A month on. Still missing him.

[Jojobar]

It's been a month now since it ended with my ex.
I've done angry, and sad, and back round again several times.
I had a dream a few nights ago that he had died of Covid 19, woke up sobbing and spent all the next day in tears.
I've done angry, and empowered too. And completely down where all I do is sit around and eat.
And today I just miss him. Miss the great times we had together, miss laughing with him, miss hugs. It's so weird to think I'll never see or touch him again.

I have no one in RL to talk to about this, my kids (teenagers, not his) don't even know we've split up. The person whose advice I value the most is him. Not contacting him is hard.

Op I feel your pain
Loneliness is a horrible feeling. And I know that feeling of wanting to fill that hole no matter even if you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

I found counsellors that did talking therapy (humanistic approach) didn't work for me either.

Although I don't have the same issue as you (mine is anxiety) I needed direction and also to work out why and what happened and how.

I highly recommend acceptance and commitment therapy. ACT.

It's a form of CBT but more emotion based I would say? I got it free although there was a wait. See if you have an IAPT/ touchstone counselling in your area. It's NHS. It saved my life at the time.

There is a really good book callee the happiness trap that my counsellor recommended. It might help you. Don't be put off by the glib title. It really does make for an interesting read. Good luck to you.

Called*

Thanks, I will look into that although it would definitely have to be self funded as the only NHS provision in our area is group therapy.

Ex said he hopes we can be friends. I can't do that, can't be friends with someone I'm still in love with, that would just be like self harming. The irony is that what I need right now is a friend, and he was my best friend. What a mess all this is.

Feel less full of despair today, distracting myself with work and thinking about recession etc, which hardly sounds like the most cheery topic but is actually giving me some well needed perspective.

I decided to leave the whole let's be friends thing for a week.

I'm not sure I want to. If we'd just decided mutually it wasn't working, that we were better off as friends, then maybe. But that's not what happened. He hurt me (not physically I hasten to add) and has done in the past. Now I'm sure he'd be keen to add that my intransigence and failure to raise or discuss issues was hurtful to him. But I never deliberately hurt him, whereas he did me, not just once but many times. And I might have to spend the rest of my life alone but that's better than putting up with him.

I'm angry that one of his final comments when he contacted me suggesting being friends was that 'there was so little between us'

So little apart from a 6 year relationship. I'd tried to move us forward - I'd raised the subject of engagement etc, I'd suggested that when his lease expires in the summer he could get a bigger place I could contribute to so he would if anything be better off, there would be room for me to spend more time there and my kids to visit (they've never been to his house), and he just put all that off.

I think maybe I'm starting to see him more clearly now, and sadly that's made me realise I don't think he ever loved me, not really, or certainly not enough. I don't think he would have stuck around if I'd done any of the shit he's pulled.

So, I guess that's that.