help! yo-yo break up, no contact issue
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help! yo-yo break up, no contact issue
| Fri, 06-25-2004 - 1:22pm |
I recently broke up with my bf of 3 years and I am looking for help to get through this. I read the posts on "it literally hurts" and everyone talks about "no contact" after a break up. I don't really understand this and was wondering if I could read some more stories. I guess I need to be walked through this. My bf and I broke up once (see "do you agree with me?" for the details) but we got back together because we tried to be friends right afterwards and the feelings were still there. It didn't work and now we have broken up again. I am sure this time I have learned from this yo-yo relationship where we get pulled back in and break up, pulled back in and break up. The thing is, I really want to be friends right away because I guess I fear that a couple of months down the line we will have gone our separate ways and perhaps forget about each other. I feel like if we have no contact during this time right after we broke up, we will drift farther and farther apart. BUT, is this just a sign that I'm not over him or do I really not want to lose him as a friend? I can't distinguish. Is this a normal thing to feel after a breakup, that you do not want to lose him, or do I really not want to lose him for the person he is? I consider him my first love and so I don't really know how to deal with this break up and was wondering if people could share what's in store for me in a couple of months?

I am going thru the same thing and for me - I think I want to be friends right away to keep the relationship somehow afloat because i do want to get back together with him. I know we shouldn't because in our yo-yo, we've gotten back together 3 times already (he always breaks it off with me because he says it is too intense - even after 3 years!). I wish I wasn't feeling that way but I cannot help it - actually, I probably give in to those feelings and if I just recognized that it was bad news to try again, I'd get over it. I do love him despite all the crap he's put me through.
Good luck, I know how tough this is!!!!
you said:"Is this a normal thing to feel after a breakup, that you do not want to lose him, or do I really not want to lose him for the person he is? I consider him my first love and so I don't really know how to deal with this break up and was wondering if people could share what's in store for me in a couple of months?"
honey! its TOTALLY completely normal! it would be abnormal for you to just walk away without caring at all. but...you MUST have some time apart if you ever want to be friends. hasnt your yo-yo experience showed you that you cant go straight into being friends? thing is, you cant stop loving somebody. yoru feelings dont just disappear. with time and distance, youd evelop the perspective to realize yoru relationship ended for some legitimate and good reasons, that you're truly not meant for the long haul, that you've learned a lot and you're glad for the experience but that there is more out there.
without any distance3 from that relaitonship you wont really learn anything, you're stuck in one place, just like a yo yo, back and forth, no real progress.
i want to console you by telling you that not talking to him for a little while now does NOT at ALL mean "goodbye forever". and as for "I fear that a couple of months down the line we will have gone our separate ways and perhaps forget about each other". you'll never forget each other sweetheart, esp if you were each others' first loves! going your separate ways might be vital to your recovery and your peace of mind, at least temporarily.
No Contact is temporary. MANY people stay in touch with their exes after a break up, but the first few months after a break up are the hardest and its essential after this time that you separate yourself form the situation, grow and learn to be independent again. slowly you will learn to accept that your relationship is over, and that as much as you love this person, you no longer have what you used to have. good things ALWAYS come out of a break up, but endings are sad.
i guess my advice is for you to try your best to find the strength to cut the contact for a little while. you may in a few months be able to email or im a little, maybe you'll be able to see each other without feeling like your heart was in your stomach and you thougth you were going to die. but you cant do that right away. you must get out of this cycle that you are in right now, because it could prove toxic. you could just string each other along and never really be able to move on, and thats unfair to both of you.
everybody i know who broke up and cut contact for a few months not only 1)felt better sooner 2)moved on sooner and 3)were later able to have at least SOME kind of friendship with their exes but also those i know who attempted to go straight into friendship had drama, unhappiness, and very very drawn out break ups. it took some of my friends years after they had broken up with their bf's to realy move forward because they spent so much time fighting and being miserable even after the break up.
i also promise you taht although the no contact is REALLY hard, it gets better with a little time. at first yes, it feel slike you're dying without this person, but a few weeks go by, a few months go by, and each day gets better. this is a very hard climb but its one that you will be thankful to yourself if you attempt it. and while you're out of contact, while you're yearning for him and feeling lonely, you should post here, let us share our stories and experiences, and support you--you dont have to go through this alone.
my ex and i broke up almost 4 months ago after an amazing relationship. we have been almost 100% out of contact; we have exchanged a few emails just to say "hi" and he sent me an article he thought i'd dig, i sent him the link to this event i thought he'd enjoy attending. these gestures were small attempts at civility, each of us trying to say "look, i dont hate you...please dont hate me...". what we're doing here is laying the foundation for somesort of friendship in the distant future. what we're doing here is making sure that if we DO ever run into each other, if we DO ever hang out, we'll be okay, it'll hurt of course, but we'll be okay. im confident that we will be, and im confident that 1 day i will meet a guy who even surpasses my ex, because my standards are that high.
if not for the no contact i KNOW i would not have come as far as i did. no contact and posting on this board--2 things that really helped get me through my break up. i think they'd be the best thing fo ryou too.
