Terrible self-esteem and self-confidence, the hard earned gifts of a horrible breakup
The last 2 years have been pretty rough, even according to my standards. It changed me in a bad way and it took me until recently to realize how fucked up I am at the moment. From an outsiders view without exaggerating my life has been pretty rough so far. There where multiple occasions where the future was unclear or at least it seemed like it at the time. I also found myself multiple times in desperate, dangerous, back to the wall or even straight up life threatening situations even though it often was my own fault. I also already had a lot of drama in my life. Friends dying, an alcoholic single mother who at times was unable to cope with me and all of my siblings which led to me stepping up and which still is nothing but a ticking bomb. An older sister who had a suicidal phase where I honestly feared of losing her, a close friend that suffered from severe depression and suicidal thoughts. A horrible fight for child custody over me and 2 of my siblings, as well as some shit I drove myself into. Point is, I have/had more on my plate than most other, especially at my age. It is definitely not the worst that could be, but it would be enough to break a lot of people. It never did break me though. There was time where I struggled with all of this, but I managed to overcome this. From a certain point in my life, whenever something horrible or threatening happened I just accepted it and took care of it as best as I could. Usually there always was something major that I had to worry about or felt like I should take care of it. It weirdly became natural to me, I didn’t even thought that all of this was that fucked up until I talked to friends about it as a whole and realized their reactions. I accepted that this is my life and expected that it would always be like that, but I was fine with it. My idea of happy was being able to help the people I feel obliged to help and that the things around me won’t have to potential to completely wreck my life/that of others. Some general sort of stability would probably a good term for it.
Instead of breaking me, I just got stronger and better at handling stuff like this. Whenever something turned out acceptable or sometimes even good despite the odds, it made me more confident, leading to me eventually believing that in the end things will be all right and somehow the struggle will be worth it.
I am not religious, even though the whole thought of having something in the end that makes up for all the trouble sounds a bit like it, but I think it is a result of my fascination for video games. “Would be really weird if there weren’t any treasure in this super hard dungeon right?”. I think it really is like this because when in doubt, I often thought that life just being shitty for some people without any reward would be rather shitty, despite that being the case quite often.
What I was trying to get at: All of that shit didn’t bring me down and didn’t cause me any trauma or whatever. I was still perfectly functioning, taking care of me and others while trusting that there would be some form of happy end.
I haven’t been truly happy for the most of my life, but I always managed to be fine. Being truly happy to me means that you are at a point in your life where you can say “I wouldn’t mind if everything in my life at the moment would stay like it is”. I am not talking about things being perfect, but about your life in general being in a state where you have a peace of mind. There isn’t any imminent danger that might break you down.
Being fine to me means that you are at a point in your life where you can say “I couldn’t live like this forever, but for a period of time it is certainly ok”. You might not have a peace of mind, but the things that threaten you are manageable. You are basically on your way to being happy.
The last year only felt rough since I am not fine anymore. It all started with a horrible breakup with my girlfriend about 2 years ago. We had been together for 6 years and she lived at my place for 5 of those. It happened unexpected and at a pretty bad time, I just recently realised that I wouldn’t be happy in the field I was currently studying and my best friend who was probably the person I held closest to me was about to die. My friend struggled with cancer for a few years and since there wasn’t any hope left he chose to commit medically assisted suicide. I knew about this before, but when he told me the final date and that he would appreciate it if I could stay with him and his family when it happens it did hit me quite a bit.
The following week I was very quiet and shut. It was one of the main reasons my ex gave me for breaking up. Of course a week of understandably grief isn’t a reason to end relationship that lasted 6 years, but at the time my thoughts where already occupied so I was too stupid to figure that out. In the end we agreed to try to start again. Unfortunately I didn’t know that she was already seeing someone else – for the past 3 month to be precise. Her efforts to restart our relationship weren’t honest, she just wanted to continue living the next few month at my place until her apprenticeship ends and she could get her own place without having to move back in with her parents. After I got informed that the death of my best friend will happen in a few month, my mind was a bit less occupied as I expected it to be way sooner.
