Abundance

Chino... it happens - like a sneak. What is so cool is that you acknowledged your part in it right away. I don't know many people who would do that.

Well hawt dayummm... it's that blinking Libra! Scales - I keep going back and forth.... strong/weak or happy/sad etc. lol

I am big on writing and I started a blog here from a few days into the break up ... but not so much during the no contact - which was the beginning of August. Mainly been writing here on the board. The blog has been calling me - maybe that will be helpful....

Yes... I do remember. I just re-read it. You split in 2001..... did you do a no contact for awhile before you got into touch sporadically over the years?
I left my ah almost 12 years ago - we got back into touch at the 8 year mark. He tried to court me again (as I was single) - and I just was plain not interested. I don't know how he went to that so quick - but I just found myself keeping as much distance from him as possible - as I didn't want to see myself get caught up in it again.

I think time is really key ... and in this "time" - it's good to heal and learn acceptance and forgiveness. Not just forgive him- but also to forgive myself for abandoning my own feelings for the past few years. Finding him so much more important than what I thought of myself. If I thought more of myself - I would have just turned down another path... instead of the self - infliction emotionally - which is quite deep for me.

Thank you for sharing your story... and I forgot that you are pregnant - when I was pregnant with my oldest (dad is a normie) ... it was such a healing time! So much came up for me just being pregnant! Have you seen the journal for expectant mothers? It's called: "The Pregnancy Diary" by Tracie Hotchner.

Abundance

Anvil - that Scarlett !!! She is pretty bad a$$

My x made it a special movie night several months before we broke up..... and it was a night dedicated to watching that movie. I had never seen it and he really wanted to share it with me. Thing is - that movie ALSO brought up so much for me. My guy, I mean *x*, thought I was more like Scarlett - and my best friend thought I was more like the other woman. (sorry I forget the names). We actually talked about the characters and the similarities on the "break" .... and we got sodas and chips and chocolate. I texted my bestie and told her what his judgement was and she told me I was more like the "other" one. - Right then and there - it shows how much I was being perceived differently by others.

Sorry Anvil about turning your post 180 there.
But I know what you mean. It's like the movie "Bridges of Madison County" for me..... I can still remember every thing about that movie.... from my feelings/sensations... to the characters moments on screen! I've seen it so many times..... and every time I just catch a bit of it... I'm reminded as if no time has past. So - I get what you are saying.

Ya know what.... I fought so hard for this relationship... I remember coming to SR for the first time and fighting for myself - for my sanity. And then- he got help. And I then assumed it to be "our" fight... craving for us to be this amazing couple with an authentic way of being! A year ago, how wrapped up I was with his addiction/recovery. It had all of a sudden became even more so about him!

I then had to learn to fight for myself and my mental well being/state of mind and I started that in February.

4 months later (June)- I got hold of my worth.... and he moved out. It's now been 3 months since he's been gone. These last 3 months have flown by... the world is my canvas.... my future is in front of me.... looking back resembles an anchor - keeping me stuck. YET - I'm still drawn to re-visiting it... and I would imagine a "no contact" in allowing memories and reminders and so forth - to be put into place so I can just blinking get over it!

What I'm hoping - is that I will move forward - break free and won't be so blinking hyper focused on the trip of it all - and I would bet the best way to move forward is to drown out the past memories with making new memories!

Patience is a virtue and a massive lesson in my book to be learned!

truthhurts

Yes, we broke up in 2000, actually (2001 in my original post was a typo, or else my memory is just plain shot!). We didn't have any contact for about seven years after that, despite his repeated attempts at calling me, texting me, emailing me, and trying to see me.

In early 2007, he attempted suicide and wound up in a coma for a week. When he came out of it, he called me from the hospital and begged me to come and see him. I did so because I could tell that something in his tone was different. He told me the night I visited him that he knew he had to stop doing drugs and that he had to start going to NA seriously (apparently he had dabbled in NA a few times in the past but never committed to any program).

I told him that I would be happy to give him emotional support without intruding on his recovery too much. We went to quite a few meetings together. When he got his first 90-day tag, he gave it to me. However, I kept seeing the old addict traits come up, and I was extremely uncomfortable with a lot of them. First of all, he always talked about my husband disrespectfully. Secondly, he seemed to enjoy trying to play me and his girlfriend (also a recovering addict) against each other. Without going into a lot of detail, I decided after several months that I needed to go no-contact again. If you look at my only picture in my profile here, it is a shot of me and him on the last day I ever saw him before he died...7/15/2007. We had gone to a concert together and when I dropped him off at his mom's house that night, I knew it would be the last time I would see him.

Shortly thereafter, I asked him to completely stop trying to contact me via email, phone, and text. I never reached out to him again, although he did go against my wishes and texted me this past Christmas and Thanksgiving.

I still don't regret my decision to resume no-contact. He knew exactly what my reasons were for choosing to go that route. I feel confident that when he died, he still knew how much I cared about him.

Abundance

TH... thanks for sharing that photo. What concert did you see? What an awesome last memory shared.

So - I discussed things in this thread with my therapist yesterday. In regards to going back into the archives and feeling badly about myself she turned it around with a simple..... "Why? What return are you getting in doing so?"

ummmmm.... heartache/pain/sadness

She says... "that is fine to *feel* all of those emotions, but to remember the control over the mind."

It's my choice to rent out space in my head for the past.... and so she asks me again "Why?"

In all seriousness, AND laziness ....... I don't even want to answer that question yet, because I know the answer comes in hindsight..... so to save myself some energy.... I'm just going to stop those thoughts AFTER I've observed them for being just that..... THOUGHTS!

She was also impressed with how I did my own self-analyzation in regards to running from "ME" and my issues and falling back into old behaviors - literally - by rehashing all of the yucky that I *USED* to escape from myself! How much louder the drum beats when it's HIS problems or HIS lying or HIS cheating or HIS addiction....... it only enables ME to avoid MYSELF!

In order for me to move on and look after myself... she has asked me to look at my positive affirmations everyday.... (ones that I wrote about myself) and TCOB! ;-)

I HEART CBT!

Chino

Me too In the span of a year, my thinking is completely flipped around from the way it's been my whole life. It's how I came about my signature.