confused and heartbroken

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2004
confused and heartbroken
12
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 12:39pm
Not sure how to begin but here it goes..... I met my boyfriend 6 years ago. When I met him he was seperated for 8 months. We became really good friends and I helped him out through his seperation and then divorce. He has 2 wonderful children whom I made my own. After 3 years of our friendship we became more then friends and finally admitted our love for each other. We were inseperable, and so very happy. The only thing he missed was his children, he only could see them every second weekend because we lived in a different city. Our rides back home were sad, you could tell that every second weekend wasn't enough for him. When his ex left him the kids were 5 and 6 and now they are 11 and 12. This past year for us have been nothing but wonderful, we were making plans for our future together he couldn't tell me enough how much he loved me and how he finally knows what the feeling of being loved was all about. His realtionship with his ex was always about money, she could never hold a job and was always asking him for money. In the 6 years I've known him he has never said one nice thing about her. Anyways One day his ex calls him crying and she has split up with her fiance that she was with 2 weeks after she had left my boyfriend 6 years ago. Well she wants him back, she told him how much she misses him and how wrong she was to ever leave him, and 3 days later he decided to give her a second chance. He told me he wants his family back, he wants his kids under his roof and no one elses. He said this was his chance to get his kids back. He was leaving me to be with her. I am so devasted about this all, I can't seem to focus on anything else, I'm confused and so emotional. He told me that they (she and the kids) will be moving down this summer. I know his kids mean so much to him but what about her, he said to me that she told him that she's a changed person, and he wants to give her that chance. I'm finding difficult to get over this. It seems that every day is getting harder. Why is this all happening?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 12:58pm
This is all happening becuase of "rebound".

When he met you, even in platonic friendship venue, he was "on the rebound". He wasn't yet an etsablished, secure, succesful, complete, independent happy man in a life and lifestyle that he had created - he'd have never "been happy" about the situation with his children, but that wouldn't have been determining his life and his reality.

All that has happened is thru this friendship and relationship he's put his fears, doubts, insecurities, anxieties, and anger about the divorce, and his custody situation - on hold, or on the back burner. Your desire for him make him feel good about himself, your sympathy for him made him feel "right and justified", the ability to have the convenience, comfort, security, assurance, and support of you in all ways let him know that "whatever he wanted as right" - in short, he could do no wrong.

And he got with you becuase his "life was going to be great if you were in it"....but that didn't address him coming to terms with the divorce, or the shared custody agreement. And shared custody means that every other weekend, an every holiday, and every special event you're confronted with the reality that you don't have your children with you - at least not without hassle and dtrouble.

HE was with a woman that "had his kids" and never had a job and was always in need of money - that otld you he wanted someone to rescue and save - he'd have never been wtih her if that wasn't the case. The "need" to be needed like that is enormous if personal issues aren't addressed, and it means you need crisis and chaos in order to "feel good about yourself".

Your self-sufficient and responsible life and your desire for him wasn't enough to overcome his insecurities.

So, let it go...as hard as it is. Because there were other creative solutions and he didn't seek them. He easily could have moved her to his location (not his house) and married you, parented his children daily, by assisting her financially in her living nearby enough so that they could be in his proximity - he didn't pursue that.

HE could have moved to her area, gotten another job, and been near his children to parent daily, while still being able to marry you. He didn't consider that.

Time is considered a great "healer" becuase it is a softener of the "harsh reality". Life with her was more chaotic and tumultuous than time will let him remember, and time has intensified his awareness that his children are growing up with him, and depriving him of the joy of parenting. Time doesn't "heal" anything - it simply intensifies or pacifies perceptions.

Let it go, move on.

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2004
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 1:31pm
Thanks for your response, he actually did ask her to move to where we are with the kids, and he was actually willing to give her his house help her finacally and he was going to

move in with me. She declined because she said it would be to hard for her to see him and I together. From there is where she told him she wanted him back. Yes I know I need to let it go, but I guess what hurts the most is he's left me alone and scared while he's just simply moved on with her and has forgotten me and how much he has hurt me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 1:45pm
A difference perspective might help.

When he was with you he wasn't necessarily with "you" as an individual. He was with you as an entity the love, acceptance, desire, comfort, convenience, ease, security, benefits, alliance -he was wtih 'all that blanket entity" - it just had a nice outward covering of your body.

But, he simply used that blanket of all those things that you provided - to cover, sheield, and hide from "his problems". He didn't like thinking about his kids growing up wtihout him, he didn't want to get a divorce (alot of people consider it a failure to get a divorce - but can remain indefinitely separated becuase that suits them just fine). He didn't want to create a great life by his own independent means, definitions, efforts, and standards....he simply ran from the obligations there...to the security of you.

And he got his ego stroked, his pride stitched up, his needs met, his wants attended to with your efforts, actions, and ministrations to him.....butthat didn't fix the fact he wasn't a complete, whole, personally defined and achieved person with his own identity.