I didn’t figure out that she had been and still was cheating on me, but I realized that I didn’t really had a chance and that she was at least seeing someone else as a potential new partner. I confronted her after a few days which ended in her telling me some lies and little bits of truth. In the end I told her that she had a month to move out which she didn’t enjoy. I felt bad for kicking her out. I am usually very helpful and had taken care of her for a relative long time, so I tried to explain to her that I couldn’t have her around me like that. I still was under the illusion she cared for me, told her how I had incredible chest pain and breathing problems on various occasions like when waking up next to her. I had been to the hospital because of those symptoms and it was diagnosed as a temporally stress influenced heart problem that shouldn’t be dangerous as I am young and fit but still. She didn’t care and got very angry, at least she moved out a lot sooner than I asked her to.
What I thought would be the last annoyance by her was her taking way longer to pick up her stuff and not managing to get it in one go but rather expecting me to be present to let her pick parts of her stuff on separate occasions. She also took a number of things that weren’t hers, but at the time I didn’t realize it or I didn’t care. In general I have to admit that I was pretty dumb throughout the whole breakup. I felt like every key part of my life was breaking down at that time so I just let everything happen.
After she moved out things went a lot better. The occasional pain and breathing problems became less frequent and my mind became clearer. She still hadn’t picked up all of her stuff and I occasionally dropped of mail for her at her mothers work but overall things seemed ok.
The next wave of stress came when the news of our separation got around. It was about 2 weeks after she moved out when I first noted that we weren’t together anymore. I did so because I knew that she would have a hard time with it and I still followed my usual habit of protecting her. We both had our “own” friends, but there were also a number of people who were in touch with both of us and in general this gets a bit awkward in these situations. I don’t believe in choosing sides, but it sadly is what usually happens.
Looking back on it, it was a bit comical that I was the one who still defended her whenever it seemed reasonable and calming down my friends, while they were pretty upset for the most part.
A lot less comical was it when I then got told from multiple people that they already knew as my ex was spreading a lot of lies about me pretty much from the point where she moved out. I was still overprotective, defended her by saying it was a stressful situation for her too etc. This went on for a bit until a few of my friends had enough and they straight up confronted me with a bunch of proof for most of their accusations.
Things they got me proof of included My ex already having another boyfriend which she hides from her family. My ex definitely been with this guy behind my back for 3 month while we were still together. Apparently they even rented a hotel room at one point as the guy he was cheating on me with also was in a relationship at the time. My ex spreading numerous of lies about me and basically defaming everything I did for her.
That my ex cheated on me hit me pretty hard. Despite all those signs like her having already another boyfriend, planning on moving in with him when her apprenticeship finishes etc. I still was under the naïve impressions that I was right in trusting her all those years in the same fashion she could have trusted me. I am usually very good at reading people and also very realistic when it comes to my expectations of them, but I was completely blind and dumb at the time.
That she was openly denying almost anything I did for her and even twisting stuff completely also still baffles me. This post isn’t about bragging about me as a partner, even this whole thing about my ex was meant to be an introduction and got way out of hand by this point, but I have to say it: I worked hard for this relationship and for my ex. I was trying my best to be a good partner and I believe that for the most part I succeeded in doing so. This relationship was probably “my” thing I worked the most for so far. It included fixing her life and a lot of her problems. Without me she most likely would have been a mess at this point which she even admitted - which is why her betrayal and denial baffles me so much.
Theoretically I get it. She cheated on me so she automatically becomes the “evil one” in this story, unless she manages to make me look worse somehow. And even though I could now easily explain all those things with some of her character flaws and general attitude, I still seem to be stuck in some sort of denial. It feels like she could have never done those things, yet she ultimately did. I also can’t really process her ignoring about how I helped her. The thing that ultimately hit me wasn’t that the relationship ended, feelings can change no matter how much effort you put into it, it was how it ended. She owes me a lot and the only thing I expected in return was that she would respect me and what I did for her.
I take loyalty and honour very seriously. She knew that, as well as she knew that by cheating on me she would hurt me a lot. It was a topic we talked about a few times where I told her that this was the one thing she could really hurt me with. Before I knew she cheated on me I was just sad, but after that there was an incredible sense of regret and a big nothingness that seemed to swallow each and every feeling. I am very careful/old-fashioned with trust or the word friend in my native language and this time I got betrayed by one of the people I held closest to me and in which I trusted the most.
My feelings for her weirdly stopped completely the moment I knew she cheated on me, but what she did still has a hold on me for some reason. I can’t look back on those years without a feel of strong regret kicking in soon after I remember how happy I felt. I know that if someone else would tell me about all the things I did in this relationship, I would tell him that he can be proud of it, despite the fact it was for the wrong person. For myself it won’t work though. By cheating on me, she turned what otherwise would have been a good partner into a fool who wasted his efforts and in the end got used. The fact that I let myself get fooled so hard also is difficult to shake off. I can’t look back on those years without eventually wishing it never happened as well as I can’t look back on my actions without seeing them as foolishly wasted.
