i think you get used to it. ok i don't think i've ever been truly in love, but, actually i'm not often turned down as i never have the guts to ask half the time, but i've learnt to put on a smile when asking out a guirl if she rejects me and just know her as a friend. however if its like a big relationship then they leave, well i've never had anythnig that serious so i wouldn't really know. but maybe you should think if someone leaves you that as much as you love them is it worth being with them if they don't love yuo, and trying to force someone to love you isn't true love and they probably can't give as much as someone who really does love you who will turn up eventually, well i hope she will turn up eventually

**Why is it so hard to handle?

Because it's your feelings being trounced, it's got to hurt!

**How do/would you deal with it if someone you truely loved(and said they felt the same) turned around and said they couldn't be with you? ever?

I was devistated. you deal with it by talking, crying, shouting, letting it all out. Unofrtunatly i didnt have anyone to talk to but i emoted alone. (they said my broken heart was boring! As you can tell, i'm still a bit sore on this point!)

**How did/would you try to go on with your life despite it eating away at your soul?

You have no choice. You have to go on. Once you get dressed the first day, it gets easier the second. It's not that easy of course but if you have some good friends to rally around it'll be easier on you. look after your self, eat ice cream, watch feelgood films, try and be happy.

**How are you doing now? better or worse?

Much better. I'm a totally different person to the sap i was back then. and given the choice now, no, i wouldnt have him back.

**Does time really heal or will it always be there at the back of your mind telling you your worthless?

No, time does heal. i can think back on my relationship now and remember the good times, the fun times withoug feeling hurt again. he was part of my past, my first love and he will always be with me.

One day you will reach that stage too where he becomes a happy memory. it wont always hurt so much.

You want my story? OK, here it is.

Boy/f of 4 yrs and i broke up, reason not applicable. Got back otgether a yr later.

I knew the relationship wasnt right, something kept eating away at my soul. then we had a fight. our first in the 6 mths since we'd been back together and he freaked.

The next time i saw him he told me he didnt love me, he never had. The only reason he got back together with me was for sex.

Needless to say i was devistated. I thought i had one of the few good ones out there but he turned out to be a ******* (read 'illigitamate child')

Life has just got better since then. i work for myself now, i have a wide circel of friends (many from here *waves*) and i enjoy my life.

You will come to terms with this eventually, give yourself time. it took me about 2 yrs before i could forgive him. well not forgive, as such, just not be so angry every time i thought of him.

Good luck.

*hugs*

Well my personal experience , left me shattered and broken , and nearly made me lose my baby ... time does heal , but you never forget it has a big effect on your life forever as far as I'm concerened , you learn to deal and thats about it.
It also effects future relationships depending on what happened , that to me is the final nail in the coffin because no matter how hard you try to open yourself up to another person , in the back ground is this nagging doubt of waiting for it to all go wrong.
Sorry didn't do a great deal to cheer people up there , although saying all that I'm now happy as a single mum , happier than I've been for years

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by EvilWillow

**Why is it so hard to handle?

---

Rejection is so hard to handle because no matter whether you are the most confident or shyest person, we all want to be loved and accepted and rejection tends to make you feel like you're just not good enough and worthless. That you have nothing to offer the world and you feel like life isn't worth it anymore.

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by EvilWillow
**How do/would you deal with it if someone you truely loved(and said they felt the same) turned around and said they couldn't be with you? ever?

---

It's hard and I cried floods of tears and turned my back on the world for a while. You just don't want to have people seeing you so upset and yet you're crying out for someone to come and tell you they love you and make it all better again. Unfortunately, that rarely happens and you have to mourn the relationship and get back to living life and being with the friends who do love you.

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by EvilWillow
**How did/would you try to go on with your life despite it eating away at your soul?

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You have to learn to accept that you are special, that although that one person may have made your feel bad, the whole world doesn't feel the same. That your friends and the people who do love you to bits are there for you when you need them. Don't put off going back out into the world too long or it'll just make it harder and harder.

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by EvilWillow
**How are you doing now? better or worse?

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Things are good now. I've moved on and had other relationships. I feel much better about myself and am moving to keep on improving my life, to keep on sharing my life with the people who matter to me and making new friends.

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by EvilWillow
**Does time really heal or will it always be there at the back of your mind telling you your worthless?

---

Everyone has doubts about not really being worth anything, of wondering whether life is really what everyone says it is. Sure it feels that way for a while, hell sometimes a good long while, bt you have to give yourself chance to heal and not cut out the people who can help you most, your friends.

