Help getting over a completely broken heart

[georgiestears]

Can anyone help me through the best way through a completely broken heart? I know a lot of you have been through the experience of complete betrayal / hurt / abandonment from someone you believed loved you and would not hurt you.

In order to move on, how do you manage the conflicting emotions where you obviously hate and are angry with that person but also feel an enormous loss for what you believed you had.

I feel right now like my friends and family are expecting me not to grieve because he turned out to be so mean and awful to me and I feel like they don't understand that regardless of what a twat he was, he was the most important person in my life and I had believed until recently that we would face the future together.

I don't know how the grief is supposed to work but I feel like it's taking an unnatural route in me because I don't know what I am supposed to feel.

I did make a thread on this but basically he broke off his engagement to me and was nasty about it. He probably has someone else but I am waiting for her to materialise.

For those who have been abandoned or had any man treat them so badly who they trusted and loved....what is the process required to move on?

How do you say goodbye?

My rescinds are telling me to get out and date right away and distract myself.

My friends are telling me to block all contact with him and completely ignore him.

I suppose what I am feeling most inside is that although he was a total arse to me, for a lot of years I loved him and thought he loved me and everyone telling me "forget him, he's a twat" doesn't really make me feel better. I wish someone around me would acknowledge what I lost as being of value.

Not sure if that makes sense.

And can you ever feel love and trust like that again after someone completely breaks you?

I know you have probably heard this before but time really is a healer.

You just have to go through the emotions, it will get easier.

How long were you together? How did you break up?

I wouldn't advise dating just yet but I would recommend spending lots of time with Friends whether it be going to the cinema or pub, even if you don't feel like it, force yourself!

I have suffered a broken heart twice and I totally understand what you are going through, it's the worst feeling in the world but it will get better.

I know people keep telling me time heals.

3 years. I know it's not a lifetime compared to some, but for me it was the happiest time of my life and we were engaged and I loved him as much as a person can. He ended it very suddenly. He's been horrible to me since. Personality transplant and he acted like I never existed.

I had a broken engagement. It really sucks. My heart goes out to you.

I went for the distraction tactic to be honest. I absolutely caned it for at least six months, was out every night, started new hobbies etc etc. Looking back it was a bit manic but I think it did the trick.

Also I would absolutely recommend going no contact - it was the best thing I did. To start with I would still phone him every so often but every time I spoke to him I would feel so, so low. There was no point to it at all so eventually I stopped. He doesn't deserve to get to speak to me frankly!

I went through a break up 18 months ago - I trusted him and he was unkind and treated me badly, but I don't view him as a bad person - just someone who behaved like a tosser at the time of our break up and someone I'm better off without.

My advice would be: to go absolutely NC. Delete him from your phone, email, home, life. I messed this up recently and looked at his Facebook page, big mistake. Needed my own post as therapy

Get rid of any of his tat that may be around - bin it or sell it. For me this included selling/donating jewellery.

Get busy, join things, get out of the house, find a new job, maybe an additional part time or voluntary role that will put you in another arena and occupy your thoughts.

Reinvent yourself a little - new hairstyle etc.

With regards to dating, I did OD for a few months and met up with a number of men but found them all soooooooooooo dull. I don't do OD anymore because I wasn't gaining anything from it. But it made me realise that if I wanted a dull man, there were plenty available to me. I have more interests now and I'm fitter and more sociable than I have ever been.

If you're a list writer try writing 15 things you want to achieve by this time next year. Might be 'I have run 5k'. 'I have started training to be a nurse (or whatever)' Use it as an opportunity to get the life you want.

Keep posting on here when things get tough. Start a new post every day if you need to.

Good luck and remember absolutely NC.

That list thing is a really great idea :)

I sort of did a list too. I tried to do one new thing every month.

No contact is tough. The grief I felt was overwhelming, at times. But...I no longer yearn for him. I rarely think about him two years on. Whereas I have a friend who did the 'let's be friends' thing after splitting up with her long term partner and she is still mooning after him 3 years even though she has a new boyf.

You need to think of it as suffering some short term pain in order to set yourself up for a better future long term.

No contact is awful. I find myself ringing for stupid reasons.

I think I know exactly where you are coming from, and I believe I might remember the thread you mention .

I think sometimes people feel that it's supportive and helpful to hate on the ex, to stress their negative qualities, and to try to get you up and into the scene as quickly as possible. And in a way, they're right - it is important to hear those voices. Your family and friends are angry on your behalf, because they hate seeing you hurting. And that is a comforting thing. It's not that they don't care - they just hate to see you hurting.

On the other hand, though, sometimes what you need is for people to acknowledge that you're in pain - that what you've been through is difficult, and that you are essentially grieving. And grieving is a process that has duration - it has stages that unravel, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. As with other kinds of grief, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to get over a relationship. Everyone is different. No-one can tell you how to do this, because as Dr Seuss says, 'There is no-one alive who is youer than you'! Your path through this will be different to that of others: it will be as unique as you are.

One option might be to speak to a counsellor. It could be a place where you can explore the side of you that really, really misses him with someone who will be sympathetic, rather than trying to talk you out of it. Sometimes just talking about what you feel you've lost, and crying it out, can really help. It's an important part of learning to accept a new reality.

