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HELP Am I in a relationship but still in love with my ex? Cant figure it out!

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  • March 21, 2018 at 5:46 am #198561
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    It isn’t that I wasn’t ready for commitment with Glen it was that the pressures I felt from him in the flow of a relationship just happened fast for me, but that’s how I interpret John may have felt. So for me to miss a good thing just because things were moving a little quick made me hypocritcal…I chose the latter smh

    Yeah your right, they aren’t the same but maybe he filled that void of what I THOUGHT I needed/wanted from John. (Hindsight 20/20) I’ve felt in thoughts like John really did give me everything I needed I just constantly pressured him for more for some reason (he still cared about me but I can see it made him have resentments which lead to the break up that day). My mindset has changed on a lot of things I used to feel about dating and the relationship stages OVERALL.

    I didn’t know him well enough..this is true. I feel like it felt correct at first because he filled that “I wasnt getting this from John-ness” almost feeling like my relationship carried over.. he may have done the things John didnt but as time went on it just seems like we didnt see things the same way and our communication was poor so it cause conflict. He wasn’t John…BUT he was Glen…and after time went by I appreciated him for who he was. There was a time when the good out weighed the bad. I dont know really know what happened there….

    Yeah I understand what you said there about separating my thoughts of what I wish(ed) was happen(ed/ing) to what is ACTUALLY occur(ed/ing).

    March 21, 2018 at 5:50 am #198563
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Yes I will definitely learn from what has happened and from what I allow another person to let me feel and affect my mind, life, and choices.

    Every optimist would say it will never happen again. I would like to say that too.

    But I know that once I prioritize myself I wont exude the energy (I have in past) to draw people like that to me.

    People CAN only do what YOU ALLOW them to. I just have to remember that.

    March 21, 2018 at 6:19 am #198567
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Yes, I remember now: you compared the pressure that you put on John at the time (pressure on John to commit to you) to the pressure Glenn put on you (to commit to him). Correct? So here is a correction of my earlier post: you compared you to Glenn, the two of you putting pressure on the partner to commit. This makes your comparison even more unrealistic, in hindsight: you and Glenn are very different. If your pressure on John was successful and he committed to you, in my view, he would have been a fortunate man, to have you as his partner in life: a woman who is very intelligent, very reasonable and loving. My goodness, he would have been fortunate!

    On the other hand, Glenn was successful enough, and you did commit to him. But that made you an unfortunate woman because Glenn, unlike you, is very unreasonable and when angry, he stays angry. No love.

    But I agree with you, of course, putting pressure on a person, a boyfriend, is not a good idea and doesn’t work for the benefit of the one putting on the pressure.

    You wrote that there were times when the good outweighed the bad, with Glenn. Well, for as long as he wasn’t angry. But no way any woman can live with Glenn and not experience his anger. And when he is angry, no reasoning with him…  only submission. Not a way to live a good life.

    You wrote that you won’t “exude the energy (I have in past) to draw people like that to me”. I read that a lot from people, saying one draws dysfunctional people into their lives. Often it is not so, I believe. It is not that out of a pool of many functional people, we draw the few that aren’t functional. Reality is that… again, the norm is the dysfunction, so out of a majority of dysfunctional people we statistically end up with dysfunctional people.

    Better learn who the person is before being too invested, so to  identify the man who although imperfect, is reasonable enough to make a healthy relationship possible…even when angry, especially when angry.

    anita

     

    March 21, 2018 at 6:39 am #198569
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Yeah all that makes sense. I agree.

    That last paragraph I like a lot. Basically your saying that everyone is a little messed up but in the end how reasonable is the person in viewing it like you will spend the rest of your life in the space of that someone’s imperfection. IE good out weighing bad. No one is perfect, but I was tolerating imperfections that cost me in the end.

