How to deal with the up and downs of my emotions

it just takes time to have those feelings go away. That is how abusive people keep their abused around them. They treat them nice just enough for that person who is desperate to be treated nice to stick around for those nice times & the good feeling they get from the person the few times they do treat them nice. The abused perdon also holds onto the wishful thinking that if that person can be nice some of the time then THEY WILL CHANGE & be nice all the time if they just do what that person wants. It never happen but dreaming that it will keeps them trapped.

Normal will come again....just stay strong. You can do it.

Thank you so much! I’m leaving for work now and I’m afraid he will show up there. I got really nervous when I saw him yesterday and I don’t want to get like that in front of clients or my family. I hope that I am ok, I need to at least look like I am strong.

You can get through this here when you need support & encouragement for strength

From what you have shared, it sounds like this man has a certain bag of tricks that he has found out gets the attention he wants from women, including you. This is all about HIM though and what he learned to do to gain attention and praise. What he did "act like a gentleman" with you was part of how he drew you in, but that did not last and never does with people like him. Once you got into a relationship with him you lived your life by "his" control and he did what HE wanted which in what you described is he goes out and drinks and practices his flirtation tactics on other women AGAIN to get attention. Actually, he may even have a problem with alcohol and that will take precedent over you or any partner he is with. All your arguments with him revolve around how you do so much for him and he doesn't really do for you. The reason is because he doesn't have it in him, he CAN'T play that game with you, it was NEVER about you, it was always about what HE WANTS.

It has not been very long since you broke up with him, you are still "wanting" that something you never got with him and you are questioning that maybe it was your lack or your fault when there was never anything you could do to get him to be able to be what you had wanted from him, he doesn't play that way and never did and NEITHER did your exhusband. Neither man was capable of actually "loving" and appreciating you either, they only learned how to play a game that got them what they wanted from you it was NEVER something mutual or conducive to being a relationship that was a healthy give and take.

When your ex ended up cheating on you with your best friend, I bet both these individuals had always been about themselves but you just did not see it that way. You were probably attentive with both of them, but that was not about YOUR needs or actually considering YOUR needs and feelings. You think you might be doing something wrong when you blocked him, but you are conscientious and that's how conscientious people think. But what you have to come to realize is that HE is not conscientious like you, and that is why it was so easy for him to move on. All he did was play you to where you believed he was conscientious like you are and HE JUST ISN'T and neither was your ex-husband or even your friend that was so willing to cheat with your ex-husband.

I can be challenged with this myself Deyla. I have said many times "My wheelhouse doesn't work that way" and that's the truth in that in being conscientious I tend to care more and consider the other person's needs more and that sets me up to be even more hurt when that other person fails to respect me and ends up taking something from me that is important to me, including my trust. The reason you fear running into him is because YOU CARED, but he doesn't and he can HURT you because of that. What is at risk is your sense of self esteem and self worth, he HURT YOU and NEVER really considered YOUR FEELINGS. Often the biggest problem when someone is conscientious is that person tends to keep thinking the person who is hurting them will some day CARE and appreciate. Well, THAT is expecting that other person to have something he or she just doesn't HAVE in them like you do. That's why you feel so disadvantaged around him or anyone else like that that has hurt you. I can relate to struggling with that challenge. People who are users and manipulators can be very charming and seductive and can SEEM to really care and value you as a person. What they really want however is the world to revolve around themselves NOT YOU. That is why it's so much easier for them to ditch you when someone else comes along that they can get adored by. All you were is just someone on their patsy list. Actually, that's the only reason he might call you too, it's AGAIN about him and seeing if he can keep you on his patsy list.

It's hard to be "alone" and when you make a break in a relationship with anyone, it can be a challenge, especially if you are a conscientious person. Yet, being alone can also happen in a relationship too and actually it can be worse in that you try to care and hope the other person will actually care about you, respect you, appreciate you, but you just keep getting hurt. That's why YOU LEFT and you must remember that Deyla, you were unhappy and you did the right thing for yourself. Usually, it's the conscientious person that hurts the most. You see through a very different lens and that makes it hard to see the red flags where you can be hurt.

just remember that the mind has been PROVEN to have neuroplasticity (the ability to learn & change). Just because a person sees things one way doesn't mean that their mind can't learn to be more mindful to see the big picture of life, people & what is REALLY going on around them. You don't have fo feel that you are stuck being this way forever.

