feeling very down...ex now moved on to someone new

[Antalya1]

I found out a couple of days ago that my ex, we split up 3 months ago. Putting the pieces together he went into that fairly quickly, weeks after we split. I try to keep reminding myself how bad our relationship was in the end, but this has hit me like a ton of bricks, I was doing so well, but now feel as though I'm back to square one. I feel so low and really want to feel so low, ant advice from anyone who's been through this? My head's telling me to build a bridge and get over, but my heart is doing something completely different.

Well,not so bad today.The new school is up the hill in town and I am walking dd3 there and collecting her until I know what's happening with ds. I think the fresh air and seeing other people - feeling like part of the outside world - has helped.
How're you both?

Bit rubbish the last couple of days and had a terrifying experience, I had popped on dating profile as I'd decided to remove it for the moment, just having a little nosey and my worst nightmare, an acquaintance I know had been into my profile ..not to bad apart from the fact that he is the most horrible character and also the biggest gossip around...oh well!

Just as I had decided that I was going to spend sometime on my own, someone that I had been exchanging texts with for a few weeks, asked me out for a drink, after a moment of panic, thought what the hell, he seems nice hasn't been overly-pushy, and so we're going to meet up Sunday night for a drink (says a prayer that he looks vaguely like his photo!)

As normal thinking about my ex this week, but after a couple of down days feeling a little bit better, just have to face the fact that it was only me in that relationship for a long time!

pinemarta did you get anymore sleep last night?

so much for spell check, should have said 'mortifying'...not 'terrifying'!!!

.....and another thing...when looking at my profile, found that my ex had been keeping track of me, not happy about that one at all, I've respected his privacy and I would have thought that he could respect mine, especially as he's in a new realtionship

How do people track you? Is it that they have viewed your profile,because surely they can only look and not see what you've been doing?

I wondered about people I know locally seeing my profile.It's inevitable in a small area.I have noticed people I know.It's a bit funny ,really,that there are no other ways to find out that we're all open to meeting... potentially at least!

Sleep is a longed-for luxury for me right now.....

I really don't miss my ex today after realising last night that he would be hell to put up with while I'm so stressed and tired.

I do wish I had been luckier with men,and had a kind,loving husband looking after me and the dc,enjoying family times,feeling proud of us.Someone to snuggle up with.Or moan with...

But it's tough luck.Dating would never provide that.

Antalya - that is what i dread someone I know looking at you profile. But the only reason they should be looking is if they are doing the same thing or else they are just odd!

I can't believe your ex is looking at your profile especially as he is seeing someone - I'm sure his life is not as good as he is trying to protray. Can you block him? It is so wrong of him to do this.

PM - I pften long for a supportive partner as well to share life with. I often feel like I must hav done something really wrong or be a deficient person to not have that. I look at friends husbands and how well they treat them and wonder what is wrong with me.
Hope you are getting some more sleep, it is so exhausting feeding all the time and you have 4 more children to look after.

My profiles off the site now anyway, so that's that!!

Before I met my ex I was very independent...and if nothing else I've got that back again..comments about unsupportive partner worse than no partner at all absolutely true, the resentment you feel when they don't step upto the mark is simply not worth it.

I can keep a roof over our heads, feed and pay the bills..just! decorate etc. so these are areas that I definitely don't need anyone else for... sort out children and their problems, in fact just beginning to sink in how much easier it is without having to have an unfulfilling relationship on top of all that is. Just shared a lovely couple of hours with my Mum over a glass of wine (so so bad on a school night!) and feel all the better for it!

We're not doing anything wrong, we're just very capable of looking after ourselves

I have an over-whelming urge to contact my ex today - I've been so good over the last few months and have gone comletley cold turkey, when does this horrible missing them stop???..even when you know it's a done deal

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there" - LP Hartley

Sorry it's getting to you today,Antalya.
You were very positive and strong yesterday and that will return soon.

It's ups and downs,isn't it?

Being capable is a great thing,but it would still be nice to share with someone.That's what I miss.I'm trying to tell myself that it cannot be xp himself that I miss - since he was obviously not who I thought - but that Iam missing what I had hoped he was/would be.What I believed I had with him,turned out not to be true.But I still miss it IYSWIM?

Currently,this is holding the agony at bay.

In fact,I am feeling sick and guilty at where my life has got to - what I have given my dc as family.How did I get here?

Not what any of us want,though,is it?

Tiddly,we haven't done anything wrong,and of course don't deserve this...but it's not fair!!!!

