When does the pain go?

[Psychoticbreak]

We broke up some months ago and I just miss him still so much. I thought we were going to be together forever but clearly not. I am awake again this morning and tears are flowing, I am just so sad. The heartbreaking thing is the arguments could have been prevented but our communication style was so different and while we had been talking now he has gone silent on me. I know he cant be the one for me if he has hurt me this much but I just feel so sad and feel like I am grieving the loss of him. I just want to feel happy again but the tears just will not stop falling :(

The heartbreaking thing is the arguments could have been prevented but our communication style was so different

I think maybe you have rose tinted glasses on, which is normal at this stage, but you admit yourself that things weren't always so amazing between you. You need to be able to communicate with someone to be in a healthy relationship.

Also, grieving is normal and healthy.

I always said when me and my ex husband separated that I would have rather he had died (I didn't mean that as he is the father of my children, but that's how I felt at the time) as at least with death you can find closure and move on. Grieving the loss someone who is still alive is cruel and hard but it doesn't mean you were right for each other.

I know I think also it is our ages, men move on quickly but I know it will be a long time before I did and the thoughts of starting over again and getting to know someone again etc just kills me.

Don't think about 'someone else'. Not yet. Just endure your way through the bad days and embrace the better days Gradually, a tiny increment at a time, the good days will become more frequent and then they will join up and you will have good weeks. Then months. And one day you will realise you haven't thought of him for ages.

Honestly. It's hell when you are going through it and can't see any way out. You are haunted by the 'what ifs' and the wonderings. Once you've stopped thinking 'if only I'd...' or 'if he'd just...' you are on your way. Everyone will tell you to stop giving him headroom, but that's easier said than done. I found watching wall-to-wall episodes of 'Come Dine With Me' (don't laugh) helped keep my mind off him, and listening to audio books at night stopped me waking up to think of him.

The only way you will start to feel better is by having no contact with him and to know nothing about his life. As a PP said, he is just a man, you had a life before you knew him and were happy.

As you are in touch with him its like having a scab that you keep picking.. and it just brings all the pain back.

It takes a while - I was floored when my ex-husband broke up with me when he had an affair, and wanted to be with his affair partner. I thought I’d never get over it. Part of me didn’t want to, but now I rarely think of him, and I’m glad we are are divorced!!

You have to stop yourself thinking about him. Think about yourself. What do you want to do? Do things that make you feel good and keep yourself busy. Exercise is a great tonic for heartbreak.

Another massive sad day yesterday. I made the mistake of contacting him and he has ignored me. Why can I not get over him?

because he is still in your life ! Albeit emails and nasty texts

there is a reason eveyone says no contact

because eventually it works

but you will never move on at pace if you keep communicating and seeing him on social media

give yourself a break and cut the cord

@Psychoticbreak just a message and hand hold to say hope you are ok. I am going through a moment of weakness also after near 2 weeks of no contact. Tonight feels particularly tough. Very tempted to contact but knowing he has someone else now holds me back. I doubt he's thinking of me now he has her and I don't want to be a boost to his ego x

So last week was a very bad one. I spent most days in tears thinking back to all the good times and had myself so wound up that I emailed him. Of course I got no response.

Anyway recently I was diagnosed with ASD and ADHD and I have just had an appointment with my therapist to discuss my diagnosis and I was telling her then all about the bad week and wanting him back and missing him and what our future would be like and she stopped me and said you do not love him. You love the idea of loving him. Now that I have the diagnosis she reckons that I have a thing called rejection sensitivity given my childhood and that he has become my hyperfocus so she asked me things about how our relationship began and the more I talked about it the more I now see all of the bad things about him and our relationship and I think he lovebombed me and has definitely gaslit me over the years and now he is stonewalling me. He always used the silent treatment and swore it was 'just how he is' but I see now how manipulative that is and he is and I am now starting to recall a lot of the red flags that were there from the start and it is making more sense to me now why it would never have worked out.

I am feeling much more positive and looking forward to a workshop I signed up to on self esteem and how to focus on myself going forward and I do not think I will shed another tear over this man in fact now with my diagnosis I am looking forward to getting to know myself all over again, building up my self esteem and in a few years then I may find the right man for me but I am in no rush.

Psychoticbreak

good update and good therapist ❤️

Fab update. You should be proud of yourself. That's a huge turning point. Congratulations x

Sundaycoffee

how are you keeping ?

