The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

I have most definitely entered a new phase in my life. In all honesty, it may be the most difficult one yet.  That’s right, more difficult than even the devaluing and discarding phases of being with a narcissist.  I am an expert on that as I have experienced those phases multiple times in the last several years, having divorced a full-blown narcissist a little over 5 years ago followed by dating and breaking up with another one almost immediately after that.

The new phase; I like to call it nothingness.  It is a place that I never thought I would be.  My life prior to and with my narcissistic ex-wife was pretty full, almost overwhelming, with non-stop activity and excitement.  Clearly, that came to a screeching halt during the devaluing and discarding, but hey, at least she was around during that period and SOMETHING was happening.  Same thing with Susie, the woman I dated on and off for over two years after the divorce.  I say on and off because, since she too was a narcissist, she walked away from me several times only to come back again, four times to be exact during that two year span.  Again, the time with Susie was a whirlwind, always on the go with additional unfulfilled plans drawn up and waiting.

Then, everything changed.  After Susie, something became apparent, and I can’t really define it other than to say that the nothingness set in.  In the last eighteen months since I stopped seeing or communicating with Susie, I have done essentially… nothing.  Yes, I have dated (the exasperating and defeating online style which is where I found Susie too), but it has offered me no worthwhile fruit, nothing that I have wanted to pursue.  It is as if I have lost focus, lost touch with what it is that I want, like I am living in some kind of fog.  Maybe I have grown gun shy after having been with two narcissists in a row… I’m not really sure.

Months of being alone.  I NEVER would have believed that would happen to me, yet here I am.  At first, I thought it was just a passing phase, that after a couple of months I would find someone else to at least do things with, spend some time with, but nope, just dryness.  Sadly, all of that time alone has provided ample opportunity to think about the past, to remember the “good” times with my narcissistic ex-wife and Susie, and there were a lot of good times and memories.  The bad memories tend to fade over time, but I do force myself to remember them if for no other reason than to prevent reaching out to my ex-narcissists.  I’m glad to say that I haven’t made that mistake.  Yet.

It also doesn’t help to watch my ex-wife carry on with her life as if nothing ever happened (yes, we still work at the same location and I get to see her and/or her current boyfriend periodically).  We continue to act as if we had never met, not acknowledging each other or even making eye contact.  It is a strange, even bizarre, situation and one that I continue to struggle with.  But struggle I must, as I know I cannot engage with her in anyway.  I will add, the last five years have not been kind to her and she has aged considerably (although, I suspect I have as well).  It just adds to the nothingness.

I also struggle with the fact that I do believe in God (a higher power, whatever you prefer to call it).  I know He can do anything at any time, and I try to be patient, but I also struggle watching the days continue to pass by knowing that I am not getting any younger.  I simply try to maintain my faith and my hope, remembering the promise God made to Abraham that he would have a son, which didn’t happen until Abraham was nearly 100 years old.

The hardest part of this is that it doesn’t seem to matter how much effort I put into changing things.  Nothing changes.  Today looks just like yesterday, which looks just like the day before that, which looks like the months before that… they just run together.  With that said, I am not depressed, I am not necessarily sad, rather I am incredibly bored and I have come to the conclusion that I just need to stop trying to force things to happen and let them happen.  For a person like me, that is easier said than done.

I have said in many of my earlier posts that I needed to learn patience.  Guess what? I haven’t been given a choice.  I am being forced to be patient, accepting that I cannot change things to be like I want them to be.  At this point, I am not even wondering who will enter my life or when.  Instead, I am simply wondering what is next, and will I be smart enough to recognize it and seize the moment.  I certainly hope so, because I NEVER want to do another 18 months like the last 18 months.

Patience, awareness, and acceptance are key for me right now (and that probably applies to just about everybody).  I am hoping to soon be able to say, the more things change, the more they change.

What’s Left After the Narcissist?

Let me begin by saying it has been 5+ years since my narcissistic ex-wife left for the final time, and 14 months since my narcissistic/avoidant ex-girlfriend “Suzy” spoke to me last.  The fact is, I continue to think about them far too much.  I also look at how much I have changed since then.  The question regarding both is, why?

I have pondered that question over and over, and there are a number of different answers.  In the case of my ex-wife, I believe the reason that I continue to think about her is because there actually were really, really “good” times.  Whether or not she felt that way too doesn’t matter.  To me, times were perfect, she was perfect… for awhile.  The lengths that she went to in order to get what she wanted, which at the time was me, were incredible.  I was a definite challenge for her because, in all honesty and knowing her history, I didn’t trust her.