Like I have said many times....just because OUR mind doesn't think in hurtful ways doesn't mean we aren't CAPABLE of recognizing the behaviors & red flags or danger around us. We have to be careful we are not using things like that as excuses for our own behaviors.

I caught the home care person who was subtly abusing my mom when she was dying of cancer. From the first day I had an uncomfortable sense about the whole situation when my mom came home frpm the hospital. (Long story) I put pieces together over those next 5 days. Everyone around me said NO WAY things like that don't happen to people like my mom. I refused to listen to what they said & I listened to my own gut feeling. I was right but I did such a good job of protecting my mom that the evidence the police needed she didn't provide because she knew I stopped payment on the 2 checks she wrote. Does it mean I think like that evil home care person because I was wise enough to be observant & see the things she was doing? NO WAY but I am also not nieve enough to not be aware of when something not right is going on around me. We owe it to ourselves & sometimes those around us to learn to be wise & aware. We used to call it having "street smarts" (beong aware of what might possibly happen)....kinda like my old computer programming days of using flowcharting...."if / then/ else" works on life too & helps us stay more in our logical mind.

Ok....off my now

This is true eskie, and what I am trying to help Deyla understand is that she is always going to be a conscientious person and that can present these challenges she has shared experiencing here in this thread. A conscientious person is apt to "hurt" more than a person who lacks conscientious abilities. A conscientious person is going to experience more guilt and shame than a person who lacks conscientious abilities too. That is why her blocking him is causing her more anxiety than it is for him too. A conscientious person will "wait" and is more "patient" then a person who lacks can be. Conscientious individuals are more apt to "hesitate" too. Actually one of the things that had to be trained out of men who go off and fight is how that conscientious part of them caused them to hesitate which cost them and others their lives in battle.

He doesn't have it to care Deyla. You keep hoping for something that's just not there. You are conscientious, he is NOT. Understand?

A consciencious person is just someone whose emotional mind plays a stronger role in their thought process & decision making. It is still all a part of the mind which is capable of learning & being reprogrammed to at least give the logical mind equal time in the thought decision making process of our minds. Wise mind thinking is learning to take one's emotional tboughts & logical thoughts & coming up with thinking & decisions that are the intersection on both. Everyone is capable of learning how to do this.

A consciencious person does NOT have to be sentenced to being hurt more for the rest of their life. That negates the knowledge that the mind is neuroplastic & can learn better ways of thinking. To use the excuse that someone who is consciencious is going to be hurt more the rest of their life is an excuse to continue to stay in the victim role. That is not necessary & modern psychology research has proved this kind of thinking to be wrong when they learned through stroke & TBI (traumatic brain injury) victims that the mind is totally capable of learning new ways of thinking. Being a consciencious person comes from the brains thinking & that can be taught to have thinking that is more functional in one's life. It takes work but it is completely possible.

Exactly what I am saying. No person has to stsy that way if it is causing harm in their own life either....& needless to say the harm is obvious in constantly being hurt by others.

I am not saying that a conscientious person is doomed to being hurt the rest of their life. What I am trying emphasize to Deyla is that she can understand this about herself and learn to identify the red flags she experiences in others that will NEVER appreciate her. eskie, you and I both know that I myself have struggled with this challenge.

I was just going by what was written. The words ALWAYS & "is going to experience" implies that this is how it always is going to be. I disagree because when a person learns to think in a wise minded way & truly become mindful of the world around them they become a wise minded person & the consciencious thinking is replaced by wise mind thinking. One doesn't have to hold onto that consciencious way of thinking when they have learned something that works better & doesn't leave them open to the hurt that the other way of thinking does.

