h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was going over some old threads I guess I should have taken more notice of this guy who seemed to get me and FC down to a tea. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F44984?thread=302584&skip=0&show=20 I guess I really messed it up good.

I'm replying to this here rather than by email. Hopefully other people will give their insight into this as well, and balance my somewhat slanted view.

No, you didnt mess up - at least not as much as you seem to blame yourself for. Things just didn't quite end as we thought it might. It *does* take two people to screw things up successfully - and I know that I contributed a lot to the way you felt (and therefore acted) just as much as you contributed to the way that I felt (and therefore acted).

I do think that getting your emotions out is a good thing - esp if this idea of yours comes to fruition. I really think you shouldn't trawl through old posts though. It keeps the emotion raw and harsh, rather than allowing it to dull to an acceptable level where you can continue down the right track. It's odd, the permanence of hootoo. I used it the other day to track down some information from Mina (incidentally spotting this post that you found along the way). But it can be extremely unforgiving at times.

I personally find it difficult to read and reply to the emails that you sent to me, especially the poem. I'm not in a place where I can do that. As such, I know that it may come across like I'm ignoring you. I can assure you I most certainly am not. I'm pleased that you are still concerned for me. Indeed, after sharing 5 years with someone and many happy times it would be difficult not to. I care for you also, hence my concern when you said you were contemplating some mad act. However, waking in a cold sweat not once, but three times...

I'm not sure what the best avenue to take is. Maybe I should sever all ties from h2g2 so that you will never have to read what is happening with me. I have tried to be sensitive to your emotions, possibly I have failed. By all counts, if one of us is to leave the site it should be me - you are the older researcher and are far more respected and reknowned on the site. Indeed I have my small number of friends that I will maintain contact with - and have done throughout the many times that I have wandered away from h2g2 previously. However, if you email or text me, what can I do? Especially if I find it difficult to reply to.

Anyway. As I say, I hope someone else can put a less biased perspective on this. I'm willing to take a slap if I've stepped across a boundary or have been unnecessarily cold or cruel. Everyone has suffered a breakup. Most a heart-wrenching one. Your opinions and suggestions I certainly welcome.

Speaking from experience, going through old threads is a spectacularly bad idea at a time like this.

Some of this may sound harsh, it's not meant to but this clearly isn't a situation with any easy answers. I think the best way to stay friends with an ex is to accept that you're not going to be lovers again. Once you've accepted that, you can get on with your life, find someone else to love and then you can be friends again the minimum of awkwardness. I know it's difficult and some people can reach that stage quicker than others, but I'm afraid sitting around picking over the bones what went wrong and what you could have done differently doesn't help anyone.

In short, you need to get out there and get laid.

(I wonder if that'll get past the profanity filter... )

It is hard to have your past life not only as a memory but also on site where you will spot things that you may not have remembered otherwise.

I spent nearly a year drunk in front of the computer once, mourning the end of a relationship. J was constantly late for school because I just couldn't get out of bed in the morning. It took a letter from the school stating that being 90 minutes late for school every day counted as truancy and they were about to set the social services on me before I sorted it out. I was losing my memory, it was really badly affected - I couldn't remember house numbers for more than a few minutes when I was working, I kept locking myself out of the house because I'd forget my keys and had to spend cold nights on the doorstep.

That was a really miserable time that I hated, and don't ever want to repeat, but out of it came my friendship with EV, which I'd never, ever give up and I'm glad I didn't miss. It also brought me you, and loads of other friends. It eventually brought me a job, a home and security like I'd never had before. Stupidly, the relationship I was grieving for was with a bloke who was actually the worst boyfriend I'd ever had - although like you we were engaged and living together. There was also more to it than that, but I can't mention it on h2g2 (lurkers). He finished it because I'd chucked him out of the house for being an inconsiderate waster - so I was well on the way to finishing it myself anyway. It just came like a bucket of cold water in the face when I relented and said he could come back and he said he wasn't going to.

