How to survive a completely broken heart

[ratburger]

Please help me to feel better or be stronger. My Fiancé left me a few months before our wedding a year ago. I thought until he left that we were a very happy couple and had no idea he had any doubts. He just left me a note that he'd moved out.

He took my stepchildren too, who I was a primary caregiver for over a period of six years and I have not seen them since (he felt a clean break was best for everyone).

I have seen him several times since but never the children, and they are still very young and sometimes I find myself sneaking a look at them on their mother's facebook page and can't believe how much bigger they look and i feel like someone is knifing me in the gut.

For the first six months he was back and forth telling me he loved me and wanted me back and still sleeping with me and I was pulled back and forwards for a long time until he finally admitted that he hadn't loved me deeply as he'd said he had, and that he actually still loved his kids mother.

I asked him why he had made a life with me and a home and had booked a wedding and told me I was the love of his life every day for so many years and he said he thought he had meant those things but realised it was just infatuation based on me being very attractive to look at.

I haven't seen him again since that conversation and no longer speak to him at all, and that was five months ago.

I just want to believe I will one day be happy again but I feel like I have just been broken down.

I am very lonely and sad inside, but I can't date. I'm firstly very paranoid that my looks is all I have and that who I am inside isn't worth very much. I find myself stalking my dates - I mean literally Googling them, trying to find dirt on them, Facebook searching their exes. I am completely paranoid and just desperate for people's approval. I'm so scared someone else will lie to me or hurt me and don't feel worth loving.

I also worry so much about how I never saw this. People say that if you're loved you know it and I deeply felt and believed that he loved me and never saw any sign at all of remaining affection of any kind for his ex wife. I thought we were two peas in a pod.

I also feel like I wasn't worth an explanation or a conversation or any chance to understand why any of it was happening to me. At first he told me all sorts of diferrent reasons - personal attacks on me about things he'd never even mentioned before that made no sense (he didn't like my dog?) and I spent so long in this mad confusion trying to add up why he was saying all those mean things that didn't make any sense. He acted angry at me when he did it, as if I had done something wrong.

I do feel better than I did but I just can't imagine in my head any time where I will be happy again like I once was or like myself again. Can anyone please tell me if after something like this you can have a life as good as you once did.

I don't want him back, of course not, but I do miss the world how it used to be. With my family around me and feeling like I was loved by them and him so much and now I just feel like nothing inside.

I hope you can relax & get a good nights sleep, after baring your innermost thoughts to us this evening ratburger best wishes to you.

Well done for going no contact with him, it's a very hard thing to do. He sounds as if he were extremely confused and I personally think he did love you, at least to start with, but was scared of making a commitment for whatever reason.

Have you had any therapy? It might help you. I'm having counselling at the moment although mine started making suggestions about getting a new boyfriend, like that's the magical answer to everything. I split up with mine 9 months ago and I keep getting asked if I have a new boyfriend so it makes me feel like I'm somehow defective because I don't feel anywhere near ready to move on. What I went through was deeply traumatic and made me question everything about myself and it sounds like you went through a similar thing. Don't listen to people who tell you you should date. That may work for some people but I know it is absolutely the wrong thing for me and would make me feel worse. Doing work on myself and working through what happened is what I need to do first and for me personally this will take a long time, maybe even a couple of years before I'm anywhere near ready for another relationship. So don't beat yourself up about that. I do think talking through it with someone may help you though.

Forgot to add I think he acted angry as a way to justify to himself why he was doing it and to help his guilty conscience. I doubt if he was really angry at you deep down so please don't take that to heart. I know people who are confused can lash out at others or at the people who are making them feel confused.

This may be totally unrealistic but what is their mother like? Would she facilitate you seeing the children occasionally? I know if my DS had a relationship with a step mum for 6 years and she split from his dad is be happy to facilitate that relationship if they weren't able to be amicable, because I know if would be the right rhing for my child.

