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It seems that the pain of parting subsided. You are moving on, perhaps already building new relationships. And suddenly all those feelings — longing, resentment, sadness — again fall on you. It doesn’t matter what triggered them – a photo on social media, a meeting on the street, or an unexpected memory that popped up. Another thing is important: why are they still sitting inside you?
He left and I stayed. Life has long gone on without him. I don’t remember. Almost. Sometimes I only dream with him, but, fortunately, infrequently.
The sea, small pebbles, a few people lie on the shore and lazily turn from side to side. And I, it is not clear why, watching the family. He, she and the child. They enthusiastically play, throwing each other a multi-colored big ball. Beautiful, slender, with a slightly touched bronze tan skin, parents and their baby. Their happy baby. And suddenly a sadness pierces me with a spear, such that it brings tears.
What is it with me? I don’t understand. After all, everything is fine with me: my beloved husband, a big child and a small child. Why have I considered this family for so long? Why does it hurt so much? I’m ready to burst into tears. The woman looks so much like me at that time, the man looks like my ex. And their happy child is like ours, who has never been so happy, because he was not born at all.
After years of working on myself, of course, I realized that I loved the image, and not the real person.
But the pain from disappointment and shame, from the broken hopes and failure that befell me in those relationships, turned out to be so strong that then on the beach tears still splashed from my eyes. Turns out it still hurts. Time does not heal, it only covers the abscess with a hardened crust.
And after 10 years I’m crying, thinking about how everything could have been. And I’m angry, because I understand that this is impossible. I’m angry because the ex was not the way I saw him in my dreams. And I decide: it’s his fault. After all, I loved him so much, but he ruined everything.
What happened to me at that moment and what happens to many people who find themselves in a similar situation?
What’s stopping you from letting go of your ex?
We prefer to forget that there is a real person. We choose our projection on it and live like this for years. Here’s how it happens. We get to know the person. We decide for ourselves what he is, what we expect from him and from our relationship with him. And we invest heavily in these relationships, expecting a return from a partner — but exactly the one that we imagined for ourselves. But he doesn’t give it.
And this feeling of disappointment from the unjustified expectations does not go away even when we part
The former is no longer there. It would seem that you can rejoice. But time goes by, and pain, guilt, resentment continue to instill us with outbreaks. And this is so strange: after all, sometimes we catch ourselves thinking that a person was not very suitable for the role of a partner for us.
But still we are offended, because he did not live up to expectations, he did not allow the relationship to develop. Not to mention the fact that sometimes we begin to feel anger towards ourselves — maybe it was we who could not do something so that he became that very partner from the projection? ..
How to break this circle and regain a real vision of the situation?
1. Understand whose image you are projecting onto your ex
Most likely, this is the parent figure. The figure of that parent, relations with which are still filled with strong, conflicting emotions. For me personally, this was the image of my mother — not quite accessible, not too warm and emotional.
2. Rate yourself in a relationship with him
To better understand your experiences, answer yourself the question: “What was I like in a relationship with him”? Options can be very different. Depressive, passive, dependent, weak, sacrificial, giving…
3. Think about your needs
Which ones did you close in relationships with your ex? In other words, what did you want then? There are also many options here: “on the handles”, “so that everything is decided for me, and I lie curled up in a ball”, “to be loved for what I am, and I didn’t have to pretend to be anything” …
For example, I came up with a basic need that I wanted to satisfy with him: “I wanted to receive love for simply being. Here is such. And this is clearly an unsatisfied childhood need for unconditional love and acceptance. He could not give me this and, most likely, he himself needed it — he was traumatized in childhood many times more than I was.
And judging by my strong, not entirely adequate emotional reaction, my need remained unfulfilled.
4. Try to satisfy them
It may not be so easy, because each need needs its own approach. What can be done about the desire for unconditional love and acceptance:
- Mourn a shattered dream. Sad with might and main, as you want and how much you want.
- Accept that my parents are responsible for instilling in me the inability and fear to talk about my needs. For the fact that I so need to play the role of obedient.
- Realize that any man more or less suitable for my parameters could become my “victim” in this situation. It’s not about the former.
- Recognize that these tears are not about mature and happy love. These are the tears of a traumatized child.
When I went through all these steps, I remembered again that family, from the contemplation of which I burst into tears. And the first thought that came to my mind: the former is not the person with whom I would be happy, I don’t want to build such a relationship with him.
And, of course, there is a fifth step. If as a result of self-help your emotional perception of the situation has not changed, then you should seek help from a psychologist.