“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.” Rumi
You’ve been hurt. You’ve been hurt badly. You try to talk it out. You try to reason. He refuses to listen. He enforces his own agenda. He refuses all accountability and responsibility.
You cry. You scream. You negotiate and beg. Yes. Your self-respect is so low at this point that you’re not above begging him to listen.
You have a love/hate thing happening with him. You hate how he’s dismissing you, diminishing you as a human being, forgotten how awesome you are, judging you, ignoring you, replacing you. But you love him because when you look at him you still see the wonderful man you fell in love with, shared so much with. He’s still your guy even though you’re no longer his girl.
You’re not even sure what you want from him anymore. You’re torn. You sit on a fence; one day you want to hate him and forget him as he’s forgotten you. The next day you sob yourself to sleep and awake wishing he would see you again as you were and not the crazy mess you’ve devolved into. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. Your mind spins through the Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda. You regret. You ruminate. You obsess.
But he won’t see you as you once were. His memory is short, tainted by the mess you’re in, the mess he’s helped make but refuses to help clean up. He’s moved on. You’re forgotten, the amazing woman he loved is in his past and he doesn’t care about you at all. He ignores you, refuses to communicate, denies you.
Because he’s moved on, he insists you do the same. Let go. Move on. According to him, it’s been over for a long time even though it was just a few months prior that he said he still loved you and wanted you in his life.
You’re confused.
You’re frustrated.
You’re angry.
You’re sad.
You try to talk to him but he refuses to listen, says that you cannot be reasoned with but his idea of reasoning is telling you what to do, how to feel, how you should react and you are expected to nod and smile and accept with grace and dignity whatever choices HE makes on your behalf. But your fighting spirit (and what’s left of your self-respect) won’t allow that.
It feels like gaslighting. He’s slowly ghosted you from his life, weaned off of you until he no longer needs you. The act of ghosting just causes more confusion and causes more problems. He wonders what’s made you so crazy, psycho and unbalanced all of a sudden.
The stages of grief wash over you tossing you between the waves – shattering, denial, depression, rage, withdrawal, internalizing, bargaining. You long for acceptance.
How will you get that peace when so much was left unresolved, so many questions without answers, so much confusion and frustration?
It’s hard to let go when you feel victimized. It’s hard to let go of a person you admired and adored so much.
Let it happen. Let it go. Move through the stages. Revisit the stages as you need; healing is not a linear path. You backtrack. You get lost and you find your way again.
The apology and acknowledgment you seek will never come. He doesn’t respect you or your feelings enough to offer you that.
Accept and acknowledgment an apology from him will never come. You need peace of mind. Journal your thoughts. Refrain from messaging him. Wish him well. Wish him luck. Wish him love. You deserve peace. You deserve to be happy, as does he. But he doesn’t need or want to hear of your pain anymore; it’s not his problem. You are not his problem.
The minute you accept it is over, you release all of your anxiety and stress. You feel sad, disappointed, yes but you can shrug off the heavy cloak of toxicity and move forward with a smile on your face, a smile another man will recognize and love. You deserve that. You deserve to be wanted fully and loved unconditionally. You deserve to feel safe and not judged for your weakness. You deserve forgiveness.
Life becomes much easier when you learn to accept an apology you’re never going to get.
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excellent article. It captured my feelings exactly. Just replace ‘he’ with ‘she’ and it nails my experience. Thank you.
Excellent article, one of the best I’ve read at capturing the incredible emotions! You must have been hiding inside my head when you wrote this, as it perfectly depicts what happened to me.