How PDG got her groove back

I'll admit that I have let myself not care about a lot of stuff after my divorce & in retrospect, I don't know if I ever ironed out all those things even after I stopped being depressed about everything & even after I started dating Guy. In deciding how to handle this breakup, I realized I could use this time to become better. I could use this time to improve myself & I could get my groove back. So, I've made decisions to improve my life & myself in order to try to fight the sadness & depression & in order to try to be happier overall.

I have been focusing on tackling one area every day to clean out the clutter that has built up. I've also been focusing on eating better & exercising more. I decided on Friday to start running. I had a compulsion to run in order to try not to think about things & I've decided to try it out as a longer term coping mechanism for now. I did my first attempt at it today and it was pretty decent. A lot of walking in with my running but still. I listened to the comedy channel on my Pandora & away I went. I plan on trying to get up tomorrow morning in time to run before work.

I've decided to try to give myself a reset in life. I thought I knew what I was doing & what my future was going to include, but I was thrown for a loop once again. I am not going to make any major life decisions right now, like moving out of state or anything like that. But I am going to focus on trying to be happier & healthier & overall in a better place mentally. That way, when I determine it's time to make some choices in my life, I will be in the best place mentally that I can be.

Only a phoenix really knows herself

I have been doing a lot of introspective thinking in the past two weeks & especially in the last couple days since the official breakup. Although ultimately his decision to leave was based primarily on his own need to figure out what he wanted & who he was on his own, he had raised some valid concerns about me that I recognized as having validity. I had been willing to work w/ him on those items he raised, but he felt like I was unable to make any changes or progress in the areas of his concerns & that if I did, it would be solely because he had raised the issue instead of a genuine desire on my part to do better.

I find it interesting that he felt so strongly that I was a lost cause. His concerns, while valid, were not so difficult that they couldn't be dealt with. He was concerned bc I am not very neat around the house. I fully admit that. Clutter tends to build up in my spaces. But I knew this was an area that I was weak in, so I was happy to accept help in improving. He felt I couldn't ever improve bc he felt this was a fundamental part of who I am, rather than just a habit that could be corrected. He had no faith in me or my ability & willingness to make changes & improve myself.

He also felt like he was more active than me, which is true. I have been out of shape since the divorce, which has limited my ability to be as active as I once was. I was (and still am) working on this, but again, he felt that this was something that could not be modified or changed. He was unable to believe that I would be able to get back to where I used to be before the divorce depression.

I try to take something away from a bad situation & learn what I can from it. I try to reflect on how I can walk away from the crumbled mess & become a better person. I try to learn something about myself after each trauma, bc otherwise it really WAS a waste of my time.

He may have no faith in me or my abilities. He may feel I am a lost cause that cannot ever improve in areas that I'm weak. He may think I am hopeless & doomed to be a hot mess forever. But that just shows me that he didn't ever really know me. He didn't ever really understand who I am & what I can do if I decide I'm going to do it.

Because he is wrong about me. I'm not hopeless & I'm not a lost cause. I can improve. And I have been over the past week, despite the fact that he'll never know about it. I made a commitment to myself to do something every day for the next 21 days to lessen the clutter in my life. It does cause me to feel stress, so now is a perfect time to lower my stress by lowering the "noise" of the clutter in my life.

I have also been working out regularly since February & have dropped 22 pounds. I have enrolled in a program through work that helps w/ making long-term lifestyle changes in order to be healthier & I have been seeing additional success w/ that. As I've been getting back into shape, my energy & activity level have increased as well. But he felt it couldn't ever happen. He felt I wasn't able to make changes & do better. He lacked confidence in me.

That's ok. I have confidence in myself. I know that I have things I need to improve on & I'm not too proud to say that. I'm also not too proud to accept help in making improvements. And I recognized that he had valid concerns about me. I was willing to work on them for us & for our relationship, but he didn't want to stick around for that bc he had his own issues to work on, which were much more significant than mine. But, even without him, I am making changes to improve myself. I am making steps to be a better person. I have walked away from this situation w/ some insight into areas that others think I can improve in & that I want to improve in. Not for him, not for us, but for me. Bc it's what I want. And because I know I can do it. I've always been able to set goals & accomplish them for myself. The fact that he didn't get that about me just means he didn't really know me that well at all.

I am hurt & I am wounded. Rejection always hurts. But I won't leave from this empty-handed, anymore than I left from my divorce empty-handed. I will grow & improve & rise like a phoenix from the ashes. It's a continual process for me bc I often end up in situations that hurt that are beyond my control. But that just means I'm well-practiced at taking a blow & rising up again.

He was wrong about me. He didn't know who I really am. But I do. I am will come through this better than I was before, even if that just means I'm healthier & have less clutter.

