Fear and guilt

[ineedsomeadviseplease]

Hi everyone
I’ve been going no contact for a (detail removed by Moderator) now, the longest I’ve been

I really need help as I’m about to break it. The latest messages are a “(detail removed by Moderator)” and that he will leave me alone.

It should be a relief. I should be happy that the abuse will be over, but all I feel is fear and guilt.

I fear he will move on and never speak to me again and I’ll regret being disrespectful with him by not forgiving him for all the psychological abuse. He never physically hurt me, but treated me like s*** whenever we were together. Ignored my emotional needs, was never capable of replying to my “I love you” and now that I am Nc is all he says. That he loves me

And I feel this massive guilt for not replying to him and he keeps telling me how much he is making a fool of himself by chasing me. And I feel like I am a terrible person, but it’s been almost (detail removed by Moderator)
He keeps breaking up on me or making sure I know how he is still suffering from a heartbreak and that he can’t deal with problems. And that he was always waiting the right time to actually assume me as his partner
There were times where he humiliated me in front of friends saying a topic I was talking about was boring or that I am not smart enough.

I don’t know if any of you can relate to that. If I should send one last reply but to be honest I fear how much he will hurt me by trying to revenge my nc. Either by (again) sleeping with one of my friends or people I know or by writing me offensive things or something

I am constantly afraid and guilty and I don’t know what to do

[KIP.]

It’s all a big game to him and he simply changes tactics until you break zero contact, then he hurts you again. So this time he is bluffing that if you don’t contact him he will leave you alone. Why not just leave you alone now? Zero contact means blocking him on everything and telling your friends you don’t want upto hear about him. Full stop. If he slept with one of your friends then she was no friend and he was no boyfriend. If you respond he will stomp on your heart all over again. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Psychological abuse for me was worse than the physical. He’s programmed you to feel fear and guilt. But he’s not your responsibility. He’s a nasty abuser who won’t stop until you keep those boundaries in place. Ignore him. He will contact you again. Because that’s what he does. Block him. That’s your reply x

[Wants To Help]

The fear and guilt is because we are decent people. We are polite, we do not like rudeness, and to not reply to what appears to be a polite text message seems rude!

So what happens if you do reply? He will take that as a sign that you do want to have contact with him again and polite conversation will commence to start with. Your one response to that ‘last’ text he has sent (it’s highly likely it won’t be but he just wants you to think that so you’ll start panicking he might move on) will be the green light to him to charm his way back in to your life.

You know what that life will be like don’t you? That’s why you left it. But sometimes, we are not ready to leave it for good, we just wanted to leave it behind for a little while, get some breathing space, then get ready for round two/three/four/five/six/seven of a life of abuse with our abuser.

Statistics say a lady will leave seven times on average before she leaves him for good. So if you really aren’t ready for that final severance of this relationship then you are not alone. I don’t know how many times you have left before (you won’t be able to answer that as it will get removed).

But what you do know, is that if you give in and answer this message you will start the ball rolling again for contact, and contact will lead to pressure to take him back/more abuse. I guess if you answer the message and the communication starts you will then start to get that little anxiety feeling in your chest that says to you “Oh God, what have I done?”

Trust me, as time goes by this will get easier, so many of us have got over our abuser and are living happy lives, but it wasn’t an easy journey to get here. I had my abuser back more times than I should have, it took me a long time to learn it was never going to get better.

If you want a direct answer, do not answer the text.

[ineedsomeadviseplease]

Thank you all for the replies

Today I feel really weakened with the fact that I have all of this thinking and certainty that you’re right. I don’t want that and I should not feel sad for losing it. The person I love is a lie and he’s probably with a new supply right now. I didn’t know about the 7 leaving and makes a lot of sense. He broke up with me many times and left me with a fear of abandonment and insecurities like I never felt. I’m experiencing this now and I want to survive and be strong.

I just can’t stop feeling this weight as if I will be held responsible if something bad happens

[Hope123]

I could have written most of this over the last couple of days. But is have made contact and how I wish I had come here first. Struggling with the same issues around contact. What have I done?? You have said exactly what I’m thinking and and struggling to accept. The man I love is in my head. It is a lie and not based on reality. But the pain of abandonment as he moves into his next victim is so painful.

