Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
So after 10 days with no contact and feeling like i was making progress my ex got in touch with me for help with something and the wormhole opened again. Contact has now ended but I'm back to checking his emails when i wake up from disturbing dreams at 4am. Everything i see there, every conversation i have with a friend brings me back to the same truth. There is no magic bullet. There is no lynch pin moment when the whole thing fell apart. There's just two fucked up people who couldnt make it work. But here i am, not sleeping, checking his emails, desperately searching for clues that will unravel the mystery of what the hell did i do wrong. How was i not enough? I examine the little i know of his new woman looking for answers. Oddly - and counter productively in some ways - i found some. She is not "good". She is not "nice". She doesnt pretend to have everything together.
My father was a terrifying man when i was a child. If i was not good the punishment was violent explosive verbal abuse. My mother is highly neurotic and emotional. Their fights would rage for hours. I grew up lonely - knowing i was an accident and my father never wanted children. I was always good. I have grown in my life from abusers to the unavailable, to the inappropriate, but i was so sure *this one* was different. It felt different. Connected and committed in ways i'd never experienced before. But eventually all my old patterns surfaced - i looked constantly for signs of distance, signs he didnt want me anymore. I tried so hard to be good, to be what he needed, to make him happy, that i made myself miserable and became a miserable person to be around, hiding behind the things i felt i had "the right" to control (i.e. Money, jobs), thinking if we could sort those out, everything would be fine. I'd keep being good, i'd keep being responsible, and everything would be ok. And now he's left me for someone who does not pretend to be good or responsible. My ex is a people pleaser, a charmer - he charms people to get what he wants. He always made me feel wanted even when he was failing to be honest or responsible. Until he left me for her. Maybe there is freedom in accepting that being Good or Responsible wont protect mefrom being unwanted. I can be whatever i feel.
My father was a terrifying man when i was a child. If i was not good the punishment was violent explosive verbal abuse. My mother is highly neurotic and emotional. Their fights would rage for hours. I grew up lonely - knowing i was an accident and my father never wanted children. I was always good. I have grown in my life from abusers to the unavailable, to the inappropriate, but i was so sure *this one* was different. It felt different. Connected and committed in ways i'd never experienced before. But eventually all my old patterns surfaced - i looked constantly for signs of distance, signs he didnt want me anymore. I tried so hard to be good, to be what he needed, to make him happy, that i made myself miserable and became a miserable person to be around, hiding behind the things i felt i had "the right" to control (i.e. Money, jobs), thinking if we could sort those out, everything would be fine. I'd keep being good, i'd keep being responsible, and everything would be ok. And now he's left me for someone who does not pretend to be good or responsible. My ex is a people pleaser, a charmer - he charms people to get what he wants. He always made me feel wanted even when he was failing to be honest or responsible. Until he left me for her. Maybe there is freedom in accepting that being Good or Responsible wont protect mefrom being unwanted. I can be whatever i feel.
Your childhood was certainly traumatic. I think reading about that was the most painful thing in this post for me. I'm sorry you had to endure that. Feeling not good enough or unwanted definitely sets one up to become a people-pleaser and overly nice in adulthood.
Is there a way to block him from contacting you? It sucks to have NC broken and your sanity disrupted again when you have worked so hard already to maintain those 10 days. I would not waste your time trying to compare yourself to the other woman. You may want to delete those old emails, or put them on a flash drive that you store somewhere away from your computer. It is time to move forward x
Just to say I've been really appreciating all your messages because you show such depth, such acuity, such a fine understanding of how you got to where you stand right now. It inspires me when I am tempted to "blow off" my own searchings (as pointless or stupid or navel-gazing or whatever). NO, there is a reason we ask these questions and that reason is important and so are the questions.
I agree that you can be whatever you feel and that the fact that this woman is not good or nice or together is no reflection on you. But something in your story struck a chord. I had a long-term "healthy" relationship and when it broke up 2+ years ago, what was striking is that both he and I chose new partners who were the RADICAL opposites of the other. Meaning that he chose someone way more together and organized than me; and I chose someone wildly out of control. Clearly the relationship had left both of us lacking on those respective levels.
