C
Ceoli
Guest
So I'm huge into communication. I used to spend too much time setting aside my feelings in order to protect other people's feelings. I've learned the lessons that taught me- that this is a form of dishonesty and ultimately weakens relationships. Now open and radically honest communication is fundamentally important in all my relationships.
In this last breakup I had with the couple I was dating, hindsight definitely shows me that there wasn't as much space for my feelings as I would have liked. As time has passed, the boy and I have kept in touch and have decided to build a friendship. I would like to build a friendship with her as well, but there has been very little communication with her since the break up. Every now and then she'll leave a comment on some facebook post of photo, but that's about it.
In the meantime, I'm finding myself sitting on a lot of unresolved feelings about what happened and while I've talked with him about it to a certain degree (this whole breakup was driven by her and took him by surprise), there are a lot of hard things that really have to do with her. I sent a letter outlining my feelings about what happened.
I wrote about how the fact that she did not include me in any conversations when things were getting challenging makes me feel like I was viewed as nothing more than a tool for her adventures and experiments in her marriage and not as a person they both approached for a relationship. I talked of the affection that I still hold for both of them and how I supported her decision to return to monogamy, but that how she did it without giving space for my feelings is what burned me.
Now, all of this is after the fact really. I have no expectations from sending this except to create the space for my feelings that wasn't there as this was happening. I also hope to salvage a friendship, and know that I can't do that without all of my feelings out there. But the main reason I needed to send it is because I dislike sitting on feelings.
I've had lots of discussions with friends about this letter and lots of different opinions about whether I should have sent it or not. Have any of you felt the need to express yourself after the fact? After things have ended yet there are still unresolved feelings? Has anybody found doing so useful? Destructive?
Just sort of looking for thoughts on this rather than advice as I already made my decision in this case. But it still has me thinking in general about communication in all it's forms.
In this last breakup I had with the couple I was dating, hindsight definitely shows me that there wasn't as much space for my feelings as I would have liked. As time has passed, the boy and I have kept in touch and have decided to build a friendship. I would like to build a friendship with her as well, but there has been very little communication with her since the break up. Every now and then she'll leave a comment on some facebook post of photo, but that's about it.
In the meantime, I'm finding myself sitting on a lot of unresolved feelings about what happened and while I've talked with him about it to a certain degree (this whole breakup was driven by her and took him by surprise), there are a lot of hard things that really have to do with her. I sent a letter outlining my feelings about what happened.
I wrote about how the fact that she did not include me in any conversations when things were getting challenging makes me feel like I was viewed as nothing more than a tool for her adventures and experiments in her marriage and not as a person they both approached for a relationship. I talked of the affection that I still hold for both of them and how I supported her decision to return to monogamy, but that how she did it without giving space for my feelings is what burned me.
Now, all of this is after the fact really. I have no expectations from sending this except to create the space for my feelings that wasn't there as this was happening. I also hope to salvage a friendship, and know that I can't do that without all of my feelings out there. But the main reason I needed to send it is because I dislike sitting on feelings.
I've had lots of discussions with friends about this letter and lots of different opinions about whether I should have sent it or not. Have any of you felt the need to express yourself after the fact? After things have ended yet there are still unresolved feelings? Has anybody found doing so useful? Destructive?
Just sort of looking for thoughts on this rather than advice as I already made my decision in this case. But it still has me thinking in general about communication in all it's forms.