Broken hearted and feeling hopeless

Broken hearted and feeling hopeless
M

maggie

New Registrant
I don't really know where to begin other than to say that I've had a very, very difficult 2005, so I apologize in advance if my post is written poorly. My bf disclosed to me that he was sexually abused and from there everything in our relationship went on a very fast doward spiral.

Things in our relationship were pretty close to "perfect" I would say for about 10 months and then once we moved in together little by little the relationship began to fall apart.

He only sought therapy after he became verbally/emotionally abusive towards me...he said he was so shocked at his own behavior it caused him to seek help...if he wasn't abusive to me, he said he probalby wouldnt' have sought any help. I thought I would never, ever tolerate from anyone and I stayed with him throughout his "acting out" and not keeping in touch with me phases. I ALWAYS let him know I believed in him, loved him, and reassured him in letters I wrote to him via snail mail, emails, etc. Even when he rejected my love over and over I was there for him...

He wrote me a long email several months ago thanking me for saving his life - very touching. He thanked me profusely or guiding him to seek help, for being selfless, loving and supportive, and here is the kicker - he ends this wonderful email with the fact he never wants to see me again and he wants and deserves a fresh start in life with his newfound hope and optimism with someone new b/c we do have a rocky history.

He agreed to meet me for dinner and he looked very happy and relaxed...considerably better from the last time I saw him when he stated over and over he would never feel better/happy again. I was so happy and RELIEVED he seemed on the up and up and then he flatly states he doesn't love me anymore - even though he said he has never, ever loved anyone in his whole life like he loved me....including his ex-wife. He stated he deserved a fresh start and didn't want to see, hear, or talk to me again b/c it makes him uncomfortable.

I sit here with all of his gifts he gave me surrounding me. He wrote me so many, many love letters...did so many thoughtful wonderful things and I'm sitting here feeling a mixture of total devastation and also anger. I was so selfless, loving and supportive and he fully admits it and states over and over what a wonderful person I am yet he can coldly sit across from me at dinner and tell me to get lost for good...I sort of feel used...that I served a specific purpose/function in his life and now that he has gotten benefit from it I'm getting tossed aside. I wasn't the one that verbally/emotionally abused him...he did that to me and yet I'm somehow the person that deserves to be thrown into the trash after all this??

I know I can't type all of the details of our history. The dinner meeting we had was very emotional for him as he cried when I hugged him goodbye....am crying now and I type this. I don't understand?? I feel so depressed, drained, used, and now rejected.

I know that this is something he won't change his mind on. He looked/seemed absolutely resolute and was even talking about dating other people and begining to move on which was so hurtful. He looked optimistic, which I guess on some level I'm very happy he does seem that way, but it seems like much of his "progress" has been all at my emotional expense.

So, I sit here, feeling broken and probably the lowest I have ever felt in my adult life and I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling like I have no control over my emotions and even cried in front of some co-workers at work b/c I feel so devasted - very embarressing.

I guess I'm just wondering what I should do to get out of this current state of depresson - any advice for me please?
 
Dear Maggie
I feel so sorry about your story, about the confusion you are left with. I can relate to that. In my own experience, I have tried to move on, going through the anger, the confusion, the desperation. On the professional level, I have managed to succeed in doing stuff for myself but I have realized lately that I have been living in an emotional fog of sadness that nothing can heal. This sadness isn't going away and I haven't dated anybody since V. It seems I am just not interested, I feel the connection is still there. I have accepted this current emotional situation because this is just how I have been feeling. I cry very rarely, today it is one of these days when I need to express this intense sadness. I am not mad at V, I have come to understand that having been betrayed by his own mother, it is very hard for him to love someone and open his heart to being loved. It comforts me during sad times to send him my love and support (in thoughts and prayers).
As for your bf, sometimes survivors when discovering new things about themselves need to experience life and reassess their previous knowledge or certainties. May be your bf associates you with his previous life, maybe be he needs to understand that his love for you is for real and not dictated by his past and he can only do that confronting himself with new experiences, love encounters...Only time will tell.
With you in these difficult times
Caro
 
Dear Caetel,

Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry we both seem to be in the same situation. I just met with my ex for dinner about a month ago and I emotions range from overwhelming grief and sadness to anger - I'm not normally a depressed, angry, bitter person and I hate the fact that I walk around feeling this way. I recognise it isn't healthy, that I need to stop it and move on, but how I'm suppose to do this I'm not entirely quite sure???

What puzzles me is that he sat there and told me that I was an inspiration to him. He said that he was so, so, so sorry that his getting better and being hopeful and optimistic came at a very high emotional toll on me and then he thanks me and says I don't ever want to see, hear, or speak to you again. He wants a fresh start, and yes he recognized it was selfish and he said he didn't care b/c he has to do what he feels he needs to get better which is to cut me out of his life.

It makes no rational sense - I told him that he said he didn't care, but he wished me well and said that I will find love again. What I said to him was that if I could turn the clock back and I knew that this would be the result than I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant that he would have confronted his past, and seek help. He thanked me again and that's when he said in a very matter of fact way that he doesn't love me anymore - there was no malice in the way he said it but he was very cold.

I feel like he has taken me and done what he has always with emotional events in his life - stuffed them away, pretend they don't exist, and keep moving. What royally sucks is that I have NO CONTROL over anything except how I react towards getting kicked to the curb, which I'm finding so difficult to even function.