So far for the introduction that got out of hand, but what about my self-esteem and self-confidence? Let’s start with my self-esteem.
I guess I always had some terrible self-esteem in the way that I was way to humble. A lot of the shit that surrounded me I voluntarily got into. I can definitely say that I had a huge positive impact on a lot of people’s life’s. I helped a lot of people with their problems or even just been there for them when they needed someone to talk to. I am good at sensing problems and when people have the desire to talk to someone about them. Either that or most people just chose to ignore it. I have gone out of my way to help others but I never bragged about it. I believe that it is in your duty to help whenever you can safely do so, so I was just doing what I believed I was supposed to do. I know that this was more than a lot of people would do, but it still felt wrong to take any credit.
Same goes for any academic achievements, I always felt that I did what you are supposed to do and that there isn’t anything special about it.
Another good example is me and videogames. I have always been very good at them, not matter what genre except MOBAs. There even were 3 games where I managed to compete at a national or even international level and made some money from it. Besides one of those games though I never felt like being that good. When winning I wasn’t like “yeah I won because I did thing X” but rather “he lost because he did thing Y”. For some reason I felt like giving the credit for my win to my opponent rather than to my skill. Amongst my friends I am known for my phrase “You don’t have to be good. It’s enough for your opponent to be worse then you.” which summed up my self-esteem pretty good I think.
Despite me being humble, I did know though that I at least wasn’t bad. Nowadays I feel like it though. I feel completely irrelevant and that I am not good at anything, the others just simply suck and I just happen to suck a bit less. I don’t feel like I achieved anything or like any of my actions mattered whatsoever. I don’t feel like I have a significant impact on anything. There are things I used to be proud of, but that sense of pride is gone somehow or I just simply don’t care anymore. I just see the things where I fucked up, everything else seems to have lost all its meaning.
About my self-confidence, well you wouldn’t think that I have a problem with that since I always found great fun in acting arrogant and I always been sure about my abilities. Maybe it is how I understand that word. I am not unconfident in the sense that I don’t trust in my abilities. I know what I am capable of since there usually is some proof about it. What I mean with terrible self-confidence is that whenever there is something that isn’t completely in my control, I expect it to horribly backfire. I have always been very cautious but in a reasonable manner. Now I am not only worried about negative outcomes, I expect everything to fail if it is able to. I never feared exams, I knew how I prepared so I knew what I was capable of. Instead I now fear that there will be questions about topics the professor hasn’t covered and so on. I expect something that is completely out of my control to come in and just ruin things for me. Whenever something is down to luck, I expect it to fail and sometimes even expect things to fail for some absolute absurd reason.
My recent lack of self-confidence and self-esteem is a big part of me feeling shitty for the last 2 years. There are days where I have to force myself to keep on just because everything feels meaningless. My studies are very successful, yet I expect to end up not finding a job after I graduate for some arbitrary reason. My mother still has a serious alcohol problem and it gets worse. Since quite some time I expect her to break down completely and I just want to be able to shelter my siblings that still live there by that time…
I lost all motivation to get into a relationship. Despite regretting my last long term relationship, I still know that I really enjoyed being in one. The breakup though showed me that in the end you still need a ton of luck – so of course I expect it to fail and then there isn’t any reason to try. That my last relationship ended after 3 month with her cheating on me also doesn’t help I suppose, even though it was a completely different case. The relationship thing also digs deeper. After years of struggling I realized that I would like to have a family and that I probably would be a decent father. But how is that going to work if you aren’t really ready to take on a relationship? Also I am really scared by how blindly I was towards my ex. We were together for 6 years which is a long time but things still broke down in a surprising fashion. How long you need to be with someone until you can be sure that things work out? I wouldn’t want my children to also experience a divorce and I don’t want to feel the pain my father it probably feeling whenever he realizes how minimal his connection to us is.
Plus because of my current self-esteem I don’t think anyone could find interest in me. I know that this is far from truth, but it doesn’t feel like it.
I don’t feel any connection to my remaining friends. I know they value me, I know they stay by my side but I don’t feel like it. It feels like they are completely exchangeable just like I am exchangeable for them.
