Home→Forums→Relationships→Don’t WANT to completely let go the ex.
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December 28, 2020 at 10:51 am #371776AnonymousGuest
Dear Jenny:
It is delightful to read from you and to receive your good wishes for me (you are not late), thank you and a Happy New Year to you, may 2021 be a better year for all of us!
anita
January 27, 2021 at 9:52 am #373574jennyParticipantHi Anita,
How are you? I hope you’re doing good. I have been doing a lot of thinking ever since we began talking and I feel as if finally I am reaching slowly to some kind of a closure and a future course of action for me. I just wanted to write it down and discuss it with you. I have begun a few sessions with a therapist in the last two weeks but due to Covid, they are mostly over calls and skype. Also, consciously I have tried talking more about my parents and childhood with her so as to not let my feelings about my romantic relationship take over the entire therapy, thus, I feel maybe I can talk it out here.
After one of your early posts about how I’d also been argumentative and abusive towards my ex which fuelled his abuse, I was very disturbed for a while. I began micro-analysing everything I ever did to instigate him. Sometimes I’d think all night. I concluded that I had problematic behaviour of my own, more than I’d let on to myself or you.
– I was lacking in self-love and self-esteem and thus, was clingy, needy and smothering. I didn’t give my partner space or rather I gave him space but was anxious and resentful whenever he wanted to be away from me.
– My emotions drove me, all the time. So when I was happy with him, I was over-the-top happy but when I was upset, I was a mess, thereby had no control over calling him incessantly and crying uncontrollably.
– I did not have healthy conflict resolution mechanisms. I had seen my mom cry, shout, blame, dig out older issues in arguments with my father and I did the same with my ex.
For the first time in the last many years with my ex, I saw the problems that I had. But simultaneously I also realised this which honestly I think I had never seen before- MY EX DID NOT MAKE ME DO ANY OF THIS. He didn’t make me clingy, he didn’t force me to shout, to cry to call him a 100 times. Yes, he definitely behaved in ways that were not particularly loving and were inconsiderate and very rude towards me but the way I dealt with them were my own choice. My ex did not make me into a crying, begging woman. At max he triggered the tendencies that were already very much present inside my brain due to childhood/life experiences. So even if it weren’t for him, I would have dealt in the same way with other unpleasant things in life too.
And this realisation Anita, this freed me from the question I always asked me, was I at fault, will he be better with someone else, someone who won’t make him do all this?
I realised that just as my Ex didn’t make me argumentative, I didn’t make him verbally abusive, rude and conflict avoidant. Yes, I may have triggered those by arguing and wanting more affection from him, but I didn’t put those tendencies in him, like he always claimed. They were already present and so even if instead of me there was some other girl who was not argumentative, those tendencies would have still come out when he’d go through unpleasant times.
So, I realised that my problems were of my own causing, and also my ex’s problems were of his own causing. So I am responsible for my arguing and crying but not for him abusing and ignoring. So I didn’t make him whatever he became at the end of the relationship. So as long as I work on myself and make sure I learn healthier conflict resolution ways and develop self-love, I am fine, in my own life, with or without a man. And likewise my wondering of will he be this, will he be that is redundant as if he realises his mistakes and corrects them, he will be a better man irrespective of who he is with and if he doesn’t, he’ll be the same man that he was with me, again irrespective of who he is with.I honestly had this realisation after this one time that I answered his call a week or so ago. I had decided that I will be calmer than ever before, no matter what I will not let my previous behaviour take over. But as we talked, and I refused to let him in again, he abused me verbally and disconnected. That was when I realised that the abuse is his problem. Not mine. Weirdly, it also changed my feeling towards him. Seeing that more than a year has passed, I am also trying to realise my faults and change my behaviour, but he is the same person that abuses when things don’t go his way, specially when I had done nothing now to instigate him as he always claimed, made me lose respect for him.
I am now focussed on my growth Anita because I do have issues and so far I thought I am this way because of him and that a better guy will not be like this but there are behavioural patters that I have to change or they’ll come up even with the best of guys. Does this make sense?
Love,
Jenny.
January 27, 2021 at 11:40 am #373580AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
I am fine, thank you, welcome back to your thread.
“After one of your early posts about how I’d also been argumentative and abusive towards my ex which fueled his abuse, I was very disturbed for a while”- I had never posted to you that you were abusive toward your ex. That’s what you said to yourself, hearing your own words over mine.