I can’t even describe how I’m feeling right now and I can’t stop crying. He came to my job and like I knew would happen we fought right there. I really don’t understand why for once in my lifetime things can be essy. It’s normal for people to break up and not communicate. Why can it be so problematic for me? I am really down right now and can’t stop crying! I wish everything could stop! I don’t want to cry, think or anything, I just want to have some level of normalcy.

We are all cheering for you!! You got a lot of support here!

(((((Deyla)))))), you did not fail and the truth is that a lot of people DO struggle when it comes to relationships and ending them. So your ex came to your job, well, when he did that he was actually disrespecting your boundaries, you had a right to get angry at him. Unfortunately, your ex has learned that he CAN disrespect your boundaries and that's why he did what he did when he showed up at your work. This is one of the reasons you left him Deyla. You did open the door for his intrusion though when you contacted him and even told him you were expecting to hear from him. You made a mistake, but you can "learn" from it. You gave him too much "control" when you did that. He doesn't DESERVE to have that kind of control over you. You actually know that which is why you are crying. It's ok to cry and it's always best to distance so you can "feel" whatever you are feeling so you can calm down and begin to access what your emotions mean.

Crying typically happens when a person experiences something they don't know how to control, something that hurts them, even something that invades their personal boundaries and Crying often comes from some kind of unmet need too. We all start off with "crying" because that's what we learn to do when our tummies hurt and we are hungry and we cry out of a need to be fed as babies. It's the only language we have when we are small babies.
So, crying tends to happen when we lack the language needed to get a need met. Crying happens when we are tired, frustrated, cold, hungry and confused or frightened too. Well, you wanted something from your ex that he was not giving you, instead he was selfish and actually abandoned you. We all cry when we experience that challenge, we begin crying when we are very young not only as a baby but as a child growing up too. It often reflects an "unmet need".

You are in a phase in this relationship where you are crying out for him to provide for you and he isn't listening and what he does do is invade your boundaries instead and he "hurts" you. It's no wonder you would react to that by crying. You have been abandoned before, well, it's time to learn how to understand why that happens. You cannot fix a person who is selfish and doesn't care. You have a desire to fix it, but what you need to learn is that you can't actually fix him, instead you need to learn how to better see the kind of person that "fails" you like this. When someone fails you like this Deyla, it's not your fault or that you don't deserve it, it means the other person CAN'T give it to you. You need to learn how to stop giving a person that is like this too much "power" over you. It's not an easy fix but you did the right thing by walking away because he clearly is incapable of appreciating your efforts to care about him by returning care back to you. Perhaps you think that by walking away from him, it would get him to miss you and see you more, maybe he would react by giving you the attention you wanted. Well, what did you learn? He can't do that, instead he invades your boundaries. This means to GET RID OF HIM.

All this guy was was a con artist. He conned you into a relationship, but he never cared about you, he was just manipulating you. Actually, it's very much like Berney Madoff who got really good at conning people and a lot of people believed him, really talented intelligent successful people. All he did was use them and their money in his scheme until the money he got from them to play his scheme ran out. There were people that bought his scheme and even gave him more, in the end these people ended up finding out they were taken for a lot of money. Madoff never cared, about any of them, he just played all of them. People like Stephen Speilburg trusted him and were totally embarrassed to finally find out he was using them.

You are not the only one that fell for what seemed to be "Mr. Nice Guy" that seemed to "care". Yes, a guy like this can move on "quickly". You did the right thing when you broke it off and walked away. Now you need to stick to that and have nothing more to do with him. He just proved once again to you that he is incapable of respecting and caring about you.

Understand????

Getting out of a crappy relationship is not as easy as getting into it because there is a lot more emotions involved by that point.

The fact that he came to your work was VERY disrespectful to you. Work place is NEVER a place for personal issues to be confronted & you had every right to react the way you did. It also just reinforces that his actions are all about himself & he could care less about you. Probably had the intention of making you look like the bad guy in front of your co-workers. Hope it backfired on him miserably.

Crying is normal while we are resolving things in our own minds. Shoot I was in tears for years after I left my H. Not because I cared about him or missed him but because of the frustrations he was still causing me after 11 years of being separated from him (financial issues kept the divorce from happening earlier)

Until I actually got into good therapy where I learned to identify my emotions (other than anger & seeing red) & be able to express them. My therapy was nothing but crying without real words to explain the tears while both my DBT group leader & my private psycholigist worked on helping me learn how to express myself in a healthy way....something I had never learned in all my 54+ years of life.