"A man who makes you cry isn't worth your tears and the man who is won't make you cry."

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by EvilWillow
**Why is it so hard to handle?

---

Because you've opened up your heart to someone else, which is one of the most difficult things you can ever do, and they've thrown that back in your face. You've put yourself on the line and opened up way more than you would normally and you're left feeling exposed and unwanted.

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**How do/would you deal with it if someone you truely loved(and said they felt the same) turned around and said they couldn't be with you? ever?

---

Talking, crying, walking the streets in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep again, phoning people at 3am, not eating for a fortnight, drinking too much, taking up smoking, drinking more, crying more, boring the pants off everyone I knew, having my hair shaved off (bad look), deciding I was a lesbian, deciding I wasn't a lesbian, wasting several good pints of beer by pouring them over his head, realising that blackcurrant and soda was so much the better option (cheaper, and stains more), sleeping with unsuitable men (and women)...

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**How did/would you try to go on with your life despite it eating away at your soul?

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You just do, because there isn't much choice. Every day gets a little easier and eventually you find new interests in life, new things to live for, and even though you'd never believe it at the time eventually you might find the person who's worth it and who will love you as much as you love them, who when you give them your heart will treasure it and not stamp on it.

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**How are you doing now? better or worse?

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Better. But it takes a long time.

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**Does time really heal or will it always be there at the back of your mind telling you your worthless?

---

It does heal. I can go for weeks without remembering the guy. But when I do...well, look at this post. This break-up was 8 1/2 years ago and I can still remember the pain and confusion like it was yesterday.

On a more positive note though, I have spent the last 5 1/2 years with the guy who really is worth it, and perhaps if I hadn't had such a bad time with Mr expletive deleted I wouldn't have been the person I was when I met my Beloved and would never have had the strength and confidence to build the relationship I'm in now.

It hurts. It hurts like hell, and no, the scars never quite heal, but all you can do is keep on existing until it becomes living again, and then hopefully you'll discover that it's true that what doesn't kill you does make you stronger.



(Edited by White Hart 23/06/2002 17:20)

OK, my turn to share...

Yep, I had my heart torn into little pieces. All in the relationship lasted three and a half years, the last year and a quarter we were living together, just the two of us, although we'd lived together the previous year in a shared house, and spent most of the year before that pretty much living in her flat (in another shared house). Three months before she dumped me I'd asked her to marry me, that's how serious I was. In retrospect, maybe my timing in asking the question was prompted because deep down I knew it was coming to an end and I was panicking. Or maybe not. I do know I meant it, and that part of me will always be in love with her.

It's hard to handle being rejected by someone you love that much because it feels like you're rejecting yourself. When you fall that deeply in love the boundaries of identity start to blur. It's like you're watching your right arm decide it can't be with the rest of your body any more, and wrenching itself off. Surreal and .. very painful.

How I dealt with it was to stay drunk for pretty much six months solid. First thing I would do, upon returning home from work, would be to take a swig from a bottle of Blue label Smirnoff, and the evening would follow from there. I should point out that we continued to live together (she slept in the front room on a futon) for the best part of nine months after we split up. So there were more than a few tear filled nights with me begging her to change her mind, and her crying but saying repeatedly it would be the wrong thing to do.

Not the best of situations. However, I also had good friends and family rally round me, and that helped a lot. I also decided that I needed to take direction in my life, too many decisions had been made based on a relationship I was no longer in. That's when I left Leeds and moved to Reading, thus putting distance between us, and streets with too many memories, and forcing me to concentrate on the here and now.

I went on because I didn't know what else to do. Plus those friends and family helped to keep me going, to make me feel worth something at a time when I felt pretty much worthless. I've never forgotten the debts I owe from that time, and cherish to this day those who were there for me. And still are.

Time allows you to put things in their place, but doesn't heal completely. Whenever I think back to that time in my life (which, while significantly reduced, still happens) the pain comes back. Sometimes I think to earlier, happier memories, but that usually leads to the unhappy ones, and the pain of rejection. I just have other things to concentrate on, other things to be happy and sad about, but I don't think I actually want the memories of that part of my life to go. They're too important to me.

Am I better? IÂ’m certainly different. IÂ’ve learned a lot about myself in the years that followed the break up. Learned that IÂ’m capable of more than I thought I was. Learned that I had a lot about me to be proud of. And somethings that arenÂ’t so good. And what I could change.

