It's been 9 months. Why am I still heart broken?

[ohhahhh789]

So me and my ex split 9 months ago. We wanted different things....I wanted a more serious relationship that he could never commit to. I still loved him. I think he started dating quite quickly after we split. I wasn't sure if he was still seeing the girl but today I've seen something on Facebook which shows that he is. I just feel heart broken. I know the relationship wasn't right and I'm 99% he will do the same with future relationships due to how ambivalent he is. I can see now how rubbish the relationship made me feel because although we loved each other he wasn't fulfilling my emotional needs and it did have a massive impact on my self esteem and self worth as I just felt I wasn't good enough. Why do I feel upset and still love him when I know he wasn't right for me? I thought I had come to terms with the relationship ending but clearly not 😭

Ah you’re human OP, it’s natural to be set back when we hear/see someone we loved move on. But the fact is you know he was wrong for you etc etc. Your head is in the right place, your heart may get knocked back a bit more but it will catch up, just give it time. And keep off social media 😂

Time time time .... that’s all it takes, and there’s no magic number for how much of it, it takes.

Oh bless you. You know what it's ok to have loved someone. You were open to it even if he wasn't. Like the previous poster said you know logically it wasn't right will take time for your feelings to catch up.

Please un-friend him on Facebook or if you can't face that do the thing where you don't see thier posts anymore. It will make all the different to your mood / feelings not knowing what he's up to. Out of sight really does help them be out of mind. I actually would say deactivate your account altogether but I know that is fairly extreme suggestion for some!!

Yes @TigerDater. It came as a shock because he doesn't post stuff involving girlfriends,which contributed to how I felt... not the social media issue but feeling like I wasn't good enough etc (there was much much more too it than that!!) but it was her whose posted it and tagged him but now it's gone from his timeline. Maybe it's time to delete him....

It’s 7 and a half months for me and I’m getting better but still a lot more heartbroken than I was hoping I’d be by now! It just takes time I guess doesn’t it?

I’m Definitely suggest deleting him, my ex deleted me (because he was getting an arranged marriage and i guess didn’t want me to see!) and I was gutted but in the long run I can see it was for the best and I probably should have done it myself months ago.

His loss. You missed a bullet. Somebody else is taking it for you.
Sorry I've been round the block more times than I care to remember. In the context of being hurt. I now have body armour sadly. You live and you learn. Move on swiftly

Sounds like he wasn’t good enough for you OP, not the other way round. I really would recommend deleting him on SM. I deleted my XH even before I told him I was divorcing him, so glad I did as I’ve been spared all the lovey dovey crap with his gf. I had to stay in touch because of DC, divorce, dog etc, but I wanted to know nothing about his new life or for him to know about mine

I did dodge a bullet. As much as I loved him I would never have been happy. I'm sure this girl will just experience exactly the same as I did. He's not a bad person at all...just so ambivalent due to his own experiences and so just can't let himself commit even if if tries to kid himself that that's what he wants. I haven't moved on which is probably why it still hurts but on the other hand I'm scared to move on because I'm scared of feeling like I did in that relationship. At the time I was just blind-sighted thinking it was going to sort itself out but never did and I know now that it never would

OP it never will. It wasn't sorted and never will be. Please be kind to yourself.
You'll meet someone else that will pale him to insignificance. Don't settle for anything less than happiness. Everyone deserves that.

Emotions aren't like a tap you can't just switch them off. Give yourself a chance. It took me a longtime to get over my first love. Years later I realised I'd dodged a bullet, I just couldn't see it at the time. It will get better.

Always remember:

No contact = no new hurts.

Facebook is contact, so do what you need to do to protect yourself from pain shopping.

The ones I struggle to get over are the ones where I blame myself for it going wrong.
I try to look at what went wrong and where their fault lay too.
It can be an eye opener.

I'm trying to unpick why it bursts so much. I don't remember this much hurt from splitting with my ex husband. I remember feeling sad for a long time afterwards but that wasn't about still living him or wanting to be with him. I'd fallen out of love way before the relationship ended. Also me and this guy didn't end in bad terms which I think is making it harder because I suppose my head still struggles to make sense of it, and there were still many great things about the relationship at the time it ended. I need to keep telling myself (which I am) that it was right to end and as much as there were good parts i over all wasn't happy and I never would be.
I've been wondering if I blame myself and no I don't feel any blame for it ending. I know I have it my best shot. I know that I should have been more open about my feelings and long term goals from the start (it's something I struggle with) and so should be. I think the only difference that would have made is potentially ended it sooner but Im doubtful it would have because I think time was needed to realise that it wasn't going anywhere.

