Breakups & Divorce Support Group
Just broke up with someone or in the midst of a difficult divorce? Breaking up is difficult no matter what the circumstances are. They say that time heals all wounds, but sometimes a listening ear or a hug can work wonders for the heart. Whether you need a place to vent, someone to hold you to No Contact, or need advice about what to do, we're here to help.
Warning : Long Post Alert, This Could Be A Big One!
Well folks, in just little less than a hour the date on the calendar will be the 3rd of December! Why might this be important, my ex-fiance walked out what used to be our front door on August 3rd, in 3 hours it will mark a total of 4 months since she's been gone!
4 months worth of time that have been filled with just about every emotion I think I'm capable of expressing, showing and feeling! 4 months worth of time that have allowed me to think about a lot of stuff, namely the events leading up to the breakup, the breakup itself and now to think about things post breakup.
I got back home several hours ago from a very long, rainy walk! A walk where towards the end, I stood alone in an empty parking lot and just felt the rain come down upon my face, then I drifted into thinking, that I to have produced a lot of rain, the rain of tears that have come out of my eye's since she's been gone! But as I stood there, getting soaked and looking up into the dark clouds and feeling the hard rain, I thought, you know Aaron, every rainy storm always makes way for the light of the Sun and the blue of the sky!
Upon thinking that I was taken back by what I said, every storm makes way for the coming Sun and blue sky?!?!?! It hit me, in regards to everything I've gone though these past 4 months has been in itself a virtual internal storm raging inside me, dark clouds, hard rains, strong winds.....but now I feel different, I no longer feel the turbulence of the winds, the sorrow of the rain, and the once black clouds that lingered over my head have faded!
I am starting to feel my own personal internal storm giving way to the Sun and giving way to my own virtual blue sky's. I stood there drenched through my cloths wet in that parking lot, remembering the "good times" we had, trips like San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Bodega Bay, Santa Cruz, the memory's of those places went past my eye's, and you know what, for the first time I "smiled" I actually went beyond the hurt of the memory's and gave into the thought of "you'll always have the good times Aaron, with her, without her, no one can take those from you"! And at that moment I was just plain and simply happy to have enjoyed those places with her, for once I felt it was my honor to have shared those special places of mine with her.
With rain dripping off my face I stood there and remembered this time last year, full of such happy times, good times, Holiday cheer, the togetherness, the 100th time listening to Jingle Bells.....yay.....not! For once the thought of those Holiday memory's from last year didn't really hurt, I stood there for once just being thankful to have had someone in my life at that time to have enjoy that Holiday season with. The memory's of our many Down Town Sacramento trips flashed before my eye's, the couple movies we saw, K-Street Mall, Old Town, Johnny Rockets, it all came back to me, but unlike the times before, where these memory's would hurt me, again, I drifted into thinking that I should just feel thankful about the fact that I had someone special in my life to have shared all that with.
Standing there in that mildly dark empty parking lot, I look towards the ground, I looked at a particular area of the parking lot that my ex-faince and I would walk through to get to one of our stores down the street. I remembered the many times we walked that, hand in hand, smile to smile, I remembered that and it in turn it spawned thoughts and memory's we shared together inside of what used to be our home. Dinner and Netflix nights, playing Uno, sitting upon the sofa just talking, in our bedroom making tons of love, cooking together in the kitchen, the front patio BBQ dinners outside during the warm summer evenings, the swimming, the spa, the small gym, our late night walks together, going to the river and skipping stones and talking about what our kids will be like when we have them and what our first home together might look like and be. The hosting of friends and family, working together as a team to clean the apartment, hanging out with our two cats, video gaming together, the works, I was hit by it all tonight............and again.........for the first time the thoughts of it all didn't really hurt me!
Again I was overcome with the notion that I should feel blessed to have shared my home with someone special.
