Miss Him So Much Right Now

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2007
Miss Him So Much Right Now
38
Sun, 08-26-2007 - 12:25pm

It's been 4 months since my two-year easy, happy relationship ended because he (33, me 27) said he did not know what he wanted and thought was afraid we had gone as far as we were to go. No contact or plans for it. It was sudden and scary and horrible. He walked away from it clean slate; refuses to talk about me or us with our mutual friends; bought a new home and is just continuing on with his great life without me. It wasn't mean or malicious. No other girl in the picture. He just couldn't do it and left. Soldiered on with his crazy work life and social plans. As most of you know, it hasn't been such an easy transition for me.

I am most certainly going through (another) quarter life crisis. I was so sure I would have this incredible future with him, an amazing man who was successful and settled and brought out the best in me. I loved him so much, it felt beyond words at times. I pictured us living together, being married, our children. Everyone did. My parents, his parents. Our friends. Now I could not be further from any of that. Compound me being unhappy with where I am in my career, living in an expensive city on a very modest salary (about 25% of which is spent on wedding shower and baby gifts -- seriously!), being dumped and completely surrounded by happy friends and colleagues who are married with gorgeous homes and babies. And I am almost 28. Just another few weeks. I am dreading it. It. Has. Not. Been. A. Great. Summer.

I am trying....so freaking hard, to get away from this all with grace. I don't hate my ex, I can't even muster any anger for him. He did not wrong me, he was honest and respectful. But I was still crushed and completely blindsided. I still am. I have been working to get a better handle on my life and try to find more happiness. I have good friends and see them regularly. I am training for a 10K and go to the gym each day. I play tennis and golf each week, joined a book club, am trying to go out often and meet new people. I am expecting an offer for a very challenging new job soon. So, I have some things to look forward to and be happy about. I am trying to be a self-sufficient, happy, don't-need-a-guy girl. Trying to be busy and active and fill my life with good things. Been on a couple dates, but nothing great. I still miss him so terribly. I still cry a few times a week, some days a couple times.

This weekend has been especially hard. I am pretty stressed with the career stuff -- this new job will be huge. We're working out the details of the offer now. It will be a promotion, a great salary bump, but also a ton of responsibility and I feel already that it will be way over my head and overwhelming. It's a totally new company and new set of colleagues and clients. I'm leaving the familiar behind. He is supposed to be here, helping me with all of this. He was my biggest supporter, my confidante. I went to him for advice on work things, I valued his opinion so much, I wanted to make him proud of me. He was so supportive and I felt like I could do anything with him. I am excited about this work opportunity, but I am also so scared. So petrified. And I have to do this alone. It makes me so sad that this is me making a big step and he won't even know about it. He will have no clue. But it's a step, and also a step further away from him. It is something else that separates us, something new he is not a part of. It just furthers the distance and magnifies that I am alone doing this without him.

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks. I'll meet friends for dinner (no family in this state) but I know it won't be the same. I dread it. I just want to get through it and over with it. At the same time I wonder if he will remember, or if he has tried so hard to forget me and the past that it won't even enter his mind.

It is a hot end-of-summer weekend. I am sure he is out on the boat with friends, the same we we spent every weekend for two years. But without me. I've been busy -- going to the beach, lunch with a friend, working out, doing errands. But it is time filler. I drove home from the gym last night, ready for some mindless TV and a quiet night in and all I wanted and wished for was him. His arms around me. His voice in my ear, his smile, his words. But I was alone. Again. And he is far away continuing his life without me as easily as ever.

Sometimes I just get so overwhelmed with this sadness. I am still mourning him and what we had. It has been hardest mourning what I thought would happen, what I thought we would have.

I know that it takes time and there are setbacks. I write that to other posters here, even. But sometimes I am just so inconsolable and so down. I loved him with everything. I doubt anyone ever could love him more. That anyone else could ever mean so much to me. And at the same time, while not malicious or mean, it just wasn't enough for him, he didn't want it, didn't want me. And I can't help but feel like I did when he broke up with me -- insignificant, unworthy, not good enough. I hate that I gave him everything and was rejected in the end. And I hate that he is still all I want. It's been 4 months and I would kill to be with him. But I don't even register to him.