With that said, there was nothing more that I wanted but to trust her.  If I could do that, then everything would fall into place.  She was beautiful, young, energetic, liked many of the same things that I did; it was perfect.  A little too perfect.  Once she had me AND knew that she could manipulate the divorce to get what she wanted (which most certainly wasn’t me), things changed.  Luckily, even though I was madly in love with her and wanted her to be happy, I wasn’t completely stupid.  As such, I didn’t simply acquiesce to her desires.  And man was she pissed about that.

So what was left after that?  A lot of questions and a man with a broken heart.  The funny thing is, I didn’t see it coming, but I saw it coming.  The way she treated me at first, I would never have believed she could be as mean, hurtful and uncaring as she was once she flipped the switch from I love you to I hate you, but I also knew of her history not only with others before me, but with the 3 previous times she abruptly removed herself from my life.  The bottom line with what was left after her departure was an image of what I wanted a relationship to look like, how that first couple of years played out.  If I could relive that period over and over, I certainly would.  Can I find that again, legitimately?

With Suzy, things were quite different.  In fact, she was never a giver, other than her physical self.  She was a taker, day in and day out.  She was adept at giving just enough to keep me thinking we were almost at that point of finding bliss, but it never happened.  She could bring things right to the pinnacle of greatness and then, out of the blue, say something really off the wall and in a perfectly mean way that would leave me stunned and thinking “what just happened… and why”?  This happened over and over and in fact is what she did on the last time we were together when out of nowhere and with no evidence accused me of cheating.  She had a way of doing it with calmness and conviction that actually made me feel like I had done something wrong even though there was absolutely no basis for what she said.

What was left after Suzy?  Confusion.  At this point in my life I have no clue what to expect from a relationship anymore.  I have dated since Suzy, but I have been left feeling nothing after each date for the most part.  I certainly have a hard time trusting and believing.  On top of that, both my ex-wife and Suzy were incredibly attractive, probably out of my league by most standards.  That fits, as the narcissist isn’t interested in the person but rather wants the attention, the supply,  no matter where it comes from.  They saw an opportunity with me, an ability to take what they wanted, and that is what they did.  Now they have moved on… and I’m stuck.

I haven’t given up, but I’m not feeling a lot of hope.  Yes, I know God can make things happen in an instant, and I would love to see that, but after this long, it seems a bit of a stretch.  I feel pretty used up, sad about how things turned out, a little bit bitter at times, and wondering how I ended up here.  It is what it is, I own it and am not blaming anyone but me.  I do wish I could put some of the memories that are in my head on a disc and just visit them periodically instead of almost regularly.  That I have nothing going on, am trying to be patient, and have nothing on the horizon at this point doesn’t help.

What’s left?  A man with a different understanding of relationships than he had in the past.  A man that does know things will get better but wondering when.  A man that knows at least two women that will not learn from the mistakes they have made, that will continue to invade peoples lives and take from them with no care or remorse whatsoever.  What’s left is a man that is glad he is not like them. 

Controlling the Thoughts. It’s Difficult, but Essential.

In my most recent post, I identified how I had inadvertently discovered that my narcissistic ex-girlfriend “Suzy” had apparently gotten married since our most recent breakup a little over 10 months ago.  I had come to grips with the breakup during that period which was made easier since we have had absolutely NO contact, but finding out she was married brought all kinds of new thoughts to the forefront.

I have made considerable progress in my co-dependent/anxious attachment style in the last few years.  In fact, most things that used to bother me, especially the rejection aspect, fail to have the same impact they once did.  I didn’t even know what co-dependency and attachment styles were until my narcissistic ex-wife brutally discarded me for the final time about 5 years ago.  With that said, I made a lot of progress in a fairly short amount of time, and I feel pretty good about that.  Certain things challenge my progress however.

The recent understanding that Suzy is married is one such thing.  It is incredible what our minds are willing to come up with if we let them run amok, and everyday since the discovery, I have allowed mine to do just that… until I realized it and put a stop to it.  In fact, I have had to put a stop to it over and over again, but I’m not giving up.

