Dolly2019

[Dolly2019]

I will add to this that there is a further challenge to come. One thing I strongly believe is that they harangue and pester with calls and texts because they want you to expect and become dependent on the regularity of contact. This boils down to one thing: control. Because when they cease and remove that contact (for no reason seemingly, but it will be another woman) your body is so used to the ‘hit’ of the conflict and the cortisol spikes and the drama, that when they fall silent, the silence can be crucifying. That is all part of the game to make you crack. Love bomb – then silent treatment to make you wonder, panic, then you’ll usually answer the text or the call next time.

Prepare your brain for this. When my ex suddenly started going silent for 2, 3 days at a time out of nowhere, it hurt more than I could articulate. But I knew.

It is all a game. My ex does this now. I have a non mil in place and I let him break it by talking to me repeatedly and showing up.

Of course, now he pops up like a Jack in the box when he feels like it – deliberately baiting me with his absence and then reappearance.

Don’t be fooled by it. They are already cheating on the new one doing what they do and it is all part of a sick game of control.

See it for what it is. Healthy people don’t do that. They don’t abuse to start with and then they don’t enjoy torturing someone afterwards when it’s over. Only a sick puppy does that.

Stay strong xxx

[Dolly2019]

Yes. It took months for my brain to let in the loss (the longer you are apart the more real it is) and even now, (detail removed by Moderator) months on, I still weep loudly into a towel and wail until my body can’t cry any more.

Be patient with yourself. It will come. When your brain and body are ready to let it in. Don’t force it. Don’t rush it. When you least expect it, your body will start to heal – and tears are so healing. They literally expel energy and toxins from the body. Be patient and kind to yourself. xxx

[Dolly2019]

Yes. When I first ended it I had the classic No Caller ID, sometimes as many as 25 in a day. If you haven’t had them before, they’re from him.

[Dolly2019]

I should add that this is all a game to him. My gut tells me that because this time I know about the other girl(s), he has to try other avenues to make me crumble. When the lies and “she was a mate’s girlfriend” bs didn’t wash, he resorted to (detail removed by Moderator)

I feel as if I screwed it completely by not enforcing the Non Mol because now he can just do a slow fade on his terms and tweak my heart strings when he feels like it with a sudden reappearing act.

He always used other women to taunt and bait me. Always. It was always his angle, and now has been no different.

I feel so foolish. For letting him break the non mol. For letting him toy with me like a cat and a mouse and I’m the mouse.

He even said (detail removed by Moderator) with a grin like I was some weak pathetic piece of shit.

I don’t want him back. I wanted to be loved and chosen by a good man who was loyal to me.

He will never tell the truth. What he is doing now is what my ex husband did. When he couldn’t stop the divorce and the pleading didn’t work, he stayed in the FMH (detail removed by Moderator) and dated other women. He threw it in my face.

In exactly the same way.

I don’t know why this man is doing it. He knows I wouldn’t forgive cheating – but he has roundly denied this and has completely re-written history.

Not only does he deny cheating, he now glibly let’s it be known he has moved on and “well you cheated and you didn’t want me, so…”

I don’t know if he is simply trying to control the ending, save face or make me chase to get him back. The latter I would rather die than do and I really could not ever even imagine forgiving what he has done.

So based on the fact that I have refused him since (detail removed by Moderator), what is his end game here?

[Dolly2019]

I am also going through this and it is by far the hardest part. Even though your rational mind knows you have done the right thing and you can (to an extent) remind yourself of the ugliness of their abuse, you still have searingly painful jolts of nostalgia for the soft, kind, tender moments with them. They weren’t all bad, otherwise we wouldn’t have fallen for them.

It is grief. I still have some of my ex’s clothes stored in a bag in my room. They smell of him. It makes me feel almost physically ill, at the thought of him putting his skin and smell next to another woman, which he is now doing. My mind cannot stay focused because all I can think about is him being intimate with her and making her feel like the most amazing creature on the planet.

