Those in crap realtionships, freshly single etc. Do you ever think of

[SadFreak]

the good old days? And just wonder how and when exactly it all turned to shit?

I have posted on here a few weeks back about my crap relationship but the specifics are not really relevant to this other than after almost 20 years its shit and probably over if I grow a backbone and sort my life out. I have been pondering alot in the past few weeks about where and when it wrong.

I cant remember the day. The week. The month or even the year that it stopped being fun and I stopped feeling totally loved up content and happy.

In the past few weeks I have found myself remembering happy things from years back. Really random everyday events, Not special occassions you would expect to remember but just things like pushing the pram around the village on a summers evening hoping to get DD (now 15) off to sleep and feeling happy and excited for future. Sitting on our local beach just chatting and laughing and nearly getting caught out by the tide. Our first ever Asda shop just after we moved in together. Choosing paint for the kitchen in Homebase.

We had so many plans. We were so happy. We were so in love. I loved him to the end of the world and back.

Somewhere someday during the past X years that went and I dont think I even realised tbh.

Just feeling really sad and reflective. I suppose this is just another stage of dealing with the fall out of a long term relationship going to the dogs.

Anyone else get weird flashbacks like this? Sometimes I think them up but weirdly they just come into my head when I am dishing up tea or driving to college etc. It is stuff that I dont think I have thought of for 10years plus.

[redundantandbitter]

Yes, this morning when the bright sunshine flooded through the bedroom window... Reminded me of the many time me and EXP had gorgeous sex on top of the covers.. Lying naked and warm and happy afterwards.

Almost cried. So pissed off.

Sorry you're having these moments. Crap innit

[Evilwater]

I remembered the chats we had about children, how we both layed in the bed and talked about how good it would be. How many we would have, the home we would build, the fun we would have.

How fucking wrong I was, so very, very wrong.

[Lozislovely]

All the time at the minute. Been ok for past 6 months but 'happy' memories keep coming back into my mind.

Annoying and depressing at the same time and wondering if things could have been different. Not that I can admit that to anyone (other than the dog). Feel like a twat!!!

[Mrscaindingle]

I've just come out of a 19 year marriage where my ex left for someone else and it has been really horrendous. It's hard to remember good times and natural for a while but you have to train yourself to stop doing it until you start to feel better.
It's like the opposite of falling in love if you concentrate on all the times it was not so good and the times where he was less than attractive and annoying, these thoughts will encourage the neural pathways in your brain to get bigger and it will come more naturally.
If you have a partner who has left you this is what they have been doing for months ( unbeknown to you usually) focussing in everything that is wrong with the relationship and you.

I would really recommend Paul McKennas ' I can mend your broken heart'
It really helped me.

[redundantandbitter]

loz we can be twats together

[SadFreak]

Glad its not just me.

Its lovely for a moment then it hurts.

It fucks with my mind and makes me think we could try again but I know in reality that we can never recapture that and there has been so much hurt since.

[SadFreak]

I will also be a twat!

[BertieBottsJustGotMarried]

I don't know, honestly, when everything was shit with my ex I looked back and although I remembered fleeting good moments I also remembered that everything wasn't perfect even in the beginning either. I remembered little arguments or worries that had seemed normal at the time but later made me think "manipulative". Actually the red flags were always there but I didn't know that they existed :(

In fact this may have come much later, I'm not sure now as it's such a blur, but it's there.

[cafesociety]

It's all part of a grieving process isn't it. Remembering good parts, bad bits, funny stories, awful rows, denial, shock, disbelief, rage, weeping, being puzzled, coming to terms etc. [then you hear a song which brings it all back into focus again]....in whatever order, until you find acceptance.

I think it's the brain trying to understand what has happened and why so you can move on to the next stage.

Not a relationship, but I've been very hurt by a close friend recently and I have been angry, crying, stunned, confused, remembering good things about it....now all I can think of are the bad things that I blanked out to keep the peace. The scoffing, hurtful remarks, verbal abuse and mind games......had a bit of a light bulb moment tonight and now moving on.

I think we get stuck in certain parts of the grieving process, which is annoying, but inevitably it changes. Time has a lot to do with it and we will all get there in the end.

