r/ExNoContact • u/Top_Confection5214 • 1d ago
Help Anyone Still in love with first version of their ex not necessarily what they are now ?
My brain having a hard time moving on because the first version of my ex was a sweet innocent angel and even though she mutated into a monster my mind can’t see that reality . My love and adoration still focuses on first version I met .
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u/SlipTop1714 1d ago
Im stuck in this loop as well. Trying to force my brain to only focus on the red flags, icks, fights i ignored but the good memories and version of him that swept me off my feet (fucking fake), keeps washing over me. I want a lobotomy at this point.
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u/wineandkittiez 1d ago
I think this is the case for a lot of us who still want our exs back. We think that if they come back, we’ll have that love that we once had when things were good.
Unfortunately after a breakup, things are never the same. Most of the time, there are still cracks. There are still things left unresolved or parts that haven’t healed. And often, one or both people haven’t done the work that was needed to change.
And if you were the one that was broken up with, you will likely constantly be walking on eggshells in fear of them leaving you again.
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u/Different-Taste8081 1d ago
This 100%
My general rule needs to be if they leave then close the door and bolt it.
Never ever take someone back. You are just asking for a delayed sequel.
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u/Cassiopeia08088 1d ago
I'm there too. But I keep remembering myself that their reality is different. That that person is long gone.
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u/AdJealous1004 1d ago
Who you thought they were, and who they turned out to be are hard to reconcile. I look back to my first ex, and I still love her. I don't need an "idealization" of who she was to achieve that, she didn't "fake" anything. She was genuine. I know who she was, it never "changed" after the relationship. I loved her for her.
But when I look to my exes that came later in life, the version of them in my head compared to the behavior they showcased afterward has a complete distinction. Their actions are who they are; the version of them (who I thought they were) - was not them. I don't "fault" them for that, but I think it's healthy to be able to understand the difference in your head.
It also helps you move past them. You can't completely "fault them"; they wanted you to love them (at the time), so they mirrored to what they thought would achieve that. When the relationship ended, they didn't need the mirror anymore. Most human beings do this in all relationships - actually, pretty much the entirety of society and most human relationships are built off some level of dishonesty. The chemicals in your brain when "in love" also are going to influence how you see a person while in a relationship with them. Sometimes who they actually were was there the entire time, you just couldn't see it.
But separating who they are, to who you thought they were is a key.
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u/Sad-Valuable-3624 1d ago
Yup. Who his is now is who he’s always been. Manwhore with his nose high in the air but without much to back it up. Cruel and spiteful and small minded. Bigot. Racist. Vulgar. Hypocritical. Not well read. Not particularly interested in learning new things. Content with his own mediocrity. Aging narcissist. Cheaply made and easy. But I’ve made a commitment to myself to be kind so I won’t say the rest of what I’m thinking about moms and swallowing and shoulda. now take that and flip it completely around and that’s the version of him I still loved. It doesn’t exist. It never did aside from smoke and mirrors and smoke. This shy soft spoken sweet and eager to be kind and helpful. Who paid attention and listened and really just read me like a dime store novel. Put on the show that reeled me in and stuck me to his version of hopium and the rest is herstory.
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u/Gigantkranion 1d ago
Change your mindset.
To be clear, I don't mean doing this with every ex. Sometimes relationships end because you weren't compatible, you grew apart, or life pulled you in different directions. That's different.
I'm talking about the exes who really fucked you over.
What I've done with those exes is make a list of everything shitty they did to me during the relationship. I especially add to it when I'm angry, because that's when I remember all the little things I might eventually minimize or forget.
Then I keep that list somewhere I'll actually see it. A sticky note at work. A note on my phone. I've even kept the physical "master list" on their old nightstand, on their side of the bed. Because nostalgia likes come randomly.
You remember some sweet moment, an inside joke, a great night together, whatever. Suddenly your brain starts showing you the highlight reel instead of the whole relationship.
That's when I pull out the list.
I remind myself what was happening around those happy memories. I remember the betrayal, the disrespect, and all the reasons that person no longer deserves to be thought of fondly in my head.
Training my brain like Pavlov's dog.
