<<The odds of each of you successfully and independently fixing yourselves and then finding each other and there being a new spark that equals or surpasses the old one seems so astronomical to me -- which is why I would LOVE to hear from someone who experienced that. I would have LOTS of eager questions.
>>

I've seen such a story on another board.. he replied to me in fact as he thought our situations were very similar... his girlfriend left him after 4 years to find her independence,he initiated NC right away, 5 months of it. He worked on himself and 2 years later they got back together and he said it is the best thing that ever happened to them. Ill send you the link if you want , it was good reading and very well wrote.

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Originally Posted by 4answers

So start again, without the mistake / issues of the past.

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There is the big lie people tell themselves. That coming together will be different and it isn't, not without substantial and real change that was SPECIFIC to those problems. Otherwise you are shooting in the dark about what the problems were and changing anything you can think of hoping for the best, not knowing. That just doesn't cut it very much of the time, I don't think.

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Originally Posted by rol

<<. Ill send you the link if you want , it was good reading and very well wrote.

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Yes that would be good.


As far as two people getting together after no contact, I would guess that both have to communicate more than they did in the first place.

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Originally Posted by rol

<<The odds of each of you successfully and independently fixing yourselves and then finding each other and there being a new spark that equals or surpasses the old one seems so astronomical to me -- which is why I would LOVE to hear from someone who experienced that. I would have LOTS of eager questions.
>>

ive seen such a story on another board..he replied to me in fact as he thought our situations were very similiar...his girlfriend left him after 4 years to find her independence,he initiated NC right away, 5 months of it. he worked on himself and 2 years later they got back together and he said it is the best thing that ever happened to them. Ill send you the link if you want , it was good reading and very well wrote.

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LOL You still aren't hearing me or getting it. Gosh Rol anyone can say that happened to them so a story about it isn't going to help me. I want to be able to ask questions to 1) verify it happened as we are thinking it did and 2) to find out what information we all might be missing about how its done - very crucial stuff, I would think?? :p

Well u can go and check the link and ask the nice guy to come here and tell us all!! :))

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Originally Posted by rol

well u can go and check the link and ask the nice guy to come here and tell us all!!! :))

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I think val is trying to say that you shouldn't think that what happened to that other guy will automatically happen to you. You need to let go of the hope you have of getting back with your SO. Using the success stories of others to validate your own hope of reconciliation doesn't help, and will hurt all the more when it doesn't come true.

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Originally Posted by rol

<<The odds of each of you successfully and independently fixing yourselves and then finding each other and there being a new spark that equals or surpasses the old one seems so astronomical to me -- which is why I would LOVE to hear from someone who experienced that. I would have LOTS of eager questions.
>>

ive seen such a story on another board..he replied to me in fact as he thought our situations were very similiar...his girlfriend left him after 4 years to find her independence,he initiated NC right away, 5 months of it. he worked on himself and 2 years later they got back together and he said it is the best thing that ever happened to them. Ill send you the link if you want , it was good reading and very well wrote.

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Who is this guy rol, it would be interesting to get him into the discussion...

I agree with val also that sometimes a story has much more to it and nothing is black an white..

But rol, who is he?? Maybe he can provide insight...

<<I think val is trying to say that you shouldn't think that what happened to that other guy will automatically happen to you. You need to let go of the hope you have of getting back with your SO. Using the success stories of others to validate your own hope of reconciliation doesn't help, and will hurt all the more when it doesn't come true.>>

NO I am not thinking that AT ALL!! AND VAL does seem to be deperately asking for someone to come and tell their success story> isn't it Val? So that she can ask a few questions

But rol, who is he?? Maybe he can provide insight...

I've sent him a message to come and tell about what happened.

