Susan wrote to me the most heart wrenching letter about how hard it is to let go and move on. I knew what's she going through would resonate with so many of you. Been here?
Here's her story:
Omgosh Jane. How do you do it?
How did you know exactly what I'm suffering right now? Silently painfully and occasionally voicing to few who harshly shut me down with comments that make me feel even worse about myself than I already do.
I should know better, you have been through this before why are you allowing or being so foolish. You should never cry over a man - what's wrong with you. We always thought you had more sense and you're so weak and making a fool of yourself, he doesn't want you don't you see.
Of course I see and don't they know I yell at myself over and over until I can't stand to be in my own body and I have deserted and loathe my own self for allowing myself to go through this.
We don't talk anymore and he cut me off.
Why? I don't know.
I ask myself what did I do so wrong, what was wrong with me that he doesn't want me, why did he decide to just be friends or hardly text me or call me and never meet with me again? It is on my mind constantly when I wake throughout the day and at night.
I'm so embarrassed and keep looking at myself and seeing why he decided I wasn't good enough. I feel so desperately low and the aching is awful. I can't shake it off or escape from it, yearning for him to change his mind and contact me.
However days lead to weeks, and now months.
What did I say or what did he see in me that made him decide I wasn't for him? My confidence has plummeted and I just feel so torn apart. How can another human being make a 50 year old woman feel like a crumbling mess?
I have 4 children and grandchildren which has put him off as he is 7 years younger than me and his oldest is 16 and 16 is my youngest. He said we are on different stages of an elevator and he doesn't want a relationship with me because of feeble silly excuses.
Obviously he's had change of mind over our age differences etc. when in the beginning he was pursuing me so strongly and I didn't feel anything and he grew on me by constantly contacting me and things he spoke to me and over time I fell in love with him.
That's when I saw him withdraw and go distant.
I didn't say I fell in love but obviously I wanted to take things further and have a relationship.
He just backed off. I can't understand it and it's driving me insane.
He's on my mind all the time. I would never contact him because I respect his decision to withdraw as I even suspect he wasn't being honest and has a lady friend or even an ex he's with.
I could go on, Jane but God Bless you.
You write about everything I'm going through.
Signed,
- Susan
Here's what I wrote back to her:
Thank you for your kind words, Susan. I hear you, I see you. And I know so many on here do too.
They can do this to us because we allow them to. We can feel like the crumbling mess because we're so afraid we just might be an unlovable crumbling mess.
We have the triggers and they bring out our worst fears about ourselves by saying what we don't want anyone to know. I have something for you to know.
You're not a crumbling mess.
You're not blind or foolish and there's nothing wrong with you. You just want to be loved!
There's an antidote to all this. It's found in owning every part of who you are, everything you're silently beating yourself up for, everything you've deserted yourself over and can't stand to be in your skin because of.
Own every beautiful part of who you are. All of it.
Don't loathe it. Accept it and what you can't accept, ask yourself why you can't. Who said you were so unlovable? Who told you that you had to settle for any man's crumbs to be loved? And why did they know more than anyone else? How did they get to have so much power over what happens to you?
Don't take on another word of what they're putting on you that you've already put on yourself.
No one deserves to be put through what you're putting yourself through, I don't care where you've been or what you've done. No one does.
You hold your head up high, Susan. Own every part of who you are and what you aren't. Keep doing this - make it a habit, this owning instead of being ashamed and hiding - and one day soon, you're going to see yourself in a whole new light, I promise you. We have to learn this. When we've been so used to living in shame, owning seems proud and selfish when ironically, it's the only way we walk through!
Much love to you.
Love,
Jane
Did you feel the pain in Susan's words too? Tell her what you want her to know in the comments.