IÂ’m not the person who fell in love with her all those years ago, but then neither is she. And best of all, IÂ’m not the piece of emotional wreckage that I was when we broke up. IÂ’m more confident, and happier in my life. But it ainÂ’t all good. IÂ’m also much more weary about people, letting them get close, and about relationships in general. But IÂ’m trying to work on that.

Which, in the end, is all any of us can do. Hope things arenÂ’t too bad, EvilWillow. If you need someone to chat too then feel free to use my email, or instant message addresses that are on my profile.

I'd try and tell you how to handle it - but I'm still trying to work that one out for myself right now.

One day at a time is my motto.

I'm having good days and a hell of a lot of bad days,
it's all too new, and too open a wound to talk about at the moment.

Family and friends help, my faith, and my counsellor too!

Today is a bad day - tomorrow will be better - I'm determined it will be - I won't let this beat me - I've never submitted before and I'm not going to this time.

Its such cliche that I feel a bit trite saying it but...
Time is a great healer.

Up until about two months ago I was still not over a relationship that had broken up over a year previously. I'd been going out with this guy for two and a half years and I'd lived with him for one and a half of those years. He was my first serious relationship and it lasted from 3 months into my life at uni until three months before I finished uni. He dumped me via a text message four weeks before my dissertation was due in.

Unfortunately it was difficult trying to get over things as we shared a group of friends and had to see each other a lot so we tried teh remaining friends route - which was fine until he started prading round a string of new girlfriends in front of me and then had the cheek to yell and call me rather nasty names when I pulled a bloke in a nightclub. He then tried to make me stay in Sunderland one week before i was to come home by claiming that he still oved me and wanted me etc and then he got a new serious girlfriend and tried to turn the tables by telling her that I was still in love with him and was trying to steal him off her - which by that point was such an absurd suggestion it didn't bear thinking about

Still, I'm over him now but still somewhat bitter/angry about wasting those years with him during the time when its supposed to best to go wild and 'sow wild oats' so to speak and also the fact that he still owes me £200

Still, I think our feelings about rejection and the fact that we remember them so well function to stop us from making such stupid mistakes ever again.

[quote]
By EvilWillow
will it always be there at the back of your mind telling you your worthless? [quote]

NEVER EVER feel that you are worthless. No man or woman should make you feel like that and if they do then they are not worth wasting anymore time or energy on than you already have. And remember "Everything that happens, happens for a reason"

(Edited by Sydney 24/06/2002 12:23)

***How did/would you try to go on with your life despite it eating away at your soul?*

I would/did hunt them down like an animal

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by EvilWillow
**Why is it so hard to handle?
**How do/would you deal with it if someone you truely loved(and said they felt the same) turned around and said they couldn't be with you? ever?
**How did/would you try to go on with your life despite it eating away at your soul?
**How are you doing now? better or worse?
**Does time really heal or will it always be there at the back of your mind telling you your worthless?

depressed much? maybe...

anybody got any personal stories to share?

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Hey sweetie *hugs*

I think I have WAY too many stories of this type to tell, but all I hafta say is that I'm still standing strong now, so it can't have been all bad

I want to thank all of you for replying.
Your stories and personal views has helped and the emails and texts I've recieved have shown I have help and friends if I need them so thank you all very much.

*wish there was a kiss or hugs smilie*

I've been used to all sorts of rejection before now but never one from a relationship (my first serious one too) but after A LOT of time alone thinking and with the friends that I have (a number of them from these boards) eventually I'll be back to my usual evil self.

is that a good thing? i dunno but thanks guys

Glad your feeling better

*big hugs*

Sorry I couldn't offer any advice, hun, but I'm glad you're feeling a little better and I hope things work out for you *hugs*

Glad to hear you are feeling better EW - friends are great aren't they

I'm glad you're feeling better. It'll be good to see you bad to your normal evil self soon. And yes that is a good thing.

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by EvilWillow
*wish there was a kiss or hugs smilie*

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there is a kiss smilie often mistaken for an eek! So big *hugs* and to you and hope we see you soon for real ones

well, the way i see it. Although rejection is hard to deal with,i know believe me, that in the acse of asking a girl/guy out and they say no then dont get too upset cos i dont find every person i see atrractive so why should they Ya know? Its better to try and be rejected than to never try ata ll and wonder what could have been.

Well I have and always will use it as a kiss so to you EW glad your feeling better

yeah good to see you're feeling better and this is deffinately an eek and not a kiss, no one kisses like that with their eyes wide open unless they're windy miller from camberwick green. so i think this is better coz its more of a matey wink saying good to see you're better if you know what i mean. take it easy like cadburys caramel.