Did it ever hit you how much you repressed your emotions after you left them?

[Timeline]

After I left I realised I had been repressing my emotions for years and felt no attraction to my ex, and barely did for a very long time. We were just together and I felt like I was living within a fictional relationship. Once I decided to leave my emotions became unleashed and I was surprised at how much I could feel. Anyone have the same?

Yes and this is still affecting me.

i was married to someone for 40 years. As time when on I spent a lot of time trying work out what was wrong with me.

He said it was me being over sensitive, expecting too much, never being happy.

The last 15 years built up a lot of resentment. I finally went for therapy and realised my ex was dishonest and manipulative.

I spent at least a year dealing with these feelings of being blamed and made to feel guilty about things I shouldn’t have had to put up with in the first place.

My friend refers to these as “Big Feelings” - you have to learn how to process them before you can let go.

@Imgoingtobefree thank you.

I’d been absorbing his negative energy for years and blocking out the feelings and reactions to it. I just carried on but I felt unwell constantly. I wondered too what was wrong with me and kept going to the drs to discuss my low energy. When I finally broke up with him after he behaved in a way I couldn’t forgive, I was shocked at how much feeling I had of freedom. It was like I had become the person I was prior to the relationship. I felt like a teenager again. I don’t have feelings for him at all. When I look at him, I don’t get anything moving in my stomach. Nothing. I do get this elsewhere so I know it’s possible. Just not for my ex. It’s so weird.

I feel exactly the same. I had to give up my dog as part of our separation and when inlook at photos of the dog my stomach lurches and I cry but when I look at photos of him I fell nothing at all