It happens here all the time. Someone goes no contact for a while and things seem to be swimming along and then they get a call or they get an email or maybe the EX pops up on facebook and BAM! the poor soul is plummeting into a dark hole wondering how they will ever get over the hurt. They seek love and support and vow to go no contact again and wish they had just listened to what others told them all along.
There's a reason it happens all the time and NO it's not because everyone else knows best and NO it has nothing to do with your self worth or your intelligence and NO there is nothing for you to be ashamed of or feel stupid for.
The reason my dear friend is that this is how we learn. This is how the process goes. This is how you test the waters of your recovery. We get blindsided by things because we put our head in the sand and go our merry way believing we are watching for the signs of our recovery being challenged. We don't see this stuff coming but that doesn't mean we won't learn to see it in time. The only way we ever know if we are truly paying attention and taking good care of ourselves is if we come up against these bumps in the road a few times.
The way you know you are going to be okay is how you react to what he does. No contact is easy enough for me. I can ignore someone like nobody's business. Knocking someone out of my life is far easier than learning how to cope with them for sure. It's part of the silent treatment I learned as a child. It's when someone else's mood, attitude, hurt, anger, manipulation etc make their way in through my armour that my recovery tools have to come into play.
1) Am I seeking healthy support or am I seeking out those who will see me as vulnerable and use it to their advantage.
2) Am I processing the event quickly and making sense of why it happened or am I internalizing it and making someone else's bad behavior my own fault.
3) Am I moving forward with my emotions, acknowledging them and being patient or am I expecting to not feel anything at all when I've been hurt.
You are a caring and loving person who's emotions were used to the advantage of someone else. He knows you. He knows what buttons to push. He could not bear to be alone so he quickly worked you over to have a soft place to land and when he didn't need you he dropped you like a hot potato. This is his doing. This is his fault. Please do not take blame for being hurt by this. You are human. It's what you learn from it that counts. And accepting that this is just a lesson you need to keep practicing at until you get it right will go a long way to helping you feel better.
I've even silently thanked those who've hurt my feelings in the last year because without that hurt I wouldn't know just how strong my recovery is and where my weaknesses are. I don't get sucked in more than I allow myself to get sucked in, but I'm learning to see it more before it happens and step out of danger. Can't do that until you've fallen in a few viper pits, know what I mean?
I do hope you get to attend that Al-Anon meeting and I do hope you get a chance to work with a counsellor. Recovery takes practice. Everyone stumbles. No one gets it all perfect every day of every year. No one here expects you to move at any pace other than your own.
Hope you are feeling better soon!
Alice