Tainted by her memory.

[Tubeyman]

Hello everyone!

First time poster here!

I really needed somewhere to vent about the situation i'm in as I think it'll help me a lot. I'll try my best to keep this long story short, so here goes...

About 8 months ago I managed to release myself from an emotionally abusive relationship, I won't go into too much detail abotu that, but lets just say the girl I was with made me feel like utter crap on a daily basis. Over the course of this 3 years relationship her words manifested into physical form as I began to lose faith in myself, began to eat unhealthy, lost contact with my friends (partly due to my fault, and also because they moved to other countries, settled down etc) I had managed to gain 6 stone, I was unhealthy, looked terrible, and had the confidence of a toddler at a rock concert.

After my split up with this girl, I decided to do something about the way I looked and felt, so hatched a plan to start a charity event via youtube. I had lost my father to a brutal car crash during the relationship with this girl (another reason for my down cycle) so decided to get fit and lose weight and "vlog" the entire event via youtube and other social media, and then give the proceeds I earnt to a charity called Winstons Wish (they deal with children who have lost family members).

The event went great, I struck a chord in so many peoples hearts and began to get a lot of backing. On top of this my health was returning, i managed to lose 7 and a half stone and my confidence was beginning to boom once more.

But I was lonely, and needed someone in my life. My sister advised that I join a datinf website, so I did. Long story short I met this amazing girl on their, we talked every day, on the phone or just texts and began to bloom a relationship.
We eventually met, and sparks flew and we began a relationship.

This girl had 4 children from a previous marriage, but this didn't bother me at all. Infact those kids were (are) amazing and I grew to love them as if they were part of my family.

The girl was also amazing, and had been through a tough break up with her previous partner who was basically a 16 yr old boy trapped in a 30 year olds body. So we made a pact that for our relationships sake, and the childrens sake we would discuss ANY problems that we had with each other every weekend and go over everything to make sure that we were doing things right not just for ourselves, but also for the children involved.

Over the months we grew stronger and stronger I had never experienced a love like this, it was without doubt, without hesitation, it was strong, unique, and bold. We struck a chord on EVERYTHING, we were emotionally compatiable. We loved to cuddle, and take the piss out of each other, we would give each other "drive by" kisses whenever we had a chance, we would just stare at each other from across a room and this went on FAR passed the "honeymoon period", our sex life was amazing and very constant and this was a good 4 months into the relationship. We were perfect for each other and for the first time in a long time I was able to completley let go with a partner and not worry nor question. It was perfect.

But then shortly after the summer holidays were over and her kids had been home for 6 weeks and had to go back to school. Something changed in her, she became distant, wasn't interested in what I had to say, became snappy at me with things that no normal person would even care about.

She began to ignore our saturday nights where would talk, and become frustrated with me if I approachec the subject. Yet she'd still reassure me that everything was ok and it was just hard with the kids all going back to school. So i swallowed my pride, told myself that's all it was, and carried on.

The weeks went passed, and her attitude began to get worse and worse. I kept the feelings of doubt to myself and was just there for her as best as I could be.Then just 3 weeks ago, she comes out and tells me that she wants to be alone, she still loves me, but not the way I want her too, still cares for me but for now just wants to be alone and deal with herself and the kids and not have the complication of a relationship.

Obviously this broke my heart, but i respected her words, and still had faith in "us". And decided to give her some time.

But now, she doesn't want to talk to me, makes every effort to avoid me, blocked me on facebook and other social media, she won't let me see the kids even though they beg her to see me. She won't let them go near my youtube page, she's put her walls up and it hurts like hell. I did nothing wrong! I'm not a needy person, i'm not clingy, i haven't been texting her with "Please take me back i love you" blah blah blah. Just general friendly stuff like "Hope you and the kids are doing alright, hope work isn't getting you down too much" etc. And she just texts back with "Ok thanks" and then I hear NOTHING from her.

I get that she wants to be alone, I really do, but I wish she'd throw me some respect and realise that I haven't just lost her love, but i'm slowley losing the love of those 4 children. It's so bloody disrepsectful and its driving me insane, plus i'm also beginning to question her actual motives for all of this, and all those feelings of doubt are flooding back in.

How can someone do this to someone? On top of all this, during my vlogs I have introduced her to the world, and her children to an extent where people are expecting her and thekids to be in my videos. I know they're just subscribers and I don't know them, but how am i supposed to react when people ask "Wheres the other half? Wheres the kids!?" It just hurts so damn much. I let her into every part of my life, and now every part of my life is tainted with her memory, and she would much rather pretend it never happened.

This all happened 4 days before my 37th birthday. So here I am, 37, alone, no kids. A heart the size of a small continent, tottally and utterly smashed.

What do I do? Where do I go from here?

[super147]

This happens, it's one of the crappiest parts of life but it happens. Everything can seem perfect, you can be literally like twins with someone and then boom, almost overnight it's gone. You are left floundering, you have no hope of closure because you won't be given any that can explain how a relationship that seemed perfect to you suddenly became seemingly worthless to the other person. You are left with 101 gaps in your day and a world of questions and doubts.

Life is bound to feel tainted by painful memories right now, your daily life was punctuated by the presence of this woman. If someone came into your living room and removed 15 items of furniture you'd surely notice. You can't expect not to notice when such a big part of your day is removed without warning. However, just like with the missing furniture, you will begin to fill those gaps. Your routine will become less and less reminiscent of her and the pain will settle. It will become normal for her and the kids to not be around. I'm not saying that it will stop being confusing, that it will stop hurting, but only in fleeting moments and only for as long as you choose to sit and ruminate.

At the moment you have to allow for time to pass in which your routine will close up those gaps. There is no shortcut to feeling better, it's a process of grieving and healing. The pain is both natural and necessary. You can't extract something so important without feeling loss and pain, just like you couldn't extract a major organ without significant down time. Loss is akin to major surgery in that respect.

My personal experience is that if you try to work out why this all happened you will only succeed in driving yourself crazy and prolonging the pain. You don't have the answers, only she does. The likelihood is that she won't tell you and you can never know her mind. Even if she DID choose to tell you something it may well be what she thinks sounds best rather than what is actually true.

So what do you do? Well, you accept that you did your very best in the relationship and for that you can be proud. You can't control what someone else does, only what you do. You did your best, you gave your all. You can't say that it wasn't enough because 'enough' is subjective. Enough for one person isn't enough for the next. One person in a world of millions didn't feel that they wanted to remain with you and there could be any number of reasons for that which were way outside of your control. It's not your problem to try and work that out and it won't help you. It is in your best interests to forgive yourself and to do your best to maintain your self esteem. You have already done a great job in refusing to fall to your knees and beg or continually harass this woman. I can't emphasize enough how important that is. Maintaining your self esteem is vital, you will recover far more quickly if you do. There is nothing worse than falling to your knees at the feet of indifference, it is soul destroying and will set you back no end.

I'm honestly sorry that you're in this place right now, it's a horrible place to be. I've been in it myself and I didn't always do things in the best way. What I can tell you with 100% certainty is that it gets considerably better in time. The only reason it wouldn't is if you refuse to let go and you allow the questions and the doubts to haunt you.