What are those thoughts that I am having?  The first thing that keeps happening is revisionist history, where somehow I am able to turn Suzy into a saint, essentially forgetting all of the narcissistic and hurtful things that she did and said.  How many times she flatly and out of nowhere clearly told me that I wasn’t a good boyfriend and needed to be doing more, how many times she ignored my texts or phone calls for hours.  There were the times where she, without any guilt whatsoever, told me she was going to an “appointment”, when in fact  I later determined she was meeting with someone else.  There were multiple instances of gaslighting, where she told me one set of facts early on, and over time, those facts changed.  When I would challenge her, she would tell me I had a bad memory and she had never said those things.  Luckily for me, I kept detailed journal entries where I would record exactly what she said, painting a clear picture of the real chain of events.

Sadly, over time and without consulting my journal entries, I would forget the facts, and start believing what she said.  Those pleasant memories are all I started to consciously recall after I discovered that she was now married.  Again, I started to internalize and accept that everything that went wrong was apparently my fault, that if I had only done better, this wouldn’t have happened.  After all, she is married, so there is clearly someone better than me, and it took less than 10 months for her to figure that out, and we had dated for longer than a 2 year period.  This new guy must be SO much better than me!

But then I remember the discards (four of them), the ghosting where she absolutely and unequivocally ignored my texts, my emails, my letters and my calls for nearly 3 months.  I remembered her daughters, out of nowhere, telling me (in front of Suzy no less) to be careful because there had been a number of men “checking her out”.  In hindsight, I figured out that was their way of telling me there was someone else Suzy was seeing while simultaneously cramming it up there mother’s bunghole.  Don’t forget, she was a narcissist (and very avoidant), was NOT a good mother (and I had witnessed her lack of “mothering” first hand) and had a very rocky relationship with all of her children (and really had no other friends to speak of).  There was also the fact that despite multiple high cost vacations and trips, hundreds of dinners (and she was VERY selective on where we ate given her sense of entitlement), she had NEVER paid for a thing and had gotten to where even saying thank you had become a thing of the past.

But my mind, it wanted to forget all those less than stellar memories and instead focus on the positives.  In fact, even the positives are limited to me simply having a companion, someone to do things with and, yes, someone physically very appealing. Other than that, she really did not add anything to the relationship.  Over the 2+ year period that we dated, she made dinner for me one time.  ONE TIME!!!

I continue to believe that everything happens for a reason, and that includes this event too.  That this door is more securely closed is another blessing that I need to pay attention to.  Notice I don’t say the door is blocked as she is a narcissist and feels she can reopen that door at will and probably will try at some point down the road.  Many of my friends have told me I dodged a bullet with Suzy, and fellow bloggers and commenters told me for months to get away from her, that she was a narcissist (and avoidant), but I was desperately hoping she wasn’t.  This is yet another opportunity for me to learn something, to recognize that I must implement what I know and control my thoughts rather than let them run wildly all over the place.

I did nothing to deserve Suzy leaving for the last time 10 months ago.  The same issues she projected onto me, she will be projecting onto the new husband.  Poor bastard.  At least I was smart enough to never bring up the subject of marriage.  In fact my journal entries state over and over that “I need to get away from her”.  No matter how it happened (and it clearly wasn’t me that discarded her), I am now that much further away from her.  I need to deadbolt that door and remember the facts.  That she is married did not change her one bit.  She is still the same angry, bitter, hateful woman that she was since I met her.

I will not allow my thoughts to change reality.  She was a master at doing just that.  Luckily, I am smart enough to recognize who she is and what she has done.  My mind and I, we’ve got this.

The Ex-Narcissist’s Impact on Moving Forward.

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I hit yet another milestone this weekend, although it isn’t one that I wanted or ever planned on achieving.  I had a date with the 50th different woman since my narcissistic ex-wife divorced me in 2015.  It was also the 5th different date since my most recent narcissistic relationship with Suzy ended in October of last year.

I will admit that it actually creeps me out when I really think about it, that I have actually dated that many different women.  That number doesn’t include the second or more dates for a few of them let alone the emails and texts with so many more that I never actually ended up meeting with.  The question that I cannot seem to find a suitable answer for is “why am I still alone”?  Actually, I think that I do have a few answers for that…

Narcissists can create such an ideal situation or fantasy world that nothing else seems to compare.  This was especially true of my ex-wife, with that particular relationship lasting a number of years before she abruptly left (for the 4th time) and never came back.  At that point, my ideal lifestyle seemingly came to a crashing end.  Suzy, she wasn’t quite as adept at mirroring as my ex-wife was, but she was really skilled at making me feel like I was with someone REALLY special.  That’s right, she didn’t treat me all that well but she somehow created this aura around herself that she was better than everyone else.  Even though I knew that wasn’t true, I somehow enabled the fantasy.  When I challenged the fantasy, the relationship came to a screeching halt and she disappeared.  That was never my intent.

