[LittleForgetMeNot]

For 2 years I spent my life online speaking with a guy whom I thought I was "in-love" with. Then he cheated on me with another girl online and I was devastated and until this day (over a year later) I wonder why he did it for he had said that he had truly cared for me and for those 2 years it seemed real.

For most of this year I was fine, I met someone new, someone in real life, someone who could talk to me and hug me and make everything go away. But recently that ex is starting to creep into my mind again and it's hurting our relationship. My boyfriend knows how much my ex hurt me, he knows that he has a way of getting into my mind. My boyfriend understands that this guy has a way of manipulating my thoughts and feelings without even being there and I feel so extremely guilty.

I love my boyfriend very much, with all my heart and I see ourselves together for a very long time. But my ex appears in my dreams, I'm unfaithful to my boyfriend in these dreams. And even though I know that I dislike my ex for what he did I still feel like I need to talk to him. I want to be over this, I thought I was.. But sometimes when I talk about it I start to cry, so it's obvious I'm not over it at all.

[lynn P.]

I agree its best not to talk to this ex if you feel he had this emotional hold. Did you get the satisfaction of closure - saying how hurt you were etc? It takes time to get over this kind of pain. Maybe type a no send email or letter...then rip it up. Do you feel he was stronger emotionally? I'm happy you now have a healthy relationship and hang onto that. Good luck.

Originally Posted by LittleForgetMeNot

For 2 years I spent my life online speaking with a guy whom I thought I was "in-love" with. Then he cheated on me with another girl online and I was devastated and until this day (over a year later) I wonder why he did it for he had said that he had truly cared for me and for those 2 years it seemed real.

I think people start out life wanting everything. That part is not the wrong part, btw.

It's just when I was growing up and I would hear women tell me, "I want you, I need you", I would absolutely believe them and for good reason. People want everything. So it was never a stretch in my mind to think that these girls wanted me too (at the time). The problem is, that's only half the story, right?

The thought should be expanded to, "I want you, I need you, I want everyone else too, I need everyone else too." Wanting something is easy, wanting something exclusively is something else. I think the same is true with every other emotion too.

When he said he cared about you, I think he did. He didn't just care about you though. He cared about other women, himself, his needs, etc. Works with love too.

Wanting someone is not an intellectual decision if we start out life wanting everything. Not wanting something, THAT is the intellectual decision. Pushing everything else out of your mind, that's the decision, that's the choice people make. Your ex couldn't do that.

And it seems you are having a hard time doing that now too.

If I was in your position, I would say, wanting your ex is not that spectacularly interesting. It's something that that's built-in to who you are as a person. You grow up wanting everything and he's there in that.

You pushed him out of your mind with distractions, but when you think about him, you realize that you never made the decision to not want him anymore. I think one of the biggest parts of growing up. You have to teach yourself to not want something anymore. So make the intellectual decision because relying on your emotions will just leave you where you are now.

It will always leave you wanting everything. Just my two cents.

[LittleForgetMeNot]

Originally Posted by lynn P.

I agree its best not to talk to this ex if you feel he had this emotional hold. Did you get the satisfaction of closure - saying how hurt you were etc? It takes time to get over this kind of pain. Maybe type a no send email or letter...then rip it up. Do you feel he was stronger emotionally? I'm happy you now have a healthy relationship and hang onto that. Good luck.

My boyfriend says the same thing. He's worried about these thoughts, the need to talk to him and how I've tried many times. He knows the emotional hold and it's not that he's worried I'll fall back to my ex and forget him, he's just worried about my feelings. He doesn't want me to be hurt again and he's so sure that if I talk to him it'll happen again.

I never really did get closure. My ex and I always went through this thing where we'd break up and hate each other but get back together. But at that time he pretty much cut me off for a few days and came back and when he did, he came back wanting to be friends, never wanting to talk about us and always wanting to either talk about how great she was or how much she had been hurting him. There wasn't much time to talk out our feelings and let go of them (even now I hear from a mutual friend that every time I'm brought into the conversation my ex wont stop talking about me for hours).

I've done the rip up thing with a card he once sent me for Christmas, I ripped it up, burned a piece and threw it all in the trash and this made me feel like I had let go for a while, but it has all come back now.

[hoping4best]

Notcrazylikeyou has put it in awesome words!