I would say that in the midst of your sadness, go out and serve others. Do some volunteering at the local recycling center, or help serve meals at the homeless shelter. Plant yourself deeply into bringing benefit to others and this planet, and you will find happiness from without to cure the sadness within.
Get a season ticket to your soccer team if you don't have it already. Go to every single game. Spend time with your friends. Drink. Erase her contacts from your address book and phone. See the worst movies you can think of (with your friends), but listen to the best music. (I could tell to listen to "Passion" of Peter Gabriel, but you might as well not like that cd.. try if you find it). Fill your ipod. Buy new computers or music .. get out! Get a map, point every funny looking (named) place in it, and go there jsut to have been there (but skip Goof Hope in IL). If you are really desperate, take you credit cards and a lot of money, and your passport (nothing else. And switch off your mobile phone), and get to the airport. Buy a one-way ticket to Cuba, and see what you will find. Or go to St. Petersburg (in Russia, not Florida), in some museum they have in exhibition 'The Member' of Rasputin. And then take a train to China, while you get there it'll be time to have a beer with Superkarate and find something else to do ...
Try not to allow yourself to dwell on 'what went wrong?' too much. Don't beat yourself up over what you did not say or did not do. There would have been no point in trying to be someone or something that you are not in order to keep things going.
I think this is extremely good advice, Satchmo. People have to be who they are. If you didn't think she was the right woman for you, she probably wasn't. Your cavalier attitude was a natural consequence of her not being 'right' for you. In the long run, it's best that you didn't commit. You may have spent ten years, instead of ten months, and ended up splitting anyway. (Think about it. Aren't you glad it was ten months and not ten years?!!!)
So perhaps you could regard this relationship as a growth experience. It will help to define what's important to you in a partner, and that knowledge will help in your next choice.
I feel bad for you that it hurts so much. But I think this kind of suffering makes us more deeply human. In order to experience life's greatest joys, perhaps we must be equally aware of its pains.
I think liquor can be very helpful sometimes.
One thing I thought I'd mention is that all the guys I ever loved, I still love; and they all still love me. I never had a rancorous break-up. The break-ups may have 'hurt', but we never fought or 'hated' each other, or anything like that. In fact, after getting divorced, I would visit my ex at his Calif. beach house and we had some wonderfully companionable times together - after we were divorced. Weird, huh? We could be friends, but not marriage partners.
Depressing music . . . but mature depressing, not wollowing teen stuff like mid and late Floyd . . . better stuff like Nick Drake, early accoustic Niel Young, Bill Evens piano ballads, early Floyd, Syd Barret . . . Mahler's tragic Lieder . . . just get into the emotion . . .
milk it
write poetry
Change your life drastically and dangerously
jump around and laugh maniacally
If you are anywhere near a desert, take a long road trip for a week or two by yourself . . . best thing ever . . . camp, and listen to Mingus's Mood Indigo over and over and over and over and cry (make sure its one of his longer loose versions)
oh yeah . . . and the rebound of mutually rebounding sort (meaning 'get under someone') really is the best too, you will remember it fondly for its healing and liberating powers for the rest of your life . . . and you can't do that sort of thing unless you are healing from something like a break up . . .
Hi pfflam -
Your whole post is intriguing. I can't help picturing *you* doing all these things, especially the jumping around and the crying by the campfire, with the stars in their millions in the dark sky overhead; the orange glow of the fire lighting your face and shining in your tears.
(P.S. How can you think AO is a waste of time when we can share such personal thoughts as these? I LOVE getting to know you and everyone here.)
Your whole post is intriguing. I can't help picturing *you* doing all these things, especially the jumping around and the crying by the campfire, with the stars in their millions in the dark sky overhead; the orange glow of the fire lighting your face and shining in your tears.
(P.S. How can you think AO is a waste of time when we can share such personal thoughts as these? I LOVE getting to know you and everyone here.)
Thanks for the imaginings . . .
about the AO thing . .
I thing it has been detrimental to me lately . . . I feel like it makes me mean-spirited and small minded . . . I think it is because I get caught up in political talk and get absolutely frustrated . . . and then I really waste my time and my energy and my imagination dries up
I thing it has been detrimental to me lately . . . I feel like it makes me mean-spirited and small minded . . . I think it is because I get caught up in political talk and get absolutely frustrated . . . and then I really waste my time and my energy and my imagination dries up
I know what you mean about the frustration. This is my fourth board. Threads on the first board would enrage me, because I knew that most of the people spouting their Anti-American bile would shrink away in cowardice at even the 'thought' of saying those words to someone's face, or at the thought of anyone's knowing who they really were. I would get furious at non-western immigrants using the free speech of western democracies to spew vitriol about how corrupt those democracies were...people who would be arrested and tortured in their 'home countries' for uttering even one word against the government!
