The no contact/texting/email thread

[cathkidstonbag]

I know it can't just be me who is struggling with not contacting someone they shouldn't so wondered if anyone else would like to join in here and we can support each other?
I have a thread somewhere titled don't want to sleep with DH and my circumstances are on there. But basically I need to stop contacting a man who is making my life miserable. I emailed him on Sat ending all contact with a brilliant email and was so proud of myself :) He then replied and instead of it being horrible it was nice sweet charming and I replied back :( So cross with myself. In it I told him about something awful that had happened so expected at least some sympathy for that. I got nothing :(
I need to never contact him again. To be strong enough not to beg him for contact.
Anyone else needing support???

Blondie - well done on realising that option 3 does exist for you. You will be happier, you will have a lovely life ahead of you. This man is toxic - he sounds like he brings no positives to your life at all now. (And he didn't bring many when you were together, from how I've interpreted what you've read). Detaching and no contact at all is the best thing you could do. You need to grieve what you lost, the future you envisaged, and you need to heal. You can't do this unless you cut contact completely. Keep doing what you're now doing - being kind to yourself, having lovely bubble baths, whatever it takes...you're on the right track. Don't call yourself selfish! It's called self-preservation! One day at a time, baby steps...you'll get there love.

Well done and good luck

Blondie - I'm in similar situation. Had a rebound relationship with Om at work who had just left his gf. Now he's decided he wants her back, not me and not only that he doesn't want to be friends either. Yesterday I messed up, I cried and told him I missed his friendship. He might as well have laughed in my face. And now his temporary job has been made permenant and I have to deal with him on a daily basis. His emails were so wonderful to receive, now they're cold and heartless. The temptation to send him a chatty, friendly reply is crippling.

omg - we are stuck in the same behaviour pattern. I feel like I've ruined our friendship through being needy when really all I wanted was him to treat me normally, as things were before we got together.

With me and my ex I asked him if he would leave his wife if I left my husband and he said no. He wouldn't leave her until his child left home so all he could offer me was a shag. He has always been straight with me and tbh he hasn't taken advantage of me when he could have. I thought of him earlier when I was thinking of reading this thread and then I remembered i can't contact him. I just feel relief.

I have conversations with myself about what I want to say and what I want him to say back. I then realised what I wanted from him and knew I don't need his validation any more.

I really should have posted here instead of writing my own thread where people tell me to get a life and make me feel more of a loser than I already feel. If only it were that easy - I wish I could be so strong.

It does feel better to know that others are in the same situation though. The thing is he never promised me anything more than a casual relationship - it was me who was pushing for more and he would react by pushing me away.

At the moment we are good friends and I never make demands anymore. But seeing him once in a while is still making me crazy and I need to cut ties completely. The thing is I don't want to be horrible to him really. So when he nexts contacts me, what can I say? To ignore his calls would just make it look like I was still really bothered and I want him to think I don't care anymore.

Fizzfiend you are definately not a loser. Maybe you need to be straight with him, if he isn't being a total tosser then don't hurt him. Just send him a message saying that you're sorry but you still have too many feelings to carry on as you are so don't want anymore contact. And mean it. That way you can walk away knowing you said your piece.
But tbh my life is seriously screwed up so my advice may not be the best.
If friendship is hurting then it isn't really friendship is it?
He can say you knew the terms but terms change. My situation was different in I only wanted friendship, OM ramped it up and up till he had every piece of me and my time and my thoughts then got colder and colder on me. Leaving me panicky and desperate. So those terms got changed.
You are worth more than this, we all are. I want option 3, I want to be happy, I will be happy - so will you.

hurryup - the thing is I think they get off on that. The whole thing of playing with you, it's fun for them. They know they are making you wait and making you insecure and scared. Because they have to be in control. And my problem was I wanted to be in control to stop it hurting but I couldn't. So today's thought that occurred to me in the night was fine let him be in control but there's nothing to control anymore. Kind of like a spoilt child who only wants to play a board game if he wins...but learns it's no fun when nobody wants to play with him. It's going to take them months to realise they are the only one holding the dice because we've given in so many times before. But I feel like playing a new game now, with someone else, with rules I understand!!!

And if it makes any of you feel better I messed up again yesterday. So I have to restart my clock. And it felt good when I pressed send, for about half an hour and then felt like crap again ... bit like eating a donut on a diet :((

Good morning everyone
I posted last night as I was in a bit of a "bad place" as they say- had been googling the guy's name, his DW's name, his company, his address. Felt like I was going mad.
I did trawl back through my computer and found his old number (the number of his "spare" mobile, that was, of course) then the mobile I would have used - an old one of my DS's wasn't working so I took that as a definite sign I shouldn't do it. And I didn't. And I won't.
Just wanted to say how comforting it is to read all your posts - I can pick bits from each one which conjure up just how I'm feeling. Thanks.
And I too would recommend the Baggage Reclaim site.