It takes time to make your NEW NORMAL the normal you get used to being normal. Change always takes adaptation & we NEVER go back to the way it was because when we have gone through bad experiences the past can never be recreated. We always have to create a new normal that we become comfortable with.

The best way to get on with making your new normal is to cut all ties with that past that has created so much fighting in your life. If he comes around don't accept seeing him & if he comes to your work again have management escort him off the property if he won't leave on his own for you. (I did that when I was protecting my mom in the hospital...security helped me take care of the situation without my having to make a scene)

Just remember.....we feel this way
but when we start talking to others we find out that things like this are not JUST problematic for you but everyone goes through some level of problematic in situations similar to yours.

One thing I found is that most things when it happens & while we are working on resolving ut seems so very dramatic with no solutions. As we wirk through the issue things & solutions become more & more clear to us. Getting through that time period is the toughest. I have learned never to make decisions immediately when a problem hits me. I now take some time to think through it at a distance by setting myself apart in order to see the bigger picture & analyze options as they come to figure out how best to handle the problem. Before good therapy I wanted everything solved yesterday. Give yourself time & patience.

I don’t think I could ever tell you how much your support means to me. My family owns a restaurant and I work there with my stepfather, brother and a co-worker. That is where I met him. I don’t talk much to the clients besides normal day to day news. He is not a guy I would date at all. When he messaged me on fb, I found it ok but I never thought I would go out with him at all. But one day I had the need for a favor, my car broke down and I didn’t have anyone I could ask for help as it was after the storm in PR and he sent a message as I was going through the situation. He said I could repay with a date. I said yes but every time we had plans I would cancel, it was after the 4 time I made plans that I finally went out with him. He was nice and I really had a good time. As I continue to date him I always had the feeling and I told my brother several times that he was not this nice person he wanted me to believe he was. But he continued to do nice things for me and I was so grateful that even if something that I didn’t like I would just always try to work things out. As things got more serious and we started spending more time together we started to fight more often. My daughter moved away for college and he just decided that he could stay over, (never asked). Things will be fine if I decided to bite my tongue and ignore something he did. Basically Monday thru Thursday he would stay at my house and weekends at his apartment, since he knew I’m at work, can’t call, he had a free pass. Most times I was fine, it just bothered me if I asked what did he do and he would avoid the question. There was this Sunday that he came to the restaurant and he was so drunk that he would fall asleep sitting on a chair, I was so embarrassed! As you could imagine I heard it from my family. I saw all the red flags and I ignored them, why? Because I always try to see the good in people and I don’t give up so easily on people I care for. I know I probably set myself for failure! After all I knew from the beginning, I just knew he was going to change. I should not have let myself fall for him. I don’t know why I made the decision I made but it happened and I can’t change that. I know that what I am feeling will pass and it all make me a stronger person and I’ll make better decisions in my future. I tried my best to maintain our relationship but it didn’t work out, and as we say in PR, better things will come (not that I am ready!!!) Today I felt better than yesterday, didn’t cry and didn’t think so much, and I hope tomorrow I will be better. Thank you so much for your words of encouragement, I do really appreciate your time. When one is sad a lot of things cross your mind and your words help me stay somehow sane, and don’t currently believe that I am this psycho over jealous person he made me think I was. With your support, my mother, brother and co-woker I am able to see that he was just a manipulative person, who would have continued to handle me as a puppet. I don’t believe anyone should have to go through what we had to go through to maintain a relationship. There is no love, if you have to lower yourself to make anyone else happy.

Deyla, I haven't read all of the thread, but it sounds like this guy knows how to pretend to be nice to lure women in and then only after a while does he show his true colors. I haven't been in a romantic relationship, but I can be too trusting and nice and let people take advantage of me. It's something I'm working on.

