R&R2018,

Well done to you! I wish I could say the same. I’m finding myself angry again at the thought of him being at the concert that I should’ve been at enjoying myself. Asshole.

Shelby,

Haha a pity party sounds fantastic right now!

Ive gone to get my nails done, just treated myself to an at home pedicure too & I will dye my hair. Self love and that.. other than that not coping at all. The plan is to distract myself all through the evening and tomorrow’s a new day!

Well done on hitting the 5 week mark pretty much cold turkey! It may not feel like an accomplishment but you are officially 5 weeks closer to recovery from this miserable phase of your life! 🙂

What are your plans for the evening?

Girls, I’ve just been having a real think about how I’ve been feeling and what emotions are running through me and linking it back to my attachment type (anxious-preoccupied). In a nut shell I am forever in need of my partner to be my saviour, to prioritise me in all matters and basically live his life proving to me that they love me and will never leave.

All across the forum you see people going really deep into childhood and previous life traumas that may have caused us to be the way we are now as adults. Now it has been playing on my mind as to what could’ve possibly turned me into this needy person. I have an amazing childhood, a mother and amazing step father who I call dad as he has been around since I was practically newborn! I have two incredible sisters and a loving brother. All in all, my memories from my childhood are only happy ones – as far as the conscious mind can remember.

I never really thought deeply into this as years later the hurt just isn’t really there in a sense, i’m all numb about this and hardly ever think about it however it occurred to me this afternoon – my biological father, could this be it? He is someone who too has been a part of my life from childhood through to the age of 18. My mum and stepdad both had a wonderful friendship with him and he was always around, he’s in all of our family outings, all of our family videos etc. Again, all of my memories with him are great as far as I can remember BUT he did always have an issue with alcohol abuse. I can remember him drunk on a few occasions as a child, then into my adolescent years I remember him drunk quite a few times also. Then at the age of 18 my father cut complete contact with me. I think the last time I spoke to him was about 4 years ago at my grandfathers (his father) funeral and that was just a brief exchange of hi how are you.

Now as I say, this isn’t something that I think about often. To be honest, hardly ever. I think I used to think about it a little more when he first completely cut me out of his life. All the questions of why? Why suddenly I’m grown up you want nothing to do with me? And I guess I never got the answers for it. But sub-consciously is this it? Could this be the thing that has caused me anxiety? Am I fearful in my relationships now because he left me so suddenly? because I no longer feel love from my dad? Because somewhere in my mind maybe I am the hurt little girl who wasn’t and isn’t a priority to the one man in your life that is supposed to do right by you?

I have no idea. Just trying to explore.

Shelby – don’t worry! I find it confusing too and not quite sure where to start! Aside from glamming up, treating myself to healthy meals and hot baths I’m not really sure what to do! I’m going to try and do something productive this evening and read into the notion of self love a litte.

Shelby,

No it didn’t merit a reply, it was just more of an explanation of how he doesn’t want to argue and most definitely doesn’t want this to determine whether we’re going to be moving forward together or not etc. I’m just going to leave him to it now.

I’m glad you’re feeling okay this morning. I’m going to try to stop moping around also and just get a grip on myself and my life. I’m going to be okay whichever way I go. I’ve decided i’m going to get my nails done after work then dye my hair, maybe put a face mask on! Get a bit of pamper on to distract myself from not going to the event!

You girls are a life saver for me at the moment too! So thank you for that!

Victoria,

Trust me, I feel your pain. Quite frankly, I’m so over the whole ordeal now. Earlier on when the situation turned into a bit of a scene I found myself explaining myself and then about mid-argument I thought what the hell am I doing?! I really can’t be bothered for all this. This man has been with me for many many years and knows me enough to know my exact trail of thought and what I would expect etc. Especially that we literally never had these issues in our relationship, yes he couldn’t progress but he did always put me first.

Im so tired of it all honestly. Right now, I literally want him to either be like right this is it no more hoping, no more dwelling so that we can just be done with this or to have some sort of crazy argument which causes it to be easier to let go.