After boards two and three, I landed here. I avoid the political discussions, because I hate politics. Both parties make me sick. I read the international threads, though I don't post in them very often, because I don't especially like getting my ideas sneered at, and that's what usually happens.
But I very much enjoy all the lighter threads, the ones that deal with personal issues. I love reading what all you guys think. In the 'real world', it has been my experience that many males don't share their thoughts very freely. They clam up. But here people speak their minds on a huge range of topics, and to me it's like a bonding.
I really love sharing people's thoughts. I especially love it that it's mostly guys here. heh. Guys are SO much more straightforward and SO much easier to get along with, imo. And the things you said in your post, for example, were so personal - about dealing with pain. Lots of the things guys say in these threads are quite personal, open and honest. I think it's wonderful. Plus I think the people here are many notches above run-of-the-mill messageboard posters in the IQ department. I *truly* love smart people.
Maybe if you stayed away from the political threads for awhile? Maybe your spirit would rejuvenate.
Moogs, I wish you'd been around to give me this advice when I was trying to decide whether to get married or not. I was SO uncertain about what to do. That uncertainty should have been my first clue, apparently. Right?
Going to assume that marriage is no longer in effect, to which I would reply... yes, that uncertainty should've been a big clue. But everyone makes relationship mistakes, so don't feel too bad about it. As long as you learned from the experience so the next one is better, and also learned some things about yourself, that's the main thing.
Also to the original poster: I think BR subscribes to my theory of breakup therapy, just in a more vocal way.
My ex filed for divorce when I was in Iraq during the first farce, err, Gulf war. The courts gave her everything. The house in Rowland Heights (which is now worth in California's inflated real estate market close $400,000.00!) which she ended up losing. I was stuck with her credit card tab (about $25,000!), it all hurt bad.
All of the above did not compare to the pain in my heart. Up until that point, she could do no wrong in my eyes. One of my best friends tried to warn me about her and I basically told to him get lost. I'm very fortunate he forgave me for that stupidity.
I know it hurts like hot shrapnel (which really does hurt...) but you will get over her in time.
Comments
Stay strong, brother.
Originally posted by kneelbeforezod
Try not to allow yourself to dwell on 'what went wrong?' too much. Don't beat yourself up over what you did not say or did not do. There would have been no point in trying to be someone or something that you are not in order to keep things going.
I think this is extremely good advice, Satchmo. People have to be who they are. If you didn't think she was the right woman for you, she probably wasn't. Your cavalier attitude was a natural consequence of her not being 'right' for you. In the long run, it's best that you didn't commit. You may have spent ten years, instead of ten months, and ended up splitting anyway. (Think about it. Aren't you glad it was ten months and not ten years?!!!)
So perhaps you could regard this relationship as a growth experience. It will help to define what's important to you in a partner, and that knowledge will help in your next choice.
I feel bad for you that it hurts so much. But I think this kind of suffering makes us more deeply human. In order to experience life's greatest joys, perhaps we must be equally aware of its pains.
I think liquor can be very helpful sometimes.
One thing I thought I'd mention is that all the guys I ever loved, I still love; and they all still love me. I never had a rancorous break-up. The break-ups may have 'hurt', but we never fought or 'hated' each other, or anything like that. In fact, after getting divorced, I would visit my ex at his Calif. beach house and we had some wonderfully companionable times together - after we were divorced. Weird, huh? We could be friends, but not marriage partners.
a lot.
Originally posted by alcimedes
go exercise.
a lot.
with emphasis on the punching bag
Originally posted by pfflam
Depressing music . . . but mature depressing, not wollowing teen stuff like mid and late Floyd . . . better stuff like Nick Drake, early accoustic Niel Young, Bill Evens piano ballads, early Floyd, Syd Barret . . . Mahler's tragic Lieder . . . just get into the emotion . . .
milk it
write poetry
Change your life drastically and dangerously
jump around and laugh maniacally
If you are anywhere near a desert, take a long road trip for a week or two by yourself . . . best thing ever . . . camp, and listen to Mingus's Mood Indigo over and over and over and over and cry (make sure its one of his longer loose versions)
oh yeah . . . and the rebound of mutually rebounding sort (meaning 'get under someone') really is the best too, you will remember it fondly for its healing and liberating powers for the rest of your life . . . and you can't do that sort of thing unless you are healing from something like a break up . . .
