Keep failing at ending
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Keep failing at ending
| Sat, 06-04-2005 - 10:30am |
Hi everyone. I've been posting here on & off for a year. I end up staying away whenever I feel like I'm not actively trying to end because I feel guilty. I've been in an A. for 12+ yrs. I want to be out but I just don't seem to be strong enough to do it. I don't see him very often but we IM and talk on the phone frequently. Anyway, I've tried to end this year more times than I ever have before but somehow, he keeps pulling me back in. It's like he knows exactly what to say or do to sder if I really do want to end after all. Free, I keep thinking about what you told me, that I'd get out when it became more painful to stay in than it was to get out and I feel like that's true now but somehow, I'm still in it. I saw him yesterday and now, nothing. No "did you get home ok?" or "it was good to see you" and that is so hurtful to me and we've done this so many times before but...I'm still doing it. I feel like my whole existence revolves around him-will I talk to him today, I wonder what he's doing now, is he thinking about me etc, etc and like I don't really live or enjoy the other aspects of my life. It's just a big waiting game for me until the next time I get some attention from him and it's never enough and I really wish I didn't need or want it from him. My H. tries to pay attention to me all the time and I dont want his. I so wish I could walk away from this already. Help, help, help.

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Toosmart,
Your screen name says it all. You're too smart to let this go on any longer.
When the affair consumes you, your life . . . it's time to end it.
When the affair costs you your self-esteem and self-worth . . . it's time to end it.
When the affair starts to make you a resentful person . . . it's time to end it.
Believe me, all of those reasons are the right reasons to end it. It's not easy, I know, boy do I know. But continue your affair only if you are willing to accept the terms of the relationship. If you are willing to wait around, to jump when he calls, to be second in someone's life, then continue with the affair.
You're too smart for this.
Birdie
"Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth."
~Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (French Playwright, 1741-1794)~
I came across this some years ago when ending my own long term affair. It wasn't what I wanted to hear or read. I didn't much like what it said or even what it said about me in the reading of it. The quote has since become precious to me.
I'll let the others tell you about how no one can treat you in any way that you don't permit them to treat you. And how even the longest of journeys are started with the very same first steps.
You can do this, you only have to want to end it enough to actually follow through. It's worth remembering that you are not the only one who can suffer for NOT ending it.
Decide whether it is worth it to you to continue pursuing pleasure at the expense of happiness. The choice is only one you can make for yourself, Toosmart.
~LeFeen~
I really like that quote. It shows me how far I have come in the last few months. There was a time that it would have bothered me. I would have felt the need to justify myself. I tried so hard to tell myself that somehow this was different. Somehow what I felt took away all of the rules.
I really liked the quotes on your profile too. The Dr. Suess is one of my favorites.
Thanks!!!....kc
<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
YES you are .....but keep posting here and you WILL find strength.
Stay in touch,
ARTIST
Too
I think you simply have not hit rock bottom yet, but when you do it will end because you will be done with it and no excuses offered by him or YOU will make a difference.
The fact that your ending it repeatedly over a period of time suggests that you are slowly inching toward BEING DONE, it takes time, there is no right speed to get there.
Just know and believe that it will happen.
Be well
sometimes...we keep taking the calls...or end up making the contact..because we are so bent on "proving" that we really did care...that we aren't heartless...that it meant something and we keep looking to see if it was "something" to them.
At some point...someone has to stop because keeping the contact...doesn't give them is wanted.
At some point...that proof is either falling on deaf ears, or is a one-sided fantasy or is destructive to the other enough for them to stop. Sometimes two people together who need the attention more than a healthy relationship, never seem to let one of those people be the stopper.
Sometimes it is let go to a point of embarrassment for one of the people or disgust from another.
DONT LET IT GET TO THAT POINT. You will know when you have, but usually its then left at a very ugly point, destructive point, or extremely damaging point. ugh.
