If you can't be with the one you love...

[Lokina]

What do you do to move on and try to find happiness?

Not talking about long-distance relationships here, but those relationships where, for whatever reason, things just are not going to work out and you cannot be together.

How do you move beyond the stage of being unable to take your mind off the situation and shake off the bone-aching sadness of it all?

Conscious effort to walk away. Sustained commitment over a long period of time to a new life and a new direction. Relationships such as you describe are akin to an ingrained bad habit. Not easy to break without consistent work to establish new routines.

Thanks Cogito. Have made the conscious effort. He wants to stay friends but I know what that really means is "I'd like to know I could still have you if I pulled the right strings" and so I've said no to friendship.

Even so, my heart still jumps when the phone rings and I can see it's him and it takes everything I've got to leave it ringing.

I just can't seem to stop wanting him. The feeling of loss is almost unbearable. It's hard to imagine feeling happy again.

I was single for a long time before so it's not that I can't be alone. I was fine on my own before. But now I just miss him all the time.

How long does it take to not feel like this?

It all feels very intense initially. And then one day it will pass. Keep busy, make plans so you have lots of look forward to. Try to have fun. It will hurt for a while, you just have to accept that.

I promise you it will fade, whether in months or years.

why has the relationship finished - is one of you married?

Keep busy and make new memories. Exercize and get a fab hair cut. Sometimes writing a farewell letter helps.

Have you a friend to go on holiday with? Get drunk with a good friend and eat chocolate.

I have been left devasted by a relationship break up. Awful break up. Couldn't function, work, eat. All my decisions and actions were to do with him. Trying to impress or whatever. (Knew him through work do still vaguely around). I even (instinctively) called him on 7/7 to tell him to get off the train he was on).

This was 10 years ago. I met him last week and all I felt was nostalgia and relief that I wasn't with him. We broke up for all the right reasons and I wouldn't have my DC if I had been with him.

I think accepting and understanding the reasons why you can't be together. What are the reasons? You need to admit to yourself that they are deal breakers for you.

You also need to understand that normal relationships are lovely, usually easy and joyful. Yes these types of relationship do exist and tbh it's best you find one of these.

It is ok to have find memories of a relationship that wasn't so great but keep it in your memorie box.

Memory!

Sensible points all. I don't want to give away much detail about the reasons as would easily out myself. One of the problems has been that he will never quite let me go. He knows I love him and even just a friendly call "to see how you are" has in the past left me bawling my eyes out afterwards.

This has never happened to me before. Relationships have ended, it's felt bad, but I've known that's what I wanted. This time there is this constant "what if?" voice in my head.

I have good friends and supportive family, though only a few of them know about this. Lots to feel thankful for in my life. I just cannot find any spark of joy in any of it though. I do a lot of exercise to tire myself out, I am working harder than ever. But every night I wake at 3am and wonder when the feeling of carrying a stone around inside me will go away.

You are not his to let go! You get to decide who, what and when.

Now if he really cared about you he would back off. What does he want you for? Is it sex? No, then what is he getting out of it?

Real, true love is never this complicated. I can assure you of that. Otherwise you would be together and he would be moving the earth to remove the deal breakers!

You're right QuiteLikely. I have always believed that if you really want to be with someone, you find a way, however insurmountable the obstacles may seem. Sometimes I have thought perhaps that's a childish point of view but it's refreshing to see someone else holds it.

As to what he wants me for, I couldn't say for sure. It's not sex. He says I am perfect for him and everything he ever wanted in a partner. Just not enough to make a the major changes in his life that would be required to commit to a proper relationship, apparently.

Loneliness is something that can easily turn into a stone you carry around. If you let it, that is, and if you let other people - like this man - manipulate you into thinking they are the sole alternative to loneliness. He's holding love and companionship out before you like the unobtainable pot of gold at the end of the rainbow... and that's a bloody cruel way to treat someone you're supposed to like

Reject, reject, reject.