Don't get me wrong here folks, I'm not going to lie to you, the way of life and life style I shared with my ex-faince is very much missed. I miss many aspects of it all, but I'm stood there and realized and told myself....."Aaron, your still living each day without her, your still doing things without her, your now sleeping restful and sound nights without her, your cooking some good meals without her, your still talking and sometimes hosting friends without her, your still hanging out with family without her, your taking care of the two cat's without her, your keeping your home very clean and tidy without her.............the key point............I'm doing all this "without her", yeah, sometimes it's odd and sometimes it's very uncomfortable, but again, I'm now able to live many of the aspects of my life as I did before meeting her! I now know I'm not going to "die without her" on the contrary, these past 4 months have showed me that I'm still alive and kicking and when it comes to life and perhaps the next special woman of my life................."we ain't done yet"!
Also while standing there being a sopping wet sponge in that parking lot, I thought back to all the harm that woman had done to me, my friends and my family. How her and her family swindled us out of a lot of time, energy and money! I thought back to all the money requests, hay Aaron can you spot me $50.00, couple weeks later...can you loan me $20.00 and so on! The money issues played a huge role in our demise. Her family lying about the death of my ex-faince's Sister, setting up a false funeral business on the web and channeling all moneys that we supposed to go to a dead persons final expenses, it all went to her Dad, ((found out about the fake death of the sister a couple weeks back))! Her controlling ways, always wanting to be the center of attention and affection. Her controlling sociopathic ways, how she purposely distanced me from people, secret talk with people to get them to leave us alone and stay away, she basically was "isolating me"! Always the "poor pitiful me" cards from her that were played all the time, also the fantastic "victim cards" she's play from time to time, the conspiracy's, Big Brother is out to get us, nothing every really being her fault, always had a escape goat in her hip pocket, her apparent lack of sympathy and empathy to wards others................all the way to her Father telling her God spoke to him when he touched the family cross in the living room, telling him "Aaron is bad news, God says you must leave him and come back home to the people who love you"! Yeah right Dad, you only wanted her back for her disability check, for you always were complaining how you can't make it without her, the continued monthly complaints about how tight money was, having to sell stuff off on Craigslist and e-bay just to make ends meet. Her lies, her using people, her abusing people, secret talks, the isolation ect. ect. ect.
Through it all, I've just come to a point and place as to say "Aaron, your just going to have to think that it was what it was" and now it's time to drop the hard feelings from it all, and move on! So I looked up into the dark sky, the rain pelting my face, I looked up, and it feeling right, I openly said out loud........"I forgive you"! It wasn't all her fault, she was born into a very trying and troubled and violent home, full of alcoholism, morphine abuse, steroid rage, domestic violence, verbal abuse, possible sexual abuse, sibling rivalry, house to house to house, weight issues, not allowed to have "real world" friends other than what she can make on a computer, not allowed to get mental health help......ever! Being yanked out of school at the 2nd grade and never being allowed to return, never living outside the home, being allowed to be a hermit in her upstairs bedroom, she had a lot going against her from the very start, tonight I finally gave into such thinking and for once I wasn't so much pissed off with her and her family, for once, I felt very sorry and sad for them, almost to the point where I was going to pray for them!
But even with all that, her fault or not, it isn't serving me anymore to be stuck with thinking about all of that! Now a day's I just can't muster up the same level of being pissed and upset about it all as I could say 2-3-4 months ago. There has to be an end to it all, there has to be some "letting it go", again it doesn't serve me anymore by accessing this, researching about it, over thinking it, getting upset by it, getting pissed by it, it just doesn't do me anymore good to harbor it all inside.
So tonight inside that dark rainy parking lot, drenched in water and soaked cloths I said it again out loud "I forgive you"! Looking up into that dark sky I also said out loud "I'm am letting it go"! Then I thought back to my earlier "The storms always give way to the Sun and blue sky's"! I'm letting it go as to make ready for the Sun to peek it's beams of light through my dark clouds, on the hope and faith that the blue sky's of better days are just around the corner. I'm also letting it go as to be fair with whoever might come into my life next! I want to start making mental and emotional room inside myself for the next possible "special lady" that might come into my life!
