after the break-up

So to make a long story short, I was in a realtionship for 6+ years, we got engaged and after 4 months I broke the engagement off, and after spending 5 months of hell and realizing he's not the one for me (especially since things became violent), now I'm really and finally "single-single" if that makes sense. No contact with the ex.

Is it normal to hate the opposite sex and want to be alone for a long, long, long time??

 

Sounds like a question for the women of our community.

EDIT: Saw cynthetic's comment. I stand corrected (hopefully).

 

It's just so strange being "single" after such a long time....I don't know if I'll ever get used to it.

 

I was with someone for about 3.5 years and I broke it off because I didn't see a future. I loved him, but it just wasn't enough.

That was in 2006 and I haven't had anything serious since then. It's not because that relationship ruined me, I'm just not a relationship person I guess as I don't tend to actively seek them out. The one with M just sort of happened and I didn't realize it until he introduced me has his girlfriend. I've had periods where I try to force a relationship because I think I should at least attempt to be in one....but then I flake out and run.

Couples do tend to weird me out. Watch, I'll be married within a year or something silly.

I did entertain a serious relationship with a woman a few years ago, but had some life altering crap going on at the time, so I couldn't commit to her. Looking back, I wished I would have sucked it up and just gone with it. She still lives in Ohio though and is going to law school. I've mentioned that she could be a lawyer in Oregon.....

I don't think any of this really answered your question.

So....being single, for me at least, is really awesome. I'm not suggesting you whore around like I did, but there's self discovery to be made. It's a new stage in your life, so it will take some time to warm up to it.

Best of luck to you.

 

I think it depends why you hate the opposite sex after your break up. Could be that pain is still raw and it comes out as anger. Take your time to heal from that anger.

Wish you the best

 

Good luck with things Nienna. We're not all bad, but that's for us to prove and for you to find out when you're ready.

 

Thanks folks....

I think it's not really the "I hate the opposite sex" thing....I guess it's just more being afraid to open up to someone again....I totally hate dating. It's not what it used to be.

 

yes it's normal. you'll be ready when you're ready no reason to jump until you're mentally ready.

 

Of course its normal, he bought violence into your relationship - he made abnormal normal. Enjoy being yourself, enjoy life, and who knows what or whom your future holds, mayhap one day you will look into someone elses eyes, and realise how beautifull they see you as being, and maybe you will share your lives together - but if not, worse things happen at sea.

 

Don't know about hate, but I've always taken a break from seeing other people after a breakup. Helps to not bring in baggage to the next one.

 

Yes, it is very normal. When my Ex-wife and I split up I had a hard time dealing with it. I felt hurt and betrayed. Even now, seven months later, I find it near impossible to consider dating. I can see your view on "hating" the opposite sex. Though I don't "hate" women, I find it hard now to think I could ever find what I had with her, in another woman. I have learned that I won't find it, but that I have to atleast try to go on, praying that I will find someone who will have something different. Not the same qualities, but different ones that will still be able to compliment my own. Breaking up and dating again are not easy tasks. Sometimes you just have to take that step, and hope that life will bring you what you need. One suggestion: Don't LOOK for relationships, just live life and see where it takes you. The right person will show up when you least expect them to. As to how long my marriage was with my ex, if you are curious, we were together for almost 13 years. It's hard, and painful, especially when she met someone not a month after we split, and married him a month after that. How's that for "the opposite sex sucks"?...lol

 

Thanks for all the words of wisdom folks. Alabama, you're 100% right, thanks for the advice....and I can't even imagine....so sorry you're going through that.

Maybe "hate" was a strong word....it's more dislike and no desire to deal with the opposite sex....at all. I think it's because there are 3 guys that I've known and been friends with who now all of a sudden want to come out of the wood work and become my "rebound" fuck....I don't want to put up with that shit. I'm just so put off by males right now.....

With that being said, I'm seeking therapy because I feel so fucked in the head and need to move on in a healthy way.