Sept 3 2020, you wrote: “self doubt.. is at the bottom of it. Over the years, I’ve constantly fed to myself and he’d told me too that his behavior is my causing”- his very rude behaviors are not your causing, but the belief that you caused his rude behaviors has been tormenting you for a long time.
Fast forward, Jan 27 2021, you wrote: “I was very disturbed.. micro-analysing everything I ever did to instigate him. Sometimes I’d think all night”, and you followed with a list of allegedly wrong emotions and behaviors on your part that are allegedly responsible for his rude and cruel behaviors: you were “clingy, needy and smothering.. didn’t give him space but was anxious and resentful.. a mess”, etc.
You wrote today: “he definitely behaved in ways that.. were inconsiderate and very rude towards me.. but (he) did not make me into a crying, begging woman. At max he triggered the tendencies that were already very much present inside my brain due to childhood”- it is true that your parents formed you when you were a child, and that because of your childhood, you kept him in your life, instead of removing him from your life.
You present the situation as if a person who is abused should take the abuse like a champ- never cry or beg, never complain, do nothing wrong.. be a perfect victim.
I agree with you that indeed you did not cause his rudeness/ abuse, that you “didn’t put those tendencies in him, like he always claimed. They were already present.. (and) those tendencies would have still come out when he’d go through unpleasant times” with another woman. I agree with: “the abuse is his problem. Not mine”- I agree that you didn’t cause his abuse of you, and that indeed, his abuse is not your problem (for as long as you don’t have him in your life).
“I am now focused on my growth Anita because I do have issues.. there are behavioural patterns that I have to change or they’ll come up even with the best of guys. Does this make sense?”-
– Yes, it does make sense, you do have issues and they need to be worked on and resolved. But notice this: you wrote that our issues will come up “with the best of guys”->
-> part of your growth will be developing your ability to evaluate men and thoughtfully choose the next man in your life, so that you do indeed have “the best”, and not someone who is disrespectful, inconsiderate and rude. Your growth will also include becoming the best for your future partner.
anita
January 27, 2021 at 2:29 pm #373585AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
Here are a few quotes from your thread, in order quoted: “Was I a bad girlfriend and did I ill-treat him? Was I the wrong, abusive.. one? Will he be better-off without me?… The self-doubt I have is really bad Anita… It exists in every sphere of my life…. I remember feeling the same when mom compared me to family friends, correlated me to a cousin… criticized my nature”-
– this is all it takes for a girl to criticize her own nature: to be criticized by her own mother. The self doubt starts with: am-I-a-bad-daughter? Am-I-ill-treating-my-mother? Am-I-the-wrong, abusive-one? Will she (your mother) be better-off without me?
All it takes for a girl to be tormented with self-doubt is for her mother to criticize her daughter’s nature. This is all it takes, because for a girl, her mother is a god: what the mother says is the absolute truth, and if her mother criticizes the nature of her adoring, worshipping daughter, then.. that nature of daughter must be wrong and abusive.
Your parents’ marriage- that alleged fairytale marriage- is not the issue. The issue is your mother criticizing you early on, giving birth to your excruciating self-doubt.
“Was I a bad girlfriend and did I ill-treat him? Was I the wrong, abusive.. one?”- I have a definite answer (an answer with no gray area) to the question: was I a bad daughter and did I ill-treat my mother?
Answer: no, you were a good daughter, a very good daughter. You never ill-treated your mother. As to that ex-boyfriend:
You were a bad girlfriend to a bad boyfriend. But.. there is no such thing as being a good girlfriend to a bad boyfriend: a submissive girlfriend who keeps her head bowed and her eyes to the ground, pleasing the abusive boyfriend any which way.. is a sick girlfriend, not a good girlfriend.
In other words, with an abusive boyfriend, being a good girlfriend is an impossibility. Being a good, healthy person means that you do not have or keep a bad boyfriend in your life.
anita
January 30, 2021 at 6:18 am #373756jennyParticipantThat makes a lot of sense Anita. I was also meaning something like that, that I had the choice to choose my reaction. Instead of engaging and taking the insults when they began, I could have disengaged and left, if only I had more self-esteem.