I realized I'm fine, I'm still alive, I'm still breathing...........and thinking I'm making good choices by attending 3 support groups per week, maintaining myself though my psychiatrist, and my therapist and the new medications I'm on, it's all good, it's all helping me to live with just me, it's all helping me learn from this experience, where I went wrong, my faults, being more attentive to "red flags", everything I'm doing now is helping me learn and ready myself for the next possible relationship!
It's doesn't matter anymore, I'm done with it, I now know it was for the best that things ended! We were just from two way different worlds, from way different sides of the tracks, her family set in their unique ways and my family set in theirs. To many differences, to many different ways of doing things, two very codependent people......one who is a taker, and me, who is a chronic "people pleaser", the giver! There wasn't enough "balance", to much "give & take" and to much "push -pull"!
but I'm now at a point where I'm grateful for the experience, it was like a fantasy come true, something right off the pages of the script to the movie "Pretty Woman"! We made some good memory's, we had some good foods, we went to some good places and we had some good times while it lasted, I am now just thankful to have has a special person in my life to help in the creation of those "good things"!
In closing I'm just at a place, and it feels right, and I'm now thinking for the first time.............
"It is better to have loved, than to have never loved at all"!
With a warm heart I really wish my ex-fiance well, I wish her the best of luck in life, I hope she's happy, I hope her parents don't give her any problems, I hope she's safe, I hope she meets someone one of these days more suited for her and her needs than I was, I hope she enjoyed her time with me in California, and I'm hoping and wishing she's staying warm, for it's cold in Ohio right now and she's medically cold sensitive! I love her, I'm thankful to have had her for the time I did, and she will always have a special little place inside my heart, always!
Time to move on, time to see what's around the next corner, and with what I've learned by all of this, I'm excited at the potential of the next relationship I might get into, that it will be more healthy and more well balanced that my previous!
Thanks for reading!
"Let's turn the page"!
Well folks, in just little less than a hour the date on the calendar will be the 3rd of December! Why might this be important, my ex-fiance walked out what used to be our front door on August 3rd, in 3 hours it will mark a total of 4 months since she's been gone!
4 months worth of time that have been filled with just about every emotion I think I'm capable of expressing, showing and feeling! 4 months worth of time that have allowed me to think about a lot of stuff, namely the events leading up to the breakup, the breakup itself and now to think about things post breakup.
I got back home several hours ago from a very long, rainy walk! A walk where towards the end, I stood alone in an empty parking lot and just felt the rain come down upon my face, then I drifted into thinking, that I to have produced a lot of rain, the rain of tears that have come out of my eye's since she's been gone! But as I stood there, getting soaked and looking up into the dark clouds and feeling the hard rain, I thought, you know Aaron, every rainy storm always makes way for the light of the Sun and the blue of the sky!
Upon thinking that I was taken back by what I said, every storm makes way for the coming Sun and blue sky?!?!?! It hit me, in regards to everything I've gone though these past 4 months has been in itself a virtual internal storm raging inside me, dark clouds, hard rains, strong winds.....but now I feel different, I no longer feel the turbulence of the winds, the sorrow of the rain, and the once black clouds that lingered over my head have faded!
I am starting to feel my own personal internal storm giving way to the Sun and giving way to my own virtual blue sky's. I stood there drenched through my cloths wet in that parking lot, remembering the "good times" we had, trips like San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Bodega Bay, Santa Cruz, the memory's of those places went past my eye's, and you know what, for the first time I "smiled" I actually went beyond the hurt of the memory's and gave into the thought of "you'll always have the good times Aaron, with her, without her, no one can take those from you"! And at that moment I was just plain and simply happy to have enjoyed those places with her, for once I felt it was my honor to have shared those special places of mine with her.
