PS Can i mention also that one of the realisations I've had over the last few days, and which i never even imagined in all our past breakups, was that my X is actually NOT HURTING.
I always thought he would be suffering, lonely, drinking, sad, depressed, but that he was being strong to avoid me, or just being stubborn...and then I'd feel a bit sorry for him (cos he lives in a dark cold dump as well) and that would be a good reason to ring him, and make his day, so to speak...
I guess the joke was well and truly on me. How he must have smiled when he'd see my number come up on his phone, and it was his chance to hook me in again, to sound so eager, so delighted to hear from me, so that he could pull me in again, stay in my lovely home, with sex on tap, and all the validation and nurturing that went with it...only till he had me safe, and felt he could "play" with my feelings again.
I now know he's just waiting over there like a spider, waiting patiently. Actually not even waiting, just saying that he was when I finally do ring him. Well, I hope he's caught a few flies this time, because he's in for a HELL of a wait!!!
So now realising his lack of hurt or pain or empathy or any of the things I feel, also disencourages me to make him feel better cos I dont need to...another reason not to contact him! :-)
Caz xo

Thankyou ladies,Ive begun to realise he only has just enough contact with me just to keep me hanging.I went online this morning and whats the first thing i see a message from him saying i do not ignore you please dont say that,i will be online today at some point and we can chat.Well what the hell does he expect me to do sit around and wait for him.So i just said back im out for lunch today then shopping with my best friend.I used to feel sorry for his poor little me act but not anymore i see through it now.

Nix,

If you are certain you are done with him, then you should not have answered him. That is keeping him and YOU engaged in the game.

Or I would send him an email and say: I know you have been in a period of indecision about your love life, as I have been also. I have decided to take a break from relationships and do not wish to hear from you again, even as a friend. That is part of my healing process and I wish you the best in the future. And then stick with it.

And get to know yourself and why you have been attracting unhealthy relationships.

If you think this sounds selfish or mean, remember this (from mr. unavailale and the fall back girl):

The No Contact Rule is for breaking up with men that dont want to break, but they dont want to give you what you want either and step up to the plate. Its ideal for men that blow hot as soon as you tell them to get lost, and blow cold as soon as your behaviour gives even the remotest hint that youre back in line again and that you might need them or expect something from them.

Morals differ from person to person so the reason why you take issue with is because if you were to be treated in the same way, you would regard it as morally wrong. Thats fair enough. But dont you think that it is morally wrong for an emotionally unavailable man to breeze into your life, lead you on a merry dance showing you his wonderful self in the beginning, start blowing cold as soon as he gets nervous and then tie you up in ambiguity, broken promises, and mismatched words and actions?

Dont you think its morally wrong for him to enjoy the fringe benefits of a relationship without actually being in one with you and refusing to commit to anything? He cant commit to being with you, he cant commit to not being with you, but he wont leave you alone, stop looking for sex, and generally using you for an ego stroke and sounding board?

There is absolutely nothing to stop you from going to your Mr Unavailable, telling him it is over, dont call me, contact me, speak to me, attempt anything, whatever and then starting your No Contact Rule. If that will make you sleep easier at night then so be it but and there is a but if you havve got to the point where you feel the need to cut contact, its not exactly suggestive of a man who is going to respect your decision. When we feel the need to explain our actions, be sure that you understand your motivations for doing so:

Are you telling him what youre doing because you really want to explain it so that you dont feel selfish?

Or are you telling him because you hope that it will galvanise him into Mr Ready for Love and Commitment Guy?

Let me be real with you If you have been involved with a Mr Unavailable, every single act that he does is out of selfishness. He does not care what you think or want, and his actions are in contradiction with his words. Yes you are a grown woman and you have facilitated the relationship and his behaviour, but unless you are schooled in how to deal with these assclowns, its pretty damn confusing when you tell a man to beat it but they still wont beat it but they still dont play ball either.

This isnt tit for tat, and I am not saying hes selfish so be selfish, but I am saying stop thinking about this assclown and start thinking about you. If you have the time and energy to be worrying about what he thinks, you have not come far enough yet and youre probably in that stage where you may be spending some time obsessing about what he might be doing/saying/thinking right now.

The scariest thing You are sitting there being worried about being selfish and it is unlikely that he has expended even 5% of the volume of your energy considering what you have done.

Not knowing much about people being an "N", I now realize that my ex was a prime candidate. During my time with him, I just never knew how he would act or react to anything I said or did. When the end came, he blamed everything on me and took off with someone else. This left me devestated and abandoned.

