Hey Kkasxo, morning from sunny Thailand! I would talk travel all day so I try not to as well aware this isn’t about me and how annoying some people can get going on about it all in an irritatingly happy way 😉 But yes, it is an amazing experience, it’s something I worked hard to give myself the opportunity of doing, not knowing if I would enjoy it or not but wanting to try – and I’m loving it! Travel is interesting, I personally wouldn’t do it full time as it’s knowing I have my own home to return to if/when I want that lets me fully enjoy all the differences and getting fully immersed into local life, which is what I enjoy most about new places. So I can totally understand needing your own space and the relief it must bring to have your family now supporting you in this whilst you get towards working out your own way forwards.  Yes, I think the first of anything is always more intense emotionally, so next year’s trauma weekend you will already have a sense of ‘well, I survived the first one, I just need to do the same and I will survive it again’ – there is less power in it to harm you once you have taken some of the fear of the unknown out of it, like anything really.   Although you call it autopilot, it is also remarkably freeing and calming to be back at basics, getting up, washing, eating and not thinking too much beyond for now – learning when and what your ‘full’ signs are ( I always end up envisioning the wolf/coyote from Roadrunner cartoon here, which will be lost on most people but always makes me smile.. )  cutting back when you reach them is one of the best things you can do for yourself – something Shelby it sounds like you are reaching now??

Off to explore our new village now…….will check back in later – have to say, wi-fi here is better than Norfolk!!

Hey Shelby – ah, hugs, tissues and a big glass of wine ( red or white??! ) for you…I get it, I do. I have had similar people in my life at times when I have needed them and they made a huge difference in helping to face my fears and open my eyes to how life,I, could be. If I can help be one of those people for you through this forum, I’m honoured.  When next feeling silly/unworthy when you can’t or don’t want to follow it through – try to work through instead what fear is holding you back from doing so. Fear is so often at the heart of so many things and like most things that like to lurk in shadows and dark places, if brought out into the open and examined or actioned, are way less scary than all the thoughts. (Apart from spiders obviously….they’re clearly totally logical to be worried about…..she says, in the middle of the tropical rainforest here…..)

Thankyou for sharing. I can see why you would have fear of opening up given the losses you have been through. It is incredibly difficult to be brave enough to love again, both romantically and friends/family once you have experienced the hurt that comes from losing loved ones, especially people who also provided security in your life. It is not too surprising you are therefore unwilling and currently unable to voluntarily put yourself through this with moving on from your ex. Is it not interesting that you have seen your Dad enjoy the miracle of a second love but do not believe in such an opportunity for yourself?  Yes, it would be easier if your ex would start seeing someone else or in some such way close the door for you – but I’m afraid it sounds like this really is your opportunity to choose to hope for better for yourself. And it is scary as hell to take responsibility for your own decisions and your own life. Most people run a mile from doing so, much easier to blame others/life.

What makes you anxious when you are away from him?  That you won’t be able to cope? That you need to make your own decisions? That you don’t know what to do or how to be safe without him?  Have you considered the perspective that your wanting more from the relationship than he is offering – such as moving in together – was perhaps not motivated by your personal growth but from an increased dependency on him and wanting to spend less time apart, less anxious Shelby time to deal with? Be curious what you think.

PS – Looking after kids is damn hard, hope you have the good news from your sister soon.

Hey. Sorry for the more random postings these days.

What I meant is action in line with thinking is how to progress, one without the other does not make a difference.  As you say, and are doing, your thinking is still to continue your old relationship. Be it through fear of facing a different future or of accepting change and growth, therefore any actions you take are not going to move you away from this, they will be a distraction to fill time only. This is why I suggested the ‘imagine your perfect future’ exercise – as once you can articulate what you want it becomes possible to say yes and no to what does and doesn’t help get you there.

Take Kkasxo for example ( hope you don’t mind! ) – she is very very clear that her major goal and number one priority in life is to be a wife and mother.  Therefore it becomes much easier to plan and prioritise her actions in line with her thinking. E.g. no need or desire to focus her efforts on chasing down a career or plan out travels but to focus on becoming a healthy individual again ready to be the great wife and mother she wants to be. Step one is to find the right situation to live in and the help required to heal from her trauma so she is ready as a person for such a committed relationship. Step two, assess whether her ex is or could be such a person again or if the trust has gone and therefore that relationship will not give her what her heart desires. Which if not then makes moving on ‘easier’ as she knows it is not going to help towards her heart’s desires.  Etc etc.