My narcissists (and I believe it applies to all of them) are able to create an alternate world that one gets sucked right into, and at the time, you don’t really notice.  It’s only after the fantasy ends that you are able to look back and react, first by saying “what the hell happened” followed by “that wasn’t really what I thought it was at all”.  That I have gotten sucked into it twice now in the last several years leaves me feeling a bit stupid and at the same time even more concerned that it can happen again.

With that said, I believe there are several reasons I am still alone.  First, I look for an instant connection, some type of emotional reaction within the first 10-15 minutes of meeting someone.  Clearly, the narcissist is a skilled illusionist and are able to create that crazy dynamic when you first meet.  If I feel bored immediately, I take that as a bad sign and I probably shouldn’t.  I have been bored a lot over those 50 different dates.  The other impact from the ex-narcissists is that I am always on high alert trying to figure out what the other person is.  Are they genuine, am I seeing the real thing, or am I in the middle of being fooled yet again?  That doesn’t make for a positive way forward most of the time.

Yes, there are also the negatives associated with online dating in general that have impact too, with the biggest issues including women that look NOTHING like their photos, or that immediately start supplying too much information about their past relationships and their issues, and there are women that are clearly needy and just want to be taken care of.  I have  lost track of how many times within 5 minutes of a date starting (and sometimes sooner than that) I am mumbling to myself under my breath “I have to get out of here”.  I am coming to the conclusion the online dating thing just doesn’t work, at least not for me.

Sadly, after ending a date and coming home, those old memories of the ex-narcissists take over to remind me of just what I don’t have and, worse yet, that they were able to walk away with no remorse, no real reason for leaving, and are at that very moment with someone else and that I am not.  Yes, I know the most current new guy is in for the same treatment at some point, but the narcissist is rarely alone and I have spent a large majority of the last 5 years alone.  It is said that regarding relationships, the narcissist is like a monkey, unwilling to let go of one branch until they have a hold of the next.  In my case, that is factual based on my ex-wife and now Suzy.  I wish I was able to do that.  Then again, I have standards, and the narcissist is simply looking for supply, no matter where it needs to come from.  I simply have to grasp where my life is and accept that it is okay.

I am at that point yet again where I have to just STOP!  I have adequate proof that trying to force things to happen, doing it on my own, doesn’t work.  I have concluded that very same thing in the past too but, sadly and to my own detriment, I am not a very patient person.  I am finally coming to the conclusion that I MUST improve my patience as what I have done clearly is not working, no matter what the reason.  I am alone and I need to embrace it.  The dating results are in and they simply are not good.  I do believe at some point, I will end up with the right person at the right time, but not due to any action of my own.

Things are moving forward despite the impact my ex-narcissists have left.  I can admit there is some level of positivity in that 4 of the 5 recent dates since Suzy left desired more and wanted to see me again.  I wasn’t that interested.  I just need to accept things will move forward at their own pace instead of me trying to hurriedly get to the next intersection on the map of my life.  Slowing down a bit might actually be kind of nice.

Finding the Positives in a Breakup.

For those that are experiencing or recently experienced a breakup, there tend to be a lot of questions.  Oftentimes there are very few, if any, answers.  If we allow ourselves to go there, we can end up down the rabbit hole, lost, and looking for a way out.  As hard as it may be to believe, there are positives associated with nearly anything that happens in life, including the breakup of a relationship.  Do your best to find them.

I broke up with my avoidant girlfriend 2 months ago now, and haven’t heard a peep since her last email 5 weeks ago.  This was an email that I never responded to as it essentially put all the blame for any issues on me, and I knew that simply wasn’t true (and I do “own” my contributions to what occurred).  Because we had been going through the peaks and valleys of an avoidant/anxious attachment relationship for a couple of years, I wasn’t “shocked” by the breakup, but I certainly wasn’t happy about it either.  I essentially skipped the shocked phase and went straight to the sorrowful or sad phase.

Like most, I have had the desire to reach out many times.  Funny how going from being in a relationship to suddenly being alone can do that to you.  Most of us have been there before and, as much as we didn’t like it, we lived through it, myself included.  So what do you do during that period?  You can ruminate, you can justify, you can get angry, as well as involve yourself in all kinds of other non-productive activities.  Me?  I decided to try to consider the positives.

