The Ups and Downs of Loving a Commitment-Phobe

[Realitynut]

LL...just want you to know, that your thread is helping ME also. Work thru the facts.

 

I see so much of you in me....and my dysfunctional relationship.

 

He's gone this whole week....on a trip I had gone last year with him.

 

It hurts so much to know that I wasn't wanted. Even tho he told me I could go...numerous times...then changed his mind. He wanted HIS time to be drama free. And I guess I cause HIM DRAMA. Never mind what I feel. or what I want. He never has cared about that....ever. He doesn't see, that telling me I could go...and then telling me I couldn't....was a cause of so much of this drama. His hot/cold attitude. It was all my fault.

 

Today I didn't feel so depressed. Almost a cloud lifted. I went shopping. Out to eat with friends. I'm now gonna try to clean....something I haven't done for so long. Too bummed. I took myself off of fb....

 

I think part of the fact that i'm ok...is that he is 10 hours away and won't be back home til Sat. but I'm hoping....HOPING....I will stay strong.

 

I texted my gf about an hour ago....said:

 

I feel I'm falling out of love.

 

And that in itself is sad.

 

Id much rather BE in love....but most of the time all it did was cause me hurt.

 

Time to get off the roller-coaster.

 

And I hope you do too.

 

I know it hurts that you think he might be with someone.....but have you ever thought that possibly, he couldn't FIND anyone on the dating sites? lol

 

Tom was on continually....and at times last year I was too. Neither of us could find anyone. It's not that easy.

 

He's probably OFF cuz he's exhausted his supply of women...and none panned out!

 

That's what I would be telling myself.

 

Now I tell myself.....who the hell cares! And try to believe it!

[lostlove76]

That was a freeing and an Ah hah! moment for me when I realized - there were just going to be things in life that I wasn't ever going to understand. And I needed to be ok with that.

 

I now learn to let go instead of having a stranglehold on something and trying to make sense of it.

 

It's just one of those things. . on my long list of other things I'll never understand.

 

I need to learn to be okay with it as well. I don't feel okay with it yet. I still feel like I need to understand exactly why things went wrong and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I couldn't have done anything differently to have achieved a commitment from him.

 

Definitely something to work on!

 

I'm literally exhausting myself with all of this. Hope I'm not exhausting y'all too, sorry I'm amazed at your patience with me (all of you). Thank you for that.

 

I'll be back after dinner.

[reinventmyself]

I was just thinking how far you have come, it's almost a different person from where you started.

 

I recall responding to your original thread before you created the journal and I backed out because I didn't think you where anywhere close to being introspective. Or at least a very, very long way away.

 

I only share this now so you recognize and hopefully give yourself some very much-do credit for coming a long way in short amount of time.

 

My guess is you are a lot stronger than you even realize.

You just need to believe in it.

[browneyedgirl36]

I totally agree with reinventmyself -- I too had a revelation that there are some things I will never understand, and once I did, OH BOY. It was such a relief!

 

Sometimes, we come to an understanding later, sometimes not, but ultimately, there ARE things that defy our understanding. This is unsettling for most of us, because one of the first questions we ask when we learn to speak is "WHY?" and it's probably the question we ask most frequently throughout our lives. It's human nature to want to make sense of things, and we we can't, we really struggle with it.

[reinventmyself]

It's human nature to want to make sense of things, and we we can't, we really struggle with it.

 

It's alot like wrestling with quicksand. You just get sucked into it.

[Realitynut]

You know this....just more for you to read. As you can see...you are still in parts of the denial stage, teetering between anger and Depression. What I told you about. It will get worse...before it gets better. Sooooo.....hugs and stay strong.

It ain't easy. (I copied and pasted this from a series of info i'm getting on 'breakups'....to help me deal.)

Stages

When mourning a loss you will go through four stages. You may not pass through each stage in order, and sometimes the phases overlap. The following stages are based on the five stages of death and dying delineated in Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's famous 1969 book "On Death and Dying".

 

Denial is the first phase. You do not want to face the reality that the person is really gone, that they rejected you, or that they've done something awful to provoke you to break up with them. You are in emotional shock. You may even feel numb.

It's important during the stage of denial to try and cope with reality. If you pretend everything is still the same and pursue someone you just broke up with, you may end up feeling even more hurt and humiliated. This is a good time to turn to your support system for help in facing the truth and reality of the situation.

 

Anger is the second stage. You are facing reality now and feeling enraged for being betrayed and abandoning you. Unresolved anger at others who have hurt you in the past may remerge now.