    Maybe if I had drawn a line a long time ago in these situations where I gave in it would have provoked a conflict that would have provoked a change that HEY YOU DONT RUN MY LIFE or ended it sooner. Whether it was me telling him I wasnt ready to be in a relationship, or live together, or I needed some space, or that I still wanted to be friends with Leo. If I had said these things sooner I may have seen how he acts when he doesn’t get his way or when he feels wronged (even when not because they are my choices). Then; I would have still had enough foot hold in MY LIFE unconsumed with him to see the wrong in the reaction I may have gotten.

    I felt like at the time it was what I wanted. Overtime something did feel a little off..the appreciation..admiration I usually got (in past relationships) kind of made me withdraw from him at times.

    March 21, 2018 at 6:47 am #198571
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Side bit: Yeah you are mostly in the right ball game with the comparison I make to me and Glen and our pressuring our partners for commitment.

    Except I did get commitment from John I was in a committed relationship, I had that with him. & He chose it on his own; he didn’t want to for a few months (we casually dated from OCT-MARCH ’15/’16 off and on.. over time from MARCH-JUNE we talked about committed relationship) But he did in the end choose me..I just kept pushing, and picky, and feeling like he needed to do more now to show this milestone of us being BF/GF  if that makes sense..even tho everything between me and him was fine…so f**king ridiculous thinking about it now

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Jenny Lynn.
    March 21, 2018 at 6:52 am #198575
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Not all imperfections are created equal. There are imperfections in people you can work with and there are imperfections that are too great, too entrenched, too difficult to be workable.

    Glenn’s imperfection is too great for any woman to work with. No matter what you did in the past, with Glenn, however wise, there is nothing you could have done to work well with him being stuck in anger.

    There is nothing you could have done to change him. The extent of his angry reaction is so great, so reliable, you can so depend on it… it is not subject to your input. It is not about you and not in your power to change.

    Your only choice, as I see it, is to either be a victim to his anger or exit the relationship.

    What do you think?

    anita

    March 21, 2018 at 6:56 am #198577
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Double posting. Regarding the last post: yes, I think I got it, and I wrote earlier that John didn’t commit to you enough or the way you wanted him to commit, somethin like that. Interesting how we are back to John, back to the beginning of the thread and the title of it, “still in love with my ex?”-

    there was something about John that was right for you.

    anita

    March 21, 2018 at 7:05 am #198579
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    I like to feel like everything happens for a reason.

    Right now this is a lesson learned but hey..maybe if I hadn’t been with him something worse could have happened to me.

    I don’t know if that makes sense… At this particular moment 2 weeks in basically I see it like IS THIS WHAT I NEEDED TO MATURE MY THOUGHTS ON WHAT A RELATIONSHIP SHOULD BE?

    I honestly dont feel like I could speak on John they way I do or my changes of how a relationship should go; without this.

    I had no limits, really.

    But when time gets further sometimes I look at the things that may have happened or not went my way and think like hey this could have been worse. Butterfly effect type of things. One thing doesnt change and everything stay the same.

    This one time I got a speeding ticket and Glen said that he had a feeling I might get a ticket. Just a twinge random feeling but he didnt tell me. I said WHY I would have  slowed down? lol He said well what if something worse would have happened? I was like dang thats true. Maybe I passed up a possible wreck in the midst of driving fast or something. I am REALLY not a optimist Anita lol but for some reason that way of thinking makes sense to me.

    Maybe if I hadnt been with Glen I could have ended up with someone worse, someone who really took it to another level and with me not having that shield of boundaries I WOULD have most likely let it in to “let the love in” I may have married this person, had kids with this person. All for lack of not knowing any better because I really thought I was ok with everything that happened here.

    My weight is another example. I had this epiphany about a month ago. I hold my weight like the biggest downfall/set back of my life. But WHAT IF it had to happen this way. I am from a town of people who statistically are addicts and baby makers who get checks and food stamps. I am from am very small town of a little over 1,000 or so people. We have the highest opioid addiction rate in the county. My mom was in that crap and she got out, me and my brother got out (Me and My brother are statistically anomalies by far). But most people I know that was in that environment like me and him are still there,are on drugs, on their third kid, doing nothing with there life. So my point is;  that if I had been smaller, I still would have had the family issues I had either way. But how would I have acted out having confidence if that makes sense. If I didnt put my thoughts into food, and put it into some boy in HS and got stuck there. Instead I realized that there wasnt anything there for me and I left.