The end

Guy & I met tonight. Well last night now. But whatever. The end result is that I'm once again single & heartbroken. Seems to be a recurring theme.

We had dinner & didn't talk about anything real serious. After dinner, we went for a drive to talk. Also, he wanted to make out, which I found rather confusing because we hadn't even discussed what was going on with us yet. I suggested we talk first, as that would impact whether there would be any making out.

He said he needed to work on him. That he knew he hurt me by cheating on me & that he had done that bc he was unable to talk to me about what was bothering him. He said he didn't want to keep hurting me or other people so he decided it would be best if he didn't date anyone at all for awhile. He's seeing a therapist & thinks he needs more time to work with him to sort out his own issues because he doesn't know what he wants. He said he needed to be on his own & doing his own thing for a bit. And then he said he'd give me a call & ask me on a date, if I'd still have him. He said I'd always be special to him & he didn't regret dating me at all. When I said I did, he got upset & said he hoped I'd never say that again. We both cried & held each other & it was very sad.

He said he still wants to get together w/ me (not sure why) & when I said I'd miss him very much, he said he was only a phone call away. But what would I say to him? The problem w/ us is that we've never been able to just be friends. We have always had this intense emotional & physical attraction to each other that neither of us can seem to resist. When we are together, it always falls into a relationship-y type of interaction. We are each other's siren song. Even tonight, as we are breaking up, we kept hugging & holding hands & he couldn't just say it was forever over bc neither of us can give the other one up. We either need to find a way to make a relationship work between us or never speak to each other again bc we cannot sustain a middle ground.

Regardless, I don't think I've heard the last from him. I won't put my life on hold or anything. But I have a feeling he'll be back.

Become an island

Today I have been sleeping all day to avoid thinking about things w/ Guy. How I ended up in the same situation again, I will never understand. I can't believe anymore that "everything happens for a reason." I used to hold onto that belief for dear life, as a way to explain the hurt & heartache I seem to always have to struggle with in life. But now, I can't believe that.

Even if the depression & darkness of my last relationship served some purpose, what could be served by going through it all over again? What purpose could a repeat of that same pain serve? I can't imagine there is one.

I try to be cautious about who I let in. I don't get close to many people. I keep my distance from almost everyone to prevent myself from getting hurt. I carefully assess whether to let someone get to know me & get close to me. But I still end up getting hurt. The only solution it seems is to isolate myself from others. It's lonely but it's much less painful that way.

As Fiona Apple sang: "Hunger hurts but starving works when it costs too much to love."

Hello, Mr. Heartache, I've been expecting you

Well, this week Guy told me he didn't want to see me anymore & chalked it up to there being too many differences between us. I didn't get it bc there have always been differences btwn us & it's never been a major issue before. I asked him to reconsider, especially bc I didn't know these things were significant enough to cause him to want to break up & so we hadn't even had a chance to work on things. He sat on my couch & said the same thing YKW said to me 4 yrs ago: I don't want to work on things.

I felt like I was reliving the horror of my past all over again. Not knowing anything was amiss because the other person seemed fine & then out of the blue, being told there's something wrong & he isn't willing to give us a chance to fix things. It was happening all over again.

I told him how much I loved him, how I didn't think these were insurmountable things that couldn't be fixed. I asked him to give us a chance to make things better. He said he needed time to think about it. He asked me to give him a week to think about things & to talk to his therapist. He asked me not to contact him during this week. He did say that he still loves me so that was something different from YKW. But it was devastating.

On Thursday, I found a number on our phone bill that kept showing up for the last month & I knew. I knew what that meant. I'd seen it before. I texted the number & said I was his girlfriend. She had no idea he had a girlfriend. I talked to her on the phone. She told me they'd been on about 5 dates together. And they'd slept together.

I thought the pain I went through after the divorce was the worst pain I could ever know but it turns out I was wrong. This is worse. Because Guy knows how the divorce & being cheated on ruined me for so long. He KNEW that I went into such a dark depression I didn't think I was going to survive it. He KNEW that I had barely made it through & had barely kept my sanity through all that. And he decided to not only hurt me, but to rip back open that old, freshly-healed wound & then grind salt into it.

Breaking up with me would have hurt, of course. I know that there was a risk of things not working out like there always is in any relationship. But to be so cruel as to exploit the wound he knew was still tender...cheating is hurtful no matter what, but to do it to someone who has shared with you the darkness they lived in as a result of being cheated on, to knowingly tear open that sore...that's a new level of callousness.

Of course I called him & texted him. He ignored me mostly. I said I knew now he never loved me, that he just used me & the fact that he knew I'd always had strong feelings for him, & I asked him why. He said we can meet still on Monday & discuss things. And I can give him back his things from my apt.

I'm dying of hurt. All I want to do is sleep to escape. I'm in so much misery. Everything he said & did was a lie. How naive & stupid I was.