It is a grief, because all along you have fallen in love with one part of them, but the other abusive side means there is always a glass wall between you. The abuse prevents true intimacy or hopes for a future. It is stop start stop start and you are in many ways cheated of the very loving parts about them that you miss.

I miss his insistence that we could make it, him showing up day after day, calling and just being here. His presence was constant. He used to say “you’ll miss me when I let go” and he was right. The phone doesn’t ring any more. The door doesn’t knock. He has let go and it is crucifyingly painful. My chest hurts the whole time. I can’t stand to go to the High Street because I will be searching for him and he is no longer searching for me, because he is with another woman now.

There is no grief quite like it. We walk, we end it, but good god does it hurt. Just because we want to be away from the abuse doesn’t stop us loving or desiring those parts of them that can be loving and kind.

The cognitive dissonance is horrendous and most people don’t understand it, you are right.

Have you spoken to anyone at Woman’s Aid? Are you seeing a counsellor at all? CBT might help to change your thought patters.

Keep posting. It does help, both you and others who are in the same boat. XX

[Dolly2019]

I’m trying so hard to lean into the pain and not away from it. The hardest, most excruciating pain is thinking of him in bed with another woman. His calling card was being a very attentive and generous lover and I hate to think of him assessing, comparing, enjoying another woman’s body. I know it’s inevitable but it still hurts.

Has anyone else had that sort of searing jealousy?

I keep telling myself it’s only a matter of time until she gets the foul mouth, the requests for money, the little swipes and digs. Whoever she is, she won’t escape lightly.

I also keep remembering his foul moods and the way he switched and I hold to his Jekyll and Hyde behaviour which was horrific.

I figured the more I lean into the pain, the less it will be over time.

It’s a combination of him sexually moving on so abruptly (and trying to con me with the WhatsApp picture) and just disappearing off the face of the map. This means he’s either ruthlessly choosing to stay away or he has better places to be (with other women).

Either way, I feel he will get over this far more quickly than I will.

[Dolly2019]

I’m trying so hard to lean into the pain and not away from it. The hardest, most excruciating pain is thinking of him in bed with another woman. His calling card was being a very attentive and generous lover and I hate to think of him assessing, comparing, enjoying another woman’s body. I know it’s inevitable but it still hurts.

Has anyone else had that sort of searing jealousy?

I keep telling myself it’s only a matter of time until she gets the foul mouth, the requests for money, the little swipes and digs. Whoever she is, she won’t escape lightly.

I also keep remembering his foul moods and the way he switched and I hold to his Jekyll and Hyde behaviour which was horrific.

I figured the more I lean into the pain, the less it will be over time.

It’s a combination of him sexually moving on so abruptly (and trying to con me with the WhatsApp picture) and just disappearing off the face of the map. This means he’s either ruthlessly choosing to stay away or he has better places to be (with other women).

Either way, I feel he will get over this far more quickly than I will.

[Dolly2019]

Hi KIP, I am trying every tool in my Arsenal to get over this hump. I am just crucified that he seems to have given up on all contact so abruptly. One day it was there, then it wasn’t. I always knew it would cease once he had a new girlfriend.

I can imagine him just smoking, watching (detail removed by moderator), chatting to girls, waiting to go to them or for them to come to him and just putting me completely out of his mind.

The only power I have left is silence. He will not know what I am doing or who I am speaking to. That is all I have to hold to.

I don’t believe he left it very long to move on but I clearly felt much more for him than he did me. Men find it easier to move on, especially someone like him who has multiple (detail removed by moderator) to turn to. He always juggled at least two women when he wasn’t properly locked down.

No, this is final. He has now found the strength to stay away. It is a big statement to me that he accepts it is over.

He may hope, by leaving me unblocked, that I break cover and return for a final humiliation. I don’t know. Or he simply can’t be arsed to block me. My mother said he won’t block you because he will always want to know whether you reached out to him or not. I believe there is a lot of truth to that.