With rain dripping off my face I stood there and remembered this time last year, full of such happy times, good times, Holiday cheer, the togetherness, the 100th time listening to Jingle Bells.....yay.....not! For once the thought of those Holiday memory's from last year didn't really hurt, I stood there for once just being thankful to have had someone in my life at that time to have enjoy that Holiday season with. The memory's of our many Down Town Sacramento trips flashed before my eye's, the couple movies we saw, K-Street Mall, Old Town, Johnny Rockets, it all came back to me, but unlike the times before, where these memory's would hurt me, again, I drifted into thinking that I should just feel thankful about the fact that I had someone special in my life to have shared all that with.
Standing there in that mildly dark empty parking lot, I look towards the ground, I looked at a particular area of the parking lot that my ex-faince and I would walk through to get to one of our stores down the street. I remembered the many times we walked that, hand in hand, smile to smile, I remembered that and it in turn it spawned thoughts and memory's we shared together inside of what used to be our home. Dinner and Netflix nights, playing Uno, sitting upon the sofa just talking, in our bedroom making tons of love, cooking together in the kitchen, the front patio BBQ dinners outside during the warm summer evenings, the swimming, the spa, the small gym, our late night walks together, going to the river and skipping stones and talking about what our kids will be like when we have them and what our first home together might look like and be. The hosting of friends and family, working together as a team to clean the apartment, hanging out with our two cats, video gaming together, the works, I was hit by it all tonight............and again.........for the first time the thoughts of it all didn't really hurt me!
Again I was overcome with the notion that I should feel blessed to have shared my home with someone special.
Don't get me wrong here folks, I'm not going to lie to you, the way of life and life style I shared with my ex-faince is very much missed. I miss many aspects of it all, but I'm stood there and realized and told myself....."Aaron, your still living each day without her, your still doing things without her, your now sleeping restful and sound nights without her, your cooking some good meals without her, your still talking and sometimes hosting friends without her, your still hanging out with family without her, your taking care of the two cat's without her, your keeping your home very clean and tidy without her.............the key point............I'm doing all this "without her", yeah, sometimes it's odd and sometimes it's very uncomfortable, but again, I'm now able to live many of the aspects of my life as I did before meeting her! I now know I'm not going to "die without her" on the contrary, these past 4 months have showed me that I'm still alive and kicking and when it comes to life and perhaps the next special woman of my life................."we ain't done yet"!
Also while standing there being a sopping wet sponge in that parking lot, I thought back to all the harm that woman had done to me, my friends and my family. How her and her family swindled us out of a lot of time, energy and money! I thought back to all the money requests, hay Aaron can you spot me $50.00, couple weeks later...can you loan me $20.00 and so on! The money issues played a huge role in our demise. Her family lying about the death of my ex-faince's Sister, setting up a false funeral business on the web and channeling all moneys that we supposed to go to a dead persons final expenses, it all went to her Dad, ((found out about the fake death of the sister a couple weeks back))! Her controlling ways, always wanting to be the center of attention and affection. Her controlling sociopathic ways, how she purposely distanced me from people, secret talk with people to get them to leave us alone and stay away, she basically was "isolating me"! Always the "poor pitiful me" cards from her that were played all the time, also the fantastic "victim cards" she's play from time to time, the conspiracy's, Big Brother is out to get us, nothing every really being her fault, always had a escape goat in her hip pocket, her apparent lack of sympathy and empathy to wards others................all the way to her Father telling her God spoke to him when he touched the family cross in the living room, telling him "Aaron is bad news, God says you must leave him and come back home to the people who love you"! Yeah right Dad, you only wanted her back for her disability check, for you always were complaining how you can't make it without her, the continued monthly complaints about how tight money was, having to sell stuff off on Craigslist and e-bay just to make ends meet. Her lies, her using people, her abusing people, secret talks, the isolation ect. ect. ect.
