- Joined
- Jan 7, 2015
- Messages
- 758
How can you use what seems like a devastating situation and come out stronger on the other side?
As some of you may or may not have read, my ex decided to claim I abused her mentally. The tl;dr version of our relationship is that we knew other intimately for 16 months. She eventually broke up because she was feeling the relationship was taking a toll on her. We stayed friends and slept together twice in that period. Two months post-breakup, she became too much again, telling me how I did X and Y wrong, and how her family even confirmed some of the "suspicions" she had about the bad things I did. I hard next'ed her after that.
... or, so I thought. Unfortunately, we were in the same circle. I found out at a staff meeting that she was hospitalized. And at the next gathering in that circle, I wanted to know how she was doing health-wise. The conversation took a shift when I wanted to know how she was doing otherwise. That's when she told me I abused her mentally, and the freaking psychologist she went to after the break up agreed with her (now I assume she was just twisting things to, once again, get to me). I left the conversation almost immediately after that because it made me uncomfortable. It felt like she was trying to pay me back for... I'm not sure what exactly.
So what, you might think?
What started after that was two months of despair. I have spent my life not caring about what people who didn't know me said about me. I never knew it could sting this much when someone knowing you inside-out (or, so I thought), this person whom you have loved more than any other person on the planet, could claim you did something that could potentially put you behind bars. Yes, mental abuse is a thing where I am from.
Despite knowing that she might have been emotional saying that, and knowing she might have come around eventually, I still felt that despair.
Despite checking out how other people described the mental abuse and seeing I wasn't even close to fit the description of an abuser, I still felt that despair.
All for one reason: it was how she felt.
I may have been one of the few to appreciate this lock-down for one simple reason: I got more time to actually cope with it rather than just live in the haze.
She reached out to me once since then, acting like nothing had happened. Since I didn't get an apology, I decided to block her for good. Nothing good can come out of interacting with the girl that has to tell me I mentally abused her. And she even put her own family in a bad light. So much for her being a family person.
Finally, I can put some words into how it has made me stronger to go through this experience:
1) I had to make even stronger boundaries than before. One thing is to have boundaries with girls you're dating. But damn, I didn't know I had to make even stronger boundaries with girls I had LTR's with. You get to know each other on such a deep level that one or the other or both are going to get hurt in the break up process. And try to watch a girl coming out of the "spell cast upon her" by a sexy guy... according to her, he manipulated her into things she never even wanted to do lol
2) And following the above tip: it pushes you to have better standards. If something important in the relationship isn't right and seems beyond changing, you have to know when to break up. Clearly you're not a fit for each other then (side note: I know Chase advocates here to give her a choice. But my experience is that if she knows you're checking out, she may begin checking out herself - not good if you're actually thinking of keeping her)
3) It's one thing when people who clearly don't know you try to tell you who you are and frame you in a bad light, or when girls you were just fooling around with claim you "used" them. Your ex claiming you abused her? That's a whole other level man. But make it out to the other side and tell yourself "no one gets to tell me who I am besides myself" - that's when you have made significant progress in the healing process.
4) Always put things in perspective. In this case: if I really abused her - and the most over-the-top thing I did was soft nexting her when she was being way too much - then what will she call it when a guy hits her, threatens her or manipulates her? (thanks to a female childhood friend for this tip!)
Once I realized the above things this afternoon, I considered reaching out to her to tell her "thanks for putting me through this hardship! I don't even need your apology anymore". Because I really feel that way right now. Of course I will not reach out to her since I see so many downsides to getting in touch with her again. But I think I really needed this lesson since I tend to forget once in a while what it means to go through hardships. It's like giving yourself closure!
Why is this important?
I am posting this to remind myself that I used to be a lot better to deal with any hardship, especially when I went to martial arts. I saw the positives of bad events and came out stronger in the matter of few days to two weeks - it was almost like an art. This one has taken too long to get over for good. I need to put myself through regular hardship once again to not be so soft if anything should go as south as the above. I need to get better at coping with these harsh hardships once again.