Thanks for that,whiteandnerdy.

I'm processing things and now don't feel quite so bad as I did earlier, helped by reading some articles on narcissist's....the problem that I've had is the guilt that it was all my fault, it doesn't mater how many times I'm told that it wasn't, there's still that nagging guilt there.

However after reading today, not sure if he is or not, definitely some tendencies there...silent treatments for days/weeks, the criticism of me/house family, no empathy for others,uses people for his own means, very selfish..so not sure if is truly does have tendencies of narcissim..or just very under-confident and selfish, because from what I read he didn't have the classic symtoms..no violence, in fact he had real difficulty in really expressing himself and absolutely could not solve conflict..in fact he dreaded it.

As I had no explanation from him at the end, I'm just trying to figure out what happened, but I am going to read more of the NPD thread on relationships...because something really just doesn't add up.

pinemarta once again you hit the nail on the head with 'but that I am missing what I had hoped he was/would be'

Hmm......."silent treatments for days/weeks, the criticism of me/house family, no empathy for others,uses people for his own means, very selfish....."
"....the guilt that it was all my fault...."
"...I had no explanation from him at the end..."

Sounds very suspect to me.....reading NPD stuff is a good idea.

OMG I can identify with so much on here ...it dosen't fit 100% but as near as damn it..it does explain a lot, I'm finally getting some answers and an understanding
www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/manipulator/emotional_abuse.shtml

How could I have not realised, is it just me that didn't know until they had gone?? Lot's more reading to do....

Pine I agree you summed it up about missing what you thought you had or in my case what you did have for many years and but then gradually didnt and failed to keep up with the changes !

Antalya someone put this link a while ago and its on my favourites so I can dip in when I like. Like you I cant see a 100% fit but an awful lot fits the bill.

As you get answers and understanding it will help you move on more quickly and be able to feel times of relief that you are no longer with him.

Crucially for me its helped me forgive myself for staying with when I should have left him

Just found this, really probably need to switch over to NPD thread..but like the friends that I have made on here ...this one fits 100%...I can't begin to tell you what a lightbulb moment this is for me!!!
www.lisaescott.com/2010/06/24/narcissists-cycle-idealization-devaluation

That's what is was like for me when I realised,Antalya.

I am keeping this thread going,although am on NPD a lot,too!
Agree with gettingeasier,the answers do help.

My guess is that this is why it is so hard for you to get him out of your head.

Feel in a haze today have so much to think about and up till silly o'clock last night reading through everything, I still need to process everything...I'm intelligent, emotionally healthy, how on earth could I have not have realised what was going on????

Hey- snap!!!

That's why he chose you.These men prefer the challenge of emotionally intelligent,capable,bright women.

It's partly due to the challenge and partly the vampirish draining of your good qualities -

look up "mirroring" and "supply"

Basically,he saw in you,qualities that he admired and wanted to have ,so he identified just what you would be attracted to,then reflected back to you those qualities he found most desirable...he was showing you yourself..it wasn't him,just an illusion - how he wished he was.
That's where the powerful "click" or soulmate feeling comes from.And that's why it isn't real.

The real man is the selfish,controlling one.
It is "gaslighting" that leads you to question yourself .

Because you are a normal ,healthy,intelligent person,it is very difficult to get your head around the fact that he has deceived you - ripped you off - and that what you thought was real,was actually an illusion.

But you know it was.No decent man would up and go as he did.If ,in fact he was really as lovely as you believed,as he led you to believe - deliberately - then he would have honoured your love by a civilised ending.He would not be able to jump right into another relationship.......we know,we've tried!

I am with you on this.It is a total headfuck.

But,hey - here's two more of us who won't fall for it again!

pinemarta I'm at work today, so can't really do long post's but have been sneakily printing things off and reading through. I have a whole host of questions, and really need some help with this, are you on later to give me your thoughts???

Hi Antalya -am on now! Having big trouble with my ds.Have been posting on the NPD thread about him today.
I'd be happy to help!
Will keep checking this thread....

Well Antalya thats another site gone onto my favourites !

Pine do you remember some time ago you had a thread going and someone called Thumbwitch did a post all about how they pick strong women an then seek to dismantle them ? That post was my lighbulb moment.

My exh has elements of so many of these personality disorders but doesnt totally fit any one. That latest site from Antalya is the closest identical match.

I know its been said but I just want to say aloud that to have some of the pressure taken off me that I am far less responsible for my kids being in a single family than I originally thought.