So, I've basically been told thank you, that he is grateful that I stood by his side and nurtured him, loved him, and supported him while he entered therapy for the first time (we've dated for two years with one year being TERRIBLE while he was sorting himself out)...and now, I'm basically told to f*ck off.

I guess I'm just venting now b/c there isn't anything that can be done to get myself undumped....I don't how to feel or act anymore....
 
Oh my goodness! How horrible!!!

My good friend's mother has some old-fashioned advice for us women. She used to say, "when a man tells you something bad about himself - believe it! It is probably worse than he is even telling you."

Unfortunately, many survivors will always have a deep-seated need to feel a sense of heroism in their lives - and as a survivor myself, I can relate to this 100%.

Once a sense of shame has infected a relationship, no matter WHERE this sense of shame has come from, no matter WHO caused it in the first place - it is nearly impossible to heal it.

As "Caetel" says - you don't have to stop loving this person, and you probably can't and shouldn't - but you need to understand that he is, in fact, telling you the truth about his feelings and respect him for it.

He is trying his best to be honorable, but the feelings of inadequacy and guilt that have colored your relationship make it impossible for him to continue. He cannot bear the evidence of his "shadow self" & what that side of him is capable of doing, and every moment that he spends with you increases his sense of self-disgust.

So now your task is simply - how DO you heal your broken heart? How do you preserve feelings of tenderness for yourself? How do you separate all the joys & blessings of your life from your need to share them with him? How do you recover from the abusive behavior?

Sigh.

It is never easy to be kind to ourselves, to shower ourselves with the same affection and attention that we are so good at giving to others. But this is what you MUST do in order to re-gain perspective & begin to heal.

F&F is a great place to get support.

All of us Partners have experienced what you are going through from time to time - some of us have deepened our relationships and our understanding, some of us have finally just gotten the courage to end unhealthy patterns once & for all & re-emerge as the vibrant, strong women we know ourselves to be.

Yes, it has been said many, many times: it is TIME that will help you re-gain some balance. But the biggest challenge of all is not to let time slip away while you put your life on hold in this period of mourning & confusion.

Lean on us & vent vent vent - virtually. But love your life & live it with as much fullness as you can muster while you are healing.
 
I am so sorry. I went through something like this a few years ago when I stood by someone who was dealing with serious health problems, then was told afterwards that having me around was just a reminder of bad times. We'd been friends for 15 years and I'm not sure I'll ever quite get over it.

This too shall pass, as the saying goes. But in the meantime, it will hurt. Treat it like an infected wound: treat it gently, clean it out often (vent! vent! vent!), and try not to pick at it, no matter how tempting it is, because that's how scars form.
 
I've also been through this with a close friend-- she leaned on me during a long dark period in her life, including a suicide attempt and hospitalization-- after she recovered she became increasingly uncomfortable around me and eventually stopped contact.

I think she felt much of what kolisha describes:
the feelings of inadequacy and guilt that have colored your relationship make it impossible for him to continue. He cannot bear the evidence of his "shadow self" & what that side of him is capable of doing, and every moment that he spends with you increases his sense of self-disgust
Click to expand...
As she got more depressed, she became very needy and possessive with our friendship-- got upset if she couldn't reach me for more than a day, only wanted to talk about her struggles and feelings all the time-- it got to the point that her sickness was the focus of the friendship and I think that is why she felt that it would be too hard to rebuild the friendship we'd had in the first place. By the time she was ready to put the sickness and everything associated with it behind her, our relationship was mostly sickness and the part of it that had been healthy was nearly nothing.

By the end of our friendship I was uncomfortable with the amount of support she was demanding, and disappointed that we'd stopped talking about and doing the things that had made us friends in the first place-- but I figured that at that low point in her life, I could afford to allow her issues to take center stage, and that sometimes we put up with stuff from our friends that we wouldn't take from anyone else.

If I'd tried harder to redirect our time together to the positive activities and memories we shared, if I'd done my own part to maintain the boundaries and integrity of the friendship, would I still have this person in my life today? Maybe, but it's possible that she would have perceived those actions as failure on my part and ended the friendship anyway. I know I did what I felt was right at the time. That's the best I can tell myself.
 
Hi

I dont know if this will help but I'll give it my best shot has it occured to you that your bf maybe testing you?

I can see myself so much in your boyfriends behaviour but I went one step too far I physically assaulted my wife who I had disclosed to in full a couple of weeks earlier. I had however disclosed my past homosexual relationship earlier as at that time I was not really aware that these relationships were in fact abusive relationships.

I have come to the conclusion that I was testing her how could she possibly love this disgusting, manipulating dysfunctional drunk/addict?

My wife bless her stuck with me through my alcoholism and drug addiction and luckily in 1994 I stopped trying to kill myself with booze and drugs and ten years down the line we are still together, she must love me a hell of a lot. Our relationship did however take that rocky road again when I disclosed to the police and therefore to a certain extent to the public, I went back into my shell, shunning any affection or touch and I still have trouble with touching today. I'm still in that shell where I feel safe. Cuddles in bed I can just about handle but I feel ok cuddling her, I suppose its on my terms and I feel guilty about that.

Regards

Kirk
 
Kirk - Thank you! Your input is very valuable, and I for one am grateful for it.

If you had some suggestions for partners as to how to best deal with it, from your perspective, that would be much appreciated.

The worst sccenario in my mind is a SA survivor who pushes a partner away even though deep down all he/she want is to be accepted by that partner. But how is the partner to know???

Thank you again for sharing.
 
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