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Originally Posted by chuff

No a problem. Sometimes we have the answers but we ignore them.




Not probably. You will. Everybody goes through this. I've been through this, the guy sitting next to you at work has been through this, Brad Pitt has been through this. It feels like you are alone in the feelings but you are not.



Yes and No. Yes it's your fault you built most of your waking moments around her, and yes it is your fault......to a degree. You didn't know the rules or dynamics of this type of relationship. That is not your fault. You logically (male brain) thought that if you helped her she would appreciate you more. She has an emotional (female brain) brain that was carrying around a lot of emotional baggage because she's to stupid to see when a guy is using her and had to find an outlet to get rid of it. You became that outlet. Now that is your fault, but when I was 5 I didn't know how to ride a bike and fell over and got hurt. I could have either said that was my fault, how stupid of me to think I can do this (which would have been true) or I could have said "That hurt, but when this heals I'm going to conquer this. 25 years later I know how to ride a bike. This pain can can suck for no reason, or this pain can be, "this sucks now, but when I conquer this and demand more of myself as not to put myself in this position in the future, I will be in control at all times." Just like riding a bike.



Exactly. WHile you have already started writing yours. It has gone something like "guy show loyalty to woman who uses it against him. Guy cares more about her then himself." So that's essentially chapter 1. The rest of the book can be, "guy gets message and turns into a confident man that is only as loyal as woman are to him. Guy becomes his own man where time is valued by all those around him. Guy offers solutions to problems one time and one time only. If woman refuses to take advice, guy no longer wastes his time as that is a sign of disrespect. Guy no longer takes disrespect. Guy becomes hero to other woman who appreciate that he is so emotionally strong."

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Awesome words chuff. Thank you SO much for this. :)

Bit of an update:

So it's official, she and the guy are a couple. I've actually accepted this. Bit of a question though, last Saturday when we went on a company outing, the girl was sort of teary eyed (as relayed to me by one of our friends) when she saw that I was standing alone outside the restaurant where the team ate. She told one of our officemates that she wanted to run outside to talk to me, but she didn't know what to tell me. One of our common friends talked to her about us and she got teary-eyed when talking to him as well. I have no idea why, as I've not yet talked to her since the time we had "the talk" ( I believe that this would not be the proper time); I've been reading into the NC threads and it seems that this would be the proper thing to do since I am focusing on myself right now and taking all of your opinions to heart.

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Originally Posted by wreck

Bit of an update:

So it's official, she and the guy are a couple. I've actually accepted this. Bit of a question though, last Saturday when we went on a company outing, the girl was sort of teary eyed (as relayed to me by one of our friends) when she saw that I was standing alone outside the restaurant where the team ate. She told one of our officemates that she wanted to run outside to talk to me, but she didn't know what to tell me. One of our common friends talked to her about us and she got teary-eyed when talking to him as well. I have no idea why, as I've not yet talked to her since the time we had "the talk" ( I believe that this would not be the proper time); i've been reading into the NC threads and it seems that this would be the proper thing to do since I am focusing on myself right now and taking all of your opinions to heart.

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If you remember nothing else from this site please remember this. HER PROBLEMS ARE HER PROBLEMS. Do not get concerned with her crying. Do not start to make it mean something it is not. Do get focused on what she does or says.

She has created enough issues for you to learn from at the moment and now she's adding to her own cruelty by bringing more drama to this situation. A crying woman knows her actions are going to get back to her ex. That's no mistake. It is now up to you to man up. Showing concern, even if you are, to this person is no longer your problem. HER PROBLEMS ARE HER PROBLEMS.

Sounds like you still have some hope that you can get together. I think this thread is an appropriate read for you: https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/dating...ip-463250.html now that she's in a new relationship.

Chuff said it all, her problems are her problems. I know you care about her, but you do not need to concern yourself with her problems. You said it yourself in an earlier post, she's not some child that needs to be taken care of.

To all the people who posted, Thank you again for the great advice. I actually reread the posts from time to time to reinforce the thoughts and opinions my friends chimed in with as well. I'm actually making these words my "watchwords" (as originally posted by chuff):

"guy gets message and turns into a confident man that is only as loyal as woman are to him. Guy becomes his own man where time is valued by all those around him. Guy offers solutions to problems one time and one time only. If woman refuses to take advice, guy no longer wastes his time as that is a sign of disrespect. Guy no longer takes disrespect. Guy becomes hero to other woman who appreciate that he is so emotionally strong."


BTW @I wish, I read your thread/story; I saw some similarities between your situation and mine.

This line hit me straight on:
Finally, this is a bittersweet one though, but at the end of no contact, we get a better idea of who your true friends are. The ones who were willing to stand by us, as oppose to the ones who turn away.

