Hi, Jeff!

First of all, thank you to you, Craig and PierceHawk – your posts were one more proof to me that, despite all those talks about male vs female psychologies, we are all fundamentally the same, human. It is really a consolation to know that not only women can analyse and overanalyse things, go back to the past moments again and again, think what might have been, etc.

A fantastic book with thirty practical pieces of advice written by a Russian practising psychotherapist helped me immensely when I was going through my painful breakup two years ago. It is 200+ pages long, and I wouldn’t be able to translate all of it into English, but I shall try to make a short version out it. I’ll try to translate those thirty pieces of advice and maybe a short comment as to what is meant by each of them. However, I’ll be going on vacation soon and unfortunately, can’t give any deadlines. Probably in one month at the latest, but will try to do it much sooner, today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, I would like to refer you to posts of brav3, here, on Tiny Buddha. He also went through a breakup a year ago or so. What he experienced was quite similar to what all of us experience, and his mental and emotional journey is well documented in the posts on this site. For some reason, it helped me to read other people’s experiences, see that I was by far not alone at all in what I was feeling, so it was normal and would pass sooner or later.

Brav3 also started a topic entitled Some suggestions that might help for people going through breakup or divorce. Please take a look – funny enough, lots of what he discovered through his experience is exactly what can be found among those 30 pieces of advice.

Take care,

X

Well, I normally google the name of the thread and/or the name of the member (if I remember either one or both) adding words “tiny buddha”. Hope these links work for you:

https://tinybuddha.com/members/brav3/replies/

https://tinybuddha.com/members/brav3/topics/

As for your other question… You know, after all my extensive reading quality psychological books, Tiny Buddha blogs and forums and other forums on the internet (such as reddit and a few others that would come up in Google), I have identified a few pairs of actions/feelings/emotions/behaviours that seem to have a really very, very fine line between them. And I am still at a loss as to where this line lies. Maybe it is ultimately up to what one feels right in that particular situation, no “umbrella truth” covering all cases…

General antagonisms would be being stubborn vs being persistent and being a coward vs being careful. This is just to give an idea what pairs or antagonisms I mean.

As for relationships, I still have no answer to

a) how to tell if a man/woman is coming strong, when it is a good sign (“really into you”) and when it is a bad one (such “love”may burn out quickly or, worse yet, one may be dealing with a narcissist)?

Similarly, when one is taking time, does it mean that one wants to learn the other person better, not rushing things (good?) or maybe s/he is simply not interested?

b) when one behaves in an understanding way vs when one is simply being a doormat and is being used for that

c) on the one hand, they say it is good to have values and principles, but on the other, they say that the one whose ideas are “set in stone”, is plainly not flexible, not learning, thus it is not good

d) finally (about your feeling as a loser (and anybody else, for that matter, when being turned down in whatever form)): I am unable to resolve the following. If you look through blogs (I even went as far as leafing through ALL the blogs on the Tiny Buddha website front page reading all of them that dealt with breakups and relationships) or some members’ replies, all of them would recommend finding in oneself all that one feels one is looking in one’s partner. In other words, if you try to calmly assess what it was that you are missing in that relationship, you will identify aspects that you simply need to address on your own. For instance, I missed that feeling of security that my ex was giving me. As I looked further, I realised that anita was right in other people’s threads, and, given how my ex behaved in the end and how our love story ended, that feeling of security was only a feeling. A feeling that I had and that had nothing to do with him (because in reality, now that I look back, I don’t think I would have had support from him when I would have needed it).

I think that in my case reading all that I could find (including similar stories of breakups and healing on Tiny Buddha) and time cumulatively helped me to live more in the present moment (rather than hoping for that fabulous time when we finally would be together forever) and to see that there are a lot of people in my life who would be happy to help me if I asked me. It was no longer as is my ex was my only source of help and support in this world, but in fact, quite a lot of people could do the same with the same end result for me (help me if I have a problem).

Also d) leaves me with a further somewhat unresolved issue. Namely, it sounds as if one should be aiming to become whole and complete (you will read lots of stories about people filling their “holes” with the help of other people rather than turning to themselves, rebound relationships a great example). True. I think I have become much more whole and complete since my breakup two years ago. And, as those reads promised, I feel better and I do see that I attract a slightly different range of people and I notice something that I didn’t notice (or rather, didn’t WANT to notice and turned a blind eye to) in others, such as in my ex.