It sounds a bit pragmatic/logical and clearly it’s not as smooth sailing as all that in real life with ups/downs and back/forth/roundabouts as you go – but the clearer you acknowledge your wants/needs and truly assess reality against those  – and then most importantly take action in line with that ( even if & especially when it means facing up to the scary things you don’t want to deal with )  – that’s when things start shifting and progress is made, if you really want it.

Morning all.

Shelby, thanks for sharing. An insecure style with an avoidant style was always going to be…..difficult to say the least. Admitting and working on your own insecurity is a big step, well done for being brave and dealing with it. I had to go through something similar to get to where I am now and I can tell you it’s so worth it.  My ‘ah-hah’ moment was working through the difference between wanting to hear “I love you”, which is absolutely fine as a style vs needing to hear it to feel better about myself when I was low/more insecure, which is obviously not so good.  Accepting responsibility for my own emotions was the key for me.  Sounds like you are well down that path. And equally, I’d agree with you and your therapist, it sounds like your ex doesn’t even want to start on the path, through fear outweighing the rewards (you!) for doing so. You have every right to be sad and angry at that but eventually it just needs accepting for what it is. Absolutely, actions speak way louder than words – not even wanting to live together let alone discuss anything further down the line speaks volumes. I mean, seriously, what was he expecting, that you’d just continue to date forever?!? Which is fine if that’s what you both wanted but yes, you’ve effectively outgrown him and that’s what is making you scared of accepting that change and the consequences it brings.  Conquering your fear of change is going to be key to all this for you.  Btw, Oz in Autumn sounds awesome – some friends of mine just got back from there, it looks amazing. Book it, use it as a landmark challenge!

Both – yes, it’s hard when people you love don’t necessarily ‘get it’ and think you should be better by now. Especially the older generation, it was much more common practice to not deal with emotional issues because the practical issues of putting food on the table and having a roof over your head took up all your time. There is something to be said for having demands on you that don’t give you the ‘luxury’ of time to dwell and ruminate which means you tend to cope better in the short-term but I do think in the long-term it’s clearly healthier to deal with it & grow. I think the thing is to continue to try to share, it can be tempting to run away and hide in our own corner, becoming more isolated otherwise. But to recognise you will not always get the response you need – it can be hard for parents to not know how to help their children when they hate seeing them in pain.

Ah Kkasxo, how many times have I had to do the old ‘hide in the loos and wait for my face not to be bright red obvious I’ve been crying’ thing. How I wanted to be one of those delicate criers! I’m sorry though, it sucks. We’ve all been there, you do get through it. Hoping you have that appointment sorted with your doctor – I know it’s not great to have to go talk this through with a stranger but I do think they will be able to help you get the lift you need to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is how I’ve heard others who suffer with depression describe it. Think about it like a physical pain – if you had a broken leg you would not think for an instant about not getting it set in plaster to repair it. Depression is no different, it needs the right combination of therapy and treatment to work through and heal. We just aren’t used to thinking about it in the same way and even admitting depression can still be seen as a weakness by many, whereas actually it’s a strength in recognising the need to change.

Morning all.  No worries about enjoying my time here, it’s idyllic so far. We have 7 weeks yet of exploring ( long story involving embracing change…. ) so no worries on not having enough time and it’s nice to chat and help, it’s part of my giving back more aim so actually you are all helping me too!

It’s interesting, how different people see value in different things eh. Personally I would have not enjoyed receiving flowers at work at all as there’s minimal thought and effort in that from my perspective.  In fact, those kind of gestures to me can often be more about show for other people. Whereas rose plants that will live to flower year after year and will last a lifetime, way more interesting and personal, like the cable tidy.  I think NextSteps makes a good point – a lot of people easily fall into the trap of wanting things that media/friends/society says you should want and value instead of actually thinking about it yourself. You already know I’m not a big believer in VD day, so commercial and not personal at all. But what I would take from your experience is just to recognise that envy for your colleague is just a sign of wanting something you don’t currently have in your life. A helpful confirmation of sorts…..!