Cheers :)

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Originally Posted by wreck

To all the people who posted, Thank you again for the great advice. I actually reread the posts from time to time to reinforce the thoughts and opinions my friends chimed in with as well. I'm actually making these words my "watchwords" (as originally posted by chuff):

"guy gets message and turns into a confident man that is only as loyal as woman are to him. Guy becomes his own man where time is valued by all those around him. Guy offers solutions to problems one time and one time only. If woman refuses to take advice, guy no longer wastes his time as that is a sign of disrespect. Guy no longer takes disrespect. Guy becomes hero to other woman who appreciate that he is so emotionally strong."

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You are emotionally a lot stronger then you give yourself credit for. The funny thing is I think you actually know it but you are also stuck in a situation where you care too much for someone who doesn't care about herself and who has no idea how to care for somebody else. I won't lie, I've been there myself. I also know that I've eventually had to man up and say, "I'm better off alone then to be sucked her emotional baggage handler." You are better off alone. Now where you can be smarter then me, and believe me I hope that you are, is you can let the emotions die down, and then you can look back, ask questions, and clearly study what happened here. Then you can learn from it and do the exact opposite for the next girl. There are 3 billion woman on the planet. I can promise you there will be a next girl despite what you think at the moment. At the end of the day, with any female you are with, you give only what you get, and in fact you may want to only give 40%. You never, ever take her disrespect. Trust me, if you stand up for yourself in a firm but not angry way a woman will take note and she will start respecting you. If you tell a woman that is b!tching at you about her ex to go get a therapist she will take note. If you tell a woman you do NOT have 6 hours for her she will take note. If you tell a woman who is talking about her ex all the time that maybe she was the problem, she will take note. Let me be clear, I'm not suggesting you become a jerk but I am suggesting you tell a woman exactly where her limits are. If you do, and then you follow them she will not give you the grief you received from this one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chuff

You are emotionally a lot stronger then you give yourself credit for. The funny thing is I think you actually know it but you are also stuck in a situation where you care to much for someone who doesn't care about herself and who has no idea how to care for somebody else. I won't lie, I've been there myself. I also know that I've eventually had to man up and say, "I'm better off alone then to be sucked her emotional baggage handler." You are better off alone. Now where you can be smarter then me, and believe me I hope that you are, is you can let the emotions die down, and then you can look back, ask questions, and clearly study what happened here. Then you can learn from it and do the exact opposite for the next girl. There are 3 billion woman on the planet. I can promise you there will be a next girl despite what you think at the moment. At the end of the day, with any female you are with, you give only what you get, and in fact you may want to only give 40%. You never, ever take her disrespect. Trust me, if you stand up for yourself in a firm but not angry way a woman will take note and she will start respecting you. If you tell a woman that is b!tching at you about her ex to go get a therapist she will take note. If you tell a woman you do NOT have 6 hours for her she will take note. If you tell a woman who is talking about her ex all the time that maybe she was the problem, she will take note. Let me be clear, I'm not suggesting you become a jerk but I am suggesting you tell a woman exactly where her limits are. If you do, and then you follow them she will not give you the grief you received from this one.

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Thank you chuff. I'm actually about 80% healed by now, and every day the sun seems to shine brighter. If I encounter this again, I'll firmly remind that someone that I am not her emotional Skycap or bellhop :)

There will indeed come a time when she will talk to me about what happened; I know this for a fact. And when that time comes, I've already analyzed and thought about what to tell her. I plan on telling her in a nice affirmative way about what happened, and should she need any more advice, that if she walks all over me with her issues and DOES NOT listen to what my advice is, that to not come to me ever again as indeed that would be a sign of disrespect (of course all told to her in a positive manner). And I'll also tell her that I've found peace in that and I hope she can find hers. :)

Well, it's been 2 weeks of NC; and strangely I feel better. I go out with my friends more and I have coffee once a week with one of my female friends who helped me through with what happened on the 15th (when they officially came out as a couple on our company outing); we basically decompress and talk to each other about her problems and mine, sort of a mini "support group"; and I haven't checked anything about her online (FB or any other social networking sites that we may have common accounts in) for 2 weeks as well. Probably just kicking back for some "me-time" until the time "the talk part 2" rolls around; by then I'll be ready with what to tell her. :)

Thanks I wish, will do :)

Why does there have to be a talk part 2. Just don't talk to her.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chuff

Why does there have to be a talk part 2. Just don't talk to her.

