Desolate and alone

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Thanks, Mimi, but I might have given the wrong impression. I didn’t tell C that I was going to the concert, so it’s not like she set me up, or anything. I just felt foolish for not considering the possibility that members of her family would be there.

As for treating myself, splurging, etc…I’ve done that for much of my life. It doesn’t bring me any joy, now. The only things I want anymore are those that money can’t buy. I found more joy sitting on a couch and watching a silly movie with C and her daughter both snuggled against me than in any of my possessions.

Tomorrow I will see the counselor and in the evening I will go to a healing prayer service being held at a local parish.
 
chipeto said:
Thanks, Mimi, but I might have given the wrong impression. I didn’t tell C that I was going to the concert, so it’s not like she set me up, or anything. I just felt foolish for not considering the possibility that members of her family would be there.

As for treating myself, splurging, etc…I’ve done that for much of my life. It doesn’t bring me any joy, now. The only things I want anymore are those that money can’t buy. I found more joy sitting on a couch and watching a silly movie with C and her daughter both snuggled against me than in any of my possessions.

Tomorrow I will see the counselor and in the evening I will go to a healing prayer service being held at a local parish.
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Hi Chip! You were pretty clear that you did not tell her that you were planning to go. I agree with you that she did not set you up or anything like that. Anyone in your shoes would not have been able to consider the possibility that members of her family would be there, and so please don’t beat yourself up.

I agree that spending money is certainly not going to bring joy. Yet, sometimes in doing little things for ourselves, we get to experience some of the wonders of life ------ like meeting new people, seeing nature as we drive to our destination, etc.

Have you tried affirmations and visualizations? Also, you may want to try a Vision Board or a photo album with pictures of the kind of life you want. All have been known to work. Give it a try! You have everything to gain! 🙂

I trust that your session with your counselor will go well, and the healing prayer service will be a blessing for you and all in attendance.

God bless you!

Heavenly Father, You have brought Chip to this stage of his life. Thank You Father for helping Chip move boldly into the wonderful future you have in store for him. Thank You Father for continuing to bless Chip with excellent people in his life. Thank You Father for guiding Chip into that life that he has always dreamed of! Amen.
 
No, Mimi, I haven’t tried those things. To be truthful, I’ve always been leery of that kind of thing, because it seems like mental tricks. I mean no offense, and I’m open minded. I have decided to compile a list of scripture verses which I will recite during hard moments to counteract the lies I tell myself, like the lie that I am unworthy of love.

The counseling does make me feel better. I did not go to the healing prayer meeting, because last night I had it in my heart to make an all-or-nothing effort to win C back. I spent two hours composing an email to her, in which I put my heart on the line. I told her that I was angry at that thing which hides in the dark recesses of her heart and whispers that it is better to be alone than to risk being hurt again. I told her that she was acting out of fear. And I told her a long list of things about us which she knows in her heart to be true. I asked her to stop listening to the anxieties that come and go, to stop listening to the fear, and to risk her heart. I asked her to put aside her stubbornness and the pride which makes her insist that things should be just so. I said many other things, too. I used strong language, and I know that I risked what little remains between us. In closing, I asked her to pick up the phone and call me.

That was last night. I have not heard from her. Maybe she hasn’t read it yet. Maybe she is thinking about it. Maybe she is praying about it. Maybe she is angry. Maybe I will never hear from her again.
 
I did receive an email from her sister later that night. It was full of kindness. She said that her family was fond of me and missed me, she thanked for the kindness I had shown her children. She said that she knew I would find what my heart needed, that I mustn’t give up, and that God has someone and someplace for everyone, even if it’s hard to see that. She said that they were praying for me, and that I could write her anytime.

It really touched me.
 
Hi Chip! Well, you have let it all out to her, and at least you have it out of your system. My thought about this situation is this: when you move on, and find someone else, and are no longer interested in her, don’t be surprised if suddenly she re-appears, and wants to reconcile.

I think it was very kind of her sister to write to you, but perhaps you may just want to move on. I know it hurts, but some people have issues that just won’t be resolved in this lifetime. You deserve someone without any emotional baggage. I know it doesn’t matter to you, and that you accept her as she is, but you’ll only be dealing with heartbreak if you continue to pursue her.

My two cents: Forget about her and her family, and move on. Continuing to keep in contact with them will only prolong the breakup. Make a clean break, and date other women even if your heart is breaking.

If it is meant to be, then it will be. God has His Way, and that is just the way it is going to be.

As for the affirmations and visualizations, etc.: I guess it is not for everyone. Though, scriptures sound great! 🙂

You are a very intelligent man, and I suspect that a whole new and wonderful life is awaiting you. God bless.
 
