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Post by lovebunny on Apr 25, 2023 13:50:49 GMT
Damn this small island. I woke in the morning feeling extra anxious, like something was building up and some part of me knew today was the day it would come out. We haven't said a word to each other since mid-Feb. First, I saw him driving with OW and my anxiety kicked up higher. Then there was this thing I hadn't been dealing with--he owes me money and it's due, so I decided since I was already anxious, couldn't get much worse, just send the text with the amount and due date.
Minutes after pressing "send," I pulled into grocery store lot, put my head down and started walking, and there he was (former OW, now girlfriend or whatever, had been dropped off.) There was no avoiding each other or pretending we didn't see each other, it was a collision. I, of course, looked awful, was just coming from work all sweaty and disheveled. I couldn't keep it together when he asked how I was doing. We stepped between parked cars and had it out right there in the parking lot, it wasn't pretty.
He's still this mess of confusing, mixed messages, projections and "I don't know's." My body sees him as a threat and goes into fawn/fight, when flight would probably be a better choice. I was shaking and crying, and so was he, though not as bad. He said he'd wanted to reach out many times, thought I might have questions and need more closure (projection?) My major question for him was what is it about me that made him think it was ok to treat me like s***? Of course, he doesn't really have an answer for that except that I "made it too easy to stay in the r'ship."
I don't quite know how to process the things that were said (and not said.) Apparently, he had this thing he'd been wanting to tell me, he called it r'ship advice. "Trust your intuition. So far, everything you said would happen, happened. You knew things about me I didn't even know about myself. You said in the beginning what would happen between us, right down to the timeline. From now on, listen to that."
Apparently, things between him and OW are going down exactly as I said. She's starting to want more and make demands and he is struggling. He's not over me, he still cries over me and misses me and loves me and has been putting off the talk with her. I think he tried to tell me he's in love with her, but didn't dare say it outright. He said "I now understand the difference between love and IN love." But when I asked him directly if he was in love with her, he said "I don't know." I asked he was going to be mono with her, he said, "No. I don't know. I don't think so. But I don't know how I'll feel in a year." Is he going to move her in with him? "HELL no, never again."
Honestly, here is where that fear comes in that he's going to be a better boyfriend to her than he ever was for me. He said he's got a better grip on his temper, he hasn't been pressuring her for sex the way he used to pressure me ("I NEED someone who says no to me once in a while," he says.) And now, he's realizing he might not find women willing to be poly with him. I will completely just flip if I find out he goes monogamous with her, this will hurt badly. He said being with me has changed him for the better, I had a huge positive effect on his life. Unfortunately, I couldn't say same for him. I was honest that my self-esteem is still in the crapper and my trust is damaged and the way he treated me wasn't ok.
My rage started coming through. "She's sitting on the couch I bought? Cuddling my pets? Are you going to take her on our annual vacation? Is she living the life I was trying to build with you?" Ugh, I'm embarrassed he has this much power of my emotions.
And the pity from him: "I'm so sorry." and "I have survivor's guilt for being ok." (though minutes later he says he's having a hard time.) But is his hard time because of his r'ship with the OW, or what happened with us? I have no idea. This love triangle b**shit is maddening and I want out of it, not just physically, which I am, but in my head, which I'm not.
I confessed that I wanted to know that I hadn't spent 3 years just being used as a placeholder while he waited for her to come around (if you recall, they were on-and-off.) He assured me that he had wanted us both, and that he had truly wanted to build a life with me....but then two minutes later said moving me in was where he made his mistake. How do those two things coexist, how do you build a life together, separately? He makes no sense.
After about 20 minutes of this nonsense, I looked at my watch, realized I was late to be somewhere, I just said "I have to go," and without another word, turned and left him leaning against his truck. My body has not calmed down yet, apparently all systems consider him a life-or-death threat to my well-being.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2023 16:28:31 GMT
The Anxious narrative has you asking him, what is it about YOU that makes it ok to treat you like shit.
The reality is, he treats people how he does because of what's in HIM, it isn't about you.
Another reality is, you treated yourself badly due to your own insecurity, and pursued a man who is anti-monogamy. You went into this poly. You both went into this without an expectation for monogamy. It was disastrous. The lesson is, if you want monogamy don't live a poly lifestyle.
