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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Dating thread no 45

999 replies

JulietteMontague · 08/03/2013 21:59

Online and real life dating chat, all welcome

OP posts:
OhWesternWind · 08/03/2013 22:03

Thread 45 already! These threads are whizzing by at the moment.

Here's hoping this one is full of good times and happiness for all of us.

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:05

Yes, Ike, how long has it been? You sound down atm and I guess the holiday he is on is part of this. They will be back soon and you will feel better, think of it as a milestone.

lulubellaboozle · 08/03/2013 22:08

well done Juliette

Ike following on from the last thread, I do get the being in shock still bit, and sometimes it just hits you out of the blue. I thought I had the perfect marriage, people called us the "model" couple. He was controlling but it felt safe and protected. I was on a pedestal, until literally one day he decided he didn't want me anymore and I became a piece of shit he had stepped in and then the physical stuff which he had contained, bar 3 or 4 episodes in 9 years, all came to a head, then I found out about the cheating. I was in shock, my family and friends were all in shock.

Even though I have met Mr EA, and he is a star and I love him to bits, I do still wake up sometimes and think, how did this all happen? If you would have told me this was my life now, 12 months ago, I would have laughed at the absurdity of it!

ike1 · 08/03/2013 22:14

Yes indeed ..I feel I am livinga parallel life to the one I had for 16 years. Every single day I wake up slightly confused...and the realise THIS is reality.

Original poster
JulietteMontague · 08/03/2013 22:14

Pom so good to hear you happy Grin

Ike 5 years, wtaf. With it all coming out after, it must be like death by a thousand cuts and feel like your whole world was turned upside down and then some. You are so much better than him. It will get better sometime, but he did a number on you recently with the vindictive nonsense about your parenting and no co-incidence he did that right before jetting off on his sham holiday. And sham it will be, whatever anyone else around him kids themselves. Cock.

OP posts:
VelvetSpoon · 08/03/2013 22:15

Just catching up with the last thread, went to post and it was already full up!!

pomegranate glad everything's going so well for you! many congrats on the new job :)

The whole thing with Cuthbert actually causes me much less anguish than any of my other OD experiences. I suppose because what always happened before - and hence was always my fear - was of them disappearing. just cutting contact, vanishing, whatever. It happened with every bloke I met (barring 3 who I dumped first), like bloody Groundhog Day over and over again! But C hasn't done that, and I don't think he ever will. That was my biggest fear. It irks me a little that he doesn't text more, but I don't have the horrible horrible gut-wrenching fear I ALWAYS had before of being ignored, of not getting a reply. And that's such a big thing.

BUT ultimately I do want a boyfriend, a relationship, someone to do things with. I can't say if C will be that person, I hope so, but I don't know yet. Time will tell. And if he isn't, he isn't, I guess. It will be disappointing but not the end of the world.

ike I think if you've had a long relationship that was mostly great, sometimes good, and never worse than ok (if that makes sense), it must be so hard to be without that, and to feel not just a sense of loss, but shock too.

My only longterm relationship was with the Evil Ex, together 8 years, and miserable for almost all of it. The first 3 months were a cloud of lust, another year was ok-ish but far from great, and the remaining time was truly shit. I would often wish I could just wake up one morning and he'd have disappeared.

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:21

Sad, it's a horrible feeling isn't it? Only time will stop that feeling. Someone new might help but not always ime.

I feel like this now after being alone for many years. It's not the being alone that makes you feel this way, it's the loss of someone you hoped you had a future with. Once the feelings leave for that person, then you don't have anything to mourn and even if you don't find someone else there is peace once more.

OhWesternWind · 08/03/2013 22:22

What a horrible feeling Ike. I sometimes wake up in this house, in this new life and it feels so strange. Not what I'd planned on doing at this age. The worst thing is the anchorless feeling I get sometimes, don't know how to describe it, but it's all to do with feeling like my life was just suddenly uprooted and could never be the same again, and I've not managed to get back the feeling of security and belonging that I used to have.

BUT what I have now, by myself, has to be better than living a horrible lie with someone else. The other stuff will come in time.

ike1 · 08/03/2013 22:24

Yep and Yep. Well ..y'know life is very different now and strangely the same. Same house, same neighbours..blah, blah just a bit lonelier and without purpose...oh but with the reminder that OTHER people are having very exciting happenings..I'll be ok . It will just take a long time to percolate I guess. But thanks for listening.

