What Is Wrong With Me? Will it ever get better?

[OhDearohdear0dear]

I've name changed as fully right ashamed.

I was involved in an emotionally abusive, using me for sex "relationship".

For reasons I can't fully comprehend, I was mucho in love with this man.

I somehow have managed to stay away from him - time to time I get the hovering no-effort message/email/text. I have not got back to him - despite a bleeding heart.

I've been no contact with him for a year (its anniversary time folks!) but I've kinda just woken up to that I still think about him every day, I still love him and I still want him to love me. This is a unicorn feeding fantasy as he never even really liked me - just whooped up a load of clever mind boggling charming stuff when it suited him.

what the freaking hell is the goddamn wrong with me? and will I ever really properly get that he is not a good man and abusive?

In that time I've not dated anyone - I've had a couple of abortive attempts - but stopped because I kinda got the message that my heart and love was elsewhere and I should wait til I was free. I don't think I'll ever be free.

when? ever?

Try reading Intimate connections by David Burns. It helped me a lot. If you have a tablet or smartphone you can get it for free on an app called Scribd. I was suffering low confidence after internet dating. Kept feeling used and wasn't meeting the right people. Totally changed my whole outlook.

Thanks helenF350 for that recommendation. I'll give it a look.

but for real I think I'm beyond book helping. I despair of how I feel. It's like my heart has settle on this one man - but thank jesus my mind has managed to control my actions - to stay away - but goddamn hell it's hard work as I want to reply to him.

but a year - a whole full year - man! by now I should be over this right? how? how? how can I get him out of my mind?

You will get there, it takes different amounts of time for different people. Honestly I think the book will help you, it focuses on your wants and needs and loving yourself then your relationships with others. You need to fix you first. Took me a bloody long time to realise it but I got there in the end. I wasn't completely over a previous relationship but kept trying to date and landed myself in some ridiculous situations. At least you realise you aren't quite ready yet so you are one step ahead of where I was!

Just to add changing your number and email so he can't contact you might help.

It might take longer than a year....sorry about that. :(
Try to recognise it's an obsession, though, an unhealthy addiction, rather than anything to do with hearts and love. Thinking in terms like that will keep you stuck in fantasy land, and away from any chance of real love.

Can you talk to anyone, or write about your feelings while you work through them? This might help.

It might take longer than a year....sorry about that.

Are you sure?

I so thought I should be so over it by now.

It seems like its not really better. I mean like it is better as I'm less upset. not better as I think of him so much and no guys I meet are as he was to me.

Things are better for me as I have been real super strict about no contact/not responding to him. Yet my heart is not better.

I think a year is way enough. You disagree?

As someone who has had obsessive relationships and addictions, I would say that the first step is to acknowledge without guilt or regret that these feelings and needs are part of who you are at the moment. Our emotions make us humans what we are, and that sometimes means having feelings we don't like. Trying to reject feelings we don't want is a fools errand, instead we have to learn to work with them. Stay NC and treat your time with him as a painful but necessary lesson in who you are. This is a starting point for personal development. Get counselling as this will help you understand yourself. There are two exP I still think about from time to time, but even though I had a terrible time I can now accept I will never be truly over them. Instead, I am in a place where acknowledging who I am and how I got here makes me stronger than I otherwise would have been. Learning from our mistakes is the only way we can become who we want to be, who we should be. Most people just bumble through life making do with what they've got. Your current position is life handing you an opportunity to move beyond that. Not saying it will be easy, but if you put in the hard work now, when you get out the other side you will be in a position to start a new, rich and rewarding relationship where you can get what you need and give as much of yourself as you can from a position of strength.

If you have been used and exploited by this man then I would personally think very hard about continuing to pursue a relationship with him.

Using someone is the polar opposite of loving them.