It's important to work through your anger without contacting your ex. Don't use your anger as an excuse to confront your ex, tell them off, or even worse become violent. Acting out your anger with your ex won't help the situation. In fact it might make it worse. Most people don't respond well to aggressive confrontation, so you probably won't get the response that you're looking for. You may feel better momentarily but their response to your anger could result in your feeling more hurt, abandoned, or angry. Instead share your feelings of anger with members of your support system. You can also work through your anger by working out, sports, writing, or other creative activities.

 

The third stage is depression and despair. This is the most difficult stage the excitement and drama of the breakup is over and you're left with the emptiness of the loss. Any past abandonment you may have struggled with, which you might have also experienced in the anger stage could come up for you now, which could contribute, to you feelings of sadness and depression. This can be a painful time for you but it is necessary for you to go through this stage in order to move on to a new relationship. If you stay in denial you will remain haunted by your past. However if you're feeling so depressed that you are having difficulties functioning (you stop working, eating, sleeping) you might be clinically depressed and it may be necessary for you to consult a medical doctor or psychiatrist.

Again, it is important that you don't call, email or text the person you are detaching from during this stage. This is a difficult and vulnerable time for you and you cannot take the risk of their acting distant or rejecting because it could cause you to feel even more abandoned leading to further depression and despair. Although this stage may feel overwhelming remember that time heals all wounds and your feelings of sadness and despair will come to an end.

 

Acceptance is the final stage. You begin to pull your life back together again. You're not so preoccupied with your ex anymore. You start thinking about new people and you want to start dating. This can be a tricky time though because you may want to call your ex just to show that you're over them. But don't give in and contact them because you may not get the response you want and then you'll feel let down and disappointed. Or worse your old feelings for them may resurface and then you're in a setback and you'll have to start mourning all over again! Use this time to disconnect. You must use this mourning and grieving time to emotionally distance and disconnect. If you call your ex to express and share your feelings, and they don't appreciate what you are going through, reject or emotionally dismiss you, you will feel a hundred times worse. This will contaminate the healing process and the hard work you have done to mourn and let go of them.

[Silverbirch]

I've had this struggle too with trying to make sense of things, wanting to understand, and that helps me a lot too to accept that I won't be able to do that with everything in my life as well.

[lostlove76]

I was just thinking how far you have come, it's almost a different person from where you started.

 

I recall responding to your original thread before you created the journal and I backed out because I didn't think you where anywhere close to being introspective. Or at least a very, very long way away.

 

I only share this now so you recognize and hopefully give yourself some very much-do credit for coming a long way in short amount of time.

 

My guess is you are a lot stronger than you even realize.

You just need to believe in it.

 

Aw, thank you so much for saying this!! Yes, I remember you left a comment at the beginning of this journal (which seems oh so long ago!) and seemed frustrated with me lol and I got frustrated back with you. I'm glad that you came back, because you've really been super-helpful and I enjoy chatting back and forth with you.

[lostlove76]

I don't mean to ignore the rest of you guys. I'll catch up on other posts either in a little while or tomorrow. I meant to come back after dinner but an old friend messaged me out of the blue and we've been chatting a bit. It was nice to hear from her.

[Realitynut]

It's good to get your mind off of 'you know who'. Glad you had a distraction!

[Realitynut]

LL...I hope you're doing ok. And having a good respite from all of this.

 

I hope your not being on here....doesn't mean he called and you answered.

 

Of course, if he showed up at your doorstep, that would be another story!

[lostlove76]

LL...just want you to know, that your thread is helping ME also. Work thru the facts.

I'm glad it's helping you too!!

 

He doesn't see, that telling me I could go...and then telling me I couldn't....was a cause of so much of this drama. His hot/cold attitude.

EXACTLY. They cause us to be mad or emotional or "dramatic" with their hurtful ways. Of course we're not at our best when constantly dealing with the pain that they cause.

 

Today I didn't feel so depressed. Almost a cloud lifted. I went shopping. Out to eat with friends. I'm now gonna try to clean....something I haven't done for so long. Too bummed. I took myself off of fb....

 

I think part of the fact that i'm ok...is that he is 10 hours away and won't be back home til Sat. but I'm hoping....HOPING....I will stay strong.

I'm glad to hear this, and I hope that you do stay strong when he gets back.

 

I feel I'm falling out of love.

 

And that in itself is sad.

 

Id much rather BE in love....but most of the time all it did was cause me hurt.

 

Time to get off the roller-coaster.

I know exactly how you feel. I felt many times that I was falling out of love as well, and it made me sad too, but then the love came back. I was just burying it. But I hope that you truly are falling out of love, you'll be better off. It really does cause so much hurt, which is so unfortunate.

