My ex ex girlfriend whom I am still friends with since breaking up with her nearly 3 years ago is really upset over me having found someone new in my life.
Before meeting Melissa the gal i'm with now Me and her talked alot on the phone and now i've not been in touch with her as much and she says i've left her behind, and its true I have had to cut off the daily talks with her mostly because she's so negative about what I have going on and I have HAD TO let go, but it bothers me alot.
I care a great deal about my ex, as a friend and as a person who knows whats happening inside of her and the hurt she's been thru all her life, the suffering she had to endure as a child that haunts her today. I've told her to get help and some counseling over the stuff that happened to her because I believe it still effects who she is today in a big way, but she wont.
She is a beautiful girl but she has a huge weigh problem she is well over 400 pounds and I think it all has to do with how she feels about herself, her self esteem is shot to hell, in some ways she hurts herself because of how she feels inside and it kills me to see this. I have spoken with her in depth about stuff, she's very mature in someways and in others she refuses to face whats inside like a scared child, it just kills me to know whats inside of her thats killing her........and my new girl wants me to have nothing to do with her thats another issue i'm dealing with, thats her fear though she needs to deal with that herself i've told her so.
I'm trying to be her friend but she's not getting what i am telling her, we need to live and let live she needs to let me go on with my life and she needs to move foreward with hers but she's hurting herself I know she is, she said she cried for 3 days when I didn't call her back last week.
I just dont want to know that she is so hurt and that she is so bitter and in pain, guess all i can really do is pray for her and be honest about things in a kind way, gentleness is not easy for me this is upsetting even irratating and i'm very frustrted and i end up getting angry and loud, thats my stuff.
Hi Vini, Sorry you are in pain too brother. Relationships are a very painful area in our lives, that is a simple fact. I have had a hard time sorting out relationship stuff in my life. I made such consistant bad choices that I stepped back and out of male / female relationships for 7 years. I had to gain some distance and perspective. I used to be a very easy mark for guilt and manipulation too. Wanting to make things "right" would make me nuts...trying to fix the unfixable is a recipe for insanity.
My second sponsor helped me through a lot of this: he taught me that no matter how much we wanted to make someone else ok, it was beyond our power to do so. One of the gifts our HP gives us is free will. We all make choices. I know I can get stuck in being miserable simply because it is familiar, therefore it is comforting in a sick and twisted way.
All of my behaviors have a payoff. The payoff does not have to feel good, it simply has to reinforce something I believe about myself. One of my old beliefs about myself was that I was unloveable unless I "earned" love. It was a painful lesson when I learned that love is not earned...it is freely given. My pattern was to pick a lady who was hurting, so I could earn their love by making everything "ok", thereby earning their love. It never occured to me that they too were making a choice to be miserable...that the feeling of misery was their "payoff", reinforcing what they thought about themselves. Not being able to "fix it" kept me sick, and feeling unloved, because I felt like such an obvious failure...because I could not "fix it". We cannot change someone else...they have to want it for themselves. My soloution then was to try harder to fix the unfixable. Today it is a little different, I simply do not play that game...at times it is uncomfortable as hell...but I do not need to live in the problem today, I can simply choose to not feed the sickness...theirs or mine. Only I pack my bags today for guilt trips...I will not let someone pack those bags for me.
Lon
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Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.----Alice Mackenzie Swaim
Lon i've decided not to play the game either, these changes are tough we have to resist our auto responses in order to change thats the wrok involved in all of this kind of stufff.
I know all I can do is turn this over, thats my part it keeps me from trying to fix her and worrying so much and allowing it to effect me.
Thaks Lon for the response I liked that last sentence
Only I pack my bags today for guilt trips...I will not let someone pack those bags for me.
Hey I can relate with what you shared here. So true. I still indulge in those codependent behavior sometimes. Trying so desperately hard to make my wife or my sponsees think, feel or act the way I want them to or wish them to. On these occasions when I end up doing this, I realize that I don't have any power over others. I have to admit and accept my powerlessness and that I cannot change them. If I try to, my personal recovery becomes unmanageable. Just like my Higher Power brings me to certain realizations in my Higher Power's own time and when I'm ready, so is it for all these loved ones in my life. And that I'm not their Higher Power.
BigV, if I was you, instead of looking at her and her inability to let go of me and move on which is beyond my control, I would actually dive deeper within me to see if I'm truly ready to let go of her and move on...
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
I think in some way that is just what I have done Tahir, maybe wording like " cutting her off" isn't really what I mean , maybe " detaching" is a better description.
And it's hard, not sure how to describe it but she's someone I WISH I could fix and save her from herself , but I know I can't.....:(
I have to have faith in my God that he will see to her and take care of her just as he takes care of me and know that she will be well and safe in his loving arms, theres nothing more for me to do then believe that.
. On these occasions when I end up doing this, I realize that I don't have any power over others. I have to admit and accept my powerlessness and that I cannot change them. If I try to, my personal recovery becomes unmanageable. Just like my Higher Power brings me to certain realizations in my Higher Power's own time and when I'm ready, so is it for all these loved ones in my life. And that I'm not their Higher Power.