I will say it again: you sound like a wonderful, compassionate, faithful man. I cannot wait until you come back to CAF with news of impending nuptials. You will make some woman so very happy, and some children a fantastic dad.
 
Well, by the sounds of it, her reply to this email should clarify exactly where she stands and what the future holds. Maybe she needs some time to digest it… Maybe it was too much for her.

I’m not saying wait around for her reply, yout once you do get it I think you will know just what needs to be done. If it doesn’t come, which I doubt, it will also indicate to you where she stands.

Giving up can be painful, but closure always brings more peace than waiting around in anxious anticipation.

Personally, I hope this email opens her eyes to HER issues. But I also trust that if it doesn’t, it can only mean God has something better in store for you!
Bless you Chip!
 
Thank you both for your kind words.

I have just now received a reply from C. It is not unkind, but it is very direct. She says she does not have feelings for me other than friendship. She appreciates the valiant effort, and knows I will make a girl happy someday soon, but I am not what she needs or wants. She apologizes for being direct, but she does not want to mislead or hurt me any more. She truly wishes me all the best that life has to offer.

I am trying not to be bitter about the fact that for so long she told me that she loved me, she wanted to marry me, she wanted to have a child together, she dreamed of us growing old together, she planned our wedding, she looked for a house in which the three of us could live, she brought me into every family gathering, and yet…she did all of this without actually loving me.

I am trying to be merciful to her in my heart. I am trying to just forgive and let go. It is well and truly over. I am going to go and cry now.
 
I’m crying.

Chip, I know everything will work out for you, I can see how great of a person you’re and how much love and care you have to give.

You probably don’t want to be talking to the likes of me…but i truly, from the bottom of my heart, wish you to have a great and happy life. and you will.
 
Yes, you have to forgive her chip.
She was very wrong in being so insincere.

Many of us women do that to men, we lead them on to get a taste of our fairytale because we can tell when they’re willing to go along with it. And once it theoretically all goes down, we deflate and move one forgetting that we involved another person in this.

If she did indeed talk about the wedding, marriage and even having a child only to now claim that she has no feelings other than friendship for you she needs a good kick in her hormonal slash emotional butt. That IS playing mind games and leading on and a mature woman AND mother should never stoop that low, no matter how great the temptation.

It’s a tough blow. I.m not sure what to suggest. I know part of me would want to tell her a few things to set her straight, but that wouldn"t help. In the end, praying and forgiving are probably the only solutions.

You didn’t deserve this. It is HER loss and ultimately HER problem. You can work on those weaknesses you mentioned earlier but they don"t warrant this kind of treatment.

Praying for you brother, keep strong in the Lord!
 
I did send her a reply. I told her that I understood and would never bother her about this again. But I did ask for something, not for me, but for any man she was involved with in the future, that she not say those things to him that she said to me (i.e. love, marriage, child, etc.) unless she actually loved him.

She replied that she is sorry, but she tried to be honest the whole way through. She says that I was the first person she had any feelings for in a long time and she was trying to be prudent, yet allow herself to freely love. She hopes that I will still want to be friends one day when the hurt feelings have subsided.

Obviously, these back-and-forth emails are not likely to resolve anything or even make me feel better, so I did not reply to that.

I went to see my family this weekend. The last time I was there, only a few months ago, C and her daughter were with me; they met my family and we all talked about our plans to marry in the fall. We even drove with C’s sister to an area a few hours from there where we were thinking of moving to once married.

During the course of this thread, I have visited my family four times. The first time was last September, and I was ‘desolate and alone’, simply miserable. The next time was the end of December, and I was very happy, because I had this great new girlfriend and I felt that God had turned my life around. Then, a few months ago, and I was ecstatic because I was with my girlfriend and her wonderful daughter and we were certain that we would be starting a beautiful life together. And just now, grieving because I have lost them, and yearning for hope.

I am praying, working hard to put my trust in God to provide all my needs, and to hope, and to seek first the kingdom. Tomorrow I will see the counselor, and I will talk to her about what I can do to fix any problems with my thinking that are hindering me from moving forward. I really wish that I wasn’t so melancholic. I’ll do whatever work I need to do, however; hard work is the one thing I have left.
 
Chip,

Been in a situation somewhat close to this for a while now. You’ve got my sympathies and prayers.

I was led on a bit by a gal who said much the same things to me…marriage, family, love, the works, and was then let go of when she decided I was not the one. She quickly moved on and married, and there are times when I still feel that I was left holding on to her mistakes and the fallout of her own flaws.