What a horrible thing to happen. I was left in horrible circumstances a year after my wedding to someone I had been with for over 10 years. I survived but it was hard and I did end up on anti depressants for a time.

But here is a frivolous list of things which helped

• buying myself a piece of new jewellery - it was only from accessories but just saying I'm going to treat myself because I've had a hard time worked a bit
• exercise - it's hard to cry at an aerobics class but I think I did on occasions. Running is free although I hate it so didn't do that - but dancing and wiggling took my mind off it for a while

-travel - even to visit an old friend the other end of the country - get out of your usual space - I had the money to do some travel with companies like exodus, explore etc and it took me out of myself

• create a set time to be upset or think about it a day and try to keep to it.
• keep a diary - but write at least one good thing that happens a day as well even if it's that lunch was nice
• accept invites to social occasions and try and go - I hate small talk and got used to going to the cinema on my own say the Saturday afternoon before a party with strangers - it meant I could talk about the film is seen and not me - because all about me was heartbreak
• oh and shag someone younger than you with no plan of a relationship

It was the worst time of my life but 5 years on was in the frame of mind and met someone lovely and now 10 years on I am happy although I still do cry about it once in a blue moon

Good luck

He was broken and he used you to fix him.

What he did was horrible. You cared for his children and he allowed them to think you abandoned them without a backward glance.

I hope you find a lovely partner who loves and respects you. Someone who is a fully functioning adult, not looking for someone to prop him up.

I think you are doing amazingly under the circumstances. What a coward he is. And the fact there were children involved makes this even sadder.

I too think he loved you at the time he said it and he probably meant all those things. But it wasn't sustainable because he was just out of a relationship where he had been hurt. Maybe he clung to you trying to feel better.

Sometimes though we can over-analyse. The sad truth is you have to accept it and gradually move on. Give yourself time, don't rush it and don't expect to be feeling better too quickly. I still find things hard three years on but enjoy the sense of freedom you get when you are completely on your own.

Oh dear. I think I understand him a bit better now.

When you met him he was very lost and didn't know where to turn. Then along comes you. He finds you physically beautiful. You are lovely with his children. He latches on to you with desperation mixed with relief.

And so it carries on. He certainly loved you a bit. As much as he was able to love anyone. But it's clear that he isn't really capable of very deep emotion and doesn't have much in the way of integrity. For example, the way he instantly swapped his feelings for his ex wife to you. The way he just dropped you out of the blue. The way he lied to his own children to make life easier for himself.

Because he probably only loved you a little bit and isn't capable of deep emotion it was quite easy for him to stop loving you, just like that.

He is just a weak, cowardly man who just isn't worth very much.

Get in touch with your anger- it might help. This man is a user and abuser - telling his children that you abandoned them - not letting you see them. Like antimatter, I am also furious on your behalf.

Tbh I would be tempted to send a card to the children - simple but that lets them know you will always love them and think of them. It will be very confusing for them if they have written to you and got no reply.

And then I recommend reading baggage reclaim ...

And then I recommend reading baggage reclaim....

What a catch/man

One day you will feel very lucky you didn't marry him, honestly!

Thanks to all of you. i did sleep a lot better for just getting it out. Had a massive, screaming cry for the first time in a few weeks and felt some relief from it. Little things like hearing a few people say they'd understood why I felt so bad made me feel a lot better.

A lot of people have suggested counselling. I have been going every week for most of the year but I have just moved so might get a new counsellor in the new place. It did help, there's no way I could have gotten through it without it.

Pandora thanks for those words, and yes, I do feel like I question everything about myself I was once so carefree and sure about and in that state of mind dating is just very difficult. I treat them like they are going to hurt me before we even get started. Have dumped two recently over absolutely nothing. One added a new, pretty, younger woman on Facebook and liked one of her photos. For all I know she could have been his cousin, but in my head and fantasy she was an ex he was still in love with. It's insane!