Everybody’s case is different, but in mine, some of the things I identified include:

• I was able to stop wondering when the bottom was going to fall out, as it finally had.  My job during the relationship seemed to be to keep things going, and I did that very well.  In fact, if I had chosen to respond to my girlfriends last email, I am sure that I could have smoothed things over enough to have yet another go at it.  I didn’t do that and I feel some level of respect for myself as a result.
• I believe this door was closed for me because I wasn’t strong enough to do it for myself.  In other words, God (and this can be whatever higher power you believe in) said “enough”, I’m taking over, and that was that.  Again, I would probably still be kissing her finely shaped behind if things hadn’t ended the way they did, but figured I would leave that door closed this time (and it’s possible I may not be able to open it even if I tried).  Take this break as an opportunity to love yourself, to identity and accept  that you do have worth and do so many things well (no matter that some may try to convince you otherwise).

• I am pretty certain that my silence is deafening, and I take some pleasure in that.  The fact that I was the driver of the relationship and did whatever needed to be done to keep it going, that is not lost on my ex.  She very well may be seeing someone new already, but that doesn’t mean she’s not looking at her phone waiting for that “I miss you” text which I would have sent in the past.  I am absolutely convinced that at some point in the not too distant future, she will reach out to me in a non-romantic way (i.e. a happy birthday, Merry Christmas, or “did I leave my coat at your house” text) in an attempt to re-engage while not being overt about it, just in case I choose not to respond.  I admit, that will be a challenge and a true test.  It’s coming.
• I have a lot more money.  This is the same woman who in a 15 or 16 month period spread over 2 years (due to all of our breakups) never spent a dime.  That was part of the reason for the most recent breakup as I had the audacity to ask about that.  Through my recent evaluation of what and how things happened, I have been able to discern that she was an incredibly selfish person, and not just with money.  She wasn’t a cheap date either, which leads into the next item…

• …I don’t have to constantly be discovering new and interesting places to go.  Seriously, this was a huge challenge as she had to be entertained.  I was running out of ideas as we had done the Vegas thing, a cruise, countless weekend trips, shows, movies, comedy clubs, and on and on.  I think we had dinner in every fancy restaurant within a 100 mile radius.
• This one is difficult, but is huge – take the opportunity to believe there is somebody better out there.  There is someone who you don’t have to force fit, someone that will appreciate who you are rather than what you can do for them.  I had gotten so carried away in trying to make her happy (and always realizing that I wasn’t making her happy AND that it really wasn’t my job), I had lost track of the fact the relationship was supposed to be a 2-way street.  Instead of give and take, it had turned into “I” give, and “she” takes.  That had become the routine and I simply accepted it.

I am sure there are more things than what I have listed and, yes, there are certainly negatives associated with the breakup.  With that said, dwelling on the negatives does no good and they cannot be changed.  Finding that sliver of hope, that silver lining, that ray of sunshine is necessary at this point.  It is all too easy to slip into a frenzy of negativity, blaming oneself for all of the things that happened.  Don’t do that (and yes, I am still convincing myself of that very thing) as it does no one any good and doesn’t change a thing.

One last thing – don’t try to move on too fast.  A week or so ago, I revisited the online dating world and I have already blocked my profile.  Not only did I determine that I am not really ready to be dating again yet, I got a quick reminder of what a s@#t-show the online dating world is.  Don’t go there until you are truly ready.

Breakups are tough.  You have to go through it as there is no way around it or over it.  Once we get to the other side, all of the other positives will become clearer.  No one said that life is easy, but there are always good things if you take the time to look for them.

A Little Different Take on the Avoidant Ex-Girlfriend

I love it when something finally comes together.  Just such a thing occurred for me this morning. An epiphany essentially, and better than that, a bit of relief.  Let me explain.

It has been 6 weeks since I was last with my avoidant ex-girlfriend.  The last time we were together was pretty unpleasant (as I have indicated in earlier posts), and her final email to me (3 weeks ago) was just as unpleasant, essentially putting everything bad about the relationship on me.  No, I never did reply to it (and I feel pretty dang good about that!).

This morning, I actually woke up in a bit of a panic, knowing that I was once again alone and had the rest of the weekend to continue being alone.  I leapt out of bed rather than laying there wallowing in my loss, and all of a sudden my thoughts started changing.  I asked myself specifically what it was that I was panicked over, what I was missing, and the answer was very interesting.

