Obsession sucks

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As I posted in another thread, my girlfirend recently dumped me.

This was bad as a) I had no idea she was planning this at all, b) she never, ever talked to me about being unhappy c) she never, ever hinted that there was a problem. Oh, and her original plan was to move out while I was at work. That plan got killed because we were (originally) supposed to go to Disney World in a couple weeks. We planned this in March. I talked to her about tickets, that we really need to buy them soon, and she told me that she was leaving. If I hadn’t asked about the tickets I would have come home to an empty house*.

So, anyway, she is out. She is to pick up the last things (a cell phone and a box of assorted crap) today from my front porch while I am at work. I have stopped all contact except email up to this point. Now that she has the rest of her shit, she is not to contact me in anyway.

But I am still obsessed. I still can’t get her out of my mind.

I am realizing that she wasn’t the person I thought she was. She always told me that lying, even by ommission, was unacceptable. Turns out she was an absolutely fabulous liar and had been lying to me for at least 6 months (while still sleeping with me, which is even worse, I think).

I am also realizing now that her actions fit her standard operating procedure, which is that if things aren’t perfect, she quits. She did this with a multiple things while we together. She quit a board she claimed to really care about, dumped friends and stopped some other stuff she was doing because there were some minor problems. Instead of talking to people and trying to work things out she just bails. She quits by just walking away. She doesn’t talk about anything, she just quits and burns all bridges.

I won’t say that I was perfect in the relationship but I tried to make her happy and talk to her about things. Obviously that didn’t work.

So anyway, I am starting to realize that she has some issues which, being in love with her, I overlooked or downplayed. I am also starting to realize that she is doing the exact same thing her Mom did. Her family is a bit odd, nice people but on the flaky side of things. Her Mom and Dad divorced when she was young and her Mom went through a ton of men (and a woman or two), living with them for a while then breaking up and moving on to the next thing. Her Mom was married three times IIRC, and lived with another 3 or 4 people. Her Mom became a lesbian (for a short while) at one point and lived with more than one woman. Her Mom is back to straight now.

I am also seriously confused. I shouldn’t be, but I am. She told me numerous times after the breakup that she believes I am a good man yet she planned to move out while I was at work. I don’t understand how, if she thinks I am a good man, she could plan to do it that way. That is not the way you treat good people. She also handled this in the most painful way she could have for me. The reason she did that is obvious, it was the worst for me but the best for her. So she decided to screw me over. Yet, she still claims to care about me.

I know intellectually that this is over. She handled this in such a way that guarantees it.

I know intellectually that she used me, for at least six months and probably longer.

I know intellectuall that there is something wrong with her. She is too quick to dump people out of her life. She uses people. In hindsight I see this clearly. Events that didn’t make sense at the time are now clear. Of course, since I heard only her sides of these events, I believed her. Issues she had with various friends now look a lot different because I now see the pattern from the dumpee side of things.

I know intellectually that I need to totally get her out of my life. But I am all obsessed. I ended up blocking her websites in my hosts file because I get the damned urge to look. I still want to know what she is doing even though it is like stabbing myself in the eye with a really long, pointy object.

I’ve got a shrink appointment tomorrow as this really screwed me up. I’ve been going to A.A. meetings daily. I’ve got about a dozen ‘How To Get Dumped Painlessly’ self help type books. Yet I still have the damned woman stuck in my head.

I know that a) it’ll take a while to get over this (the next person to tell me that time heals all wounds might die) and b) I need to fix all the damage that this has caused me so I can move on.

But I can’t stop obsessing.

Somedays I hate my brain.

Slee

2

All I’ll tell you is it’s completely normal to be where you are. Dumpers dump because it’s easier by orders of magnitude to deal with than being dumped.

I’m not going to tell you my own coping strategy because it’s counter to your well being in other ways, but I’m a reasonably smart guy and I did not come up with anything better than self-medicating out of various large bottles, so in a sense, you needn’t beat yourself up over why you can’t stop thinking about it.

Okay here’s one practical and not self-destructive tactic that might help: it so happened that at the time of my worst breakup, various friends and family members were having major and not-so-major traumas of their own. I got really involved in helping and talking through those problems (more involved, frankly, than I normally would), and also started volunteering more regularly at an organization I’d previously been a sporadic supporter of. Hackneyed as it sounds, dealing impersonally with other people’s drama doesn’t just “make you realize that you’re not that badly off” (that’s crap, frankly), but on a more simplistic substitution level, I found it really did take my mind off of my own problems, and for all I know, gave me some vague karmic sense that I was storing up treasures in heaven for my future dating. Give it a try.

3

I agree with the occupy yourself idea. During the most painful period of my life, I read difficult, technical novels and freelanced my brain out, just to keep myself occupied. Anytime I could keep myself from remembering the pain, I did. Of course it never went away, but I felt all that busy-ness gave my brain a rest.

My sympathy to you. It’s a cliche, I’m afraid, but it’s also very true: time heals all wounds. Give it some time and you won’t hurt so bad.

