45 days of NC and it's starting to get slowly better
It's been 45 days of NC since Feb 19th, when I last messaged my ex (he left me on read). Here are some things I've noticed during the 45 days:
Backstory:
- My ex is (most likely) a fearful avoidant with low emotional maturity and covert narcissistic defensive traits (not full-blown NPD)
- We were in LDR, so there's zero chance of bumping into him randomly in the city
- We don't follow each other on any social media, so we're in the dark about each other's lives
I still think of him daily, but not obsessively.
He's more like a dull ache in the background, but he's no longer popping into my mind every 30 seconds or so. I can focus on more things now without thinking about him all the time.
I realised I don't even want to reach out to him anymore.
I spent the past three years trying to tell him how I feel and how he hurt me. He always deflected it back, making my reaction the problem instead of what he actually did. There's nothing I wouldn't have already told him tens of times.
As long as he's not done the work, I don't want him to reach out to me either
If he were to crawl back now (after his current rebound fails), I wouldn't want to hear from him unless he could demonstrate that he's actually put in the work on himself and there has been some significant change. I haven't blocked him on WhatsApp (our main platform) because he's never harassed or excessively texted me at any point in our relationship.
Stalking on his WA online status has gotten rarer
Nowadays, I only check his status maybe every three days or so. There used to be a time where I would check his WA online status once an hour just to see if he was still living by his routines (he's very predictable) and whether I could see signs of his evening activities that there's problems with his rebound (they live several timezones away - if he was talking to her, he would always be online between 10 PM and 1 AM). At some point, I realised that the info about him being online just triggers me. He has a picture of two of them as his profile picture, so as long as that stays, I assume they are still together.
I've stopped blaming myself as the one who drove him away
My ex was a master gaslighter and manipulator, and made me believe that my being "difficult" and "overemotional" was the reason we couldn't be together. I've now started realising that I never created the attachment wounds that he has. I might have triggered them, but they were already there. The rebound is still in the honeymoon period and thinks she might have won the jackpot, but she'll eventually face the exact same issues with him as I did.
I've started accepting that who he was in the end was the real him, not the version in the beginning
Like most of the recently separated in this subreddit, I used to cry that he would come back and that we could be like we were in the beginning, when everything was still great. During the NC - and the fact that he hasn't reached out to me either - I've started to slowly accept that the version he was in the beginning was just a mask that he used to hook me, because I guess deep down he knew at some level that the real him would never be seen as attractive. The real him - when he's not performing - is an emotionally immature avoidant, an only child grown up in a home with a distant father and overbearing mother. The way he grew up made him the way he is - I didn't cause him to behave in a certain way. I finally saw him for what he is, asked him to heal the wounds I saw, but he chose to monkeybranch instead to someone who doesn't ask him to face himself.
I've realised that I need to heal my own wounds too, to avoid attracting avoidants in the future
During the NC, I've had to come to terms with the fact that I, too, need to heal from the childhood trauma that led me to get attracted to a person who treated me so badly. I have C-PTSD from emotional childhood abuse, anxious attachment and codependency. I got attracted to him (and men like him) earlier because I thought that I was not worthy of love simply by existing - that love has to be earned through performance. He wasn't my first avoidant, but he was definitely the most devastating one. I never want to go through this again.
I've accepted that it's best for me to stay single until I feel more healed and confident in myself
It's lonely being single, not going to deny it. But going on apps, while I'm in the process of healing, would only distract me from my goal and would create a high risk of ending up together with yet another avoidant because I refuse to face myself. Yes, I am angry with my ex because what he did has made me lose my basic trust in other people, but I hope it's only temporary. Taking even a few years off dating life to finally heal old emotional wounds that I have been avoiding for 35+ years (I'll be 43 this year) is a small time if it means I never have to go through this again. I'm on medication for depression and anxiety, go to therapy and attend 12-step groups (ACA, CoDA). I'm slowly learning to re-parent my inner child.
Hope this gives hope to someone. It's a cliche, but it does get better.