I suppose that what I'm saying is that although it was a really miserable year (I was on valium for a while before I moved to ), at the end of it I came out with a new relationship with a man I still think very fondly of, a new purpose in life, both professionally (work for h2g2!) and emotionally (explore the 'real' me), my relationship with my son was better, and I was closer to a real-life friend that I'd ever been before.

So although this time is painful for you - there is light at the end of the tunnel - things will get better, and maybe, just maybe, they'll be better than ever before. You know you have friends to help you through this, although some of us are quite far away.

FC please don't sever all ties with Hootoo. I'm looking over the past not to get myself but to help to build myself up.

Unlike you I find myself all alone over here that is the hardest thing for me. After all I severed so many links to take a step of faith to come over here to be waiting for you when you decided where 'we' should be. Yes looking over things I notice there are places that I screwed up, places you screwed up and places we screwed up together.

The three months I spent living in our house but not in your life was the hardest thing for me I didn't know how to react around you, and any time I did react it was usually at a point of weakness. Now I'm trying to return to a position of strength, I need you rfriendship both on here and in real life.

So please don't go on my account. I'm trying to get on with my life it's just I'm trying to compensate for a very big hole and I don't like myself too much for how I let that hole get there. But I also know that there is a me that can survive that, that is who I'm looking to become again.

Please stay.

Speaking as someone who's met you all, and thinks highly of you all, and counts you all as friends, and had painful break-ups
I can only echo the advice of EV and say don't trawl old threads (some of mine make me) and go out and get laid.
It won't stop the pain but it will take your mind off it for a while.
You need to break old habits, even if that means starting new ones.

Being single is a but it's better than being with the wrong person, in my view anyway.

Friends with the ex? No, I don't think that's possible. Unless you have things like kids, where you have to have contact, there's no excuse for clinging onto the past.

You have to accept that the relationship is in the past, and that's the wrong direction from where you're headed.

If it's any consolation at all, your friends who were there even before it started, are also mourning the loss and in my own case, still find it hard to believe.

I beg to differ about being friends with the ex there GB. In past there is only one notable exception I have not remained friends with. I admit that as I have moved around the country some of those friendships have flittered away into nothing.

I reckon this breakup is hardest on me because of the way I ended up living my life in the past five years. There were only four worlds I occupied. FC and her family was the primary one, work where I am still far from happy I only took this job to pay the bills, the world of politics which FC despised over time and hootoo, which is a place of mixed emmotions.

With FC out of the picture world 1 evaporated, world 2 remains a place I despise, world 3 unfortunately becomes a world of hurt by association and world 4 as you all know a place of memories happy and sad. I suppose I do need to find a support network but my support network through all the bad times of the last five years is the person I currently need the support network for.

The easy option was for me to pack up and head home to the parents, I decided early on not to do that. I didn't want to run away. I understand that FC says she's need space, unfortunately that amount of space just allows my brain to wander. That's the nature of this beast. I'm not beating my self up over it but I'm looking for how I can improve myself over this. This has been the harshest lesson on my life but at the same time it has brough a lot of good lessons to I'm trying to work out what is what.

Some of you guys say I need to go out and get laid. I'm going to be brutally honest about this to you. I've actually tried and couldn't face it. I deliberately tried the other sexual orientation to avoid any assocaition with the greatest love of my life, so far, possibly ever, I don't know yet. Guess what? I guess I'm not ready for that yet.

I agree rushing out and having meaningless sex doesn't work for everyone - I did it in my year of hell and it worked for me - possibly because it meant I got my hands on someone I'd liked for ages, but I haven't gone that route this time of singleness. I'm still too busy enjoying my freedom. For the first time in 15 years I don't have to worry about what someone else thinks or wants.

Why not come and stay with me for a few days if you want to get away DD?

Cheers Mina. For me in this situation it definitely isn't the right solution.

As for getting away I've sent you an email. Maybe this isn't quite the right time for that either.