Hi pfflam -
Your whole post is intriguing. I can't help picturing *you* doing all these things, especially the jumping around and the crying by the campfire, with the stars in their millions in the dark sky overhead; the orange glow of the fire lighting your face and shining in your tears.
(P.S. How can you think AO is a waste of time when we can share such personal thoughts as these? I LOVE getting to know you and everyone here.)
Originally posted by alcimedes
****ing freaks everywhere.
"Are you talking to me?"
Tsk!
Funny...I don't feel like a freak...
Oh well.
Originally posted by Carol A
"Are you talking to me?"
Tsk!
Funny...I don't feel like a freak...
Oh well.
Freaky.
Originally posted by Carol A
Hi pfflam -
Your whole post is intriguing. I can't help picturing *you* doing all these things, especially the jumping around and the crying by the campfire, with the stars in their millions in the dark sky overhead; the orange glow of the fire lighting your face and shining in your tears.
(P.S. How can you think AO is a waste of time when we can share such personal thoughts as these? I LOVE getting to know you and everyone here.)
Thanks for the imaginings . . .
about the AO thing . .
I thing it has been detrimental to me lately . . . I feel like it makes me mean-spirited and small minded . . . I think it is because I get caught up in political talk and get absolutely frustrated . . . and then I really waste my time and my energy and my imagination dries up
Originally posted by pfflam
Thanks for the imaginings . . .
about the AO thing . .
I thing it has been detrimental to me lately . . . I feel like it makes me mean-spirited and small minded . . . I think it is because I get caught up in political talk and get absolutely frustrated . . . and then I really waste my time and my energy and my imagination dries up
I know what you mean about the frustration. This is my fourth board. Threads on the first board would enrage me, because I knew that most of the people spouting their Anti-American bile would shrink away in cowardice at even the 'thought' of saying those words to someone's face, or at the thought of anyone's knowing who they really were. I would get furious at non-western immigrants using the free speech of western democracies to spew vitriol about how corrupt those democracies were...people who would be arrested and tortured in their 'home countries' for uttering even one word against the government!
After boards two and three, I landed here. I avoid the political discussions, because I hate politics. Both parties make me sick. I read the international threads, though I don't post in them very often, because I don't especially like getting my ideas sneered at, and that's what usually happens.
But I very much enjoy all the lighter threads, the ones that deal with personal issues. I love reading what all you guys think. In the 'real world', it has been my experience that many males don't share their thoughts very freely. They clam up. But here people speak their minds on a huge range of topics, and to me it's like a bonding.
I really love sharing people's thoughts. I especially love it that it's mostly guys here. heh. Guys are SO much more straightforward and SO much easier to get along with, imo.
Maybe if you stayed away from the political threads for awhile? Maybe your spirit would rejuvenate.
Originally posted by BR
Driving rampage.
Could be fun, but probably not worth the flak.
Originally posted by Carol A
Moogs, I wish you'd been around to give me this advice when I was trying to decide whether to get married or not. I was SO uncertain about what to do. That uncertainty should have been my first clue, apparently. Right?
Going to assume that marriage is no longer in effect, to which I would reply... yes, that uncertainty should've been a big clue. But everyone makes relationship mistakes, so don't feel too bad about it. As long as you learned from the experience so the next one is better, and also learned some things about yourself, that's the main thing.
Also to the original poster: I think BR subscribes to my theory of breakup therapy, just in a more vocal way.
My ex filed for divorce when I was in Iraq during the first farce, err, Gulf war. The courts gave her everything. The house in Rowland Heights (which is now worth in California's inflated real estate market close $400,000.00!) which she ended up losing. I was stuck with her credit card tab (about $25,000!), it all hurt bad.
All of the above did not compare to the pain in my heart. Up until that point, she could do no wrong in my eyes. One of my best friends tried to warn me about her and I basically told to him get lost. I'm very fortunate he forgave me for that stupidity.
I know it hurts like hot shrapnel (which really does hurt...) but you will get over her in time.
Originally posted by alcimedes
go exercise.
a lot.
Exactly what I was going to post. It does wonders.