Leelee168

First, thanks for reading this. I hope I don't ramble. I'm also not sure if this is a place for me or not.

Let's start with the leaving. I left, through a restraining order against him. He was a belligerent and abusive drunk. I took it as long as I could until he made a very specific and credible threat against me--and began to potentially carry it out. I hate him for that.

So why do I feel badly for him at the same time? I go from hoping he falls off of a cliff to feeling badly and wanting him to get help.

For a long time I begged him to get help. I put up with abuse. I allowed the abuse and his drinking to impact my relationships with family and friends; it nearly cost me my job. And yet I still have fleeting (very, very fleeting) moments in which I almost feel....badly for him? The same person who was so awful to me?

Am I losing it?

FeelingGreat

Hi Lee Lee, sounds like a pretty normal reaction to me. You don't get over a relationship just like that, and it's possible you're coming down from a high state of tension, so you're suffering from emotional and physical withdrawal as well.

It's good to have compassion, but be careful of it influencing you if he starts apologising, promising, and manipulating to get you back.

Bekindalways

Welcome Lee. I'm glad you found us; it sounds like you will fit right in with Soberrecovery.

What you feel is completely and totally normal. Human beings don't get to leave important relationships without the pain of grief. Grieving takes time usually more than any of us want.

Take super good care of yourself and big hug to you beautiful one!

AnvilheadII

it could be that you still find it easier to feel feelings FOR him than for yourself. when we live in abusive situations, we tend to leave our bodies alot. and since the abuser becomes such a focus of our lives...trying to gauge their every thought and move in order to determine our own safety level, we lose touch of how WE really feel.

Gm0824

Lee, first, you didn't ramble and second, this is the place you can ramble. I wrote out a list of all of those awful things to remind me of my truth and why I needed to get help for myself ... regardless of what he did. I could not agree more with Anvil's words. I kept my finger on xah's pulse so much I forgot I even had one. My emotions centered around what he was doing and how I thought he was feeling. I had to relearn myself and it has been a process but so worth it. Hugs to you, keep posting and read all you can on the stickies.

Sasha1972

I can think of a couple of things:

1) You feel badly because of what he could have been - the person you saw in him when you first got together, or the potential which has been wasted by alcohol. This is a sad situation, and if contemplating it makes you feel sad, I think that means you are a perceptive human being.

2) You have a lot of projective empathy - you imagine how bad he must be feeling, given what a mess he is, and you feel that almost as if you were him. But you aren't. I think this is like what Anvilhead meant about "feeling feelings FOR him".

I only figured this out about myself recently - that part of why my addicted ex still had such a powerful effect on me is because during the relationship I had lost track of my own psychological boundaries - so without even realizing it, I was imagining what I thought he was feeling: angry, miserable, desperate, etc - and reacting as if those feelings belonged to me.

This is because, again as Anvilhead said, I spent years (decades, actually) being super-attuned to his feelings, because I was walking on eggshells trying not to upset him, or because I was trying to "manage" him and his drinking as inconspicuously as possible. It's hard to ditch that attunement - so give yourself lots of time for your feelings about your ex to level out.