bailey17

going strong with no contact for 2.5 weeks.. now XABF called from a different number and I answered because i was expecting it to be the repair guy coming to fix the washer.....

he just got a new phone, saying i was the first person he called, and i said WHY? and he said he didn't know.

i was doing really well, and still am, but the call just came out of the blue and tugged at the heart a little. of course the conversation didn't end well, and he can't understand why i don't want to help him with anything, and on top of things its his birthday

i know i'm not supposed to care, but i did love him for three years, and BOOM he caught me off guard out of nowhere. damnit.....

maybe this is just a rant, i dont know. it just felt really good going no contact and then when i hear from him, everything sucks again. and i didn't even ask for it. damn =( =(

Cyranoak

new number to block. next time i suggest hanging up when you know it's him.

jessiec

Hugs.

Lilmssunshine

Good job @ 2.5 weeks!!! You got through the first couple of weeks so you can do it again. I feel the same way when my A calls out of the blue. All I do is think about him all day as soon as he calls. It sucks! Just double your effort at avoiding him this time hun. Hugs*

Tuffgirl

My RAH told me once "alcoholics are hard to shake". I think he meant it as one of those part joke but part serious statements. I found it to be the truth.

Stay strong in your resolve - take care of you first!
~T

m1k3

This is a leech, the only difference between it and an active alcoholic is size.

Now why do you feel bad?

DMC

My XAH called me after a year and a half of NC out of the blue to tell me his grandfather had a stroke. (I was very close to his family, and we were together 16 years)

Just a 30 second conversation - I was at work and had an excuse to cut it short - left me rattled for days.

If/when he gets through again, just cut it off as short as you can. (have an excuse handy.) I hadn't thought about it because I hadn't heard from him in ages.

Thumper

This has come up again and again for me and it has been years. We share children so I do not do complete no contact. Anyway - my xah gives me plenty of opportunity to practice detaching, re-focusing, and sharpening of my recovery tools. I just recently got another opportunity. It does get easier

So, it isn't that you can't care. It is that you re-frame what you are feeling. Feelings are not facts. I have all kinds of feelings rear up and I sort them out. What am I feeling? I never used to be able to actually identify what I was feeling so that was my first step. Should I legitimately be feeling this way? Usually the feeling is just that - a feeling - not based on anything legitimate. The feeling comes from my co-dependency and his ability to pound the vulnerable buttons he knows I have. Examples from my own experience. Sadness at the end of a long term relationship. I called that legitimate. How do I care for myself in terms of my sadness and grief over the ending of a relationship Make an actual list of self care things you can do for yourself and turn to it when you have a surge of sadness. Guilt/pity/uncertainty/confusion/panic/fear - those were feelings but they were not facts, not legitimate. They were not based on reality but something internal. What to do about those? Well the Serenity Prayer was said a billion times.- and recovery work. For me recovery work included SR, reading the stickies up top a hundred and one times, books from the classic reading section, and I went to al-anon for a short time. There are lots of ways to pursue personal recovery but the key is to take your eyes off the alcoholic and the relationship, and put them on yourself.

So you were rattled by this phone call. You can do the practical steps of blocking his new number etc. but really, focus on yourself. Why were you rattled? What are you feeling and why would you feel that way? I'd guess that rattled feeling is not based on a fact. You are feeling rattled because there is unfinished business - but it isn't relationship business that is unfinished - it is internal business.

This is true for me and I'm over 2 years down the line and still get rattled (I think normal people get rattled) but it isn't consuming my time, energy, and mental space. I work through the steps of identifying what I'm feeling, why I'm feeling it, etc etc. at lightening speed compared to what I used to be. Recovery takes time, it doesn't happen overnight.

Kind of like riding a bike. My 5yo's learned to ride last summer and the amount of concentration they had to put into learning to ride that bike was palpable. They fell down and got back up and tried again and again. It took a long time to learn but now they hop right on and take off. If they hit a rock now they might wobble or even fall down but they hop on and take off without much thought at all. I think recovery is kind of like that. I have twins and one twin spent more time watching how his brother did it then paying attention to what he was doing. It took him twice as long to learn.

So you got a phone call. Brush off, go back to no contact, and continue to practice your recovery. Just because you feel badly at any given moment, doesn't mean you are doing it wrong. Just like a skinned knee doesn't mean you are learning to ride wrong. It is part of the process.

choublak

That's kind of creepy. Like he wants to have some kind of control over you still.

nodaybut2day

You're doing great. Keep your eye on the ball.

So he called, because he's creepy and needy. You already knew that part. Take a deep breath and move on (having blocked that new number of his). Heck, how about having a friend call you from randomly different numbers so you can practice hanging up quickly?