Missing my ex & feeling sad…

[Anonymous]

I’m still thinking about him, tonight I have felt sad and was thinking about him. That I would like to contact him and tell him that I love and miss him. I dont think that I will in reality. I am holding onto the fact that healthy relationships are equal, he has made no attempt to contact me. I told him those things as we split up and he did not reciprocate. I cannot be in an unequal relationship it is damaging to your well being. I wish I didn’t feel this sadness. He was a pretty useless partner and nothing special really.

[lover of no contact]

The sad feelings are normal and being out of the relationship leaves a void. Please don’t contact him as you will be back to square one again. These sad feelings and missing them are part of the healing of leaving the abusive relationship. If you let yourself feel them, the void, the emptiness and the longing for him, they will pass and next time they come back they will be less and less until eventually you will feel nothing at all.

What helped me was reading the book and watching the film ‘He’s just not that into you’. That kept me grounded in reality. Abuse is so confusing for us because initially my abuser love-bombed me, made me feel special, groomed me really for the abuse which followed.

Idealize, devalue and discard. That’s what they do. But we feel bad and miss and crave the ‘buzz’ we got from when they were love-bombimg us.

What helped me was marking each day I stayed ‘No Contact’ with him on a calendar, day 1, 2 etc. And then not breaking that despite my feelings. The only way is to feel those feelings.

[Serenity]

I think LONC is right: they can pretend to be so much our ideal during the love-bombing stage, that we spend all our time after this yearning for them to return to that ; and even after the relationship has ended we can feel sad, wondering ‘why’ and yearning for that sense of connection that we felt during that love-bombing stage.

It’s like tasting the sweetest food- and then never being able to taste it again. We can spend our time craving it.

I think it helps ( horrible though the truth is) to remind ourselves that these are very clever, manipulative men who knew exactly what they were doing when they pretended to be our ideal. But what lies beneath, inside them, is far from being pretty. Think of his attitude towards disabled people, etc. He is like a parcel that looks pretty from the outside, but open it up and there’s nothing much inside, or something not very nice.

It’s natural that you will get days like this. It’s one step back, two steps forwards. These abusers target our most natural and vulnerable emotions, and stomp all over them.

You deserve someone who is beautiful on the inside, too, someone who feels bad if they hurt someone ( and not feel powerful because of it).

I think we must allow ourselves these moments when we feel down, and just allow ourselves to gently and gradually work through them, and to not berate ourselves for having down times, but to know also that such feelings will pass and that another day we will feel in more of a fighting spirit again.

Maybe at times like this, write a list of all the horrible things he did. Then look st it when you feel you miss him. You will have a clear reminder right in front of you of who this man really is.

“It’s in the valley that we grow. Push yourself outwardly to be rewarded inwardly. We must not allow our most devastating situation to take root and define or consume us. Its at the very weakest point that we pull ourselves up and know that I know that this too shall pass.”

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your kind comments LONC & Serneity. I am reasonably confident that I won’t contact him, i know that will hugely set me back and give him a 5th chance to ignore me which is what he has done since we split. I know that I dont want him back and that he is rubbish, he’s just under my skin still. I like the term Acceptance and my trusty verse ‘Love Your Suffering’ by Hermann Hessee will see me through this. I have made some lovely social plans for myself for the rest of this month, including what will be a hilarious night out at the movies to see a very funny film. XXXXX

[KIP.]

Here’s an old post I kept. I copied and pasted many posts onto a notes page and I like to look at them when I feel low……..

You miss the good times, of which there were no doubt many because all our abusers started out as charming men – that’s why we got into relationships with them in the first place.

Here’s what stops me missing my ex – perhaps it will help you. I remind myself that my ex is a liar and I fell in love with a man who doesn’t truly exist. He presented himself as caring, successful, and totally tuned into my needs. In short, he moulded himself into the perfect partner and told me whatever I wanted to hear. I lapped it up. I believed he was the most amazing man I’d ever met and couldn’t believe he felt the same way about me…

But he was lying the whole time. All the things he told me – all a fantasy. He lied to get me to fall in love with him and he lied to get me to stay with him, always playing the victim (when he wasn’t intimidating me with threats and actual violence).

The real him is a self-serving and nasty individual who I never would have fallen for if he had revealed his true self to me.

So you see I don’t miss him, but I miss aspects of the “fake” him – the one that was pretending to be nice to reel me in. Does my ex sound anything like yours? If so then put the “fake” him out of your mind – that man doesn’t exist.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this KIP, i have read your post a few times today, i’m trying to remember the words and will keep reading it. I know that you are right. X*X How can anybody live a lie, day in day out, I wouldn’t have the memory or energy to be able to do this. All I can say is that they must be hell bent on achieving a goal to keep up such pretence. I remember when I first met my ex I thought he was a con man after money (I dont have much but I have a house). I told him very early and very bluntly “You are never getting anything from me”. At that point I had read quite a lot about women being ripped off for thousands and thousands with the promise of love. I think this is common practice for single older women who go on holiday abroad. At the same time somebody at work had lost everything she owned, house and pension to a man she had married for 5 years, she thought he only ever had a game plan all along, to rob her. One year after we had been dating I repeated “You are never getting anything from me”. He was pressurizing me so much to move in. I am proud to say that the son of a b**th never did get a penny. I do believe though that some poor lonely and rich widow will fall victim to him at some point, its shameful isn’t it.

[Anonymous]

Dear KIP, I have just read your post again. When I first split up I read this book called The Devils Toolkit by HG Tudor. Its a short ebook available on Amazon. It is about covert manipulation and emotional abuse tactics. There is a chapter called Goggles of Reflection. Basically it describes the abuser wearing the goggles of reflection so that when you look into your partner/abusers face it is as though you are looking at yourself. It is a tactic which is (subtly) used to make you believe that you have met your other half/soulmate etc. It appears unbelievable, your partner is like your identical other half he seems to have the same goals, dreams and aspirations as you do. That is how you get hooked in, thinking you have finally met you match. But in reality it is a clever deceitful manipulation tactic.

[KIP.]

Try to cut and paste any inspirational quotes or posts, I have some great ones I often re read. Yes, looking back he wanted everything I wanted. I thought he was my soulmate. Total loser x

[Anonymous]

Manipulative and devious, karma will get them in the end. X*X

[Author]

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