thread to get over a breakup

:( :( Stevie

stay strong brother

<3 stevie

it really will get better

past few days have been good but today was kind of awful when I realized how I now have to move everything into the category of past-tense, like "We used to go clubs and vogue wildly at each other like there was no one else in the room to notice" or "he used to laugh when I said stupid little kid things in stupid little kid voices" or "I used to smile so much when he would get rly sweet and tell me how much he loved me"

also the first of time actually experiencing the megacliche of missing your partner's annoying habits, like how he would snuggle w/ me in his sleep w/o realizing it and I'd move his arm off of me bcz it was like 90 degrees and it would just come flying back over my chest 3 seconds later

I would call all of my friends when I would randomly burst into tears and just say I'm crying I'm crying I'm crying over and over again

like I would call one and then another and then another, that helped me, just do whatever ridiculous things you need to do to get by, those days when shit just randomly hits your chest are hard

I haven't even cried yet! I just feel bummed out and like easily irritated but I actually really do want the big hysterical drama-queen Kleenex meltdown

but idk I have dealt w/ pretty heavy shit in life and not cried so ¯\_(o_o)_/¯

sorry to hear it man. :(

post-breakup is pretty much the worst feeling ever for a few days (ok more like months in my case but i was married and there were logistical reasons that kept reminding me of it pretty much every day), tho i found that when i did manage to go out and hang with friends and have fun and forget about it for a while there was this weird crazy intensity to it, the kind of desperate-let's-have-fun-right-now feeling i expect you'd have if you were told you only had six months to live or something.

being social is helping tremendously; I mean we spent almost every day together for 9mos and I was a total shut-in and now I am all about hanging out at coffee shops and going for walks and hanging out with everyone and shit.

yeah, do something you never did when you were in a relationship. You'll discover something you like that doesn't constantly remind you of him.

Thinking of you, Stevie.

So apparently someone made a fake okcupid profile of my ex with stuff that, she says, only I would know. I did not do this, and now I'm A) worried and creeped out that someone has pulled this stalkery shit and B) completely crushed that she can imagine me doing this.

I am amazed that circumstances somehow found a way to make this worse.

Christ, that's terrible.

Just arrived in a new city/country and wondering whether I should jump right in, or wait to see if IRL will provide. Leaning towards waiting.

Sorry, that was an OKC reference - mistook this for the OKC thread.

wow what a shitty thing to do to someone! I'm v sorry en, that's a bad situation to have to deal with

Alright, she send me screenshots, my guess is that some teenager/socially-inept college kid wanted to talk to lesbian hipster girls (fake profile lists her as gay) and used her pictures and some of her essay answers. The information that only I would know, btw, is that she has a thing for James Franco, watched Buffy, and has read a handful of books that pretty much everyone who's ever mentioned James Franco and Buffy has read.

I understand that she was in identity theft panic mode, but jesus christ how did things get so far from how they should be that when something like this happens I'm a potential culprit instead of the first person she turns to for help?

Oh en, that hurts.

jesus

I'm off the hook now in her mind, at least.

Until she finds out her milk has spoiled, and then you be the one who was behind it.

You must have fucked with the expiration date! How could you?

ok actual lol

thank you

I'm also just horrified generally that some nutbar would make fake OKC profiles from other people's pictures and interestes WTF D:

thank christ I've been able to delete mine recently

OK so real talk, enough of my bitching and whining. How do I establish and maintain a healthy friendship with my ex? How long do I wait btwn break-up and reconnection? What are things to avoid? Things I am thinking:

-give myself at least two weeks, maybe even 3 before I reach out/talk to him again so that when I see him again it's not like "oh look my boyfriend!!"
-try to avoid cutesy/flirty/romantic type things I have done in the past; try to withhold excessive affection
-it may be really awkward the first time we hang out! But that might be inevitable and doesn't mean we should just give up

This is all speculation as I've never been in a relationship before so I've never had to deal w/ this. Tips/tricks plz!

That all sounds pretty good, and advice I should've followed myself 2 months ago.