Through it all, I've just come to a point and place as to say "Aaron, your just going to have to think that it was what it was" and now it's time to drop the hard feelings from it all, and move on! So I looked up into the dark sky, the rain pelting my face, I looked up, and it feeling right, I openly said out loud........"I forgive you"! It wasn't all her fault, she was born into a very trying and troubled and violent home, full of alcoholism, morphine abuse, steroid rage, domestic violence, verbal abuse, possible sexual abuse, sibling rivalry, house to house to house, weight issues, not allowed to have "real world" friends other than what she can make on a computer, not allowed to get mental health help......ever! Being yanked out of school at the 2nd grade and never being allowed to return, never living outside the home, being allowed to be a hermit in her upstairs bedroom, she had a lot going against her from the very start, tonight I finally gave into such thinking and for once I wasn't so much pissed off with her and her family, for once, I felt very sorry and sad for them, almost to the point where I was going to pray for them!
But even with all that, her fault or not, it isn't serving me anymore to be stuck with thinking about all of that! Now a day's I just can't muster up the same level of being pissed and upset about it all as I could say 2-3-4 months ago. There has to be an end to it all, there has to be some "letting it go", again it doesn't serve me anymore by accessing this, researching about it, over thinking it, getting upset by it, getting pissed by it, it just doesn't do me anymore good to harbor it all inside.
So tonight inside that dark rainy parking lot, drenched in water and soaked cloths I said it again out loud "I forgive you"! Looking up into that dark sky I also said out loud "I'm am letting it go"! Then I thought back to my earlier "The storms always give way to the Sun and blue sky's"! I'm letting it go as to make ready for the Sun to peek it's beams of light through my dark clouds, on the hope and faith that the blue sky's of better days are just around the corner. I'm also letting it go as to be fair with whoever might come into my life next! I want to start making mental and emotional room inside myself for the next possible "special lady" that might come into my life!
I realized I'm fine, I'm still alive, I'm still breathing...........and thinking I'm making good choices by attending 3 support groups per week, maintaining myself though my psychiatrist, and my therapist and the new medications I'm on, it's all good, it's all helping me to live with just me, it's all helping me learn from this experience, where I went wrong, my faults, being more attentive to "red flags", everything I'm doing now is helping me learn and ready myself for the next possible relationship!
It's doesn't matter anymore, I'm done with it, I now know it was for the best that things ended! We were just from two way different worlds, from way different sides of the tracks, her family set in their unique ways and my family set in theirs. To many differences, to many different ways of doing things, two very codependent people......one who is a taker, and me, who is a chronic "people pleaser", the giver! There wasn't enough "balance", to much "give & take" and to much "push -pull"!
but I'm now at a point where I'm grateful for the experience, it was like a fantasy come true, something right off the pages of the script to the movie "Pretty Woman"! We made some good memory's, we had some good foods, we went to some good places and we had some good times while it lasted, I am now just thankful to have has a special person in my life to help in the creation of those "good things"!
In closing I'm just at a place, and it feels right, and I'm now thinking for the first time.............
"It is better to have loved, than to have never loved at all"!
With a warm heart I really wish my ex-fiance well, I wish her the best of luck in life, I hope she's happy, I hope her parents don't give her any problems, I hope she's safe, I hope she meets someone one of these days more suited for her and her needs than I was, I hope she enjoyed her time with me in California, and I'm hoping and wishing she's staying warm, for it's cold in Ohio right now and she's medically cold sensitive! I love her, I'm thankful to have had her for the time I did, and she will always have a special little place inside my heart, always!
Time to move on, time to see what's around the next corner, and with what I've learned by all of this, I'm excited at the potential of the next relationship I might get into, that it will be more healthy and more well balanced that my previous!
Thanks for reading!
"Let's turn the page"!
I enjoyed reading your post and I can only hope that very shortly I can be at peace with my situation in the way that you are. Your post has given me hope that one day (hopefully sooner rather than later) I will be stopped in my tracks like you were and be able to reflect on my memories with him and smile instead of fee pain. Tomorrow, 12/4 will be exactly three months for me and unfortunately I am not at the same place as you are, I am not at peace with things yet.
