ex trouble

LegacyUser

Right, this is a long one so I'll try to get to the point.
Lat night I bumped into...or 'saw' an ex, with whom I've had no contact in the year and a half that we've been broken up.
We were to together for a year and a half in your generic long term relationship but she broke up with me rather abruptly, and I was devastated etc...

Anyway, since then she made one or two attempts at reconciling our friendship which I completely shot down, partly because I couldn't bare the idea of being with her while not being with her and partly becasue denying her the friendship she wanted seemed like the only thing I could do to cause her some of the pain she caused me. And that was a long time ago.

Since then I've naturally seen other girls and I've been in two seni serious relationships, one of which is still on-going. So last night, out with mates and current g/f, I passed the ex in the pub, I reckon she saw me but there was no exchange between us.

Then all of a sudden I started to feel sick to my stomach, and started thinking of her with other blokes which made me feel even worse.
I think I'm in the situation people often talk about when emotions and feelings for someone come rushing back to them.
I left early and kept telling myself that I really shouldn't be feeling like this, it's been so long that I really really shouldn't be feeling like this. It's not right and it's not fair. What's more is that it is all making me question my loyalty to me current g/f, and myself. Have I been lying to myself for all this time?
My head is melted, does anyone have any wisdom to share on this matter?

Carrigart Exile

Been there mate, now ten years since but still catch myself wondering. I wonder if the no contact thing has rebounded slightly, you admit its done out of revenge which is an emotion. You need to try and get to a place of indifference.

cornbb

You neglected to obtain closure after this girl and its come back to bite you in the ass after all this time and all these other people. She wanted to be friends - you didn't have to be if you didn't want to, thats fair enough, but you should have at least tried to remain on some sort of good terms so that the sort of experience you had that night would never happen.

You can't be feeling sorry for yourself given the way you've handled this situation. Think about how she must feel, you rejected her attempts at friendship and ignored her in the pub while you were with your new gf. You've gotta stop thinking about her, you've got no excuse after all this time and all these other girls.

LegacyUser

But I couldn't remain on good terms, she hurt me. Alot. And I wanted to her to feel some of the pain I felt and not being friends seemed like the only civil thing I could do to that end.

I didn't ignore her, in the pub...I didn't know what to do tbh. I rejected her attempts at friendship but she rejected a whole lot more from me too.
Does this mean I'm still in love with her?

cornbb

Did she go out of her way to hurt you? Did she do something malicious or did she just hurt you by breaking up with you? Maybe she didn't want to hurt you but just had to break up with you. It happens all the time. Either way, wanting her to feel some of your pain wasn't a very mature thing to do.

Even in the very unlikely event that you are actually still in love with her after not having contact with her for a year and a half, acting on those feelings would be foolish in the extreme. Forget about her and move on or you'll land yourself in a world of headphuck.

Catari Jaguar

Dantee wrote:

Does this mean I'm still in love with her?

I think only you can answer that. Also think about do you really love your new girlfriend?

I think Cornbb is right in that you never got closure, so maybe it's the feelings of hurt and rejection and heartbreak coming back to you making you feel bad and not feelings for her.. You just associate them with her.

LegacyUser

cornbb wrote:

It happens all the time. Either way, wanting her to feel some of your pain wasn't a very mature thing to do.

I know it was a very asshole-ish thing to do, I don't think such feelings are imature, I think they're just natural.
Anyway, I never would act on any such feelings, they're just messing me up and need to sort them out.

Lil Kitten wrote:

I think only you can answer that. Also think about do you really love your new girlfriend?

No, I don't love my current g/f...I like her but I know I'm not in love with her.

Lil Kitten wrote:

so maybe it's the feelings of hurt and rejection and heartbreak coming back to you making you feel bad and not feelings for her.. You just associate them with her.

That sounds like it makes alot of sense. So I guess all I can do is hope that I will be lucky enough to not have to see her again for another year and a half?

