posted
What does one do when one's heart says one thing and the mind says something completely different?
I'm still in love with him.
My head knows I'm better off without him. I can do better than him. My pride and self-respect have wall up my feelings and made sure they can't escape. And it's for the good of both of us. I've tried so hard to bring myself to this point that I can be free of him and move on with my life, and finally shake the disapproval from my family that haunted me whenever his very name was mentioned. Their reasons for their dislike of him were many and varied. "He's too old, he's lacking in his education, he's a bad example. He's at a different point in his life and neither of you should be dependant on the other."
But deep down I'm torn; there's nothing I want more than his smile and embrace, his familiar laugh and complete knowledge of me. His selfless, neverending love that he gives unconditionally to me, and that I threw back in his face. A part of me has tears streaming, wanting to run to him and beg for forgiveness and acceptance.
My head screams in frustration. How did I allow this to happen, that I'd become a slave to my passion for him? There's so many other guys out there that have more of what he has. There's gonna be other guys that are willing to give their lives for me, and they'll have whatever gifts he has and more. It would be impractical to wait, you're only young once. Live it up while you can and don't let this one guy drag you down.
And yet...
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Does anyone have any advice on how to forget?
Posts: 23 | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
Wow, heavy first post, eh? Is this for real, or is that the first few paragraphs from your new novel?
I don't know what kind of person you are, but depending on your personality, I think one of these should work:
Go into your bedroom with a giant bottle of scotch and/or tub of Ben & Jerry's (depending on your age and value system), and a large stack of CDs by The Cure and/or The Smiths, and lie on the floor until you wake up and can't remember what you were crying about.
Vegas weekend, baby!
Hope that helps.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Phanto: Time is the best answer. The hardest one, too.
Unfortunately, I speak from cold hard experience that this is the only real answer. You want to lose weight: there's an easy way, and there's the right way. You want to bulk up? Same thing. You want to get over someone, there are easy ways, but you'll end up hurting more in the long term. Time is the only way.
posted
I mean, in practical terms....I didn't end up having to do this after my break-up, because it was so long overdue, but my mother always said that when she got tired of moping over her ex, she started to play this game:
She made up a restful thought -- in her case, it was the beaches in Maine, which is where she spent all her vacations -- and every time she thought of the ex, she said NO to him and deliberately thought of the Maine beaches instead. She said it was hard and it took discipline but it worked.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Meeting someone else always speeds things up, but time and focus on other things is all that really works.
You can't let yourself indulge in pining over photographs, driving by his house/work, no late night emails, no just needing to talk.
Sometimes it helps to write a letter, but don't send it. Just get your feelings out, all of them.
Cut yourself out cold turkey, and then get busy with something. One bff made a sketch book full of all these little comics and images describing what she was going through, watched i<3huckabees every week and worked on some films.
My other bff ate a pint of Chunky Munky every day, ran four miles every day, and watched Mary Poppins every day. She also fell asleep to a lot of Jane Austen.
So much of it is chemical. I had a lot of friends posted around to stage an intervention in case of weakness. "I'm two blocks from *name of restaurant he owns* just sitting in my car, what should i do what should i do?" I always needed to hear my roommate's voice telling to go home and that we'd do something together.
Here's a column about how I spent a lot of my time during the last horrible break up:
Edited to add: My very first post at Hatrack was mourning the long term departure of the boy I was sure I was going to marry. A year later he broke up with me (hooray postal service) and it took me a very very long time to get over it. Two years maybe.
Now the very thought of having married him makes my stomach turn, and I praise the Lord and all goodly powers of the universe that things didn't work out. Because they in fact did work out. In the long run.
posted
Thanks everyone. Some of your posts made me laugh (which is always good) and others were really helpful.
Yes Baron, it is for real. I've simply got the annoying tendency to write like I'm writing a novel. This isn't my first post, though... I have another annoying tendency to forget passwords =P
Posts: 23 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Phanto: Time is the best answer. The hardest one, too.
Unfortunately, I speak from cold hard experience that this is the only real answer. You want to lose weight: there's an easy way, and there's the right way. You want to bulk up? Same thing. You want to get over someone, there are easy ways, but you'll end up hurting more in the long term. Time is the only way.
...pH?
What?
I have the annoying tendency to get over the initial breakup shock pretty quickly. My solution, aside from proving to yourself that you've still "got it," is to immerse yourself in some other activity. Exercise, read books, reorganize your living room, draw, watch every episode of Law and Order ever created in chronological order...it helps. I think the key part of getting over a breakup though is proving to yourself that you've still "got it." From there on, you stop worrying that you're going to die alone with eighty cats.
I'm also a huge fan of openly casual dating. It's a lot of fun, and I think more people should give it a shot.
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