Home→Forums→Relationships→HELP Am I in a relationship but still in love with my ex? Cant figure it out!
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March 20, 2018 at 8:16 am #198341AnonymousGuest
Dear jenny Lynn:
What if you say nothing to him, then on the 31st move out with all your stuff and leave behind a check for the April 1-April 14 rent for him. You can do all the moving when he is not home, on the 30 or the 31.
I like this idea much better. What do you think?
anita
March 20, 2018 at 9:37 am #198385Jenny LynnParticipantI am the type of person who doesn’t poke the bear.
I don’t think he would do anything… But I also don’t put anything past anyone.
So in regards to just leaving I honestly feel like when we get into the late 20’s in the day of month. He would probably say something. If I just said I was leaving…I don’t know if that would provoke some crazy conflict between us.
It isn’t that I necessarily need to be cordial after all this. I just at this point want to avoid confrontations if possible. He doesn’t work set hours so he can come in at any moment. He will see me packing days leading up to.
So I feel its best to just tell him and pick his brain about it.
If he doesn’t like it…it doesn’t really matter.
It may not even be a whole conversation I may just say that “The leasing lady emailed about what day we want to leave. I am leaving the 31st so do you need to stay for the rest of the April part so I cant let her know she keeps asking?”
March 20, 2018 at 9:57 am #198395AnonymousGuestDear Jenny Lynn:
Your last paragraph reads reasonable to me: “I am leaving the 31st”- is definite and assertive enough. I would put a period after that instead of proceeding with the “so do you need”- just to make sure you clearly communicate to him that you are leaving on the 31st regardless of his choice to stay April or not.
How are you feeling regarding the upcoming exchange this evening, if he will show up in the evening, that is?
anita
March 20, 2018 at 10:19 am #198405Jenny LynnParticipantI am feeling a little anxious about it.
But hopefully it will just be simple and I’m over thinking it.
It will just be relief really, ya know.
March 20, 2018 at 10:35 am #198413AnonymousGuestDear Jenny Lynn:
The problem with living with Glenn is how he deals with conflicts. When there is conflict, he goes to war. His war includes withdrawing, staying away, the silent treatment, taking off the curtains and persisting in these ways day in and day out, on and on.
As a result your distress grows. At times you are fine, but over time, your distress grows until you have to have a relief- either giving in to him or moving out.
Do you agree, and if so, do you think that he expects you to give in or do you think he wants to separate?
anita
March 20, 2018 at 11:29 am #198429Jenny LynnParticipantI truthfully do not know how he feels. I am really at a loss about it.
Me? I am visibly bothered by the situation; as someone should….Him I don’t know.
A part of me thinks he feels this is a competition or a joke or something. The idea that I am not reaching out to him may be what he interprets as a challenge. Like “Oh shes not even going to act like she wants to talk about what happened (She usually does) she broke up with me so she should take action or show me she cares” something to that effect.
Maybe he wants me to make him feel invited in, to give him a opening. (He has said that before, thats how he would want me to address him in times of conflict. I.E. Figuratively leave the door open so to speak, I dont know how much that makes sense) To go in blindly not knowing if I will reject him probably deters him too. But if I was showing a little more attachment I dont know if that would make a difference or not…doesn’t really matter to me tho.
If I don’t mean enough to him for him to even risk getting his feelings hurt by me saying no. OR he could see it like he will lose the power if he submits to me. Like if he wants to continue he would have to inquire about what I need for him to come back. He would put himself in the position to inevitably have to acknowledge the things he needs to change drastically.
Or as well (I have to keep in mind) he literally could just not care. Maybe he had enough too. But to me, that version of him would be a little less concerned with me OVERALL if that was the case.