I cannot stop thinking about him screwing another woman. He will know I am thinking that. He knows me better than I realise. But, I also know he will be wondering who I might be getting cosy with. His sexual interest won’t I imagine have died overnight. Who knows.

This is torture. It feels like karma for when I went no contact on him for all those weeks and he cried and wept. This is my karma now for thinking his interest would sustain such brutal silence. I know he deserved it, and a man like him would never thank me for that.

Thank goodness I have held my nerve and didn’t crack. I just have to keep holding on and holding on.

X

[Dolly2019]

I think he genuinely did suffer after her. The way he met her, it seemed she had the upper hand and made him work to get her. They started out with a different dynamic and he trauma bonded to her after a series of tragic events that happened in quick succession. He did time for her. She wasn’t even there when he got out and he forgave her, saying (Detail removed by moderator).

(Detail removed by moderator)He forgave her.

But he got her back.

He isn’t even trying with me now. It has been a blink and he has moved on.

I have asked this before and it is question I am asking out of hope that I haven’t been utterly discarded by him emotionally. Is he likely to contact me again? Or is this the finality I dreaded? If he did, I would not respond or speak in any way. But knowing what to expect, give or take, helps.

I just went out for an hour to the park. Our park where we sat in the summer. (Detail removed by moderator). It was desolate and empty. In this weather, I had hoped to catch a glimpse of him doing what I was doing. Re-treading the memory boards. But no. It feels now like it’s no longer ‘our’ park. He has detached. Found another girl. Probably inside eating, screwing, chatting, not thinking about me. I feel like a fool. I’m painfully trying to let go, do some work, keep the wheels on the bus and he is nowhere to be seen. Before Christmas he was chasing me down, he found me most days.

Now, he has no need. Even though I ditched him, blocked him, went to the police, I feel he has discarded me like the worthless trash he always said I was. He never really cared and the speed of his recovery shows me that.

I am struggling so badly. X

[Dolly2019]

Hi Madmam,

Thank you for your thoughts. I agree entirely that they see it as a race. My ex husband slept with someone else very shortly after I filed the petition, but he pleaded with me (whilst keeping this to himself)(detail removed by moderator) Basically, he was lining up dates and sleeping around, but he wanted to control my movements until it was such time that HE was ready to move on.

The thing that hurts about this is he told me in no uncertain terms that he “cried for months” over his ex. Ok, that didn’t mean to say that he didn’t sleep around to get over her, but it suggests it took him a long time to purge her from his system. He said that the first girl he slept with after her,(detail removed by moderator).

(Detail removed by moderator).

I agree that he is probably chasing skirt to keep loneliness at bay. Knowing I have a house, a child, money, food, family, he must have felt destitute during Christmas and lockdown. The sobs on the vm (detail removed by moderator) would seem to indicate that he was suffering very badly. No doubt, the start of a New Year without hearing from me was enough for him to decide he had to pick himself up and start again.

He too moved on from his ex with alarming speed. They broke up (detail removed by moderator).  By all accounts he didn’t love them, as he was quick to jettison them in favour of me. (detail removed by moderator).

Not since he was (detail removed by moderator) In other words, he continually had women in play. So, it’s not really a surprise that he has moved on.

What makes me sick is that all that while he had that picture up that was a direct link to me. Then, in a blink after total radio silence, he changes the pictures (detail removed by moderator).

I have just stumbled across a song list in my 2019 diary that I wrote after a night with him. It is almost too painful to read. I am scared about even trying to listen to some of the songs in case they just break me down.