You're not the first to feel this. I had a friend take me to stand out side her ex's flat, we hid in the bushes as he arrived back. She was in a great relationship (and still is) with someone else but still had feelings for this guy despite being the one to end it. I got stabbed in the bum by thistles ,we then went dancing and got rather drunk.

Ha ha @Zombiemum1946 I haven't gone to those extremes but if he lived local I'd probably be guilty of coincidentally driving past lol.

I moved back home which is 700 miles away otherwise I may have been tempted. I imagine him as beer gut, bald and up to his eyeballs in child maintenance

I went through something similar and its been 9/10 months since. In the first few months we remained friends however things broke down as I guess it was too hard for me especially as he became distant. We got back in touch however I then found out that he was seeing someone..who he actually begun speaking to while we were seeing eachother. At that point things broke down again and we havent spoken for the past 2 months.

As much as I miss the good times we had and wish things had a better outcome, I am hurt by the fact he moved on so quickly and basically had her lined up while he was still seeing me. And even as friends how much changed on me.

Ah well, everything happens for a reason i guess. Its perfectly normal to still feel heartbroken especially if you really liked him and had a connection. In time it will get better

I ended a "relationship" 3 weeks ago and I am heartbroken. I know he cared about me but not enough, I wanted more than he was giving me. I didn't want to end it at all but I felt I had to for the sake of self respect. I'd rather be on my own than with half a person x

Oh crap it took me ages to get over the bloke I was seeing after my ex who I had dd1 to. Maybe a year or more I don’t know why I think it was because he was never fully mine? I used to go see his mum used to have dreams that he had rang me and I’d wake up thinking he was actually coming round 🙈

I seen him in a large shopping centre ten years later after I was married to dh and he’d spotted me through the crowd and was looking straight at me and I hid I was laughing to myself that I’d tortured myself over him when he really wasn’t worth shit!

Get him off your social media and it’s really telling he untagged himself of her post. Looks like he is doing exactly the same with her.

Totally normal and please don't be too hard on yourself about the timeframe. You'll probably notice you have good and bad days.
Totally agree with the above about social media. Perhaps list all the things you didn't like about him as therapy.
I think it's possibly more to do with your frame of mind than your true feelings for him.
I was pretty fragile when I met my ex so I put my heart and soul into him and making it work ignoring the fact he wasn't right for me and a bit of a dick.
I would have dreams about him, cry about him and didn't understand why he went off with another girl....what a catch.
It took ages and even when I initially dated my now husband I'd still dream about the break up with my ex. I was actually worried I wasn't over my ex which I cringe about now because he was a bit of a loser and my husband is such an incredible man.

You can't control grief but you can control your perspective and working on your outlook.
It's hard but you'll get there.

This app completely resonates with me. I do have a list of the cons of the relationship, well in my head and not my paper. I haven't cried for ages but did last night. I do also feel that part of the upset is him having moved on and looking happy so soon after we split (I think they got together after only a few weeks) when I haven't at all. It makes me feel like he wasn't as serious as I was although inside I know this is about his ambivalence.
I do feel sorry for the girl thinking that she is probably expecting something to come of this particularly given that she has a young son who is in the pictures with them. The fact that he's removed the pics from his timeline speaks volumes...

I'm considering messaging him to wish him well just for the simple fact that I know he will be completely panic stricken when he realises that someone on his friends list has seen the pics 🤣

Ah OP your really messaging him because you want him to deny he is in a relationship. Stop it.

Delete him!

I was seeing someone for a year. He would never commit to me. He would never call me his girlfriend. He never said he loved me.

Less than two weeks after our split (on my birthday, no less), it was on Facebook that he was in a relationship with someone else.

I removed him as a friend and moved on. But it hurt like hell.

I've suspected he's in a relationship for months so it didn't come as a surprise. He's definitley in a relationship so I'm not expecting or hoping for him to deny it at all.
@NotNegan I think what I found hard is that he would tell me that he loved me constantly, would call me his girlfriend, do things which suggested he did want commitment but then would pull back. It took a long time for me to realise how ambivalent he was, that he could tell me he loved me and call me his girlfriend but anything more than that he was kidding himself. It would have been a lot easier if he had been straight from the start but he wasn't. At the start he spoke about us moving in together and marriage but over time it became clear that he couldn't let himself take it that far.