NC support

Unimare,

Well I kind of see where you’re coming from. I too had initiated the break up at the beginning in which he beg pleaded etc then he just got angry. Then all of a sudden end of Nov I wanted him back and since then he’s rejected me (I’m on the naughty step! Haha)
He’s said he’s doesn’t love me anymore, he didn’t wish me happy Xmas, absolutely nothing. Zilch. Zero!

So I see how you’re situation is different, but the grieve hits sooner or later!
Both of us had that change around in feelings which means they could at some point too 😀

wow so much to catch up on!

@belle, im so proud of you for not breaking nc!!! i know how hard it is to resist the urges. i actually never lasted more than 2 weeks until the first 30 day period. during the first 30 day period, around the 2 week mark, it was our anniversary. i literally sat on my hands all day to avoid reaching out!! i was also devastated that he didn’t reach out to me on that day. its normal to have these highs and lows, but each time you need to remind yourself, if you were to call him today, the last two weeks of pain would be for NOTHING!! keep being strong and moving forward. i know it seems awful that he hasn’t reached out since the end of november, but thats only been 6 weeks. it took my ex 3.5 months to reach out to me first!!! i firmly believe its because i started standing my ground with nc. he has never not answered if I’ve reached out, so he knew i would answer if he did, but he hadn’t had any need because i did it too often! and remind yourself, there is an endpoint in sight. try to go 30 days first. if thats your goal – you’re halfway there!!! i don’t think i could have gone 90 days initially, but once i proved to myself i could go 30, i feel much stronger going into the 90 days. i still feel sad not talking to him but my urges to reach out are definitely lessening with time. i also think I’m giving him the time and space to think about his future and to MISS me! my ex is very stubborn and i can’t see him backing down from his decision, even if he wants to, until a certain amount of time has passed. I’m sure you’re ex feels tempted to contact you too – but he’s finding the urges, so you can too! to give some other perspective, when my ex and i met up in the beginning of december, i asked him why he never reaches out and if he feels tempted. he told me he doesnt reach out because he doesnt want to send me mixed signals and drive me up a wall ad make me confused. he also told me he doesnt want to lose contact but hadn’t needed to reach out because i did. so by not reaching out, i have forced him to put in the work if he wants to keep the door open, do the same for your ex!! when you’re having a sad day, i really recommend getting into a good book or binge watching a tv show. it helps 🙂 the urge will pass and you’ll be proud of yourself for fighting it. think about how accomplished you will feel after completing nc!

@aphrodite, some think its therapeutic to write letters to their ex and then send them. personally, I’ve had not great experiences with doing that. i wrote him a letter initially after the break up and when i read it now, i feel like i sounded really pathetic. i think it was normal to have those feelings after the breakup, but i am not that girl anymore!! i wrote him another two letters: 1 about 1 month later and the second about 2 months later. i sent both of those. i think somewhere deep down i thought if i reminded him of our happy times or told him how much he hurt me, he would maybe reconsider. at the time i thought it would be healthy to express my emotions to him, but now looking back, i really regret it. i think you can definitely write the letter but do not send it yet!! wait a month or so and then re read it and i guarantee you won’t want to send it anymore. post whatever you would want to say in here instead 🙂 the whole period of nc is a lot of up and down but its a true test to how strong YOU are to fight the temptations!! i know you can do it. if you break it now, the last two weeks would be for nothing!!
also a little tip to both of you: i had a long talk with my therapist about how difficult nc was for me. she told me to change my mindset. rather than thinking i can’t text him, i now think I’m making the CHOICE not to text him. because i can text him if i wanted. and he would definitely answer. but every time we do that it is resetting the clock. now i tell myself i am CHOOSING not to talk to him as it won’t change his mind and will make me appear needy and weak. be patient – your exes will reach out. my ex took 3.5 months to make the first move. plus you can reach out first, once you have completed your nc!! then you’ll have the chance to say what you want.