[Lozislovely]

@ Redundant & Sad we can be The 3 Twat-Amigo's

We were together 20 years and if I'm brutally honest we should have split up after 2-3 years but I stuck with it. Yeah there were good times but there were also some bloody bad times - him cheating on my with prostitutes and zapping any self confidence for a start.

But but the same token, he got me, we shared the same sense of humour, I could tell what he was thinking before he said it and he 'loved' me in his own way.

I was a total bitch at times (maybe a lot) but that doesn't excuse the cheating and the shit behaviour, but the thought of finding a new partner, with all my hang ups, just seems exhausting.

But I'm lonely. I have 2 fantastic DS, but they are 15 and 17 and don't really want to hang with mum so I have to contend myself with the dog and lots of red wine to get me through (for now)

[Lozislovely]

@Bertie - I know exactly what you mean, was exactly the same for me. I 'accepted' it, made excuses to friends, taught myself (I guess) to believe it was normal when in a relationship.

I am and always have been independent, worked hard after having DS's and have stood on my own two feet. BUT, I would like to know what it feels like to be loved, cherished and not 'made' to feel worthless.

[KouignAmann]

Same here Bertie looking back on 26 years of mainly happy marriage I keep remembering red flags moments that at the time I didn't understand. After it all went wrong and I left I have seen more clearly that from the beginning I was living with a controlling manipulative abuser who I kept happy for many years by toeing the line. But along the way I had some lovely times and a happy family and built a secure financial future.
It still hurts to look back at those happy twenty-somethings planning their future and see where we are now. But I would do it all again I suppose.

[akawisey]

The other day I remembered the day 18 years ago me and ex h were thinking of what name would give our DD. We were in fits of giggles about it because of our surname and matching it with first names which made it very funny. We were so very happy.

I guess that must mean I've done the grieving and three years on I know that all the shite things he did can't cancel out the good stuff. I'm just sad we didn't make it.

[Catrin]

It is completely normal to feel like that. When XH and I first split, I had so many of those moments and it hurt so badly. And then today, I was out with dd and I was able to point out places me and her dad had gone and it was just a normal, nice memory, didn't make me sad or wistful. Just a nice memory. Happy days in happier times.

[redundantandbitter]

No fights. No rows. No 'saw it coming'. Completely happy, adored, cherished and loved. Amazing sex. Sent me cards and presents. He never even said I don't love you anymore.... He listed the parts of my body he loved and would miss...

But she's nice and warm and he 'had' to go in her direction.

Still lost for words.

[SadFreak]

Yes out of the almost 20 years together it turns out he has been on a shagging mission of shocking proportions since 2003 (at least). .

I am now also having penny drop moments or red flags that I just did not see at the time. I also recall incidents where I obviously made an utter tit of myself to others - his work colleagues - mentioning business trips that obviously never fucking happned because he was not on them but playing hide the sausage with someone he had hooked up with over the internet.

My mind is all over the place. I honestly feel love, hate, angry, grief, humiliation and so much more - all in the space of a few hours.

I do realise it will pass. Time is a healer. I will move on eventually.

Right now I am still here and stuck in limbo.

[redundantandbitter]

Oh sad that's a huge utter horrible pile of shit. I'm sorry someone you loved did that to you.

[TarteAuxRiz]

Cafe society, I have had the same with a friend recently. 20 years of friendship down the Pan and i was just saying to a friend today how similar in ways it is to a romantic breakup. The pain, loss and confusion about exactly how it turned sour are all identical.
I have days where I think my ex friend is someone I just don't need in my life any more, and others where I miss her, and if I'm honest the security of having a friend who has always been there, and now I feel like a prat for believing she'd always be around for me and we'd be in one another's lives always.

OP, chin up, just get through today, and tomorrow will most likely be a day when it doesn't ache so much. Eventually the hurting days will become less frequent and the ok days more frequent and one day you'll realise you haven't thought about him for a week, then a month, then a year...it's one of the big cliches, but time really does sort it all out.

[AndThatsWhatIThinkOfYou]

"missing someone doesn't mean you need them back in your life, it's part of the grieving process"

this is what I keep telling myself anyway... then I remember all the shit parts and start thinking was it really that bad, hhmm I just remember being very unhappy

[cafesociety]

TarteAuxRiz isn't it dreadful dealing with all the feelings of losing a close friend? Reassuring to know someone else acknowledges the pain of it all, but sorry you have had such a bad knock after such a long friendship.