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Yup, I'm not talking to her at all; I'm currently exercising NC at the moment.
Knowing her, she will eventually initiate first contact. It's not that I'm waiting for it, I'm just prepared with what to say when the time comes. :)

(I'm actually wondering if what I typed just came out right :confused: )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wreck

Yup, I'm not talking to her at all; I'm currently exercising NC at the moment.
Knowing her, she will eventually initiate first contact. It's not that I'm waiting for it, I'm just prepared with what to say when the time comes. :)

(I'm actually wondering if what i typed just came out right :confused: )

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Let her intiate contact. In fact I know exactly when she's going to do it. I can tell you with pin point accurancy and I've never met her.

She's going to contact you the moment the guy she is currently screwing drops her. Then she is going to come running back to you and want you to listen about how much she's learned and how much she's grown as a person and how she wants you to pretend like this break never happened. I know this because like I told you before, I used to let myself get used a lot and I heard those lines... sadly sometimes more then once. What you need to do is get it now, not years from now, but right now. You are to valuable to be her or any other woman's personal emotional garbage dump. The moment she contacts you, all you have to do is say I'm in the middle of something, let me call you back. Then you never call. If she calls again, repeat.

I know what you want. You want to tell her off. I agree with you that she needs to be told off, but if you start playing that game you are going to play into her. What hurts you most isn't the fact she moved on, it is how she was so cold about it. So you have earned the right to do it back and that is by NOT engaging her in a coversation or argument and at the same time letting her know you've moved on, by not providing any of your valuable time to her.

Point taken, chuff. Aside from that, what do you think would be the right thing to do? I know that "the right thing to do" may be very subjective at the moment especially in situations like these; I was thinking something more along the lines of me doing something that would leave everyone in this situation happy and without regrets. Or at least everyone walks away from this having learned something (BTW I have learned A LOT from the previous posts, thanks once again to the people who posted their take on this). Or is this impossible? :confused:

My apologies again for the numerous questions :)

As previously posted, I would also like to come out of this "the better man", and not come off as a jerk. :)

Oh I know who the jerk here is and jerk is one of the nicer things I'd call her. But you are so worried about everyone being happy in this situation, but you are not focused on YOUR happiness.

You have it set up in your mind that if you make her happy in the end that will somehow make you happy. But that sets you up for failure. What if she never calls back. Then you'll feel like you wasted your time waiting for her. What if she does call back and dumps more of the "men are pigs" BS on you. Then you feel used and disrespected. None of those benefit you. You don't have to worry about her happiness. Focus on yourself. It is not selfish to take care of you. If I asked you for money every day, maybe at first you'd give me some, but at some point you'd be like, "Dude, your capable of doing it on your own, do something for yourself."

That applies here. You do not need her to make you happy. You do not need a certain situation to make you happy. Focus on yourself and what brings happiness to you. Focus on how you can build a stronger core, focus on how you can notice when you are being disrespected and then correct it. You gave hours of your life for this "woman" and she abused it. Okay, no biggie it happens. But now you must say "I was gracious enough to give her the one chance, now I'm going to start being gracious to me." Give to yourself. Give yourself the time you want to give to her. Give the permission to yourself that you can move on. Give the strength... actually just notice it, you've got all this but you just want to believe it comes from her or a situation involving her. It comes from internally.

Digesting the above replies, and it's slowly dawning on me. I'm one of those guys whose gears grind slow but exceedingly fine if you may. :)

Trust me it took me about 10 years and finally it dawned on me that a pattern kept repeating itself before it clicked with me. Don't take 10 years.

Thanks chuff. Cheers :)

Going on 3 weeks of NC. No checking social networking sites, chats, text messages, zip, zero, nada, zilch. For all intents and purposes, I've gone off the grid (except to my real friends and of course this site).

Granted, there are the hard moments such as seeing something or doing something that we used to do together; those still hurt like jabs to the side, but the pain passes. I guess my saving grace in times like this is thinking that I will find someone better; someone who will not treat me like that and someone who'll see my true worth. I will RISE ABOVE THIS. :)

Geez, if my past self from 10 years ago could meet my present self, my past self would probably kick my present self in the arse hahaha! :D

Been going around the site reading other similar stories and gleaning lessons from each of them. Also starting Muay Thai (kickboxing) training next week hehehe for fitness and basically "mind-clearing" purposes. :)

One of my female friends said something to me that I fondly remember:

"If you're going through hell..

..keep going."

:)

Update:

We have this company thing this weekend, and the girl told one of our mutual friends that she'd like to talk to me on either Saturday night.

Mulling over what and what not to do, but not to the extent that I'm losing sleep over it. :)

BTW still enjoying NC ;)

We're leaving in a bit. Wish me luck; I'll update this thread when we get back from this weekend's trip. :)