Im finding it almost impossible to let go of him (even though my rational mind, gut feeling and instinct tells me I should) because he is giving me puppy dog eyes about wanting to reconcile. It’s much easier to do so when things are going really shitty or you’re angry at the other person or in all honesty I’d prefer for him to just end things and then I could be like okay I’ve gotta get on with it now!

Im so tired of entertaining the back and forth now and I know I’ve only got myself to blame for responding or allowing him the option to even get in touch with me. I know. You girls probably think I’m a fool, I think I’m a fool for it!

I deleted his number some time ago but I know it off by heart don’t I so it’s not much help -_-‘

I need to learn to stop letting my heart take over! Please someone just come and knock some sense into me!

Shelby, Victoria,

Lets explore this notion of self love a little bit. I think it means different things for different people. Some may invest into themselves spiritually, others physically and see this as a way of loving themselves.

I think for us particularly, whilst lost in the heartbreak it is important to remind ourselves that perhaps self love for us is not allowing ourselves to settle for anything else than we deserve? Maybe it’s continuing to convince ourselves that we ARE worthy and deserve the love, affection, progress or whatever it is that we may want.

What I’ve tried to do this evening is pin point all of the things I used to do for my ex. And I’m talking everything, from hanging his pjs on the radiator to keep them warm when he comes out of the bath on a winter evening to tending to him when he spent 16 weeks off work with a broken wrist. And I’m trying to see this from an outsider point of view. How would I feel if somebody did those things for me? And I’ll tell you what, I sure as hell would be so grateful and love that person for thinking of every tiny little detail to make my day that little bit brighter! And for that reason I AM worthy. I deserve for everything I give to be reciprocated to me. Perhaps I need to use that as a reminder to love myself enough to not settle for anything less than just that.

As for the concert, I tried desperately once more to sell the tickets because although I do really want to go it just didn’t sit right with me. To my knowledge him and his mates managed to get a few tickets between them so I asked him if any of his other friends wanted them? And they did. So the tickets are gone. It ended up turning into an argument too because hey ho the expectations of a situation came creeping up again. When he offered to help with the sale of the tickets I appreciated it until I realised. Hey, ain’t you the one trying to get me back right now? Has it not even crossed your kind to say well seeing as were sort of speaking, and this was after all OUR event, would you like to come with?! But no, of course none of that crossed his mind at all (simpleton) so it turned into a big fuss and I left the tickets and went. I don’t know if at this point I’m being out of order for thinking those things or reacting it that way or is it just emotions are running high or whatever but everything is tense. Everything within me feels out of tune, literally.

I can’t even pin point what I’m feeling anymore it’s like a whole load of anger towards him. A whole load of disappointment and just overall bleurgh. I’m knackered ladies, honestly. I don’t even recognise myself anymore. I’ve just had enough.

Sorry for the sob story this evening!

How are you all doing?

That makes sense. I think my issue is where we’ve been in light contact and even met up a few times everything is still so vivid in a sense. I’m actually quite jealous of your cold turkey approach to things! It’s inspiring and I can guarantee you’ll get to the other end of all this quicker than I will purely because of that!

I think I’ve actually come up with a decision for myself. Althought VERY difficult. I think now is not the time for us to be reconciling – gosh that was even difficult to write 🙁

I just don’t think anything has changed to allow us to progress in the reconciliation and I believe myself to be back to square one with his popping up back and forth. It has done nothing but mess with my head yet again. And although i’d love to run into the sunset with him that is just not realistic right now. I do also realise that shutting this down means that i’m probably shutting it down for good this time both for myself and for him so it is painfully heartbreaking to be in my shoes right now. I think if a part of me at least believed that things could or would work I’d go for it. But I don’t believe it. I’m just sort of clinging on because of love whilst all the other things that make a relationship work scream love. And here comes that expression I never understood, ‘sometimes love just isn’t enough to make things work’.

If you’re located in the UK try day & night nurse! It’ll have you sweating like never before but you’ll kick the cold in no time! I hope you feel better soon!