I THOUGHT i was doing ok....help!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2007
I THOUGHT i was doing ok....help!
4
Thu, 09-13-2007 - 12:16am

i broke up with my emotionally abusive bf of 11 months about a month ago...
actually he ended things b/c i was too weak to do so myself, but nevertheless, it's over.

so far, i've been doing really well, surprisingly well, i think i didn't really love him for atleast the past 5 or 6 months...just too scared to deal w/a break up. I've been really thankful for my second chance at love and my newfound freedom that he deprived me of. i'm reclaiming my friends and family b/c he detached me from them for almost a year, he hated everyone i was close to.
so i'm happy, and the logical part of me know that i'm much better off w/out him. but then there's the emotional side...

this morning, i thought i saw him on the subway platform as i got off the train. i freaked! i actually froze and then began to run in the opposite direction, only later to realize it wasn't him. i was really disappointed in the way i acted, like a child...thought i would be stronger than that....

and now tonight, i went onto one of those online dating websites, just out of curiousity, only to put in a search, and find him among the profiles of available men in my area!!! what's worse is that he's been on that site w/in the past 24 hrs...he's actually already looking for other women! and it's in broad daylight proof for me to read on the internet!!!
what do i do? i feel like crap! i don't want to be with him again, i hate him and all he put me through, it makes me sick to my stomach...but i hate him turning up in my life like this, i just wish i could erase him completely! what do i do????

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-09-2006
Thu, 09-13-2007 - 12:31am

It's ok that he is on an online dating site, because he is now looking to be someone else's control freak. You can feel sorry for his new potential gf because you know what she is in for, but not for yourself just because somewhere there is this little, tiny voice saying to you "If he loved me enough to be that controlling how can I also be so...replaceable".

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2007
Thu, 09-13-2007 - 10:59am

wow, i had to read your reply a few times for it to really sink in. you gave me some really powerful advice, and it made me feel a lot better this morning. thank you so much.

i know that i'm better off now, and i suppose i was just caught off guard by seeing him on the subway yesterday, and then again online last night. it was way too much too soon.

it's ok that he's looking for other women, b/c he knows as much as i do that he'll never find anyone a fraction as good as me...and that's ok. it'll just make him realize what he had and how he should've treated me so much better. but by then it'll be too late, regardless if i'm with someone new or not, i know the value of myself now, something he deprived me of for so long.

and i'll never go back to letting a man make me feel that way again...

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2007
Thu, 09-13-2007 - 11:51am

Welcome to the board ndugga01,


Everything you feel is normal.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-14-2007
Fri, 09-14-2007 - 12:52am

Don't feel too bad. I'm sure everyone has one of those scenes. I remember when I went to go interview at a professor's lab for a graduate student position, I had the bad luck of running into his tactless mom. It was completely odd. Her son had cheated on ME, and I was the one afraid of running into her..made no sense logically. I remember freezing outside of the room she was in and refusing to go in. The professor must have thought I was nuts. But anyways, happens. You forgive yourself and move on.

LOL. Sometimes I wish Sandra would go ahead and write "how to deal with unexpected meetings with the ex" lol. But anyways, perhaps try to envision how you want to come out of an unexpected meeting so you have a rehearsed back up. I usually use the
"looking back in 20 years from today, how do I want to come across?".

As for the online dating website thing well, the pain you're going through is something you're doing to yourself. Log off, and stop tormenting yourself.

Susanna

- There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters, who never did, who won't anymore, and who always will. So don't worry about people from your