The man I care about, even though he does not text or call, he does care about me. He has told me that I am the closest to him and he puts me in areas of trust that he puts no one else. Last night, I was going to end it with him, and you will say it is not me, but this part is me. I am bipolar and I have been diagnosed borderline personality disorder. I overreact to everything and my mind goes 100 miles a minute. I invent scenarios in my mind. He works constantly. When I asked him why he doesn't call or talk as much, and why he basically replaced me in his "worklife" - I used to be involved a lot, he honestly does not understand why I think I was replaced. He is the first man I have actually been with that is smarter than I am but he really has no life sense or understanding. I am the person he comes to when he is really upset but I am suicidal and he cannot handle that and has told me that it petrifies him. I think we both pull away. Today, when he comes over, I am going to have a talk with him and try and find out what it is. We do fine communicating on a science level but we both suck at an emotional level. He never honestly means to hurt me and I know this. He is the first man I have ever trusted with my heart but that doesn't mean he doesn't need to learn how to say things because I am a very black and white person with no gray areas. I am going to tell him to not say he will be over later but rather to say he will try and be over. He does have a bad short-term memory problem since he had Covid. I was married to a sociopath and left him in 1983 only to return in 2015 - and wait for 6 years while he was in prison. I believed his lies. What an idiot. In the intervening years, I was married to another man for 30 who believed it was better to lie to make things seem like they were going okay. I never, even when I was with those two men, trusted them; however, I trust this man I am with and if nothing romantic comes of it, I want to work out our communication problems because he is the best friend I have ever had and I trust him. I cannot trust that he will be there but this man goes out at midnight and takes blankets to the homeless, he feeds them and some of them come in his house and sleep on his couch -- and some steal from him. He spends more money on them feeding them in a month and shorting himself than anyone else I know. He believes in God and lives it, he honestly says to himself when questioning someone's intent "what would Jesus do?" And to be honest, he has that humble attitude but by no means is this mean weak. He would defend me to the death and I know this. It is just the communication problem and that comes from my prison ex saying when I called and asked where he was "I am not there with you am I?" and the continual lies. I trust this man and maybe I am reading someone else totally wrong but my friends who are honest about my choices see the good in him and how caring he is. My friend said "he is like the hamster on the wheel, running, running, running" and when he gets off he literally falls asleep. He helps everyone who needs help and that is what I love about him so how can I fault him? What I can do, is sit down and talk to him and explain to him what happens to me. If he ends up being only a friend then that will be something I will accept because his friendship is way more important than any sex I could ever have. Yes, he takes me for granted, but not in a harmful way. He will protect me and my girlfriend and her mother from any threats or with any dangers. He is family and if he is not husband, he is still family. And I will accept that as I have never had a connection like I have with him ever in my life. One that has ultimately nothing to do with sex and yet is more intimate than anything I have ever experienced. I know this is not what you expected to hear. But last night, I went into my friend's room and asked her, "how can I tell him I want to back off." And she said "what brought this on?" I told her about the texts and calls and how it hurts. She said "you know him, if someone asks for help he will do that because that is how he is. " And then she went on to say "that he thinks of you as being able to understand as a wife would and forgets that you are a girlfriend who will get upset. " Then she said, "do you want him to stop helping people? Because I don't think he will. I think he will always help people when they ask." He is the first man I don't want to change. After we had the revenge sex against my ex (he thought he had ratted on him and put him in prison, which he did not) when we first met, we stopped having sex. All my life I based my relationships on the sex not the brain. This man is the Macgyver of the real world. I don't think that there is much he cannot fix or invent to replace. He is amazing. He is the first man that I think is equivalent to my brilliant father. I don't know if I can really love in the true sense of the word but whatever I have for this man is much more pure. You may think that I am living in a fairy tale world and someday I may have to walk away but I think that the only reason I am alive today in reality is because of him. My ex will not cross that barrier because of him. My ex didn't stalk me like before, at least openly. He did some weird things but he is afraid of this man and even his brother said that I would be protected by him (present man) and that it was a good thing that I hang with him instead of his brother (my ex). It's just this call thing and everytime I read something that says they don't care if they don't text, but you know what, he will be here at my house in the next few hours to clean up the people I live with their cat boxes and to see me. He may not call but he is here with that beautiful smile and that wonderful hug that gives me warmth and he will be back tomorrow or the next day, and has told me to come to where he is working on the weekend, but I don't -- so that's on me. I believe there is a man out there or person out there for everyone, I am just not ready to leave where I am at right now. He doesn't want me to leave, we just need to work on communication skills both of us. I just need to be me because that's who he cares about and allow him to be him.
I was guilty of the same feelings as well in the past. Now I know my worth and if someone does not appreciate what I have to offer then a more worthy man will. That is about them and not us. So freeing to leave ourselves open to receive love and wait for the right person!