I feel almost envious that he did have all that time up until New Year to process the break up. When he broke bail and ambushed me, he was shaking and crying, saying he couldn’t eat or sleep, that he could barely get out of bed, he was thinking about me 24/7. Roll on (detail removed by moderator) and he seems to have bounced back remarkably well while my mind has taken a sharp decline. I had the constancy of his communications to take my mind off the pain and of course Christmas and New Year. The reassurance given by his constant calls and sightings made me feel, somehow, that it wasn’t completely over. Up until the last call, I was thinking even that I might meet him for one last walk to get answers to questions. The reality of what my brother told me has stripped me bare of any hope that he would give me closure, that he might still miss me. It was like a punch in the stomach. He is no longer sitting alone or pining in his flat. He now has a companion, whether she is his “soul mate” is another matter, but he has someone to scratch the itch and move on with.

A rebound? Yes, for sure. Probably one of many until he finds another more permanent victim. I just feel jettisoned and as if I have a long road of grief recovery to do, while he has broken the back of his hurt and has turned a corner. I feel devastated. X

[Dolly2019]

Hi Kip. Thank you for your thoughts. I wholly agree that leaving a contact lifeline is, as you rightly point out, for him a hopeful means by which I will go back and offer myself up for one final and brutal discard. I have no wish to give him that, nor will I. I will move heaven and earth not to be seen by him. This last blow is too much. The game. Keeping the door ajar. Plainly lining up another woman / women. All the while attempting to mislead me with the (detail removed by moderator).

My mother is convinced he changed it to (detail removed by moderator)so as not to lose the element of surprise if I did go back. He is a narcissist. He would have wanted me to believe, naively, for as long as possible that he was being “faithful”. What better way to lure me back, only to have that up his sleeve as a final cruel blow. “I don’t fancy you any more. It’s changed. I’ve met someone…”

My brother clocking him ruined that. Hence the desperate bid to say (detail removed by moderator)

It also serves a secondary purpose as if to say, ‘if you believe your brother and believe I am sleeping around, then in my mind that gives you the green light to do the same.’

He wanted to control from beyond the grave. In his world, if I moved on with unseemly haste, I was (detail removed by moderator)

So he would no way have wanted me to think he had moved on, because it would give me the go ahead to do the same. I know his mindset. He would not want me to have closure or to move on.

I think, it will feel better to do a bulk dump of his clothes in one go. My brain is racing at 1000 miles an hour. My brain keeps looping back and replaying fights we had. I feel I have to concentrate so hard to even remember why they started, so frequent were they. His voice messages(detail removed by moderator). It was ok for him to threaten other women and how he could go back to his ex whenever he wanted. But for me to say if I could go back and start over, I wouldn’t have dated him, he said that was the (detail removed by moderator).

Calling me filthy names, taunting me with women. Saying cruel things about my body, how his ex was (detail removed by moderator). But when I tell him he isn’t all that, he is devastated by my words. One rule for him, another for me.

I don’t believe she will be getting better treatment necessarily. It only took (detail removed by moderator) for him to lose his rag at me and start name calling. He has limited control. He may play it more safely with this one initially (she is, if my brother is to be believed, (detail removed by moderator) and possibly more gullible. My resistance to his games angered him. I wasn’t docile or dumb enough to “let shit go”. All along he called me sensitive and read too much into things. Or, I saw through him.

The coldest feeling is that we never happened. That everything we shared is now gone, and he is making new memories with another woman already. After saying he would find it so hard to move on. He is already in another woman’s bed, probably sweet talking her the way he did me. Comparing our bodies. Telling himself she is fitter / tighter / younger / hotter. He would not just go with any old dog. He has “standards”. For him, it would be too much of an insult to go for a middle of the road when he (detail removed by moderator) in me. I am terrified of seeing them out. Terrified.

