I keep trying to reinforce the link you have suggested between this person and my mother, but it never seems to stick for me. I agree that they triggered negative emotions for me, but I do not feel my mother has nearly as much power over me as this ghost of my ex. I am able to stand up to her lately, able to do as you say and speak to my dad separately from her. However, I did not experience improvement in regards to the obsessive thoughts/feelings of my ex after setting boundaries with my mother. At this point, both she and my father have suggested that I start speaking to a psychiatrist (as psychologists have not seemed to help me) and that I begin a course of antidepressants or even antipsychotic medication. Keep in mind they are both pharmacists by trade, but for the most part, are heavily against any of us children taking medication. I suppose then my situation is a testament to how disturbed they feel I am to need it at this point.

    My concern and worry is that even if a medication takes away these obsessive thoughts (which I doubt they would really), then I will only be masking my symptoms with medication and not truly healing.

    I am so desperate to erase this ex from my mind and heart, but now that I am soon to hit the 2 year mark of our final separation and my symptoms have gotten worse, not better, I am truly afraid that I will have to live with these obsessions and regrets for the rest of my life. I am just as shocked and disappointed with myself as others seem to be that someone who should have so little effect on me has had such a negative destructive one. I am certain he never thinks of me, and when he does, it is relief I am gone. And yet here I am, still daydreaming about the moments we spent together, and how happy I felt. How I destroyed this, or maybe indirectly, my mother did by contributing to my insecurities and core wounds that eventually caused the relationship to end. In fact, that ex asked me many times to limit my interaction with my parents for the very reason that he could see the negative impact on me, but I didn’t listen. I was too set at the time on being the perfect, dutiful daughter. And now, I feel I have lost my chance at a happy, fulfilling relationship.

    I have tried online dating again, but I cannot find a single person I am even slightly attracted to, not like the ex of 2 years ago. I miss the attraction I felt towards him, his easy going and positive nature, and that we were able to communicate to one another so openly. I have not found that in any man since, and I am starting to doubt it is out there anymore. I think the fact that he is still dating the girl he left me for 2 years ago and that they are seemingly very happy on social media is a testament to the quality of a partner he had. I simply brought out the worst in him with my constant insecurities and jealousness.

    My days now are filled with getting by. I do well with my business and my clients improve and refer me to friends and family, I continue to try to mend friendships and even my current relationship which I believe will turn into a friendship, but I feel empty inside. I am not excited or hopeful for my future, but I am able to move forward in it. I believe my past held better days, and I try to treasure what I had and those experiences as much as possible, rather than focus on the sadness that they are now gone. I feel ridiculous feeling this way though, as I know from the outside I seem to have a very blessed and fortunate life. I wish I could feel this, but I simply don’t. I miss my past, and I miss not taking my opportunity to set boundaries with my parents (specifically my mother) when I had the chance with my ex 2 years ago. That being said, she was going through cancer treatment, and it was at the time a miracle she even survived past the 6 month mark. I truly believe that to this day, had she not gotten sick, I would have implimented these boundaries sooner, and perhaps that ex and I would still be happily together.

     

     

    #280945
    laelithia
    Participant

    As a side note, yesterday after I figured my obsessive thinking/distraught state of mind could not get any worse regarding this ex, I check on social media. His new girlfriend posted a few videos of them and some friends (whom I used to know through him) skiing and snowboarding. In one of the videos, I could hear him talking, and it was if he was right beside me all over again. I would have thought maybe by now I would forget the exact way he spoke, but I did not. I believe this was a very bad decision on my part to see this, as it once again feels like it was just yesterday I heard this voice daily. But at the same time, I don’t know that it changes anything, as nothing seems to make the obsessive thinking better or worse. It is simply there from the moment I wake up, and even after I sleep in my dreams.

    I have had many breakups before, each one seemingly as devastating at the time as this one, but this is the only one I cannot seem to process and move on from. The only one where I don’t believe deep down that I am better off without him. I try to come up with lists of why he wasn’t so great, or why we weren’t good together, but everything I write down seems phony as I know deep down none of it was or is a dealbreaker to me. Everything I believe we could have worked on.

    At this point, we have not been together longer than we ever were, which in itself shocks me that I am still not over this person or the break-up. We spoke every day, even when we weren’t technically together, as well as spent time together. Separate from him, the only ex I ever spent that much time with was my first boyfriend, and I don’t seem to be upset over that at all. Maybe everyone has a feeling of “the one that got away”, but I just want mine to go away, so I can one day give someone else my full heart. My current boyfriend never got that from me, and I truly regret that.

