Sick thinking...
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 78
Sick thinking...
I have to admit this and talk about my feelings, so I can continue to recover and heal… My ex hasn’t contacted me in 1 week and although my life has been peaceful and I am totally ok, I also have feelings of loneliness and am kind of wondering why all of a sudden he went from calling, texting, mailing letters to NC with me.. I know it’s sick thinking, but it’s definitely there and I need to be honest about it… My thinking goes from “well maybe he found someone else” to “better her then you”… ugh.. I guess I’m just dreading when the time does come and he has moved on.. How has everyone dealt with this? I mean I don’t even want him, but yet don’t want anyone else to have him ugh!!!!!!! Like how sick am I ???? I have 22 days NC and my life really has been ok for the most part besides some down moments when I would hear from him and feel bad about not responding, but now that I am not hearing from him I’m like WTF has he moved on? Is he doing well with someone else? Crazy thinking and I know all the answers, I just need my SR friends to beat this into my brain again
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: W Washington
Posts: 11,589
well you did initiate NO CONTACT right? maybe he finally gets it and is leaving you alone. part of the whole thing about ex's is in most cases they GO AWAY - think of the X as a pair of scissors that cut the cord that bound you two together.
what are you doing to fill up the empty spaces?
what are you doing to fill up the empty spaces?
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 78
Yes, I did initiate NC and know that not hearing from him is the best thing for me and I am grateful for that, but I can’t deny this feeling that has been lingering. … I just needed to express it, so it doesn’t consume me in time.. I’ve actually been having a great summer so far.. I’m going to the shore every weekend, hanging with family and friends, working my Alanon program, church, gym, etc… All in all life is good.. This feeling isn’t overwhelming, it’s kind of just in the back of my mind..
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 524
I can understand what you are saying. It's natural I think to have your brain wander around a little. But it sounds like you are thinking it, acknowleding it and releasing it,and you came on here. and that is probably the best thing you can do. Feel it and release it. Feelings aren't facts.
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: OREGON
Posts: 228
It is hard, so very hard. I keep thinking to myself, I need to be strong for me always. And when he hits rock bottom, and realizes, (if he ever does) that I want to be strong for my boundaries with him. I also keep thinking in the back of my head... I am an example to my kids and they need to see how to work through life and no matter how difficult it gets, we keep trying. It is hard, as we do love them. There is this peaceful feeling of not being caught in that emotional trap, but our heart, it misses the people we fell in love with.
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 11,481
Originally Posted by WendyOR 
IThere is this peaceful feeling of not being caught in that emotional trap, but our heart, it misses the people we fell in love with.
And sometimes I think, what does it matter--what's important is what is, right now.
Hang in, recovery isn't linear but goes in waves, leaps, bounds, and spirals!
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Pensacola florida
Posts: 6
Well, at 22 days, that first month, feelings you haven't felt or dealt with fir a long time are now a part of your emotional self starting to wake from it's haze and everything is a mess. First focus on doing whatever it takes to stay sober, get a sponsor, go to meetings, work the steps, and steer clear of the opposite sex, it isn't fair to you or to who you get involved with, your not worth it and they aren't worth it until you can get a good year down. But more importantly until you got lots of step work out of the way. Your the most important thing in your life, and staying alive to enjoy "Living again", learning all over how to live again emotionally and spiritually. Concerning your EX, Gods got it, and taking care of Him, and He is taking care of you!
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 11,481
Originally Posted by Charlieburris
Well, at 22 days, that first month, feelings you haven't felt or dealt with fir a long time are now a part of your emotional self starting to wake from it's haze and everything is a mess. First focus on doing whatever it takes to stay sober, get a sponsor, go to meetings, work the steps, and steer clear of the opposite sex, it isn't fair to you or to who you get involved with, your not worth it and they aren't worth it until you can get a good year down. But more importantly until you got lots of step work out of the way. Your the most important thing in your life, and staying alive to enjoy "Living again", learning all over how to live again emotionally and spiritually. Concerning your EX, Gods got it, and taking care of Him, and He is taking care of you!
Member
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 133
I understand your feelings exactly. Im a lot further along in the process, having been split for nearly a year now after 13 years of drunken abuse, cheating and lying. I KNOW Im so much happier and healthier than I was when I was with him but I still get those moments, one of which happened just a couple of weeks ago when a friend of mine mentioned to me that my XABF's Facebook stated that he was engaged since last Oct to the woman he had been cheating on me with for a few months before we split. So a couple of months after we split he gets engaged! Also at that time he was still giving me grief about who I was socialising with and what I was doing!
When I heard this news I too had mixed emotions, anger that whilst getting engaged he had the cheek to text me grief, sadness that he had moved on so quickly and relief that I was out of it and she was in it.
All I can say is that it gets easier to deal with over time but every now and again it rears its ugly head, you deal with it and move on best you can.
When I heard this news I too had mixed emotions, anger that whilst getting engaged he had the cheek to text me grief, sadness that he had moved on so quickly and relief that I was out of it and she was in it.
