Please tell me how to deep clean my brain.

[SarahStratton]

I cut off all contact months ago. I've not seen him since last August. I know he is a cunt of the highest order. I know he's bad, that I would be the world's biggest fool.

But it's like he's haunting me. I dream of him constantly. Not rude dreams, just of ordinary daily life, but with him.

It's nearly 20 years now, I really, really need to get him out of my head so I can properly move on. I know this is pathetic and trivial compared to everything else on this board, but it really is like being haunted, and I need it to stop.

Just give me a massive kick up the arse please. :(

Guilt is a wasted emotion Sarah, forgive yourself huh

I used to dream about an ex boyfriend only when my DH and I were not getting on quite so well. I think subconciously I was missing the cuddles.I saw the ex boyfriend socially recently and couldnt have cared less about him.
My guess , is that you miss the nice bits about your MrWrong that you know are in him somewhere.When you are awake, and have more oxygen going to your brain! you realise he is not for you.

No of course you're not, just as he will not be universally cuntish either.

But I do think the key to this is looking at it more rationally. When you were both married, he put his needs first. If he'd genuinely cared for you he would have been a friend whose role was to help you exit an abusive relationship. The relationship wouldn't have been contingent on you having sex with him and putting yourself at risk of danger. You accept your role in what was shitty behaviour to everyone involved. It doesn't sound like he ever did. He's trying to do the same to his second wife as he did the first. I expect he complains about her too, doesn't he? The common denominator though in these unhappy marriages that propel him towards infidelity and lies is him.

The stuff you're not so clear on is what happened when he became single again. If he really was obsessed with you and loved you, he wouldn't have been put off by one of your friends, would he? Neither would he have married a woman on the say-so and recommendation of your friend. He got married because he wanted to be with his new wife, what ever lies he's told you since.

Just like he's staying with her because he wants to. Because it suits him more than an above-board relationship with you.

From what I can see, he doesn't have genuinely deep feelings for you at all and never did. I think if you can accept that as the truth, you'll be able to move on.

I agree with an earlier poster - get to Relate for a good old brain dump, and sort out.

I think you're spot on Hatty, I really do. You're right about him remarrying etc, if he'd really wanted to, he would have found me. He certainly had all the means at his disposal.

I think I know this deep down, and during the day it's far clearer. It's got to be the lack of oxygen during the night.

I used to dream about someone horrible so much that even eventually my subconcious got sick of it. In my dream I yelled at him to FUCK OFF!!! and he did. didn't dream about him for ages and ages and only do now occaisonally and it doesn't afffect me so much. I don't know how this happened, but I do beieve in lucid dreaming, where you can control them to a certain extent sometimes.

Good luck. I know how horrible it is to be haunted, but loads of good ideas on here, I hope something works for you soon.

It sounds very romantic and heightened and slightly dangerous. It doesn't sound like it's him you miss, but the way he made you feel.

Is there anything you enjoy that can give you a similar frisson (is that even a word?) I'm not talking sky-diving, just something you really love that makes you feel excited.

Try to see him in the round a bit more Sarah and let go of your anger towards him and also yourself. I understand why your strategy was to file him under 'cunt' and that helped you to reinforce your barriers last August. But maybe it's time to see him more clearly now. And see the other characters in the drama a bit more clearly too. Your view of his first wife sounds very one-dimensional. People are very rarely all bad or all good. I'm sure she was unhappy in her own right and was acting that out as a defence mechanism. If you met her now, you might not recognise that bitter, unhappy woman.

Holding on to the anger against a partner stops you moving on and also stops you being realistic about your own part in events. If you're angry with yourself, you need to let that go too and see yourself more in the round. Forgive yourself. Forgive him. See his motivations more clearly and feel sorry that he hasn't learnt as much as you. Feel sorrow for his second wife too.

Thanks Hatty, I think you're right and I do need to do these things. I do feel very sorry for his second wife, and his first wife too. Mostly I feel sorry for his children though, they were lovely children and I was v v fond of them.

Corr HattyTown, you're pretty brilliant at this sort of thing!

Really good advice and it also helped me make a bit of sense of a unrelated issue on my mind too!

Thank you