Im fooling myself, I not over things.

[1DAD2KIDS]

I was enjoying a lovely weekend with a lady friend of mine. We were talking and it got on about my ex. To give her an idea I showed her a photo. We got down the route of talking about relationships past and stories etc. Then she said something simple to me that has totally rocked my world. She you still love her? She went on to say its in the way you talk about the memories. I dismissed it at the time, I am over her I thought. But the more I think about it over the week the more it troubles me.

For some context over 2 year ago my ex wife started acting strange. Turns out she was having an affair with her step cousin and left me and the kids to move in with him 100 miles away. She played a lot of horrible mind games and told continuous lies. So now it is me and the kids and she soon realised to the guy she left our family for was a total waster and user. We have kept a good relationship for the kids. We have been divorced for about 6 months (I got a divorce as soon as possible).

Anyway tonight I couldn't help but look though all our photos. From when we first started dating, holidays, our wedding, our kids, our pictures as a complete family. So many happy time and a reminder of how much I loved that woman with everything. I remember how happy and proud I was of my wife and our awesome little family. I remember feeling how with her by my side I could take on the world and nothing could stop us.

I thought I felt nothing for her anymore. Maybe I don't feel nothing for the woman she is today? But sometimes when I see her I sometimes see glimpses of the woman she once was. When she smiles I see visions of those happy times when we were happy. Glimpses of what attracted me to her in the first place. So I don't know if I still feel something for the woman that stands before me today or if I am still I love with a ghost from the past that is gone forever. What ever it is I know I feel something. I can no longer fool myself I feel nothing for her or at least the woman she once was. How can love be so powerful when someone has done so much to hurt you? I should hate her with every bone in my body. Why can I not be over this after all this time when I thought I have been for so long? I have said even on here and to my self I feel nothing for her.

My ex wants to get back with me. She knows better that to push the point too strongly. I think she knows that if she came on too strong is would unleash the fireball of anger I hold in side. But she does let me know and tests the waters now and then. I always tell her no chance. But a dark corner of my mind keeps asking what if you let her back? Has she learned what she really wants in life? Would she make the same mistakes? When I talked to my friend about my ex testing the water I said she was probably looking for a free meal ticket. My friend said yes you looked after her very well but you know she probably does have genuine feeling for you too and misses you. A couple of other close friends have asked me recently if I would ever entertain getting back with her?

The truth is I cant get back with her even if I wanted to. I just cant trust her not to break the children's hearts again. So discovering that I still feel something and being offered it on a plate is I want it makes it all so much more painful I guess.

I just can get how she is so deep under my skin? Over the past couple of years I have dated, had lots of promiscuous sex and formed some good friendships with benefits. I have had some great times and made friendships with women who are no doubt 100 times better than my ex wife. I theory I have seen the great amount of wonderful women there are out there but my ex is the only woman who has ever made me fell that way. Who ever I meet there is always that sometime missing however awesome they are.

The end of a marriage is a death. Death means grief, and grief is a cycle. It doesn't ever really go away, it just changes.

You circle back to it every few years, no matter what. Over time, the revisitations get less intense and eventually, the trauma of the loss you suffered just becomes part of the fabric of your life - it doesn't put you off balance anymore - you just accept it as part of life.

How could you not feel something for her?

I would also like to point out that the most intense, life changing relationships are often the abusive ones. Does their intensity mean they are good, healthy relationships? No. Good relationships are not meant to overwhelm and devastate you. But that doesn't mean they aren't meaningful and that they won't leave a mark on you. The opposite, in fact.

Be kind to yourself. You are rushing to judgement of yourself and your feelings. And in that rush to judgement, I think you are feeling fear and trepidation for the future, and that causes a temptation to step back into what "worked" (I use that term loosely) in the past.

Let yourself feel shit without judging yourself for it or becoming afraid of it - don't read too much into it - let it pass in its own time. You seem to be describing the beginning of the grief phase that is sometimes called "acceptance" - and you only get to acceptance, generally speaking, once you've got past denial (of how much you've lost) and moved through a lot of sorrow (that is, genuine deep feelings of sadness and loss).

What I'm trying to say is, you are on a pathway that many people have walked down and you don't have anything to fear. Nor do you need to act on what you are feeling.

How can love be so powerful when someone has done so much to hurt you? I should hate her with every bone in my body. Why can I not be over this after all this time when I thought I have been for so long?

Remember, feeling love for someone does not mean they are right for you.