All I can say is that it gets easier to deal with over time but every now and again it rears its ugly head, you deal with it and move on best you can.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 278
When I split with my ex, I did a lot of cold, hard thinking. He is superficially very charming; I've seen him twice in the 2+ years since we split (once at the party of a mutual friend, and once purely by chance in the street) and we chatted about superficial things and it was pleasant. I felt... weirdly nothing.
After we'd split, I reflected that the person I'd been in love with DOES NOT EXIST. The illusion was far more seductive than the reality, and the fantasy I'd created in my own mind, along with his deliberate misrepresentation had combined to create a figure with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. In my own mind I'd minimised his drinking and history of domestic violence, and I ignored the fact that I used to have nightmares about him even when I was still in love with him, and also had stress-related conditions when we were together.
I went into NC as soon as I possibly could, knowing that he'd be back on a dating website the moment I'd moved the last of my stuff from his house. I didn't dwell on it. None of us likes the feeling of being replaced.
However, I knew that if he did meet someone else, it would just go through the same cycle again. He's been engaged three times in the last ten years (something else I just glossed over as I took my place in line!) as well as having a broken marriage, and he's no more likely now to take responsibility for his own actions than he was in the past. He's never forgiven his ex-wife for calling the police when he beat up her teenage son, for example. (Crikey, writing all this down now, I can't BELIEVE I carried on seeing him!!!)
I have no interest in his life, and what he's doing. If people try to talk about it to me, I gently tell them I want nothing to do with him. I can either let him remain in my life, even if it's only secondhand, or move on without all this hanging round my neck like a millstone.
I know which I prefer!
After we'd split, I reflected that the person I'd been in love with DOES NOT EXIST. The illusion was far more seductive than the reality, and the fantasy I'd created in my own mind, along with his deliberate misrepresentation had combined to create a figure with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. In my own mind I'd minimised his drinking and history of domestic violence, and I ignored the fact that I used to have nightmares about him even when I was still in love with him, and also had stress-related conditions when we were together.
I went into NC as soon as I possibly could, knowing that he'd be back on a dating website the moment I'd moved the last of my stuff from his house. I didn't dwell on it. None of us likes the feeling of being replaced.
However, I knew that if he did meet someone else, it would just go through the same cycle again. He's been engaged three times in the last ten years (something else I just glossed over as I took my place in line!) as well as having a broken marriage, and he's no more likely now to take responsibility for his own actions than he was in the past. He's never forgiven his ex-wife for calling the police when he beat up her teenage son, for example. (Crikey, writing all this down now, I can't BELIEVE I carried on seeing him!!!)
I have no interest in his life, and what he's doing. If people try to talk about it to me, I gently tell them I want nothing to do with him. I can either let him remain in my life, even if it's only secondhand, or move on without all this hanging round my neck like a millstone.
I know which I prefer!
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Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,057
Hi, kkallday. If you're anything like many of us here, you'll start to accept during recovery that co-dependency means we're dependent on another person for some form of our own happiness. So...if we have a dependency...then separation from our alcoholic/addict creates withdrawals in us in the same way the alcoholic/addict has withdrawals from their own drug of choice.
When I was trying to maintain NC with xabf, any positive communication from him was like a high. An emotional high that made me start to doubt why I had left him. It left me wanting more of him--he was my drug. He made it incredibly easy to forget the bad times and focus on the good in him. And there were plenty of bad times. But it still took me 5 years to finally leave for good.
You're completely normal in the way you feel right now. It's hard to let go, the thoughts and feelings don't just vanish, no matter how much peace you're feeling or how much fun you're having. You were connected to him.
One gentle piece of advice...try to let the thoughts of other women go. There will be a day, whether it's today or next month or next year, that he will be with someone else. A lot of alcoholics don't like the thought of being alone and will replace one relationship with another very quickly. When that happens, it won't have one single thing to do with you. Of course we don't want anyone else to have our ex's. We want them to be in love with only us forever. But that's not realistic. Just prepare yourself for when it does happen. How? Just keep working on you. Get to the bottom of what allowed you to choose an alcoholic. Learn about yourself, honor yourself, fall in love with yourself. Keep doing what you're doing and stay strong in your NC!
When I was trying to maintain NC with xabf, any positive communication from him was like a high. An emotional high that made me start to doubt why I had left him. It left me wanting more of him--he was my drug. He made it incredibly easy to forget the bad times and focus on the good in him. And there were plenty of bad times. But it still took me 5 years to finally leave for good.
You're completely normal in the way you feel right now. It's hard to let go, the thoughts and feelings don't just vanish, no matter how much peace you're feeling or how much fun you're having. You were connected to him.
One gentle piece of advice...try to let the thoughts of other women go. There will be a day, whether it's today or next month or next year, that he will be with someone else. A lot of alcoholics don't like the thought of being alone and will replace one relationship with another very quickly. When that happens, it won't have one single thing to do with you. Of course we don't want anyone else to have our ex's. We want them to be in love with only us forever. But that's not realistic. Just prepare yourself for when it does happen. How? Just keep working on you. Get to the bottom of what allowed you to choose an alcoholic. Learn about yourself, honor yourself, fall in love with yourself. Keep doing what you're doing and stay strong in your NC!
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