Related to this, there is something Anita that almost everyone has been telling me ever since the breakup. I don’t know how far is that true and I think instead of making a new thread, I’ll put it here. For reference, when I say relationships below, it doesn’t only mean romantic ones but relations in general.
So far in life, I’ve been the ‘go all in into relationships’, ‘ultimately relations are the most important things in life’ kind of a girl. My career, hobbies, social life has always come after my relationships. I literally begin revolve my world around my family and partner and loved ones, specially in a relationship, I can feel everything else becoming secondary and the man being a constant thought at the back of my head no matter what I do.In the last one year, my family and friends have said things like these- ‘Never make a man your entire world’, don’t lose yourself in relationships, Jenny you stop having an interesting life outside of your partner, one shouldn’t make any person their whole life, ‘let a man pursue you in life, always’, ‘relations are only a part of life and not life’, ‘relations are 1%, the rest 99% has to be you and your own growth’, the most classic was my friend saying ‘a girl should always marry a man who loves her more than she loves him’, ‘if you’re always available for anyone, they don’t value you’, ‘Jenny you give too much importance to your loved ones’ etc etc on the same lines.
are these statements true, Anita? Should relationships, your family, your partner not be the most important thing in your life?January 30, 2021 at 8:40 am #373762AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
“I had the choice to choose my reaction.. I could have disengaged and left”- at the time, you were not emotionally healthy enough and therefore unable to leave him.
You shared that so far in life, your highest priority, secondary to career and hobbies, has been your social life/ relationships with “family and partner and loved ones, especially in a relationship.. the man being a constant.. no matter what I do”. You listed comments people made to you on the matter and asked me, “are these statements true?”. My answers:
1. “Never make a man your entire world”- false, from time to time, it is okay to make a man your entire world (when he needs you most to be there for him and with him), just as it is okay for the man to make a woman his entire world, from time to time.
2. “don’t lose yourself in relationships”- false in regard to a woman who regularly loses herself in relationships, and if “yourself” means a strong sense of self. A woman who regularly loses herself in relationships does not have a strong sense to begin with, therefore, she cannot lose what she did not have before. What often happens is that within a relationship, a woman with little sense of self, loses much of that little.
3. “one shouldn’t make any person their whole life”- generally true, there are time- limited exceptions (see #1)
4. “let a man pursue you in life, always”- may be true in a very structured, traditional society that strongly frowns on women pursuing a man, but not otherwise. (Often “always” and “never” make a statement false because of exceptions).
5. “relations are only a part of life and not life”- false if the suggestion is that relations are a small part of life. Relationships are a huge part of human life because humans are social animals by nature. The balance between Self and Society is a delicate one: a person has to take care of herself in the context of relationships, to give to the other person and to take from the other person fairly, in ways that benefit both parties.
6. “relations are 1%, the rest 99% has to be you and your own growth”- true only if a relationship is unhealthy and there is no way to make it 0% of your life. This statement is false if it suggests that emotional growth can happen in 99% solitude: people grow and heal emotionally within the context of healthy relationships, not Alone.
7. “a girl should always marry a man who loves her more than she loves him”- true if the woman wants a marriage based on Power (she wins- he loses). False, if a woman wants a marriage based on Love (she wins-he wins).
8. “if you’re always available for anyone, they don’t value you”- may be true or false, depending on the quality of the the interactions an available person has with others.
9. “Jenny you give too much importance to your loved ones”- true, finally there is a statement I agree with whole heartedly and whole mindedly in regard to your mother and father: it is time to take them and their marriage off the pedestal you had them on for so long.
You asked: “Should relationships, your family, your partner not be the most important thing in your life?”, my answer: if a relationships is a win-win, it should be important in your life, if it is win-lose, it should not be part of your life. But in regard to family, particularly your parents, you are likely to confuse a good feeling with a win. Just because, for example, you feel good around your mother in a particular evening, does not mean that the interaction with her that evening was a win for you.
anita
January 31, 2021 at 11:08 am #373793jennyParticipantThanks Anita for the detailed reply. And I think you’re right, all such statements are too extreme to be valid across situations.
I just think I’m going through a vulnerable couple of days lately. I’ve actually felt that the saying that healing is not linear is true. Some days I feel fine and progressing and some days are a bit difficult. I changed my number today finally, so I am sure that in the absence of any calls from him, I’ll move on quicker. I cannot take the wishy-washy calling anymore.