I hate how weak I am at the moment. I feel like I should have done so much more, like I completely screwed up everything. I hate how I just keep on going because that’s what I always have done. I feel stuck. I expected things to get better when time passes by, but they didn’t. It has been almost 2 years now and I am still haunted by this stupid breakup and it seems like wherever I look there is just misery and more pain that is either waiting for me or that I am unable to prevent others from. I feel trapped and like there isn’t any real escape out of this. Occasionally I wish that someone would just show up in my life like I did for others and have the same impact on mine which just shows me how weak I am at the moment. For myself I always stated that if you want something, you have to work for it. Yet here I am, hoping that somehow everything will go well without me having to worry about anything.
I feel like a failure for letting something that happens to most of us throughout life and which most shrug of have such a big impact on me. I want to go back to my former self that didn’t felt like life owed him anything, who just kept on marching whatever happened and who always stayed optimistic.
I read trough the whole blog and I'll try to respond a little bit.
First of it seems like you're actually a really good guy and person.
You actually remind me of myself in a lot of things. I've had to deal with some bad things in my youth as well (though not nearly as bad as you) and kept on going thinking I dealt with it pretty well. The self-confidence while acting arrogant is exactly how I am as well .
The most fucked up thing that happened to me was when my father passed away. Thank god he was an awesme dad tho and my mom is still incredible. Like I said I kept going and thought I dealt with it pretty well. Turns out years later that I discover that I have social anxiety disorder. I'm pretty sure I already had it before that but I am also pretty sure that my father passing away made it a lot worse. Before that I made a lot of friends and could be outgoing. After that I barely made any friends and got even more introverted than I used to be.
I'm not saying that you have social anxiety but you might have some other form of mental illness which you just don't realise because of all the terrible things you went trough. For me getting professional help worked really well and it has improved my life significantly so I would recommend doing it if you haven't already. Even if only to confirm that you're healthy in that regard.
Anyway I'm not sure if my post is very coherent but I wanted to respond anyway and to let you know that there are people who go trough fucked up things as well (although again your situation is a lot worse).
I can chime in with some of my own experience. I am in a relationship with a woman since summer 2006. We are married since 4 July 2009. We have the most awesome daughter one can imagine, she is healthy, laughing, smart child. Oh, I am going to be 32 in two weeks. In the late summer 2014 I found out my wife had а relationship with another man. Up until that moment our own relationship was perfectly fine. This shattered all my illusions for her, I felt like what you describe, all feelings gone. If we didn't have a child, I would have left her on the spot. I then said I'd try to be in this marriage, for the sake of our good memories. Now, in a couple of months, I will divorce her since things are not getting better and the child is 6 years old so she can understand our break up. Those almost two years I've tried to understand what went wrong. I never will, I guess. Because I found out it's all about the small things, never the large ones as they are too easy to dramatize and act. There just comes a time when you start caring less and less for the other person, imo. That's when you start to think about other people and eventually start another relationship, when the love is gone. I've thought for hours at a time why this happens, what did I do wrong, what she did wrong. A few months back I just stopped thinking about this, it lead me nowhere. I just realized I have tons of reasons to be happy. I am just enjoying every moment I can with my daughter and now I am thinking about what my life will be without her mother in it. I guess I am trying to tell you to search around for something that makes you positive. I think I see a buttload of potential in you for happiness, not being broken by the events you described screams of intense mental endurance. It's impressive. I myself try to focus on things like "I am healthy, mi daughter too, she is awesome, I have a decent job, I have a home, I don't think I will struggle financially like ever, why should I torment myself with negative thoughts about my wasted marriage, I should just enjoy my life and this child in it, the brightest thing ever.". And when I do this, it all makes sense and I feel positive. If you, however, for whatever reason can't find some positive things, you might have some form of depression and probably need professional help. I wish you well, waffelz, I really do. Get well sooner and be happy!
You've had to deal with a lot growing up and you learned a way to cope where you had to take on everything yourself. Rather than looking at what others could do you instead looked only at what you could do in an attempt to work with a bad situation and make the best out of it. It's a really solid technique and it's brought you quite a bit of success. It's helped you excel at many things but now you're hitting a wall and because it's all you know you're feeling very lost.
You're seeing how in a relationship trying to take on everything yourself isn't going to work anymore, not only that but you're seeing how it made you blind to a relationship that might never have been able to have worked out.