Be the stopper. FINALLY WILL SOMEONE PLEASE JUST ....STOP. (thats the gist of what I am getting to..that that "DONE" thing has to be done by SOMEONE. Men are better at it...women are usually the reciever of it...but it doesn't have to be that way especially if the male is really a coward and a narcissist. It will not negate that YOU felt something, loved someone, weren't heartless. If it mattered to the other, they know that. If it didn't matter to the other, it isn't changing a thing. IT WONT CHANGE A THING IF YOU STOP TALKING TO THEM FOREVER...its the realization of this..that is the painful part you may be avoiding. It sucks not to be special or needed or really cared about when that is what you feel about someone else. The reality of it is that once you stop the contact and have to grieve, and grieving the grief (if you know what i mean) ...is hard. You don't want to believe that this was fruitless. You really do grieve that you have to be the one to stop it too and think that perhaps you didnt give it one last chance.
When is that one last chance and would it make a difference? It scary to think that it wouldn't. Thats a grief on all its own too.
I am someone who gives everything until its dying breath. Know when the body is cold and cpr isn't going to help...otherwise you are left with just looking foolish, meanwhile life is walking by looking down on you and wondering why you are wasting your time...again fool.
Time is the only thing given to us freely. Hope or Help is what we give to ourselves. Find out when to quit hoping for the ressurection of that dead thing and when to start helping yourself...you are only putting off the envitable when deflecting the rejection. Don't deflect...make it be over once and for all..NC, you heartfelt love pumpin' beast you. Go REWARD someone else WHO DESERVES IT when you are ready.
Hope this makes sense,
Lizzie
Wow.
This was a great post.
Every minute that we are all here - EVEN JUST WRITING ABOUT HOW WE MISS THEM - is a moment we could have been reading something interesting, talking to a friend, cleaning, cooking, watching TV, sleeping, and it is a moment that delays our progress to get over them. It is a moment we won't get back. It is a moment that prevents us from getting on with the rest of out lives.
Very true.
I think the knowledge that one day we will not care that we don't love them is actually a very scary thought. I think alot of us want to keep the pain and the love alive because its all we have left.
But we all just have to realize as you said, we are giving CPR to a cold body.
Thanks.
Ivy
toosmart,
I was in mine for 9 years (working on several weeks on limited contact now since we work together). I am beginning to believe that if the A goes on for more than the standard 2 years or so that you have to do something *BIG* to get out of it.
When it goes on for more than 4-5 years, no one finds out (i.e. to force it to stop), and both partners become "comfortable" (I use this term loosely since there is a lot of pain), that something major will have to be done to stop it.
It may mean moving, changing jobs, and/or seeing a T (hitting rock bottom can be considered something major too). Even with moving or changing jobs it can still go on and a lot of times does. The real solution has to come from one of you. Someone must wake up. It seems like you're starting to. I think Free was saying you're closer now, inching there, because you've broken up more times within the last year.
Mine came on my birthday when I realized I'd been doing this almost a decade and I was miserable. The A was not just a "passing thing" - it had taken up more than 1/4 of my life span. It had become my adult life (this was scary to me since I never really believed this was who I was).
I also realized *I* would never find happiness as long as I was doing this and not solving my problem(s). My kids were also part of the decision... when I read that they can sense the distance even with "no one knowing" it did hit home. But mostly, I didn't do it for my M, although that was on the list of course... I'm doing this for me - so I am a happier person.
Are you ready to break free? Ready to make a happier life for yourself? I often think about what it will be like when I celebrate being married 25 years... I will feel badly enough to have this large bruise on my marriage, but I knew I didn't want to celebrate it *still* doing this. I don't want to look back at 15 years in an A that has gone no where and caused me lots of pain. I want to look back knowing a made a huge mistake, wasted a ton of time, caused myself undue pain, broke the most basic and innocent trust - BUT woke up before I spent my whole adult life doing it.
Take the time to flash forward and think about how you want to "look back on your life." This is what woke me up.
Good luck and keep posting, WIP
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