Thanks for all the help.Love
JennyJanuary 31, 2021 at 11:55 am #373820AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
You are welcome. Sometimes always/never statements are true. For example: (1) Life always ends with death and (2) Significant, long-term emotional healing is never linear.
“I cannot take the wishy-washy calling”- your emotional healing will be less un-linear with less wishy-washy experiences.
anita
- This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by .
February 1, 2021 at 2:29 am #373879jennyParticipantAnita
I thought that I could deal with this on my own but I just cannot. I feel as if all the hardwork that I’d done in the last one year, all the ‘let the silence do the talking’, everything, I just blew everything apart and I feel like an utter failure. I honestly feel as if I have failed myself and dropped just where he wanted me.
So in the last couple of days amid which I was interacting with you, one evening I got repeated calls from him, when I finally answered he bluntly told me that he is again in my city and last time do I want to be with him or not. He also said if I want he can come to my place, he was like last time do you want to be with me or not, I said No and he hung up the call.
– I don’t know why I lost it at that moment Anita. I think partly it was his tone, he sounded very rude, partly maybe because I’m PMSing and my hormones were all over the place and partly because I think somewhere I had gotten used to him calling and this seemed like something final. I don’t know but the same night, really late at night, I ended up sending him a long long message, telling him to stop and to stop disrespecting even the relationship by calling like this. I sounded so emotional and vulnerable by that text Anita. He saw it the next morning.
But my foolishness wasn’t done yet. The next day I felt that I’ve been harsh and now that things are actually over, I should not end it on such a bitter note. I can’t believe I forgot all about the things we discussed about how any such so called last talk will only give temporary peace. So then, I recorded him a message and sent it to him via social media which has a provision that you can see when someone see your message and plays any voice recording. When I was online that night, I saw Anita that though he had seen my message hours ago, he hadn’t listened to it yet and I felt very slighted and deleted the recording so that he won’t be able to listen to it any longer.
In the evening, when he must have seen that I deleted the recording, he sent me this message- you’re such a child. Goodbye. And then he blocked me on his social media. As if I’ve been the one after him all this year when he was the one that kept calling.
And like an utter fool I got hurt and called him, one year Anita, One year I held on to my respect, not once did I call him but these few days, I just lost it all. I called him three times in a row and he disconnected my call every time. And then I stopped.
Then as I did tell you, I changed my number.Don’t judge me Anita, I feel I have disappointed myself so much. I am so angry at me, at him, he calls all year and when finally I do, he disconnects my calls? Then why call all year.
All this while Anita, I was proud that I kept my dignity and didn’t let him back in, that I didn’t call him, that I didn’t show him my vulnerability and now Anita I again just got to the place where I was when he had left and instead of being woman enough to silently walk away, I came across as someone who’s still just where she was when he left, and to think that I was thinking all this while that my silence will make him realise something someday.I know you’ll say I shouldn’t think about what he’d think but I just, I just failed myself Anita. While I know that this has been brutal enough and I’d never go down that path again but I didn’t want to end up again as someone who he can block and disconnect calls after not letting him in for so long. It’s as if he had his last laugh. I’d hoped for a more graceful end from my side.
– Jenny
February 1, 2021 at 9:27 am #373883AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
“Don’t judge me Anita”- no worries, I am not judging you. Instead of judging you, I will try to understand you better in this post. In the following I will be thinking as I type, so as I write one sentence or one paragraph, I do not know what the next will be.
You wrote: “I feel as if all the hard work that I’d done in the last one year, all the ‘let the silence do the talking, everything, I just blew everything apart and I feel like an utter failure.. I have failed”- I am thinking that your goal with R all along was to turn him into that Fairytale Man in the Fairytale Love Story you wanted for so long. The goal of the one year of silence and “everything” was to turn this man into the Fairytale Man you want him to be. You indeed failed to materialize this goal.
In other words, your goal has not been to end the relationship with this man (“Don’t WANT to completely let go of the ex” is the title or your thread). Therefore, you didn’t fail at ending a relationship with him because it was not your goal.
You shared in this recent post that in the last couple of days, he called you repeatedly, you finally answered, “said NO”, he then ended the call. Next, you sent him a very long message, sounding “so emotional and vulnerable by that text”, the next day you recorded a message for him via social media. He didn’t listen to it the whole day, you then deleted it and in the evening he sent you a message: “you’re such a child. Goodbye” and blocked you on social media. You then called him three times in a row and he disconnected your call every time, and then you changed your number.