I'm not saying he wasn't selfish in a very gross degree. But I can honestly say for myself, that I have taught people through my own behavior, what they are allowed and not allowed to do to me. Ultimately it has been my choice, and my responsibility. My relationships are my responsibility, and how I show up or don't show up in them is my responsibility. Might I be ashamed of how I have shown up in relationship, might I be embarrassed and in pain about that? Sure. What can I do about that shame and embarrassment? I can recognize how I harmed myself and others through my errant beliefs, misguided actions, unresolved emotions, etc, and I can resolve to do better and make sincere effort to learn and grow and recover. That's what I have done, and continue to do. It's a process.
Taking blame away from the situation means no longer being a victim of other people. Rage often comes from feeling powerless... but we are not powerless. We may at times feel intense anger at ourselves for what we allow or what others do to us that is undeserved and that we couldn't stop, but here again we only have choices now about what we do with that anger. We have to see the situation as it truly is, and then take corrective actions.
At one time I was in an entanglement in which a very selfish person exploited my insecurity, and it was outrageous. I felt a lot if anger as you do. Ultimately though, I only humiliated myself by confronting him. I was barking up the wrong tree anyway. I came to understand and make peace with the fact that he entered my house (so to speak) because I gave him the key. I don't hand my keys to people like him anymore. Getting to the point where I could make a good decision about who gets my key took a lot of work and didn't involve my exes at all, so I'd recommend leaving him out of your process from now on. He can't help you figure this out.
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Post by alexandra on Apr 25, 2023 18:24:12 GMT
He's still this mess of confusing, mixed messages, projections and "I don't know's." Apparently, things between him and OW are going down exactly as I said. She's starting to want more and make demands and he is struggling. He's not over me, he still cries over me and misses me and loves me and has been putting off the talk with her. I think he tried to tell me he's in love with her, but didn't dare say it outright. He said "I now understand the difference between love and IN love." But when I asked him directly if he was in love with her, he said "I don't know." I asked he was going to be mono with her, he said, "No. I don't know. I don't think so. But I don't know how I'll feel in a year." Is he going to move her in with him? "HELL no, never again." Honestly, here is where that fear comes in that he's going to be a better boyfriend to her than he ever was for me. You're contradicting yourself here. Nothing about this shows he's a long-term better boyfriend to her. He's pulling the exact same sh*t, he's just in a different timing part of his pattern with her because it's earlier into their "commitment" or lack thereof. He's condescending to you and rewriting things and lying to himself. All while using the idea of you to keep emotional distance from her, since he has no one to triangulate her with right now. I agree with everything @introverttemporary commented. He's not a reliable source in any way, and the reason this was inevitable was you both went into this not wanting the same kind of relationship. You want safety and security, he wants the opposite. He's not going to give you any satisfying answers. I understand your need for having this conversation with him, but keep him blocked once you get whatever money from him. He's an insatiable pit of need, he just tries to use his words to rationalize it differently so that it sounds deflected and projected onto whatever woman is willing to accept the blame for his disrespect. Everything I quoted above that he said is NOT how a healthy, caring, loving, respectful, good partner acts. His entire thought process he described is literally the opposite of this, at least if he's looking to match with women who don't want what he wants (and he's admitting none of the women he's pursued, and none in general, might want that). |
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Post by anne12 on Apr 26, 2023 0:52:05 GMT
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Post by lovebunny on Apr 26, 2023 13:05:49 GMT
Anne12, I visualize him sitting across from me, anger melts away into pathetic tears. It all turns inward before I can even get at it. Maybe because everyone says it's my fault for not listening to my own alarms much, much earlier. It's my fault for letting him treat me this way. I'm getting mad at the scorpion for being a scorpion. I'm mad at me.
I'll be shocked as heck if I actually get that money he promised me back when he was trying to get me to leave peacefully (I put it into renovating something on his property.) Now that I am not offering him anything sexually and I have no value to him, I'd be surprised if he'll waste his resources. At least, that's what I feel, prepared to be let down again.
I feel a bit better this morning, but I don't know how much longer I can stand this. Will the panic feeling that I'll be alone forever or stuck with only crappy choices ever go away?
The emotions are in weird places in my body. For the first couple months, it felt like a blow to my head, in my frontal lobe. Now, it's become a constant kicking in the middle of my upper back.
I will try distraction now, long bike ride, reading, rehearsing lines.
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Post by cherrycola on Apr 26, 2023 18:28:48 GMT
"Maybe because everyone says it's my fault for not listening to my own alarms much, much earlier. It's my fault for letting him treat me this way.".
So many people say "we teach people how to treat us" and while true, it's also leaving out the point that no one deserves to be treated poorly and emotionally healthy people don't go around treating others poorly. I also think it's easy to ignore that we may start out with strong boundaries and demanding respect but that over time it gets erroded.
