"You can survive this. Talk to others that have"

deephurt posted 4/26/2019 06:45 AM

Its It just men, however, there was a point during his a, that he said he was trying to get out, and I found history in his computer that he was looking up his ex and couldn’t find her. He said he was just curious, I believe he was searching for the next a because this app was becoming demanding.
I’ll never know for sure as he says that isn’t true. Ut why look her up so vigorously.

Butforthegrace posted 4/26/2019 07:23 AM

Abandoned Guy: "Sonder". Interesting. Apparently this is a neologism coined ca 2012, but it sounds and feels a bit like the colloquial "yonder" that was common in Appalachian vernacular back in the day. I like it. There are a few movies that deal with this concept. "Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground" is one of my favorites (in part because it includes the sublimely lovely Sarita Choudhury)

OptionedOut posted 4/26/2019 07:54 AM

NotTheManIwas Glad I can make you chuckle. If I don't keep a sense of humor about some of this stuff, it gets darker than I care for. Okay, so I've always had an... interesting sense of humor.

Men who trade in their women for newer, fresher models? How do I square that? I can't. While women are starting do actively doing the same, it doesn't usually work out as well for them. The 'trading in for younger models' is always painful for those of us who've put in the years and are now overlooked just because we're not 20, 30, 40. We feel like an older Corvette in a sea of 2019 Stingrays. We turned heads in our day, but to a lot of men? Damn! Those Stingrays are sex on wheels.

To which I'd tell those young Stingrays, "Choose wisely or you'll be in the used car lot one day, too."

NotTheManIwas posted 4/26/2019 08:07 AM

We feel like an older Corvette in a sea of 2019 Stingrays.

Hey, lady, please tell me you don't buy that. Look up the 1968 Corvette Stingray. Nothin' better.

devotedman posted 4/26/2019 19:05 PM

I've never had a longing for an ex go on very long at all. The exception or two are in my sig, but those were a significant number of years.

"The one that got away?" Good riddance, in my book. We didn't make it then for one reason or another, and we're unlikely to make it now. Or, we broke up for a reason. It still stands.

I went 5-ish years younger with xWGF. That's the greatest amount in the negative direction that I've ever dated, and never again.

AbandonedGuy posted 4/26/2019 19:29 PM

Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground

The list of directors really piques my interest. I'm going to have to check that out.

I agree that "the one that got away" or any kind of longing for an ex is going to be based on fantasy. If anyone's seen the movie High Fidelity, it does a pretty stellar job of humorously covering this kind of feeling, culminating in John Cusack's character coming to terms with just how much it really is a fantasy. Man, I've got to watch that one again.

As time goes by, I'm more and more convinced that despite stereotypes, men are just as romantic at heart as women, just in a different sort of way that might not be evident at first glance. We were just as susceptible to wanting to be the Disney prince who swoops in, saves the princess, and goes on with life kicking ass with his rock by his side and "feeling important" as little girls were to being the princess who is swooned over and "saved" from whatever oppression was at play.

4yearsoflies posted 4/29/2019 00:35 AM

Although he's not the one that got away, he is the one I think of most fondly from my past. Over the course of my WH's 4.5 year PA, I felt alone. I knew our marriage wasn't doing well, and just eventually stopped caring.

During this time, the man I spent almost 10 years with from when We were 16 to 25 years old, started creeping into my thoughts. And for years I ignored it, not wanting to open a can of worms.

Then one day, I reached out and we talked on the phone
And it was nice.

But, I remembered why he was the one I chose to let get away. It was a good reminder that our memories can be selective.

I think the whole idea of going back to my first 'everything'...was a trip back to who I was as my younger self.....to think about the person you were with....from a simpler time ... is exactly the draw of the one 'who got away.'

Like the A... an escape.

[This message edited by 4yearsoflies at 11:49 PM, April 29th (Monday)]

OneInTheSame posted 4/30/2019 01:22 AM

While I was uncovering evidence of my wife's affair with her ex-girlfriend (they had about 12-14 toxic years together, and had been broke up nearly 2 years when we met), I had the unfortunate luck of also discovering that my wife was basically internet stalking "the love of her life" or basically her first love. How was I to feel learning that while cheating on me with a nasty toxic ex, she was cheating on both of us pining away for that one?

I mean . . . WTF?

My older brother dumped his beautiful family for his HS flame around the same time my wife was cheating on me. Welcome to my hell.

DevastatedDee posted 4/30/2019 08:44 AM

Hey, lady, please tell me you don't buy that. Look up the 1968 Corvette Stingray. Nothin' better.

69 Stingray but otherwise you're right on, lol.

Tripletrouble posted 4/30/2019 13:05 PM

Women love stronger. Men love longer.

I've never heard this, very interesting.

While I was uncovering evidence of my wife's affair with her ex-girlfriend (they had about 12-14 toxic years together, and had been broke up nearly 2 years when we met), I had the unfortunate luck of also discovering that my wife was basically internet stalking "the love of her life" or basically her first love. How was I to feel learning that while cheating on me with a nasty toxic ex, she was cheating on both of us pining away for that one?

OITS - I'd be willing to bet if you split that this pining would be about YOU. The guy I dated after my D who couldn't get over his exwife wouldn't leave me alone for six months and was messaging family members almost a year later. WTF. And my XH, who totally threw me over for anyone with an XX chromosome (including his XGF), spent years telling me what a mistake he made.