It does ,in a mean way, feel a relief that in all probability he will do it all to his shiny new ow

Pinemartina

I like your description of mirroring - I think that is exactly what happened to me but I didn't notice, don't even think ex realsied that he was doing.
It is so much more obvious when looking back but at the time it feels so real.

Worry so much about his new relationship (know I should have enought worries of my own)
She is 10 years younger, lives with her parents (don't know if she always has), appears to be heavily involved with church related things (ex only pretends to be religiious when it suits him), earns about 1/5 of his salary, she will have her baby 10 months after he met her.
I worry for her when they get a place together and the baby is born. Classic absuive relationship to be happening.

I'm still shock but also feel bloody angry

Ok, what I have been trying to process and also not just attribute behaviours to him because I so want an explanation, is if these traits are really signs..or if I'm way off balance here??? Please give me your honest opinion/s...

Beginning of relationship
-Bouquets of flowers/meals out..stopped after a while
-Telling me that he was my "Knight in Shining Armour"

• Asking a couple of dates in if he should lend his ex-wife money - when I said that was really between them, he said that no as I was his girlfriend I also had a say in it
• Telling me that he would be pround to have me on his arm

-Talking about marriage after a few weeks

• I was the best thing that ever happended to him, wish that he had met me years ago and had children with me
• So attentive, that other women asked me what I had done to get a man who obvioulsy adored me - that was 6 weeks in.

Basically the beginning was very intense

about 10 months in

• Things changed, but I couldn't put my finger on why, less attention and I tried to get things back on track
• He finished the relationship approx. every 3 months, silent treatments if I disagreed/ argued with him, wouldn't answer calls, needed time to himself/space - all of this would send me into a frenzy of needing him - like an addiction, and left me apologising
• He never apologised
• Made me feel as though my demands were unreasonable...arguments all my fault
• Found it difficult to relate to my boys - actually made no effort at all
• Constant push-me pull-me
• Appearances mattered alot..me/house etc.
• Nothing ever good enough
• Told me that I let myself go (got up to a size 14 afer all the big meals I was cooking for him) and that I didn't do anything for him in bed
• Shy's away from conflict of any sort
• Complete lack of empathy for others
• Me tearful seemed to make him happy but reacted in cold and dispassionate way
• Family called him the "grey man" - he made very litle effort with them
• Very very nice to me in front of his friends, I appeared to be unreasonable to them and moody
• Absolute love for his youngest and could see no wrong in the "the Golden Boy" but nothing but irritation for his eldest
• If I explained that I was upset I was ttold " well don't get upset then"
• Very very selfish..to many examples to begin to mention, however he told me at the start that he hated selfish people!!
• 4 relationships in 6 years (I took up 4 of those years)
• Unable to resolve conflict
• Wanted to have a single life but annoyed if I wasn't around when he was
• I kept he relationship together by "fixing"
• On Dating site few and actively looking within a few days of our split
• Favourite sayings "I have my standards"..."I have to do what is right for me"..."I'm leaving you to stew" (said if I was angry or upset)
• No explanation when he left

Sorry very very rambling, probably doesn't make any sense at all...I'm just putting things down as I think of them

So makes a lots of sense can identify with so much as what you say. The bit you descibe at the beginning was very similar. I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed when he talked about us spendin out retirement together in the sun, but the feeling guilty.

I remember when it all changed (before we even got engaged - I was such an idiot) - it was all very sublte a the beginning, nothing I could have explained to anyone without sounding petty.
I got much worse immediatley on getting married, he joked that he "owned" me , and got worse after ds1 and was his appalling behaviour was obvious to everyone after ds2.
Aince took me a further year before I thought "maybe it is him not me", up to then I had always thought that it would get better if I could only be better.

I think they are all the same!

Antalya- yes to everything.Classic.Makes total sense.
Really sorry.
But you're on the way now.
This reply isn't meant to be short,but seriously,everything you'v said is classic emotional abuser/NPD /controlling bastard.

Many similarities with my ex.Totally similar at the start.That's the hook though.You think you've found "the one".This sustained me the whole time.I held onto the memory of those days in my mind and didn't notice til I looked back how he had actually stopped being lovely ages ago.It was my memories keeping it alive.He only had to feed me tiny bits for me to think it was still there.
My belief in the reality and validity of such "big love" soulmate stuff,plus the fact that my mother and father are also Narcs was my vulnerability.

I know that I have to let go of that fantasy,or risk attracting another one.

Keep posting.It's so important and healthy to get it out.