Atea1234

Yes, I would rather he not contact me because I would only read more into it. I need to wait out till he contacts me. In an ideal world I would like to do 90 day NC but like you said let’s focus on 30 and take it from there.
You’re so right about breaking NC, it’s that quick fix that would then lead to utter regret.

I was reading somewhere, where we need to be in a position to contact them when we don’t NEED them anymore but rather WANT them? What is the difference do you think and how does one know if you’re wanting rather than needing and vice versa? Any thoughts?

@belle, i absolutely agree with what you read! and i think the difference between want and need is huge. when my ex and i first broke up, i couldn’t eat or sleep and i couldn’t concentrate on schoolwork. i was miserable 24/7. my friends even got tired of hanging out with me because all i would carry on about was how much i missed my ex. i wanted the “quick fix”. i thought if he came back to me, my happiness would just return. i thought i NEEDED him to be happy. and i actually had a discussion with him about this around the 2 month mark. over the 7 years we’ve been together, we’ve taken two short “breaks”. each break lasted about 2 months. but in these breaks, we never went more than 1 or 2 days in a row without talking. we spoke as if we were still together and because we were long distance at the time, it still felt like we were together. both of these breaks only lasted the short amount of time because i would start to pull away and tell him it was too hard and he would tell me if his choices were all or nothing, he would take all. i think he always ended up getting back with me because we were both so used to each other, scared of being “alone”, and it was often just the easier decision. yes, we loved each other, but i don’t think we took proper time off before reconciling. this time around, he told me he of courses misses me and feels lonely and misses the intimacy, but he didn’t want to make the previous mistake of reconciling “before the dust settles”. he said he couldn’t be sure if we had always gone back to each other out of comfort or because of a genuine desire to always be together. he said he thinks its important for both of us to learn to be alone, regardless if we end up together or with other people. this time around, he said we should only reconcile once we’ve taken considerable time off, both seen other people, and decided mutually that we want to be together because we are happier together than apart. and he said after 7 years, 2 months was too soon to determine this because the emotions were too raw. he is absolutely right! i don’t want that quick fix anymore. if we get back together i want it to be because we both grew and matured without each other and choose our relationship out of love and not out of a fear of leaving it. i think I’m definitely headed towards WANTING him but not NEEDING him. i eat and sleep normally now. i perform very well in school and i enjoy hanging out with friends and discussing other things besides my ex. there is still emptiness inside me and i miss him so much, but its only been 3.5 months and compared to 7 years, thats nothing! if we don’t reconcile, i would imagine it will take at least a year or two for me to feel whole again without him. but the reason i say I’m moving towards wanting instead of needing him is because I’m back to living my life and daily routines and am “happy”. I’m definitely not as happy as i was when i had him – and i don’t know if ill ever be, but i don’t feel i need him anymore to survive. I’m confident that if we don’t reconcile it will take me a long time to feel like a complete person and an even longer time to date someone else, but i know if we don’t reconcile, ill get there. i don’t have the desperation i had at the beginning. i once read a quote:
“young love”: i want you because i need you
“mature love”: i need you because i want you
there is a huge difference in my eyes. i don’t need my ex to function anymore. i still want him because i believe i would be happier, but the dust definitely hasn’t settled for either of us yet. i would imagine somewhere around the 6 month point the dust will settle for all of our exes, and they will see in their hearts what they have wanted all along. i think it really is important to wait for the emotions to settle and not go for a quick fix. because if you reconcile out of a WANT to be together instead of a NEED, the relationship will be a success. it should be out of love and not obligation! i tell myself this when times feel hard. i tell myself if the dust settles in a few months and he decides he wants me then we will be so strong because he would have made this choice out of a place of true desire and not comfort. and if the dust settles and he is happier without me, then he was never mine to begin with and we aren’t meant to be. its only then i think that i will truly move on and open myself up to others. i do plan on having this conversation with him 3-4 months from now and evaluating. you are making progress as well! the pure act of going nc and simply getting on with your life, even if you’re sad, shows you don’t need him to survive. the longer you keep doing this, the need for him back will decrease and the want will increase. i believe when we both feel that way completely, thats when our exes will consider revisiting us.