This is a very lovely thread to be on because nobody is giving us a hard time for acting stupid (or should I just say being human?)

I am having quite a scary epiphany now reading baggagereclaim which is the most amazing site...like getting therapy. Have been reading "100 Tips & Thoughts for Better Self-Esteem ? A Guide To Happiness & Improved Sense of Self" and learned some tough home truths. How I have relied on him to make me happy (no contact: feel like crap, an out of the blue text: the sun comes out, bird start singing, and I skip down the street!) How I never took any blame: it was always him pushing me away that got me mad..what a shit he was...but actually he never promised me anything but I thought I could change his mind and make him fall in love with me...yeah of course...needy and attention seeking...what's not to fall in love with?!!

I too have gone a bit down the stalker route...Facebook, his exes, etc. WTF? It's masochism. But no more...I am going to have to read baggagereclaim every day to remind myself of these things. I don't blame myself entirely as I'm sure disinterested parents and a critical father didn't help but it's up to me to change that and I have to stop blaming others for the crap in my life.

I suspect we have all messed up, humiliated ourselves and then beaten ourselves up about it. Can we keep this thread going please? It's really helping...and everyone read baggagereclaim. And remember dont press SEND! Write it in a draft then delete the next day. I wish someone had told me that before I embarrassed myself a million times.

I think unless you have been in this kind of situation with this kind of man you just don't get it. I'd hazard a guess that most of us on here have had crappy childhoods and so didn't see these men/situations for what they were/are.
That site is excellent, I'm also seeing a counsellor and maybe I can sort myself out.
I agree totally with being reliant on them for happiness - that's how I was. It's a hard habit to break.
Steeltowngirl - sorry I missed your post last night. So glad you overcame the temptation. I do the stalker bit too, looking at his life online. It's sad isn't it. I think of all the ways I could ruin his life, but don't do it. Not sure if that makes me a good person or not?

OMG...isn't it terrible that we can feel so bad for sending a nice message. Problem is: we know that we are not just sending a nice message...we have hidden agendas that are not so hidden. We want them to suddenly realise how wonderful we are. And that will never happen because we don't even believe it ourselves. Read that 100 tips and thoughts for better self esteem...I always thought my self-esteem was ok until I read that and realised that I am still attention-seeking and needing love.

Hope I can become a better person by reading, re-reading this stuff. And just like eating a packet of biscuits, remember how good it feels when you don't give in to your base urges. It actually feels better than being with them. Having said that I almost sent another text this morning...I didn't though. Those crazy highs we remember are hard to forget. I miss him every day. But most of it was spent fretting and wondering what he was thinking. So easy to remember the brilliant stuff, so tough to remember the crap we dealt with MOST of the time!

Thanks fizzfiend and omg for your wise posts and kind understanding. I think what gets to me is that my OM, who's a successful local businessman, quite visible in his local community about 10 miles away, is just getting on with his life while I feel I'm struggling all the time.
Okay I'm no angel - we're both married with kids. He came on to me repeatedly, in a business situation. When I finally responded, his interest seem to taper off and I felt he played with my emotions. I ended up looking needy and desperate I fear - I still carry these feelings of shame and humiliation with me a year down the line.
The self-esteem issue is very pertinent to me.
The good thing is, on this wonderful thread, we all seem to be seeing the situation more clearly and know what we have to do. I really do hope we can keep supporting each other.
As you say, omg, unless you've been through it, you can't possibly understand the mental turmoil it generates.
I was lucky - in RL a friend had been through something similar and I could confide in her.
Just frustrated with myself that I still have days of feeling so bad and so tempted to text, even after nearly a year of no contact.

One of the worst things I did was ask my DH not to tell my exes wife. I didn't want my ex upset. I realise now I was thinking more about what was best for me ex and not my dh . My exes wife knows that me and her dh had a fling when they were together (I didn't know they were together) and he said she would leave him if she knew we had been talking for the past 2 1/2 years. She has stayed with him through 2 more betrayals but because it was me again she would leave him. I was/am? in a situation where I want her to know. Why should my DH be the only one to be hurt and my dh has said that too. I still can't do it though as he has a child.

That's it exactly, when I send him a nice message I'm actually saying please like me, I'm not just being chatty and friendly. In my defence he will be wanting that but only so he can play me some more. My self esteem has been low for years, if it hadn't this would never have happened!
Steeltowngirl - don't get me started on the whole shame thing. If I actually think about our emails when everything was good I am almost physically sick. Despite being married for 20 years I was quite sexually naive so the whole explicit stuff I still cringe over. And knowing he may still have all those emails ... he will have deleted them, won't he? And a year for you still to be like this, I need it to stop now. I have already been hung up on him for almost 2 years. Such a waste of time.

