My ex-girlfriend and I broke up two months ago. She turns 50 soon and is a warm, caring, loving person who is also very beautiful. She suffers from low self-esteem but recently, I also discovered she suffers from anxiety and possibly depression. We dated 7 years & each have 2 teenage kids from previous marriages but never lived together.
We both have descent paying jobs but her workplace dealt her some major setbacks in the previous 3 years. Most recently, in April of this year, she applied for a new position and was told that she had a good shot. This was a moral booster as her present job was a dead end job. Through some rule to do with merging with another company, she was told she didn't get it. Then the next day she gets called in to HR and is told she is being let go because she makes more than her co-workers. She was devastated and it took her 5 days to tell me. The higher pay had to do with more years of service. But, she would be replaced by another body. They did find another job for her but it was worse than the previous one and came with a 20% pay cut.
Three months after this, she wanted to break it off and gave me a warning beforehand. So on the day of the breakup, I agreed so I wouldn't appear as a weak. I also wasn't happy but only because for the previous year, she was making little sarcastic comments about me for various reasons. I didn't take them personally as I had assumed they were caused by the stresses of work. These comments increased after her last ordeal at work. Was that a mistake on my part to agree...maybe.
A week later I signed up for telephone coaching with Jodie who was awesome. We drafted up an email sent one month after the breakup, saying what went wrong and my accepting the blame for it. Also, as I have no contact with her, I asked to be friends. The response was less than desirable as it was filled with anger and accusations about me being lazy and unmotivated. None of which were ever mentioned beforehand. Two more emails were exchanged but her anger level just increased. My responses were always non-blaming and cordial.
Her last email said to stop all communication with her and to stay away from her and her children. I was more of a father to them than their real dad so it hurt. I could also pick up my items off her deck. But when I did, she had kept the things she wanted and gave me back the things that were insignificant. When I texted her nicely about them, she claimed they were gifts and was disappointed in the person I had become for wanting them back and how it tarnished my image.
When I followed up with Jodie, we explored the low-self esteem issue as it was caused by a mentally abusive mother. Also, her father died spring of 2009 and that probably made her depressed. It was shortly after this that the negative comments started. Doing further research, I now realize how the three are tied together and there effects on a relationship. The biggest factor is work and low self-esteem. Women who suffer felt that they had a lower level of acceptance and love from their partner when they were failures at work. Add anxiety, which I am positive she had after reading the symptoms and the train of thought becomes worse. Add depression & being pre-menopause and she is probably going nuts inside.
My only contact with her is through a mutual friend who I can trust with this information. I am not giving up hope just yet but I have to respect her wishes to cut off all contact. I will take what she said about me with a grain of salt and continue to work on myself. I have also educated myself on how to deal with low self-esteem, anxiety & depression. At present she sees me as a threat but I have never given any indication of that.
Guess my question is, is there any hope for getting back with her? I know she has to retrain her thinking process and I'm hoping our mutual friend can somehow help with this. It will be a long process but I'm hoping time will be on my side. My brother asked me, with all of that going on, why would you want to? I am still in love with the person I met but feel that for the present she is lost inside of herself.
I am the LBS in my case. But I do suffer from low self esteem, and I am also in perimenapause. When the Bomb dropped, I took a good hard look at myself and saw that I had been depressed, shut down and had let most of the things I enjoyed about life go. Very unattractive...and a vicious cycle into depression. My H was suffering his own issues with work and family-so we just co-existed and drifted apart. I am working on fixing my issues. I know that I am the only one who can truly make myself happy. And that I can't be happy in any relationship if I can't be happy and secure in myself. I don't think my H is working on dealing with his issues. H's favorite aunt told him that he has serious issues and divorcing me would be the biggest mistake of his life, (I know-in my current state I don't sound like much of a spouse,) so he cut her out of his life. The Bomb was a real wake up call for me to get my life straight-and I am seriously working on it. I am going to be a better person no matter how this situation turns out. If my H doesn't do some soul searching and 180s of his own after his fog clears, I'm not sure if I could be with him again if he ever did want me back.
I can't offer much help-other than my perspective since I'm pretty new here. Focus on what you need to do for yourself to be a happier, healthier person. Take care of yourself.
M 45 H 44 no kids-one great dog M 15 yr in Oct T 18 yr Bomb 6/10 "I can't be your husband any more"
Our relationship did become boring as with everything going on, she was always tired. I was very sympathetic and never pushed her. I never knew the effects low self-esteem had on relationships and the high failure rate because of it. Throw anxiety or depression into the mix and disaster is looming.
One thing she said in one of her last emails was that I had no life. Found that odd as my life was more busy in the last year than ever before. The busier I became, the more the sarcastic comments came my way. But I made it a point that our time together was never affected by it.
She is such a wonderful lady but as she is so private, I doubt she will ever seek help. Over the years I have also learned that she is not open to suggestions from others.
I also relied too much on her for my happiness. I'm sure when she wasn't happy she turned to me. On days when I saw her, I could tell how her day went the minute I walked in the door. On the bad days, things became very tense and I'm sure I projected that.
But I did get away from the things that made me happy. More of a money issue as one of the things she enjoyed was to be wined and dined. Gets expensive doing it once a week. Now I have the money and started playing golf again, started taking ballroom dance lessons and cooking classes.
Problem is, she has no way of seeing any changes I make. Remember that actions speak louder than words. Guess I will hope for a miracle.
Yes. One of the big mistakes I see people making on here over and over and over is when they talk about their spouse or lover having "low self esteem"...
When a person has low self esteem, that usually means that they don't think much of themself.
So, if they don't think highly about their own self, and then they find someone who DOES like them, the person with low self esteem secretly thinks.."if I don't even like myself, then there MUST be something wrong with the person who does like me (in your case it is BigDM)
You are actually hurting your own chances by hanging in there and trying to show her how much you care. She believes there is something wrong with you because she doesn't even like herself, so how can YOU like her if she doesn't like herself? You must be weird or have problems if you can like HER, since she doesn't even like herself...
You answer is to go out and find someone else and leave her alone and act like you DO NOT like her. You will then be agreeing with her own self assessment. This will make her want you again when you reject her.