Related, I once read a good piece on the five different ways/styles people express and want to receive love and how mixed the signals can be if you don’t understand and acknowledge the different styles. E.g.  some people need to hear the words “I love you” whereas for some it’s a hug/kiss etc etc – worth looking up and reading about.  I wondered if it related to your “What I didn’t get from the relationship was a sense of how much I meant to that person in an apparent way. I could feel he loved me, but he didn’t display it in grand gestures or romantic ways, he did it every day in kind and thoughtful ways”.  It may be as “simple” as you both expressing and wanting to receive love in different ways.

I am curious though about your next sentence – “But I did not get the level of security I wanted and I didn’t get the joint excitement and anticipation of planning a future together”. If you could feel he loved you, what kind of ‘security’ did you want that the love you felt did not give you?  As the famous saying goes, the only thing guaranteed ( i.e. totally secure ) in life is death and taxes.  What security was missing that you think you should have had? Was it something as simple as you wanted to get married and he didn’t? And if so, what about being married would have made you feel any more secure than already being in a loving relationship??  Again, it’s so easy to fall into society expectations that you “should” be married else it isn’t a committed relationship – whereas you can as easily have far more committed relationships without marriage as with.  I think it would help you to work out what kind of security you thought you were missing so as not to just repeat this loop again in the future, either with this guy or another. Security afterall comes from within, not from other people, it’s from being at peace with who you are, working on your hopes and dreams but also knowing you can deal with whatever life throws at you.

And regards the ” lacking the joint excitement and anticipation of planning a future together”. I can get this one as it’s a big part of being a team afterall. Was it that you just never talked about future plans, dreams, hopes or that you both had different things in mind that you wanted and so couldn’t plan them together? What did you want and what did he want – how did you both see yourselves in five years time??

Hey all – sorry for radio silence, a bit of a trek to get over here…..but it’s so worth it, it’s gorgeous and so warm and sunny!!

Anyway – enough about me – more important things to talk about here…

Kkasxo – I’m so impressed. Writing him a letter like that is a perfect idea, my view. It really doesn’t matter what he makes of it, like you say – this is about you, accepting and determining reality. I did something similar funnily enough and it helped me too. You and NextSteps ( who btw, you sound like you are going great, loads of good ideas there ) are both spot on – truly accepting it is the only thing that frees you to move on to starting to rebuild your life. And honestly, it gives you so much strength for facing other fears later on when you know you’ve made it through the worst thing you could imagine at the time.

Shelby – anybody who says ”probably definitely” is just a yes who knows she shouldn’t be. The real question is why would you accept him back – is this really the pattern you want for the rest of your life? Do you not think you deserve more? We all think you do but it’s your life, your choice.  I’m glad you’ve been thinking about it at least – accepting it means literally rose glasses off, reality check and decide for yourself that you are worth enough to face your fear of the unknown.

All – it really does get better with time when you want it to – infact, it just gets amazing when you go on to live life with your new found strength.

Take care all.

Grounded, glad to hear you took the post as intended, aware it wasn’t gentle.  I’m curious – in what way do you know this guy values you? From what I could tell from your posts all the time you were together he was interested in other women too?  Regardless, no, the loss of someone you have closely connected to is never ever easy.  It’s good news you are good by yourself, that’s a big step. I would try to look as realistically as you can as to what this relationship truly gave you. It is ok and helpful to be able to say – it was a good relationship for this but it didn’t work for that. I.e. you can still appreciate the good of what you had whilst acknowledging why it is not right for you for the future without change. My point to Shelby is true for you too – the more you continue to focus on the relationship the more you are hurting yourself.

Hey Kkasxo – so good to hear from you again. You don’t have to offer anything right now, life is all about give and take – right now I suspect you need to be strong enough to accept help, not want to give it still…   Did you ever manage to get any help from your doctor, I know it’s not easy.  You also don’t have to feel like it’s not fair to be sharing your pain if it will bring others down – we all choose to be here, it’s my choice to spend my time listening and helping where I can. I’m grateful to others who helped me through my dark days just by listening and understanding, if I can pay some of that back through helping you and others here now that I’ve healed, it’s worth it to me.

Shelby – hope it gets better soon, is there anything that helps or is it literally a wait for it to do its thing and go again? But yeah, probably not the frame of mind for a fairy godmother list – though an obvious item number one I suppose.

Take care both.