Just because this method isn't working for you anymore don't forget how it's worked for you in the past, I know it's hard but try not to beat yourself up over it so much and maybe even try to feel a little good about it.
I think you already know this but in a relationship you can't succeed by trying to only make it work from your end, half the challenge of a romantic relationship is finding the right one.
I wish you luck in your future endeavors and I hope things end up working out for you in the long term~
On January 03 2016 12:45 waffelz wrote: So far for the introduction that got out of hand, but what about my self-esteem and self-confidence? Let’s start with my self-esteem.
Self esteem contains two required components. 1) self confidence that one is competent to tackle the basic challenges of life. 2) self respect that one is worthy of happiness
you need both aspects to have self esteem.
On January 03 2016 12:45 waffelz wrote: Plus because of my current self-esteem I don’t think anyone could find interest in me. I know that this is far from truth, but it doesn’t feel like it.
when it comes to self-esteem like attracts like. high self esteem people tend to get together and couple up; likewise low self esteem people tend to couple up.
my final message regarding low self esteem is this:
dissatisfied with your low self esteem? do something about it
Self esteem is one of those things you really can't do anything about. It's more innate. Self confidence you can build through bettering yourself though. Working out, setting goals and meeting them, etc.
Low self esteem has benefits, pros and cons. High self esteem has pros and cons as well though, it's just one of those things you have to work with to your strengths.
On January 04 2016 04:12 MarlieChurphy wrote: Self esteem is one of those things you really can't do anything about. It's more innate. Self confidence you can build through bettering yourself though. Working out, setting goals and meeting them, etc.
Low self esteem has benefits, pros and cons. High self esteem has pros and cons as well though, it's just one of those things you have to work with to your strengths.
after years of best practices high self esteem may seem "innate". however , it is not. my own self esteem has risen and fallen due to both good and inadequate behaviour.
self esteem is the reputation you acquire with yourself. you can do lots about low self esteem, however, the easiest thing to do is to just lay there and suffer. attaining solid self esteem is an accomplishment to be proud of; it requires a great deal of hard work; suffering. anyone can do that.
there is often a grain of truth in any myth. Because XMas just ended let's examine the myth of Santa Claus. "he sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake; he knows if you've been bad or good". There does exist an eternal recorder of all your actions. It is not Santa Claus; It is your own mind.
every day is judgement day; your own ego is the judge.
On January 04 2016 04:12 MarlieChurphy wrote: Self esteem is one of those things you really can't do anything about. It's more innate. Self confidence you can build through bettering yourself though. Working out, setting goals and meeting them, etc.
Again, my problems with my self-confidence aren't necessarily tied to my actual skill. I just assume things will go wrong for whatever reason or that I won’t be skilled enough no matter how skilled I am. It also highly annoys me that this happens with situations where there is so much proof that I am very well able to succeed unless something really random would happen, yet I assume it will.
I am heavily into full-contact martial-arts so I already work out but setting goals is a problem for me I guess. At the moment I don’t have any. I do most things because I have to/ know it is necessary or because I know it will benefit me once this whole slump is over. Also I tend to dismiss things as easy or at least not that hard as soon as I manage to accomplish them. If it really was that hard, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Maybe I also just need to think bigger/start asking myself what I really expect of me.
EDIT: Wonderful example after checking the GO thread. According to the new ranking I am better than 99.15% of the players. Immediate thought: public MM is useless anyways, clan vs clan is the only thing that matters in counterstrike.
I also keep martyring myself why the breakup triggered all of this/made it go out of hand ever since I realized that it caused it. There are many things that would be more understandable to crush me like this and since it’s been about 2 years now, I start to worry that things won’t change.
For your fear of letting your children experience a divorce, they will only if you sell them the illusion that a family is an unchangeable union. Yet everything changes, all the time. Stability is an illusion, safety is. Fear is a very useful emotion, but it is not there to protect you, just to infrom you that the possibility for change is near. Trying to stop something or hold on to it, is a recipe for agony. Don't confuse love with holding onto someone.
If you weren't able to bring you into a position you like, than it is time to improve the you. I suggest psychoanalysis and guided meditation.
On January 04 2016 22:40 waffelz wrote: EDIT: Wonderful example after checking the GO thread. According to the new ranking I am better than 99.15% of the players. Immediate thought: public MM is useless anyways, clan vs clan is the only thing that matters in counterstrike.