Even when I’m at my most down, though, I trust in the Lord. Like another poster above put it with great insight, God often loves us in the way that’s best for us, not necessarily in the way that we’d prefer. I have had to give up a good chunk of my time with my friends, because my ex is still in the middle of the social circle we all used to be a part of. God has taken this sudden influx of free time and filled it with service to His church in the choir, helping out the nuns, meeting new people, and many other things.

Life isn’t what I expected two years ago, and my heart still really hurts off and on, but man, life is good, and worth living.

I think, when these kinds of things happen, well, we’re being shown a special sort of love by God. Suffering brings us closer to Him, and we can therefore know that we are being brought very close to Him indeed. Our Lord Jesus was the closest to the Father, and look what Jesus suffered…we are loved, and you are loved, Chip. You’re free to message me anytime you need an ear.

God Bless. Keep us informed.
 
Very little has changed for me since my last post. I am seeking God and trying my best to trust in Him. I struggle every day.

I have been reading ‘Loving People’, by John Townsend, and he talks about how people who are ‘connected’, e.g. have healthy and loving relationships with others, store up these emotional memories inside themselves so that they do not feel lonely even when they are alone. I don’t have that. Talking to my mother and my counselor are life-lines for me, because I don’t really have other relationships. C and I talked once about how it is more difficult to make new friendships at our age (41), because as we age we become more settled both in our minds and in the social circles that we inhabit. But I will have to find a way to make new and meaningful friendships. I will have to.

Yesterday, I got an email from C’s brother (not the one who is a priest). I haven’t talked to him since before the breakup, about five weeks ago. He simply said that he had been thinking about me that morning, was praying for me, wanted to know how I was doing, and that he missed seeing me around. I was really, truly touched!

C sent me a very brief email last week, just saying that she was hoping and praying that I was doing well. I gave a friendly reply, telling her about my trip to see my family, and that I would be moving (locally, there aren’t jobs for me where my family lives) in the next several weeks. In closing I said that I would be happy to hear about how she is doing, but I asked her not to give me either consolation or spiritual advice; that’s just too hard to take from her right now.

Her last message came a few days later; it is always a surprise for me, for some reason I never expect to hear from her again! She says that she has been busy interviewing for jobs and doing work for a new ministry that she has become involved in. She hopes all goes well with my move.

She was laid-off from her last job during the time we were together. We had talked about it and decided that, due to her health problems, her stress, and her desire to spend more time with her daughter, she would stay unemployed and live on her savings until we married, and then she would be a stay-at-home mom, which we both would have been very happy with. I’m sure that neither she nor her daughter are happy that she is returning to work. Well, thinking about this certainly brought out a lot of emotion in me!

I know that some of you have advised that the best thing would be for me to have no more contact with C. You’re probably right. At any rate, I don’t initiate the exchanges, I only reply to her messages, so maybe that’s something. My counselor is trying to convince me that C was not the right woman for me, because she was trying to change me. C would probably agree with that assessment.

At any rate, I will be moving out on my own very soon, the process I started way back at the beginning of this thread. Starting over, once more.
 
Last night I received a text message from C’s daughter, which came as a great surprise! She is only ten and doesn’t have a phone, but she sends texts with her iPod. I haven’t heard from her since C and I broke up, exactly one month and one day before, and I didn’t expect to hear from her at all. Her message was simply:

I miss you!

Which hit me hard. I really love that little girl and miss her terribly. I wanted to keep it upbeat, so I replied:

I miss you too, sweetheart! I hope you are having a great summer! xoxoxo

And she responded with:

Thx!!! Love you!!!

This exchange was very bittersweet for me.

Counseling is really helping me. I can see now how much I am driven by, and inhibited by, anxiety and fear. I am praying for deliverance from fear and my counselor has given me homework for working on controlling anxiety. Also, I have just signed a lease and will be moving out on my own in two weeks.
 
Regarding your last paragraph, all good news.
May God continue to bless you.

Regarding your loss and the persons you love, may God, as you blossom, grant a second chance.
 
Hi Chip, I am still praying for you, and I trust all will go very well for you. Please let us know how things are going.
 
Thanks, Mimi. It’s still a very hard time for me. I will be moving into my new place on Saturday.

I am trying hard to make new friends, but it seems like such a daunting task. I really need God’s help, because I haven’t made any friends in a long, long time. In the meantime, I am trying to be friendly, smiling, curious, initiating conversation with people I don’t know. etc. I did go to a meeting of a Catholic singles group, which was good socializing practice for me. Once I have moved I will contact my new church and see what ministries and groups I can be involved in. I feel like I’m building my life from scratch.