Ehric I had a really good relationship with the kids Mum, yes, glasses of wine and chats and all that but have not spoken to her since this happened. It seems inappropriate to come between parents and children and as much as I loved them I don't have any rights here. I have sent them birthday presents and cards so they know I am thinking of them but his attitude has always been it was best they forgot me completely.

Andcake thank you. Sorry you've suffered too. I have been doing all those things (bar the last) and they do help enormously. I might try the last! I do agree it's as simple as distraction, time and allowing yourself to treat yourself well and slowly you feel human again. I made myself a list on 30 things I wanted to do this year and have done 12 of them already and it's only February so I am being quite practical about life.

however yes, that's exactly what he did. I just never knew it.

Brandnew yes, it was not sustainable. It was a fantasy for him, where I made his life okay and he had never dealt with the pain of the previous loss. Which has all come out the past year where he has been as upset and depressed as I have been. He's by no means living the high life, he's been in an awful state - but sadly for me - that's probably over the loss of someone else.

MonteCristo Your analysis is identical to my therapists. When I look back now, he latched onto me with such desperation but at the time it was hard to see it as that. It just felt like the thunderbolt of true love. He is the weakest most cowardly person I have ever met. I think he did love me in an infatuated sort of way. I don't think he even loved his ex wife in a deeper way if I am honest. He's one of those people who defines his status in life by who he is with and she was the mother of his kids, and he defined himself in that role. When he talked about still loving her, he never mentioned anything about her in particular that he missed or loved but he said things like "it should have been me at that family wedding with her and the kids, not HIM". you know?

Toohard I can't get in touch with that anger. Have tried so hard. I do follow baggage reclaim.

I am lonely, and really wanting to date, and don't have any problems finding the dates....I just wish I could have enough confidence to believe they are sincere or that I could just let go and trust someone at face value.

Not being funny but maybe the idea of a younger man affair with no attachment isn't the worst idea!

Glad my analysis was accurate. I have met people like your ex from time to time. They are just quite shallow and insubstantial. They just reflect things and emotions, like a mirror, but have no real personality or deeper feelings of their own.

They are not evil people but they can be destructive to be around.

I think a relaxed fling with an attentive younger man could be just what the doctor ordered. Let them polish your ego a little bit. Think of them like a mini spa break to yourself.

But don't go seeking validation from them. You are already a very valid and worthwhile person. The fact your ex latched on to you shows that. Weak people like him tend to be attracted to stronger more worthy personalities like yours.

I don't know that anger is especially healthy or healing. If anything you should try and accept that your ex was just very weak and cowardly, and try and feel relieved that he is no longer in your life.

I think that's exactly it MonteCristo But a person like that is capable of being so convincing and saying and doing all the right things to make themselves appear like they love you properly until they decide to stop and you don't know what hit you.

When he wanted me, which was day after day for years, he put in more effort than anyone I'd ever met. The romance never grew cold with him, nothing was ever too much to ask, he was always surmising me and doing little things to show he loved me. I was touched all the time by how sweet he was to me and how demonstrative he was over how much he loved me.

He would get very angry if anyone hurt me, he always wanted to protect me and look after me and listen to me and spend time with me.

But once he didn't want me anymore, and that was an almost overnight decision, he completely ceased to care about me in any way at all. He was able to extinguish all sense of caring overnight as if I was a stranger.

I've never encountered anything like it and it left me quite traumatised.

Conversations I have had with him since all this show that he was completely unable to actually see in any way how painful or unfair any of it was on me. Or more worryingly, even on his children. He got very angry if I even asked about the effect on them. "Don't bring them into this" he would say. As if they were not in it?

He made no effort at all to explain, to comfort or to apologise or make it easier on me in any way.

He just decided what he wanted and did it in the easiest way possible for himself, regardless of it being the most painful for everyone else.

It's quite scary to experience that. You've lived for so long being so close to that person, sharing everything with them and feeling that sense that they deeply care for your wellbeing and for that to literally just disappear into thin air leaves you just unable to process it.