 

I know it hurts that you think he might be with someone.....but have you ever thought that possibly, he couldn't FIND anyone on the dating sites? lol

 

Tom was on continually....and at times last year I was too. Neither of us could find anyone. It's not that easy.

 

He's probably OFF cuz he's exhausted his supply of women...and none panned out!

 

That's what I would be telling myself.

I REALLY hope you're right. I've been on them myself, and it really is hard to find someone you connect with and are attracted to and interested in, and them you. He's the only one I found. I just feel like he'll take anyone at this point because he's lonely and trying to fill the void. But I soooo hope you're right!

 

Yesterday on facebook he made his "Single" status visible on the main profile page under the profile picture, know what I mean? Like you can choose what shows up - work, location, home town, relationship status, whatever. And previously, the Single didn't show up there (you had to click on the About section to see that). And now it does, so he changed it on purpose for some reason, and of course I'm wondering WHYYYYY. I can't help but wonder. I know I shouldn't be looking. But I do, and I did, so.... why would he do that?? I guess it means he must not have anyone special yet, or else he wouldn't have done that. So it made me feel a teeny tiny bit better. But then I thought he might try to call, and he didn't. Each day that passes and he doesn't call, I just feel more and more depressed. I really don't know when I'm going to come out the other side and start feeling better each day.

[lostlove76]

LL...I hope you're doing ok. And having a good respite from all of this.

 

I hope your not being on here....doesn't mean he called and you answered.

 

Of course, if he showed up at your doorstep, that would be another story!

 

Haha, unfortunately no. See last paragraph of the post I just posted.

 

I think I just needed a mental break last night from it all. I talked to my friend for a while, and another friend, and then just took a break from all the heavy thinking. But I'm back now and playing catchup

[lostlove76]

I totally agree with reinventmyself -- I too had a revelation that there are some things I will never understand, and once I did, OH BOY. It was such a relief!

 

Sometimes, we come to an understanding later, sometimes not, but ultimately, there ARE things that defy our understanding. This is unsettling for most of us, because one of the first questions we ask when we learn to speak is "WHY?" and it's probably the question we ask most frequently throughout our lives. It's human nature to want to make sense of things, and we we can't, we really struggle with it.

Very very true.

 

"Sometimes, we come to an understanding later"

I've noticed this to be true. Sometimes if you're overthinking things and getting really bogged down in trying to figure it all out, you just confuse yourself. And then later on, after you've let go a bit and quit putting so much mental energy into it, you're able to see things with more clarity.

[lostlove76]

The third stage is depression and despair. This is the most difficult stage the excitement and drama of the breakup is over and you're left with the emptiness of the loss.

 

Thank you for this info! I can relate to all of it (except the acceptance stage, because I haven't gotten there yet). I'm in the third stage for sure, although I do still have some anger, and maybe a tiny smidgen of denial pops up every now and then. But feeling the emptiness of the loss, as in the above quote -- that's definitely where I am.

[lostlove76]

RN: Just came back to say, and I don't know if it's occurred to you, but.... With these on/off relationships, we've had to go through these stages MULTIPLE times. Sometimes they've come back during stage 1 or 2 or 3, but we've had to start going through the process each time things became "off." I know I went through it every time he didn't call for a few days, because the first day he would miss, I would assume it was a breakup and start going through the grief. It's like experiencing a thousand deaths all of the same person, over and over again. Mine didn't indicate things were over (excluding the times we actually broke up) and yet I took it on myself as if we were over because he wasn't calling and I expected worst case scenario. Such torture. Then by the time he called again a day or two or a week later, I wondered why I put myself through all the breakup pain when we didn't actually break up.

 

Just horrible, all of it.

[reinventmyself]

I found it helpful to read through the 5 stages of grief.

In some way it helped to confirm what you are going through is part of the normal process and to know where you were in the scheme of things.

Outside of doing that I would just feel like I was floundering about.

[Realitynut]

Oh yeah. We never had the 'lets break up talk'...I would just come home from work...and it would be a day or two after a fight, and he'd block me on fb. Or last fall, when he said he wanted to be with me 'forever'..we put our fb status as 'in a relationship'. We're old...and he had never even heard of it! We were laughing as we did that! It was soooo fun...and cute. He put on a pic of him and me....I was so happy.

 

That lasted one month of NO FIGHTS....second month a big trip...and some 'travel fights'....then after the second month, I came home and he had unfriended me, and we weren't in a relationship any more.

 

2 weeks ago....only 4 days of professing love....he was angry at me. I asked him, "are we breaking up?". He said, What are you? In 6th grade....and in a demeaning voice he said..."are we breaking up? Are we together? F...it sounds like I'm talking to A. (his snotty 15 yr. old granddaughter)

 

So basically, you never knew where you stood with him. I guess he was thinking we 'Weren't breaking up'....but it was ok that he was calling me name, and if I just left him alone, the next day he would be ok.