It’s easy for me to get discouraged, because of the heartache that I feel, and because it’s hard to believe that I could ever have something that beautiful again.
 
chipeto said:
Thanks, Mimi. It’s still a very hard time for me. I will be moving into my new place on Saturday.

I am trying hard to make new friends, but it seems like such a daunting task. I really need God’s help, because I haven’t made any friends in a long, long time. In the meantime, I am trying to be friendly, smiling, curious, initiating conversation with people I don’t know. etc. I did go to a meeting of a Catholic singles group, which was good socializing practice for me. Once I have moved I will contact my new church and see what ministries and groups I can be involved in. I feel like I’m building my life from scratch.

It’s easy for me to get discouraged, because of the heartache that I feel, and because it’s hard to believe that I could ever have something that beautiful again.
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Hi Chip! I am happy about your move Saturday! Congratulations on reaching that goal!

Building your life from scratch is good!!! You can do a lot of wonderful new things!!! For instance, instead of buying furniture from some boring old store, you can probably go to a local IKEA, and buy something hip and cool. Heck, get your hair cut in a new style. Go George Clooney or Ewan McGregor in hair style! Buy new clothes from some hip place like GAP. Become a member of a gym… those workouts raise the endorphins levels and make you happier. Pick up Yoga and meditation. Read something deep and cool like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Now on another note: many years ago, I too met someone who I truly believed was the love of my life. There was romantic dinners, walks by the shore during sunset, etc. Romantic music seemed to be piped in from the heavens all around us when we were together. It seemed that everything was perfect. Suddenly, everything came to a screeching halt. Mr. Wonderful was not so great after all. I was devastated. I kept asking myself what could I have done to prevent his caddish behavior. I blamed myself.

One day, I looked at myself, and asked myself why was it that I had not found someone to marry. I realized that I been dating all the wrong guys, and that I had not really been listening to what they were saying and how they were acting when I first started to get to know them. I realized that most people give you a clue as to what they are going to do. How do they speak of their past loves, themselves, their family, their friends, their lives? At that moment, I prayed to God and asked Him to help me find the kind of person I wanted to marry. I met my husband pretty quickly after that. I realized some time later that had I not had so many bad dating experiences, that I would not have recognized that my husband was the kind of man I wanted to marry.

I trust that God has great plans for you. Perhaps it is not something you think you want or need, but God thinks you do. Perhaps, God’s plan is for you to meet a nice girl without a child. Perhaps God wants you and your wife to raise your own kids ----- kids without a history that started with someone else. I trust that God has greater things planned for you than you ever imagined.

I will continue to pray for you.
 
I love your optimism, Mimi! I have bought new furniture (since I no longer need to save for a wedding) and I will join a gym after I am settled in to my new place. Mostly, though, I think about finding friends, a place in my new church, etc., in other words: a community. I know that I won’t be happy until I do. As Henry Cloud says: there is no such thing as disconnected and happy. Most people haven’t had the same experience that I have had, being disconnected from other human beings for so many years, so it may be difficult to understand just how debilitating and crushing it is to ‘wake up’ one day and find oneself in that situation. Even worse when you know that you have no one to blame for it but yourself.

Working with my counselor, I now see that I have carried with me for most of my life a sense of shame, inferiority, and unworthiness. I pray and ask God to free me from this heavy burden which has twisted and deformed my life, and I trust Him to do it, and to help me find a new life, but that trusting is a constant struggle.

Thanks, too, for sharing your story. I can say with confidence that I would want to marry someone a lot like C. In fact, just the other day my counselor, who was counseling C and I when we were together, and who has counseled many, many couples, told me with complete conviction that she doesn’t doubt that C and I were meant to be together, that C should have given our relationship more time. But, that doesn’t matter too much now, C has made up her mind and I have to move on, I know.

You’re right, I’ve no idea what God’s plan is for me. Just knowing that he has a plan for me should be enough to comfort, but I am weak and I find it hard to keep trusting when life hurts like this.

About C’s daughter…I wish I could put into words how I feel about that girl. I would probably laugh and cry at the same time. I’d have moved heaven and earth, to care for her. But even the sum of everything I have and am, all of my strength, my endurance, my knowledge, my ingenuity, my assets, my commitment, everything I have done, everything I will do; all of this, everything I have to offer, is not enough to win that prize. So I mourn. And hope.

Thanks for your prayers
 
Congratulations on the move!

Take each day as it comes, with its joys and its sorrows, trusting in God, that it’s all for His glory!!
 
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