No amount of counselling or time or anything else will probably ever help me with that part. I could have coped so much better if he had shown some compassion and told me he no longer loved me but felt terrible for hurting me and showed some concern of any kind for how I felt.

I do think the younger man idea has merit. A bit of fun where I feel in control and have no need to see further down the road than next weeks.

Quite surprised at the soft responses on your thread OP - he loved you really etc.

The fact is he is a revolting specimen. OK if he wanted to end it... but to leave a NOTE ffs? Tell the children YOU left them? Jerk you around, shagging you (smashed to pieces you)? Foul foul foul. Truly foul.

Here's the thing: I don't think the anger will come while you are still in love with the fantasy of him. Im shuddering to think he could keep it up all those years. You have been royally done over imo. So painful and such a headfuck: he has done you over every which way. Low self-esteem, pah. He is poisonous and you have been poisoned.

As painful as the truth about him is, it is a clean pain, like a surgeons knife that ultimately brings healing. The pain you have at the moment is muffled, confusing - almost impossible to make any headway, to work toward recovery and healing. I recommend Melanie Tonya Evans for recovery from this type of wounding.

It is not you who is hollow inside, I do hope you see that. It's early days for you, these things take time xxxx

I think part of your pain may be the loss of the relationship with the children (which was genuine and loving and is a horrible loss) mixed up with separating from this man (who is a lying, selfish wanker you are better off without.)
If it's possible it might not be a bad idea to keep the contact details you have for thechildren's mum, even though he has gone back to her and is playing happy families. Because a man like this will be off after another woman fairly soon, at which point his wife (and kids) may be open to renewing their friendship with you. With him for a dad, the kids will benefit from having additional decent, loving adults in their llives.

Those poor kids

I don't agree you have no 'rights' - you parented them for 6 years, you were a significant figure in their lives. It is owed to them to know you didn't abandon them. If that puts their dad in a bad light then better they know that now than 20 years down the line when they're fucked to high heaven. Ie having a father like this.

SpringyDaffs this is EXACTLY how i feel, you put it exactly as I couldn't phrase it: the pain you have at the moment is muffled, confusing - almost impossible to make any headway, to work toward recovery and healing.

I do feel like it's muffled and confusing because it is just so hard to make any sense of it. Someone you love more than anyone else in the world doing such bad things is very difficult to process in the brain. You almost lose the ability to judge anything because it's all gone topsy turvy. Even when he was sleeping with me and leaving again I wasn't angry. It was like I was in a dream or a daze.

Like you say, easier to move through it if I truly believe and except he is an utter bastard, but feeling that is difficult. On the days I feel that, I do feel much better. Other days I soften and on those days I hate myself instead of him.

Yes solidgold the children are a huge part of it. I just can't see that it is best for THEM for me to cause a problem here, or make waves. What he has done to me is awful, but like I say he very much muddied the water with people by making sweeping statements like "it was for the best" or "it was a long time coming" and in no way really actually admitting to a soul on earth that I'd had no damned clue anything was amiss.

He walked out of it largely smelling of roses and with people whispering how happy we'd seemed and how you never knew what went on behind closed doors. He was very clever with it and at the time I was so blindsided I didn't even fight back. I wasn't even aware he wasn't on my team anymore actually.

I actually got a message from a woman on facebook a couple of days ago who came over for a coffee on the day I got the note. I was absolutely in a state. throwing up and shaking and not even crying just asking her why it was happening and she was as shocked as I was. A year on, she sent me a message to say how brave I was to refuse to take him back.

I was baffled...I said "he never ASKED me back?" but he's told her that he did. Just by doing that, it makes him look less awful, makes me look somehow equally culpable in the split. It's just been like wading through a sea of lies since it all began.

The thought of calling his ex wife and explaining what actually happened and that I do want to see the children (especially after a year) seems like it will probably help no one. Not even me really.