My ex used a similar thing with me when I left. He said I let him treat me badly and he wishes that I had stood up to him more. Yet when I stood up to him after the fact and tried to set boundaries he got upset and said I was being unfair and called me names.
I was taught an exercise when someone treats me poorly I ask myself "would I treat someone that way?" And the answer is usually no. Then I try to give my inner child a hug and tell her it isn't her fault.
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Post by iz42 on Apr 26, 2023 20:48:27 GMT
So many people say "we teach people how to treat us" and while true, it's also leaving out the point that no one deserves to be treated poorly and emotionally healthy people don't go around treating others poorly. I also think it's easy to ignore that we may start out with strong boundaries and demanding respect but that over time it gets erroded. Yes I think there is nuance around this. Emotionally volatile or abusive people can make an intentional effort to erode boundaries and self-trust so that someone can be more easily controlled. That kind of behavior is absolutely not okay. It can be easy for those on the outside to say you should have had stronger boundaries, but when your sense of self is worn down over time, it can be incredibly difficult to take action in that direction. This stuff has to be approached with tons of self compassion and the knowledge that you did your best at the time. You did your best at the time AND also it's important to take steps to make sure that won't accept being treated this way again. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2023 22:06:28 GMT
I agree with the nuance, and don't in any way minimize abuse and harmful behavior. I have experienced these and absolutely recognize that I didn't deserve it. On the other hand, I personally find it very disempowering to hand someone else the power over my life and relationships. I did the best I could and got steamrolled, too... and when I hit bottom with it I found great relief in realizing that I had much more input into these dynamics than I initially realized. It meant that I could improve my situation. And take responsibility for my well being. Things I'm referring to here are more simple, actually... like the poly vs. monogamy. Nobody was tricked into that in any way, there was no manipulation. It seems to me there was a real mismatch in expectations but poly is poly and you won't get monogamy out of it no matter how much you want monogamy. That's where I'm saying, if you accept something and then later regret it, or it turns out to not be what you wanted, it's important to take note and adjust. Also. Realizing that you have a pattern of being attracted to a certain kind of energy that proves toxic every time, it's a red flag in how you're operating. Those are the kinds of things that are hard to swallow but ultimately free you to come out of being a victim of someone's horrible behavior, and a victim of your own blind spots. That's what I'm referring to, and have shared my personal experience with that in an attempt to share empathy as well as some uncomfortable truth that in the end is very empowering. Anger definitely has a place, feeling wronged and genuinely hurting over the selfish behavior of others is totally appropriate. But where do you go from there? If there is nothing at all you find to do differently then you try the same thing again and get the same results. So that's where I'm coming from, just want to make that clear.
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Post by mysteryuser on Apr 26, 2023 23:23:31 GMT
"Ugh, I'm embarrassed he has this much power of my emotions. " lovebunny it sucks that you have to go through that. I had a relationship end around 2 months ago and I've done a lot of reading and understanding my anxious attachment style since then. I felt the same way initially. What I realized though is that he had that much power because for me, as with many people, the intimacy of romantic relationships takes me back to my childhood and relationship with my parents. So the pain in the moment as well as the power over my emotions is from two sources: the present moment and my partner, as well as my past and my parents. And though it feels like it's the partner and the moment causing that pain, often it's my mind connecting it to all the years of pain I felt when I was helpless, when I *needed* my parents - or I would quite literally die. It feels just as real as when I was a child and wanted to do *anything* to stop my parents from leaving each other (and me), so I latched on and tried to do *anything* to make my partner stay. But the reality is that I don't really need this partner, at least not in the way my body/anxiety thinks so. I don't need them for my survival. I would appreciate them in my life, yes, and it hurts that they're leaving, but I don't need them. I think finding a way to draw the difference between my present and my past and my true (past) needs and what *appears* to be a need was monumental in me feeling 100x better since the break up.
I don't want to sound presumptuous because I'm new to the forum and don't know your story, but could it be that it's not him, but other factors in the past that actually hold that power over your emotions?
I would highly recommend Jessica Baum's book "Anxiously Attached". |
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Post by lovebunny on Apr 27, 2023 0:32:40 GMT
@introvert & Iz42: "Things I'm referring to here are more simple, actually... like the poly vs. monogamy. Nobody was tricked into that in any way, there was no manipulation"
Actually, there was some deception and manipulation. Early on in the r'ship, we'd talked about his interest in poly, I'd said I'd been there/done that wasn't into it, though I'd be open to some other form of non monogamy. We had put off defining our r'ship during pandemic, and I had NOT agreed to be poly when I was told, very soon after declaring me his girlfriend, using the L word for the first time, and our first vacation away together, that he'd been "talking to" another woman, and it was "getting serious." I later learned he'd been pursuing her a year and was already sleeping with her.