Catari Jaguar

I don't think it was immature. You didnt want to stay friends with her and she prob wanted to because she felt bad or didn't want to cut you out cos then she'd lose her back up. I don't think it's a good idea for exes to be friends esp if it ended badly.

You will get over her, maybe you just need to write down how you feel and maybe when you get your head a bit clearer you could talk to her and get your closure. Make a list of stuff that wrecked your head about her and how you're waay better without her. You could see thats she's not so special and not worth fussing and fretting over.

LegacyUser

But she was special....that's the problem.
I can't get into the mind set that I need to be in to get over her.

ELLIEJ

Its not fair on your girlfriend. How do you feel about her? Are you going to contact the ex? You need to get closure but its how you go about it. It sounds like an infatuation to me. You dont know her well anymore so it cant really be realistic love...

claire-g

Carrigart Exile wrote:

Been there mate, now ten years since but still catch myself wondering.

Oh god dont say that!! My ex is on hols with his new girlf and my heads melted too, i couldnt handle it if i was still thinking about it in 10 years!!!

Carrigart Exile

claire-g wrote:

Oh god dont say that!! My ex is on hols with his new girlf and my heads melted too, i couldnt handle it if i was still thinking about it in 10 years!!!

Sorry Claire, just the occassional flash back, nothing destructive.

Kell

Dantee wrote:

I don't think such feelings are imature, I think they're just natural.?

Wanting someone to feel pain because you cant take it on the chin like a grown up is immature.

Try telling an emotionally mature person that such feelings are natural and they'll laugh at you.

Advice- get over yourself and put the past where it belongs. Waaay behind you.

K-

togster

Dantee wrote:

But she was special....that's the problem.
I can't get into the mind set that I need to be in to get over her.

i have been there too. Nearly five tears later i still sometimes think about her. And tbh i thought she was special but she hurt me too alot. ( came to my grandfathers funeral with her new boyfriend a year after we broke up) i thought i was over her and i realised later i was. It was the feelings of hurt and pain she caused me that upset me the most. Its easy to confuse emotions and to think your still in love with that person. Believe me though time is a great healer. I have met someone far more special and you will too.
Its true what they say "the first cut is the deepest" and im guessing ( i might be wrong) but was this girl your first love.?

