I am hurting so bad
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| Tue, 11-16-2004 - 5:58pm |
I found out that my boyfriend of a year was cheating on me. I caught him at a restaurant with another woman when he told me that he was at his grandmothers house. Ever since then, I have gone from being hurt to angry to sad to mad. I have talked to him and he apologizes for what he did, but he can't see me because he said that it would be too hard on him. So, since I found out what he was doing, for 6 months, he cheated on me with this girl, when she saw me sit down next to him at the restaurant, she look stuned. She told me that she thought he had a girlfriend, but he would always tell her some lie to get her to think that he didn't. He even took her out in my car and told her that it was his roommates. I don't understand how somebody who says they care about u and love u could do something so horrible. I keep asking myself what is wrong with me? I am a young 24 old woman, no kids, great job, live on my own and he cheated on me with a woman who has a daughter and is a waitress. I just don't get it. I am sure she is a nice girl, but he always told me how he hated dating girls with kids.
So I sit here and cry and get so upset cause I can't believe that he and I are over. I have tried to cut ties with him the past few days and everytime I would try, he would get upset and tell me that he can't believe that I am ending this. Like I was just going to be ok with what he did. He sat on the phone with me last night crying to me telling me how horrible he felt and that he was going to move cause he couldn't live in the same town as me and take a chance seeing me with somebody else. Then when I talk to him today, he is rude to me. I just don't understand. Everybody tells me that I will be better off and that he is seriously messed up, but we shared a great relationship for a year, at least on my end. I was so in love with him and still am. He tells me that he still loves me and is in love with me and it kills him that he can't change that, but he goes back to her. I just don't understand. I even told him that I would give him another chance and he just tells me that he can't see me right now that it would be too hard on him.
Please, I am making myself sick, crying all the time, I just don't know what to do and how to start getting over him. Please any advice you can give. Feel free to email me at tx_blondey@hotmail.com
Thanks!

I know you must really be confused right now. I know the feeling. You can’t understand why and that’s what makes it worse, the not knowing. I was caught in an almost similar situation a few months back except in this case, I was the woman in the restaurant. I will tell you in all honesty, that my boyfriend of four months, never at one time gave me an indication that he’d been seeing someone else. I did not even imagine him having a girlfriend. Of course when we met, he told me he’d been seeing some girl and that she broke up with him and all that kind of stuff and he even told me her name, so when this woman came up to us in a club announcing that she was his girlfriend, I was totally shocked. She told me her name and it wasn’t the girl he’d told me about.
We had a lot of problems after that, coz I just couldn’t trust him anymore and although now, things have cooled down, I still have that thing at the back of my mind and that makes me very insecure.
Let me tell you something I’ve learned. Very few men will break off a relationship, even if they are not into it anymore. They are scared of regret and would rather cheat coz they are selfish and want to have their cake and eat it. From what you say, the crying on the phone bit and moving away from town story is just a ploy to get you into thinking he still cares about you and your relationship with him. If he did care right from the beginning, he would never have started another relationship with another woman. It’s hard to accept, I know but with time, you’ll realize that it was all for the better. One year of loving someone is hard to let go, I understand, but pull yourself together and analyze the damage he’s done to you. He did it coz he thought you’d never find out and he’d have the best of both worlds. Count yourself lucky that you did and try and move on. It’s HARD, but you can do it.
Thought you might be interested in this article I picked up from www.NetDoctor.co.uk
Good luck with the healing process!!!
How to get over being dumped
Written by Christine Webber, psychotherapist
It happens to everyone. Virtually everyone has been dumped at some time in their life. I certainly have - so I know it hurts like hell. In fact, rejection is so painful it can give you a sense of being physically ill or injured. Rejected people often feel as though their feet have been cut away from under them, rendering them unsteady and unsure. All too often they succumb to every cold and stomach bug going.
Currently, I am seeing a young man in my practice whose relationship has just ended and he looks as if he is recovering from a major operation or a car accident. He is in so much pain that he appears to be physically ill. He knows, as you probably do too, that picking up the pieces is very tough. Losing that person you love leaves you with a dull, heavy weight in your chest that often, without warning, explodes into lacerating pain. This torment makes you long for a time when life was easier, so you tend to hope that your ex will return, sometimes even after a couple of years of single-living.