Heroin addicts love heroin, even after it's driven them to terrible sorrow. Same goes for alcoholics and the drink.

Be careful not to let your natural, strong emotions of loss, grief and lingering attachment lead you back into an abusive situation.

As I've said - often abusive relationships are the ones that awaken the most intense feelings of all. Doesn't mean they are good relationships... generally that intensity is a sign that something is dreadfully wrong.

Take care OP.

thestamp thanks for your reply , its put some things into perspective for me in a way that's easy to take in. Your right loving someone does not mean they are good for you. I like the drug analogy. Like drugs there were some of the best most enjoyable moments when we were together. Great times I am fond of and will never forget. But likewise there we bad times. She was the reason for the lowest point in my life. I need to remember she was difficult at times, abusive (emotionally and physically) and ultimately no good for me.

I need to remember the woman I loved is dead. When I look at her today I know the woman I see I don't fancy. But because she is not actually dead and in my life a fair bit I sometimes see the ghost of the beautiful woman I once loved and I suppose like any addict it brings back memories of the great feelings she used to give me. Like an ex smoker smelling cigarettes burning. But then I remember the woman she is today does not make me feel good, the only good feelings come from the past. So now I have to accept that the only woman I ever truly loved is dead and continue to resist offer a destructive relationship. To be fair in my weaker points its mainly been the kids that have helped me resist her wanting to come back. Although I know they would love her to come home I can not risk her breaking their heart. Luckily my 2 year old boy wont remember her walking out (he was only 6 months at the time) and my daughter will remember very little as she was 4 at the time. I will never go back to that woman and maybe that is why I am so heart broken knowing those good times and the woman I loved will never come back.

The was something else interesting that the friend (I mentioned in original post) said to me. She said you wont truly get over her until you meet someone you fall in love with again. I think the conventional thinking is to be truly over someone before you fall in love. But I think she may be right. I think if I was to find love it would give me closure. That brings me onto something else that happened to me with the only other woman life I has truly made feel something a couple of weekends ago. I thought it was a separate thing to this but may also be affecting why I am feeling like this. Its a bit of a complicated and messy story but it may have some bearing on this mater?

That brings me onto something else that happened to me with the only other woman life I has truly made feel something a couple of weekends ago

Something similar happened to me when I was first dating after my split. It's so natural. I'd been seeing someone and getting a little too ahead of myself and then it crashed to the ground and I felt so awful about it. It made me snap back into the cold hard realities of a "failed" marriage. Really hard at the time.

We all want to be loved, we're all rocked to the core by the fear of loneliness. If you didn't feel that fear, you'd not be very human iyswim.

And again, the feeling itself doesn't mean you need to act on it. Sometimes it's enough to just observe it, accept it, and wait for it to pass.

She said you wont truly get over her until you meet someone you fall in love with again. I think the conventional thinking is to be truly over someone before you fall in love. But I think she may be right.

I'd venture to say that one never "gets over" anyone. We carry everyone we've ever loved (and even those we haven't loved) in our hearts, for life, in some form. The idea of "getting over" someone sounds like a myth to me tbh.

Does one heal up and feel a little stronger, more whole, at some times in life? Sure. Is that the only time that new relationships and connections are ok to make? Not so sure. Yes maybe it's ideal to be "in a good place", or however people put it, when starting with someone new, but who of us can even judge that sort of thing about ourselves?

I think it's good to look at things in your past and try to get some lessons from them, and put those lessons to use.

Like, do you have a clear picture of what mistakes you made in your marriage, that you do not want to repeat? What the causal factors were in your biggest unhappinesses? If you don't have those nailed down yet, then it would probably be good to put the brakes on further dating. Just to prevent mistakes being repeated.

Beyond that, let the feelings happen, be gentle with yourself, accept that everything in life is complex including feelings, especially feelings after trauma and/or abusive situations x

Oh, good grief. Sorry, but you are WAY over analysing this. She did something to hurt you. It's over now. She wants you back. In the meantime, you have loads of promiscious sex, so perhaps you are even. You are totally over complicating this. You either want to give it another shot, or you don't? All this stuff about heroin and cigarette smoke is just romantic twaddle.

She said you wont truly get over her until you meet someone you fall in love with again

TRUE

I think the conventional thinking is to be truly over someone before you fall in love

Impossible, and this is a contradiction of the point above.

You have been apart for quite some time. You haven't found anyone else. You hold a torch for her. She wants to come home. Personally, I'd give it a go.