It's the loss of comfort, a companion, an easy friendship which is safe and a lifeline for people not in a relationship. It means we did things which 'couples' do, [days out/meals/holiday etc.] and why not.

In RL no one here seems to 'get it', in my case. 13 years of friendship and doing nice things nearly every weekend have just gone up in smoke and I am lost and hurting. I miss the good things but seem to be blocking them out, in order to survive. [V. lonely at the mo]. And I also feel a real prat, and humiliated. I was assured constantly we were 'friends for life'.....like an idiot I believed that.

I have no idea why I became 'the enemy' but it was a gradual process.

[Lavenderhoney]

When I think of the times we were happy it just makes me angry that he behaved like a twunt for so long and wouldn't change - he did say he would but didn't.

I don't regret leaving. I regret not leaving sooner as i would have seen more of my dm before she died and the dc wouldn't have seen what they did and most of all I wouldn't have had to put up with it either. A crystal ball would have been handy. But in another way, he had 2/3 years to sort himself out and just got worse.

And now, he wants to try again and I'm not falling for that old flannel. Too late. I don't want to.

[alikat724]

Thank you OP for this thread, my crap marriage is draining all joy and happiness from me and today I feel incredibly low. Like others, red flags have been there since the beginning (only 5 years, so not that long really) and a regular feature of our arguments for some months now has been "why are we married?" - neither of us can seem to remember how we got that far in the first place anymore! So much acrimony and so many horrible words said, when in the beginning things seemed so full of potential and our future together looked bright and magical. The regret and pain is overwhelming. Niether of us wants it to end, but we can't seem to stop it. Feeling powerless and desperately sad.

[hedidit]

Yes and no. The years have brought me the joy of hindsight. We should have run a million miles from each other after a few naughty nights rather than get married then half ruin each other. I avoid relationships now. Im just way to lazy plus when I think back to how much my ex H and I did love each other and how horribly we hated each other in the end all I can think is that if that can go wrong…anything can go wrong x

[TarteAuxRiz]

In RL no one here seems to 'get it', in my case. 13 years of friendship and doing nice things nearly every weekend have just gone up in smoke and I am lost and hurting. I miss the good things but seem to be blocking them out, in order to survive. [V. lonely at the mo]. And I also feel a real prat, and humiliated. I was assured constantly we were 'friends for life'.....like an idiot I believed that.

CAfe this really resonates with me. We didn't see each other as often as every weekend as she lives miles away, but she was always SO insistent that I was her 'bestie for life' and that we'd always be friends. Christ we even used to talk to our girls about how they'd know when they'd found a real friend because they would be with one another the way we were. Now u feeling like such a pillock for holding that friendship up as an example my daughter as it literally came out of the blue and I've been royally dumped.

You're right though, if this was a marriage break up people would be checking I'm ok and supporting me, as it is I feel like such a loser if I talk about how utterly bereft I feel without this person in my life, and how empty it feels not to have that knowledge that someone has my back.

I'm so sorry you are going through this too. You must feel her absence so much more acutely too if you guys did things together every weekend. No wonder you are feeling lonely. You sound great fwiw, and I'm sure you will find someone new to hang out with, though I know full well that's of no comfort and how long I t takes to find that easy intimacy that comes from having known and spent time with someone for years.

[canttypefortears]

Hi,

Ive got a thread running too. My DH nicely dumped me on christmas day after 15 years of marriage. We also have two DC.

Let me describe our relationship... we were best friends from day dot to day fullstop. We always cared for each other. We were happy spending time together. We loved being mummy and daddy. We had great holidays and weekends away. I let him go out with his mates if he wanted and vice versa. We never argued, the relationship was not volatile or violent.

That sounded perfect to me, however he seems to think lifes going nowhere and he is bored! That decision seemed to be made overnight!

So my marriage was so good for 15years then it took one sentence out of the blue to destroy it all!

Ok, admitting now I cant be sure its completley over yet, as DH is suddenly having a change of heart? But not getting my hopes up too much.