You are wise, Cogito! Thing is, I wasn't lonely before. I had reached a point of balance where, while I would have liked a proper relationship, I knew I was better off alone than with someone just for the sake of having "a relationship". I'd tried online dating without success, rejected advances from various married men (everyone seems to be married at my age), and accepted that single life was not too bad.

Then He came along and everything changed. My future was going to include a loving relationship after all.

And then everything changed again and the relationship I thought we were having wasn't on offer any more. I have at least developed the wit to realise I could waste a lot of time trying to get it back, or accept that the new reality doesn't work for me and I have to move on, alone.

I just didn't expect something so common sense to hurt so much and feel so hard.

"accepted that single life was not too bad."

With respect, that's not quite the same as not being lonely. There is such a thing as rationalising the status quo so that it appears to be a conscious choice or a desirable outcome rather than something you've had to settle for.

Nothing quite so painful as dashed hopes.

I think sometimes you just have to accept you can't have what you want for whatever reason and keep busy and no contact. Eventually the feelings will become neutral and then sometime after that you'll feel good again.

Try to think forward say a year and think to yourself how much time you could waste thinking about someone who essentially doesn't want you (apart from on their terms). Not said to be cruel to you but that is the reality.

I've wasted enough of my life on a couple of bad relationships where the other person only wanted it on his terms, so I take your point IHateBats.

This one has a more refined approach but the reality is that it boils down to he wants it all on his terms with no real commitment.

I wish I could fast forward a year.

I honestly wasn't trying to be cruel but maybe you might feel angrier at him if you just think that whatever his reasons are it does still boil down to the fact that he doesn't want you.

There isn't just one person for anyone and you will be happier again and will really regret any time you spent wasting thinking about him. I do know from experience though easier said than done

I didn't take it as cruel at all - I need the impartial views of strangers as it's so easy to lose all perspective and believe what you want to believe. Am trying to be sensible and grown up and hopefully minimise the pain and resentment I know will otherwise take up a lot of my time.

I just don't understand why even though I know the simple point is he doesn't want me enough, I still want him. What's wrong with me?

Nothing. Wanting what you can't have or wanting what's bad for you is a fairly standard component of the human condition. I don't know if you'd call yourself a tenacious person? Competitive? Strong? Because there can also be the element of challenge in situations like this where you convince yourself that successfully getting him to want you enough is just a matter of perseverance.

When it isn't

Yes to competitive and tenacious. Have come to understand the hard way that you can't always get what you want, and even if you can, sometimes the price is too high and what you end up with isn't what you thought you'd get.

That knowledge doesn't seem to quell my natural tendencies though.

I promise you that it will pass. You will be happy again. You will fall in love.
Is there anything you can salvage from this relationship? What did you learn about yourself? Was it a long distance relationship? Was he married or did he have children? Was he a workaholic or other addict? You can arm yourself with a toolbox for your next relationship and more importantly a list of 'things I'll walk away from and not try and fix'.

He has a complicated personal life with children living a long way away from him (who he needs to see as much as possible, obviously) and is a workaholic. Is afraid of upsetting the mother of the children as worried about contact etc. Nevertheless he made a lot of big promises about our future which all evaporated when reality set in, but he still wants to see me - though now only on a "when convenient" basis. Won't quite say we don't have a future together, but won't discuss it in the way he did before (when all discussions of that type were started by him).

It's really hard. I just wish I could get him out of my head.

Reading your posts with interest Lokina asas I'm in very similar situation.....3 years all his terms I have just called time but now finding it very tough.
1 day at a time,but its so hard not to check phone ...& time drags

It is tough Zebraface. I have found that having things to do at the weekends - time we used to spend together - helps a bit. During the week, I work harder than before and that fills up the time. Nonetheless I think about him all the time and wonder what he's doing, how he is. It's stupid.

I went no contact. He would send me the odd message about how mch he missed me as if to test the waters. I'd end up getting hurt until one day I told him to fuck off. He couldn't give me what I wanted and wouldn't even try so he doesn't deserve me as a friend. Hours turn to days and then weeks without contact and it really gets easier. You view it in a different perspective too, kind of "his loss"