Valentine's Weekend

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2005
Valentine's Weekend
10
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 1:10pm

... and i am alone again. i think valentines is almost as bad as christmas for a single girl in love with a MM. i haven't seen my MM for 4 weeks now, though we talk every day. i keep reading through posts about NC being the only way but i just can't bring myself to do it. available men continue to approach me, ask me out. i don't want anyone else. i am starting to feel like i am totally alone. i could go out every weekend with an interesting new man but i don't want to. i cannot recall ever feeling as emotionally drained, as empty, as sad. am i sadder after the affair? is this worse than when i was with him? do i go back to my MM? i cannot be the only person thinking this. especially this weekend, of all weekends.

debbi

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 1:56pm

hi debbie,

i feel the same way too, but hang in there, OW ended our affair last Sunday, i had no contact at all for 2 day, although we work together i try to avoid her at work

yes , she ended it on Sunday but she could have picked a better time, anyways , any time is a good time i guess, yes i feel sad and lonely, the worst is i gave her a valentines gift and she accepted it but i did insist, am i a fool or what ??

like u i refuse to go out and meet eligible women, women who are single, it crazy huh !! ;)

u still talk to him, so it means its still not over totally, i think it was Lizzie who told me that the more we keep contact the more hurt we are since we feel rejected by OW/OM/MM

hey, Valentines day is actually a conspiracy betweeen the flower growers and the card makers of the world, it was also a day when the Pope ordered the death of the Knights Templars, the crusaders for the Holy War/Grail so its actually not a day of love

everyday should be valentines day

i know how u feel but everytime u feel the urge to call him or email him or text him, just post on this board and u will feel much better , everyday i hope it gets better

can i ask u a question ? do u feel more miserable when u were having an affair with him that being more happy, while i was with OW i was more miserable than happy coz we could not spend a lot of time together

hang in there, rent a funny movie, Dogdeball is a funny movie or Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, call some friends, dont stay home and wallow in self pity or whatever( looks who is talking)

hey get a manicure and pedicure and a facial treatment, endulge yourself, maybe ill go shopping later, i need to do laundry too and ill iron my clothes just to keep busy too

take care,
max

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2005
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 3:10pm

hi max

definately more miserable away from him than with him. when we were together i could at least count days until i'd see him again. now i have nothing to count but how long it's been. the difference here is that i ended the A, not my MM. i ended it because it was beginning to consume me and i knew it was wrong. still, i was not as unhappy in it as i am now.

debbi

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 3:26pm

hi debbie,

did u eat lunch already, make sure u eat and dont neglect your health, i did it before and neglected my health when i feel so bad about OW that i got sick, got depress and was on meds

well u made a choice, now u have to stick with it, i think u made the right choice, u said it yourself, it was consuming you, u know in the end that it will not work, and yes we still hold on to hope that it will work

you are both married ? more people will get hurt

me, i did not want to end the affair, i want to win her and convince her to be with me, it was the only thing in my mind while we were together, although i did not spoke ill of her situation , i only showed her how much i care, never spoke bad about the father of her daughter or her situation at all

try to do stuff, anything, study, i know its hard to concentrate

im 39 yrs old and im acting like a child or a teenager, no clue how to cope with it

max

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-16-2004
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 3:40pm

Hiya Debbismiles,

With a little tweaking of perspective, your post could read as follows...

It's Valentine's Day weekend and having lost the baggage which never really belonged to me, I am young, free & single. I loved myself enough to set myself free of an unhealthy reltionship so *this* Valentine's weekend I am going to celebrate by spoiling & pampering *myself* because I deserve it.

It's been four whole weeks since I saw **enter name here***'s husband. I am beginning to understand that **enter name here**'s husband is exactly where he wants to be and equally as important I am beginning to understand that I deserve a relationship with someone who doesn't just say he loves me but *shows* me as well as the rest of the world just how much he loves me.