Oh boy Susan do I ever feel your pain! I’ve been dealing with my emotions for years and just when I think I’ve got a grip on them something happens to trigger those darn emotions again. What triggers my emotions is him contacting me and giving me a glimpse of hope. When everyone told me to be done with him, to block his number etc. I haven’t.. I still feel so much for him and still feel he is interested because why else would he still be responding or even reaching out?! It almost feels like a game, but yet it’s hope for me. I have done and said everything possible to him to try and reason with him. Throughout all this I’ve prayed to God to snap him out of whatever he’s going through. Sometimes I feel I’m wasting my time and other times I’m on a mission to win him back. But it shouldn’t be that way. Love comes freely and I shouldn’t be pursuing him, it should be the other way around. I just keep hurting myself. He’s probably not even worried and here I am a mess at times. Eventually I know things will change. Either he will come to his senses or I will. Just know Susan that you’re not alone.
I can tell you that an antisocial personality, sociopath, or narcissist will reach out to keep you where they want you and it is hard to tell if you are dealing with one of those. But the man I care about deeply, he only calls occasionally and will if I don't call, does come over to my house at least 8-12 times a week. He brings me useful things, not flowers, i.e. microwave, air conditioner - much more useful. Yes, I am on the backburner for things being fixed unless an emergency but he helps everyone who needs help and as my friend last night said, it's because he knows you will understand and when someone says right then, my car won't start, he isn't going to schedule a time to fix it, he will just fix it and miss our dinner and he does have the a horrible memory and a genius IQ. You need to figure out if this man is worth what you are expending on him. If he is, then work it out. If not, don't waste time see-sawing back and forth, that will only hurt you. It won't hurt him at all. And most of all, remember that you are a person and that person is worth loving and caring about. You are not an extension of him nor he you, but you are you and that is where you connect, if you really connect. I have learned in this last year that being friends is the most important aspect of a relationship because otherwise you are in love with love.
Thats pretty much my story!
I recently went through this with a man 10years my junior. He was with another woman for 6 months of Pur 2 year relationship. Once I found out I stepped back and told him goodbye. He agreed, so once I started to move on (and you must do this) he found out, thrn actually stopped, sat down and thought about his actions. Now he has come crawling back promising me the world. Only time will tell, but he seems so different and never been more in love with me than now. So here's hoping.
That kind of happened with me with the man I am with, he said I read his signals incorrectly, that he had told me from the beginning that we could hang out but he never saw marriage in our future. But I fell for him because it was basically a rebound at that time. And it hurt to hear that, so I stopped calling or texting. And I started talking to a friend of his and I would go to his place and I noticed that he was saying things like, oh, you look hot, etc. but nothing ever came of his friend. He started calling me and telling me that it was weird without me being there but I still stayed away, so he started coming to my house where I lived. One day he asked me for a ride to where he worked and I said okay but then another man I know asked me out and I told him I wouldn't be able to do that. I could tell it bothered him and that night, when I was taking him home before I left on my date, he looked at me and said "wow, you look hot" and I said what and then he fumbled on his words and said "not that you don't always looks good." Then, I asked him to watch my dog while I went on a weekend date with this other man and he said okay but then it really wasn't okay and I changed my mind because something changed in our relationship. I told him about the only time I felt like he wasn't honest with me (I am very bluntly honest sometimes) and we talked and he told me that "before I treated you badly and I feel bad about it" or something to that affect and I told him I really cared about him and he said that he really cared about me too and to ask him anything. Well, we have known each other 15 months or so and the "breakup" was about 4 months after we met. He asked me to spend Christmas and New Years with him because "there is no one else I want to spend it more with." And we became "family." I still don't know where the relationship is. Sometimes I think and know he takes me for granted but as family we know we can do that. I hate not knowing. Ever since I had a terminally ill son and had to wait for months to find out what was wrong with him, I have not been able to deal well with the not knowing. I hope everything works out well for you. Sometimes I am more afraid of what I have now with him because it is strange and unique and I don't like the unknown. Don't allow yourself to be hurt - easier said than done depending on how your mind works. I wish you well. This man with me is 9 years younger than I am and he always had a sexual appetite for the younger women but I think he realized that they wanted something different and offered something different but that I offer much more. I am not jealous of them or of who they were, they can even sleep on his couch, I am not threatened there. But the threat is taking away his mind and friendship...that is so important to me.