@belle, there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. when i was initially going through this break up, i truly thought no one else in the world had ever experienced worse pain or heart break than what i was going through. when i stumbled across this sight, i couldn’t believe how many people were feeling the same way! everyone would tell me time heals everything but i simply didn’t believe them and felt that time was passing so slowly. i also feared that time would make it easier for him as well. i felt completely stuck. i think the reason i feel so much better this time around is because of how i left off our last conversation after the initial 30 days nc. I’m not sure how you left off with your ex, but before i had gone nc initially, i had seen him and cried about how much i still loved him and missed him, told him i wanted to get back together and work on our relationship, and essentially just looked incredibly weak to him. when he told me he was happy being single for the time being and did want to “recreate our relationship” one day, but he wasn’t ready yet, i was completely devastated. i told him i wanted to move on from him entirely, asked him to never contact me, and even returned a shoe box of love letters i had from him saved from over the years! i felt like to him, i looked pathetic. he was out and happy, enjoying his new single life and i was staying in bed all day, crying and pining over him. i don’t think he wanted me to feel that way, but he still must have felt some power as he had all the control. over those 30 days i really challenged myself. i aced my finals, went to other cities to visit friends, even dated a bit! i felt like a new person when it was over. when i did reach out to him calm and cool and casual, i think he was thrilled. then we spoke new years day and i told him exactly how I’ve been feeling – mostly what I’ve posted in here – just that I’m taking things one day at a time, focusing on myself, not waiting around for him to be ready or trying to actively move on, just trying to live my life to the fullest and whatever is meant to be will happen – he seemed ecstatic. he told me thats exactly what he wanted. some time to be alone and really think and reflect and that if we got back together in time we would both “know” were supposed to be together. i felt so much better resuming nc the second time around because i think his view of me was much more positive. i told him i was giving him his space but i was always here if he wanted to talk and i no longer felt the need to cut him off completely and just move on. i think i was so uneasy at the beginning of the nc period because he thought i was weak and needy and pining for him. this time around, i think he knows I’m getting on with my life, doing things to make me happy, not waiting around for him, but he knows i love him immensely and still hold great hope that he will return to me – all things that are true! I’m not trying to play games with him and felt better about being honest and sharing my new positive attitude with him.
as for your ex saying he would never go back to an ex, IGNORE IT!!! people say things they don’t mean all the time. each situation is different. that blanket statement means nothing. maybe, he just didn’t want to go back to his old ex because something wasn’t great in their relationship. i told my ex i would never take him back after this initially, but of course he and i both know that isn’t true! don’t read into that at all. plus, it wouldn’t be going back to the old relationship if you reconciled, it would be a newer and stronger relationship built off the strong connection you two have.
if you started nc on bad terms, i would really recommend waiting the 30 days then reaching out to clear the air as i did and then resuming it again for 90 days. if you began it on good terms, i would go as long as possible (hopefully 90 days!) without contacting him. forget what he said about not going back to old relationships – i truly believe you have a great chance of reconciling. you seem very level headed and mature about this whole process and he will definitely see that and be impressed by how you’ve handled yourself.

@belle, i felt i had a lot to apologize for also. i handled the break up extremely immaturely. i cried, begged him, said hurtful things, etc. after the 30 days thats exactly why i contacted him – to apologize for my behavior and to clear the air, not to reconcile. he told me he understood and had no negative feelings towards me or our relationship whatsoever which gave me some peace of mind going into the next nc. i found it helpful after 30 days to reach out and do that. you’re halfway there to 30 days 🙂 the second half will be easier for sure!!

Yes it’s so nice to have people to discuss with. So grateful for that!
Hoping tomorrow will be a better day for you!!