It is true that if one feels whole, complete (and hence content), this takes so much pressure of other people, AND they feel it. They feel that whatever you might be asking, it is up to them to decide whether they have it in them to give. And if they don’t give, it is TOTALLY okay, I won’t die.

But here I run into a dead end: if one is whole and complete, why on earth would one need somebody? I get it rationally: 1+1=2 (rather than 0.5+0.5=1 (all those “other halves”)), but not sure if I am getting it emotionally.

For now, it seems like in my personal case, if I feel the need to fill the gap with somebody, I meet people who are just as needy (even if they are hiding it) and who want to fill their gaps with me (which, obviously, doesn’t last long). And if I don’t really need somebody (the stage I have reached), nobody comes along because I am so whole and complete. Or is it because there are so few people who truly are whole and complete? And am I really that whole and compete as I want to believe I am now? I don’t really know.

A couple of well-grounded, no-nonsense male friends suggested that the time simply hadn’t come yet. Maybe.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. Hope you will derive something useful out of my ramblings, and I shall try to post that list by the end of tomorrow.

If you have any comments, please share.

X

Jeff,

What Dawn said is true. I used to hate being “alone” or “lonely” I would get out of one relationship and frantically look and find a “rebound” relationship. However, it would not last. Men could sense that. They could somehow see that “I needed a man in my life to complete me” or to make me happy, and they would run for the hills. It never works.

Finally I got fed up, and started doing things outside of myself and my “need” for relationships. I started becoming happy with being alone. I kept telling myself I would be okay being alone, many people are and are very happy. Then something happened. A few years later, I was having a great time at a grocery store parking lot having people signing petitions for animal welfare. I was “in the moment” happy, that is when men gravitated towards me. I found men talking to me, asking me out, and that day in the parking lot, I met a man that became a relationship. When you are happy on the inside, happy being single, that’s when women will gravitate toward you.

Jeff, I just posted the gist of that book I mentioned. I tried to describe each item as I saw it (but hopefully, it is easy to make out what was in the book vs my comment). Please don’t hesitate to ask for clarification if something is not clear enough or if you need more details.

X

Hi Craig,

When I was going through a low point, I found two things helpful: First, to not only think about the things we like about the person we are trying to move on from, until it piles into this too-perfect idealization, but to also remember all the stuff about the person that we didn’t like as well. It sounds like kind of mean advice, but sometimes that is what it takes. “Man, I miss the way she used to…”. “But she also used to…”

The second thing that really helped me move forward is to try to focus on my own self-progress as much as possible instead of lingering over negative thoughts or the opinions of other people. I like to make a list of goals or things I want to change about myself, choose one to focus on, and then create a list of steps that will lead me to achieving it. And then after taking that first step, reflect on the progress, on the hope of growing, instead of things that make you feel bad. I think moving forward is the cure. Online dating is cool because you can meet new people, but even going to the same coffee shop or bar can lead to cool new connections, until who knows? Maybe one day you meet the love of your life. Try to focus on the possibilities instead of the bad.

T.H. White once wrote, “The secret to being said, is to learn something.” Learning can take you out of your own mind and instead create new neurons or whatever as your brain remember a new skill. For some reason, learning Japanese on my cell phone really helped me out of a low point. Just to get out of the apartment I would go to a bar during happy hour and nurse (or not) cheap discounted beers as I did Duolingo on my cell phone. The combination of the atmosphere and language lessons made me realize I hadn’t been thinking about my problems for almost fifteen minutes. That was sort of my hobby I looked forward to for a few weeks.

A book that really helped me was “Everyday Zen” by Charolotte Joko Beck. It really helped me to stop thinking about myself so much and instead focus on all this beauty around me in the present moment.

Dawn,

Thank you for your view on the 1+1 subject. I guess the myth of two halves, who are never complete and whole on their own until they have found each other, has been so perpetuated in us, that we are constantly looking for somebody who will make us complete without addressing issues that we have in ourselves first.

I understand the whole and complete vs need for other (-s) subject on my rational level. However, the emotional part of me still needs it to sink in, to be processed. But I think I’ll get there! In a similar fashion, I was struggling with the question of whether the glass is half full or half empty for quite some time, until one day it just dawned on me that what matters is at what level the liquid in the glass is and not whether it is half full or half empty!

X