I think I remember your posts from before
She was playing kind games with you and moved hundreds of miles away?
I think we tend to miss the idea of something, the future we had dreamed of the life we were going to lead together

I think a lot of people who stay after someone has cheated, find that down the line the reality doesn't match up to the hopes and dreams

Hang onto the fact that hopes and dreams are just that. They are not reality, and the reality is very different.

Even when you know she's not going to change and things won't ever be what they were it's hard not to hang onto that little glimmer of what might have been.

Look to the future, I know it sounds like a trite thing to say. And I'm bloody rubbish at heeding advice in that department. But it's going to be the only way for you to move on.

Kind I mean mind!

thestamp I think your right that maybe you never really get over some people and that's OK. What if she had have actually died (I defiantly would have rue not getting life insurance for her) I would have not or wanted to get over her per se, but that doesn't mean I couldn't find happiness with a new and maybe very different person. I don't subscribe to 'the one' theory. You have made a good point about learning from the past. I think I was a good husband (that my ex keeps telling me about, the twit) but not perfect. I think my inexperience at love was a problem. She was the second person I ever fell in love with. We had so much fun, sexually very compatible and totally besotted with each other. I sort of swept under the carpet that we were intellectually worlds apart. I guess I believed love conquers all. There was a lot she did that didn't make me unhappy despite how much I loved her. She was a controlling and used to put me down a fair bit. So going forward I think there is a lot of lessons I could learn about picking the right person. In fact I if I could find someone like my first love (and first girlfriend) (apart for being a lesbian) that would be perfect. She connected with me on a level very few do. But close as we are, we have experimented since my divorce but ultimately in the light of day however close we are I have the wrong body parts and that is the huge spanner in the works. Just one of those things. I am lucky to have such a close friend and I value that friendship. But definitely showed me that I should aim for someone more intellectually matched. Sometimes talking to my ex about the things that interested me, amused me or concerned me would just totally go over her head. For example she would have no interest in what was going on in the news. That would sometimes in a way make me feel a bit lonely but I am used to that feeling.

ConfusedWomanInHerForties guilty as charged. I am a massive over thinker, I have an over active mind, I find it hard to switch off and find it hard to sit still. That's just me. Yep I suppose I still hold a bit of a flame for her. She was a difficult woman to put up with before this but I still loved her and wanted to be with her, so why not again? It would sort of solve a lot of my problems letting her come back and being a family again. Maybe if someone were to say I could make it so this never happened would I take that opportunity, I probably would take it. But the reality is they cant. I cant trust her not to do it again and I suspect there is too much damage, mistrust and anger for it ever to be like it was before. Plus in hindsight maybe I deserve more, someone more like me?

Worriedrose I do miss that idea of a future together, especially for the kids. I married for better or for worse. I wanted to get it right. I hate the failure and the messiness of it all. So I must admit that is a dark attraction to the idea of letting her come back. I suppose deep down I know this is broken for good between us. When I look back at why she did things and how she did things I can not find anything redeeming. I can not have her back. I said that over a year a go and thought that was the end of it. But clearly I wasn't. I have to face up to the reality the woman I love and the thing we had is gone and it bloody hurts. But I think out of all this pain and destruction there is opportunity, an opportunity to find someone who fits me like a glove (needle in a hay stack strings to mind).

Not so much about moral high ground. When this happened I still loved, was willing to forgive. I just wanted her back and I gave her so many opportunities. She continued to lie, deceive me and string me along. To be fair she acted despicably. She shit on every opportunity I gave her and in doing so further and further broke any hope of trusting her again. I could have forgave her and was willing too. But this wasn't a little act of infidelity or a little rumble in the hay. She turned her back on me and the kids. She continued to play sick mind games with me. She exposed a side of her charter to me that truly shocked me. Roll on about a year later things didn't work out with that waste of space and the reality kicks in that she is broke, alone and without the kids she left. The trouble is especially with the kids I can not blindly risk having her back and hoping for a more solid relationship. Logic tells me the chances are it will be weaker not stronger. I can not risk breaking the kids heart again. They are older now. And it truly nearly destroyed me, the lowest point in my life. If I was a gambling man I would say odds were bad of success and the emotional cost to me and the kids far too high.

Why didn't I think of that before? Why don't I just turn off the love and years of history/memories switch in my head? Problem solved.

I wish I saw the world as Black and White as you sometimes.

But in principle your right, easier said than done.

No real advice I'm afraid but the comparison between someone loving another person and somebody loving heroin is absolutely ridiculous.

It is in no way the same kind of love. You can't even use them in the same sentence.