No contact is the only way to get through a breakup, especially if you ended it and want to stick to your resolve. No contact means no communication, particularly no phone calls, no in-person meetings, no booty calls, no IM'ing, and really no email or letters or cards exchanged. You may some day be able to relate to him in a new capacity, as friends or acquaintances or whatever. But you had an intimate committed relationship, it is hard for that to change overnight. And continued contact leads you into repeating some of the same patterns and behaviors that echo when you were together, which is confusing and sends mixed messages and doesn't signal to both of you that there has been a break.
I broke up with my recent ex twice, once last year (well, he broke up with me). Last year we tried for a bit to hang out as friends. But it was weird not to touch him or get into the car with him and go home together, and he'd do things like remind me to take my birth control pill at my usual time and it freaked me out, it was weird, what did it mean, it was a painful reminder of our connection and our current situation. We tried the friends thing, but first we had a couple of weeks of really intense and uncomfortable conversations about the breakup, which almost always ended with us both in tears or both enraged. It is incredibly painful to talk about the end of love with someone, to try to reason why you don't love them and defend yourself from them, or to have to keep hurting someone by repeating that you don't love them. Searching for everything that went wrong, attacking each other, pleading for reconsideration, endlessly examining the relationship and drawing out the emotional drama, that is a horrible experience. No contact prevents that. And even though "just friends" may seem like a good idea, it takes a long time to be comfortable being friends after you've been lovers, and it may not ever happen for some people, based on why their relationship ended. So, no contact is easier for everyone, rather than trying to struggle with residual feelings and attraction but still enforce the friends boundaries. Last year, we ended up with no contact, it was easier for us both to let it drop for a while, and it let us both get a good perspective on the relationship and our respective contributions to the breakup (lessons learned).
No contact preserves your dignity (few or no drunk dials, embarassing weepy conversations, angry or bitter talks, whatever). It gives your partner the opportunity to preserve his/her dignity - something just really pisses me off to hear ladies on this board say that their exes are sympathetic for what they're going through, are trying to comfort them, are condescendingly telling them they'll be okay. It's painful to be devastated and have the person who did it to you see how pathetic you are. Plus, continued contact fans the flames, your voice, the sight of your name on an email, all of those things are like little stabs of pain and pleasure to the person who wants to reconcile, it's not fair to do that. No contact gives you peace, without the continued drama of the breakup, and lets you resolve your emotions. It also places the focus on you and your healing. I hear too many women talking about what he's doing, how he's feeling, what mental demons he's wrestling with. That's just still emotional dependence on him, continued fixation on him. When he is a total mystery to you, has vanished out of your life, you have to think about you and getting yourself through it, and to heck with him. You can't help him through the breakup, he has to do it on his own, it is not an appropriate role for you to play.
Anyway, long message, but no contact is a life saver. I thought it would be impossible, but I think it is like withdrawal - you have a few weeks of intense symptoms, of breaking the habit, you want/need to call, you get jittery not hearing from him, but eventually it smooths out and you get used to it and it seems so peaceful. It seems more frightening than it is. I regret contact and almost-contact far more than I regret no contact. No contact allows you to heal and to get to a place where you can really come to terms with the loss. You can always reestablish contact some day, it's not like he's being whisked off to Mars in a month and you have to get all the contact in. He'll still be around in 6 months or a year or whenever you feel comfortable just dropping him a line to say hi. But your feeling that he'll "slip away" if you don't have contact, that is a troubling thing. Of course he'll slip away from you emotionally - you cast him off, you decided to end it. It's only normal and right that he move on, and move away from you. If your impulse to maintain contact is to maintain a connection, that is, frankly, a cruel thing to do to someone after you've broken his heart by leaving. You should not try to keep him tied to you. It's better for him and better for you for you each to reestablish separate lives. If you can be friends some day, it will be on different terms, not an extension of your having been lovers. That's a connection that has to be developed on its own, love doesn't really morph into friendship, you have to give it time apart and then decide if you serve any purpose in each others' lives as friends and establish a new connection there and a new way of relating to each other that has nothing to do with how you related as lovers.
its so hard to hang on and think positve, because the pain is just so unbearable...there are times when i just stare without even knowing it and just cry, i feel so alone even with family and friends, i started looking for advices about getting over someone until i came across this message board...you were talking about no contact and that was a very strong decision you made, he just cvalle me up this morning asking to be friends and i said i cannot be friends with him with all this anger in my heart, i dont want him to think of me as the bitther girl who he broke up with, it was so hard to tell him that i dont want to be friends right now i almost gave in. but just like what you said no contact is always good to heal the heart and take away the hatred.
Its going to be so hard because i really loved him, its going to be a long road to recovery but with all the strength i have and with allthe patience i think i have i know i will recover. your right when you said post messages because it takes away a little bit of the pain whenever i post, of course the pain is still there, but at least this is wher i can vent. Strangers sometimes are the best listeners.