To delete or not to delete - that IS the question

Old 10-26-2013, 11:53 AM
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To delete or not to delete - that IS the question

I am three months into No Contact with Ex-AB. Next week, would have been our 6 year anniversary of meeting him. The first 2 1/2 years were mostly peaceful and lovely. The rest; not so much. We spent the first half of our relationship long distance and I have hundreds of emails that document our love.

I also have hundreds of emails that document his alcoholism.

I go over them sometimes; like an archaeologist, digging for "The Answer".

I am thinking I need to delete the entire history of emails. What is holding me back? Sometimes I think I need to hold on to the ones that were so rude and cruel to me, to remind me, lest he appears in my life with sweet talk. Sometimes, I think I just need to trust my memories and intuition and delete the entire folder of our history.

It's hard, it makes me sad. But I want to remove them before the 6 year mark.

Your thoughts?
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Old 10-26-2013, 12:13 PM
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What I have found is that I "know" when it is time. Whether it is time to do xyz or abc or not. I cannot rush the process (as much as I may want to).

If you are not ready yet can you archive them? Maybe out of sight out of mind for a while until you are sure?
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Old 10-26-2013, 12:19 PM
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I can't answer your question. I can only tell you what I did. Now first of all, I didn't have any loving, caring emails, or messages from him. They were all nasty. If there were actually times that he was caring, he spoke to me. So I had about 10 journals, many texts, emails, voice mails, and I also had recorded 2 fights with him.

At first I kept them because if I ever felt the urge to talk to him, or to hear his voice, I would listen to the vms and the tapes. That sure did the trick of getting my hands off of the phone so that I could hear his "sweet, loving voice?"

All of the texts, emails, and the journals, I did read them for quite some time. The journals didn't contain anything close to happy. I just wrote on the days that I was hurting, and I kept a stroke tally of the days that he wasn't verbally attacking me, and the day was somewhat peaceful.

The last year that I was there, he was somewhat of a decent person to me for 25 days out of 365.

On my 2nd anniversary of divorce (I was married to him for 27 years, I took all of my journals and I burned them. I didn't want to read them anymore, I didn't even look at them for about a year then, and they were just taking up space, and I didn't want to see them anymore.

The rest of the stuff, the text messages and voice messages are not on my current phone, they are on a different one, I guess I don't even know if I could still listen to them or read the texts, because I don't have that phone number anymore. The emails are in a different email account, I don't go there. The recorder, I still have it somewhere, but I haven't a clue as to where I put it. I know that I will never go back there and listen to them, or read them anymore, and I guess if I really thought about it to delete it, this might set me back and I might look back. My hands start to shake at even the thought of signing into my email account. If I ever do find that cell phone and the recorder they will go into the trash immediately.
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Old 10-26-2013, 12:29 PM
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Amy, I think yours is a profound message about what detachment truly is.

You have moved on with your emotional life, and what happened with your former husband is just history, archives, nothing much personal anymore.

Nbay, I'd put the stuff on a flash drive and give it to someone to hold, or put it away in a safe place and forget about it. Maybe keep a couple of messages available in case you need a reminder about what it was really like.

Letting it go, for me, is a measure of how much I have moved on with my own life. At some point, yes truly, it just becomes pretty irrelevant, and that is a day to celebrate our own recovery.

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Old 10-26-2013, 06:29 PM
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Thank you for sharing your experiences. Emails are gone. If I really want to dig them up, I could, but it would be an effort. But they are deleted from my active computer. Done. I feel good! I think because of the upcoming anniversary there was a small part of me, that romanticizes that day and was waiting for that day to come and go before I let go of the emails. I don't know. By deleting them today, on an uneventful day, I took some of the drama out of it.

Thanks again, but helping me take another giant step, forward.
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Old 10-26-2013, 06:57 PM
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Originally Posted by nbay2013 View Post
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Emails are gone. If I really want to dig them up, I could, but it would be an effort. But they are deleted from my active computer. Done. I feel good! I think because of the upcoming anniversary there was a small part of me, that romanticizes that day and was waiting for that day to come and go before I let go of the emails. I don't know. By deleting them today, on an uneventful day, I took some of the drama out of it.

Thanks again, but helping me take another giant step, forward.
Good for you! It sounds like you're making amazing progress. I don't have any emails or letters to get rid of as you did, but I can imagine it would be a tough decision. It's hard to let go of things like that... Glad to hear you're feeling good about it. And, way to go on 3 months NC! I've just reached my 4 month NC mark, and I know how hard it is. Congrats! You are one strong lady
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Old 10-26-2013, 07:12 PM
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Thanks so much Trixie; and right backatcha. You and I have similar stories; of a reconciliation and being dumped. Not great for the ego to be dumped by an alcoholic but we are both doing the work and hanging tough. BIG hug to you Trixie.
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Old 10-26-2013, 08:55 PM
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Sounds like maybe it's time for you to ask yourself, "Why do I want to continue to torture myself with these emails?"

I was always told, "If you stand in the mud long enough - your gonna get stuck"

(( 6 Year Mark )) sounds like a pretty solid word in your book. Obviously it's an emotional trigger for you. We have to learn our triggers, and change lanes. If not, we crash!

Delete that crap! - Doesn't sound like it's doing you any good, it's no fun to crash!
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