I'm about to send my ex a friend request on fb

[4TimesIntoTheSameWall]

I'm over him. He was emotionally abusive but I've got on with life. Can I send him this request? I don't love him anymore but I want him to know that my life has carried on and I've moved on. Even if it still hurts sometimes.

As a side note one of my good friends got married today so I'm feeling a little emotional.

Your blatently not over him!

Don't do it.

What do you need to prove ? Your still intrested in him? As that what he will get from it

But he's always tried to get in touch

So the best thing you can do to prove you have moved on is to ignore him, if there is one thing an attention vampire loves, its knowing that you care. "love me, hate me, just dont ignore me!"

Ignore, ignore, ignore. It will get to him more!

You're still attached. Emotionally attached, because you Hate him. STOP IT.

Detach. Ignore. Forget.

You getting in touch with him will just open up the door to his abuse to start again, even as a "friend", even though you may never see him again.

Why in the name of all that's holy would you even want to give him free access to your life again?! He's not going to go "oh no, looks like 4times has moved on, oh what am I going to do?", he's going to go "oh good, more ways I can psychologically damage 4times! - let's see, I can say she looks like shit in that photo, I can tell her that she takes too many selfies, I can say she's got too fat/thin/old - woohooo!"

You'd be mad to open yourself up to that, absolutely barking, sorry.

Block him for good measure so you can't even find him again.

And for goodness' sake, if you haven't had counselling to get over him, then get some. Cultivate indifference because hate is just the flipside of love.

I didn't send the request as it's actually very true that if I really didn't care then there'd be no need to make a show of 'not caring.'

I feel really down and I feel awful for it because the wedding brought it all back for me. I thought I should have been the bride.

Can someone please offer practical tips on how to move on then? How to not care? I often have flash backs of his abuse and wonder if he loved OW more than me? It's caused me no end of hurt.

So glad you didn't send it.

Think of the wedding as a lucky escape - there but for the Grace of God....

The best practical tip? Make a record of his abusive behaviour while you can remember it all clearly. Then when you start pining for him, re-read it and remind yourself just how much of an arsehole he was.

Keep busy - find activities that are interesting, groups of people you like and join in.

Tell yourself positive things about yourself. Say them out aloud. You NEED to hear them. Eventually, you will feel them and believe them.

Be kind to yourself - allow yourself to make mistakes. Dont' beat yourself up because you nearly contacted him, recovery is a process and you will falter occasionally. That's ok.

I thought I should have been the bride

And you would currently be married to a cunt. Congratulations on not being that bride.

Oh goodness, yes you still are attached, aren't you. You have had a lucky escape in getting away from this man in the first place, but the problem is that he has left a wound that isn't healed yet.

I strongly recommend you seek counselling if you haven't already had it because you need to a) realise that you are worth more than this man, and b) realise that what he felt for you wasn't love, it was power. Power over you. He may feel exactly the same way about the woman he has just married, he may not - but that doesn't matter because she is someone else, and what happens between them is irrelevant to you.

HE should now be irrelevant to your life except as a piece of your personal history. The fact that you're even thinking "that should have been me" shows how interlinked you still are with him, and that is something you need to resolve.

You're still giving him far too much power over you - by feeling this way, by thinking about what might have been, by wondering about his feelings - stop thinking about him. HE IS IRRELEVANT NOW.

You are worth so much more.
You deserve someone who will treat you properly, who will love you as you are.
You deserve to be loved.
You deserve a life without him in it.

The Freedom programme might help you too.

Baggage Reclaim is great on moving on.

www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/

I just feel awful. I'm actually crying but can't understand if it's over him or my inability to get a grip.
I don't think I'll ever be the same again. Can I just say that prior to him I used to be ambitious and confident. After him I am depressed and hide away from society. How can one person do so much damage?

Well.... at least you have answered your own question with that last post. Someone who has hurt you so terribly in that you will never be the same again (I'm sure you will in time BTW) - that person doesn't deserve to be a FB friend. Note the word 'friend'. He isn't.

I wouldn't add him unless you are friends in rl which it doesn't sound like you are. I have a couple ex's on my fb but they are people I have managed to stay friends with, they were not abusive and things didn't end badly in our relationships. Don't add someone who treated you badly, he doesn't deserve you as a friend, he's a c*nt.

Quite easily, sadly. Happened to me too and I was only with my abusive BF for 6m in reality, although I thought it was longer (he'd moved "for work" but had actually moved in with someone else - I just didn't click that it wasn't just a house share for a while!)

I did have to have counselling afterwards, because he had devastated my life (and my savings but we won't go there ) - and it helped enormously but took ~2 years before I really felt "over" it. And several more years before I truly realised a) what a lucky escape I'd had and b) how abusive he'd been!

You won't ever be the same person as you were before because all of our experiences shape us - but you can get back your confidence and zest for life; and you can get over this idiot who spoilt things for you. Remember the whole time that you feel this bad, it's still giving him the power to hurt you! Even if he doesn't know about it!

You can change the way you feel, but you quite possibly need external help to access the ways to do it. Start by looking at the Freedom programme; consider finding a counsellor, even if it's an NHS one to start with (I'm only saying that because they tend to be short options rather than longterm, and that's not necessarily enough).

The important thing to realise and remember is that you are stronger than this, you really are - are you going to allow this idiot to define the rest of your life? No! You are going to reclaim your life and rebuild your confidence and get back on track. One way or another. You CAN do this and you will because otherwise he's won, and because you have a life to lead that is free from his shadow.

And crying is a good sign, I think - because you're allowing some of the hurt he inflicted, that still stays with you, expression. It needs to come out - it's like a festering wound that never properly heals because there's still some poison in it - when the feelings start to become overwhelming is exactly the right time to consider really dealing with them, rather than trying to squash them back into their little box and carry on.