Actually ok, thank you. Day 24 of no contact and its getting easier but still ups and downs. Im grieving the sudden and unexpected death of someone close to me at the moment, so gaining perspective has really helped and made me realise who is important in my life. Although it's dreadfully hard, all my focus and emotions are currently toward someone worthy of my time and thoughts. I thought I was sad about my ex but losing this friend has made me realise that in the grand scheme of things he is insignificant now x

Sundaycoffee

im sorry for your loss x

@Sundaycoffee I am so sorry for your loss x

Why am I still crying? Its at least twice a day. I think of him all the time and I need to heal but I just cant seem to. Is this normal? I just ache for him all of the time and miss him and want him so much. I feel like a fool. I am 46 not a child and I just cannot stop being sad that he is gone.

It's still early days. It doesn't feel like it is, but it really is. I pined for my lost love for a good year (yes, to the extent of crying a LOT). But I did start to realise that I wasn't crying as much, and not every day, which made me realise that I was recovering, just slowly. There's no right speed to get over things.

I'd recommend making yourself busy. Replacing him with other things (I am also ADHD and understand the hyperfocus thing), if you can find something absorbing (it can be a TV programme, cross stitch, writing a journal, painting pictures, anything) you can lose yourself in, then the times you spend thinking about him will get further and further apart.

Hand hold though. It is hard.

I split up with my ex about 8 months ago now. I was engaged. I had to leave our brand new home and sell all the furniture I bought to a second hand store. I live in a room share, i'm 39, I have no children. I have felt extremely shitty about my life at times, but I had to leave because I couldn't stand the arguments and the way they went - he was abusive, and I'd already forgiven him for too much by that point including sexting.

I loved him and thought nobody could replace him. I still feel that way to a degree but I feel well qualified to give you advice because I know how you feel so very much.

You MUST go no contact. I'm not joking. It is essential, you cannot move on otherwise. I understand you have ties (so do I in the form of a house) but that's not an excuse to be freely talking. It will NOT help you get over him. You must block his texts/socials/phone calls and only communicate via email and about whatever ties you together.

Whatever does tie you, you need to untie it as fast as possible and focus on that as a primary goal in your life. For me my focus is selling our house which is tied up with legal issues, but I am persevering. I do not speak to my ex unless a solicitor is on copy, and I had a family lawyer write to him threatening a non molestation order when he continued sending me abusive messages after I'd told him to stop contacting me. It worked. Sometimes you just have to draw the line.

Get therapy. Seriously. I needed help to overcome the pain, and you may well need it as well. My therapist helps me to focus on what's in front and not what is behind. In his words "what happens when you're running and looking behind you?" - you fall over. You are going to continue falling over if you carry on looking behind you. Speaking with him is ripping open a wound repeatedly that wants to heal.

You say that the arguments could have been avoided. Could they? My ex and I did therapy, we used the Gottman method and honestly none of it worked. It was his way or the high way. He blamed me for everything, or twisted it to make me the problem constantly. I started believing him as well.
The truth is that if the issues could have been overcome, they would have been. Without knowing more information i'm going to assume that there were incompatibilities between you that neither of you could live with at the very least. You need to accept that, and it sounds like right now you don't.

You are grieving yes, that's right, but you have to allow that to take place without reaching out. You're prolonging the pain.

Please cut contact - it is essential to getting over this. Honestly. I still hurt 8 months later but I don't feel anywhere near the enormous amount of pain I did in the start, I can get out of bed, eat and go to the gym which I couldn't do when I was at the start of this journey!

Grief hurts. But also I think that the more we repel that grief the worse it is. I used to just sit there feeling the pain, I considered it my friend. I didn't try to push it away or keep asking why, I knew why.

My ex moved on very fast - to a 24 year old no less (he's 48!). It hurt but you know what, it told me who he was as a person.

You love the idea of him, the person he showed you he could be the same as I do with my ex. It hurts, and it's ok that it hurts. It's absolutely fine and human that it hurts.

You're going to be fine, you just don't know it yet.

This might help, it helped me.

'How does no contact affect your ex?

If it IS going to affect your ex, it will start to happen after about 6–10 weeks of the breakup and can take up to 4 months for anything to happen - it’s a long game, so if you are following no contact, which I strongly recommend you do, you have to be patient and explore the main purpose of it, which is to focus on you, your recovery and moving forward.

