How long did it take you to move on?

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A while. He spent a whole year building me up, then knocked me down swiftly like a jenga tower because of some minor mistake? I was super nice to the person.

I went from being in a deep depression, vulnerable & alone after a life of poverty and saw a light at the end of the tunnel with this person, like a lamb heading into the slaughter. My only frame of reference for a biological woman was my Mum and one other female who I had dated for a single month?

I bathed in the light of happiness for about a week of in-person meeting time and then was thrown head first back into the darkness. But this time there was the added bonus of more hurt and pain from my perspective - dishonesty from the person that could have put me in danger and this would ultimately & severely damage my mental health for several years to come. They cut my only social support at the time, too, isolating me & I knew they were spreading vicious lies. The lies made me feel like vomiting as they were painting me as a person I would never be & would rather die than be.

I wasn't the same person anymore. I had become a shell of a human, adopting some traits of my abuser, filtering out the emotional pain by not experiencing empathy anymore. Why feel other people if all they would do is hurt you? I had been an empath from my birth until late 2012. They then proceeded to try to remind me of them via various little 'tricks' for many years, sadistically dropping in little comments in groups they had joined after I had joined, telling me I was 'stalking' them even though they were stalking me to keep tabs on me so that I wouldn't confront their lies.

I went through periods where I would seek help from medical professionals, gradually increasing my doses of psychiatric medication to choke down the pain & to sit on it, so that it wouldn't consume me.

Trying to hold it together at various poorly paid jobs I had. Juggling the online taunting with trying to hold down a job as a person with 6 different disabilities. Being bullied at my workplace & ostracised for a good two years before I was accepted. My only true friend was another disabled guy & I did my best to pour all of my knowledge into him to help him become who he wanted to be and told him every day that he was worthy, unless I was having a bad mental health day in which case I was still nice by most people's standards.

My silence meant that I could not tell them how I felt. But they didn't care, they only wanted silence. They wanted me to suffer and to see me suffer & so my resolve was not to show any pain and to just get on with it. That's all you can do, sometimes.

I get over people very easily if they have done me no wrong & I make sure to keep in contact with them for at least a couple of years to manage the fallout of any remaining feelings that they may have & to manage my own, also. I just wish more people were like me.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 22 Dec 2021, 2:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have had another more fruitful relationship since & I have only good things to say about that. The other person was an empath too. They didn't belittle me for my political viewpoints. We laughed together, told each other everything, she didn't judge me for my failings & shortcomings.

She was very depressed herself, so I probably put more into it than her at times, but meh, nothing is perfect.

She has always been super nice to me every time I have talked to her & when we do talk, we talk as if we have never been away from each other.

I honestly considered never, ever dating again after falling in love for the first time. It had the same effect as a blunt mallet to my insides.

You are implying that love and friendship are not the same thing.  I say they are, but of different degree.

Sex, on the other hand, can be had without love (or friendship), and vice-versa.

To clarify, it is evident that a women who dumps a man and then makes contact with him later is playing some kind of "Mind Game" -- she is using the man as a means to reinforce her feeling of attractiveness without regard to his feelings for her.

Unless she somehow takes delight in his misery and loneliness.

Maybe, maybe not. I've never thought of it that way before, so thank you for sharing your point of view! I guess, some people are more comfortable than others with staying friends after breaking up... Like, it does take a certain amount of strength for both sides to 1. Tell each other what exactly was not working out, and acknowledge that, and 2. Battle their leftover feelings, and accept the new status of their ex being a friend.

Yeah.....

I have noticed that some people don't want to be friends with their exes.

In my case, my ideal is to be friends with all of my exes. But meh, some people don't care about you and you can't make them, I guess?

Even if you aren't directly in contact with an ex - you can be friends with them, when they are neutral with you instead of being your enemy.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 28 Dec 2021, 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I became friends with quite a few of my exes, actually.

But the one I truly "loved" didn't want to be my friend. But, come to think of it, this doesn't count, because we had a fling, rather than a relationship. This particular person was curious about one aspect of me. When her curiosity was satisfied, she lost interest. I didn't get over her for a couple of years. This happened between 1982 and 1984.

Ah yeah. To be fair, both parties have to be willing. You can't force your ex to be a friend - that would be wrong. You can gently encourage them though, without expecting a 'result'.

I only have three exes.

BF 1 - Ended 25 years ago when he left me for a man, but I think he's obsessed with me and / or psychotic because he's still dragging me to family court every two years or so, and suing / disowning his own child. We don't speak at all except for the occasional email when he breaks court orders or wants to manipulate me.

BF 2 - I think he might be dead. No contact.

BF 3 - We own a house together.

Oh, blimey.

That sounds even scarier than one of my exes.

Personally I've almost always remained friends with exes.

Also, most of my breakups have been mutual -- not one person "dumping" the other, but a mutual recognition of incompatibilities.

Also, when I've gotten into a romantic relationship with someone, one of the things I've wanted to know about the person, from the beginning of the relationship, is whether they are the kind of person who tends to remain friends with exes. In my case, I specifically wanted my partner to be the kind of person who can remain friends with exes. That way, I could rest secure in the knowledge that, even if we turn out not to be compatible enough for a lasting intimate relationship, we can still be part of each other's support network, and thus the effort we have put into the relationship will not be totally in vain.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 28 Dec 2021, 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One of my best friends is an ex, or at least we were dating for a bit. At the time, I told her to let me sulk for a couple of weeks, then we'd give the whole friendship thing a go. Which worked. Took a couple of years to get the whole thing completely out of my system, THB. But worth it. I must say, I find the whole "the worst thing you can say to a guy is let's be friends" meme despicably self-indulgent. I swear I can remember when it started gaining traction in pop culture, too, about 20 years ago. Like so many bad ideas about Lerve over the centuries*, people in real life are parroting what they see on the screen, hear in songs, read etc. If I like someone enough to fancy them, they don't suddenly turn into the b****-queen s*** from Hell just 'cos they won't sleep with me.

*Like the Werther Effect in 18th century Germany, when thanks to a popular novel by Goethe it became fashionable to fall in love with an older married woman and then kill yourself.

Wow these are terms, I have never heard… nothing like feeling like a true dinosaur.

Thanks for yet another example of why it's NOT a good idea to base one's ideas about relationships on pop culture.