I also keep martyring myself why the breakup triggered all of this/made it go out of hand ever since I realized that it caused it. There are many things that would be more understandable to crush me like this and since it’s been about 2 years now, I start to worry that things won’t change.
don't confuse self-esteem with self-confidence. Self-esteem is, in effect , a "superset" of self-confidence.
as i've already said. self-esteem is more than just confidence.. it has 2 components. 1 component is self respect and 1 component is self confidence. u need both to have self esteem.
you can feel 100% self-confident in tackling the fundamental challenges of life and creating happiness. however, if you do not feel worthy of happiness .. in other words if you lack self respect in your worthiness as a human being to be deserving of happiness.. then u do not have self esteem.
your first step toward attaining better self esteem is understanding what self esteem is and what self esteem is not.
On January 05 2016 06:29 JWD[9] wrote: "Ist das Leben noch so miesy, hey take it easy."
For your fear of letting your children experience a divorce, they will only if you sell them the illusion that a family is an unchangeable union. Yet everything changes, all the time. Stability is an illusion, safety is. Fear is a very useful emotion, but it is not there to protect you, just to infrom you that the possibility for change is near. Trying to stop something or hold on to it, is a recipe for agony. Don't confuse love with holding onto someone.
I definitely don’t hold onto my ex. If I would never see her again it still would be too soon . My problem here also isn’t the “unchangeable union” of a family, it is what a divorce means to the child. It doesn’t matter how you sell it to them, it most likely will put stress on them even if you don’t have stuff light fighting for child-custody. Luckily I got spared by most of it, but there are lot of things that go on in a child because of a divorce. For example it is quite often for the child to feel responsible for the divorce even if there is no indication for that at all, even when both parents would act civil. Most of the cases at least one doesn’t act civil though. Just imagine my ex in that position, I don’t even want to think about her in a divorce where there are also children. I like to believe that I would have acted civil, but I am sure she wouldn’t. Just like with the divorce of my parents, in retrospect I have to say my father did a pretty good job for the most part while my mother handled the whole thing horribly. I always take great caution when my actions affect others and children are a big responsibility. You would want to avoid stuff like that happen to them at all cost since it has the potential to have an effect on them for the rest of their lives.
On January 04 2016 22:40 waffelz wrote: EDIT: Wonderful example after checking the GO thread. According to the new ranking I am better than 99.15% of the players. Immediate thought: public MM is useless anyways, clan vs clan is the only thing that matters in counterstrike.
I also keep martyring myself why the breakup triggered all of this/made it go out of hand ever since I realized that it caused it. There are many things that would be more understandable to crush me like this and since it’s been about 2 years now, I start to worry that things won’t change.
don't confuse self-esteem with self-confidence. Self-esteem is, in effect , a "superset" of self-confidence.
as i've already said. self-esteem is more than just confidence.. it has 2 components. 1 component is self respect and 1 component is self confidence. u need both to have self esteem.
you can feel 100% self-confident in tackling the fundamental challenges of life and creating happiness. however, if you do not feel worthy of happiness .. in other words if you lack self respect in your worthiness as a human being to be deserving of happiness.. then u do not have self esteem.
your first step toward attaining better self esteem is understanding what self esteem is and what self esteem is not.
Thank you for the input, I will take it in mind. I can tell you for sure though that my problem doesn’t lie into feeling unworthy of happiness. Good things don’t happen to you just because you are good/worthy. It would be nice if things work that way but they don’t. Some things you can influence others you can’t. You get what you get may it be good or awful, which scares me nowadays.
On January 05 2016 22:53 waffelz wrote: Good things don’t happen to you just because you are good/worthy. It would be nice if things work that way but they don’t. Some things you can influence others you can’t. You get what you get may it be good or awful, which scares me nowadays.
true.
i'd like to make a subtle distinction here. generating high self esteem is all about personal best practices. and it generates an internal feeling... you feel bulletproof. you feel like you can "make it happen" what ever "it" is. that feeling/disposition of high self esteem does not guarantee success in any specific goal based in the real world though.
the area of romantic love requires lots of specific observation skills and ruthless honesty. i know men who time-after-time always get girlfriends who cheat on them. i know women who continually end up with violent boyfriends. these people find their partners with the accuracy of a guided missile. how does this happen? the process is detailed and complex, however, i can sum it up with a single sentence. Self-Concept is Destiny.
i recommend Nathaniel Branden's various books and writing on Romantic love.