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Originally Posted by rol

<<I think val is trying to say that you shouldn't think that what happened to that other guy will automatically happen to you. You need to let go of the hope you have of getting back with your SO. Using the success stories of others to validate your own hope of reconciliation doesn't help, and will hurt all the more when it doesn't come true.>>

NO i am not thinking that AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!AND VAL does seem to be deperately asking for someone to come and tell their success story> isnt it Val? so that she can ask a few questions

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LOL I am not the one who is desperate Rol. I have a relationship and its working fine. I am suggesting that people hurting from a break up may be desperate and out of that desperation believe all kinds of things that don't have enough meat in them to warrant that kind of trust and belief. It's a long known fact that there is nothing the snake oil hawker likes better than some good old fashioned down home desperation.

Hmmmmm,

Success stories can create false hope and the belief that we can replicate the same outcome in our own situation.

At the end of the day, this creates a more painful situation where we struggle to find hope when there really isn't any.

Not directing this at anyone specifically, I am just providing a statement that focuses more on reality than fantasy..

I'm sure there are success stories and in fact I partly saw one in my own life with a friend years ago.

Well, he met his fianc&#233; really young, at 19, she was 17, they were together for 2 years, split up for 1 year, got back together again for 1 year, split up again for 6 months, got back together again for 6 months, got married and have been married for the last 3 years. I have not seen him for 3 years and yet bumped into him a few months back and guess what he said??

"Geoff, I'm married now and separated"

So I ask myself, was this a success story or some kind of twisted relationship based on a compulsion to split up and get back together again... I put it down to him being young when he met her and her vise versa yet he basically spent the first 10 years of his adult life breaking up and getting back together with the same person...

Don't ask me, who knows what goes through some peoples minds...

<<snake oil hawker likes better than some good old fashioned down home desperation.
>>

Ha ha what??
OK folks I'm off home, talk to ye on Monday! Have a nice weekend :)

I would have to disagree... I don't really think that someone hurting is let's say "desperate"... I would say maybe confused as to what had happened in sudden breakups and therefore maybe need to have closure for themselves... Everyone has hope... I think that if people didn't have hope (no matter what situation), I think that person doesn't always feel with their heart. You need have have hope sometimes...

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Originally Posted by NJCUTIE77

I would have to disagree... I don't really think that someone hurting is let's say "desperate".... I would say maybe confused as to what had happenned in sudden breakups and therefore maybe need to have closure for themselves.... Everyone has hope... i think that if people didn't have hope (no matter what situation), I think that person doesn't always feel with their heart. You need have have hope sometimes....

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I didn't say that they all were desperate. I used the word "may" knowing that it meant some might be, some might not be.

As for confusion, here is what everyone who has been left knows: there was a problem big enough to end the relationship over**. Now often ex's don't help in clarifiying -- that's for sure. But what many people who were left immeditately do instead of dealing with that** is they look for anything else they can deal with to distract themselves from the terrible truth. It's a kind of defense reaction, understandable too since they have been hurt. And that really adds to the confusion. But when that part of it goes on too long, they begin confusing who is adding the confusion-- them or the ex. And then all kinds of blame to the ex begins, some of which ISN'T their fault. Oy. And around and around it goes.

Hope is good but its better if its grounded in reality, in truth, in realistic things, don't you think? False hope is a way to delay the pain, sure but here is the clincher-- it increases the real pain you eventually feel tenfold. Now who you going to blame for that? So if you haven't gone through some sorting process by which you have separated fasle hope (wishful thinking) from realistic hope, well what then?

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Originally Posted by valinors_sorrow

Hope is good but its better if its grounded in reality, in truth, in realistic things, don't you think? False hope is a way to delay the pain, sure but here is the clincher-- it increases the real pain you eventually feel tenfold. Now who you gonna blame for that? So if you haven't gone through some sorting process by which you have seperated fasle hope (wishful thinking) from realistic hope, well what then?

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Mrs Myagi,

You know I have utmost respect for your knowledge and answers.

May I ask a question though..

How does one separate false hope from realistic hope?

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Originally Posted by Geoffersonairplane

How does one separate false hope from realistic hope?

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Ahhh touché Geoff... that is something we all would desperately like to be able to see with our own eyes.

