Hi Kim

I’ve had two marriages crumble. In both cases my wife left me and quickly got involved in a new relationship. At the time I was in your position, believing that she was the only person for me. I couldn’t sleep. My stomach was in knots. It was hell. Meditation and the concepts of impermanence and suffering caused by attachment helped me get beyond this thinking.

Take some time to reconnect with yourself and with other relationships (friends, family etc). You will get through this. If somebody has caused you this much hurt, are they worth it?

I’m happy to say, after over a year since my split, I am involved in a new relationship with a truly wonderful person. I believe that these experiences, as painful as they were, have made me a better person and by not rushing into a new relationship, allowed me to be ready for when the right person came along.

Best of luck.

Jim

Aloha Kim, I am new to this forum but I wanted to reply to your post. I am going through a very similar breakup and experience right now. And like you, I decided to venture onto a free dating website and just see what I could find. Within 5 minutes of surfing around, I also found my ex fiancee and her profile. I fell to the floor, I couldn’t breathe, I cried, and felt so hurt and angry. She told me that she wasn’t ready to date anyone or even consider looking around. In fact, she was painting a very different picture for me in one hand, and was already dating someone else in the other. Unfortunately my ex fiancee is also very codependent and doesn’t know how to be single. So in a way it was shock, but on the other hand I knew it was probably going to happen the way it did.

Try to do the best you can to stay out of a space of anger and blame. We all process break up’s differently, and there are no rules to have this process works. I will tell you though, if you still have emotional attachment to your ex like I do, dating won’t help. At least not this soon. If you go on a date and all you can do is think of your ex, or how your date compares to your ex, etc. it’s not fair to them or you. You’ll probably only end up getting more hurt than you did when you started. Dating should be fun, exciting, uncertain, and mysterious. That can’t happen when we are still processing our breakup and thoughts of our ex.

I know how bad this part sucks, but detaching is absolutely essential. Block the texts, emails, instant messages, social networking sites, everything! It doesn’t have to be permanent, but at least until both of you can think of each other and not get emotionally wrapped up. I always say, “if I can think of my ex being with someone else, and not get emotional or upset, then that’s a good indicator that’s long enough.” It’s so hard to do, but it has helped big time!

Hang in there Kim! Do what you have to do to get through this tough time, but always focus on detaching and letting go.

Ever,

Keoni

“I’ve struggled to come to terms with my situation – the best I’ve come up with is that – while it’s hard to let him go – it’s mostly hard to let my expectations and attachments go. The idea that I had potentially found the person I was going to marry…all that jazz. I’m assuming that sounds familiar.”

I think that is a really good insight Jen and gets to the core of what is difficult about most break-ups.