On January 05 2016 06:29 JWD[9] wrote: "Ist das Leben noch so miesy, hey take it easy."
For your fear of letting your children experience a divorce, they will only if you sell them the illusion that a family is an unchangeable union. Yet everything changes, all the time. Stability is an illusion, safety is. Fear is a very useful emotion, but it is not there to protect you, just to infrom you that the possibility for change is near. Trying to stop something or hold on to it, is a recipe for agony. Don't confuse love with holding onto someone.
I definitely don’t hold onto my ex.
The fact that what happen still bothers you in daily life says otherwise. I mean I know it's part due to needing to explain for the story to us for context, but it's really clear reading that still impacts you in a big way, as does all the other bad stuff you've outlined.
You got a lot of shit going on man, which people shouldn't have to deal with. Life ain't fair, but you know that. But you shouldn't let it break you as you have let it until now. Have you ever gone to a therapist?? (sorry I read it, but it's a lot, sorry if I missed that...).
Shit happens in relationships and you just gotta learn from it. But you sound a lot more like a doormat than a generous person. There's overlap there, but it's real easy for that to turn bad.
I dunno man, just try not to be so hard on yourself, not just in relationships but in all facets of life. you seem to be self aware that you need to make changes now, that's a huge first step that a lot of people never get to (see your delightful cartoon, which is going to be pritned and used as my own motivation now).
Seeing a mental health professional could probably help you out getting on track faster.
On January 05 2016 22:53 waffelz wrote: I definitely don’t hold onto my ex.
The fact that what happen still bothers you in daily life says otherwise. I mean I know it's part due to needing to explain for the story to us for context, but it's really clear reading that still impacts you in a big way, as does all the other bad stuff you've outlined.
There is a big difference in being over my ex and being over what she did to me. That relationship lasted quite a long time, it was my longest relationship so far and there was a period where I was closer to happiness than since a long time. It was also one of the few things that I was really proud of.
I still think I did a pretty good job back then, even though how it ended makes it harder to believe. I am also very cautious when it comes to trusting people or letting them get close to me, despite being pretty open otherwise. It was the first time I got hurt badly by someone I trusted a lot, as well as them seemingly completely turning and defaming things I did for them and even trying to hurt/damage me with things I trusted them with.
I think it is quite naturally to desire having that feeling back. This relationship made me realize a lot of things and while it lasted made me a much better and happier person, of course I would like to feel that again. Definitely not with her though.
But as I addressed in the end of my original post, this experience showed me a number of things which I fear will make it very hard or even unlikely to get back to a similar state.
- The fact that even after spending 6 years with someone, I still can get completely blindsided by something that big. Some things like her lies and attempts to hurt me where unforeseeable, but others where. Though it would have required me to think about her in a way that would have me in a state where I could have ended the relationship as well. Trust is everything for me in a relationship. If it is gone there isn’t anything worth staying for.
- Trust is hard to build, for me probably even harder than for others since I put more weight in it than most people. I already realized that it got way harder for me with this regarding relationships.
- No matter how hard you work for it, you might just get bad luck and end up with not even some nice memories but instead with memories that are tinted with regret.
- I am very focused on not repeating mistakes which is usually a good thing. In this case it just makes it more difficult to lay back and let things go with their flow.
- I am also always a little bit too much focused on the endgame which makes easing up in increasingly difficult.
It really isn’t me holding on to her, it is me being scared about how it still affects me and wishing to not experience something like that again. It really got to me. I know I shouldn’t have it let such an effect on me but I did and since I struggle with it hard enough as it is, I don’t want to know how I feel when it happens again.
I also wrote it down in such detail so I could show that it wasn’t just a simple breakup or a case of cheating, but a bit more devastating, at least to me. I also wanted to show that I am unable to shake it off like a lot of people are able to, but also give some reason to why that might be as I am confused as well why this of all things has such a grip on me + Show Spoiler +
To whoever this might cater to, please don’t get offended. I am not saying that a “simple” breakup or “just” getting cheated on is easy, nor that it is weird to hang onto it. I know that everyone experience pressure differently and therefore gets affected by it differently. I am just speaking for myself and my experience, having dealt with lots of things already. It is just a case of me seeing that there are many people who got cheated on or experienced breakups where there were more involved than “just” feelings. Like divorced/breakups with kids, things that went to court etc., yet it seems like the majority came through alright and where faster in doing so. I also feel like this just shouldn’t be the thing that’s pulling me down so much. In comparison, I once got assaulted by a group and severely beaten, thought I would die that moment and ended up spending over a month in a hospital. 3 very close friends died, the last one was my closest friend and I literally hold his hand while he deceased. I have some rather unpleasant memories of my childhood… yet I just accepted all these things and moved on for the most part. Stressing about a breakup which is more of an everyman’s-experience seems whiny to me in that context.
