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I have been NC with WH for about 32 hours. I think this is the longest we have ever gone without talking. Please send reminders of why this is good! I have been successful with not texting him, and I want to stay that way. I must admit though; I keep hoping I’ll see his name pop up on my screen…

I think I feel better mentally than if I had been texting with him…I shall not text! I got this!

NC = no new hurts

No new ‘revelations’
No news about how happy he claims to be
No opportunities for him to hurt you

You’re doing great!

Talk to us instead. I know you miss him because you love him. It's hard. But love yourself more. Every time you resist feeding his ego, you take a step closer to the end of the tunnel. No words you text or say will change things right now, so the only way to avoid that disappointment is to not say or text anything. Concentrate on what will make you happy in the next 15 minutes, without any thought of him. Then tackle the next 15 minutes.

I just bumped the Stay NC thread in here ;) it has helped me on multiple occasions.

Thank you all for your support and for bumping that thread. This time of the day is hardest because I know he’s off work, so what excuse could he have for not texting? It can’t be because he would rather be with her. It has to be something else, right? At least that’s what I tell myself. Ugh, this sucks! The longer I don’t text him, the easier it is, but the longer I don’t hear from him, the worse it gets. Damn it WH, grow some balls and put an end to this nonsense!

[This message edited by LostandBroken900 at 12:47 AM, Thursday, April 21st]

Make a list of things you dislike that you'll never again have to do once you're done with him. This will serve two purposes:
1. Keep you busy now, and
2. Give you reference later whenever you're tempted to contact him.

The list should include everything, such as:

1. I'll never again have to worry about where he is or what he's doing.
2. I'll never again have to wonder whether or not he loves me.
3. I'll never have to worry about whether or not he loves her.
4. I'll never again have to discover evidence of his infidelity.
5. I'll never again have him mistreat me because he's trying to justify his guilt & distance himself from me.
6. I'll never again be lied to by him.
7. I'll never again have to try desperately not to look at my phone.

Etc. etc. Be real with yourself about what your existence has turned into since discovery of his cheating. Don't minimize it, and accept that nothing else makes up for it.

Go no contact and never look back.

Hang in there LostandBroken.

All of us over here in D/S know how awful it is to be NC. Your brain has to re-order the narrative in your world all by yourself. It stinks.

NC is what saved me in the end. And in the early days, when I would give in thinking he was texting or calling to have a real conversation, I was reminded that wasn't it at all. He needed a little hit. An affirmation. A way to try and control the story.

Or in the end, to take my temperature and see if maybe he wasn't that bad a guy after all.

Nothing there for me except left feeling more lost and confused and hurt.

The list like morninglory mentioned is helpful, but I'd get even pettier with it. What really irritates you about him? What are his bad habits? I mean everyone has something.

When mine would text me something to push my buttons or sounded loving, I would laugh at him. "That right loverboy? The same dude who _____? What a joke."

I went strict 100% and never responding to anything at all. Ever. Until we met at the attorney. It made him crazy.

That doesn't mean I didn't have fun making up responses in my head. Or sharing them on SI. One of my original threads is posting some of his crazy texts and laughing with everyone here at the replies they imagined. I still smile at how that would drive him nuts knowing he was being ridiculed.

So cathartic when you can start to detach. Takes their power right away. Just know every time you don't reply to him, he's the one left wondering what you might be thinking or doing. It will piss him right off.

I was NC with my xwh for a few weeks and it was going great.
But i had to see him at my kid’s event and I regressed big time.
I feel like i lost all the progress I’ve made.
So NC = critical in keeping your sanity!

Bravo MorningGlory! Best list I ever read!

Yeah, I went the other way. I kept a list of all the horrible things he did. The times he left me waiting when he was texting her, the time he asked me to leave the hospital room after I ‘d been with him all night so he could text her (I later learned), the time he lied to his own family and made a holiday dinner 2 hours late, the shitty birthday gift he gave me the last year, how he denied me sex because he didn’t want to cheat on her (yeah, he said that), the way he protected her instead of me… ALL THE TERRIBLE THINGS. This helped me stay strong.

Every time I dealt with him it felt like the nastiest hangover afterward. I was disappointed, hurt, and felt like garbage for a long time after each call or text. Kinda reminds me of when I would smoke a cigarette and then be ill for a couple hours.

It is hard. But it gets a l little easier every day. It really does.

NC gives our power back.

Only with NC we can heal, detach and move on.

Think of him like a drug you are addicted to. You know he is bad for you and best thing is to stay away completely.

Be patient with yourself, NC isn't easy but it it is what will make things easier.

Keep pushing forward. Keep your eyes on the prize. You can do it!

[This message edited by papoula at 4:46 AM, Thursday, April 21st]

Charity411

Talk to us instead. I know you miss him because you love him. It's hard. But love yourself more. Every time you resist feeding his ego, you take a step closer to the end of the tunnel. No words you text or say will change things right now, so the only way to avoid that disappointment is to not say or text anything. Concentrate on what will make you happy in the next 15 minutes, without any thought of him. Then tackle the next 15 minutes.