I am hoping I can find this same peace very soon. Kudos to you, you should be very happy with yourself that you have reached this milestone!
A HUGE congratulations!!!!!!!
Sb157: Thank you so very much for your support!
gem111: Thank you, I think you out of a handful of people here know exactly what I've gone through. This has been a very hard and challenging road to walk down. But within these past several weeks something inside me was changing. Something was happening, something that was allowing more and more mental separation from the situation as a whole. It just was very liberating last night, in that parking lot, soaked by rain, I almost starting screaming and yelling with relief, but it's one thing in normal volume to say "I forgive you", but scream and yell, perhaps to much, also I didn't feel like explaining to any Police Officer about my possible "break through" moment. But thanks Gem, I'm feeling quite better today!
Closing note:
Something also hit me last night during my "taking a shower with my cloths on" moment. Something dawned upon me, it was just a small tiny trickle of thought, not really enough to have understood at the moment, but now that I've had time to process it a little, I've come to a possible conclusion on something! Perhaps, just perhaps my world, my life, my friends, my family, all of our middle class life styles, perhaps all of it maybe made my ex-faince feel anxious, nervous, scared, unknown, troubled, doubts, fear, ect. ect. ect. Maybe this way of life over here scared her, perhaps she wasn't as comfortable with it all as she made me to believe. The way our lives came together, the quickness of it all, the speed, perhaps when it came to her entering into my world here, maybe it was something like taking a human being (her) and transporting her to the surface of mars, instantly, without much planning, just (((poof))) there you are, welcome home! I honestly think now that everything that my family, my friends and myself could provide maybe was a bit much for someone who came from scraping the bottom of the barrel just to get a scrap of food. Perhaps my "so called" perfect world wasn't that perfect for her. Perhaps one persons "perfect world" can be another persons private "prison"! I think in many ways what she experienced over here, compared to the way she was brought up and treated might have been a little to "alien" for her.
I'll be honest here and with a very warm heart I'll apologize in an instant if the world I gave her and exposed her to made her feel so unstable that it set some of the building blocks that helped destabilized our relationship!
And with that I'll just be quiet now, I've thought my last scenario thought, and just quietly walk away and see what the next chapter of my life has in store for me!
Sounds like you have really looked inward. Don't forget to work on yourself as you sort out what happened with her.
Yup, things in regards to relations with my Son are slowly getting better. It is taking some time for him to go through his own processes and come to his own conclusions about some things. But he now knows that everything my ex-faince told him about how I "so called" had problems with him, and telling him that he was no longer welcome to knock on our front door, that stuff he now knows that I didn't feel that way about him, he now knows it was all about "her" and her trying to "isolate" me from people.
In regards to the honesty stuff, I am pleased to report is going quite nicely, actually this up coming Sunday night my sponsor in front of the group will be presenting me my 60 day chip! So in regards to that area of my life, things are moving along.
And in regards to working on myself as I try to process what happened with her! In regards to the "how come's" and the "why's" and the questions about her, and processing her departure, I'm pleased to say there isn't much of that going on now. I've had 4 months to work on this, study, attend my weekly support groups, research on-line about things, get input from people here on Daily Strength, talk it over and talk it out with my friends and family, I mulled things over with my psychiatrist and my therapist about her and our relationship together and the fall, I've been reading "self help" book, mainly books relating to relationships ect. ect. ect.
My ex-fiance will always be appreciated for the good times that were had by her and with her. I will always have fond memory's of our beginnings, I'll always be thankful to have shared my home with her, share my experiences with her, share my important places with her, share my friends with her and to have shared my family with her! And I feel honored to have shared some life's "1st's" that she was able to experience while being with me, I'm glad that I was able to help her out with that. So mainly now a days I am rather not looking at what I lost, but thankful for the little chunk of time that I got to be with her, and now I'm not chronically, manically, obsessively thinking about her anymore and still trying to process this out, just little drifts of thought and memory's now, nothing hurtful, just the trickle of memory's!