Thread: when does it stop?

They keep talking about it because they have guilt or are afraid you are talking about it and want to counter the negative things you could say. It's all head trips. Of course they won't talk about what they did or didn't do or how life circumstances contributed to the situation. It's their script, their way of avoiding responsiblity.

You have to take responsibility for your end. Obviously the person and the relationship weren't what you thought they were. Cuz they were it would still be going strong! I've done this, on an emotional high, sweep him into my stream of happiness and life is good. But it wasn't them or us - it was me. And at some point, they get pulled into someone else's stream because they are just along for the ride or they just suck you dry, you stumble and instead of them being able to lift you up, they dump on you. The other possiblity is they are emotional vampires, they feed on other people'e energy - good or negative. They get off on the initial high of the early relationship and later they get a sense of power from your pain. It validates them, they'll milk it as long as they can.

Speaking as an older person, some level of hurt may linger and in years to come you have to watch that you don't hit a situation where you respond from the old wound instead of to what is current. Something will trigger that old pain and fear. A lot of people ruin relationships that way.

This is a learning experience, you have to decide what you learn. If you learn not to trust, not to love, to fear closeness, to put pain avoidence above the possiblity of finding a true and real love, you will a close a door in yourself and it may never open again. You will become, as are so many people, a man who never really opens up, is always guarded, always waiting for their partner to hurt them, unconsciously creating situations for it to happen. You don't want that. That fact that you are so hurt argues that you are a man of true feeling. There are plenty of women who would value you! Most of us seem to get into a pattern, we find the same thing over and over, it may be dressed up differently but inside it's the same and then we respond in ways to keep it in the familiar pattern. We may not like it but we know it, it's familiar and it fits our expectations. Don't fall into this trap!

Hold your head high, give your self time. Find a way to feel sorry for this woman. She lost you! She's probably doomed to repeat the pattern over and over. Thank your lucky stars she bailed before you signed on the dotted line. The world is big and there are a lot of peple in it, a lot of places to work, ways to avoid negative people. Became unavailable to these vestiges of the past. Get out and get busy. A new hobby, working out, improve your golf swing or learn to golf, take a Fred Astaire dance class, learn to make wine or brew specialty beer, join the Sierra Club and restore some hiking trails, join a book discussion group, learn to meditate, volunteer at the local food bank, spend part of Thanksgiving feeding the homeless. Join an investment club, expand your horizons. Next time take it a little slower, spend more time getting to know her, do some "defensive" dating, that's lots of casual dates, no commitments, just keeping it light, casual and fun.

The talking about you and to your freinds is about her not you. Leave that, don't pick it up, it's not your problem. Keep moving, growing, expanding your horizons so that when a woman who could be right comes into your life you won't be boringly immersed in a pity party hangover.