Sorry for the long vent. I'm just a stressball of emotion right now and having a poor time. Thanks for reading.

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-29-2007 - 11:16am

Here's hoping that you get to the point soon where "just me" is enough for you. It's a great place to be. I think that in order to get to a place where you can be in a healthy relationship, you need to be happy with yourself. Not that you can't be happiER with a partner, but happy on your own.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-01-2007
Sat, 09-01-2007 - 8:57pm

Erin,

Reading your post was like reading everything I'm going through. My breakup has only been for 2 weeks, but like you, it was out of the blue. My ex (him 29, me 32) told me that while he loves me, will love me forever, and will always be here for me, he doesn't think he's supposed to marry me. That was the thing that hurt the most. We were together for 10 months. If he didn't think I was the one for him, who was? He couldn't answer that.

I will say that he wasn't happy about breaking up with me because he did want to spend more time with me, but he felt like if we spent 10 more months together with no intention of getting married we would just end up hurting even more. So, while I know he had a point, I'm still hurting just as much.

I miss him a lot too. I really thought he was the one for me. I thought we were going to spend our lives together.

I, too, took a new job recently. Unlike you he was around for the whole hiring process, but is not around to hear about what I'm doing or what I'm learning, etc. I think the hardest thing about break ups are all the everyday questions which are left unanswered. Whatever happened with that job he was applying for? How's his health? What's going on with his family? I want to contact him to find out the answers to these questions, but have no intention of doing so because I know that will just make things so much worse for me.

I was doing really well last weekend, but for some reason this weekend has been bad. Maybe it's the fact that it's a 3-day weekend and I feel alone. All my friends are married and are doing their married things. I'm trying to keep myself busy but don't think I'm doing a very good job of it.

I know I have a problem of making the guys I'm dating my world. And, then when they break up with me I'm left crying. Any advice on how not to do this in the future or what to do now would be greatly appreciated.

Erin, I guess what my whole bit was just to tell you that you're not alone. I'm going through it too.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2007
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 10:16am

Discovery, thanks for your post. I am sorry you are going through this too. I have had a setback this morning and am not feeling great.

One of my good friends and her husband live in the same town as my ex. They know him through me. As couples, the four of us would have dinner together and have BBQs and the like. My ex and my friend's husband had done some "guy" stuff together, too without the girls at times. When we broke up, they were so sweet and supportive. I told them that we're all adults and they could obviously continue to see my ex and be in touch, be friends with him, especially since they lived in the same town and all. They hadn't seen or spoken to him, though, until this weekend.

My ex texted my friend's husband and said he hadn't seen them in awhile and was having a cookout and invited them. My friend though they were going to a cookout at a coworker's house, who has the same name as my ex, she didn't know until the day before that they were going to my ex's cookout. So they went. She just told me about it this morning.

She said that they didn't talk too much with him, just socialized with others there and that it was nice time, he seemed to be doing well and he wasn't with a girl there.

I'm not mad at them, they're free to be friends with him and spend time with him. But I feel a little hurt by it still. They spent the day celebrating his brand new house that he bought after we broke up, spending time with him, spending time with other sets of my friends, whom they knew just through me. I just feel kind of hurt. I haven't seen some of my ex and my mutual friends in awhile, and here are a set of my friends spending time with them. My ex has adopted the no-looking-back approach to this. He's not talking to or about me or will even mention my name to our mutual friends. And now he hosts a cookout with our mutual friends, and my good set of friends wind up having a blast spending time with him. It just hurts. And it shouldn't, but it really does.

I'm wondering....did he ever think twice about me that day? Did he look around and think what's missing here, who is missing. Did he wonder where I was this weekend? What I was doing? Who I was with? I doubt it.