I had the "friend" (she wasn't a real friend, but she would call me whenever she needed something). I felt sorry for her because she was mentally ill, blind, and homeless. So I would do things for her like paying for her to stay in a hotel, buying her groceries, and driving her wherever she needed to go. I did this mostly out of guilt because I felt sorry for her. But when I tried to establish some boundaries by saying I couldn't drive her around late at night anymore because I had work the next day, she responded with a very nasty message. She called me the C word and said some other nasty things. Then I realized that she had been taking advantage of me, and I realized that the reason she is homeless is because of how she treats people who try to help her. Her parents are sick of her and won't let her live with them.

Anyway, after she sent me that message, I blocked her number. I'm not going to have anything more to do with her. I might hear from her again because she is constantly changing phone numbers, but she hangs on to my number. But if I get another text from her, I won't respond.

((Deyla)), It was good that you calmed down and were able to write that recent post explaining your history with this guy. Your instincts and gut feelings were right about him from the beginning. Now that you were able to write out the history with him along with your feelings and your own actions, you have a better chance to look at all the pieces of this puzzle and see how you contributed to this picture, not realizing it which a lot of people do not just you.

Most women subconsciously and instinctively want a man that will take care of them. This is on a deep level in that because women are the child bearers, and our babies are dependent for so long, the woman tends to look for a strong male that can provide and protect in a way that provides "safety". As long as a female ovulates, this is something she will "instinctively" desire often not even realizing it on a more conscious level. Men look for a female for different reasons, one of the instincts in a male is that of domination once the male gains the woman's attention and if you look at nature itself, most males in nature do have some kind of "display" they use to attract females. In nature it's the "males" that tend to have more color. You know Delay, we are intelligent human beings but we are STILL animals and we STILL have drives that revolve around "nature's design" that sets us up to procreate.

In your post you have described this:

So, despite the fact that your gut feelings about this guy were strong in saying this guy was wrong for you, you ended up in a situation where you had a "need" and because you knew he liked you what did you do? You called him and asked him for help. You opened a door for him.

You really did not want him Deyla, your gut STILL was saying no. Yet, because you did call him and he came to the "rescue" you gave in because, after all, you were obligated right? Well, what you don't realize is that his persistence also drew you into that acceptance. We call this courtship, but the truth is, a lot of animals practice this, including human animals.

Here again Deyla, your gut kept telling you "no" and you even said something to your brother. Yet, because this guy was "nice" you gave into that instead of your gut. Part of this was that you don't trust your own feelings, after all, you experienced someone (your ex and even your friend) you thought you could trust ending up letting you down in a big way. And part of this is that you were being courted and you liked it on an instinctual level.

This sometimes happens because you bought into the "after all he took care of me when I needed something" thoughts. Yet, your gut kept telling you he was wrong for you and you kept ignoring it, even to the point of biting your tongue when this guy began to believe it was ok to "invade" your boundaries. Because we tend to react by instinct instead of actual reason you are definitely not alone in making this mistake. This relationship forum in literally full of this problem and the ongoing battle of reason vs these more animal instincts human beings all have.

Deyla, you didn't fall for him, not really. You fell for something else you "thought" that he might provide you with, and honestly, a lot of people/women make this mistake. You wanted a presence you could feel safe with, he rescued you and treated you nice and that's why you took the risk even though your gut kept telling you not to. Yet, part of this not trusting in your own gut feelings is because of your exhusband who ended up doing something to you that completely caught you off guard. Experiencing this can do a lot of damage to a person's "self trust". This is what makes a person "vulnerable" too. What you experienced with your ex-husband made you question your own judgement, and not only that but it also made you question your "self worth" too.

When a relationship experiences a major threat to a person's trust, it definitely brings about some big emotional challenges and sense of self worth. This deep injury to one's personal sense of worthiness makes a person more susceptible to giving into someone who is pursuing in that when that happens it actually brings about "some" restoration to, self worth. Most "rebound" relationships fail because of this in that often the self worth is suffering so much that a person overlooks other things that are red flags where the individual pursuing them is not right for them. This is because of the damage someone suffers to their ability to trust, not only others but themselves, and their sense of self worth is also very damaged too. Actually, this is the main reason you called him and said "I was expecting you to call". This was not about wanting him, it was your effort to hang onto your personal self worth. Actually, that is also why you experience anger in how this guy plays his game with other women too. Truth is you gave in because you needed to regain your personal sense of self worth. That IS important to you and that was very damaged. This guy was never right for you, and you felt that all along, but you needed your self worth restored so badly that you ignored your gut and that is something a lot of people do without really realizing "why".