I recognise that NC is something about which I have choice. I can easily find a hundred reasons to contact **enter name here**'s husband. I only need a single reason to *NOT* contact him.

Were **enter name here**'s husband my friend, he would not have been so eager for me to see me leave my morals & integrity at the door. Were I **enter name here**'s husband's friend, our friendship would happily include his wife. From here on, I choose to call "friend" only those who would encourage and ask the best of me rather than dragging the worst from me. From here on, I choose to be the "friend" I would wish to have and ask & encourage only the best of those I call "friend," and never the worst in them.

I know there is no weakness, there are only poor choices, decisions and actions. By choosing NC, I choose to tell **enter name here*'s husband that I respect him, I respect his choice and that I respect myself enough not to settle for anything less than all the good that I deserve.

Rather than feeling alone or lonely, I am beginning to feel self-sufficiency. It feels a little strange and awkward, but with practice it will come to feel natural to me again. I am beginning to rely on myself again rather than hoping someone will validate or even simply take care of me. Rather than being proud of whoever's arm I am on, or whose ring is upon my finger, I wish to feel pride in who *I* am and in what *I* have accomplished.

I could choose to go out with a new interesting man every day of the week if I wanted to do so, but I choose to spend this time healing, reflecting and learning the lessons from my previous relationship with someone who was not free to be with me. Learning these lessons is difficult, it's painful in the way that personal growth is often painful.

I could possibly re-establish an inappropriate relationship with **enter name here**'s husband, however, if I simply repeat the same mistakes over & over, then even though it might feel good for a short time, essentially I cheat myself of the valuable lessons to be learned. And worse, I cheat myself of personal growth.

This weekend, of all weekends, I choose to walk towards the honesty & illumination of the light rather than hiding in the secrecy & lies of the darkness a moment longer. This weekend I begin to look forward rather than back. This weekend is for me, for my budding self-awareness & for my personal growth and I will carry the lessons learned this weekend with me on my journey forward.

Strength & peace,
Posie

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2005
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 4:13pm

wow.

posie ... that was amazing. i read it over again twice and i cannot deny anything you've said. you are absolutely right. got anything in your bag of tricks to address the overwhelming sense of missing him? i'm close to wanting to see him again just to ease the aching, even though i know i should not.

debbi

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-16-2004
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 4:44pm

Hiya Debbi,

The short answer is...there are no shortcuts. There is no bag of tricks.

If you simply avoid the pain by returning to the source of it, you only wind up adding to it. I managed to keep adding to it for nearly 4yrs. Hopefully you'll catch on a bit quicker than I did. ;)

Know that the pain is a natural outgrowth of this experience. Feel it, acknowledge it. Seeing/speaking/emailing/texting/IMing/sending smoke signals/dispatching specially trained carrier pigeons just slaps another short term bandaid on the ouchie and means you get to rip off that bandaid all over again a short time later.

If it was unbearable enough that you felt the need to end it, then what exactly has changed? How have your reasons for ending it been resolved? Returning to him basically tells him your big stand in ending it was nothing but a ploy to manipulate him into a decision he wasn't prepared to make and since it was unsuccessful you'll just eagerly accept whatever scraps he's willing to throw your way. It says quite clearly that I do not respect myself so I do not require you to respect me, either.

Each time you set boundaries and fail to maintain them, you lose a little more of your "self." The boundaries shift ever backwards until you realise that you're willing to accept less & less until you notice the goalposts are nowhere you would have ever knowingly accepted placing them yourself. Our self worth/self esteem simply erodes slowly over time until we have a hard time recognising who looks back at us in the mirror.

You have the ability, you have the power in your own hands to stop this erosion. You choose when enough is too much for you, Debbi. And you choose when you want to regain who you are and add to that the lessons this experience has taught you. You can put it off indefinitely. Or you can seize the bull by the horns.