Skewed thinking
You might also feel that if they do not come back, no one else will ever fill that gap in your life and you will never find love elsewhere. This is nonsense of course, but grief skews our thinking.
So, how can you get over the pain? How can you learn to live again? How can you start viewing your single status as a fresh and fun opportunity instead of a punishment? How can you stop feeling that you are unlovable and unwantable and that fate has marked you out for a lifetime of solitude, misery and bad luck?
Well, the first step towards a new positive future is to finally accept that your ex-partner has gone and will not be coming back. This means facing your grief and allowing yourself to cry for the loss of your hopes and dreams. I am afraid that this is a painful process whether you are a young man who has just lost the girl of his fantasies or a 50-year-old woman whose cruel, philandering husband of 30 years has finally walked out.
The most important thing to remember at this point is that you will get over this. I know it does not seem like it right now, but you will, believe me.
Get bored, get better
The next most important thing is to lean on your friends and to talk about your ex until you have no words left to say. You will know you are getting better when you realise that you are actually bored with the subject yourself. Talking is the key to feeling better. When we talk about our hurt it gradually ceases to have power over us and step by step, we recover.
But during this shattering time, it is vital that you look after yourself properly. In fact, you should treat yourself like an invalid or like someone who has had a terrible shock. Take long, hot scented baths, play music that helps you to let your feelings out, tempt yourself with favourite foods and allow other people to get close to you and to care for you.
The LEARN process
L stands for LIST. Make a list of all the things about your ex-partner that you did not likeAfter acceptance comes a learning process that will propel you forward into a new and better life. I have devised five points to help you. Each point starts with a letter from the word LEARN, so it is easy to remember..
It may start off small, but if you pin it up in your kitchen so that you see it daily, you will be amazed at how it will grow. Remember how they always told the same jokes? Or how they used to get drunk at parties? Or how they put you down in company? Or how they could not be bothered to get involved in your job or hobbies? Write it all down and start realising that maybe your lost relationship was not so great after all.
E is for EXPERIENCE. After a relationship is finished, we tend to think that we can never be loved again. This is not true, of course, but it is what we believe at the time. The fact is that there is every probability you will be loved again. Not by your ex-partner, of course: you will never again share exactly what you had in that relationship, but you can have just as important feelings with someone else.
A stands for APPRECIATION. Appreciation of yourself, that is. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and pick our your best features and congratulate yourself on them. Do this often. Another helpful task is to write a list of 50 things that you like about yourself. This might take some doing, but it is a rewarding exercise. You see, when we are dumped we tend to take the blame on our own shoulders. We mentally beat ourselves up for not being more fun or nicer or better in bed. I want you to stop this destructive thinking and just for a change, allow yourself to feel your own goodness. I want you to recall when you have helped someone or been kind to a stranger or put yourself out for a neighbour. Learning to accept and value your own kindness, beauty and talent is very healing.
R is for RE-ORGANISING. Unfortunately, when you have been half of a couple for awhile, many of your friends will be other couples who knew you and your ex. Sadly, some of these people are probably avoiding you like the plague now, fearful, in some cranky way, that having you around will make their own relationship more vulnerable to split. But even if you keep plenty of old friends, this is a time when you need a whole new circle of mates of both genders.
N is the most important letter in this acronym. It stands for NO SEX WITH YOUR EX! Often when you have been apart for several months, your ex may suddenly decide that the grass was not greener outside the relationship after all. Or perhaps they will sense that you are getting your life in order and feel jealous that you are now in a position to find someone else. Maybe they will just fancy a quick snog for old time's sake.
The trouble is that sex and closeness might make you feel loved and wanted temporarily, but it will leave you with more sorrow and confusion afterwards. So do not do it. If your ex begs to come back and try again, then you can make a decision at some later date about whether or not you will give it a go, but never have sex before this point. Anyway, the chances are that with all the suffering you have gone through and all the work you have done on yourself to get your act together your ex-partner will be the very last person you want to be with!
