Home→Forums→Relationships→Sad breakups.. how to let go
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January 3, 2017 at 5:55 pm #124451wildoceanflowerParticipant
My boyfriend finished with me before my 40th birthday..i know numbers dont apparently mean anything but my brain has decided this is the worst thing ever..i dont have kids, so i am basically realising that a family and being married is just not going to happen for me.
Also, past 40 no one bothers about marriage anymore and i am surrounded by single mothers where i live, the guys just dont seem to care enough and the women prefer to continue alone, its not what i want.
He has not really been in touch. i left him a christmas present and he texted thanks later, then i got a christmas text but nothing personal. We were together 4 years and i had hoped for a lasting relationship but it was increasingly obvious it wasnt going to happen..sadly he had said things very clearly in the past to make me hopeful (telling people we were getting married?!)but in reality he has never married and is over 50. He said he left his last gf of 7 years because he didnt really love her but praised her ease with all his friends…and his main criticism of me and reason for leaving was that i would not go out more with him and he wanted more of a social life. Why did he leave her then?
There was lots wrong..lots.But with the boyfriend i had before him, everyone said we were great together, right age and right time and i was so bored and felt nothing, i was also with him for 7 years so we shared this experience. With my last boyfriend things were always a struggle but i loved him, we had a magnetic connection.
Both of us have our problems its just so sad that he wouldnt try harder for me. I feel really rejected that he didnt think it was worth saving but instead of trying to make it work he just ditched me.I feel now like i am literally fighting my brain just to stay afloat..i struggle through each day and get so exhausted by the emotional stress. I dont sleep well. I just wish my brain would give me a break this time round. After my 7 year relationship ended i had a really terrible time and bad memories of it, being newly single i really suffered both in social situations and privately..i had serious depression, suicidal feelings and many dark moments. i now feel like i am going there again and am terrified. But i also cant force myself to immediately move on to someone else like some people do, its just not me and i dont feel like i can trust anyone again. I should also say i live in an area with very few available men anyway…
it seems like a sentence to me but i have to expect to be alone for quite some time. All i ever wanted was to share my life with someone and make plans together, now im getting too old to attract anyone normal.On top of that, you cant help but look inwards and think that there is something really wrong and unattractive. I know my 7year ex has married this past year…all this stuff just builds on top without meaning to, to make me feel bad about myself.
How do i stop my brain from destroying any happiness i have left? How do i find the confidence to go everywhere on my own and not feel like everyone is pitying me?
January 4, 2017 at 8:53 am #124493AnonymousGuestDear wildoceanflower:
You asked: “How do i find the confidence to go everywhere on my own and not feel like everyone is pitying me?”-
well, you posted here, I read your post, and I am not pitying you. When I was in my mid forties, I remember very well, I was absolutely sure that I will never get married, no way. Too old, too late, too impossible. Didn’t even have a relationship. And I got married at 49. I couldn’t believe it. Yet, it happened. And it has been by far, my best relationship ever.
And so, I think it can happen to you too. What made it possible for me was a combination of a successful, strategic internet dating (will be glad to share with you) and my first experience with psychotherapy with a competent, empathetic, hard working therapist.
anita
January 4, 2017 at 2:20 pm #124535wildoceanflowerParticipantHi Anita, thank you for your answer. I suppose its not really even the marriage, i dont particularly need that but its the knowledge that someone is staying with you because they choose you. I can’t seem to hang on to the guys. Once the excitement is over they want me to be different to how i am. How do you stop people from judging you on looks! they are attracted and thats it, they are not listening to me but maybe they never do. I’m tired of trying to figure it out. I miss him but he is freezing me out of his life and acts childish. I sent him a new years message hoping to be just normal, he replied fine and upbeat but then didnt reply to my next message….this drives me insane and its agonising…does he care, doesnt he and so on. The problem with the brain is it doesnt know its been dumped, i do.
January 4, 2017 at 4:03 pm #124543FazcParticipantHi Wildoceanflower,
I thought I would write to you because I too am facing a difficult time similar to yours.
My bf of 4yrs left almost 2 months ago. It devastated my world because I too believed this was it and I had found the person I would grow old with. He on the other hand didn’t want that and walked out never to look back. I tried to contact him to somehow make him see the possible mistake he was making but it only brought me more pain and held me in a place of limbo. Holding onto the “dream” he would come back. I still think to this day how he could’ve left like that after only a few days before telling me how much he loved me and assuring me his feelings were true and lasting. How someone can just forget you and throw 4yrs away like they meant nothing, like I meant nothing.
