Hello Tiny Buddha,

You ask how you can get over your ex-boyfriend.  The boyfriend who – in your words – treated you like absolute garbage and who – also in your words – was extremely emotionally abusive, controlling and manipulative.  If this was a friend talking to you, what would you tell her?

I would start to focus on YOU and take care of yourself.  Eat right.  Get enough sleep.  Accept that this sucks and set small goals for yourself.  Also think about doing something you have always wanted to, but keep putting off.  It can be something simple, and you can start with small steps.  And don’t beat yourself up if it fails.  Keep going until you find something that helps you feel happy and at peace.  And it needs to be constructive, not destructive (like, alcohol, drugs, etc.).

When events in your life are out of your control, doing something over which you have complete control can help you find your balance.

Airene

Hi Tiny Budda,

A great quote is: “Life gets easier when you learn to accept an apology you’ll never get”.

Part of the problem is he’s done you wrong, and never apologized for it. And worse, he got away with not even recognizing he did bad by you! That’s why he looks like he’s handling the breakup better than you when you saw him! He got to skate away guilt free while you’re still tormented!

When asked about the breakup, turn the script around. Leave out the part where you were an apologetic victim. Say, “He tried to be abusive but I dumped his azz so fast he’ll never try THAT crap again!” Post that great quote (first sentence above) on your social media for the world to see. Then post a picture of you looking amazing, feeling amazing, with amazing people in an amazing place.

Never Again!

Inky

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Inky.

Dear Tiny Buddha:

In your original post you wrote: “I just want to know…what am I doing wrong? How can I get over him?”

I suggest looking at the relationship more like it really was.

You wrote about your ex boyfriend: “he was extremely emotionally abusive” and “He treated me like absolute garbage”.  Emotional abuse and garbage are expressions that are strong enough. You added extreme (extremely emotionally abusive) to the first and absolute (absolute garbage) to the second.

Where are the examples of these behaviors on his part. The only specific behaviors on his part that you shared about are: “He started telling me what to wear, who to be friends with, and when I was allowed to see my family… he hated when guys looked at me and would blame it on the clothes I wore”

These behaviors are not necessarily abusive at all. They may be, if  when displeased he screamed and yelled at you, calling you names, and such. But if he didn’t yell at you and so forth, it may not even be controlling behavior on his part at all. For example: maybe when he suggested you don’t see certain friends or family members, or not as much, because you complained about them a lot, because he believed spending time with them was hurting you. That wouldn’t be controlling.

What I read from you is perhaps a retroactive demonizing of your ex boyfriend and the relationship. Whenever we don’t see things as they were, we suffer.

anita

Dear Tiny Buddha:

If I understand correctly, what you are saying is that he wanted you to cut family members and friends out of your life even though he didn’t know them, never have met them, or if the met them, his reason was not that he believed they were harmful to you, not because of any concern on his part for your well-being, but solely because he wanted to be the only person of any importance in your life.

Your time and attention to others, or others’ attention to you threatened him. His sense of safety was in you having no one else but him in your life. He accused you that you don’t love him by having other people in your life and he expressed his invalid anger at you, and demanded that you … correct your unloving ways and, as you wrote: “prove my love to him, that he was the only person I needed in my life.”

Not only did he feel threatened by your present relationships but by your past relationships as well (“he couldn’t get over it”, your past, that is).

He wanted you to wear less revealing, or less attractive clothes and to stop exercising so that you don’t attract the attention of strangers.

What you are describing, if I understand correctly, is not him treating you like garbage, as you stated earlier. It is not him treating you like something of no value. He thought of you as someone very valuable to him, so much so that he wanted this very valuable person, you, all for himself. What you are describing is a pathology on his part. It is not reasonable to expect a girlfriend to cut off all her relationships so to prove her love, to make herself unattractive so to not attract anyone’s attention.

I suppose he never had a healthy relationship with a woman, not with you and not before you. I doubt any woman accommodated such an extreme demand on his part. Or that any woman ever will.

anita