Miss Him So Much Right Now
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| 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.

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Hi Erin,
I'm so sorry this is hurting you. I hope you can find a way to stop thinking of him and start concentrating on yourself. I know it's hard. Believe me, I know. I just found that the days that I don't cry are the days I don't think about him. I think about how I'm a good catch and a great girl. I'm cute, intelligent, treat my friends well, have a great family, etc. It's really his loss that he doesn't want to be with me long term. Maybe one day he'll look back and think "Gosh I made a stupid move. I shouldn't have broken it off." You know what though, hopefully if that day comes I'll already be with another guy. I don't think that day is going to happen. So, I gotta learn to move on.
I do have my moments though. Last night was hard again. When I was leaving work I thought of him. I called my friend and cried on the phone to her. Then I went for a 5 mile walk with another friend and actually felt a lot better after that. I don't know if you find that after you run on the treadmill. Maybe the endorphins are something to do with it. I think working out is a great help to me.
Have you removed all his pictures from your house? I put all of mine in a box along with all the momentos I had collected. He also gave my stuffed bears from every place he travelled to (including some from a trip he took right before we broke up). I have put them all in a closet in my house. I still have them for now, but they're out of sight. That seems to help too. No constant reminder.
Hi again, Erin,
The dreaded birthday. My birthday was mid-July, and I knew it was going to be awful. Or was it awful because I made it that way? I laugh about it now, but I would have gladly settled for a mediocre birthday than a full on shi##y one. My best advice is to set no expectations and try to enjoy the company of your friends.
I understand the pain of facing these benchmarks and life changes. All of them just feel like another reminder of this new life without the person that you had visualized in your future. I look forward to the day when I finally stop wondering if or imagining that he will come back. It is so unfair how the mind works, the thing that I am struggling to stop (the constant thoughts) is the one thing I can't stop thinking about. I am trying so hard to let go, but sometimes I think it has to let go of me.
I hope you have a good (or mediocre) birthday and best of luck with your new job. Also, thanks for sharing your thoughts on being in touch with his family.
Bridgid
Erin,
I still get the sense that you're focusing a lot on him and how he's doing and what he's up to and less on how you're doing, what you're up to and how you're doing? Is that right or am I just reading into things?
I think if I'm right then that behavior is going to keep you in the upset mode. Don't get me wrong, I think about my ex, but I'm trying really hard to focus on me and not worry about what he's doing. He was the one that broke my heart. I'm not going to let him break it any more by occuping my thoughts constantly.
I hope you can try to adopt this outlook. Things will get better. I promise.
My friend gave me a card with this saying when my ex and I broke up. I have it up at work and it's been helping me. It's kinda ironic given who said the statement.
"When one door of happiness closes, another one opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us...(Helen Keller)."
Hang in there. It will get easier.
Thank you for reading and posting.
I am focusing on myself and trying to be a better person, do things I've wanted to do and should have done. New job, new activities, reconnecting with old friends, reading a ton of books I've meant to read, trying to expand my group of friends. I always wanted to join a book club and found a fun chick lit one to join, I coerced a friend into running a 10K next month, which I've always wanted to do. I'm just trying to better myself -- physically, mentally. It's the emotionally that is dragging behind, because I am still very affected by this breakup and it has caused my self esteem to do a complete nosedive. I am trying to move forward, be busy, work on myself, but I can't help but think of him and how good his life is.
He has a great life, truly. And I have my own activities and friends too, my life wasn't dependent on him when we were together, but he has a lot of things sorted out and he's a lot more advanced than I am with his career, finances, status. When we broke up I just felt like he had everything he wanted and what he didn't want -- me, a RL -- he was no longer burdened with. I was left with the things I didn't want (and didn't think I'd be dealing with) -- renting an apartment with a roommate, single and alone. And I didn't have what I wanted -- him, a future I envisioned with him. It just seemed that we broke up and I was pushed into the ground and he was just "cut free" to continue to climb. I do want him to be happy, truly, and I want the best for him. It just seems to be so simple for him to have all he wants and be happy and move on so easily, and I feel like I am in the trenches trying to dig up a life for myself that I actually want to participate in.
Yes, I know it is best to be with friends on my bday. I am not really a bday person, but I know it's more emotionally healthy to go out to dinner with some pals than lie under my covers in a fetal position rapid firing M&Ms into my mouth for the duration of the evening. As tempting as that is...
I completely understand how you think his life is so good and that he's thrown you into the dumpster, but I can pretty much promise you that he has not forgotten you. I don't know how you just forget someone you were with for a long time. I don't think about my ex at work. It's not until I leave work to go home that I think about him. And, it's not even that I think about him per se. I'm thinking about what could have been. That's when I get sad.
I see that you're trying to better yourself. That's wonderful and I commend you! I think with each passing day you'll be able to let go a little more of him and move on a bit more. Everyone says that things happen for a reason. Do you have any idea why this break up happened? I think mine happened to teach me to have my own things in my life. Whenever I'm in a relationship I tend to make my boyfriend and his interests my life. I've realized that that's no good. And so, I've made a point of trying to figure out what my interests are. I joined a bowling league and am going to go to religious services tomorrow night by myself! Hopefully as time moves on I'll finally have an answer for the age old question "What do you like to do in your spare time?"
