for those struggling with no contact

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2004
for those struggling with no contact
7
Tue, 07-13-2004 - 3:14pm
For anyone struggling with the urge to contact your ex, I was reading an article in the NY Times about therapy strategies for people with compulsive behavioral problems, like self-harming or eating disorders. Not to say that your urge to call is on the same level as that, but the big approach in therapy is this:

"One thing patients learn very early, for instance, is to notice when their emotions begin to stir, allow themselves to feel the storm whip up, then let it pass - all without doing anything. This Zen-like self-observation, called mindfulness, is an exercise not in avoidance but in feeling and enduring emotional pain. It dramatizes one principle of the therapy: that what patients do can be independent of how they feel. Emotion does not have to rule behavior.

....

While other clinicians might advise patients to fight, ignore or question their distressing emotions to defuse the sensations, dialectical therapists argue that those strategies are not much good. Most patients have already tried managing despair and loneliness in these ways, and they can't do it." Instead, people with intense emotions find greater relief simply experiencing them, *but not acting* on them. They feel greater self-confidence and control after the storm, when they can be proud that they did not act on the emotions.

Anyway, I just wanted to post that, because it has been a recurring theme on the boards, that you may feel an intense need to contact your ex because of the pain, loneliness, or despair, but doing nothing is your best strategy. It seems almost impossible to just weather your emotions, sometimes, but there is a payout. Anyway, I guess it's just something that validates people's advice to have no contact, because that urge for contact is based on an almost primitive feeling of an intense need to act on your emotions, and there's clinical support for the theory that the need to call will pass and you'll feel better for not acting on it.

Another point in the article that supports people's advice to get out and try to stay active:

"The theory is that by acting differently from how they feel - projecting confidence when afraid, say, or indifference when ashamed - people loosen the hold of the emotion even though its origins have not necessarily been addressed." So, the grief, fear, anger, loss, whatever, becomes less compelling over you if you can act for periods of time as if you're having a good time, even if "faking" happiness seems like too much of an effort, it's probably worth a try.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 07-13-2004 - 3:24pm
Or in 12-step - because everybody in every one of those programs is "emotionally driven" vs. goal focused and factually assessing when they walk in the rooms in the beginning...

Feelings are NOT facts, goals, calls to action, thoughts, beliefs, or used to determine what to do in situations to get specific results.

Have the feelings...but do not try to manage, manipulate, or utilize the feelings. They're fleeting - they're ever changing they're a result of the situation and your perception of it as it is at this moment...and situations are always changing with actions, decisions, and words only a fraction of which are yours to control.

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-07-2004
Tue, 07-13-2004 - 4:48pm
Excellent post Milton33!!

I have tried that myself (not in this particular 'ex' situation) but in other situations -actually immersing myself and letting myself feel whatever fear or anxiety I am going through. It's almost like turning into the spin when your car gets out of control - fighting it only worsens the situation.

On another note - would you mind updating the group on your situation? Have you kept up the no contact? Is he still attempting to contact you?

Thanks!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2004
Tue, 07-13-2004 - 11:33pm
Well, last Monday he called, out of the blue, after three months without contact. (Actually, that's not totally true - he emailed me on what would have been our anniversary, but I never read it. I still haven't. His last email prior to that was that he hated me and our relationship was awful, so I wasn't really into any more drama.) I only answered the phone without looking at caller ID because I was in the car on my way out of town for trial, and assumed it had something to do with that. We talked for almost an hour about absolutely nothing. I've never heard from him again. I was pretty busy this last week, and a verdict just came in on my case today. We didn't win, exactly, but we represent a defendant enormous corporation, and we didn't lose very badly, if that makes sense. My brilliance got the theories of recovery whittled down, so where about 20 folks had started asking for millions, they got just over $150k, which is quite a bit less than our last offer to settle the case. So, the client was pleased, the opposing counsel was crushed, and my managing partner took me out to dinner and bought the trial team a couple of pitchers of margaritas.

So, anyway, a lot on my mind besides him. All I'll say about that call, though, because I've posted about it elsewhere, is it was bizarre because it was about absolutely nothing, there was no agenda, there was no reference to the breakup (or even to "us"), there was no "let's be friends," he was reluctant to hang up (even though he wasn't saying why he'd called, he kept up with "one more thing" for almost a half hour after I started trying to get him off the line), and he told me about his holiday weekend in hour-by-hour detail, down to spending the weekend with his parents and hanging out with our mutual friends. Why the specifics? Assuring me that he's bored and lonely, and there's no new woman in his life? Who knows, I guess. I think that, passive-aggressive as he is, he may think that he has tossed the ball in my court and expects that I'll contact him. Or maybe he was just bored and picked up the phone on a whim. Who cares. I'm not contacting him. After what he put me through with the cancer scare, he'd have to go to extraordinary lengths to "win" me back and to prove he's changed, and one random call to talk about how he's "growing up" and settling down just doesn't do it. Anyway, I'm sticking with no contact. I did feel a strong impulse, though, I must say, because he's also a lawyer and he would understand the "war stories" from my trial. But no, no contact. I weathered the emotion, and didn't act on it : )

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 9:13am
Right now, I sure can't even fake happiness...BUT, I did come to a realization last night. The last time I spoke with her she told me it was over..that she'd put up a shield and was not going to take it down...that she had moved on and that I had to let go and move on. So my realization became, "what good will it do me to call her?" And, "If her mind had changed, she'd have called me" So I fought the urge and did not call. I think calling would have only made me feel worse, not that I felt great anyway, but I guess its a start.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 10:45am
Just a thought here -- You said he sent an email that you never read. Could it be that the phone call was a follow up on that email and he was waiting to see if you would bring up the contents of the email? Boy woman -- you are very strong. I couldn't have helped myself reading that email.

Lois

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-30-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 12:00pm
Awesome article, Milton!

I never had to struggle with no contact since it was forced upon me and I was too afraid to contact him anyway. Not to say that there weren't periods where I wanted to contact him, it was my fear of being destroyed worse than I already was that stopped me. I feel that if he wants to talk to me, he will contact me. I begged and pleaded with him enough that I am not willing to degrade myself further.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-15-2004
Fri, 07-16-2004 - 1:41am
Hi Milton,

Thanks for the article. I actually printed it out and read it *every time* I have the urge to contact my ex -- either calling or emailing him. And it's helped control my impulsive nature every time. :)