It seems to me that when we are in the throes of a relationship, the goal is to make it better, to make it last, to care for the other person and have them care for us.  It seems that having such a lofty goal is where things went off the rails in my relationship.  Interestingly, the fact that she was avoidant didn’t really matter and, in fact, helped me to get to the place that I needed to get to.  Confused yet?  If it wasn’t that she had an avoidant attachment personality and that I had an anxious attachment personality (that I am working on) that caused things to proceed down a bad path, then what was it?

Answer – it was all of the other things that we simply didn’t see eye to eye on, that we had gaping differences about, that I didn’t see because my eyes were basically shut!  When I really thought about things, I came up with so many reasons that we shouldn’t have been together, so many differences in who we were and what was important to us as both individuals and as a couple.  These are really important things that make or break a relatioship and that I chose to overlook including:

1. Selfishness/Kindness/Greediness.  I have talked over and over in previous posts how in 2+ years, she never paid for a thing, but there was so much more to it.  I never saw her share anything with a stranger, never saw her provide to a charity, never saw her be truly kind to anyone, even her own kids.  She was not a generous person, i.e. ensuring her needs were met always came first.  I ignored it.  In fact, I supported her weakness in all of these areas by ensuring they were taken care of for her, with me making up the difference in her lack.  Her beauty, sadly, could not hide her selfishness.
2. Bitterness.  She was a very bitter person.  While she rarely spoke about her ex-husband, when she did, it was full of hate and bitterness, almost scary.  Nothing wrong in their marriage was ever her fault, and he was just a horrible, distant (ironic, eh?) person.  The dislike in her voice was crystal clear, and brutal.
3. Addiction.  She couldn’t be without her vape.  Even when we would go on trips that included air travel, she would bring a mini-vape that she would sneak out of her purse and use while we were in the air.  She did the same thing in restaurants and bars, even though it is illegal in our state.  She was never without it.  And don’t ever try to tell her that it might be unhealthy.  I only initiated that discussion once.
4. God.  I am a believer, she is not.  In fact, in parallel with her bitterness, speaking about God, or Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit would be met with anger, dislike, and all of the reasons that He had done her wrong.  Again, I learned to avoid the subject.  This one is actually THE most important of our differences as it would have caused many more problems as time progressed.  I believe HE is the one that closed the door on this relationship because I was too weak and scared to do it myself (even knowing that I should).
5. Romance.  She expected EVERYTHING to be about her.  She wanted (expected) flowers, loving emails and texts, her car door opened for her, my phone screensaver to be her, photos of her in my house, looking her in the eye and telling her that I loved her… it was a one way street.  She did not go out of her way to make me feel special or desired.  None of the things that I did was ever reciprocated.  In fact, it seemed as though her goal was to keep me at arms length, craving her attention, wanting more, like a drug dealer taunting an addict.  To be blunt, the only thing she ever complemented me on was my penis.  Talk about feeling a bit cheap.  I guess I had that going for me.

I realize what I have stated is a fairly ugly picture and, yes, she certainly did have some positive qualities.  I need to qualify that statement, as her positive qualities would appear and disappear at will.  I never really knew for sure who I was going to get.  I also understand that we are all broken, every one of us.  We are imperfect and needy creatures, myself included.  What I failed to recognize however is that in my own neediness, I was willing to accept things that most other people probably would not have accepted.  That she was physically beautiful, available to do things (and we did share several interests, especially lake/water related activities) AND willing to do them with me, that was all that I expected.  Sadly, that wasn’t all that I needed (or wanted).

It is humbling to realize just how shallow I was being.  She was gorgeous, she was available, and I had time.  On the surface, those are great.  But there is so much more to us, and to a relationship, than what is on the surface.  It is uncomfortable to look at things realistically, to identify where I had no barriers, or where barriers were just mowed down, and to admit that was just wrong and was not going to work in the long run.

I will overtly and strongly admit, I DO miss the relationship.  Going from always busy to basically an open schedule (and for 6 straight weeks) does tend to get ones attention, to ensuring that I am overwhelmingly aware of just how empty I allow and have allowed myself to be when there isn’t a significant other in my life.  Sadly, for the most part, I do not miss her.  That is a very sobering thing for me to admit, because I really, really WANT to miss her.

Looking at the list of not so pleasant differences identified above, it makes it brutally clear to me just how much I overlooked, just how much I changed my own behavior, my own needs, how much I accepted mediocrity to ensure her needs and desires were met.  That’s not a relationship.  I need to keep working on me as I am clearly not where I need to be.  She will also need to work on her.  It is time to stop trying to change her and accept that is not something that I can ever do.  I can only better myself.