Shit happens in relationships and you just gotta learn from it. But you sound a lot more like a doormat than a generous person. There's overlap there, but it's real easy for that to turn bad.
I also wouldn’t go as far as calling myself generous. Helping people usually didn’t cost me anything but time and maybe calling in a few favours. Time that I most likely wouldn’t have spent with anything more meaningful and favours where often earned back that way or even more. I also just simply value things that more people than just myself benefit from higher than things only I benefit from and believe that it is in your duty to help if you can do so without damaging yourself.
I wouldn’t call myself a doormat either though, but I have to admit that I am not certain what you mean by “doormat”. I assume you mean I let people just walk over me which normally definitely isn’t true. I favour the more diplomatic approach to things and prefer to avoid conflicts as long as I don’t feel they are worth it but that is as far as it goes. When it comes to things that I feel are worthy, you will find yourself up against a wall with me being the wall .
However, since you are most likely referring to how I handled the breakup: You are absolutely right in this case. I let her just walk over me. It wasn’t my intend to show how generous or civil I tried to handle things when describing the breakup but rather show how pathetic I was. I tried to outline how I felt so overwhelmed by everything that was going on, the breakup, the inevitable death of my friend and changing my field of study. Probably for the first time I neither acted or reacted but simply took every blow and just waited for things to solve themselves.
That’s why I just went to my default of still defending her, not doing anything about the stuff she spread around or her taking things that didn’t belong to her (but I do want to add that I am sure at least the some of the things she simply wasn’t aware they were mine like some kitchen stuff etc.). I actually do feel ashamed about this and sometimes wonder if things would have been a bit easier for me if I hadn’t just taken very blow and acted a bit stupid/uncivilised myself as my friends countless times suggested to me). I did
Seeing a mental health professional could probably help you out getting on track faster.
The university I was attending at that time had a psychologist for students as well as the one I am attending right now. I tried out both for some time, but wasn’t really convinced. From friends I know how this works, for the most part they just help you spot problems you simply aren’t aware of, but in my case I can safely say they got way too distracted by a number of things and kept insisting on them being a big factor. They also seemed to have big problems with me being able to just accept so much things as well as my general lack of emotion in many cases where I could safely say that I didn’t hold anything back. They also both where pretty quick with suggesting depressions and the first I went to even suggested medicine pretty fast. Having heard from many people how they experienced their depression though, I could safely say though that my case isn’t that serious. Especially at the time, my life was just objectively shit and there where good reason to feel sad.
I did learn a number of things from them like trying to think more about myself or maybe to lower the standards I hold myself onto, but overall it didn’t felt like it was worth it after that. I know that 2 are way too few to close out on this, but I don’t really feel like it at the moment (which is mandatory for these things to work). Maybe I will try this again when things don’t change in a certain amount of time, but at the moment I don’t feel like it. Plus even though I am quite unhappy, I still feel so much better compared to the time when I was actually seeking guidance.
(see your delightful cartoon, which is going to be pritned and used as my own motivation now).
Yeah it is quite good, but it isn’t mine. A friend send it to me long time ago since it fitted me very well back then. There are also some sayings from previous me which you might also like then (translation might need a bit polishing though):
“Life always goes on, what matters however is “how” and that it is with you.”
And my favourite which I liked to get back to, being heavily involved into full contact martial arts: “When life punches you in the face, spit blood and teeth in front of him and ask if that’s all it got”
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uzPKbXB.jpg)
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. My problem here also isn’t the “unchangeable union” of a family, it is what a divorce means to the child. It doesn’t matter how you sell it to them, it most likely will put stress on them even if you don’t have stuff light fighting for child-custody. Luckily I got spared by most of it, but there are lot of things that go on in a child because of a divorce. For example it is quite often for the child to feel responsible for the divorce even if there is no indication for that at all, even when both parents would act civil. Most of the cases at least one doesn’t act civil though. Just imagine my ex in that position, I don’t even want to think about her in a divorce where there are also children.