I want to believe if I'd had this info before the trip, before the declarations of commitment, I might not have let our relationship escalate. After that great trip, after hearing him say he loved me and saw me as his future partner, I was hooked and after a few days of crying, arguing and negotiating, I agreed to try it his way, of course he promised I would ALWAYS come first.
Then it was the frog in the pot thing & moving goalposts and lots of slow pushing at whatever boundaries I attempted to set. I should've left many times over.
"That's where I'm saying, if you accept something and then later regret it, or it turns out to not be what you wanted, it's important to take note and adjust."
This is what I could not seem to do.I was in too deep and just kept swimming.
Thanks, MysteryUser, for the sympathy. I feel like the life he gave me is one I will never get for myself. I cannot afford real estate here, he had a big house and lots of fun toys. He knew how to do all the handy fix-it things I don't. He had deep roots here, knowledge of the backcountry and could bring me all kinds of wild places I wouldn't know how to navigate. I know I'll survive without him, but I worry I will not ever be as happy as I was, at least for a while, living with him. I loved our home and pets for the brief time I had them.
I think I've read every book on attachment theory, curing anxious attachment, releasing people, healing abandonment, heartbreak, men who can't love and women who love too much....I'm a huge reader. You are correct there are older wounds at play.
I appreciate y'all so much. I honestly don't know what to do with all this agitation, so I come here.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2023 1:39:23 GMT
@introvert & Iz42: "Things I'm referring to here are more simple, actually... like the poly vs. monogamy. Nobody was tricked into that in any way, there was no manipulation" Actually, there was some deception and manipulation. Early on in the r'ship, we'd talked about his interest in poly, I'd said I'd been there/done that wasn't into it, though I'd be open to some other form of non monogamy. We had put off defining our r'ship during pandemic, and I had NOT agreed to be poly when I was told, very soon after declaring me his girlfriend, using the L word for the first time, and our first vacation away together, that he'd been "talking to" another woman, and it was "getting serious." I later learned he'd been pursuing her a year and was already sleeping with her. I want to believe if I'd had this info before the trip, before the declarations of commitment, I might not have let our relationship escalate. After that great trip, after hearing him say he loved me and saw me as his future partner, I was hooked and after a few days of crying, arguing and negotiating, I agreed to try it his way, of course he promised I would ALWAYS come first. Then it was the frog in the pot thing & moving goalposts and lots of slow pushing at whatever boundaries I attempted to set. I should've left many times over. "That's where I'm saying, if you accept something and then later regret it, or it turns out to not be what you wanted, it's important to take note and adjust." This is what I could not seem to do.I was in too deep and just kept swimming. Thanks, MysteryUser, for the sympathy. I feel like the life he gave me is one I will never get for myself. I cannot afford real estate here, he had a big house and lots of fun toys. He knew how to do all the handy fix-it things I don't. He had deep roots here, knowledge of the backcountry and could bring me all kinds of wild places I wouldn't know how to navigate. I know I'll survive without him, but I worry I will not ever be as happy as I was, at least for a while, living with him. I loved our home and pets for the brief time I had them. I think I've read every book on attachment theory, curing anxious attachment, releasing people, healing abandonment, heartbreak, men who can't love and women who love too much....I'm a huge reader. You are correct there are older wounds at play. I appreciate y'all so much. I honestly don't know what to do with all this agitation, so I come here. I'm sorry lovebunny, those details weren't in the original post (if so I missed them), I only saw that you wrote you were ok with poly in the beginning. It truly is unfair, how he went about this, no doubt. It also is very damaging when we cross our own lines in order to maintain what we think we need or want. That's why I wrote that I no longer fuck around and find out, I no longer tell myself I can handle whatever someone else has to dish out, only to find out that the risk I took a) didn't pay off and b) cost me dearly in countless ways. It's truly traumatic to acquiesce to situations that feel wrong, because they are wrong. Very bad things can happen, as we all know. Lives can be altered forever by damaging entanglements .. in my case children were even brought into the world as a result, so additional hearts were injured. so I get it, I really do. And yet I stand-by the concept of personal responsibility for my relationships, and I can do that without shaming myself because I don't hold the view in black and white terms. We do the best we can and get burned. Badly. At some point, we must find our power and learn how to protect ourselves well enough from high risk situations. That's a skill or a trait that comes with a lot of trial and error, and a lot of pain, so I don't bring it up lightly. I know it well. As adults, we must be able to acknowledge our miscalculations and errors in judgment and take accountability for them, while also not descending to self-shaming and blaming. That seems to be a particular dilemma for the more anxious types, where the line between accountability and shame and blame gets blurred. In spite of all the justified anger and grief and disillusionment and pain, you are still fighting on and I admire that in you! Just keep trying to do the next right thing for YOU, that's how the miracles happen, little by little over time. One little choice at a time, is how we learn new ways of being. |