That is good real talk, although I don't think you can/should put yourself on a specific timeline. . . it may be months, or years, or never before you are ready to try a friendship.

Real talk: it's probably too soon to initiate anything like normal post-dating relations. I know that sucks, because even if you just want to spend some time with him because you did for so long and now you can't, it may be actually worse if you do.

When your headspace is better, I'd suggest meeting for lunch or something similarly harmless. As time passes, you'll begin seeing him as this different person. You'll remember dating him, but there will be a disconnect between that him and this him. If you try to do it too soon, though, you'll be mired in longing and sorrow and it will make reaching that point take longer and it will be a lot rougher on your heart.

^ otm

^^^^

yeah

2-3 weeks is really not very long at all

Fuck :( I miss him so much and I just want to see him/know he's doing well/etc but I suppose that is exactly why it is still way too soon

awww :/, yeah. I'm sorry Stevie - it can be so hard. Take care of yourself.

I guess asking his friends who are (or I guess were) sort of my friends how he's doing is kind of a no-no?

I want to do it but then when I think abt how I would deal w/ like any possible response (he is doing well and has moved on; he is doing awful and misses you so much; etc) all of them make me super sad

So my advice for me is no Steve don't do that

Technically yeah it's probably a no-no and most people would advise against it. However, that's not to say that nearly everyone who has ever gone though a breakup hasn't done something similar because they totally have and it's only natural that you want to do so too.

Just saying that you shouldn't feel bad for wanting to do that but you're right in that it's not a good idea because, really, what good could come of it?

it's never easy for anyone, first time or 10th time. keep advising yourself in that calm way, and that will help -- don't squash those instincts, tease them out and be your own counsel. those instincts are natural, but the best thing you can do is *not* act on them, at least for a little while. you were together for some time, there's a lot of, I dunno, muscle memory? going on.

One of my friends just broke up with her boyfriend of nearly two years and said something about coping with breakups that may sting, but will be helpful in the long run: "I’m not saying this to sound weirdly braggy, but I’m usually pretty okay at the end of relationships, as far as freaking out goes. I mean, I’ll freak out, but I’ll do it alone, at home, and I’ll keep the phone at bay — and not because I necessarily have some superhuman willpower, but I just put myself in the other person’s shoes and really think about being on the receiving end of unwanted affection, and I don’t want to be the person someone out there is cringing about. Ugh. So I usually faithfully stick to that important no-contact phase."

I think knowing they have good ppl around them looking out for them makes a big difference, because it can be really heartbreaking. as long as yr not completely obsessing or freaking out over something specific I think it's good to give each other lots of space for at least a few months while you gradually readjust. meet ups where two devastated ppl try to put on brave faces to protect each other are the saddest thing in the world imo

-you have a t-shirt with borat on it that said "sexytimes"
-you are 41 but more emotionally stunted than most people i've dated in their 20s
-you once took me to a "show" that was at least 50% spoken word poetry and also had an interpretive dance performance + you also like tom waits a lot = you are probably one year away from growing a soul patch and wearing fedoras, tops. i dodged a bullet here.
-you have no spine and adopted a cat you didn't want just because your ex was pressuring you to take him, and you whined to me about it a bunch and did it anyway.
-the sex was not nearly as good for me as it was for you. every time you said something like "whoa, people are not supposed to have sex that good" i secretly thought "ho hum".

I just realized, thanks to this thread, that I've finally successfully purged my ex from my mind. It only took roughly the same amount of time we were together, but it's done. Now it just remains to be seen how long it'll take to repair all of the damage I underwent as a result of that breakup.

Good bullet dodging there!

-the sex was not nearly as good for me as it was for you. every time you said something like "whoa, people are not supposed to have sex that good" i secretly thought "ho hum".

poor guy, but also poor YOU.

he deserves this meanness (even though he will never see it), trust me.

I'm sure he does. I just meant "poor guy" in the sense that he's probably going around thinking he's good at sex when, really, he maybe isn't.

Eh, better than the other way around.