I have been trying to forget him, to not think about him, not Google him, not talk about him or ask about him. He has totally erased me from his life, I do not exist to him. I am trying to do the same and try to heal from it. And then I come in and hear about the BBQ. It was a long weekend for me. A little lonely. And I didn't know what my ex was doing...when I thought about him this weekend I thought that he might be on the boat with friends or ouyt of town or doing something. I didn't really know, so it was easier not to dwell on it. But now I do know. I know what he was doing when and with whom, the fun he was having with our mutual friends and with this one set of friends whom I am close with and he only knows through me.

It just hurts so much right now. I feel a little betrayed, even though it is wrong to feel that way. I feel sad. I feel jealous. I feel left out and pushed out.

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 11:10am

You really need to ask your friends to STOP talking to you about him! Indirect contact like this can be nearly as harmful to your progress as direct contact.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2007
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 12:07pm

I agree. I have been working really hard not to try to find out things about him. My friend told me because she didn't want me not knowing and feeling like she had hid it, and didn't want another friend to mention they had seen her sometime down the road. I am glad she told me; I would feel worse if she didn't say anything, and like kept it behind my back, you know? But yes, overall, I wish I didn't know about it. It's one thing for our mutual friends to hang out -- they were friends with him before, during and after the breakup. But so I was I, especially with one set of friends. So yes, they're all friends with him and me and they see each of us separately now. But it hurts a bit because this one set of friends were whom I was close with. They had met my ex just because of me, and had met our other mutual friends once or twice at parties we'd thrown in the past.

I can't help but think, we hosted a Super Bowl party this past year with the same six friends -- the three couples who were all at this BBQ together this weekend. My one set of friends and then our two mutual sets of friends. It's when my set met the whole group. And we had a great time. My ex and I cooked all day and decorated the house, we had so much fun with our friends, making bets and watching the game -- just four happy couples. And this weekend was the same thing -- everyone back together and having fun, joking and eating and drinking. All of them, except me. Everything exactly the same, except me. And it feels like it didn't matter for them. They all still went and had fun. And they're entitled to it. But I feel pushed out of the group. And who knows, maybe at the next BBQ or football party or XMas party my ex will have a new girlfriend. And it'll be back to the four happy couples -- laughing and having fun together. And I'll just fade further into the background and the past.

I'm just hurt. I'm not angry, but I am hurt.

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 12:12pm

I can understand her thinking--but if you TELL her you don't want to know, then that eliminates her concern.

Regarding the fading into the background thing--I can totally relate. I remember having a big meltdown in my car as I was driving home from a movie one time a few months after my 4 year relationship ended--it just hit me that every experience I had without him (watching a movie, whatever) was just one more thing that separated us, if that makes sense. We were becoming separate people with separate lives and experiences, as opposed to a couple with shared lives and experiences. That's the reality of a breakup--it happens, but it is sad and hard to accept. So I do have an inkling of what you've going through.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2007
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 1:26pm

You're right. It is just one more thing that further separates us. He is doing things to move on. I am doing things to stay busy in attempts to move on. Every day, every thing we do without the other is just further separating us. I don't know him any more. I don't know he who is, what he is doing, what he is thinking or feeling. I don't know him. And he also doesn't know me. He doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know that I'm accepting a big job and title at a new company and making a big change in my career, he doesn't know that I traveled this summer, he doesn't know that I am doing a 10K in a few weeks, or that I've lost 15 pounds since he left me or that I've gone on a couple dates. He doesn't know any of this, he doesn't want to know any of it. Because he has erased me. I want him to be happy. If he had to leave me to find that happiness then I respect him for it and I want him to be happy, even if it makes me feel so terrible. I try to remember that that is a good thing and says something about me and my character, that no matter how horrible he made me feel when he left, that I want the best for him, even if in order for him to get there he had to leave me and put me at my lowest point.