dr.bollocko

This one time when I was really really little, my mommy brought me into a sweetie and whoopee cushion shop. You'll have to forgive my description of this encounter, as it is forged from hazy memory. It's a hodge podge, really, of mixed images from around that age that possibly never conformed to the reality I experienced at the time. My memories of it now as a valid experience could be merely a trick of the mind, forged by time to shroud the truth from me.
I was only 4, so you can imagine the wonder with which I viewed this brave new world of diabetes and digestive eventualities. As I threw off my mittens, letting them swing from the rope around my neck (I was a cute kid) and prepped to toddle giddily around in ever increasing concentric circles breaking things until my intended gifts became clear, my mother said 6 crushing words to me.
"You can only have one thing."
Her voice bouncing off of the re-enforced rubber in each whoopee cushion, an unquestionable command from above, seeming to match the resonant frequency of the shop and terminating with an unbearable drone right in the centre of my head. In my 2nd class essay entitled "My day out with mommy" I would compare her tone that day with Megatron's maniacal yet inspired rhetoric when forced to gel a diminishing, frightened crew of ragtags for one final escape run from Cybertron. I'm talking serious command potential here. Not the time to cross mommy.
I knew at that point that I was faced with a decision that involved my first flirtation with opportunity cost. I could never have everything I wanted. The curse, I guess, borne from our higher intelligence. As I let my eyes wander from sweetie wall to whoopee cushion wall, I just could not see the final solution, I could not equate x to personal happiness, when I knew I would be forced to leave the shop with one or the other, but not both of those things that I loved so much; needed, in fact.
I had lost all motor functions upon being faced with this ultimatum and resorted to awe and fear, and my gut for the prize.
And as I stared from one wall to the other, it became difficult to see where one wall ended and the other began. And yet more revelations, as the sweat formed on my brow and the world snapped into the crispy focus of the weak-kneed, I held up my hand to the intersection of the two walls, and despite the new clarity in my vision there were more anomolies. Now my hand seemed briefly infected with the same fuzzy sense of reality as the two walls. I could no longer rely on the finite nature of my own arms, as I inspected them there, between the two walls of finite pleasures. And the wall, the pleasure and the pain all flew through me. I was the cushion, staring out at the world with one winking rubber eye. I was the victim and felt the pain of public shame. I was the raucous laughter of a mob of under eights. I was the inner turmoil of fresh embarassment. I could see then the interconnection between myself and the Whoopee cushion. I could see the relationship then in its truly infinite nature, with a whoopee cushion falling from my eyes and becoming the ball of quiet energy, its unmasked true form. I had already loved this whoopee cushion. I had hunted it, fed it, gave birth to it, been its child, made love to it. I had been every possible relation to it already, and would be again, with time, and the nature of infinity being what it is, with small children and fart noises.
With this sudden insight still searing my young, impressionable brain, I jumped at what I thought was my answer, and grabbed some sweeties from the nearest shelf, presenting them in front of mommy for inspection.
Decision made, though, and the pain of my immediate finite state began to forge doubts in the furnace of my infinite unconscious.
Upon leaving the shop, there were already tears in my eyes, and no whoopee cushion in my arms. I sat in the car silently on our way home, staring out the window, wondering how my flawless logic could leave me with such a cold and empty swell where childhood innocence once sat proudly.
From my perch I sat and stared out at the world. And as I stared, suddenly the clouds that cast the morning in shade lifted. They lifted all at once, in glorious crescendo, bathing the morning in unfiltered sunlight and showing the ever transient world, for one second, as an ever living and beating organism, paused just for a second by light, but destined still, to move on and change its nature every second, forever. I felt cheered again.
But then the clouds returned, and with it my gloom. And the patch of sunlight that had all too briefly stirred my subconscious suddenly came visible again, but it was over the far side of a bridge we had just come off of. On the far side, green lush rolling hills, basking in soft sunlight, onto where I was, shrouded in the semi-darkness of a cloudy midmorning.
And as I sat there, trying to smile, to participate happily in all the newfound misery of the world, and steady my resolve against my own worst tendencies, I couldnt help but note that, if even for the briefest of seconds, those hills, lit up by glorious sun, they seemed so much lusher, greener than the brown green muck that lined the road we were travelling on.
I wish I got that whoopee cushion. I wish we could still be driving through those hills, much greener than these. I wish we could get home soon. I wish all those decisions weren't mine to make.
I went to neighbour Richard's house, and we cycled silently until it was time to go to bed.

comewatmay

i kinda know how you feel man even though its only been 3 months with my ex.Still think about her all the time, we broke up on mutual terms so we have stayed in contact.Its not an easy thing to do, when i meet her i just want things back to normal and then when i dont see her its like out of sight out of mind and im happy.Im always longing for her just after we meet up or have long conversations on the phone and it really hurts.I really want closure on the whole thing, she i sa special girl who i will always have a place in my heart for but some people are made to go out and thats it, not be friends.As far as your prediciment goes id say just leave her, forget her, concentrate on ur new girl.Who cares what ur ex is doing, think about your life, your happineess.~I mean Fcuk her she hurt you so dont come crawling back to her making her feel all high and mighty.Remember your the one with the g/f have fun with her, forget the ex, shes not worth it

Black Swan

You obviously haven't gotten over her. Rejecting her attempts at friendship, and wanting to cause her pain demonstrates this. It's over, especially after your destructive behaviour towards her. Make yourself realise this, then move on. One of the best solutions for you is to find love with someone else.

LegacyUser

Ok, thanks everybody.
But for the record, I wasn't trying to start something, or end something, I just wanted to know what these 'feelings' meant.