I suspect that accumulating lots of small hardships over time will make it easier to deal with big hardships. So, cheers to that!
Lover
As some of you may or may not have read, my ex decided to claim I abused her mentally. The tl;dr version of our relationship is that we knew other intimately for 16 months. She eventually broke up because she was feeling the relationship was taking a toll on her. We stayed friends and slept together twice in that period. Two months post-breakup, she became too much again, telling me how I did X and Y wrong, and how her family even confirmed some of the "suspicions" she had about the bad things I did. I hard next'ed her after that.
... or, so I thought. Unfortunately, we were in the same circle. I found out at a staff meeting that she was hospitalized. And at the next gathering in that circle, I wanted to know how she was doing health-wise. The conversation took a shift when I wanted to know how she was doing otherwise. That's when she told me I abused her mentally, and the freaking psychologist she went to after the break up agreed with her (now I assume she was just twisting things to, once again, get to me). I left the conversation almost immediately after that because it made me uncomfortable. It felt like she was trying to pay me back for... I'm not sure what exactly.
So what, you might think?
What started after that was two months of despair. I have spent my life not caring about what people who didn't know me said about me. I never knew it could sting this much when someone knowing you inside-out (or, so I thought), this person whom you have loved more than any other person on the planet, could claim you did something that could potentially put you behind bars. Yes, mental abuse is a thing where I am from.
Despite knowing that she might have been emotional saying that, and knowing she might have come around eventually, I still felt that despair.
Despite checking out how other people described the mental abuse and seeing I wasn't even close to fit the description of an abuser, I still felt that despair.
All for one reason: it was how she felt.
I may have been one of the few to appreciate this lock-down for one simple reason: I got more time to actually cope with it rather than just live in the haze.
She reached out to me once since then, acting like nothing had happened. Since I didn't get an apology, I decided to block her for good. Nothing good can come out of interacting with the girl that has to tell me I mentally abused her. And she even put her own family in a bad light. So much for her being a family person.
Finally, I can put some words into how it has made me stronger to go through this experience:
1) I had to make even stronger boundaries than before. One thing is to have boundaries with girls you're dating. But damn, I didn't know I had to make even stronger boundaries with girls I had LTR's with. You get to know each other on such a deep level that one or the other or both are going to get hurt in the break up process. And try to watch a girl coming out of the "spell cast upon her" by a sexy guy... according to her, he manipulated her into things she never even wanted to do lol
2) And following the above tip: it pushes you to have better standards. If something important in the relationship isn't right and seems beyond changing, you have to know when to break up. Clearly you're not a fit for each other then (side note: I know Chase advocates here to give her a choice. But my experience is that if she knows you're checking out, she may begin checking out herself - not good if you're actually thinking of keeping her)
3) It's one thing when people who clearly don't know you try to tell you who you are and frame you in a bad light, or when girls you were just fooling around with claim you "used" them. Your ex claiming you abused her? That's a whole other level man. But make it out to the other side and tell yourself "no one gets to tell me who I am besides myself" - that's when you have made significant progress in the healing process.
4) Always put things in perspective. In this case: if I really abused her - and the most over-the-top thing I did was soft nexting her when she was being way too much - then what will she call it when a guy hits her, threatens her or manipulates her? (thanks to a female childhood friend for this tip!)
Once I realized the above things this afternoon, I considered reaching out to her to tell her "thanks for putting me through this hardship! I don't even need your apology anymore". Because I really feel that way right now. Of course I will not reach out to her since I see so many downsides to getting in touch with her again. But I think I really needed this lesson since I tend to forget once in a while what it means to go through hardships. It's like giving yourself closure!
Why is this important?
I am posting this to remind myself that I used to be a lot better to deal with any hardship, especially when I went to martial arts. I saw the positives of bad events and came out stronger in the matter of few days to two weeks - it was almost like an art. This one has taken too long to get over for good. I need to put myself through regular hardship once again to not be so soft if anything should go as south as the above. I need to get better at coping with these harsh hardships once again.
I suspect that accumulating lots of small hardships over time will make it easier to deal with big hardships. So, cheers to that!
Lover