DevastatedDee posted 4/30/2019 13:22 PM

Yeah....what's up with that?? Both my ex-husbands would take me back in a hot minute. It's weird. There are millions of other women in the world. I'm not that damned special.

Furious1 posted 4/30/2019 14:03 PM

STBXHole had issues with this. Actually, it was more like he would cherry pick things about his exes to compare me to. He would then gloat over how this person or that person spent years pining for him and regretting having broken up with him because it was only after they dumped him that they figured out how lucky they had been to even have him in the first place since according to him, he was perfect in every way and he was "God's gift to women".

Then he would talk at length about this person or that person that he went out with or had sex with out of revenge for being dumped and how much it hurt his ex because it was the one thing that they had asked him not to do.

As you can imagine, I gave STBXHole no such ammunition with our relationship ending. He begged me to tell him if there was anyone that I didn't want him to go out with back when we were IHS. I told him that I would be thrilled with whoever he dated and I couldn't imagine being interested or invested enough in him and his arrangements to give a crap one way or another. I told him that nothing would make me happier than for him to find someone new because the sooner he does that, the better for me and everyone else.

STBXHole definitely gave me the impression that he was reliving his glory days in order to make himself seem more desirable than he actually was. It wasn't about him loving his old flames as much as it was about him trying to create the false impression that he had been all that so that the women in his past all wanted him back. All that hot air was good fluff and stuff for his fragile and frail ego. Strangely, his mother had been the same way while claiming to be best and most desired wife who knew how to keep a man happy, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I guess I must have missed the line of men waiting to marry her. Same goes with the line of women wanting to get back together with STBXHole too.

F1

DIFM posted 5/1/2019 15:00 PM

I don't think there is any evidence to suggest it is gender specif. Women pine over former BF's and love interests regularly.

I admit to having thoughts of the one that didn't really "get away" rather that I moved on from. Had I not gone through the hell of infidelity I think the concept may not be a part of my thinking. Admittedly, the trauma my fWW heaped on me and our M probably makes the "what if" thoughts more prevalent than they would have been. She was as humble and sweet as a woman could be. I guess that is extra appealing in a post infidelity relationship.

But then, I remind myself how many BS's here thought their pre A wife was a sweet and humble person.....so I realize there is no guarantee that the one I let "get away" could also have been a closet cheater later in life.

Maybe we just occasionally need a make believe safe and comforting place to think about at times. A former interest is as good as anything to put those thoughts into.

LilBlackCat posted 5/1/2019 16:42 PM

Well, I truly do have one..

Back when I was in my late teens, I dated my bestfriend's GF's bestfriend.. but due to limitations on my end and also her end.. It was like we dated and it would fizzle out till we ran into each other again.. and it would start up again.. Did this for like 2-3 years.. Till I joined the service.. We were thinking about things more serious then.. but, since she was still a minor still when I left for bootcamp and her mother had lost custody of her.. She was staying with guardians.

Well, when I left for bootcamp.. I would write to her daily at first.. but after a couple weeks of no reply.. and everyone else already getting mail.. I only wrote a couple more.. after which I gave up..

Fast forward a couple years, I was over my friends house on leave.. and his GF had gotten a call.. and it was her.. and when she heard that I was there.. She asked to talk to me.. We agreed to meet up. When we did, we both (after saying hi and hugging) angrily accused the other of ditching.. It was kinda funny when I think back.

We ended up determining that possibly her guardians never gave her my letters and probably never sent hers out???

She now had a kid and was in a relationship. She still had my favorite hoodie which was like stained to all hell from her kid.. but she told me she was not giving it back or getting rid of it. It was hers. She told me that the only reason she met the guy, was because she was depressed from not hearing back from the letters she wrote to me and her friends took her out to help her get over things.

Well, fast forward several years ahead.. I recall on my birthday that there was a certain sadness or upsetness.. I could not explain, Like I recall checking myself wondering why am I feeling this way??

It was not till a year later, I found out that she was killed the day before my birthday the year before.

I eventually got a hold of her mom, who recalled the infamous "LBC" that she had heard so much about from her daughter in the years before she past.. That the name "LBC" had even caused issues in her marriage. (that wrecked me a lil bit, not gonna lie) but I blame the hoodie.. She was stubborn like that.

Her mom also told me that when she got married, and was consolidating her stuff from her mom's house and from her guardians.. That the guardians, told her that they had a box that she needed to pick up and they had forgotten about it. (It was not with her stuff) Her mom told me that she was there when they gave it to her.. and that it had many envelopes inside that looked like unopened mail. When she saw them, she froze.. then just stormed out of their house and told her mom that they was leaving.

Her mom never asked or found out what the envelopes were.. but after I told her what happened between us.. She said that they had to have been ours.

So, yeah.. She did get away.. Would of it had worked? I dunno, and unfortunately.. I have no way to ever find out.

EDIT:: I always knew that if there was anyone that would truly test my faithfulness, it would of been her. I dunno if I could of resisted without actually having to literally run away.

[This message edited by LilBlackCat at 4:46 PM, May 1st (Wednesday)]

Marz posted 5/1/2019 16:56 PM

Living in the past doesn't get you much.

I never felt that one git away.

I've know a few who lived in the past too much.

I think it's because they never accomplished much after their heydays so it was all they had.

Pretty sad