    #281015
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laelithia:

    Your ex, the object of your obsession had a good point when he asked you to limit your interaction with your parents: “In fact, that ex asked me many times to limit my interactions with my parents for the very reason that he could see the negative impact on me”.

    Personally, I see the negative impact your mother has on you and expressed it extensively in my communication with you so far.

    But you don’t see it. It is you who don’t see the negative impact your mother/ parents have on you: “I do not feel my mother has nearly as much power over me as this ghost of my ex. I am able to stand up to her lately..”

    If I see it, and your ex saw it, but you don’t see it, is it possible that you are blind to what he saw and what I saw?

    Here is an image I am coming with: you are stuck in a cage  in a zoo with a wild cat, a cougar, a big hungry cat. But you’ve been stuck with this wild cat for so long, you no longer feel afraid. You got used to it, and so, it chews on your arm once in a while but you don’t feel the pain. People walking by the cage can see your arm bleeding, what is left of that arm, and they tell you: get away from that wild cat! Open the cage and escape!

    And you say: but I am not in a cage, I come and go as I please, I am able to stand up to this wild cat, I successfully assert my boundaries with this cat, no problem here.

    The problem is over there.

    anita

    #281025
    laelithia
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    What I meant when I said my mother doesn’t have as much as an effect on me as my ex is that I have taken your suggestions and reduced contact with her, set boundaries and stood up for myself when she didn’t respect them and told her how what she had done to me in the past had affected me. Lately, I have totally reduced contact, but when we do speak, she has begun to apologize for the specific hurts she has caused me, but it doesn’t seem to matter in the sense that I don’t feel any different whether she does or doesn’t apologize. I suppose the past has already happened, and there is nothing that can be undone. I am disappointed though, as I was really hoping that in rectifying her role in my life, I would start to feel at least some relief from the obsessive damning thoughts I have about my past relationships, but I have not.

    I have been doing a lot of reading lately, and I have come to realize that there are many women (and men) that have been heartbroken after dating a separated/newly divorced partner. One pattern I noticed, is that both the ex of 2 years ago and the one following him that I wrote about to you (https://tinybuddha.com/topic/getting-over-infatuation-with-someone-who-wasnt-real/) were newly out of serious relationships. I seem to thrive in these relationships where I am the rebound, but I don’t see it until it is too late. I think is the openness of these men, the vulnerability and the neediness on their part for me that I crave. However, it seems as they “use” me and begin to heal from their past hurts and are moving on, I can’t seem to let go. I don’t believe objectively either of these men were necessarily the best men for me on paper (both dabbled in recreational drugs, lacked my level of ambition and long term goals, partied too much in my opinion), yet I idolized them as the perfect partners, and in a lot of ways still do. Their flaws didn’t seem to matter, because I was so happy. I felt loved. However I would get jealous and insecure, and often “check” if they were honest with me (look what time they were last online social media vs. responding to my texts, etc.). It seems the more fulfilled I feel in a relationship, the more nervous/anxious I am that they might change their minds. I suppose this is a textbook case of the anxious attachment style.

    That being said, I cannot shake my feelings about the ex of 2 years ago. That had I reduced contact with my mother sooner, not cared what she and my father thought of me so much, that I wouldn’t have been so anxiously attached to my partners at the time. In fact, it was always soon after introducing my partners to my parents, that the relationships would fall apart. I can’t imagine that this is a coincidence. How can I possibly let go of these regrets, when it feels like I have doomed myself to never finding someone that I cared as much for again? I keep thinking that had this relationship worked out, we would now have been together for 3 or so years, and I could enter my 30s in a strong and healthy, loving and fulfilling relationship. As it is now, I am not at this point, and so far from it, it seems. I keep trying to tell myself that my ex of 2 years ago likely was not ready to enter a new relationship with me, that the new partner he has is luckier than me in the sense of timing. By the time they met, he was formally divorced. He only divorced mid-way through our relationship. That being said, the horrible night in late September, I believe he was trying to be with me, fully, and I blew it. I am constantly angry with myself, and full of regrets. If the relationship had ended over anything else, perhaps I wouldn’t have to be so hard on myself. But as it is now, I am constantly wondering “what if?” and worried that the rest of my life will pale in comparison to what it could have been with him.