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Post by tnr9 on Apr 27, 2023 1:57:26 GMT
I was wondering if you could approach this differently…..make it about your unmet needs and not about “him”….”he” was just the vessel at the time and that vessel did not work. Today I made a connection between the way I idolized my emotionally unavailable father and the way I idolized B….it may have been right there in my face the entire time but I just was so focused on B for so long it slipped past me. We talked about what made B feel safe in a way that my father did not and it was those moments were he held me and I just listened to his heartbeat….somehow that grounded me and silenced my anxiety and I missed that when he broke up with me. And if I am completely honest…the idea that someone else was getting what had felt so safe to me, impacted me in a very wounded place. It wasn’t about her at all…it was my loss of something I needed and associated only to B. It might be too soon, but perhaps there is a tie in between your ex and your father.
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Post by iz42 on Apr 27, 2023 6:49:16 GMT
And yet I stand-by the concept of personal responsibility for my relationships, and I can do that without shaming myself because I don't hold the view in black and white terms. That seems to be a particular dilemma for the more anxious types, where the line between accountability and shame and blame gets blurred. The way I related to myself for most of my life was through shame. I didn't know how to do things any differently. Maybe this is neurodivergence in addition to AP, but it was just how I related to myself. I had no tolerance for making mistakes because I was never taught self forgiveness or self compassion. Those things were never modeled for me in childhood. The idea that I would have to forgive myself and accept the mistakes I had made felt foreign and almost intolerable. So I agree that this is a place where many of us get stuck. It's incredibly hard. It all comes back to safety and self protection, and at least for me, when things are my fault then I feel I have some control over them. I had to let go of trying control things in that way (and trust that I would still be ok) in order to release the shame and blame and move toward healthy acceptance and responsibility for my behavior. Interestingly, my DA partner is struggling with this now. I see him so bogged down in shame that at times it's hard to figure out a path forward. He filters the whole world through the lens of his own shame. It seems like a self protective thing for him too. If he sees himself as a failure and assumes others will see him that way too, he will be prepared when anyone is disappointed or upset with him and it won't hurt as much. The problem is that then his whole existence becomes about controlling how others see him to keep himself safe. From the outside, it seems absolutely exhausting. And it's hard for him to receive love or trust anyone who says they see him in a more positive light. |
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Post by lovebunny on Apr 27, 2023 12:25:13 GMT
I was wondering if you could approach this differently…..make it about your unmet needs and not about “him”….”he” was just the vessel at the time and that vessel did not work. Today I made a connection between the way I idolized my emotionally unavailable father and the way I idolized B…perhaps there is a tie in between your ex and your father I've often thought he physically resembled the men in my family, plus was like my father in being smart mechanically but not book smart. Emotionally, the situation mirrors the "throuple" I was in in my 20's, where I watched someone I was in love with fall in love with someone else--while we were all in the same bed. It took me years to recover from that awful episode, in fact I don't think I got over it until after I'd married and left the city we'd all lived in. Exbf shared many traits with the person I was in love with back then, too. Both are sunny, extroverted sexy types who made me seem all the more dark and brooding and damaged by contrast. My unmet needs are too many to count. Sex/touch. Family. Secure housing/finances. Someone to come home to. |
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Post by seeking on May 21, 2023 12:52:37 GMT
Just read this thread. lovebunny didn't you say in another thread somewhere that you're involved with a new poly-guy? So I think what introvert is saying makes sense -- if what you want is monogamy and those needs you listed in your last sentence here, seems this is the personal responsibility part, but I could be wrong. I noted comments about anger and rage. Anger is there to protect something. It's a boundary-setting emotion. Rage comes after feeling many violations-- no boundaries. Maybe the question, what do you want and how can you secure and then protect it is a good one around anger and rage. |
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