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Originally Posted by Geoffersonairplane

Mrs Myagi,

you know I have utmost respect for your knowledge and answers.

May I ask a question though..?

How does one separate false hope from realistic hope?

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Dear Geofferson-san,
There are many ways. My favorite is to look closely at my hope, find the belief in it and examine it carefully with both intuition (born out of experience) and the discernment I talked about in Post #7 in the other thread:
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/relati...her-48712.html

Hope is a continuum that has very realistic hope on one end and false hope on the other. You can, of course, play the long odds of doubtful hope any time you wish -- just be sure to know that you are so when it doesn't work out, you can take it gracefully.

Some situations require more time than others to discern when the hope is false. I will give an example:
I worked at a Non-profit organization for twelve years that is governed by an elected board. Each year half the board is up for election and usually replaced with new people. It is an alll volunteer organization and I was the sole employee. The people on the board were often terrible (out of inexperience) and sometimes I would complain about some of their destructive actions. In the beginning they listened to me because they hired me while they were in trouble (long story I am leaving out).

When I was hired it had a financial reserve of $1,000 which I almost singularly built to $10,000 in three years, which is not a lot to begin with for the size of this business, by the way. But they stopped listening to me as new boards came along. They did not pass on the "value" of listening to me. Every time a new half board was elected, I hoped anew as I watched them slowly ruin the business and listen to me less and less. It slowly decline to less than $2,000. That was when the dishonesty about it started. I then realised new boards make no difference, I can do nothing to change the obvious direction and hope was indeed false. So I worked hard to get myself replaced and quit. You could say it took me nine years to figure out I needed to move my belief from realistic hope to false hope and that would be fair. One could argue that I left too soon, if they return to their profitable ways, and I would shrug and wonder if it didn't somehow take me leaving for that to occur too. At any rate, I had seen enough.

However people who are on the backside of a break up don't have that kind of time and have far less to work with. And so discernment needs to be faster and its also much easier by having less to work with! Look at the facts you do have, look at what goes on in the world, and then ask yourself what can you point to specifically that has "Oh but this is the exception to the rule!" written all over it. If you cannot make a reasonable argument to yourself about why or even how this is going to be the exception, then I believe its best to acknowledge that and adjust hope accordingly. Ask any really successful person about hope as an element in their successes and they'll be able to give you a long list of things that must accompany it because hope alone won't get you there.

Good question that I hope LOL I have answered?

Love,
Mrs Miyagi

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Originally Posted by Geoffersonairplane

Mrs Myagi,

you know I have utmost respect for your knowledge and answers.

May I ask a question though..?

How does one separate false hope from realistic hope?

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Good question geoff,
First you have to be healthy. Healthy enough to look at things and see what they are, not what you want them to be. Healthy enough to make decisions based on facts not fantasy. Healthy enough to see when a red flag blows in the wind and can make the decision to examine it and take the warning instead of jumping head long into something you know is foolish, but hope it works. Healthy enough to see yourself, for who you are, and to live life on its own terms. Healthy enough to make judgements concerning your well being, and not some foolish hope. I will admit that this is also a product of experience and growing. Healthy people do not build a life based on the unknown, they build it according to what they know, about life, people, the world around them, and what they know about themselves. The more you know about yourself, the harder for someone to use, abuse, and misuse you. Do you ever notice that healthy things GROW, and unhealthy things DIE? The key to life is to be healthy, happy and steadily growing. Anything else is BS. There's much more but being healthy is a good start.

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Originally Posted by talaniman

The more you know about yourself, the harder for someone to use, abuse, and misuse you. .

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Wow. Anyone know a good engraver? Need to get that one engraved in my brain or anywhere that is feasible.

Terrific Tal... & thank you.

Kind of like this then...

Good judgement of how the world works, what happens in the real world from what you know of it either through experience or good judgement or both will determine how quickly false hope can be relaced with realistic hope or a realistic outcome..

:confused: myself writing this..

LOL

I think I know what I meant but I think a few heads may be scratched here..