Dear U:

I view your question to be: “how do you move on from.. the feeling of loneliness and worthlessness”?

You asked the question following a description of a relationship that ended, but the “loneliness and worthlessness” feelings are connected to core beliefs you have had from before you met your ex girlfriend.

One the logical level of thinking, you figured out why this relationship ended: your ex girlfriend misunderstood love to be equal to ” sparks and butterflies” and you correctly understood that “love is something bigger than sparks and butterflies. It’s called respect and commitment.”

So, knowing your understanding is correct (and I agree with it) and that her understanding is incorrect, why the devastating feelings of worthlessness?

Would you like to go deeper into these feelings and examine their origin and how they presently affect your life?

anita

Dear U:

To move on from your symptoms: “can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t concentrate on my work and so on”- Try the following, if you’d like:

Write her a letter, post it here if you want, knowing you will not send it to her. In that letter (post) say goodbye to her. Tell her all the HOPES you had, the life you dreamed of having with her, and say goodbye to that dream. Describe that dream in detail, how you viewed life with her. Post it here?

anita

Dear U,

I kinda get it. I was in a similar situation except I was the younger person and he was 6 years older. I was just out of college, he had been working full time for several years. So you can understand we had differences in our life understanding and also in our personalities. He found my acceptance of his introverted nature comforting, I was the nurturing type too. His mature outlook kept me grounded. We were considered the “catalogue couple” in terms of compatibility.

There was only one glitch despite the sparks in the first few months – it did die out, the sparks I mean. That is expected and I was aware of that….what I couldn’t come round to is my desire to think of other guys romantically and even going out of my way to be unfaithful. Over time, all that I liked about him irritated me – be too grew irritated with me as I continued to be miserable and kinda unbearable.

The question then is – what the heck is the relationship when the love and sparks die?

I have an answer now after years of being really dumb about love –

You stay because you choose to, it’s no longer butterflies…no dreamy lala land and you see the person for what they are – great but irritiating too at some points. You know there are options out there but there is something about this one that makes you want to be with them.

That’s what I was missing – I loved him but I didn’t love him enough to fight for us.

It’s been a year since we broke up and now over time, he confesses that perhaps it was for the best. We appeared compatible but we wanted different things from life.

How did he cope though?

Well be was in pain just like you. And getting busy in his family business back at home helped immensely. The pain does become bearable over time.

What about me?

Well, I had already been thinking of ending it months before it ended. So in a way I was more prepared than he was but yeah, I was not entirely myself – somehow prone to sadness, anxiety and I missed him too.

As cliche as it may sound, I was the bad guy here no doubt but perhaps it was for the best. Falling in love is easy, but staying in love zint. Your ex has a lot to learn before she can make such big commitments.

The problem wasn’t with you but rather the situation. I rather adore this line from 500 days of summer (movie) :

“Sometimes when people grow, they grow apart” this is especially true for early twenties

Watch that movie if it offers you some solace.

I apologize for this rather monologue about me. I dunno somehow your state reminded me of my ex. I will always have a special place for him in my heart, a respect for him I can’t explain…it’s just that he wasn’t the one for me.

Regards,
Nina

You keep talking about and mentioning her immaturity.

Even if that is true, it sounds like she would have broken up with you even if she was very mature.

Not being in love IS a valid reason for breaking up with someone.

Also keep in mind that there could be other reasons but she didn’t want to hurt you too deeply.

Dear U,

Of course it will hurt like hell. It hurt me too to hurt him like this but it hurt the relationship more that I was staying on when my heart just wasn’t there. A part of it is immaturity but a huge part of it was the death of love. Accepting that death and moving on from it was something that had to be done. It wasnt easy though – we stayed in touch, I wanted to be there for him but I often cried when I thought of how much I hurt him. But I was resolute because the commitment was truly gone from my part. He would act all normal in the beginning when we texted and then get angry, accusatory and just lash out at me saying I used him etc I wish he understood this wasn’t an easy choice. Now he does thankfully. Keeping distance from eachother and moving forward with our lives has helped.

I did meet someone else bdw afterwards and thought we were casual initially thanks to some shit circumstances in which we met, we fell in love. He is very different from my ex and it’s been quite a while since we got serious but this time I thought things through before I entered into a new relationship. Though the spark phase is gone now and we have gone long distance, I want to be with him – there is that component which was missing previously that’s there in this relationship.

Will it last?

Gosh I hope so, I will try my best but is there a guarantee about feelings from anyone’s side?

Nope but we gotta take a leap of faith with love. Some love stories arent meant to be but that doesn’t mean there weren’t amazing moments, there weren’t moments of learning.

Every woman isn’t like your ex – that’s your hurt talking. I know you were hoping you would have the same story as your married buddies but perhaps that’s just what you think you want, it’s not what you need.

Now you have more clarity and you gotta give yourself the time to heal through the pain, the confused, angry emotions and you will be mad at her for quite a while – some of it will make sense, some of it won’t…

Time heals things though.

Let life take its course. You will never know what’s up next.

Regards
Nina