    #281027
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laeithia:

    “I suppose the past has already happened, and there is nothing that can be undone”- in affect, the past keeps happening now, circulating in your brain- this is what your obsession is about, trying to resolve a past that is alive now.

    The past cannot be undone but it can be resolved, only not via your obsession.

    “I think is the openness of these men, the vulnerability and the neediness of their part for me that I crave… I idolized them as the perfect partners… Their flaws didn’t seem to matter, because I was so happy. I felt loved”- you relived your past childhood with these men (the past happening in the now for you, in those relationships). The openness, vulnerability and neediness you saw in them is your own, the child that you were and still are. You idolized them. You saw them as perfect- a child idolizes her parent. A child sees a parent as perfect.

    “Their flaws didn’t matter”- a young child doesn’t see any flaws in a parent, the parent is perfect.

    “However I would get jealous and insecure, and often ‘check’ if they were honest with me”- this is what you did as a child in regard to your mother and you keep doing it in the present when in a relationship, see, the past is alive in the now. You didn’t check to see  if your mother is angry with you by looking in social media, but you looked at her face, checking: is she angry with me now, does she hate me now?

    “the more fulfilled I feel in a relationship, the more nervous/anxious I am that they might change their mind”- you relive the past, at any one time  your mother is kind to you, it feels good, but you are scared she will get angry at you at any time, that she will reject you when you are not expecting it… so you keep expecting it, checking, anxious.

    “I am constantly angry with myself, and full of regrets”- this is you re-living your belief as a child, that you are at fault, that you caused your mother to be angry at you and to reject you.

    I think that you yearn for love, the love you needed so desperately as a child and you are stuck in believing it was your fault that you didn’t experience it then.

    At this point, it really doesn’t matter if you limit your contact with your mother, if you set boundaries or not. You are not living in the present, you are living in the past.

    anita

     

     

    #281089
    laelithia
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    Thank you for your reply and continued help with me. I suppose now we have come full circle from the beginning of my original post. How then, do you think if not by setting boundaries and limiting contact with my mother, can I stop living in the past and begin to live in the present?

    – L

    #281095
    Mark
    Participant

    laelithia,  You said …

    I feel horrible that when I am with my current partner, I often imagine how much enjoyable whatever activity we are doing would have been if I was with my ex instead. I don’t know how to rid myself of these horrible thoughts that haunt me. Do you have any suggestions on how to do this?

    ….

    …in my current relationship, I believe it is a shadow of what I could have had with my ex. Every day I think about how my current life could have been so much better with him in it, with us together. 

    It seems like you are doing your current partner a disservice by staying with him. You are not being fully present with him.  You are not really IN the relationship with him, rather you are really still “with” your ex.

    My suggestion is to heal yourself around your ex first before being in another relationship.

    Mark

    #281137
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear laelithia:

    You are welcome.

    “How then, do you think if not by setting boundaries and limiting contact with my mother, can I stop living in the past and begin to live in the present?”

    My answer: through quality psychotherapy, you need to access the child in you, aka inner child, the young child that you were more than twenty years ago. You need to see your life then from her view, her young wide- open eyes, not retroactively through your adult eyes.

    The young child that you were experienced life from a very fresh perspective, with what is called “a beginning mind”, that is, what she experienced was not influenced by the education she did not have yet, by what you were taught in school and higher education, what you read, what you were told. Her experience was raw and true to reality. It is over the years of retroactively re-interpreting our childhood that our view becomes distorted, that is, not true to reality.

    When you access the child’s view of what happened, you will be amazed by how different her view is from yours, from the view of the adult that you are now.

    As is now, you are not seeing your childhood as it was. You are not seeing your mother as she was and as she is, and you are not seeing you as you really are.

    Once you re-experience the child’s perspective, once you see your childhood, your mother and yourself through your inner child’s eyes, then you will have the information you need so to proceed toward a better mental health, a better life for yourself.

    If you want, you can try an exercise right here on your thread, it may work, it may not, but I don’t see the harm in trying: take a break if you need to, and when you are calm, when you feel ready, come back to your thread and pretend you are a little girl, a five year old, and type her words.

    Don’t worry about her typing making sense, let it flow, let it come to a stop and then continue, not worrying about the continuity of thought. Just type away. Do not insert later life interpretations, later life higher education terms, labels and concepts. Do not be your mother’s apologetic, explaining her reasons and evaluating her parenting. Stay instead with the child that you were-

    Let her speak. Your hope is in letting her tell her story while you keep the adult you out of the way.

    anita

     

     

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