“As if I’ve been the one after him all this year when he was the one that kept calling”- you WANTED him, big letter, big want (I am referring to the title of your thread). In a way, you were the one after him this whole year.. silently after him.
“to think that I was thinking all this while that my silence will make him realise something someday”- I think that the something you wanted him to realise has been that you are his Fairytale Girl, that he is your Fairytale man and that your story is a Fairytale Love Story.
“While I know that this has been brutal enough and I’d never go down that path again”- I have no reason to believe that you will not reach out to him again, or that he will not unblock you from social media and start the ball rolling again (rolling in circles, going nowhere).
“I’d hoped for a more graceful end from my side”- the graceful end you were hoping for, I believe, is what is at the end of fairytale love stories: “and they lived happily ever after. The End.”
Jenny, I think that there will be no end to the story with him until you WANT it to end.
You wrote about this story/ relation in Sept 2, 2020: “this was a very important relation to me, my first and if I let go completely, I will be invalidating it… I don’t want to be completely happy because it would mean the relation is no longer relevant and important and is meaningless”. I will paraphrased the sentences I just quoted: This is my Fairytale, and if I let it go, there is no Fairytale for me… I can’t be happy unless my Fairytale comes true and I am living in it happily ever after.
Let’s look at the Fairytale you WANT: “the most beautiful relationship that I have ever seen.. childhood sweethearts, each other’s first.. Mom is very loving but dad is absolutely next level amazing… I have always idealized their relationship.. I have always found their love very pure and the fact that they have been each other’s only partners really special and have wanted the same always.. they’ve a really cinematic love story”, Sept 4, 2020.
If you poke a hole big enough in this cinematic love story aka Fairytale, the Fairytale will deflate and you will no longer want that it for yourself.
If you would like to do so, elaborate on the “nasty fights.. mostly about mom being upset about something and talking about it for maybe 2-3 days”: what did she say (and do as she said it), how did she sound like. Don’t summarize her arguments.. just type away everything you remember her saying.
One more thing: who was she talking to for 2-3 days at a time (to you, to your father, to both?), and how did her listeners react to her talking and talking.. and talking?
anita
- This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by .
February 1, 2021 at 7:17 pm #373906jennyParticipantI swear I didn’t want him back Anita. I did not. What I definitely did want was for him to see that I am not the needy clingy woman that he thought me to be when he left. I wanted him to see that I am one High Value Woman that HE LOST. I wanted him to feel a sense of LOSING a girl who really loved him and was special. I did not want to be again insulted like this. I did not want him back Anita, my long message as well as my recording were both only about my hurt and anger and about ending it and letting it go, I said that repeatedly in both that its ended. And what does this even mean, so the entire year his calls were for nothing, when he had to disconnect my call, I fail to understand.
I just did not want to be insulted like this Anita. He’d done this for the last 5 years, disconnecting my calls, not listening to what I am saying, I finally had pulled myself out of it and I could see he felt the impact. This one night, I think I just undid it all. I will never reach out again, I haven’t done it one single time in the past one year, that was a bad night, which is done, and I will never put myself there. But it’s like in that one night, it all came back to square one.Maybe you’ll say why am I caring what he will think, and that I am seeking the same validation from him that somewhere I sought from my mother, whatever it might be, it’s as if I had been the dignified girl I wanted to be in the last one year and now I am again that needy one. I feel so insulted when I remember he said that I am a child. I can imagine him thinking he was right about me and that I am just an immature girl which I am not Anita. He has the audacity to behave whichever way and then why I have one slip-up he has the audacity to pass such statements on me.
I am just insulted Anita, feel just very insulted by someone who should’ve by now been regretting losing me instead of calling me a child. Maybe I just wasn’t worth regretting, that’s all I can think of now.
I just wanted to come out of this victorious, I wanted to be the one with the last call, be the one to walk away, leaving him behind because he’d LOST me. I feel I failed to do that.February 1, 2021 at 7:23 pm #373907jennyParticipantI feel as if he will move on now thinking that good riddance from Jenny, instead of I lost Jenny because of my screw up. That is it Anita. I did not want him back but yes, I did want him to feel my loss which I feel he now will never feel. If not even loss, I wanted him to see me as someone who he cannot manipulate and get to anymore and he just did in one night and that was enough for him to call me a child. I just wanted him to feel that he lost me, that he was wrong, that’s it Anita and at least that he cannot insult me anymore.
