does NC get easier?

[confusedaboutlostpassword]

Not sure where to start. I feel like I have lost the love of my life. We got back together (teenage bf/gf) a while after finding out we had both divorced, then he decided that he couldn't commit, although (he said) he loved me, we just wanted different things.

We are in our 50s now, he was 'the one that got away'. I have always thought he was my soulmate and when we got back in touch, he said the same.

I've not seen him for 2 years now but we had a lot of contact over that time. In February I decided to stop with the texts/emails too because I really needed to get over him, and I blocked him on fb. Have been totally no contact since then. Still feeling heartbroken and dying to get in touch.

Does it get easier or will I feel like this for the rest of my life?

Hi, i dont really have advice but im going through the same thing. Although, you are clearly a lot stronger willed than i am because i just cant bring myself to delete ex's number or block him on facebook. I guess that comes with time! I really do think it will get better.

x

It does get easier with time. The thing is you have to give yourself time, we all move on at a different pace. You've taken the first steps by stopping contact and blocking on FB. Are you sure your not missing the way you were back then, young footloose and fancy free teens with the rest of your lives? Either way you've both changed a great deal since then and if he can't commit then it's not worth your time, patience and energy.

Thank you for your replies.
Kay how long has it been? It took me nearly 2 years to decide to block him and stop texting him and I find it hard every single day.

InTheBox I know he isn't worth it anymore, but I just still find it hard.

Yes, I probably am missing all of that as well as him, but I just wish there would be a day when I don't wake up and go to sleep thinking about him.
I do really want to be over him, but even as I'm writing this I'm welling up.

OP, do you want to talk more about how you both got back together following the discovery you were both divorced and what led him to say that although he loves you, you want different things?

I guess it was very predictable. He messaged me out of the blue on fb, and neither of us knew of the other's situation. Within days we had declared our love, and that we had always been in the others' thoughts (he had definitely been in my thoughts more that he should have been for the last 30 years). He lives the other end of the country to me, and his kids live there with him, and mine with me. He said that he isn't good enough for me, but I think really that is his gentle way of saying he just doesn't feel it the same way. Although it isn't very kind really. He says he can't make me happy, although I have told him he definitely can. I think he has other stuff going on in his head, but I made a decision in February after trying for over 2 years to persuade him otherwise, that I would move on, leave him alone, and try and get over it. I've done the moving on and leaving him alone bit, but I just can't get over it.

It's been a mere 6 weeks! Really hope it gets better soon I can't cope with myself anymore

Its very difficult, I am the same with someone that I was involved with. I try NC, but keep on doing the whole online "stalking" of profiles thing, which sets me back. I wake up every morning feeling down and thinking about him, however, I know that if I stopped looking for him online I would get over it more quickly. It will get better with time, but if you think someone is the one then its very difficult to forget.

The best thing I can suggest is finding something else to occupy your mind. Doomed romantic love is such a terrible waste of time, and because it's thought of as so 'romantic' and special (culturally, not just in your own mind) it can take up far more headspace than it merits.
What do you love/care about/get angry about? Dancing, painting, playing an intstrument, sport, animal welfare, homelessness, the environment? Computer games, or who's winning Strictly or whatever? Find things to absorb your attention so that these unsatisfactory men become less and less important (however nice - or nasty - they may be, they are unsatisfactory as partners for you.)

I still rarely think about an ex lover of mine. He broke it off with me seven yeas ago. Only this year I have stopped pining for him. Time is the best healer I'm afraid.

We are all individuals and we grieve for the end of a relationship at different paces and miss different aspects of them. In my case I have been extremely lonely and that played a huge part in my continued sadness of the break up. He was company for me., someone to talk with. I also wanted revenge on him a bit as he left me for another (was with her all along) and I felt angry as I'd allowed myself to be led on by him to nowhere. In my previous experience of relationships men will show you they want you and there isn't a doubt about it and they stay.

His decision is final. Just do what is best for you and eventually the memories will fade and that is a good thing. I used to torture myself going over and over things said and unsaid, analysing but he just didn't love me or take me seriously enough to want to stay.

I still have clear, colour images of him in my mind sitting upon this sofa I am sitting on now.

I've been waiting for him to come back to me but after seven years apart, he hasn't, he shan't, I feel better now and the self torture has almost gone away.

I hope he is dead

I agree with SGB that finding other things to occupy your time and headspace is the answer, combined with complete no contact. Deletion of messages/pictures/conversations/numbers is the only way, but I promise that it does get better, and this time next year you will be in a different place. Of course, it will likely happen before that, but a year is a good place to look forward to.

Reality is that you're in love with a memory. We could probably all look back to a place in our lives where we loved someone, and still love them because they're still etched in our memory as that person they were back then. But truth is that they're no longer that person, they've lived a different life, created a new present for themselves and you've not been a part of that change.

Aside from talking on facebook and declaring your love for each other, did you actually meet?

Often people post on here about memories of the one that got away and the wondering about what happened to them.

I had one of those. A bf I left behind when I came back to the UK. we were young, had vowed to stay together, and then inevitably he found someone else and we split. It was inevitable, I had moved 6000 miles away and wasn't in a position to go back. But I always retained a wondering of what had happened to him, not in a "I want to get back with him" sort of way but in a "that love was the one I thought was the one and it never really ended because we were apart when we split" kind of way.

But I got together with now xh, we got married and had ds. And then facebook came into being and ex bf turned up on there, and it turned out he was already on his 3rd marriage and suddenly the realisation was that I had had a lucky escape.

Except I wonder whether he had thought similar to me, because not long after I got together with my now dp I had a message from xbf saying how I'd been in his thoughts a lot lately and if I ever wanted to talk to him he would be there. Err no I think not.

Time changes many things, including perceptions. :)

"Reality is that you're in love with a memory. We could probably all look back to a place in our lives where we loved someone, and still love them because they're still etched in our memory as that person they were back then. But truth is that they're no longer that person, they've lived a different life, created a new present for themselves and you've not been a part of that change. "

God this has hit me, its so true.

thanks - these messages all help??.

We met up several times and spent several amazing weekends together, and also spoke for hours at a time.

I hope time will heal, it's just so so hard right now, and after NC since Feb it is so hard not to get in touch, and I am so tempted. I have to literally turn my phone off to stop myself sometimes.

omg will I be like this for 7+ years?

That must be hard :( big hug xx

KayDee81 use that thought for positive though.:) It's a good memory. you can look back on it fondly, and in truth you've probably made other good memories of your own since you were in that place all that time ago.

Make a virtual box in your head to put it in. give it a picture even, perhaps a picture of him, or maybe something more abstract and unconnected, and put it there, virtually close the box and leave it there, where you know it's safe.

You're doing well confused you are doing well. And please keep posting if it will deter you from texting him. The past is but gone and you have to look forward. If he was going to commit he would have and you would not have started this thread. I wish you well, we've all been there in one way or another but as the cliche goes - time heals.