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:24

Velvet, sorry for double posting but your real fear was rejection, because it had happened before, so C didn't reject you which is what you needed. Any contact from him is fine for you for the moment but you will one day get fed up accepting crumbs and realise that actually you are worth the whole loaf which you are.

ike1 · 08/03/2013 22:26

Thank you lovely people sometimes..you can feel like a freak but, in my case, badly, pretend to be ok

EternalRose · 08/03/2013 22:28

That's a lovely update pomegranate, very happy for you. Smile

OhWesternWind · 08/03/2013 22:28

Velvet you are worth the whole bloody bakery ...

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:29

Ike, honestly it really does take time to get over someone. Gawd I've been through the mill and the only reason I am feeling horrible atm is down to the ex who was the only man I had had feelings for for years.

I won't always feel this way even if I don't meet anyone else who I feel the same way about.

VelvetSpoon · 08/03/2013 22:34

Scrazy I actually wouldn't call it just crumbs, that suggests I'm putting up with something which isn't good enough, or that C's making a mug out of me or not that into me or whatever. And I don't think that's the case at all.

If C and I get to the stage where this is going to be a relationship, then I would want and expect more, in terms of texting, and how often we see each other. But we're not there yet, we have only been on 6 dates after all.

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:36

I am really missing him again tonight after thinking I was getting over it. It's either him or it could be the fags which I have given up this week again, as well as being on the 5 to 2 diet. As it's not a 2 day I am drinking some lovely red wine, well you have to have something. Grin

I also cut my own hair, made a bit of a mess of it but it was getting too long for a woman of my age so must look better.

ike1 · 08/03/2013 22:38

Scrazy I am sure you are right, just thought I would explain the circs behind my opinions because they are unusual.

SoSweetAndSoCold · 08/03/2013 22:41

Delurking to say that I know exactly how you feel Ike. Was in, what I thought, was a mainly happy, solid, supportive relationship for 20 years with my ex, who then left me so he could spread his love amongst younger women.

I still have that feeling of shock, not quite 'getting it'. I know we weren't perfect by any means, but I genuinely thought that our bond would carry us through difficult times and that we would be together 'until death did us part'. It's been a few years since the split and I still don't feel comfortable with my new life. I feel actually physically uncomfortable the whole time, I can't get warm and cosy on the sofa or in bed, about the only time I feel physical ease is if I have a bath. It's horrible and I wish I could just get over it and move on.

Sorry, slightly self indulgent rant there, but what you've been writing really touched me, so just wanted to send some hugs

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:43

No Velvet, I didn't say you were being a mug, you said because he wanted to keep in touch you were happy with him setting the pace which is fine if you are happy with his pace. I started seeing the recent ex about once every few months and was perfectly OK with it at that time, then look what happened.

ike1 · 08/03/2013 22:45

You have described the feeling very well sosweet ...it is like disassociation with your life... you know you are alive, things are happening around you, you are participating but somehow its not real.

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:47

Sosweet, how long had it been?

Scrazy · 08/03/2013 22:49

They say it takes around 5 years to completely get over a breakup. This relates to a LTR or even a shorter one which has involved intense feelings, maybe a birth of a child.

ike1 · 08/03/2013 22:55

Yep I can believe that Scrazy .. I reckon 5 years will be about the mark for me. I had to take a year out of college because I could not carry on at the pace I was going weighed down by my emotions ... I had to feel them and experience them again without jeoprdising my course.

VelvetSpoon · 08/03/2013 22:56

I'm happy to go along for now with the texting, but I've never said I was happy to only see C every few months, I'm certainly not, we were trying to see each other once a week, and when I next see him I will be saying that (if this is going to head towards being a relationship, which is what I hope) we need to be more creative with our time, as we can't both be free every Friday, so we need to work out other days and ways we can meet instead.

In terms of getting over a breakup, I suppose it depends on who ended it, and on what terms...I never loved the Evil Ex, and given how he treated me, I was over the whole thing long before it ended. I can understand though that if you were happy, and in love, it must take many years properly to recover from, even if it ends badly.

SoSweetAndSoCold · 08/03/2013 22:57

Yes to the disassociation. I find myself having benign, 'friendly' chats with the ex as we pick up / drop off the DC and it all feels quite normal, and emotionally uninvolved, like talking to a colleague or something, and then when I find myself alone I just can't understand how we are in this situation, and the internal version of me is still screaming and throwing dishes. I've actually recently started counselling to see if it can help me really understand what happened, to properly internalise it. It's weird because I don't want him back, don't love him now, but still grieve for what should have been. Actually it's not weird at all, probably quite normal.

It's been 2 years Scrazy, and I can fully see that 5 years until a full recovery is probably on the cards. Ugh.