Actually, if you think about it a little differently where, let's say you had a customer come in to the restaurant and you waited on that customer knowing you do well at that an the customer is mean to you and catches you off guard and is very disrespectful towards you. That can leave anyone with some self doubt. Yet, what helps that is when a few other customers come in and are nice, they show you appreciation and actually tip you. This restores your sense of self worth again and keeps you going with a stronger attitude towards your work.

Well, that is often what a person is trying to experience in a rebound relationship, some restoration feelings.

So, this guy moved on "quickly" and the reason that bothered you? The main reason for that was it "hit you in your self worth need". That was really the MAIN reason you even went out with him and "allowed" him to do more than you should have allowed him to do. You also thought, "maybe this guy CAN actually take care of me where I can feel safe again", but that failed too and your gut told you that but you don't "trust" yourself remember?

So, this guy came into the restaurant, invaded your boundaries and that entire experience left you feeling all confused and you ended up breaking down and "crying" in desperation and confusion, leading to this vent.

I am helping you look at the puzzle you presented here Deyla. When you wrote the above post you were way too upset to think about the puzzle. But you got to cry and feel and finally calmed down where you were able to post a picture with words, and that's good, that is where you can write things out so you can finally start seeing the entire picture so you can better understand how this all happened. I wanted to show you how your own "humanity" played a role in how you chose to disregard your gut feelings too and why you were vulnerable to doing that in ways you had not realized. The tears you shed were due to your suffering a hit to your self trust and your personal sense of self worth. Yes, your gut was right, but, you wanted something you could embrace without even realizing it that you were trying to restore too. You wanted your sense of self worth back. Well, that ended up taking yet another big hit. Actually, so much so that now you are grieving "both bad relationships" because they both really damaged your personal sense of self worth. Unfortunately, when our self worth is damaged we can be very sensitive and susceptible not really knowing how to heal and restore. This makes us more "vulnerable", and insecure and doubtful, and that's a very HUMAN reaction ((Deyla)).

You "can" get to this point Deyla, You just need to sit and look at the bigger picture and understand yourself better and recognize your "own humanity". This guy was never really going to fill that need you had where you could regain your sense of self worth. You just did not listen to your own "gut" and wisdom and that's because of your lack of self trust because of what you experienced with your ex-husband. Actually, your gut has been consistently right Deyla, you did the right thing when you walked away. You always knew this guy was wrong, but what you wanted more was "that self worth", that's what made you so vulnerable, that's what the crying is also about too. A part of you wanted this guy to pursue you, that's the "need for self worth part" that you gave into. Unfortunately, a lot of people experience this kind of double hit in a rebound relationship and sometimes, they experience some restoration and begin to see how the rebound person isn't really the right fit for them. You were vulnerable, and yet you were right all along. Understanding how you were vulnerable, and how that contributed to this challenge will help you finally get past this and do what you always knew was the right thing to do, "cut this guy loose" once and for all.

A lot of people tend to kind of make feel sorry for them so they could manipulate you so they could have their needs met. But as one gets to know them you realize it and that’s when it has to stop. And believe me, when they get their chance to tell you how evil you are, like it happened to me on Friday, when he came to my work. I am glad I told him then that I didn’t want to be his friend and then I asked that if he believed he was a good person, like he always said he was, to please stop hurting me. And since then I don’t know anything about him. She might try to contact you again but if she does hang up, it’s your cell and you have no obligations with her or just plain and simple tell her what you feel. There’s a lot of services available that she could utilize, she needs to go somewhere, then call an uber. I’ve come to believe that sometimes trying to be a nice person could backfire. So as for me I learned my lesson , can’t and won’t ever be again in this position. I have to make decisions with my mind!!!