Cautionary tale!
Jariel said:
I think 60 days is relative to be honest. The best time for you to make contact again is when you've overcome your neediness and dependence on her. After a break up you see everything with a very clouded judgement and all you can think of is getting her back to make the pain go away. But when you give it time and gain perspective, you start to truly see the whole picture, what went wrong, why she broke up with you and how you changed. Most guys will realise that towards the end of the relationship they had changed so much they were not the same man their girlfriend fell in love with.
A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR ALL MY BROTHERS
On the morning of the 58th day of no contact t I woke up in a hotel room with a naked girl after an epic night out. A bit hung-over but still in a great mood. We get up, check out of the hotel and then go grab lunch before my flight back to my home city. The girl I was with was exactly one year younger than my ex gf, but sweet, speaks multiple languages, has a good job. A nice girl with a bit of a horny side and a hot gym shaped body. Objectively, in spite of her good qualities I have to say she is not quite as hot as my ex.
Looking back on my mood that morning I have to admit that part of this stemmed from the fact that my ex had been sending me emails and text messages over the last few days. No words, just pictures of herself. A few days earlier I had started using an old phone that still had a chat application installed where the ex and I were friends. She must have seen that I was back to using this application and sent a couple of pictures through the app. I ignored these messages.
Why didn’t I uninstall the app when I turned my old phone on? I was feeling ****y, like I was already over her. The app was on my phone when I was finally alone in the taxi and I started looking at her pictures on my phone on the way to the airport.
In line to get my boarding pass...i texted her.
She responded immediately. A short conversation ensued. She expressed how painful the breakup had been for her, denied cheating on me and said the reason why we broke up was because I was selfish and using her for sex. I didn’t really engage deeply with her during this exchange, just mentioned that it was painful when I found out about the other guy and that I had a lot of positive things going on in my life and need to move on.
I break off the conversation to board my flight. Reach home and start trying to force myself to get some work done before the next day. I noticed during my 58 days of no contact that my ex gf was a huge escape for me. Whenever I was feeling overwhelmed at work or procrastinating I would sms and flirt with her to take my mind of my problems. Around 11:00pm that night, from my home, feeling tired and frustrated with work. I send her another message. She responds 3 hours later. She tells me that she is a different girl now than when we were dating and that she is going backpacking the next day in cambodia. Her messages have this unconcerned carefree excitable tone of a young woman looking forward to her next adventure. Just killing some time on social media before her next chic adventure. The tone of her text completely freaks me out..I try to call her. She doesn’t pick up. I go to bed morose and despondent. Deeply disappointed in her responses to me.
I then wake up and early in the morning send a stream of the worst possible lovesick texts. I love you, I am dying, and yes even "do you still love me". A couple hours later a cheery noncommittal sms from her as she is on the way to the train station. I cry.
This was a few days ago, as you might anticipate , there are no incoming messages from her while she is on her trip. I find myself in a pretty bad emotional place regretting breaking no contact. I know enough about women to recognize when one has moved on. My ex has moved on.
We all start no contact with the idea of getting her back. Hit the gym a little harder, try to get some plates spinning but we do this with one eye on her. We think if we just maintain it a little longer she will crack and come crying back. If she contacts us we think to ourselves "ahhh she is beginning to crack". Looking forward to this glorious day we she comes crying back to us, we cheerfully talk to other girls, go party with our friends and pat ourselves on the back for being so strong.
My instant reversion to AFC after a few texts with her illustrates that no contact with the intent of getting her back is the worse kind of bullsh*t self delusion and a complete waste of time.
So...what is the lesson learned here?
I think every man on this board lives with a gap between what kind of man he is today and the man he could be if he realized his greatest potential. The hard daily work of being a man is the diligent effort required to slowly close this gap as we go through life. Some of us turn to drugs, diversions, drink or other escapes so we can stop dealing with this gap. In short, we stop growing. A beautiful woman comes into your life and adores you, the force of her devotion can even make you forget about that gap for awhile. " If she loves me like this there cant be anything wrong with me!". We stop developing, she senses it, loses attraction, leaves. What she fell in love with is your potential, she wanted to fvck the ultimate version of you. She is loyal and devoted to the best version of you. If you continue your struggle to be the best version of yourseIf; your actions, your demeanor, your personality all continue to remind her of that awesome dude you can be and she stays loyal to you. I f you stop working to close this gap, she starts to forget your ideal version and as this vision fades, the weaker version of yourself she sees everyday doesn’t excite and attract her anymore.
I am not sure women have this same gap and I don’t think their life is quite the same struggle. They are designed to attach themselves to you and your struggle and perhaps later, the struggle of her children. If you stop struggling you stop being a man in her eyes. I think the younger and hotter a girl is the more finely attuned her senses are in detecting a guy that relaxes a bit too much when she comes into his life.
What I have realized is that my ex is not going to give me what I want but she will definitely give me what I need. I love her deeply for this. She is going to force me, by hurting me, to make some positive changes to my life.
AS I look back on my 58 days of no contact I can see that I was trying to party and fvck my way out of the pain of the breakup. The pain of the breakup is not because she was the best woman in the world or even the best woman for me. The pain of the breakup is from a younger hottie calling your bluff, in effect telling you " hey..you fooled me for a while but your not really the man I thought you were". As you can you can tell from this disastrous text exchange, she is probably right. Your breakup is reminder to you that you need to keep developing and growing.
My next actions...now day one of no contact:
1) I probably need to grieve a bit about losing her. I never really did that
2) I need to man the fvck up, deal with things in my life that need fixing that I have been avoiding facing.
3) I realized that some of the incessant thoughts about your ex stem from a deeply held fixation on getting her back. I am going to resolve to really get over her, for GOOD. If I can close off the possibility of reconciliation perhaps I can get my mind to quiet a bit.
I read something a few days ago that I think is good:
"The pain you are feeling is also trying to teach you something. The pain is not only about your ex, it’s also about an accumulation of many factors over the course of your life. Things like:
· Where you are at in your life in relation to where you want it to be.
· The beliefs and ideals you have about love, women and relationships.
· The self image you have of yourself.
· Unconscious patterns of thinking you have built up over your life.
· Cultural and family programming you had growing up.
People in general don’t stop to think about these things most of the time. They are just controlled by these influences behind the scenes and they don’t realize it.
As excruciating as this break up might be for you, this is the time when these things will become more apparent to you.
So not only is this breakup an opportunity for you to rise up and overcome a real challenge, but it is also a chance for you to stop and see things about yourself that you may have not noticed before."
My forth resolution is in regards to this pain. I need to live in this pain for a bit and use it has a motivator to make positive changes in my life. My ex is in all likelihood fvcking backpackers and loving her life right now. I'm writing an overly long post on a pickup board trying not to think about her doing this. Pretty pitiful place I find myself in today
. My only consolation is that pain like this has to have sort of transformative power.
Thanks for listening.
Day 3