Your choices, decisions and actions have brought you right here. Ghandi instructed us to `be the change we wish to see.' Change begins with ourselves since we can only ever change ourselves.

Only you can decide when you've had enough, when you've lost enough of your "self," or when your self-esteem has been eroded sufficiently to choose a different path than the one you're on right now.

Strength & peace,
Posie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Sat, 02-12-2005 - 10:44pm

"Each time you set boundaries and fail to maintain them, you lose a little more of your "self." The boundaries shift ever backwards until you realise that you're willing to accept less & less until you notice the goalposts are nowhere you would have ever knowingly accepted placing them yourself. Our self worth/self esteem simply erodes slowly over time until we have a hard time recognising who looks back at us in the mirror" <<<<

hi posiepops,

this is so true, everytime OW ends the affair( she tried many time b4) and she would come back to me and i woould accept her back, there is less and less , there was less time she spent with me and i still accpeted it, i was more miserable than happy when i was with her,

it was not healthy , i knew it but i still did it, why i did it i dont know, maybe the feeling of being not alone

max

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-09-2004
Mon, 02-14-2005 - 3:02pm
Hi debbie, no you are not the only one that thinks that way, I too am single and feel so alone. I want so much to see him or even talke to him but I too broke n/c ( while ago) snd we or I should say I had a argument with him on his birthday which was fri. he was suppose to come by on his wat to the Gym, I had made him a Boston Cream Pie(his favorite), he works outside so I had 2 thermas's one with hot choc and the other with milk and of course enough for the guys he works for. well no show no call, so I text message him and let him know what a s### I thought that was he rang my phone once.. thats his way of saying hey, but no call and here it is valentines day and not even a ring on my phone. I have'nt called him and I won't. I keep trying the n/c but I slip. and yes i am just as sad with him as I asm without him. I know how you feel you have my symapthy and I feel your pain,
write me any time as like I said I'm single and it's different than those who have families.
Kat
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Mon, 02-14-2005 - 6:24pm

hey kat, debbie,

i too am single (male), feel lonely too and sad today, i let OW win and control me again, i went home after about 5 hrs at work, i feel so uncomfortable at work knowing she is less than 30 feet away from me

we are not alone, lonely maybe but not alone, we have friends, and the people in this board are our family also, i kept posting here to keep my sanity, i tried meds and counselling but all did not work, i guess its up to me now

anyways, we can all listen to each other, we are not alone

max

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-01-2004
Tue, 02-15-2005 - 9:48am

<<>>

Perfectly put Posie.

I had a nearly 3 year A, in which the last half of it was spent breaking up and making up. I realized that each time I would let him talk himself back into my life, I was showing him that there was always a way back in, therefore, the next time I'd threaten a break up, it was taken less seriously by him because I am sure he was thinking to himself "I'll get her back". So, I put an end to that revolving cycle and for 6 months, have refused all offers to see him. Even when he called me to see him for his birthday a few weeks ago, I didn't cave, because I knew that going would have indicated to him that the door was still opened a crack, and men like that have the damnest way of prying it open when they feel their ego is at risk.

I think the reality of the breakup for him is finally sinking in, because I haven't been out to a place I love going for the past several months because he was part of my social circle in that place. I had always threatened in the past to stop going, but never followed thru, so he stopped taking me seriously. He didn't think I would stop going because he knew it was something I really enjoyed. Now that he sees I am holding strong to both not seeing him, and not going someplace where I had always enjoyed, he's seeing the finality of the A.

If you keep drawing lines in the sand, but keep moving them, nothing will ever change. He didn't change a thing for me because he realized he didn't have to. I'd still be there hoping he'd say the right thing, and I kid myself thinking he meant it. Maybe he did, but words started getting old, so unless I saw real change, I wasn't going back. Now it's too late for change. If he were to suddenly make changes now, it wouldn't mean a thing to me..having to be backed into a corner before doing something, isn't how I want any relationship of mine to be.