KC, in my experience the reason you also feel bad after contacting him is that the contact doesn't end up what you hope it would be.
I know this from experience. With my pre-married, long time on again, off again R. I would reach out hoping she'd say things like "I miss you." "I cant' live without you!" "We can we be together?" And when it would invariably not be that, I would be bummed that I broke NC.
I should also say that I also felt that way after she initiated contact. After my initial excitement, when the contact itself didn't live up to my expectations, then I felt like crap again. I got to the point where I avoided all of her initiated contact. This was pre cellphone days, but I would let all calls (before caller ID) go to answering machine to screen them.
My life was so much better when I was NC and wasn't responding to her initiated contact.
I can see that side of it too...
Its easy for me to feel like all this going to be okay if he is nice, calm and gentle and shares something personal even if its not a positive "your mom did x and that is why this won't work". It was a negative but he shared what he was thinking and he went to on share something else. It tricks my brain to thinking he is leaning in toward me ---- dumb but I'm honest.
But, I'm to the place I just want peace. I fooled myself into thinking that since he hadn't brought up the D in 2 months that it wasn't so important at this point.... WRONG. He thought I should have been "working on it" and he went on about how much time he gave me... but clearly I'm not working on it because I don't want it. I agreed with him and told him he was right.
^^^^ NOW, I see that I'm back to trying to please him. I'm doing the atty work. But, he isn't cooperating or acting happy that I'm getting it done..... so is that pushing me harder to please him??? <<<< Yup, maybe it is.
But, score one for me for not engaging in his texts yesterday. I was business like. I got the docs and there was no reason to fall for his subsequent b*tching.