4

The fact that you are a good man has no bearing on how other people will treat you. Other good people will treat you well, but bad people or selfish people will treat you how they treat everyone else - poorly.

Don’t try to rationalize what she did in terms of how you are. Think about it in terms of how you now know she is.

5

Put differently . . . the incongruousness is only apparent, because you are still making the mistake of evaluating a woman by what she says, on the assumption that she means it.

I guarantee you she means what she did. By their fruits ye shall know them.

6

Yeah, I know this intellectually but processing it emotionally is a bit different. I think part of it is that she is such a spectacular liar.

I don’t know if I mentioned this in my previous post on this board but, back at the end of July, we went to my parents house for dinner. After dinner my ex was telling my Mom what a great guy I am, how happy she was, and all that kind of shit. This happened after she decided to leave.

Of course, I am sure that she was telling my Mom that to cover her sorry ass.

I know that I can’t believe a word she has ever said now but it still hasn’t really sunk in yet.

I don’t want to end up hating her. I spent too much time with her, too much of my life, to end up hating her. Plus that won’t do me any good in the long run.

Hopefully the shrink will help with this 'cause I am going a bit nuts.

Slee

7

It sounds to me that it’s not so much that she walks away when things are suddenly not perfect. She walks away when there’s going to have to be a confrontation, and losing all the good things involved are worth it to her to not have to get into that confrontation.

When you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense that she was planning to leave while you were at work. It had nothing to do with how good a person you are and everything to do with her being unable to handle confrontation.

I don’t have any advice, but maybe seeing it that way can ease the confusion a bit.

I’m really sorry this happened to you and I hope you’re able to move on sooner rather than later. It might help to think of all of this as being a set amount of negative feelings you have to experience to get through this and you can’t decrease the quantity or change the feelings into better ones, all you can do is keep getting through it, and eventually you will be through with it.

8

QFT. People project themselves onto other people. You are a good, reasonable, compassionate person. Therefore, you tend to see others, automatically, as good, reasonable and compassionate. She, OTOH, is a psycho-bitch, and tends to project that onto other people. She planned to leave while you were working because she expected you to go ‘psycho’ on her.

Plus, this obsession plays another role: our brain likes to play this game. It’s called “Let’s Rationalize the Hell Out of This, So We Can Be Sure Nothing Like This Ever Happens Again”. It’s a pretty typical game for the human mind to play. This is why you read headlines about “so-and-so died of lung cancer, in spite of never having smoked”. Unfortunately, this game does not work. :frowning:

Meantime, remember this, which I heard my father (a recovering alcoholic for many, many years) say many times: “my worst day sober is better than my best day drunk”.

Hang in there. Value your sobriety. Know that you have friends/a support network here.

9

Yeah, that is the truth. While this one hurts, and bad, I remember laying on my bed after wrecking a car (and my whole life) hoping that god would come down and kill me 'cause I was totally worthless. This from an atheist/agnostic. So, I’ve had worse days than this.

Yet, it still sucks. I think the worst part is that she was such a good liar that I didn’t even have a clue. Had there been obvious problems, I could understand. Had she wanted to talk about things and it didn’t work out, I think I could understand. But, from my vantage point, everything seemed fine. Not perfect but the problems we had that I was aware of were very minor. We didn’t fight, argue or belittle each other. We got along well. She had some finiancial issues, but we were working through those. Incidentally, she is under the belief that her major money problem went away at almost the exact time she left me. I believe that she is in for a big suprise.

Slee

10

Yeah, that is the truth. While this one hurts, and bad, I remember laying on my bed after wrecking a car (and my whole life) hoping that god would come down and kill me 'cause I was totally worthless. This from an atheist/agnostic. So, I’ve had worse days than this.

Yet, it still sucks. I think the worst part is that she was such a good liar that I didn’t even have a clue. Had there been obvious problems, I could understand. Had she wanted to talk about things and it didn’t work out, I think I could understand. But, from my vantage point, everything seemed fine. Not perfect but the problems we had that I was aware of were very minor. We didn’t fight, argue or belittle each other. We got along well. She had some finiancial issues, but we were working through those. Incidentally, she is under the belief that her major money problem went away at almost the exact time she left me. I believe that she is in for a big suprise.

Slee

11

Yeah, that is the truth. While this one hurts, and bad, I remember laying on my bed after wrecking a car (and my whole life) hoping that god would come down and kill me 'cause I was totally worthless. This from an atheist/agnostic. So, I’ve had worse days than this.

Yet, it still sucks. I think the worst part is that she was such a good liar that I didn’t even have a clue. Had there been obvious problems, I could understand. Had she wanted to talk about things and it didn’t work out, I think I could understand. But, from my vantage point, everything seemed fine. Not perfect but the problems we had that I was aware of were very minor. We didn’t fight, argue or belittle each other. We got along well. She had some finiancial issues, but we were working through those. Incidentally, she is under the belief that her major money problem went away at almost the exact time she left me. I believe that she is in for a big suprise.

Slee

12

D’OH. Sorry for the multipost. The board hung when I first posted my response.

:frowning:

Shit is just going wrong this past month.