I am glad you are making steps too, trying new things and focusing on new things and activities. It will be helpful, I know, even if it sometimes just feels like a time filler, it will help.
We broke up because he didn't know what he wanted, or rather he did -- that he did not want to continue with me -- but could not articulate exactly why. I truly thought I would marry him. My mom and his mom were practically planning the wedding, joking about grandchildren. I could see it so easily, too. It's the death of that dream that is so hard. Thinking, believing with all your heart that it would be this way. And it isn't. Just realizing I was wrong, when I have never felt surer of anything in my life. It's sad.
People keep saying that "everything happens for a reason" and this will "lead to better men, better things" but it is hard to be positive when you still feel so strongly that the ex was it, the one.
You are so positive, and it is so encouraging. You have a great outlook and are healing well, it seems. I hope I can be like that someday soon.
Erin ...reading what your going through totally made me realize it's about time i sign up.
i know the pain your feeling and it's amzing and very hard to cope...I am currently in a failed relationship where he has stated he wants to be friends and can never love me, and that my love means nothing to him now, but still lives with me and wants everything i gave him being with him without the commitment( like sex,daily calls,cooking for him cleaning etc) -I can feel your pain.It's hard but we got to do it-it took me 5 yrs to get over my last ex b4 him and believe me i love this man more than i have ever anyone b4. So i have hope i can make it through-but what i wanted to say is one way love is nothing but a fantasy and is more painful...your better off without him or least the fact that he is not around-cause coming from experience from someone who has been given the chance to still have that person in your life and for you to love this person like they are the only world u know and want to live in-it means nothing when they dont feel the same. And as much as it hurts to know you have given all you can and be more than willing to give more and do whatever it takes...the fact that he has told you how he feels-we have to be strong and know that;'s what he wants.Your doing the right thing moving on and keeping your schedule packed, although you'l catch yourslef loving him through every bit of it, but it's hard and takes alot of time...soemtimes too long.just know other women are in pain with you and if u ever need to talk...were here for you....cynthia-rootslady77
Erin,
Sometimes I feel like my positivity is a farce. I definitely have my moments. Everyday after work I leave and almost cry in the car on my way home. I completely understand what you mean about going through the end of the dream. I'm going through that too. My ex and I met on eharmony. Our first date was 12 hours long, from 1p to 2am! It was amazing. He had planned this entire date for us. We went to see a regional play and then got coffee, etc. No guy had ever put thought into a first date with me. They usually suggest drinks or something like that (it's like if you pass the drinks date you actually get to get up to dinner). He told me he thought he was falling in love with me on date 3. I was scared to say it back to him so early for fear that I was reacting to what he said and not saying it because I actually felt those things. So, I told him after a month. We had so much in common and I really felt like I could tell him anything no matter how embarassing. Now he's not in my life and I am really sad. I'm trying really hard to remember that the good times we had were in the beginning and that recently (the last 6 months) things were really hard and that I was thinking of breaking it off with him. But, every so often I visualize him sitting on my bed, after he surprised me by coming over, and said that he thought we needed to talk about some things. He said that my face just dropped at that moment. Why wouldn't it? I thought he was coming over to surprise me and to spend some time together, not to break things off.
I emailed my friends step sister to see if she could get coffee with me this weekend. She is a couple of years older than me. She was married at 26 and divorced at 28. I want to talk with her about how she was able to handle being apart from the guy she thought she was going to spend her life with and how she didn't lose faith that it would happen to her again. She's now married and has a little baby boy. She told me over email that she thought that she was supposed to marry and divorce her first husband b/c that was how she was able to meet her second husband. I'll definitely let you know what she tells me on Sunday.
So, like you I thought I was going to spend my life with my ex. I, too, had never been so sure of anything in my life. Now I'm by myself again amongst all my friends who are already married. It's really hard and while I try to be positive and upbeat I definitely have my moments. It's nice to know that I can write to you and you understand me completely. I hope you have some peace tonight.
Thanks so much for your message. The way you met sounds so sweet and that must have been one heck of a first date. It sounds picture perfect in every respect. It is a shame that your friend was married at 26 and divorced at 28. Unfortunately, that is so common now. I have a friend whose marriage lasted two years, too, and now she is 30, divorced and in a bad place financially, as they used all of their wedding gift money to pay off her ex's personal credit card debt. So, he is debt-free and entitled to half of what she has, including the condo she had bought and paid for before she met him. She is not sure if she will marry again, but like your friend is optimistic about other men. I am glad you friend soldiered on and is happy now. You'll have to let me know how your conversation with her goes. I hope she can give you some advice.
It is touch and go with being positive, I have found. But support helps. Please email me and keep in touch about this. Our stories are similar and you have good advice and perspective. It's erin94402@yahoo.com.
Take care and thanks for sharing.
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