 

Actually, thereapy isn't such a bad idea. You would be surprised by how much talking to a professional can help a person figure out what is going on in their own head. My story would probably curl most everyone toes if it all came out. It isn't very pretty. Thanks for the sympathy. It helps to know someone else who is going through the same thing, or at least something similar. I know what you mean about the guys who want to be the "rebound" guy. I'm a man, and even I know some men can be pigs. This is just my opinion, but any "friend" who wants to be the rebound can't be much of a true friend. A TRUE friend would be there to listen to you, answer whatever questions they can, help you find the help you need, and give you 3 body parts: A shoulder to cry on, an ear to bend, and a back to help support you when you feel you can't do it on your own. I don't know you, and I won't act like I do, but if you want an ear to bend, I'll offer mine. I can't offer a shoulder or a back, but I can offer to be a friend. I hope that will help.

Also, I have found this forum (TFP) has always been a great help to me when I needed some help or advice. There are a LOT of good people here. One of my favorites is Cyn. She is awesome.

Hope to hear from you soon!

 

I'm just resurrecting old threads left and right today, aren't I?

I am just coming out of a fourteen+ year old relationship with my partner, nearly twelve years of which we spent living together, eight and a half years of which came after we celebrated a wedding/commitment ceremony with one another in front of our friends and family. For all intents and purposes, excluding legal ones, we were married.

As I'm coming to grips with the fact that I am no longer married, that my marriage is over, that I'm on my own—and that has been very difficult for me and will probably be for some time—this will be the first significant period of being single in my life since following my freshman year of college. I'm still very much at the point where I don't want to accept that this breakup is final, clinging instead to the hope that there may still be some small chance that my partner would come back to me after we are separated for some time—long enough and with enough distance from the pain and dysfunction of our relationship as it existed over the last decade that she'll come to realize she not only still loves me, which she's already told me, but wants to be in a romantic, lasting, monogamous relationship with me again. It doesn't help me right now that she's in a completely different place in letting go of the marriage than I am and already seems ready to "just be friends" with no emotional complications whatsoever.

That aside, and needless to say, the OP and I are coming from very different places in this process, but I imagine many of the same lessons apply. In another breakup/identity-finding thread I stumbled upon this evening, the quote below resonated with me a great deal, and I'm hoping it can be helpful to me in making my way through this process:

The toxicity in me giving of myself from a supply of love-and-stuff I didn't really have to share because that love-and-stuff wasn't being directed to myself first and foremost, is what characterized much of my relationship with my now-ex. She's been telling me the same thing for years—to stop focusing on her and focus on myself instead. Even as the relationship was going through a severe crisis for six months before it ended, I couldn't do this because I was so petrified of losing her, and my focus was still, destructively, wholly on her, and not on myself. Over the last several weeks, I've come to realize just how much I had lost myself in my relationship with her, making compromises of who I felt I was and devaluing everything that made me myself, blinded by the mistaken assumption that she didn't value what made me who I am since I didn't have anything in common with any of her friends. As often as people had told me before that I couldn't love someone else without loving myself first, I've never understood or believed it before as much as I do, and need to, now.

So I know this may not be relevant to the OP's experience, and I certainly don't hate the (same) sex, but I think I'd probably be better off if I didn't want to date anyone of either sex for a long time.

Fuck serial monogamy.

 

I'm going to keep with DamnitAll and rogue49 with the resurrection theme.

My last relationship ended in January. He was active on this site, and was actually how I got introduced here. It was a rocky and unbalanced relationship, which I didn't realize until after it ended badly. We both realized a little while out from the breakup that I put more into the relationship, and put up with a lot - unfounded accusations of cheating, pointless fights, everything.

But back to the point of the thread. It's hard to love someone with all your heart but know that you're not right for each other at this point in time, possibly ever. It's hard to go from having another half to feeling empty. It's hard to go from falling asleep smiling every night to falling asleep crying. Hard enough to not want to think about a relationship for awhile. Hard enough to have trouble looking at people around you and have the desire to be alone only go stronger.

It gets better, slowly. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be alone at all, especially for a relationship of that length and with abuse. Take some time for you

 

Someone wrote on a bathroom wall...."I wish I were a lesbian." Like they don't get hurt. I hate to admit it, but not all guys are jerks....just the ones that Bathroom Graffitti Artist dates and the_jazz. You gotta kiss a lot of frogs or whatever...men and women.

 

I hate when girls say that. I've had my heart broken by both genders on several occasions. Sometimes (at least in my experience) ladies can be worse, if they're also just mean people in general - they know the right dig to get at you emotionally for a really long time.