I am also beginning my 40’s and so so scared that I won’t find someone. I feel I have a lot of love to give and always hoped that I was deserving of love…. I have slowly started the process of letting him and the imaginary life I thought we would have gone. I think the fear of being alone kept me holding onto him for dear life, even when sometimes I felt it in my gut that he wasn’t feeling what I felt. He treated me so nice, sweet and would honestly do anything for me. Made me feel special and beautiful and wanted. I don’t know if I maybe didn’t want to face the reality that this person was not the one because the thought of not having him and no one else wanting me was too hard to handle.
I guess the purpose of me writing to you is that you are not alone in feeling this way. Everyday for me is a struggle and I hurt so much sometimes that I truly believe that I have somehow done something wrong to deserve this feelings. That I am cursed to not be loved and honestly never recover from this pain. I feel broken inside…. but each day I still get up and hope for this to pass. Hope that I can be happy one day even if it means not having someone special by my side. I can only have hope right now.
Much love to you and hope somehow I help, even if it just lets you see that you are not alone in what you feel.
XX
January 4, 2017 at 5:41 pm #124551AnonymousGuestDear wildoceanflower:
I hope you feel better, soon. You wrote about men: “they are not listening to me but maybe they never do”- this includes the man in your very last relationship (how long did the relationship last?) as well as the man you were with for seven years?
Do you mean that both men were only interested in how you look, being attracted to you, but did not listen to you, did not care about what happens in your mind and heart, what you think and how you feel the whole time?
anita
January 5, 2017 at 2:47 pm #124635wildoceanflowerParticipantHi Fazc, I really appreciate your words of kindness and it seems we have had a very similar experience,my emotions are on a rollercoaster but am trying to find something other than a relationship to concentrate on…it works in small amounts. To a certain extent you have to hold your hands up and give UP everything you thought you SHOULD have..because there is always something, some new light that can be created, maybe not like you thought.
There are the worse times too. I hope that you have some comfort in knowing we are walking down the same road!xxx thank youJanuary 5, 2017 at 3:20 pm #124643wildoceanflowerParticipantHi Anita, Thank you..like i said to Fazc, my mood is up and down all the time… I was with the last boyfriend for about 4 years, we broke up in early oct but it was a long time coming i guess. I think to a great extent yes, he was more interested in how i looked (because i was younger by 10 years). I feel that he has issues with his own age and he often said it was great the attention he was getting because i was with him. What i thought was probably not really a concern to him. He was infatuated in the beginning..i read about narcissists and he fit an awful lot of the description, towards the end there was a lot of criticism.
Its just sad, especially when you see other couples that seem so effortless, im tired of feeling i have to do everything alone. My example is my parents who might bicker with each other but have been together since their 20s and do everything together, they dont understand what is wrong with the men to be so flaky and feel that something has been lost in my generation to the detriment of women.January 5, 2017 at 3:45 pm #124646AnonymousGuestDear wildoceanflower:
I hope you do meet a man who is not flaky, who will listen to you attentively and respectfully, care about what you think, what you feel, wanting to make life better for you. If your parents are correct and there are many more flaky men out there then there used to be, best you learn who you get involved with early, so to not waste years with any one flaky guy. Learn early if the man listens and respects you, and if he does, then invest in a relationship, evaluating it from time to time, seeing that the relationship is a loving Win-Win relationship.
anita
January 6, 2017 at 11:00 am #124691jon kirkhamParticipantIt’s always heartbreaking to be rejected. But the time will pass, and the feelings will go, eventually.
Just have to bear in mind that you don’t know what is going to happen in your future. But the important parts involve remaining positive and just trying to be happy in yourself. Even if you get to a point where you get a bit fed up with just yourself, you may just bump into a like minded individual. Simply put, you don’t know what is going to happen. But ride the feelings and try to build something more with your life.
I speak from person experience. When i lost the 1 person i truly believed was going to be the 1, i underwent 1 of the most difficult times in my life, i thought it crippled me. Almost a year later i ended up feeling better than i had felt my entire life. We have to do whatever we can to make the most out of this life, or it just passes us by. Yes there are interventions by other people along the way. Barriers and hurdles that do cause stress repetitively. Heartbreak. times happen in this world, but we still have a choice of how and what we do with our life.
When by myself i felt better for not inflicting unintentional pain. I felt better for not having another person depend upon me. love is far more complex and deeper routed than just the feelings. But when 2 people connect on those aspects, everything else becomes manageable, 1 way or another. And its by far miles better to be by 1self rather than in a caged relationship where 1 or the other is too afraid to end it, but together they’re miserable and hurting inside and either not wanting to acknowledge this, or just not wanting to do anything about it. Sometimes 1 person feels like they’re to blame, when it’s actually the other. And then sometimes it’s both of them.
i don’t know if this helps you. I just speak from my own personal experiences and try to share with anybody who wants to see different perspectives/opinions to help you work out your own
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