February 1, 2021 at 8:02 pm #373909AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
“What I definitely did want was for him to see that I am not the needy clingy woman that he thought me to be when he left. I wanted him to see that I am one High Value woman that HE LOST. I wanted him to feel a sense of LOSING a girl who really loved him and was special.. I did not want him back Anita… I did want him to feel my loss.. that he was wrong”- you didn’t yet, so far in your life, feel valuable and special, did you.. never felt like you not being there being a loss to anyone..?
(I will be back to the computer in about 11 hours from now).
anita
February 2, 2021 at 4:53 am #373917jennyParticipantI honestly have Anita. Yes, I have had issues with what mom said during my childhood and yes I have self-worth issues and so feel that not everyone likes me but I do feel as if there are some people in life, very few but I do feel that there are some who do really like me and who will face an irreparable loss without me. I know two of my girlfriends will, I know both my parents will because in the current times they say it so many times and show it in action.
This man Anita, trust me Anita, the way he’s made me feel like a dirty cloth, no one has. When he wants me, he is very sweet and loving, as he was all this year when he wanted me to talk, but then something switches and he will just cut me like he did by blocking me and stuff ,making me feel like filth. I mean he has made me feel like such an argumentative, crying, weak woman. And now he’s calling me a child as if I am some immature person that needs growing up. He gets to me really bad Anita. And he matters because I spent so many years loving him and trying to get it back from him, because he intermittently gave me affection. I know there are deep-rooted self-worth issues to solve but what about this guy, someone that I was with for so long thinks I am immature, the person that was supposed to love me and at least feel bad about hurting me like a normal human being would, is calling me immature. Why? For losing it one day and calling him, sending him and then deleting a message that he saw but didn’t listen to for more that 10 hours? What kind of a person that has been showing a girl he loves her for a year will not care to listen to a voice recording that she has sent for hours when he has seen it and not answer her calls when he has begged to speak to her for a year. What about the year long calling that he did, was it all just for an ego-boost, to soothe an ego that I wasn’t catering to but now did by apparently finally losing emotional control and calling him? How could I love him? More so, is he really just this? He has friends that like him, he has a family, so he is not some isolated sociopath so how can he behave like this with me? I mean you call me more than a 100 times, all throughout the year and when I finally call you and send you something, you disregard it? I just didn’t want to lose respect in front of such a man Anita. I didn’t want to put myself in a place where he could again insult me by ignoring my message and disconnecting my calls. I just wanted him to regret losing me. I honestly do not, just do not have that feeling for anyone else Anita. I can see my mother’s flaws but also see that there is love somewhere, I can see my friends have love, with this man, he was all over me, crying and begging for me until a week ago, calling me and begging me to answer his calls, I didn’t call him names or immature then, and one day when I call him a couple times, the same man calls me immature and blocks me? What was all of this then, some game?
I just wanted to be a high value woman Anita after he left, after I had been that for an entire year and I could see, I could see that while he is incapable of any genuine regret, I could see that he is feeling my loss. And I wanted him to feel as if He lost me, wanted him to see me as the one that got away, the one that he lost because he screwed up, not feel as if I am some immature girl that he can’t imagine how he was pursuing for a year and who he is happy to be rid of, which is what I feel he must be thinking now.
But I realise now what’s done is done, I can’t change it. But I can learn and be better for myself hereon, that’s all I can do really, and I will. I realise that but I just feel as if I let myself down
– Jenny
February 2, 2021 at 10:37 am #373922AnonymousGuestDear Jenny:
I spent a few hours re-reading and studying your posts, looking for new insight:
At 28, you had only one romantic partner. You did not have a sexual relationship and/ or a romantic relationship with any other person but this one man, to whom we referred to as R.
When you were about 21, one of the people in your social circle was R. There “wasn’t much interaction” between you and him. Common friends told you that he liked you, and he asked you out for the first time when you were 22. Two months later, he moved for his work, and for five years (ages 22-27), the relationship was long-distance, “since it was a long distance relation, calls and skypes were literally all we had”.