Stubborn people have the weirdest way they logic things in their mind. My best friend does stuff like he does to her BF and to hear her say the other sided version (I never get) of someones significant other who purposely does things that distress their partner is purely crap they just logic in their head by “They can do what they want” “They have least to lose” People like this love to say they dont need anybody, they can do with out without you, they like to have you around but dont care really either. She describes it to me like she does it just because she can. Ex.) Her BF called her all day asking her one time if she wanted to go out of town with him & she was irritated with him (or at least trying to convince herself of the reason she was). She wouldn’t answer the phone and when he text her she just said no over and over. But shes on the phone with me literally telling me she is going to come and he better call her right before he leaves so she can change her mind. I am like “why dont you just tell him?” She says “because I am stubborn and I like the chasing/begging stuff idk”. He ended up leaving without calling her one last time smh. She literally called me mad like “He should have called again” I was like dude your crazy. she was thinking about having him turn around and come back to get her….
So that was a random story but it just a pin on my insight in the the lack of compassion they feel when they are trying to prove some point or make themselves feel good at your expense.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Jenny Lynn.
March 20, 2018 at 12:00 pm #198433AnonymousGuestDear Jenny Lynn:
What motivated your best friend was anger (“irritated with him”). This is what is motivating Glenn. This is my best understanding: he believes that you have wronged him and he feels angry at you. He is stubborn, meaning he is stuck in that anger, not moving on to resolve it. The only way to maintain a relationship with him is that-
every time he perceives that you wronged him, he is not open to reconsideration, to examine evidence and evaluate his first perception. There is nothing you can do to make such a re-evaluation happen, in his brain.
He perceives that you wronged him and he does not change his mind. He knows it because he told you long ago that if the two of you no longer live together, he will have no contact with you. He knows that he will be angry with you forever more.
The price for a relationship with Glenn is to admit to him that you are wrong when you are not. Admit your wrongdoing whether you were wrong or not. Admit you were wrong because he said so, no matter how ridiculous (for example, he figured you were wrong for taking a shower when he figured you took a shower for … the wrong reason).
Always wrong. Wrong forever more- what a version of “she lived happily ever after”, isn’t it? “She lived wrong ever after” is what it is, with Glenn.
As anxious and stressed as you are, I hope you don’t…. live wrong ever after, forevermore.
Post anytime, when I take a break from the computer, sixteen hours or so later, I will get back to you.
anita
March 20, 2018 at 12:16 pm #198435AnonymousGuest* amendment: the price to pay is not you admitting being wrong, as in stating: I was wrong, but in indirectly signaling him that you were wrong, by reaching out to him, by you being the one to break the ice.
(isn’t it something: his anger is way more stubborn, way stronger and way more dependable and reliable than his love).
anita
March 20, 2018 at 12:46 pm #198441Jenny LynnParticipantI agree. Most people take bad things and hope that someone can tell them otherwise. Because of the natural human want to avoid bad things we will inevitable take almost anything someone will give us to derationalize something bad someone has done…which is why we believe liars. Most people want to see the good in those they care about.
HIM? ..he makes these assumptions… like you’re mad the sky is red…you keep talking about it being red and how annoyed you are by it. I am here with the facts! & HAVE NO FEAR babe cuz guess what its BLUE not RED and I have 10 ways to show/tell/prove to you. So he can not be upset right? But he actually has no intention of letting someone remove his facade of anger or actually listening with the idea that what that person is saying is true. He just wants to be mad and have the world apologize for the red sky…He doesn’t care. he just wants to feel how he is feeling because sadly sometimes I think he would almost rather be right and justified than happy…
Something that happened during the conflict that day made him metaphorically pick up a piece of *She wronged me/I didn’t like that* and that’s what he is holding onto.
It could be overall me saying it was over…(provoked) after him calling me names.
As irrational as me and you both know the above statement to be…(being mad that the person you love has self respect and ended the relationship over being BLATANTLY disrespected)….he attached on something that is fueling his reaction(s).
Because he has found a reason to be upset it over takes my ACTUAL tangible reason to be upset. He can’t see the forest through the trees.
Your last statement was….wooooo…yeah. Gosh, It is crazy I can have so much confidence in the ideals I express about what I know he will do when he is angry cyclically I know it like the back of my hand. He chooses anger over me every time….
March 20, 2018 at 12:50 pm #198443Jenny LynnParticipantGosh that last sentence hit me….I keep re reading it.