On top of the all the ex drama, my car battery died, my desk chari broke, my wireless router died…

Slee

13

One only tends to notice when things go wrong. Try concentrating on the good things in life. It will help you not feel so down.

This is probably obvious to your intellectual side, but I’m trying to get through to the emotional side.

14

I went to the shrink today. That seemed to help for a little while. The shrink (who mainly sat there and listened to the story, we didn’t do much else) had the penetrating insight that my Ex doesn’t communicate very well. (He actually seems pretty good)

I am going back to work with this guy but…

I just lost it. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to deal with this. I want to curl up in a little fucking circle and disappear. I hate this so fucking bad. I am on the verge of bursting into tears all fucking day long though I still haven’t cried yet, except a couple leaks today at the shrinks.

A huge part of me wants to run away and just not deal with anyone. Find a place and hide and pretend everything is back to like it was at the beginning of the year. I feel so fucking worthless right now and there is no one to talk to. It seems as though no one gives a shit, even though I know that is wrong.

Fuck.

Slee

15

Maybe it would help you to find a ‘safe’ time and place to have a good cry. I’m sure it’s not the same for men as it is for women, but for me, sometimes just allowing myself a good old-fashioned cry gets something. . .poisonous. . .out of my system.

16

sleestak, I think you’re creating a super villain in your mind, whereas supergoose probably nailed it. This wasn’t some plotting evil waiting to screw you over. This was a woman who, for whatever reason (rational or not), was terrified of the confrontation. I’ve been in her shoes: living with a guy who was good and decent and of whom I was fond, but whatever spark had made me in love with him for a number of years was gone. I left him once, but he reacted so painfully that I went back for a couple more years, and then when I left, I did so suddenly and irrevocably by moving across the country. I wasn’t trying to hurt him, and I wasn’t lying to him by being affectionate in the meantime. I cared about him. But I didn’t want to live with him anymore. There wasn’t anything he could have done, because the problem was with me; I didn’t want to be there, period. End of story.

I don’t think I was a monster, a superior liar, or a psycho-bitch. I was just a person trying to do my best. I cared about the guy, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my happiness for his for the rest of my life, and I didn’t (and don’t) feel morally impelled to do so. Your ex sounds to be similar.

Sometimes shit happens. That doesn’t mean villains caused it.

17

Yup. You’re a good guy, and she didn’t want to face you to tell you she was leaving. Plenty of people do a breakup phone call/E-mail/text/whatever rather than be there and deal with a “scene.” Imagine how much more complicated it gets when not only do you break up in person but also move all your stuff out. (I do have to say I’m generally an advocate for breaking up in person, but all relationships are different.)

18

Yeah, I am a) probably over reacting to her actions and reading more into it than there is and b) still having a really hard time dealing with the way she chose to end the relationship.

I did decide yesterday that I am going to forgive her. I don’t need the anger and pain that this has caused me burning a hole in the back of my head. This is going to take a lot of work on my behalf. I realize that she probably did what she did because she didn’t know how to do it any better.

I know intellectually that the pain will go away after a while. One of my problems is that I am really impatient when it comes to this kind of stuff. I never learned how to deal with my emotions very well so I go into freak out mode. I hope that I can use this to become a better person. I decided that I really need to change and started counseling. I am going to get past this and want to come out at the end of this a better person.

I’ve been writing a lot of letters to the ex, an exercise to get my feelings out. I will probably end up sending her one in a while. That letter will be the ‘I forgive you’ letter. I need to be able to write it without any anger, which I cannot do right now. I still love the woman and want good things for her even if we are not together anymore.

I am still an emotional wreck.

Slee

19

Slee, for what it’s worth, she probably isn’t feeling any too hot about it right now either. Sometimes situations just aren’t good for anyone, and it’s best to view it the way you’d view a natural disaster.

20

I’m more sympathetic to this view than some of my other comments may suggest. At the end of the day, if a woman loses the hots for you, and isn’t willing to spend her life with someone who doesn’t make her tingle (and that is a bit of a sacrifice) – how would she, alternatively, end it? Maybe some women (maybe men too) engage in some mangled pretzel logic that says hanging around for a few months and acting loving and supportive, fully knowing they’ve signed the lease on the new apartment, literally or figuratively, somehow softens the blow, negates any disloyalty, etc. Where of course all it does is make you more despondent to know that she had moved on months ago and was going through the motions. But what alternative way of being dumped can you think of that would hurt meaningfully less?

I’m also with Oy! on the “super liar” point. Men readily delude themselves when they have strong feelings for a woman, and women have either instinctive or learned skills for telling pretty stories. I’ve been thinking all through this thread – “Eh, his ex is probably a fair-average liar for a woman, if I’da been there I’d have seen the signs all over the place, but that’s 'cause I’m an outsider and been there a few times before.” I don’t know if it’s more or less depressing to know that your ex is just a garden variety fibber who went cold on you, not a super-villainess, but maybe by not overstating her depravity (vis a vis the norm) it won’t seem so horrible? My guess is that doesn’t provide much solace either, but . . . .