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 1:39pm

You keep talking about it in terms of "erasing" you, as though he's doing something wrong or evil. What I was trying to say is that this is NORMAL--it's what happens when you break up. Accepting it is tough, but it's part of the process.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm struck again by how much some cognitive work could help you. Changing the thoughts will change the feelings. If you stop thinking of him as doing that, and just think of it as the normal albeit painful recovery process, it won't have quite as much sting.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-01-2007
Tue, 09-04-2007 - 4:05pm

Erin,

I'm so sorry you've had a sucky morning and day. My weekend was pretty crappy, too. I can completely understand how knowing what he did this weekend hurts you because you're not with him. I kinda went through the same thing last week.

My ex likes to send out email newsletters to everyone he knows once a month. He sent the latest edition out last week. He had forgotten I was still on the distro list. I wasn't expecting it and, of course, couldn't keep myself from reading it. It hurt big time to read it. I ended up emailing him and asking him to take me off the distro list. He was nice and said he was sorry and that he didn't remember until afterwards that I was still on the list. That little reminder put me in a tailspin all weekend. I was so sad...probably partially do to the fact that it was a 3 day weekend and this breakup is still fresh and partially to do with the unexpected communication.

All weekend long I thought about him and every night I cried my eyes out to my mom on the phone (I find the nights to be the hardest). I really think having no contact is the best thing. I know you said that you haven't had any contact with him, but I think also telling your friends not to mention him to you would be best too. Maybe that's also why he's not asking your friends about you. He wants to move on as much as that hurts you to know. It definitely hurts me to know my ex doesn't want to be with me anymore. I guess I just try to remember that we did have some hard times recently (with his health, his work, etc) and that things weren't that great for a few months before we broke up (He wasn't able to give me the time and attention I deserve).

You and I will both will move past this. I know it. After 4 serious boyfriends and breakups I can only hope so. I know that someone is around the corner for both of us. We just have to get through this pain before we find him. Try to focus on what you need in this time. Get a facial, manicure/pedicure, something. Take care of yourself and feel free to vent as needed.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2007
Wed, 09-05-2007 - 11:47am

Thank you for your message, Discovery. I am so sorry you had a hard weekend, too and are going through this, as well. It is "comforting" to know others feel the same way you do (and that you're not crazy or outrageously emotional), but I am so sorry you have to deal with all of these bad feelings, too. It is so hard. The hardest thing I've had to deal with.

I can see how reading the newsletter would set you off. It would for me, too. I think it makes sense -- no contact and not hearing what they are doing or up to. When my friend told me about the BBQ it's like I wanted to hear but didn't. I wanted to ask if he had a girl there but also did not want to know. I agree, I think it is best to just not hear about them. My ex has done a really fantastic job of pretending I do not exist. I know it is just a way for him to move on. He wiped his hands clean and walked away without looking back at once. I think he clammed up and refused to discuss it with his parents and friends and our mutual friends because he just wanted to get over it. So, when you don't talk to the girl, won't talk about her and your family and friends are afraid to bring it up, she disappears. When you buy a new house and move and pack or throw away all of the pictures, cards, gifts and physical reminders of the girl, she is further deleted. And when you spend time and have fun with friends and no one mentions her and you don't either, then she's further pushed into the past, a past you don't look back on. This is what I feel he has done. And it seems to be working. So kudos to him for finding an efficient way to move on with his life. I try to remember that what he has not done, likely, is bother thinking or dealing much with his feelings and his decisions to end this. I don't think he is dwelling on any of it. That may come back in the future at some point, maybe when he is in another relationship. It could go the same way and he just gets overwhelemd and ducks out and does this to someone else. Maybe then he'll think of the past and how he dealt with it. Maybe he'll then see he could benefit from working through the emotions or thoughts rather than shelving them. But I don't know. I have this sick history of ex boyfriends marrying the next girl they date after me. It's really fab for the self esteem, let me tell you.

What I am rambling about here is that maybe all of these terrible ups and downs are helpful. Maybe I am healing better inthe long run than he is. Maybe bursting into tears while running on the treadmill or feeling sad watching couples make out at the movies is going to help me in the end. I am forced to deal with the emotions all day long. I can't shelve them like him.

I just don't know. I think that's the bottom line. There's a lot I don't know and will never know about him and why he felt the need to do this. And it makes me sad for him and sad for myself.