He chooses anger over me EVERY TIME…:(
March 21, 2018 at 3:51 am #198533Jenny LynnParticipantI told him, he said 31st. Simple enough *exhales*
March 21, 2018 at 4:10 am #198537AnonymousGuestDear Jenny Lynn:
Very powerful words: “He chooses anger over me EVERY TIME”- every time, every single time. And the first part of the sentence: he chooses anger over you. And every time he does that, he persists, not only for a moment, or a day, but day after day, night after night.
You wrote: “like you’re (Glenn, that is) mad the sky is red… you keep talking about it being red and how annoyed you are by it. I am here with the facts!…it’s BLUE not RED and I have 10 ways to show/tell/prove to you… But he actually has no intention of letting someone remove his façade of anger or actually listening with the idea that what that person is saying is true. He just wants to be mad and have the world apologize for the red sky”.
I have no doubt whatsoever that ending the relationship with Glenn is the right thing for you to do, no doubt whatsoever. Staying with him is a recipe for further deterioration of your mental health. As distressed as you are now and will be in the near future, away from him you have the chance to get better. With him you don’t have such a chance, or an opportunity.
There is something else: if you stayed with him and had a child with him, what a disservice it would have been for that child, to grow up with a father as irrational as this, one who will withdraw from his own child when mad, for whatever irrational reason. That would mess up the child.
Glenn, unfortunately, is a very poor boyfriend choice for any woman, a poor choice for a father to have (sad a child has no say on the matter), and a poor choice in any personal relationship context.
Be strong, Jenny Lynn. Please be strong and make this move happen.
anita
March 21, 2018 at 4:41 am #198539Jenny LynnParticipantI am trying to be…I know that hindsight will be 20/20 and I will soon see everything for what it really was.
Gosh its just so frustrating to look back and see all you did for someone, what you gave up, what could have been/what else could have happened…
Like things with Leo (will always haunt me)..seems like I always choose the wrong guy when it comes to him. :/ I knew that if I cut communication with him again..ehhh…well lets just say I knew he wouldn’t let me do it a 3rd time smh. I just was so confident in how I felt at the time. Like I owed Glen a shot at my full and undivided attention…cuz thats what I wanted from John. It felt hypocritical almost…Sometimes I feel like I wanted someone to pick up where John & I had left off; whether it made sense or not logistically.
March 21, 2018 at 5:03 am #198543AnonymousGuestDear Jenny Lynn:
You felt hypocritical, that you wanted commitment from John who wasn’t committed the way you needed him to be, and then, you found Glenn who was committed to you, and reacted to Glenn like John, not wanting to commit.
Thing is Glenn is not John and John is not Glenn. You were Jenny Lynn with John and Jenny Lynn with Glenn, but the two men were different. You somehow assumed, reads to me, that the two were the same.
You didn’t know Glenn well enough, all this time. I think you are getting to know him now. It will be a struggle to separate your wishful thinking of the past and the feelings that went with it from reality.
Look at the reality and when you find yourself lost in wishful thinking and the feelings that go with that wishful thinking, shift your focus to reality. Re-read the red sky/ blue sky analogy, again and again.
When you see your self red sky (Glenn is loving, wonderful, if only I, Jenny Lynn, was more loving etc., whatever it may be), close your eyes and open them again, seeing the blue sky (Glenn is angry, stubborn, unreasonable, was that way before he met me, will be this way after, impossible to have a good relationship with him)
anita
March 21, 2018 at 5:21 am #198547AnonymousGuestDear Jenny Lynn:
Regarding: “it’s just so frustrating to look back and see all you did for someone, what you gave up, what could have been/what else…”- this waste of time and effort you are referring to, I know this waste very well from my own experience. I wasted tons of time, my whole youth… lots of energy, tons, money and all resources I had, the life I could have had if only… the experiences I didn’t have.
It is not the exception, I learned, to waste most of one’s life. It is the rule. Look at Glenn, he is wasting his life in anger and most likely will continue to do so for the rest of his life. And he will cause others to waste much of their lives, hoping and wishing to change him.
All you can do is learn from your experience, so to waste less of your day and future. Waste is the norm, wise living is the exception. Make your life today and every day going forward less and less of that norm.
anita
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