The Benefits Of Exorcise
My fiancee dumped me three months ago. I was devastated, but I've come to realize that we shouldn't be together. Now she keeps pressing for us to meet, saying there's stuff she needs to "process." I was finally starting to get over her, but should I just go?
--Torn
Getting together with your ex-fiancee after you've finally started to move on is like being just out of rehab and reconnecting with a friend: "What could be the harm? A nice pastrami on rye with my old heroin dealer!"
Your brain, like an air-conditioned Miami mansion, is "expensive" to run, so it tries to go on autopilot (basically nonthink mode) whenever possible. When you repeatedly take a certain action -- like turning to a certain person for love, attention, and comforting -- that action becomes more and more automatic. On a neural level, this plays out with a bunch of individual brain cells (neurons) that "wire together," as neuroscientist Carla Shatz puts it.
This happens after individual neurons each fire off a chemical messenger -- a neurotransmitter -- that another neuron catches and absorbs. The more a person repeats the same action -- and the more a group of neurons does the same fire-off-and-catch sequence -- the faster they get at it. Eventually, these neurons become what I like to describe as a "thinkpack" -- conserving mental energy through bypassing the conscious thought department and robotically defaulting to whatever action worked for the person in the past.
Right now, the last thing you need is to stall your recovery process -- the weakening over time of those entrenched neural pathways -- by getting the band (Ramon and The Neurons) back together. If you feel bad about saying no to seeing her, consider how she's prioritizing her need to "process" over your continued recovery. Aww...how loving! ("It's not you; it's me -- and how my crappy new insurance no longer covers therapy.")
Sounds like the old push-pull game to me. She says "Get back, go away!" Then, "Hey, wait, where'd you go? You're not where you're supposed to be!" That's some subtle, deep-rooted kind of crazy, and really tiring to be around. Even if one is successful in helping that person feel secure in one aspect of the relationship, the toxic insecurity just leaks out later in really odd and unsettling ways.
Block her number and move on, she dumped you, you really don't owe her anything.
bkmale at October 3, 2018 7:48 AM
I have a friend whose ex is doing this to her. Eventually she realized that it can be much more satisfying to deny her ex the contact he apparently still needs, even after dumping her.
We giggle over his increasingly desperate texts asking her to hang out. LW, try to find some amusement in this.
sofar at October 3, 2018 8:05 AM
You owe her nothing
Women have this bizarre need to talk everything to death so they can verbalize their justifications.
She won't just want to meet and 'process' she will talk and talk and talk and talk until you admit see is right about everything no matter how crazy
Tell her you've moved on and have no need or want to see ger
lujlp at October 5, 2018 10:04 AM
I agree that you don't owe her anything and you should not meet her if you would find that difficult. I do think you can say this politely and generously. I would write her something like the following as a text or email if it were me:
"I am sorry you still have things to process about our relationship, but I do not think it would be helpful or healthy for me to meet up right now. As you'll understand the end of our relationship left me pretty devastated and, while I am now in a somewhat better place, I am also still processing. I think meeting you now would be more likely to set me back than help me with that. While I wish you all the best, I have to look after my own interests first in this respect.
"The best I can offer you is that, if you approach me a little further down the track, say in a year or so, I would be prepared to reconsider your request, depending on my own state of mind then."
Take care and all the best,
xxxxxx"
I would add that it is doubtful she would take up that offer of a meeting in a year - she'll have moved on from "processing" by then. So its an offer that costs almost nothing to make and makes you appear gracious and also feel better about yourself.
Anyway, that's my advice.
tzvifl at October 9, 2018 8:02 PM
Leave a comment