The first few weeks your ex will be relieved to have broken up with you and be enjoying their freedom. These are particular difficult times for the person who was broken up with, but is absolutely vital that no contact is attempted here because it is particularly not welcome.

After about 6 -8 weeks your ex will start to notice that you have not been lighting up their phone with messages and pleas for them to come back and they will start to get curious about why. Curiosity is good. If they have blocked you they might unblock you to give you a chance to reassure them that you’re still interested (don’t do that), or they might start looking you up on social media. Again, if you satisfy this curiosity now, by contacting them, they just get the ego-stroke of knowing you’ve not gone anywhere and you are back to where you were at day one.

After about 3 months, they may have realised that the grass isn’t necessarily as green as they thought it would be, they start to have doubts about the break up particularly if they can see you out and about, happy and well and enjoying your life. This is the time you might start to get ‘I miss you texts’ or even angry messages saying you never really loved them - they may block you again, trying to see if you’ve noticed and trying to get you to respond. Again, don’t. The power and control is switching here. You are enjoying your life and your ex is now questioning their decision and asking the questions you asked when you first broke up - can it be fixed; is it worth another try?

Until sometime in the fourth month after the breakup they realise you are NEVER going to contact them and so they contact you. If this happens you need to play it cool. Not too eager and not prepared to have any discussions by text. Wait until they are asking you specifically to meet up and even then….. play it cool and say you’re interested in hearing what they’ve got to say and that you’ll be free (give them a time sometime in the next 5–7 days).

Of course, NONE of this may happen to your ex. They may break up with you, move on and never contact you again. The great thing is that you will have been working on yourself and your life while all this is happening so that, if it doesn’t, you’re well on your way to being okay. I coach a lot of people who start no contact hoping to get back with an ex only to find that even when the ex comes back, they don’t actually want them any more.

And the timescales are only a guide. Four months is significant in my experience as a coach. Something is happening even if you can’t see or feel it right away.'

OP - I’d avoid telling yourself stories about your ex, especially going into ‘what he might be thinking and feeling about you’. The truth is - you don’t know. Stay in emotional sobriety, however hard it is, and focus on the evidence. He’s not communicating with you. That’s all you need to know. Stay grounded in the present moment.
Look up Heidi Priebe on YT, she’s phenomenal in explaining attachment styles and how to engage in self work.
You’ll get there.

Kwackerly

funny you say that , as my avoidant ex took himself off for mental health and resurfaced 4 months later

id love to say I’m over him and healed but I’m not !! But i did manage to resist replying to him

Shit advice. It sounds like internet assembled bullshit you find on youtube. It's playing a game and using a strategy in the hope that the person will come back, which guess what? Doesn't help you heal.

When you go NC, you do it with a view to moving on, moving forward, not with "Oh I hope he comes back and i'll just play this game until he does". No. You actually need to move on, forget them, accept that a breakup is a breakup for a reason and stop looking back.

Also if you're NC you don't "let your ex see you having a great time" - the likelyhood is that she actually won't be having a good time, because that's what grieving is - it's not fun. Any attempts to plaster "look at me" on social media are again, a stupid game and aren't going to be authentic or help OP to move on with her life.

This is the dumbest advice I've ever read to be honest and is of no help to OP whatsoever. Plus, if she's been in a toxic relationship why the actual eff do you want to even suggest she go back to it?

Well everyone has said no contact, that includes never checking on social media. So do it.

You need another focus, what else is in your life? Do you work or have any hobbies. Now is the time to try new stuff. Give yourself a project, I’m hoping to visit every trig point in the Peak District, there are 88, only done 10 so far. Something that has a nice tick list so you can feel you have achieved something.

What interest do you already have? Can you expand on those.
You wrote in November about the break up but what month did you break up. Plus what of your friends and relatives?

You know what, the 'get yourself a hobby' advice is so lovely and well-intended, but IME does absolutely nothing.

I keep busy. I've got a full time job, children with SEN, two hobbies I spend at least a little time on 5/6 days a week...and it doesn't change a thing. He's still there, all the time, just making me feel ever so slightly homeless in my own life.

Time isn't helping either. I think it must be like grief when you lose a true love; you just have to eventually accept that you'll carry it around forever, tuck it under your arm, and get on with it.

Thank you all for your words. I am actually ill at the moment so just wanted to say thank you and i have read all the messages but physically very weak today so cant post much but thank you x