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Post by iz42 on Oct 16, 2019 2:21:42 GMT
Wow, that's terrible! I hope you feel better after taking the day off. Do you know whether you'll be able to take a longer vacation or leave of absence?
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Post by iz42 on Oct 16, 2019 21:32:31 GMT
The pain is more muted this time around but I'm still sad and confused. I know it's best for me not to know what's going on (or to be involved) but my ex's substance abuse treatment has been rocky and I'm left wondering how he's doing.
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Post by serenity on Oct 16, 2019 22:47:35 GMT
I feel you iz42  Its so tempting to want to stay friends, to take the edge off the pain . What do you think would happen if you made contact with him? |
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Post by iz42 on Oct 17, 2019 3:09:10 GMT
Well... until I'm more healed I'm sure it would be back to the same old cycle of distancing and pursuing. He'd want to meet up and connect again and I'm definitely not ready for that. Shortly after we broke up he started dating someone and wanted me to sleep with him anyway, so he might try that again. Sometimes I wonder if he likes to make me jealous. The triangulation thing seems to boost his ego and works as a pretty successful distancing tactic.
He has a new girlfriend but there is someone else who he's treating as a phantom ex. They only dated for a few months but he said he "fell hard" and he's looking for someone who makes him feel the way she did. Honestly he seems really confused. The more I think about this, it's clear that he's dealing with FA attachment stuff and he's unaware of these patterns. Once he asked me why all the women he dates get so jealous but he couldn't see that he might play a role. He tends to create chaos with this stuff.
He tried to warn me when we first met. He said he's "not good at relationships." If anyone tells me that again, I will listen!!!! He also told me all of the negative things that his exes had said about him. I thought that if we kept things casual it wouldn't affect me, but then the anxious-avoidant cycle started and it became exponentially harder to leave.
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Post by serenity on Oct 17, 2019 3:43:14 GMT
That does sound very risky iz42. I'd want to feel very detached before re engaging too, especially if he has an instinct for triangulation. That's a sticky trap and it hurts!
Makes you wonder how the new lover `found' your private text messages on his phone? Would he have gone so low and left them somewhere obvious for her to see, to triangulate you both? I still find that part murky.
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Post by iz42 on Oct 17, 2019 5:01:28 GMT
I agree that it's strange. He said he didn't give her permission to look at his phone, so I assume she must have figured out his password somehow. He's usually very private so it's hard to believe he did it intentionally. The thing that feels most humiliating is that it seemed like she felt sorry for me. From our texts she could probably tell that I still loved him and he wasn't really reciprocating. I don't want to be pitied by anyone, but especially not her. She apologized for the way he treated me as if he was a kid who behaved badly at school and she was going to get him back in line. Felt very condescending.
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Post by serenity on Oct 17, 2019 5:28:54 GMT
Yeah her behaviour would have made me feel ill. Its wasn't her place to speak for your ex, nor invade your privacy, nor any of it. It has made things so difficult for your recovery too Do you think any of your motivation to contact your ex may come from wanting to outrank her at all? Thats one fo the dangers of triangulation, that destructive sense of competition it arouses. I'm so glad you're being careful and thinking things through. |
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Post by iz42 on Oct 18, 2019 3:20:03 GMT
I'm sure the competition/"outranking" element has affected me on some level (even though I don't want it to). Competition goes hand in hand with jealousy, and I'm certainly jealous. But honestly, I'm not sure there's much I can do about that other than time/distance/NC and working on my own self esteem, which I'm already doing.
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Post by serenity on Oct 18, 2019 4:12:14 GMT
I'm right there with you; the hardest part about post breakup is my exes `in your face' flirting, wondering if he replaced me when we were still together, wondering if/when he's going to ambush me with a new conquest. It makes me go cold inside and push further away thankfully. One day at a time |
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Post by iz42 on Oct 18, 2019 19:48:35 GMT
Yes, one day at a time indeed. I feel like talking about it here is making me focus on the situation more than I would like to. Going to take a little break.
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Its so tempting to want to stay friends, to take the edge off the pain . What do you think would happen if you made contact with him?