    So maybe just maybe this is the way all this was supposed to go …

    March 21, 2018 at 7:10 am #198581
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    I agree to the first post. There really isnt any getting around it.

    And yes haha. But I dont want to harp on him too much . I just realize so much now that I didnt before about how he may have felt. It is funny that was how this all started. Almost 200 shares later…. In my own truth, talking to you because no one will see this…there is a part of me that CRAVES the feeling I felt when I was with John. Being truthful I don’t really get to talk about him with people in my real life anymore ya kno…but inside I feel that. No persistently but I think him, and I think that aura I felt when I was with him. Its almost euphoric.

    Sometimes I cant decipher if its him or the feeling….

    Also the last post isnt a response I was typing it almost as a triple post. lol

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Jenny Lynn.
    March 21, 2018 at 7:35 am #198593
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Yes, it could have been worse, but you don’t have to go far from what happened to imagine something worse: like I suggested to you earlier, if you had a child with Glenn, oh, it would have been so very bad for that child. Not bringing a child into misery is a very good thing.

    Your paragraph about food and gaining weight vs being addicted to opioids and having children, yes, I agree that the second is worse than the first, absolutely. To me bringing a child to misery, be it to a father stuck in anger or to drugs and dysfunction, is worst of all.

    I don’t know if it is the right time to talk about that euphoric feeing you have about John, about remembering the time you had with him, but there is something there to learn from.

    I don’t think, by the way, that things happen for a reason, as if someone is planning the events in our lives for the purpose of teaching us things (like a god..?). I think life is a great opportunity to learn, something that is available to us humans more than to any other animal. Things happen, a lot of it is random. Then we can learn and direct our lives so it is not as random, or we don’t learn.

    anita

    March 21, 2018 at 7:54 am #198599
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Yeah agreed.

    Oh I don’t think that life is a prerecorded piece being played.

    I do feel what your saying, I’m not preoccupied with the idea that a “gods” plan is already set. But I do feel that every one is dealt their own hand; and they must play it. This will project them certain directions. Its is all about choices and learning though.

    Isn’t there a saying about if you dont learn from your mistakes your destined to repeat them or something like that.

    & yeah we probably should leave John alone for a min

    March 21, 2018 at 8:17 am #198603
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Well, even though I don’t believe in god, I do believe in this part of the serenity prayer: “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

    If you would like, when you would like, share how this prayer applies to your situation with Glenn as it has been and as it is now.

    anita

    March 21, 2018 at 8:33 am #198607
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    Very good point.

    The things I cannot change: How he interprets my actions, How he reacts to feeling “wronged”, how he feels about me overall, That he doesn’t see fault in how he addresses his grievances, That I cannot force him to see it and CHANGE. I cannot make him who I would LIKE for him to be in order to have a healthy functioning relationship.

    Courage to act…Courage to understand that sometimes all you can do is remove myself, I can speak my mind on what I feel, That I can say no and that I have had enough, That I can change my lifestyle and my mindset to remove those who take from who I AM. To create boundaries in the future and don’t allow people take advantage or take me for granted. That if someone doesnt appreciate me…leave

    Knowing the difference between what I truthfully have control over and dont…to stop holding myself accountable for the choices that are inevitably someone elses… as if I FAILED..

    March 21, 2018 at 8:49 am #198613
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Jenny Lynn:

    Excellent. Simply excellent. “remove those who take from who I AM”- I like that very much. You shared about that clearly  pages ago, the person you became the more you lived with him, less and less of who you are. A good relationship is one where you become more of who you are, not less.

    anita

    March 21, 2018 at 9:02 am #198615
    Jenny Lynn
    Participant

    🙂

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