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Original poster

After 6 months of no contact hes still in my head 24/7 - please help me wash my brain

33 replies

Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 10:18

We were only together a year but it was the most amazing time - I was hopelessly in love and didn't want it to end. There was no future for us - we could never have really got it together as he was significantly younger than me - it would never have worked. We led totally different lives - him being 20 something and me being 40 something with children. Didn't stop me being obsessed with him and I still am. I just want him out of my head. I hate it that he takes up so much mental energy and that I am still in the position where I congratulate myself on a minor victory if I go more than 10 minutes without wondering what hes doing or if he misses me. I believe he loved me but it would have got messier and messier as I got older and he wanted to live his life and I kind of pushed him away - he chased me for a long time saying none of it mattered and we would find a way but bit by bit I kind of talked him into it and then in the end he ended it not me. I just dont want to think about him or his bloody beautiful skin any longer. I'm so miserable.

OP posts:
springydaffs · 12/09/2011 10:47

poor, poor you - you have my sympathy. This isn't love though is it, it's obsession/addiction - but then, love looks like both those, particularly at the beginning. And you already know it's obsession - torture. You've obviously thought of all the pros/cons (particularly cons) of continuing a relationship with him - as you say, you talked him into ending it. I think you're going to have to contact him - he may have moved on.. but at least then you'll know for sure and can get on with getting over him. I have 'fallen in obsession love' with someone young and there's nothing like it for the torture element. The 'beautiful skin' comment is very telling - didn't Germaine Greer write a book about older women's obsession with young men? 'Cherie' too (is it? french author) - that doesn't end well. Though you probably can't read you're in such a state. I didn't have a relationship with the object of my obsession and that was bad enough to get over - I know women in your position and they testify that it is excruciating. I also know women who are in successful relationships with men who are much younger.

Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 11:08

thank you springdaffs - how did yours happen? did he know you were pining for him?

OP posts:
Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 11:19

oh gosh - I just put that book on my kindle. I suspect it will kill me :) he was utterly beguiling and like a little puppy much of the time - he couldnt do enough to please me. I just knew that one day I would just look stupid with him - right now I can hold my own, but in 10 years he will be in his prime and I will be past it and he would have left me because of my age in the end I feel sure. Oh dear god he was so wonderful though. I miss him.

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springydaffs · 12/09/2011 11:24

probably - I very probably wasn't the first. I still think about him now and again, particularly as his country has only just got independence from the mad gadaffi, so I've thought about him more than usual, I guess - is he still alive, for a start. (how stupid I was to get my heart caught with someone like that!!). It's been about 3 years and, yes, it's settled down now but ouch, seriously painful. He rejected me brutally and the pain! like a car crash! absolute agony. At least he was in a different country - I pity you if said gorgeous boy is near.

but... this is different to your situation in that you had a relationship for a year. My situation was just silly, yours was a proper relationship.

Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 11:31

oh I know what you mean by the pain. I just wish I could snap out of thinking about him. It serves no purpose now and I gain nothing from it. My brain isn't under control. I desperately want to be free of it but have no idea how to stop it going round and round and round. I grow tired of myself.

How did you meet him?

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Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 11:33

I wish I had never met him :(

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springydaffs · 12/09/2011 11:34

The only thing you have to think about is children re he will (very probably) be wanting children, can you have more children? Do you want to have more children? If not - and this is the key reason I don't have relationships with younger men who haven't yet had children - then you have to let him go to have them with someone who can/wants them.

I get the feeling old and past it - initially you feel young and gorgeous but gradually you start to feel decrepit: the comparison seems too obvious. But, that's your/our stuff, not his. There are plenty out there in relationships like this and, ahving done it the proper way (marriage to someone my age - actually, a few years younger) and it being a disaster on stilts, I honestly think you/one may as well go for it as long as eg children etc issues have been addressed.

Which book on your kindle - Cherie? Hmm, as I said, doesn't end well; plays into the decrepit thing, ultimately (the what were you thinking you idiot thing).

cecilyparsley · 12/09/2011 11:35

Tricotueuse, I want to suggest that you try and 'overwrite' him with someone else (ie a casual fling or two) but that might not fly with you?

springydaffs · 12/09/2011 11:40

what is it that they say about falling in love being about falling in love with yourself? Haven#t read the Greer book - keep meaning to - but it's no coincidence that as we get older we 'fall in love with' youth. It may sound sordid (but then, isn't 'sordid' close to the surface in our minds when entangled in something like this?) but wasn't that the theme of that film with Dirk Bogarde as the main character, who falls hopelessly in love with a gorgeous young boy? It was a book, wasn't it, not just a film Blush. Anyway, got to go out now. I'd let yourself love him if I were you - what good forcing yourself not to?

Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 11:51

cecily - I've considered that. I'm 44 - I wouldn't know where to find one! This man sort of landed in my life at work afer my divorce - I have had to change my job to be free of him which wasn't much fun.

spring - oh boy there was lots of that falling in love with yourself stuff. He made me feel beautiful and made me realise I wasn't stupid. I could teach him things. He made me feel great about me. Pah! I don't want to try again - this pain wouldn't go away and I can see the day when I would look like Richard and Judy and it would be tragicly sad for him to be shackled to someone that much older. I can't go back there. I just want to forget him. Get my brain under control.

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cecilyparsley · 12/09/2011 12:14

@ 44 you're a year younger than me..plenty of young guys to be had via internet dating...if thats your thing.
Or find some other passion in life to fill the gap?

TheOriginalFAB · 12/09/2011 12:19

Only time for a short message but I recommend Paul McKenna's I Can Mend Your Broken Heart book and CD. I have been in love with someone for 24 years and never been able to move on, we were in contact so that made it much harder, but one read of the book and a few listens of the CD and I am well on my way. He has been a dick just lately so that helped too. Nothing else has even come close to sorting my head out.

cecilyparsley · 12/09/2011 12:29

It does sound like a sort of addiction thing which is outside of rational control, and really probably not all that unusual, isnt that why men joined the french foreign legion!
In my case when a relationship has ended usually other person has been thoroughly objectionable and that has made it easier...quite possibly I've provoked them into being nasty to provide myself an exit from the relationship Confused
Bah! what a pain it all is Blush

SingOut · 12/09/2011 12:40

The very first thing I thought when I read your post was Cheri by Colette. I'd recommend The Last of Cheri too, the sequel. In many ways reading them both back to back helped me to move on from a similar obsession, I read them both on holiday and cried loads. It helped.

I have no advice but lots of sympathy. I think perhaps we just love some people always, it doesn't go away at all but it gets less painful, and eventually our heart capacity increases to love others as well which brings its own sweetness and healing. You may never stop loving him but my guess is eventually you'll stop thinking about him so much. It's just time, I'm afraid :(

springydaffs · 12/09/2011 17:00

back now - spill the beans OP, 20 what? you said 20-something which suggests the younger end rather than the older end...? mine was 28 and I was 48.

Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 19:29

Thank you for your kind replies - fab - bought the book today. I'll try anything but the reviews look good. I want my brain to stop processing it more than anything - it's like I'm not in control and I hate it.

I've been reading the cherie book - I can see already it's going to resonate a little too much - I think I will cry a great deal.

Springdaffs - I was 43 and he was 26. Ridiculous. Stunningly beautiful though. He was like silk to touch

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TheOriginalFAB · 12/09/2011 19:46

Nothing wrong with an age gap. I know a 39 year old man who is married to a woman more than 10 years old than him but if your ex wasn't right, he wasn't right.

ImperialBlether · 12/09/2011 19:51

Note that Colette was locked in a room until she'd finished writing (by her husband or lover, can't remember which.)

MangoMonster · 12/09/2011 19:51

It's hard to get someone out of your head, but meeting someone does take your mind off it quickly, if it is just a case of needing a distraction.

MangoMonster · 12/09/2011 19:53

Sounds silly but if you were with him a year, will probably take a year to get over him. That's what I have found.

TheOriginalFAB · 12/09/2011 20:06

I found that doesn't work. I was with one guy for over 2 years and got over him in about 12 seconds after he hit me. I have got over all my exes except one pretty quickly. I don't think you can generalise.

RumourOfAHurricane · 12/09/2011 20:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MangoMonster · 12/09/2011 20:27

original Inwas referring to relationships which ended over less traumatic reasons, when you just don't see yourself going in the same direction. Sometimes it can take a while to get someone out of your head and you shouldn't feel bad about that.

Original poster
Tricoteuse · 12/09/2011 20:33

Shineon - bang on. I feel obsessed rather than in love these days. I loved him once, that I know but now I'm horribly obsessed

  • as I say I want to wash my brain. I know a million things about him that would drive me round the twist if we had ever tried to make a go of it but it doesn't change the fact that we made each other happy - very happy for a while. But yes, I
Am obsessed - I dearly want advice on how to not be - as I say I want to wash my brain
OP posts:
missy10 · 12/09/2011 20:38

i still love my ex maybe im obsessed as well but im getting mixed messages from him i have just spent the last 2 hours talking to him and he has given me the hope that we may get back together again