Dear Roe,
I can't get over my ex. He broke up with me almost 10 years ago and left me devastated and unable to consider a relationship for several years. I still think about him daily, despite being in a happy relationship and having two fantastic children. My thoughts just randomly interrupt my day, and I regularly have dreams about meeting him and getting back together (this is not what I want when I'm awake). I don't feel as deeply about my partner as I did about my ex and that worries me, but also comforts me as I know I couldn't ever experience that same hurt again should our relationship ever end. I feel so guilty and ashamed about these thoughts and cannot tell anyone how I am feeling after this long. I am due to get married next year and am so worried that I will think of my ex on my wedding day; I would be so sad for my partner if that were the case. How can I rid myself of these thoughts? I have done counselling in the past but it did not help.
This is a public service announcement for anyone who has tried therapy and found that it wasn’t as helpful as they had hoped: try another therapist. Therapy is like any other profession, where there are brilliant individuals in the field and utterly mediocre ones – and therapy is also unlike so many professions, because the fit of personality, dynamic, approach, philosophy and therapeutic style has to be a good fit for treatment to be effective. Often you will have to shop around for a therapist until you find one you can build a solid and effective therapeutic relationship with, and you will have to invest time in that relationship. Can this process be deeply frustrating, expensive and time-consuming? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.
You don’t reveal much about your previous relationship with your ex or your experience in therapy, and there are endless possibilities as to why one is still affecting you and why the other wasn’t effective. You say your ex left you “devastated”, and it’s not clear whether he behaved particularly badly or whether the simple fact that he left broke your heart, but it’s clear that this relationship has now taken up too much space in your heart and mind. Therapy will help you explore whether you were left traumatised by the relationship and perhaps that’s why the memories of him keep resurfacing; whether the rejection of the break-up has become a symbol of low self-esteem or fear of abandonment that now plagues you; or if the relationship tapped into some underlying issue you have around intimacy, safety and security in relationships and so you keep being pulled back to a person you cannot have.
One line that feels important in your letter is “I don’t feel as deeply about my partner as I did about my ex and that worries me, but also comforts me as I know I couldn’t ever experience that same hurt again should our relationship ever end”. This could point to a few different things: that you’ve internalised the pain of your previous relationship as passion or love, and have trouble connecting with a love that feels safe and secure, and/or that never having dealt with the pain of your previous relationship has caused you to keep people you love at a distance, as you are too scared to be vulnerable with them, to need them, to let yourself love and be loved fully and completely.
These thoughts could be a self-perpetuating cycle: you are scared of loving someone fully so you think a lot about your ex, which not only creates an emotional distance from your current partner but then the shame of their thoughts makes you keep the thoughts a secret, so your partner doesn’t know why you’re anxious, and even more distance is created.
Everything in your mind is conspiring against you to stop you from accepting the love that is in front of you right now. It’s time to break the cycle. Your previous relationship ended 10 years ago. You’re getting married next year. This is time for a new start, a new commitment to yourself and love and your new partner, and you deserve to do so in a way that feels whole and brave and open and vulnerable and safe. Think of going to therapy and working on this as a way of honouring yourself, your partner, and your upcoming marriage. Invest in it, and invest in learning about yourself so that you can be better to yourself and your partner.
Getting a therapist who uses psychotherapy or analysis as well as cognitive behavioural therapy would be ideal
There could also be another completely different reason for these thoughts that you can unearth with a professional who you trust and feel comfortable opening up to. Because it’s also possible that you are giving the content of these thoughts too much credit, and the problem is simply that you’re having intrusive thoughts at all. Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that are unusual for you, upset you, are hard to control and disrupt your daily life – and your description of constant thoughts about wanting to be back with an ex you don’t actually love any more that interrupt your days and nights and cause you anxiety about your current relationship fit the bill. Intrusive thoughts can be caused by trauma, anxiety, stress and other underlying factors, and so it will be important both to get to the root of them and explore how they affect you, but also to engage with some therapies to help you interrupt the cycle of these thoughts – which is absolutely possible.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is one strategy that helps people manage intrusive thoughts, helping you shift your thought process, interrupt intrusive thoughts when they arise and lessen the frequency and impact of them. Getting a therapist who uses psychotherapy or analysis as well as cognitive behavioural therapy would be ideal, as they could guide you on what treatment they think is most suitable for you.
These thoughts have been causing you pain for years, and you need to accept that you deserve to heal and be happy and move on. Sometimes, inaction is a decision. By not addressing this issue, you are choosing to let thoughts of your ex plague yourself and your current relationship. Choose differently. Choose to invest in yourself and the loving relationship in front of you. Choose to believe that you deserve to be happy. Because you do.
If you have a problem or query you would like Roe to answer, submit it anonymously at irishtimes.com/dearroe