He identifies with "entities" - she's his wife, those are his children his "role" there is one he understands and wants...although it is destructive to him with that particular woman, he doesn't mind - he wants the 'role and responsibility'.

HE didn't just forget about you - you were a wonderfully healing nurse that allowed him to live for awhile...unfortunately, he likes chaos, turmoil, combat, and confrontation - so he's going back into a war zone.

Which is why when it wears him down - you don't need to be anywhere in the vicinity because he looks at you as a source of providership of ease, comfort, convenience, benefit, security, assistance, and support.

You do need to be all that - to someone who wants to share a life with you - not someone who wants you to give them all that so that they can go out onto fields of "relationship combat" and get reinjured and come wanting more from you,, while offering nothing to you.

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2004
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 3:28pm
Your pretty amazing with your words. As sick as I feel about this whole thing that is happening to me, you seem to shed a new perspective on this. As they all say time heals all. It's just wanting that time to come quick. I am finding it hard to get through each day, weekends are the worst. I'm tired of crying and thinking about him every minute of the day. God the amount of thoughts I have in my head about her and him and the kids. I just want this to go away. I want to say thanks for taking the time to write.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 3:34pm
But time served isn't time well spent. Time doesn't heal anything or change anything..but it certainly blurs, intensifies or lessens things - based on where you are in the equation.

A relationship isn't going to give you a life that you odn't go out and get for yourself, it won't make you become someone that you're already not.

HE thouoght "time' with you and getting all the 'goodness' of that would make him want to stick with you, that would make him not regret raising his children...time iddn't do that.

Time won't "heal you"......you won't become anything you don't make of yourself, a relationship doens't make you what you're not already, you've got to become who you want to be - to fully have great life.

A relationship isn't a goal.....if you have great life it'll be an enhancement because you'll choose a partner that shares you interests, goals, values, and definitions of a great life and how to achieve it. Youo'll know your life is great and you want someone to 'share it with" - meaning they need to be like you already and you'll know that and be attracted to it.

And if a relationship is going ot "make you what you're not", provide you iwth an identity and a source of security and happiness....whwat you're saying is that I"m going to go around being a servant, a slave, a provider, and a non-identifiable entity, clinging to whoever will accept my offers, so that i can live by their standards, and for their goals, while my needs go unaddressed and considered irrelevant.

You won't treat anybody better than you treat yourself...and you won't be treated by others any better than you teach them to treat you.

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2003
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 3:56pm
Sorry you have to go through this. Part of getting through it is allowing yourself to grieve. Grieve for what might have been, for what you hoped would have been, for what could have been.... for the end of a dream, an end to the future as you saw it.

You've had a great shock. Sorry for your loss.


Carrie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2004
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 3:58pm
But how do I become who I want to be. I don't even know who I am anymore.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 4:14pm
Then there wasn't a "you" to begin with. I fyou're a chameleon - ever changing your priorities, values, goals, ideas, and pursuits to suit the "person that's in your life" - you're a chameleon.

Without a someone - you're a nobody. And that is condemning you to live at the standards, level, by the values and goals and priorities of other people, to meet their needs...with your "base need" being "to be of service so that you'll be included and accepted."

That's codependent thinking and behavior. Nobody that likes you as a person, respects your accomplishments, and values and your priorities wants you to stop being you - to be with them. And if there is no - the only people that'll have you are people that expect, want and require you to be "of service to them" - while they do nothing but benefit at your expense.

What did you do about "having a life" prior to this relationship? Was there a previous relationship and you just jumped right into this one?

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2004
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 4:38pm
No I wasn't in a relationship prior to this one. I was always out and about with friends and family, I was pretty single when I met him. And really for the first 3 years of our friendship we dated other people. We were friends for the first 3 years and I also lived in another city during our friendship. I moved to where he was 3 years almost 4 years ago now. When I moved we became even closer and then fell inlove. I have some friends and family here also but not like I do back home. I guess for me this is starting completely over in a new city without him which is why I think I'm so scared and devastated. At the time of my move I was being promoted and transfered to the same city. I accepted knowing he was here.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 03-01-2004 - 4:52pm
Okay, you accepted a promotion and relocation knowing he was there....but if it was "because he was there" - that was pretty foolish on your part.

If you love the job, that's great. Relocation to a new city is going to be a great opportunity for personal growth and empowerment. What do you like to do - besides hang out with family and friends? Because that is really just an extension of the "you" that was with him...if that is all you do. You go to where peple you know are, so that you can be among them an accepted, and pursue whatever they do to get that acceptance and be of assistance?

If tomorrow there was no opportunity ever to have a relationship for eternity - what would you pursue, attempt, try or do...then go start doing that.....because you're all you've got, and you're all you need.

And in becoming that complete person that knows that....you're quite likely to find someone that admires and respects who you are - not tolerates you if you're of benefit to them.

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

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