The long-distance relationship lasted 2014- September 2019. From the very beginning of your “first physical and emotional love” there were lots of taking a stand, arguing, breaking down into fights, losing calm, breaking down, shouting, etc.: “I would take a stand from the beginning.. We had arguments since the very beginning”, “I would break down in a fight… he’d say I’m fighting and avoid me… he’ll be like I’m busy, people are over, I’m with my parents.. I would just lose my calm and call him repeatedly.. I would literally break down and then he’d start shouting… Later.. he would just walk away amid arguments or just shout at me and ask me to shut up… By the end of it, I felt like I couldn’t express my displeasure without him saying ‘again you go’, the moment I would say something that he didn’t like, he would just snap at me and ask me to shut up”.
A month after the breakup, in Oct 2019, he called you, but you did not answer his call. Then he called again and again, you did not answer his calls. From October 2019 to July 2020, he called you about 32 times, and you answered about 8 of his calls, “picked around 1 out of every 7-8 calls, mainly telling him to stop contacting… so in all, in the 9 months that he called, I spoke to him around 3-4 times”.
In nine months he called you on average once a week or once every two weeks (3 or 4 times per month). At times he told you that he was lonely and reminded you of things the two of you did when dating, but he never asked to resume the relationship. One time he asked to meet you and you refused. A few times in between those calls you texted him to stop contacting you.
In Sept 2020 you wrote this about those talks: “All talks were generally like random… All conversations were about him talking about random things… I would generally stay quiet”. Impatient with his random talk, you confronted him, saying things like: “I was very hurt by the way you left me hanging”, and “”you left, now you cannot call whenever you want”, asking him, “why are you calling”? and telling him: “please stop contacting me”!
He reacted angrily to your statements and question, “sounded bitter throughout though his volume would be low and get higher as the conversation”, and eventually, in August 2020, “he would get angry, he’ll call me an idiot, a b***, say f*** off/ get lost, at which point I would hang up the call.”
* This what you wrote about the same talks in February 1, 2021: “What kind of a person that has been showing a girl he loves her for a year… he has begged to speak to her for a year.. the year long calling that he did”- a different depiction of the same calls.
“it was my first emotional and physical love and I remember telling him that he is my own fairytale… I feel like my fairytale is slipping away. I think that is why I want to keep a part of it alive within me and can’t bring myself to let go.. it was after all my first relation and the fairytale that I’d wanted since I was old enough to understand romance”- a fairytale filled with anger.
You shared that when you were a child, your mother told you: “look at Elise, will she ever argue back with her mother, all children are so disciplined… Improve your nature Jenny, I am your mother so I take it but if you don’t change it, your friends and partner won’t take it”-
– You were an angry child, arguing with your mother, just as you argued later with R. By “nature” your mother was referring to your Anger: “I take it but if you don’t change it, your .. partner won’t take it”, and R did not take it.
This is my new insight today: I wasn’t aware before of how angry you have been ever since you were a child, and how angry you have been throughout your first relationship, from its very beginning. And how angry you have been after the breakup.
If R was as calm and emotionally healthy as a person can be- your anger alone would have been enough to destroy the relationship.
You wrote regarding your nature and R: “I have a bad nature.. I am irritating him with my bad nature”- replacing bad nature with a lot of anger, I think this sentence is true: I (Jenny) have a lot of anger.. I am irritating him with my anger”.
Regarding the relationship, you wrote: “I began feeling so inferior and low that from fights and arguments, I went to pleading and begging… I saw myself as causing everything and he said the same thing”- I didn’t realize this before: you did cause a lot of the arguments and fights (although you did not cause “everything”).
Sept 5, 2020: “was I bad? Was I a bad girlfriend and did I ill-treat him? Was I the wrong, abusive, narcissistic one? Will he be better-off without me?”- you came into your first romantic relationship with a lot of unresolved anger, and therefore, you were indeed a bad girlfriend and you did ill-treat him. You were wrong and abusive and he was a bad boyfriend, angry, impatient, wrong and abusive.
February 1, 2021: “I want him to see that I am one High Value Woman that HE LOST… to feel a sense of LOSING a girl who really loved him and was special”- you are a high value woman, you are special, but you are also angry enough to destroy a romantic relationship even with a patient man.
I have no doubt that your long-term anger as a child was valid: that any child in your place would have gotten repeatedly angry. Do you remember being angry as a child, arguing with your mother?
anita
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