Thanks for the websites so I could read up on this topic. This is making a difference with healing!!

Hi all! and big hugs to you! :)
I'm new on the group. and also struggling with the NO CONTACT RULE.

@nix192: I have been trying to apply the 'rule', but ONE DAY AT A TIME, which seems to me much easier to tackle because i think that somewhere when we start to think of a WHOLE FUTURE without the man on whom we are dependent emotionally, it feels like an insurmountable task. We panic and are ready to accept anything, whatever he wants to dole out.
So when i think in the morning 'just for today, lets take it easy and NOT think of him and keep busy with stuff that I want to do for ME to heal ME.' by the end of the day, i feel satisfied because it gives me the impression of having succeeded. and i can reward myself at the end of a whole week of not thinking so much of him and not contacting him no matter what. maybe buy myself something.. like new clothes.. or jewellery. :) the idea is to indulge myself and to give back value to myself, for why must we wait for someone else to do that for us?

I know it's hard... it is for me too. and we can fall back into our old patterns (i have several times) but that doesn't mean we cannot try again... and again... until we succeed. Hope this can be of help.

@SusyP: I'd like to say a big THANK YOU as you mentioned the site Baggage Reclaim ( in another post i read), which is a real eye opener for all of us. I got myself the ebooks "the No Contact Rule" and "Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl" as a result. AND i'm very happy that i did. because everything is said bluntly to women like us who need this honest appraisal of the situation in my humble opinion, because we have deluded ourselves for far too long. thanks once again.

Leoni
Hugs to you too.
It really is a day at a time process, but the other thing is dont beat yourself up for thinking about him either. We are human, and were in love with these men, so its a normal emotional reaction to suddenly cutting them off completely. Think how hard it is to give up coffee even, or chocolate!
I allow myself to think about him, much as it annoys the heck out of me that I spend so much doing it, but I figure it's a necessary part of the healing process, and so long as I'm not acting on it, there's no harm. eventually I suspect (or hope) that I will just get sick of the whole subject of him, and let it all slip away into the past, where it should be....
The main thing is he doesnt KNOW I'm thinking about him, and I'm not DOING anything about it.
Susy is a wealth of info on these topics, I've done so much reading in the last week, and talk about having your eyes opened to a topic you never knew existed!!! Wow!!
Last night I was reading all about Psychopaths, and there's a subject I always thought was specifically for people like Charles Manson, Julian Knight, serial killers. Well it is, but it's also about the sorts of men we obsess about, just another shade of narcissism. Exploring that, I find it hard to tell the two apart, I must admit. Maybe Susy can assist with that one!
I now think about my X as a psychopath which is a pretty chilling sort of a word.... and freaks me out so much that I'd just about die rather than try and ring him, ie do I want a pyschopath back in my life? Er...not likely!!

Another thing that really helps me is to remind myself often that a narcissist's behavior is about as fixable as mental retardation. No matter who he's with, they aren't going to fix him.

Caz,

Take a look at the post that Coral started called: Getting a handle on the terms. It is all laid out there.

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/women-who-love-too-much/discussions/messages/9929930

Bascially Narcs are on a continuim meaning (some traits but not lethal) and go on to magligant Narcs,which at the end of the line merges into psychopathy.

Bottomline, if you are pathloglical self centered does not matter what you call it, the end result is INEVITABLE HARM to anyone that comes into contact with them. And no matter how much the beg, pleased and ask for another chance, opening your heart means crushing your heart. Love yourself enough not to be in a toxic relationship.

Hmm, well on reading the above post, Susy, my X is a mix of all three, so I guess I have scored the hat trick. But I would say he's more narc than anything, and that's enough for me!!!!
Sitting here thinking about him tonight (which my mind tends to go there late at night once my daughter goes off to bed) and have no desire at all to contact him, but almost have this insane urge to learn more and more and more... fascinating to know now why all that crazy shit kept happening despite my best attempts to keep him happy, and know now that there's nothing I could ever have done to change the outcome...
Liberating stuff indeed :

Caz, we must share a brain, because I could not stop reading about this subject. It was really important for me to understand it even though I am not sure why. Anyway, here is my reading list thus far. Pretty creepy, but highly recommended:

How to Spot a Dangerous Man Sandra L Brown
Women Who Love Psychopaths Sandra L Brown
Escape from Intimacy Anne Wilson Schaef
Facing Love Addiction Pia Mellody
How to Break Your addiction to a person Harold Halpern
Women Who Love Too Much Robin Norwood
Letters from Women Who Love too Much Robin Norwood


