Hi there,
My Dad came out of the closet when I was seven, so I’ve never really had a significant, present male figure in my life.
I’ve recently lost a relationship that was significant to me. I was pretty terrible as a person and have a lot of lessons to take away from the experience. I wasn’t fully present and didn’t show my partner how much I truly cared for her. There were also issues with dishonesty. I tend to attach myself to my partnerships a lot, in this case, I lost myself to that attachment and became a worse version of myself.
That relationship is now truly over, but I am struggling with the grieving process. I see a lot of our memories around our city and attach myself to them. I am often quite a nostalgic/emotive person and can get lost in a sense of remembering. This is all very recent, so I do understand that it’s necessary to grieve, but the pain is quite extreme right now. It doesn’t help that we ended on bad terms.
Any advice would be massively appreciated. I don’t want to completely numb the sense of guilt and loss for my massive contribution to the ending of the relationship – she loved me significantly and was very patient with me for a long time. However, I do want to move forward and self-improve, gaining confidence and self-independence in a masculine and determined way.
Thanks.
EDIT: I should have probably explained this – but my Dad moved abroad after coming out. It isn’t so much that he’s out of the closet, but more so that he wasn’t really present in my life. I thought it relevant information when asking for male advice on a forum such as this.
10 comments
1. Your dad coming out of the closet and you not handling your emotions correctly habe nothing in common and hides another underlying issue
2. Go to therapy. There’s too much to unpack and a random comment on the internet isn’t going to fix your life.
Time and self reflection. Insure that the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated in the future. But mostly time. Distract yourself as much as possible, maybe find a new hobby. As time goes on it will seem less significant.
First off, it’s takes a lot of courage to admit these things to yourself and out loud. Acknowledgement is the first step.
Second, don’t be afraid to feel your emotions. You hurt because you’re human and had genuine feelings for your partner and it does not good to try to avoid or block those feelings out. Take the time to grieve what you had.
Going forward, there are a lot of resources out there for those of us who have attachment issues and unhealed trauma from our past. Finding a great therapist is certainly a good place to start.
Just remember that we’re all human and being human isn’t exactly easy at times. We’re going to make mistakes but how we move forward and grow is the important part.
You have two things to work on here: moving on and doing better.
For the moving on part, you start by trusting that time will do most of the heavy lifting. While waiting, start journaling. Open up a blank document and just write what you’re feeling. For everything you’re feeling, write why you think you’re feeling it. Write alternative reasons and dissect them in words. Let yourself go deep into yourself with it. Do this every day. Let’s yourself feel the pain of the loss, knowing it will pass in time. Try to stay present. Focusing on the past at the expense of right now is a way of clinging to the pain.
While you’re at it, you need to really drill down into the reasons you weren’t a good boyfriend. Why are you that way? Is it the way you want to be? If not, how do you want to be? What does that guy’s actions look like? Focus on being better and kind of fake it til you make it. In time you’ll be surprised by how much progress you’ve made.
Support groups are perfect for this especially combined with therapy. I’m not sure how your dad coming as gay means you lost a strong male presence in your life. It sound like your are doing some healthy soul searching and taking accountability, but it will take time and work
You just need to move on man. You fucked up, you’ve recognized your flaws, now go and rectify them.
You will look back at this in a few years and thank the heavens it happened.
The ‘nostalgia’ part is larger than this issue, and it’s at the core of it. Going over the past is only useful to a very limited extent, and for the most part it is a distraction, a self-soothing, or at worst, a reiteration of bad patterns of thought.
That is what you need to address, and I’m afraid that has ‘therapy’ written all over it. What is it that makes you comfort yourself/torture yourself with nostalgia? It may be something compulsive in your brain you can learn to control.
As always, I recommend mindfulness as a good place to start. UCLA Mindful is a trustworthy app.
Good luck.
Main thoughts.
1. The stuff about your dad is hard for you, but these things are different and you shouldn’t let your past misfortunes weigh you down too much.
2. Main thing to do is to start being kind to yourself, work out, save money, eat healthy, etc. Your stress will go down and you’ll feel better.
3. Next thing is be nice to the other people in your life. Go out of your way to reach out to friends you haven’t spoken to in a while, bring cookies to the office, Don’t stress if not everyone reciprocates, it’s good for your soul to be nice.
4. Have some goals, fun ones and serious ones. They’re also good for you.
That hole is gonna be there for a long time, I got dumped a while ago and I’m on the cusp of getting engaged now. I was with that girl for almost four years though, and I still think about her more often than I should. I’m doing better though.
That is called living and learning, don’t repeat the mistake!
It’s very rare that you meet someone who’s truly unique like that. It sounds kind of messed up, but most SOs are kind of interchangeable. The best way to move on is to just speak to other women, get in new relationships, etc. You’ll get over them pretty quickly.
Out of most of the women I’ve met there’s only been 2 who I feel are truly unique where they are just irreplaceable which are my homegirl and my current gf. The rest it felt tough in the moment but after getting back out there you kind of start to see it.
Also for the dad thing, that’s kind of difficult to replicate. Idk how old you are but just head out to like some really male energy places, I had and still have my dad but I’ve been to a few places that can give that energy like there’s certain bars you can find to just shoot the shit with men, cigar bars are really good, golf courses, etc.