Fizz, I know - I have such selective memory it makes me laugh sometimes. I mean, 90% of it was pure hell. I chose to remember the 10% when it was wonderful, euphoric, when I believed we would grow old together and were embarking on a long and wonderful journey side by side. Compounded by him saying and still maintaining that he wanted nothing more than that, that he is lost in nothingness without me and can't bear that he destroyed something so wonderful by his sheer idiocy.

It's the actions and words thing, I guess. Words - amazing. Actions - terrible.
Has anyone 'liked' Baggage Reclaim on facebook? I've found the frequent reminder posts appearing in my newsfeed really helpful at keeping me on track when my mind starts to wander into the 'what if's and the 'if only's...

TheOriginalFab - my DH doesnt know, on one hand I think if he did it would stop it but DH would then leave me so I would have torn my family apart for something so insignificant. OM knows DH and I were about to split up a few months ago, knows it was because of us amongst many other things. He has never expressed regret or guilt over that. Whereas if his wife found out and left him, i would be destroyed over that. I know also if I told my DH he would tell his wife, in fact he would do everything he could to ruin his life. So I carry the guilt, so I protect him, but I wonder if he's worth that?

OMG - I have been hung up on mine for 17 years and have loved him for 22.

Your OM is worth nothing.

I know how lucky I am that my DH has stayed with me and forgiven me. I have told him so too. TBH we have been through, and are going through, much worse things than my having an EA but tbh if dh knew I had seen my ex he would probably leave me.

I'd like to like baggage reclaim on my FB but think might start people I know wondering what I was up to!!!
17 years :(( How the hell do you cope with that. What's the longest you haven't thought about him for?

Don't know. Recently probably 2 days. Before being in touch it might have been longer.

Ok I know I am playing devil's advocate here, but the thing about OM was the intensity of my feelings. I can't remember feeling those highs since I was a teenager. So what is that all about? And no wonder we are finding it hard to give up.

I have so much to do today but have spent all morning on here so far. Not very grown up but I can't help it. I guess BaggageR would say I can help it. But I sparkled when we were seeing each other and everyone could see it. Despite spending so much time agonising.

Now I am contemplating meeting him to tell him I can't see him anymore. I know he will respect me for it. But then I know he will kiss me goodbye and my head will spin like it always does and how it never does with anyone else. Oh FGS! Worried if I cut off all ties, I will regret it because I still love our short times together. HELP!!!

You have to start somewhere and every time you go back again you are going back to the beginning. I wanted the closure chat but didn't get it. Now I only want it so I can tell him to leave me alone but I know I would back down and say call me if you are ever alone so no going back at all for me. I know how good I feel as the time goes on and do not want to have to start again again.

it depends, fizz, when you've reached saturation point and want something better for yourself. When not being in contact is still better than being in touch with him, for whatever reason. Some never reach that point because there is still a payoff or because they can't see how happy they'll be without the bloke a few months or years down the line and are scared to let go of the little happiness they know. Fair enough.

It might be best not to meet with him in person to tell him because deep down you might just be doing it because you want a reaction, want him to promise things will be different, or to offer you more commitment than he has so far.. so that you won't have to follow through after all. In this way, cutting contact is more like a loaded ultimatum or conversation starter than a real wish to not know the person anymore. Does that make sense?

Has everyone signed up for the BaggageR No Contact Rule Mail? It's been so valuable to me, I've have failed by now these last three weeks or so without it.

You are SO right...get a grip Fizz...thank you! Time to step away from the computer!

Intensity of feelings - check
Hard to give up - check
Not very grown up - check
Sparkled when with him - check, check, check

My OM wouldn't end it, he just went silent on me, so in the end I wrote down what I wanted to say - guess in effect I was ending it because he wouldn't - phoned his spare mobile knowing he'd not answer it, left the message - said all I had to say and by using notes didn't forget anything (God, it sounds pathetic now)

He did call me later the same day; I managed to stay on my dignity but only just and cried buckets afterwards. That was the last contact. Oh and I had to go on holiday in complete and utter agony the day after with DH and DC.

But I'm still here a year later - no-one died.

Not much help I'm sure fizz, sorry, but thinking of you & sending a hug

I had those highs too. Mine compounded by the fact OM was my first boyfriend when I was a teenager, in fact my first everything. When we became friends again after a 22 year silence it was like finding a missing piece to my life. I thought it was like some stupid romantic film where we'd end up together because we were destined to be. He told me how he'd often thought about me over those years, I honestly had not thought about him! But he made me remember everything and made me think it was something special. Or rather I let him make me believe!!!