Food for thought

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Reflect on this: Suffering for love is much more romantic than being happy and bored".

This sort of thing is best to grow out of. Another member enlightened me on this. It really hit a chord.

Maybe a lot of people are busy enjoying the self-indulgence of the suffering instead of actually loving that other person. It's not practical to be in love with someone who doesn't love you back. The lover must be in it for another reason...maybe addiction to the body chemicals being released. I've heard that people who grieve excessively are actually turning their grief into a sort of self-indulgence. At some point, a person must get back to being a productive member of society. Once I would have happily romanced this guy's bottle of cologne instead of him...must have been the phernomes. When he changed colognes, my attraction stopped dead. Luckily, my husband has never worn cologne. He always smells like COLGATE.

My boyfriend always smells of petrol.

I still don't get why people keep saying things like "you must be enjoying it then" to people like me that don't have much success in life. Suffering hurts. Period. There's just no other way to describe it. Maybe instead of accusing me of such things, we should focus on the real problem, that being nobody wants to be close to people like me...

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

I agree with the OP to a certain extent. I enjoy dark love songs like The Bathers or 7am by the Blue Nile. An old friend introduced me to both of these bands and I remember he once wrote a song with the line: "maybe I don't need the love, maybe I just need the tears." Mostly I just feel numb and I enjoy actually feeling something, even if it only be beautiful melancholy. Yeah, I prefer it to being bored. I wouldn't be happy anyway, it doesn't seem to be in my nature. Whether I'm in love or not, I will always be broken and won't be happy in a normal way. I can't imagine anyone actually loving me back. This may seem pathetic to you, but it is all I have, probably all I will ever have of love.

Like Toad said, some of us have no one to move on to. Some of us aren't loved back. I am attracted to a friend of mine that I have known for at least 5 years, but even though he seems to like me, nothing ever happens. I have come to the conclusion that I like him more than he likes me. I give up and then I see him again and there is this little spark and we enjoy those moments, like when we danced at my sister's wedding he was smiling and seemed happy and free, not awkward and quiet like usual. Then I didn't see him for a month and gave up again, but then I saw him at our friend's house and he blushed when he saw me and gave me a hug and we enjoyed each other's company for a while. But nothing ever happens.

I adore him. He's a lovely person. Very quiet and funny and kind. I will always think he is lovely and I enjoy thinking about him and I enjoy being with him, but if someone else comes along I won't be blinded to them or so much caught up in a dream that I won't see a new opportunity with someone else who might actually care about me or might make an effort to spend time with me, and be more than just someone I run into by accident at times. However, a reciprical relationship has never happened to me and I can't imagine that it ever will.

Until then, all I have are these occassional moments with my friend. I wish he was just a friend sometimes, someone I could arrange to spend time with, but there is always this sort of awkward chemistry that we never seem to get over.

When I'm upset over being let down by someone in particular, I just want to leave it behind as quickly as possible (which usually ends up being a few weeks). Perhaps more dangerous - and prevalent on this forum - is the fear of change. Many of us like unchanging routines, and it's a routine to come here and post instead of trying to do anything different. On reflection, this may not be best.

The Blue Nile were a good band.

1) People do not always act logically or rationally. Logic and rationale can neither predict nor explain why people make the decisions they make.

2) Preferring to be in a bad relationship -- a relationship that's unhealthy -- rather than being in no relationship at all is a hallmark of codependency, and codependency defies logic. To say that "suffering for love is much more romantic than being happy and bored" could simply be a way for a codependent person to deny, justify, or feel better about their codependency.

3) To need something and to enjoy it are two very different things. A person can feel a strong need to be in a relationship, yet not enjoy that relationship at all. It's possible to exist in such a conflicted state, indefinitely. As such, there exists no impetus to try to discern a logical explanation as to why someone would stay in an unhealthy relationship other than to satisfy the observer's own need for things to be logical and rational.

Doctor, heal thyself.

*Failed to compute* *Failed to compute* ! !

*DANGER* *DANGER* *SELF-DESTRUCTION IS IMMINENT*
*LEAVE THE ROOM IMMEDIATELY.*

Yep, usually I am good at understanding emotions and situations, but I'm no coward like you!

I tried to understood and it felt like a drill into my head. Thanks for musicboxforever & cmjust0 for developing.

I have cherished logic and rationality all my life (and don't get me wrong: irrationality is rational), it is what improved me slowly and saved me after all. So I systematically refuse or do not pursue any romantic relation that I consider it will lead in a bad relationship. I feel like it would break the coherence in me, I feel like I would betray myself and loose my hard earned powers. I find that side romantic too, it's real adventure and I'm happy.

OP, I think you raise a very good point. "Moving on" from a heartbreak is not a purely emotional task. It takes good decision-making as well. One of the most important decisions involves accepting your situation as it is. It's very difficult to assess what can be done to make your life better if you spend your time and energy ruminating over the lost relationship. Giving all your attention to the loss leaves precious little to figure out your next move.

If you really won't let go of a relationship, IMO, your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Maybe you have a lesson to learn that you just haven't learned yet. Maybe you made a bad decision and need to fix it. Maybe it wasn't the person involved....maybe it was what he/she represented to you. IMO, it is not because that one person is your only path to happiness.

But if months and months have passed and you've made no significant progress toward healing the heartache and continuing your life, I really believe it's because you've chosen to stay in the pain. You may have to force yourself to think about other things, to figure out how to find a new relationship, get involved with new activities, take a class, get some therapy, process your experience and figure out what you've learned about yourself and relationships....but those are the ways we move on. You can't wait until the sadness runs it's course, or until you meet someone new. You have to get back in the game and start living your life again - or it could just pass you by.

Toad, you must get some sort of pleasure about posting here about how awful you are, or you wouldn't do it, you'd devote that energy into trying to make yourself a better life.

yo, MOOG! wise words, as usual.

Aw!! !! I'm so sorry you feel that way!! !

I think you're a very sweet person, and I hope thing work out for you. If we lived close enough that we could meet in person, I'd buy you a roll of duck tape. Duck tape fixes everything that's broken!! !

Sometimes I smell of car oil and stuff, my wife likes it

I think Hector made a good point though, and one that I can certainly identify with: the need for a routine. It's certainly makes me feel better to at least be able to follow that, it gives me some regularity in life.

Aside from that, i've tried to make the pain go away by myself and it's just not working. I can play through the pain, as it were (meaning I can function in society regardless of it), but its not going away. I have a therapist that is helping me to at the very least understand it, but it's still not going away.

The only true relief I get is through positive reinforcement. I've pushed myself beyond my limits at my church and at school in the hopes that someone would appreciate my efforts (most of the time they don't), and i keep downplaying my own abilities so that people won't think less of me (compared to other opinions if I bragged off about everything I did). It's also why I want a girlfriend so badly: it's not sex or partying or "good times" that I want, it's the sense that someone cares about me as a person, not for what I can do or for what I have to offer them.

This may be why you are falling down. There are levels of self-deprication; it's not an either/or case of bragging or not, and I think you are overdoing it. It's okay to accept compliments as well. Consider the following exchange:

Her: "You make delicious pies!"
You: "They're actually rubbish."

That's doing yourself a disservice. Instead:

Her: "You make delicious pies!"
You: "Thanks. I'm trying to learn some better recipes."

That way you've accepted her compliment AND been a little self-depricating in the process.