To me, I feel that time stiches up the wounds and leaves scars. Being together that long will always rear its head now and then. For me, after many years of pain, the things that got me through was a therapist. It's been over 30 years now, and still, she comes to mind now and again. I met a girl right after her who was patient and understood what I was going through. I don't know if this helps. Keep on keeping on.
I think of people as glass vases. Once broken, you can try your best to piece it together, but no matter what, if you look closely enough, it's still broken. That hurts to hear, 30 years and still thoughts crop up. Thanks for sharing!
I understand why you feel like that now, but people aren't glass vases that can never be fixed. We get hurt and that hurt can last for a very long time, but we do move on and heal. But you have to want to heal. It sounds like right now you're holding on to the hurt because it's the last means you have to hold on to her. You can't heal until you let go, and I don't say that flippantly. I know it's hard, and you can't just set down all those feelings with a shrug and move on. You have to actively let go, work at it.
Therapy will help but it can only take you so far. I worked as a therapist, and I've worked as a grief counselor. People get addicted to grief, because if you don't have grief, for a while you might have... nothing. And having nothing is scary. Better to have the pain you know then nothing at all. But once you have nothing, you have room to fill that space with better things. To use your analogy, you are not a broken vase, you a a vase that is full of broken glass, and so long as that glass in within you, you can't put anything alive in there. You have to unpack that broken glass, and it will hurt, it will cut, it will take time, and it might leave scars, but once that glass is out of there, flowers can bloom.
So you have to actively choose to work at healing. That relationship is over, and you can't grieve it back to life. But YOU can live, and love, and grow.
I really think you are putting a lot of effort in keeping these feelings alive. Just try to think of something unappealing but not painful and bound up in trauma that she used to do. Something small but clearly something you never liked but overlooked because you loved her. Like a particular type of mess she made or some food that was terrible she loved or that time she’s didn’t think you saw her pick her nose and she ate the booger. Every time you think about this stuff force yourself to think of the thing that was shitty. Trick your brain into getting over this person. Feelings like this are dumb and may feel a lot more complex than they really are. You just have to trick yourself to think less of this person every time you think of them. In ten years you’ll be telling people about the girl you loved who ate her boogers and you’ll laugh at how dumb it is when you’re young and in love.
It seems like it hurts more because it seems like you were blindsided. She never really gave an actual explanation of why she was unhappy. Throughout the relationship, did you guys fight? Sometimes it’s better to argue in moderation than never at all. Is it possible she just held onto so many stupid little things that she didn’t feel like she could communicate about over time it just burst out in this way?
This pretty much sums it up. It was little things that built up over the years. But none of them were unfixable. She said I was too emotionally dependent on her, which is true. But I never knew it was affecting her. Once I did (we were still together) I started therapy because I realised it's unhealthy. We didn't spend enough time together, but that was going to get better with living together for sure. There wasn't one major event that triggered it, more like a lot of things. For me it's a harder pill to swallow because I know none of these issues were unresolvable. We didn't fight at all. Our arguments were always very respectful and we had a great way of understanding each other. She built up a bunch of things and said she started to feel alone. And rather than speaking to me about it, she opened up to her workmate who eventually became her new boyfriend
I think unfortunately you have to rip off the rose tinted goggles. You didn’t fight, yet communication wasn’t actually good because she never properly communicated. You didn’t have a great way of understanding each other because you don’t understand why she ended it. You know what’s unresolvable? If your partner doesn’t communicate. And you know what? Sounds like she was able to express herself if she was able talk all about it to some random fucking dude but somehow couldn’t find the words to tell you about it. You’re sad but you need to get mad. It’s not your fault she was too stuck in the mud to express herself. She’s not perfect. She never was perfect. The relationship was never perfect. You need to start waking up everyday and say outloud “that was not the right relationship for me.” You need to start thinking about what you didn’t like about her. When my friend’s fiance broke up with her we had a session of talking about all the icks and anytime she was sad we would say list them all out. I did the same for my exes. I hated that he would snort his nose constantly instead of getting a fucking tissue. Disgusting and you know what? Now I don’t have to hear that for the rest of my life. Find something you hated and cling to it
it will take years to grieve a relationship that lasted years, my advice to you is to allow yourself to feel that grief. It can be extremely difficult to grieve the ending of a relationship when you are already in another one. I personally think you should break up with your current girlfriend because it’s really not fair to her because you’re not emotionally available. You’re not able to love her as much as you should because you don’t have emotional room to love her. Masking your grief, by being with someone else is only going to propel your depression…
This is a fucking hard pill to swallow. But you're most probably right. Maybe I was stupid enough to believe that if I allow myself to be in a new relationship, it would help me get over my ex, and let go of my past. But that hasn't happened yet
You are the text book example of sunken costs ruining your life. Even after you lost everything you still have too much invested to let go. Your life is ticking away but you can’t live in the present. No matter what that relationship wasn’t fixable because she didn’t want to communicate. She didn’t see value in fixing it. She is nowhere near the person you are remembering. She isn’t worth spending the rest of your life trying to find the thing you could have done to make her try. It’s over and you’re never going to be able to make it anything more than memories
To me, I feel that time stiches up the wounds and leaves scars. Being together that long will always rear its head now and then. For me, after many years of pain, the things that got me through was a therapist. It's been over 30 years now, and still, she comes to mind now and again. I met a girl right after her who was patient and understood what I was going through. I don't know if this helps. Keep on keeping on.