Therapy
Finally, for many people, losing a partner feels so painful because it echoes feelings of unworthiness or of uncertainty about love from their childhood. If this is happening to you, then you are dealing with two lots of pain and difficulty - what is happening now, plus all that baggage from earlier times. This is not easy.It is no accident that many people go and get some therapy when they are emerging from a relationship and trying to deal with the pain of it. In fact, this is a very good time to do just that. So if your recovery seems to be taking ages, you might want to consider getting some sort of counselling to help you.
I appreciate your supportive words. The past few days have been better. He actually came over to my apartment a few days ago because I had changed my number. He told me that he was coming to give me my goodbye hug since I am completely through with him. We talked for a few minutes. I told him that I am very, very hurt by what he did. He told me that the past year and a half meant more to him than I will know. So I asked him why he did what he did, and he didn't have anything to say, except, I am not ready to talk about this. So, I said ok and he left after hugging and crying a bit more. Anyways, I haven't called him from my new phone number. I emailed him a day ago because my apartment is in his name, and I asked him if he would meet me to put my name on lease. He emailed me back and said for me to tell him when I wanted to meet him, and then he said that he heard I had changed my phone number because he wouldn't stop calling me, then he said guess you don't have to worry about that anymore. So I sent a quick email setting him straight about my phone number and that if he wants it all he has to do is ask.
I am trying so hard to be stronge and not call him and not tell him I want to see him. I miss him so incredibly much. All my friends say I am crazy if I think that he can change, but I am a person that believes people can change, I have changed my ways in relationships. I am just confused and need some really good advice.
Its just very hard because we were so close to each other for such a long time and involved with each other for such a long time. I am so used to him being there to talk to, eat dinner with, etc. and now he isn't here. I just want him to talk to me about all of this so we can get past it, but he tells me that he needs time to fix things with his family (i kind of told them what he did, and they are very upset with him). Which, I understand, but I think I deserve some kind of answer from him.
There are some people out there that can say one thing and do another....based on their values, morals and convictions. He's a liar. He lied to both of you. He's played both of you. He can't stand to be alone, hence he kept you around while he played around with her. He's not loyal, has no integrity.
Enough about him.
There is NOTHING wrong with you. You are NOT LESS THAN because of his actions, choices, decisions, or behavior. He'll probably cheat and lie to his next girlfriend all the while telling her she's the only one.
Focus on you and your healing. That means stop taking his calls. Who cares what he thinks? I mean, he's the one that lied and cheated, so if you say you are through than be through with him and set a firm boundary with him. Do NOT discuss your decision. Do not let him sweet talk you. In fact, stop taking his calls. Tell him one time - I want you to stop calling me and stop coming by, if you don't, it will only prove that my feelings have never mattered to you, or you would honor this request. AND if you don't stop calling and stopping by, I will file a restraining order against you.
Journal write, vent on paper....cry, scream, grieve for what might have been, for what could have been, for what you hoped would have been. Make a list of things you enjoy and start doing them. Pamper yourself. Be kind to you, do at least one nice thing a day for yourself. Plan for the holidays now....get involved with your family, help them prepare, stay and help clean up. Put in some volunteer hours at a homeless shelter, orphanage, animal shelter, hospital, library, etc.
Work on your self-esteem as well. Read some good books, etc.
List of books:
Don’t Call that Man – The Survival Guide to Letting Go – Rhonda Finding
Rebuilding When a Relationship Ends, Bruce Fisher
Olive Juice...and Other Thoughts on Love, Heartbreak and Moving Forward by Eric Champnella
I Used to Miss Him...But My Aim is Improving: Not Your Ordinary Breakup Survival Guide by Alison James
The Aladdin Factor, Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen
The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy – David D. Burns, MD
How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Brandon
Learning to Love Yourself: Finding Your Self-Worth, by Sharon Wegscheider Cruse
My best to you.
Carrie
I'm sorry for the pain you're going through, but I don't understand what "answers" you are looking for from HIM! He's a liar and a cheater...what more do you need to know????
Yes, people CAN change, but lying and cheating are fundamental, deep character issues...he will only change with (most likely) years of counseling and (for sure) LOTS of hard work and commitment to change. Not many people have the strength of character to effect changes in their morals and values. Talking to you about it is NOT going to cause him to change, that's for darn sure!
Sheri