Also, please look after yourself. You're a lovely person and you will get through this, even if it is very tough right now. Keep doing all of the things to look after yourself that you'd normally do without thinking, but that you can easily neglect when you are going through an ordeal like this. Eat well. Don't drink to excess. Exercise. See friends and family. Take time to do things you enjoy every day. Be gentle to yourself.

Really try not to phone. At first I was phoning my ex at least three times a day. Then my best friend said to me 'try not to phone him for at least one day'. And I realised at the end of that day I felt less emotionally drained. And then I still phoned a lot but within 6 months I'd sort of broken the happen. I've now not spoken to him for over a year. The last time I spoke to him it ended in a screaming match.
If your friends want to be helpful ask them if you could phone one of them instead of him if you feel like the urge to phone him. They won't mind.
It is painful though, I agree. I feel like I suffered a bereavement in someways because one minute I was about to get married to him, the next I never saw him again. But it won't be painful forever.
The poster above has pointed out everyone is different, and that is true, but try an experiment. Try turning your phone off for one day and not speaking to him and assess whether you feel slightly more robust at the end of it.

Another one saying time. I know it's a cliche but time will heal.

I had an eight year relationship end, utterly broke me, and everyone said he wasn't a good man etc like that helped but I missed him so much it was like a physical pain.

I think I missed him one way or another for four years. It definitely took that long to "get over it" but it didn't help me that I quickly got involved with someone else an was contending with that relationship which was very wrong for me at the same time. Don't do that. I was very keen to "fix" my life and make everything alright and so I rushed into a new relationship and changed lots of things in my life in quick succession. All that was was avoidance tactics- in the end I just ended up having to sort everything out several years down the road.

9 years later I'm absolutely fine. Get some therapy if you need it and don't rush into a new relationship to anyone else's schedule.

Time will heal but you can help/ hinder that process.

Put a pen and pad by the bed and write. I wrote every night - especially at 3am when sleep eluded me. I just poured out anger/hate every thought I had. Sometimes it made no sense but bit by bit there was less to write until it was all out of me. I would read it the next day and I found that a sort of mini-therapy.

Delete his number. All the time you phone you stay hopeful. I bet a little bit of you hopes he will hear your voice/despair and suddenly realise he wants to be with you and every time he doesn't gallop up on his white charger the wound stops healing. Delete his number from anywhere easy to get to to stop the texts/calls when you've had a drink or are overwhelmed by emotions. Save it in a password protected document that will require effort to get to.

Plan your evenings and weekends. Get your diary and fill it with friends/family, things to do on your own. I was terrified of going to the cinema alone. I forced myself to go and I love it! Learn to enjoy being on your own - it will save you from jumping into a relationship that's crap just so you're not alone.

You do have to be ruthless but it really pays off.

And yes, you do love again only it's better because you know what you really want in your next man.

Good luck! x

I know exactly how you feel - it's horrible. People say my ex is a tosser, etc and my head knows it to be true but my heart wouldn't quite follow. I'd always seen him as loving, genuine and my best friend. Almost 3 months down the line though and I'm starting to see who he has become now and have to agree with friends and family that I'm much better off without the 'new him'. Hopefully time will give you some clarity on the situation too.
I have a young dd but if I could go no contact I certainly would. It's the only way I've got over relationships in the past. The book 'runaway husbands' also helped me a lot x

You can't force somebody to love you but after being so close he owed you some explanation.

You have lost someone because he made a unilateral decision to end your relationship. You didn't have a chance to do things differently and he said goodbye. You even know the chances are, he has someone else already lined up and she will have what you were looking forward to with him.

You haven't lost what you had, that was real. You have lost what you thought was on the cards, and I can see why you grieve for that. But for everyone else especially him the sudden shock break up was zero hour. You're playing catch up. All I can say is, every week it will hurt a little bit less.

He may never talk to you again, but he will be re-writing your history together. You know the truth of it so it is just hot air.

He may exaggerate your faults, your flaws, your weak moments, to big himself up. You thought you were lucky to have met him and he was probably genuine right up until he started - what, getting cold feet? losing interest? straying? With this action he proved himself to be a coward and I think when the shock wears off you will get angry and reject any further "what if" thinking.

Notnastypasty that's so funny you said that because I ordered that book this morning.

I know the chances are he has someone else lined up, but that feels unimportant because even if he doesn't he feels certain he can find someone better than me and that he will be happier with someone else, so the pain is the same regardless.

I do just wish I'd had a chance to fight for myself. I had thought that way the way it worked. That people talked to you and you had a chance to correct anything that made them unhappy. Seems particularly cruel to spring it on someone without any warning.

I am aware he must have been planning it for a while or at least thinking of it and I have relived a million times in my head the final weeks and months and how he managed to give no signs is still unbelievable. Not only did he not give signs, he must have gone to grain pains to make the opposite seem the case.

Mental torture really, some people are such cowards. I know in the long run that makes him not worth having and "no loss" but in the short term there is the loss of who I believed him to be.

I do write. I endlessly write. I endlessly cry and that seems to help. It makes me feel better to know people who have been as badly hurt have come out at the other side. Seems impossible right now but it is only a few weeks

And if he does have someone else, good luck to the poor cow being with someone who just leaves without prior warning he was anything other than happy.

It's hard now, but it won't be as hard in a few months. Time will heal your wounds. Think of it this way: This time next year, you will look back and wonder why you thought he was so essential to your happiness.

I hope so :)