This is great advice. I broke NC today and it was so dumb and pointless. Nothing will change. He just ignores what I write.

BearlyBreathing

Every time I dealt with him it felt like the nastiest hangover afterward. I was disappointed, hurt, and felt like garbage for a long time after each call or text. Kinda reminds me of when I would smoke a cigarette and then be ill for a couple hours.

Oh gosh.. this is exactly it. This is how it feels. I can't hear his voice anymore. I can't see him anymore. I just can't get my heart to understand what my brain knows. This man doesn't love me. This man hurts me.

What helped me was to remember that the thing that caused me the most pain was that I had some emotional connection to him. The best pain relief I was likely to ever find was to sever that emotional connection and fall out of love completely. The best and fastest way to do that was to go no contact and live my own life and do things that had nothing to do with him. Choosing to fall out of love with him and turn him into an irrelevance gave me so much power back. I'd had no control over what he had done to me, but this was something I could control. To not care what he did was a kind of superpower that I longed for.

You have to drop the hopium pipe. Believe that you are too good for someone who would treat you this way. Understand that if you lose the emotional trauma bond that you'll see him for who he is, and he won't look impressive to you. If you allow yourself to fall out of love with him, you will be free. You will belong to yourself again. You can begin to truly heal.

The worst thing that could happen is him dropping the AP and you taking him back. List all the horrid crap he's pulled and imagine it's his dating profile. Would you date that guy? He isn't worth a date, much less to be married to. Love is a beautiful thing, but it blinds us. It can be a trap. You're too close to freedom to allow your leftover feelings for him to keep you bound to a man who doesn't qualify to so much as take you on a coffee date. Stop thinking about him choosing someone over you. Stop choosing him yourself. He's not worthy of you.

You guys are amazing. There are so many good ideas in this thread! I need to start making lists.

DevastatedDee, I appreciate everything you wrote. This is really helpful:

You're too close to freedom to allow your leftover feelings for him to keep you bound to a man who doesn't qualify to so much as take you on a coffee date. Stop thinking about him choosing someone over you. Stop choosing him yourself. He's not worthy of you.

So, he’s staying with a family member, and he’s got mail here at home (bills and stuff). My therapist said that it would be morally right to tell him that he has mail, and that reaching out to tell him he has mail is different than reaching out to talk about our relationship.

Would you agree? Should I break NC to tell him he has mail? I’m afraid he will provide a standard "cool, thanks" response, and I will be disappointed, even though my purpose was not to have a conversation.

[This message edited by LostandBroken900 at 7:42 PM, Thursday, April 21st]

So, he’s staying with a family member, and he’s got mail here at home (bills and stuff). My therapist said that it would be morally right to tell him that he has mail, and that reaching out to tell him he has mail is different than reaching out to talk about our relationship.

Would you agree? Should I break NC to tell him he has mail? I’m afraid he will provide a standard "cool, thanks" response, and I will be disappointed, even though my purpose was not to have a conversation.

I disagree. He is an adult and he knows he may have mail at his residence. If he wants he can find a way to find out if he has mail or go after his own mail. You are not his mail's keeper.
He chose to leave and he knows he has bill to pay. This is his responsibility not yours

Agreed with Papoula. He has mail, he can figure out that he might have mail, and if he can't figure that out, fuck him. He won't die for lack of mail. He is not your problem. The crap he put you through was a lot worse than not telling you that you had mail. I'd call this part of "consequences". It will cost you to contact him and you will do best to be done doing things that cost you emotionally on his behalf.

You've got this.

I’m having an internal argument:
Heart: I reeeaally want to know what’s going on with him. It would be so easy to just text him…so easy…
Brain: NO! I won’t do it!
Heart: But I want closure…
Brain: No! If he wanted this relationship, he would have reached out already.
Heart: But what if he thinks I want space and that’s why he hasn’t reached out?
Brain: He’s a dude! He would have reached out! Why would he reach out to you if he has a sparkly new girl to play with?
Heart:….but maybe he’s weak and thinks he needs to wait for me to initiate contact?
Brain: If he’s not man enough to send a goddamn text, then he’s not man enough for you!
Heart:……
Brain: stop it! He’s hurt you more than anybody ever has, and he keeps doing it!
Heart:…I’m lonely…
Brain:….me too

Shit.

Trust me - the loneliness is temporary. IT WILL PASS. In less time than you think. Every time you reach out, you re-set that clock.

If you know the address of where he is staying, just put his mail in an envelope and mail it over to the friend's house. Ask the friend or someone who knows friend if you have to. Otherwise, not your circus and not your monkeys.

It's hard, but you really have to give your brain the control over this matter. Your heart is self-destructive right now. We've all been there. It was the same for all of us, that argument between the heart and the mind. Your heart will catch up to your brain in time, but you have to go through the withdrawals of no contact first.