The dark side of the Inner Child Stephen Wolinsky
Narcissistic Lovers: How to Cope, Recover and Move On Cynthia Zayn
The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists Eleanor Payson
People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil M Scott Peck
The Emotional Rape Syndrome Micheal Fox
The Messiah Trap - When Helping you is hurting me Carmen Berry
The Messiah Trap Workbook Carmen Berry
The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships Patrick Carnes
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us Robert Hare
The Sociopath Next Door Martha Stout

I recommend the first 2 books from Sandra Brown, she is my hero, but all of these books were accident.

Hi Everyone,

For the first time since my ex pack my bags and set me on the way, I feel like I have some power. The "power" has come from all of these postings I have been reading. The old saying: "KNOWLEGDE IS POWER" holds very true. I thought I was so alone in all the feelings and people where getting tired of seeing me coming. I must say in the last 8 weeks, things have taken a big change. I have some spring in my step again, men seem interested and the flirting has started, I am starting to like myself and don't feel like a beat up dog with her head hung low. I still have some moments, but they are no longer extreme.

Sooo ladies, things do change and we take our lives over to make them our own. Everyone keep posting your thoughts and feelings, this is a key to your own success.

An odd thing happened last night. I have stopped dreaming about the ex for some time. This morning the "he is coming back" dream occured. The dream was ever so vivid. I have not seen his face in my dream for such a long time, and there he was as bold as could be when I woke up out of a sound sleep. But, today I did not walk around all sullen and sad, I just wore a grin om my face and thought to myself, Cindy you have so much power now.

With all the great references, posts and links I saw him for what he was. I still do not want to admit that we were toxic, but at least I am seeing the light, I will not be his darkness anymore. And to his current gfriend, you just wait, she was there waiting in the wings for him for the past five years. She has been with him for a year, so by now I am sure he has started to show his true self and inner child.

Thanks to all of all the great information that has saved my sould and brought me out of one of the lowest times of my life. Love to all of you!!! Cindy

I found your comment about your x's timeframe really interesting. There seems to be a pattern with these guys. After about a year, after a year of pretense and roping us in and convincing us that they are this super fantastic man of our dreams, they seem to get to a point where they can't sustain the facade anymore and inch by inch the person they really are starts to come out. By then, of course, we are totally hooked, and then the change throws us for a loop and we start asking ourselves what in the heck WE did wrong and the big games have thus begun.I wonder if others of you have seen this same timeframe.

Hi ladies
Cindy, I can relate to your dream. I had one of my X the other night in which he had wormed his way back in, so to speak...the result? I woke up feeing ABSOLUTELY SHATTERED, looked around me, saw I was alone, and just lay back and smiled from the inside out!!! And that, more than anything else, made me realise how far I've come so quickly, and its all due to this forum, the knowledge, and collective wisdom of US.
And solo, my X had his first slip up within about four weeks, so I cant relate to the year thing! He was doing thoughtless uncaring stuff to me even then, but sadly I was made to feel it was me being too demanding (like wanting a phone call if he wasn't coming over after all, after making a date with me for 7pm! and never apologising the next day, but telling me he could see I was going to be "hard work."
What the??!!!!!
I look back at it now, and honestly cannot believe what I put up with from that idiot!! My ex-husband - who I'm still best of friends with to this day, 8 years after separation - always said to me, "Caz, this just isnt you! You would have turfed me out in two seconds flat if I did even a quarter of this shit to you! What is it about this idiot??" And I could not explain it to ANYONE, even MYSELF. I just called it "true love".
God this is sad, what a dreadful waste of nearly three years of my life. The upside of it? In direct correlation to how bad and wasteful all this was, how amazing and "raring to get on with life" I feel now, it's mind blowing.
And I know its early days, but I KNOW I'm done with him!!! (Bold statement indeed, but I stand by it). As I said, only for the help I've received here, and the UNDERSTANDING which has been the major breakthrough for me.
Band together ladies, we're all coming out the other side!! xox

And Susy
Yes we share that quest for knowledge, and thank you soo sooo much for your reading list.
The first two I am trying to get - they dont appear to stock it in our major bookshops over here, but I've found it online (I just dont want to wait for three weeks to have them delivered so I'm still trying to source copies here in Australia!)
Thanks again!
Caz xo