Healthy Relationships

I left some personal comments at the end of this note, hoping I help people affirm themselves.

In a new relationship, and there are many kinds of relationships in our daily life, if we are not being true to ourselves by being honest the outcome is much worse later on. Yes at first it is only what we want the other to see. We trust they are honest or else I doubt we would take steps to trust further. If someone says they put their heart into something, or they loved you it hurts to realize that whatever we received from them in the start, was not from their heart. This is what it means when you find out all along there were other flings, and no intention of disclosing this to you. Worse is when you find the truth from friends or complete strangers, because it shows your importance, and place in their life. You finally realize why you waited alone while they were out having fun, and absolutely no regrets or guilt, with another.I remember many times being bluntly told... he never asked me to wait, he never said he was.... on and on. It was his right.

You learn the excuses so when they use the same you cant believe them again and maybe you  beat yourself up for not being able to forgive, accept people for who they are, for judging when he could be telling the truth this time, you beat yourself up for remembering the hurt rather than the good times, remember what the bible says about love, so we learn to bury the pain and bad memories to move on .... that is the beginning of the abusive relationship and why women keep going back. When you stay silent, it is the beginning of abuse.

No one is worth loosing love for your own self. Your beautiful, and in the end of trying to always measure up or hold onto hope I see people thinking it is all about them, there not good enough for anyone, thinking there ugly.WHY or WHY would a person keep asking you back and pleading there love for you when you leave him alone? WHY would he keep proudly displaying others and not care about you yet get angry and hurt if you talked with their friend or saw you in a pitcher with another partner when they were already with someone else and the one to break things off? Selfish is why! Why would they think it wouldn't hurt you to still be friends when you see him or her in a new relationship, or ask someone else out instead of you. It goes both ways, so don't play the game to win him back or your relationship is nothing but manipulation. You both deserve better, don't control. If your anything like me... I thought... this time he will mean it or he wouldn't keep approaching me. News flash.... its might be all about his/her guilt, or who was providing his/her material needs. I know sooooo many women who stay with a man simply for his money, and the more away from home he is the better. The women complain and cheat on the person and he has no clue... think anyone says anything? No!

Staying friends after a break up.  Why wouldn't a past x think there would be hope and hold on if the cheating person has gone back to them before? And this is why it is important to give space and not keep the past relationship going if your in a new one. And why if friends are just meeting for coffee or business, ya don' keep this from your lover! Wouldn't you be open about all your relationships if their was nothing to be ashamed of or hide?  Why would either sneak around, or enlist their friends and families help to meet in secret? THAT is abuse and messes with the sanity of the only person who is out in the open and trying to maintain a healthy relationship.  I know, control!

How can one expect us to hold onto things we gave to them from the heart when what we gave was meaningless to them. I feel if your not the one, then why not let you go rather then let you see him with someone else who he treats so much better....say he has grown or what ever..... then he tells you he wants you back again. Worse yet, he says he is just flirting with you like he does with everyone else. Why lead you like a puppet. Once is bad enough, ya move on, but over and over again with everyone watching? Then finding out from reliable sources the innocent party was being labeled a bully, that were judging, we need counseling, told other people secrets had to be in place because we stalk and will hurt them? Now ... with that kind of public defamation, I feel there was nothing left to loose , and time to not worry about what other people thought.

Personal story: I returned my X's things ... I guarantee you, my x would give the same fountain with a dragon to his lover the same way at valentines day rather than throw it away or save it. I WAS RIGHT! How was I suppose to throw it away or save it? I couldn't do either. What ever you give means nothing when his preferred choices are put out in the open with him, while you were always stored in a box in the basement just like the gifts you gave. Unless others saw you with him looking like just a coworker, friend of course. Then it was safe , you were safe to show in public. Don't listen to excuses, and be another nothing but a pest in his life or let another person be indignant with you,when you know the person your with is suppose to be representing/advocating a cause which promotes people being treated with dignity.Because they are not showing you any dignity....they all know what their doing.

PTSD trauma symptoms often result for the victim of infidelity. The victim is often in shock with incessant, recurring thoughts of their partner with another. They will often lose weight ( or the extreme opposite), become a detective sleuthing for details, suffer from insomnia, and experience extreme loss of self-esteem. They may become manic work a alcoholics and/or disorganized since they cannot face their terror or pain. (How can you look at the face of someone, that wore different masks anyways).

Quote : I ( Kay Rutherford has a PhD in Counselor Education and teaches Racial Ethnics and Abnormal Psychology at Viterbo University) feel it is very important for the infidelity victim to know that he or she can "be real” at this point, Post trauma .... to "hurt so good" as a sobbing frump (my personal terms as to how I felt when it happened to me). Grief is necessary. You may feel as though your soul has been stolen, stopped dead, and frozen in its tracks. Bloomfield, et. al. (1976), list the following to express these feelings in their book How to Survive the Loss of a Love:

This longing may shorten my life.
He asked if seeing him was a drain.
Seeing him is not a drain. It's a sewer.

"The pain center of the brain responds to the shock and distress of a rejected lover's broken heart like it does with physical pain. Our body becomes physically distressed when abandoned at the loss of a love affair. Personal rejection, especially one with a connotation of shame, inferiority, or failure in the eyes of others is especially potent and an unwilling separation initiated by another doubles the chance of developing depression (Eisenberger, 2003).

Starting over seems too big a task and unnatural to go on without the once-true other. Infidelity shatters assumptions of what life once held true. The one who was security is now a source of danger. When safety is threatened, we have abuse…

ANGER

You may disagree, because anger is always seen as a taboo. But anger also protects. Anger signals us that something is wrong. Don't ignore it. The purpose of anger is to destroy problems in our lives, not our relationships. When something needs to dramatically change, anger not only lets you know but it gives you the power to do something
about it. When angry at someone or something your anger may be telling you that your expectations are too high, our ideas are not clear enough, or that something is not following through... maybe it is there expectations that are too high. Use the energy of your anger to communicate. Practice listening to that little "anger voice" and challenge your thoughts or anothers. Our anger management styles are learned from our own parents, our past so maybe it is time to find new tools if we dont communicate in healthy ways, explode or hurt others. Maybe it is time we talk more about healthy anger to know what unhealthy anger is so that we know the difference when it becomes abuse.  Separate the idea that feeling anger is bad, because it is natural and unavoidable but what you do with those hot emotions is completely under your control -- with some practice. Allow yourself permission to find new ways to cope. Anger sets safe boundaries. Holding in anger is what makes a person build up and explode.  Holding in anger is like someone telling you to hold in happiness. How is that healthy?  Your anger is telling you something. If you need to vent smash the water swimming, you can even cry and no one will be able to tell. But holding in anger is toxic. 

 Comment from a reader: "Hold onto your pride, because it is not necessarily a bad thing. Everything is out in the open, and I have too much pride to ever be lovers with him again, let alone friends. Oddly enough, I was having some fond feelings for him tonight, triggered by some things. The good memories make it hard because then it is easy to blame myself or not think of him as pathological. Since I was emotionally abused, it is quite hard to explain it - even to myself at times. That is why I remind myself of all the evil things he did to me: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And I must accept he is a person without conscience, without compassion, without love. What good we had was not real. He didn't love me; he didn't even like me."