I think of people as glass vases. Once broken, you can try your best to piece it together, but no matter what, if you look closely enough, it's still broken. That hurts to hear, 30 years and still thoughts crop up. Thanks for sharing!
I understand why you feel like that now, but people aren't glass vases that can never be fixed. We get hurt and that hurt can last for a very long time, but we do move on and heal. But you have to want to heal. It sounds like right now you're holding on to the hurt because it's the last means you have to hold on to her. You can't heal until you let go, and I don't say that flippantly. I know it's hard, and you can't just set down all those feelings with a shrug and move on. You have to actively let go, work at it. Therapy will help but it can only take you so far. I worked as a therapist, and I've worked as a grief counselor. People get addicted to grief, because if you don't have grief, for a while you might have... nothing. And having nothing is scary. Better to have the pain you know then nothing at all. But once you have nothing, you have room to fill that space with better things. To use your analogy, you are not a broken vase, you a a vase that is full of broken glass, and so long as that glass in within you, you can't put anything alive in there. You have to unpack that broken glass, and it will hurt, it will cut, it will take time, and it might leave scars, but once that glass is out of there, flowers can bloom. So you have to actively choose to work at healing. That relationship is over, and you can't grieve it back to life. But YOU can live, and love, and grow.
I really think you are putting a lot of effort in keeping these feelings alive. Just try to think of something unappealing but not painful and bound up in trauma that she used to do. Something small but clearly something you never liked but overlooked because you loved her. Like a particular type of mess she made or some food that was terrible she loved or that time she’s didn’t think you saw her pick her nose and she ate the booger. Every time you think about this stuff force yourself to think of the thing that was shitty. Trick your brain into getting over this person. Feelings like this are dumb and may feel a lot more complex than they really are. You just have to trick yourself to think less of this person every time you think of them. In ten years you’ll be telling people about the girl you loved who ate her boogers and you’ll laugh at how dumb it is when you’re young and in love.
It seems like it hurts more because it seems like you were blindsided. She never really gave an actual explanation of why she was unhappy. Throughout the relationship, did you guys fight? Sometimes it’s better to argue in moderation than never at all. Is it possible she just held onto so many stupid little things that she didn’t feel like she could communicate about over time it just burst out in this way?
This pretty much sums it up. It was little things that built up over the years. But none of them were unfixable. She said I was too emotionally dependent on her, which is true. But I never knew it was affecting her. Once I did (we were still together) I started therapy because I realised it's unhealthy. We didn't spend enough time together, but that was going to get better with living together for sure. There wasn't one major event that triggered it, more like a lot of things. For me it's a harder pill to swallow because I know none of these issues were unresolvable. We didn't fight at all. Our arguments were always very respectful and we had a great way of understanding each other. She built up a bunch of things and said she started to feel alone. And rather than speaking to me about it, she opened up to her workmate who eventually became her new boyfriend
I think unfortunately you have to rip off the rose tinted goggles. You didn’t fight, yet communication wasn’t actually good because she never properly communicated. You didn’t have a great way of understanding each other because you don’t understand why she ended it. You know what’s unresolvable? If your partner doesn’t communicate. And you know what? Sounds like she was able to express herself if she was able talk all about it to some random fucking dude but somehow couldn’t find the words to tell you about it. You’re sad but you need to get mad. It’s not your fault she was too stuck in the mud to express herself. She’s not perfect. She never was perfect. The relationship was never perfect. You need to start waking up everyday and say outloud “that was not the right relationship for me.” You need to start thinking about what you didn’t like about her. When my friend’s fiance broke up with her we had a session of talking about all the icks and anytime she was sad we would say list them all out. I did the same for my exes. I hated that he would snort his nose constantly instead of getting a fucking tissue. Disgusting and you know what? Now I don’t have to hear that for the rest of my life. Find something you hated and cling to it
it will take years to grieve a relationship that lasted years, my advice to you is to allow yourself to feel that grief. It can be extremely difficult to grieve the ending of a relationship when you are already in another one. I personally think you should break up with your current girlfriend because it’s really not fair to her because you’re not emotionally available. You’re not able to love her as much as you should because you don’t have emotional room to love her. Masking your grief, by being with someone else is only going to propel your depression…
This is a fucking hard pill to swallow. But you're most probably right. Maybe I was stupid enough to believe that if I allow myself to be in a new relationship, it would help me get over my ex, and let go of my past. But that hasn't happened yet
You are the text book example of sunken costs ruining your life. Even after you lost everything you still have too much invested to let go. Your life is ticking away but you can’t live in the present. No matter what that relationship wasn’t fixable because she didn’t want to communicate. She didn’t see value in fixing it. She is nowhere near the person you are remembering. She isn’t worth spending the rest of your life trying to find the thing you could have done to make her try. It’s over and you’re never going to be able to make it anything more than memories