But for me, my choice (of a wilder partner) was no negative reflection on who my ex is as a PERSON; it was simply a reflection of parts of me that needed exploring that were not getting served in that relationship. I was sorry to cause him pain by leaving but I felt (still do) that it was the right thing to do. I'm happy to say he and the new (more organized) girl just got married. I'm less happy to say the me and (wild uncontrolled) man are no longer together. But again, it seems to me it was something that absolutely needed to happen.
All bust-ups are a sort of opportunity to try and extract life lessons. I say "try" because it is not easy. But there is always some important thing to learn and the more the bust-up hurts, the more important the thing. In your case, is your being "together" a real thing (because it very well could be -- something that makes you feel grounded, safe, secure, good about yourself)? Or is it an ongoing repetitive reaction to early trauma that, while it served you once for good reasons, has since become a habit that no longer serves you? After reading your post, I'm left wondering whether maybe you want to explore being not so nice or good or together?
Goingup - i've deleted the emails. The next step will be harder - letting go of the obsession to compare.
Tokyo - thank you for those compliments and insights. i have that same knee jerk to dismiss my self reflections. To want to hide from the long and endless work of unravelling these healthy behaviours by denying that there's really something wrong. I definitely want to explore being less responsible. It's something i'm already exploring and the freedom of just not worrying is such a gift. The work there will be to free myself from responsibility for the past. To allow myself not to be burdened by the "if i had done this sooner, would things have been different." We engage in experiences that hold lessons for us. The past is not my responsibility to change or fix. I can only try to assimilate the lesson. As goingup said - time to move forward.
*He always made me feel wanted even when he was failing to be honest or responsible*
Recently, I saw a cute meme "what I am missing about my ex most"
I came to realize that the only thing I miss about my ex is the FEELING of being wanted, loved, needed.
The man you describe wasnt always honest,but you had a feeling of being taken care of. So this is the answer-the problem is not in you, you are probably a very nice woman, the problem is in him--he was not responsible and honest. Who cares who she is, he does not sound to be such a reward, even with the feeling you get from him. I am sure you are worthy of being loved without trying to please anyone, we sometimes are unwanted, but it doesnt mean we are bad --it is actually good, because people should be loved only by those who want to give them back and not destroy them. We do not appreciate the protection we receive from being unwanted by wrong people.
I think your insight into how your childhood has effected you will bring forth great awareness. Awareness I have found allows us to make new choices. We no longer just react but it creates a little bit of space between what is happening and how we respond to it. For a long time I struggled with understanding my childhood and then making a connection to how it was showing up in my relationships. I figured it out. But you know the weird thing about it is that once I understood it- I was able to just let it go.
Also, a break up is not the end of the world, it's just the end of that relationship. And if you think you "lost" to another woman, ask yourself, would you really want to be with a man where you had to be part of a choice anyway, that's what I keep telling myself everyday and it does make me feel better. I heard it like this " A pinto is a pinto is a pinto" It takes honestly, dedication, self commitment, education guidance and planning to become a Lexus. If he did it to you and you know you gave the best you could of yourself, what on earth makes you think she won't get the same thing?
It's taking me 3 1/2 yrs so far to understand why I keep letting my alcoholic, gambler, womanizer and porn addict in and out of my life. I can't seem to shake him even knowing he is a "delusional sociopath" I am therapy again, and hopefully this time I can stick with it. I never go more then 3 times because all they all want to do is dig way into my childhood. I now believe I am running from something I just don't know what that is as I grew up with alcoholic parents and a father who cheated on my mother. I am so afraid of what I will find out that I have probably buried deep in my soul. Right now all I know is that my parents never loved me as mush as they loved alcohol, that drink came first. My ex-husband was a cheater and a functional alcoholic. I always believed that my childhood had anything to do with my adult life as everyone has a choice to choose to do the right or wrong thing, but I guess it really does matter because obviously there is a pattern in which I chose to gravitate to toxic emotional unavailable men. I don't want to spend another day of my life still stuck on this messed up dysfunctional rollercoaster ride.