I know this bond will take time to break. I am reminding myself of the awful rages and his horrible moods. I do feel shamed. My gut all along said he didn’t respect me. He saw me as a bit of posh potty, a (detail removed by moderator) as he once called me. I was not his ex. He hated me for not being her. I stand by that. The shame of knowing I fell in love with this guy and he was mentally with her and not with me all along really stings. How could I let myself be used like that. How, did I not walk when the signs were there. Some major work to do there to unplug why I was so scared to let him go. The trauma bond started within the first week. Something went off in my brian and I need to know what. When I can unpick that, I can hopefully find a way through this. X

[Dolly2019]

I feel your pain so much. It is definitely trauma bonding and the pain is like no other. I left a (detail removed by moderator)year marriage and suffered less than I am now after a flash in the pan.

I feel physically sick at the thought of him closing down and moving on. It is a pain like
No other. It can drive you into a panicked state that is incomparable to any other pain. You will do anything to run and hide from it.

I have found writing on here really helps. Do you have a DV counsellor? An IDVA I believe they are called. Mine is invaluable.

I believe, this particular pain comes from knowing that when it is out of your hands, so is closure. I think, when third parties become involved (police, bail conditions), it ceases to be something between the two of you. It starts to be something that is controlled by others and so you can’t get the natural private closure that most endings have. These endings are brutal, sudden, often when you are still deeply attached to and in love with the abuser. It is going mental and physical cold turkey with no relief and no answers to questions.

That is when writing really helps. Journaling and getting it down. Write on here as often as you can and just purge.

Wishing you strength X

[Dolly2019]

The one thing you can guarantee is that while they are pleading and begging, they are lining up or sourcing a rebound. My ex did it to me. I felt suspicious that his ex, whom he claimed left him feeling “suicidal”, was only a few months off the scene. In that time he had ‘two other relationships…if you can call them that…’

He jettisoned one of them as soon as he met me. Literally in her bed one minute and mine within 2 days. They are locusts. They need someone, either to soothe their ego after being rejected or for the simple reason of food and hot water, in my ex’s case. They really are expert liars. There he was telling me I was the love of his life. The next thing I know, in an argument, he’s telling me he has people he can go to “today” and he’s “seriously thinking about it.”

The threats using other women is despicable in my opinion, one of the worst things they do. It dehumanises and it isn’t love, no matter how much you want to believe it is.

Let him go, stop looking at what he is doing, if you can, try finding a new hobby, plan for the future. It makes you feel sick, I know, but day by day time heals.

X

[Dolly2019]

@Hetty, I’m sorry you had such an awful Christmas. It is always a hard time I find, if you are not in a happy place emotionally.

I found Christmas ok as I was with my family bubble and they helped me recalibrate. But being at home again, seeing empty streets, I feel desperately alone.

The suddenness of his absence, not even 3/4 days absence but a week, like that, has played havoc with my mind. It is turning in circles wondering who has distracted him sufficiently to stay away. I can’t prove it, I am suffering in imagination. I also know he will likely treat her like dirt and use her as he did me. But it’s still steps forward to heal.

There is a song I want to put on and cry, but it almost hurts too much to even consider it. I can’t quite believe, it is over. It is starting to feel over in that cold, brutal way that continued silence tells you. I’m not going to be close to him again, hear him making tea, have him touch my foot gently. I am not going to see, hear or feel any of that again. He will close down, shut down and move on. It’s what he does to survive. He’s a parasite in so many ways.

But showing up, riding past. Even doing that he was building up a dependency on his presence. Then he has the power and control in not doing it any more.

I wish to god I hadn’t been at the window. Wish he hadn’t seen me. I feel sure that is what did it. He knew I was waiting for a glimpse and it gave him power to stay away. Call it a guy feeling but this is another means of messing with me.

I just have to let this pain sit with me. It is agony. I was clearing out some boxes and came across something he put in it. All I could think was “he touched this. His hands were on this.”

It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts. X

[Dolly2019]

I was the same. My drinking increased in the relationship and when it ended I slept around in an unsafe way too. I can’t get past the humiliation of them instigating a rape, then he stopped midway (after strangling me) to call me a slut as if I asked for it and he didn’t want it. When I think back now I wonder why i haven’t just had him locked up already.

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