She will probably be pissed off at me for disappearing. She will probably agree with him me being gone is for the best (she was a little jealous of my relationship with them in fairness) and she will think it's none of her business. She's not a bad person but from what I know of her, she would not be interested in me seeing them against his will. She's quite a firm and tough sort of woman not interested in getting involved in little dramas and she was less than impressed with the speed with which he moved me into their lives to begin with. I can see her point.

To be very clear...he did NOT go back to his ex wife! She is very happily married to someone else! the man she left my ex for! They will never, ever, ever get back together! My ex is alone and can't see that changing in the near future. He knows he has absolutely no hope of them ever getting back together...she barely speaks to him.

He was telling me he was very stressed, needed space, loved me and wanted to get back together and he was telling everyone else it was over and for the best and he was in a lot of pain! He actually made me look delusional.

I do think by the way that the children have two very loving parents (she is a great Mum and he is a great Dad) as well as two sets of hands on grandparents, aunts and uncles, very supportive schools and a good life. I do feel like they will be fine without me as hard as that is to say. I know they cried the week this happened and that they have of course probably missed me (as well as their house and their bedrooms that they never got a chance to say goodbye to!) but I do think they will probably miss me a lot less than I miss them,

Difficult to say, but being honest, he is probably right and they will forget me.

I was going to add therapy can be great (be warned the lightbulb and feeling better doesn't start immediately) but it's good someone else can listen to you and advise if need be.

Writing down your thoughts help too as do a to do list.

When one nasty relationship ended I booked myself on a week long summer school course maybe plan things for future/near future?

I also found coffee/lunch/outings with friends and family helped a lot even people you don't know like meet up groups.

Good luck this will pass

That man is one heck of a coward. Everything you say about him is one long list of cowardly actions.

I don't think anything WAS amiss until 10 days before he left: you suited his purposes just fine until then. But in true cowardly fashion, he got cold feet when you pointed out to him that marriage is commitment. Cowards don't commit to anything: too scary.

So he skedaddled, and broke up yours and the children's family life, rather than face his own fears.

He's a weak cowardly man and frankly a bit of a shit.

You sound very nice, by the way. Very articulate and kind. (perhaps a bit too kind even)

Right well having read more about his behaviour I think he was merely 'pretending' at being in love. Sounds like he was very much acting it all out. Doing all the things he 'thought' he should be doing. A relentless stream of choreographed set pieces. All showy romance but with little true tenderness or togetherness.

It is quite possible that he is a virtual sociopath incapable of really feeling anything at all and just mirroring what he thinks to be the correct behaviour. I remember reading somewhere that experts think a surprisingly high number of the population are probably sociopaths. That doesn't mean that there's loads of potential Bond villains walking about. But it does mean that there are a lot of people who willingly and selfishly just use other people purely for their own benefit with no ability to empathise with them.

Once they have fulfilled their purpose they are discarded with no remorse or regret.

It's a fallacy that every loves and feels to the same extent. Plenty of people are incapable of feeling much at all. Some can't feel anything. Some can only feel about things in an unhealthy and negative way.

Unfortunately, you happened across one such as this.

I do agree with Cunt.

I was married to a sociopath and it's not so shocking to me now, but I do remember the mindbending horror of trying to come to terms with him, what he was, what he did. Those were terrible times.

Noone seems to like the term 'victim' these days but you imo have certainly been the victim of something really quite nasty. No wonder you're all over the shop - aside from the enormous grief, not just for him but for the kids, the family you had, the life you had. I hate to think of you turning all his darkness on to yourself - as if you don't have enough to be going on with.

Might well have been I suppose. Eurgh. Of all the men in the world I wish I'd not picked that one!

You were horribly unlucky. It's really no reflection on you at all. He would have treated any woman just the same.

Agree that he sounds sociopathic / narcissistic, although they usually move immediately onto someone else, so maybe he's just a dick. Hang in there rat. You sound kind and lovely. You will get through this and be happy again.