 

And it's probably is true. I'm a person who wants to talk things out. He's a person who wants space and me to just leave him the F alone.

 

The 2 don't mix.

[lostlove76]

Ugh, he sounds so mean, I'm sorry.

 

I was the one deleting mine as a friend on Facebook each time. This past summer we had our status as in a relationship, which shocked me that he was okay with that. I challenged him on it one night and didn't think he'd do it, but he went right along with it. Then I deleted the status and him as a friend after he moved. Then he added me back after we started talking again (as a friend, not in a relationship). Then I deleted him again when he added the neighbor girl who ended up getting married, because when he added her I thought he was with her, which he wasn't. We never added each other back after that, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to see anything on his wall that might make me jealous. His wall is hidden and I can only see his friend list and that single status. Any ideas on why he did that?? It said single before, but he placed it front and center under his profile pic, if you know what I mean. That little section that shows your bio/info.

[Realitynut]

To get to you. He knows you're looking...and he's playing mind games with you. That would be my guess.

 

He knows what trips your trigger.....

[lostlove76]

To get to you. He knows you're looking...and he's playing mind games with you. That would be my guess.

 

He knows what trips your trigger.....

 

That's what I wondered! My friend thinks the same. And that was my initial thought when I saw it.

 

But then I think, maybe he's just advertising his single status hoping all the girls will flock to him. Or maybe he's trying to bait some other girl.

 

I hope it was because of me because that means he's still thinking of me.

 

What would he hope to gain from it, if it's because he knows I'm looking? My friend thinks it's to get me to call him since I won't answer when he calls. I thought if it was because of me, though, that he would have called last night and he didn't.

[reinventmyself]

It said single before, but he placed it front and center under his profile pic, if you know what I mean. That little section that shows your bio/info

 

Because when he changed his status from in a relationship to single, by default that's where it shows up. (Unless he goes in a changes his privacy level for his bio/info) By default it's seen by everyone.

 

I disagree with RN that it personally had something to do with you.

Don't go there.

[lostlove76]

It said single before, but he placed it front and center under his profile pic, if you know what I mean. That little section that shows your bio/info

 

Because when he changed his status from in a relationship to single, by default that's where it shows up. (Unless he goes in a changes his privacy level for his bio/info) By default it's seen by everyone.

 

I disagree with RN that it personally had something to do with you.

Don't go there.

 

But no, he didn't change it from in a relationship to single. It's been single since back in October. It has said single when you clicked the About section, but he had to have changed his settings for it to show up on the front page like that, and he just did this yesterday.

 

I know I shouldn't go there, but you know I can't help but wonder.

[Realitynut]

I hope it was because of me because that means he's still thinking of me.

 

I thought.....OH no..! Don't go there. That's NOT a good thing. He might be trying to 'get to you'...but it's NOT A GOOD THING! I was thinking while I was writing that...you shouldn't CARE why he put single up there. It could be to irritate you (is that good???) or to draw in new women...but that fact remains...it shouldn't MATTER TO YOU.

 

I disagree with RN that it personally had something to do with you.

Don't go there.

Even tho we know she shouldn't 'go there'...he's addicted to her (and everyone else...he's an addict after all) it could have something to do with her. But then again...I am 'thinking as a woman'....men usually don't think that 'deeply'.

 

At least Tom always told me....he never 'thinks about relationships...or us'....eh... then sometimes he says I'm the first thing he thinks of every morning...and last thing he thinks of every night. So how the hell do we know what these guys are thinking.

 

But as everyone has said...it's NOT OUR PLACE to figure out WHY or WHAT THEY are thinking.

 

Only worry about you. Stop the madness.

 

Get off the roller coaster.

 

He might have put single on to attract women...then thought...as an 'after thought'....hehehe...that'll really PI** LL off!

[lostlove76]

I know I shouldn't care, but I do, of course!! Hard not to, ya know?

 

"men usually don't think that 'deeply'"

 

"So how the hell do we know what these guys are thinking."

 

I wonder about this. Like how much DO they think about relationships?? I wish I knew. I've read all kinds of message boards with guys helping each other figure out mind games to play, or guys who are upset about a breakup and doing NC and wondering if it'll get her back, etc etc. I'm always surprised to read that stuff, because it's usually us as women who do all the relationship thinking. But some guys do, apparently. I have no clue if mine does. I've suspected before that he was doing things to try to get my attention, but I could be waaay off base.