So thank you for starting the topic with your honesty and thank you to the wise replies. x

[ineedsomeadviseplease]

Hi Hope

I have this fear that is eating me alive. I know he has a lot of victims aligned and I am nothing but supply for him. I try to remember all the times he left me crying because he made me feel so rejected. So it is difficult to connect the loving image I have from the start and from all the times we fought and he asked me to come back
He never said he loves me until the day I asked him to leave me alone. He can never say it. Only write it. Now I am trying to focus in all the emptiness and pray for this to pass because I can’t bear the idea that he will be the same loving person to someone else. As if that will proof that I was not good enough.
I feel all that. And only by coming here I am finding strength to keep No contact. But it’s so difficult to think that he may thing I am over it and that I don’t care. All I do is think about this. Been lost since we ended things and I can’t understand what keeps bringing me back to him if I know it’s all a lie

Hope; I wish you find the strength. From all these replies it was another day I kept no contact. So this really helps

[ineedsomeadviseplease]

Why is there always a threat of never speaking to us again and moving on?
Why am I afraid of that, if that is what is best for me?

[dustypink]

It’s an addiction, same as a drug addiction. Drug addicted people understand that it’s bad for them but can’t stop anyway. Same here.
We are psychologically damaged and can’t stay objective.
We can’t see the difference between good and bad.
This all is the result of abuse and it takes time to recover, but it is possible.
There are always 2 participating – abuser & victim. The dance will end only when the victim will refuse to dance.
It’s very hard, I know, I gave up so many times… And each time, each single time after giving up, I’ve been regretting.
These are all emotions. They are loud but not objective. When we follow them, we regret often.
Try to listen to your intuition. It is quiet and objective. It is the voice of real you which tells you what you really need and what will be the best option for you.

And this is just a moment, this won’t last forever, you just need some time! Life changes, everything changes, and this addiction will become weaker with time (as any other addiction) and one day you won’t remember him at all.

xx

[ineedsomeadviseplease]

I hope those feelings of fear and terrifying loneliness won’t last forever @dustypink
Been struggling a lot towards another day without any news. A person really close to him texted me today and I am not feeling like replying. I feel bad for cutting ties with people from our circle, but I don’t want to hear from him or for him to know about me
Is it too evil that I will end up losing people because I want to protect myself?

[Anonymous]

You are afraid of that because he has taught you, brainwashed you, manipulated you, gaslighted you into believing that he your everything. In fact, you are an appendage of his, kinda like an extra leg that he drags around in the dirt behind him and uses when he feels like it. He throws you a crumb or two every now and then and you are so grateful to get it from him because you are such a lowly servant of his and you deserved to be kicked, ridiculed, degraded, abused in whatever way he feels like doing and need I go on here?

You are coming to the stark reality that you aren’t your own person here. Your personhood and self identity has been hijacked by someone else. Him. What goes on in your head is straight from him as if he had an intercom going on in your brain. Look up Stockholm Syndrome because I highly suspect this is going on with you.

When we put the feelings, the needs of our abuser before our own feelings, needs and wellbeing on all levels then guess what? We are their slave and their prisoner and we are willing to be that.

All of what you are feeling is part of the poison that he has injected you with on a daily basis for I don’t know how long but it’s taken full effect here with you. It does go away…. It does. You have been so very trained to respond with fear and to take on “his guilt” actually about everything. Why? Because he can’t look at himself in the mirror. Won’t. Not going to happen so everytime he feels like that’s coming his way, he puts it on you or anyone that would be handy so nothing that special about you, he’d do it to whoever was there.

You have loneliness because you don’t know “you” at all. You’ve been too busy being codependent with him and maybe you never really got to know who you are……that’s extremely possible. Self identity can get very stunted as a child and it gets stuck, our emotional self doesn’t grow up and if we were in a situation of abuse or neglect as a child even more reason not to ever know who we are and go through the natural process of self identity and of our emotional self growing up. If we had an abusive parent or parents then we will go towards a man that is alot like that. It happens. We want to fix what we think we were responsible for growing up and that was always a lie, just not true. But a child’s mind is not a grownup mind so we get stuck there and a pattern forms and we play it out in our adult life. I don’t know if this is your situation or not but just saying…..

You need to be introduced to ‘you’. You’re feeling some disconnect from you, no one else. You seek to fill it with someone else but it needs to be filled by you. You can’t fill that hole with someone else all the time, it won’t work. You will always end up empty and feeling lonely. It’s time now for you to get in contact with your own inner self, your own soul, your own whole being because i highly suspect you have been on the outside looking in for a long long time…………yes?

[ineedsomeadviseplease]

Makes so much sense
This week was harder as the abuser keeps finding ways of talking to me. I have been able to maintain NC and I’m ashamed of saying a part of me is happy he is trying to contact me.

I am ashamed that I miss his good side, despite the fact that was gone months ago.

I have so little love for myself that I settle for that?

[Author]

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