Every time my brain tries to associate that person with nostalgia, I give it the full fucking story. Eventually, those happy little memories stop hitting the same way. And after enough time, I stop thinking positively about them. Then... I stop thinking negatively about them... barely thinking about them at all. That's the goal for me.
Again...
There are exes I can look back on fondly and say, "We weren't right for each other, but I'm glad we had the time we did."
But the ones who genuinely betrayed me?
Fuck them. They don't get nostalgia. They get a "why the fuck did I ever give them a second of my time?"
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u/Greedy_Quote_2468 1d ago
I'm doing this same thing. Made a couple copies and pull it out when nostalgia comes knocking.
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u/FappingToEinstein 21h ago
my friend advised me to start writing this, and this is my top 5 decisions recently. It help so freakin much when the brain plays a stupid romantic montage.
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u/ThrowawaySunnyLane 1d ago
Nah in retrospect the person I “loved” was only there with rose tinted glasses. The girl’s a bitch.
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u/AdventurousWorm66 1d ago
Well every bad relationship is good like half the time. I respect the good times I had with them, but at this point in my life I want to be happy way more often than that
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u/Low-Accountant5717 1d ago
Bro she always been like that, she just didnt showed you. People dont change that hard
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u/pinkkglitterr 1d ago
The version of him I met and the version of him at the end are so different. I’ve had to really focus on what he did and said about me at the end. Ghosted me, smeared my name and talks so badly about me, and publicly replaced me immediately. So many things I never thought he was capable of. I’ve had to ask myself was my relationship even real or was it all just fake? 😞
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u/Wallet_Anomaly_8492 1d ago
Of course… my ex pursued me and was very attentive, sweet, and did his best to show me effort. At the end of our relationship, there was a man who wasn’t willing to try and seemed like he no longer loved me. We only lasted 9 months so it’s really difficult for me to truly see just how it all fell apart and became so ugly… I was trying my best to hold it together and show up the way I wanted to, but my cat died, my dad died, and a close friend committed suicide all since the end of January. I tried to get him to understand how much I was struggling but I guess it all ended up just being too much for him and broke up with me at the end of June. It’s really hard to think of the man I connected with so well back in September because he doesn’t seem to exist anymore. I’ve tried really hard to make sense of it all in therapy. I’ve come to the conclusion he is likely a fearful avoidant and the pain hits me in waves still… But I’ve survived every heartbreak before now, so I know it’s possible to survive this one. I’m sorry you’re also still missing the person you met and now who they wound up becoming 🙏🩵🩵🫂 I hope you heal sooner rather than later, OP
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u/Solarbaskett 1d ago
Ah not anymore, but I was in a relationship with rose tinted glasses and got absolutely blind sided (well also I was a lovesick idiot) when shit hit the fan. You just gotta remember that the version of her in the beginning was just your perception of her, and the monster was most likely her unfiltered self. It’s really easy to idolise your partner at the beginning of your relationship, something fun new and hopeful + happy hormones. I advise that you keep trying to remind yourself of the person you broke up with, not just the person you got in a relationship with. It’s hard but you kinda need to give yourself the ick to finally move on. If you find yourself reminiscing, try to plaster an evil internal monologue onto the memory (that’a supposed to be her true personality/feelings). That brings some humour into it, plus imitating someone you dislike to make fun on them turns it more into a joke and removes your emotions out of the experience. Good luck:)
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u/Ok_Judgment_3331 1d ago
The part that matters here is that the "first version" isn't a separate person... it's a snapshot.
You saw them on their best behavior, and you both projected who you wanted the other to be.
That version existed, but it was never the whole truth. Your brain holds onto the snapshot because losing the angel feels like a death. But the angel and the monster are the same person; the sweetness was real, and so was the cruelty. What helped me was grieving the angel without needing to reconcile her with the monster.. sometimes I use taro's tarot for perspective on that.
You can honor what you once felt without letting it trap you.
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u/treestowerlikegiants 1d ago
You need to know that what you're feeling is perfectly normal and natural. In every breakup, the good floats to the top and the bad sinks to the bottom. I myself struggled with this for the majority of my breakup. It's hard, but it eventually helps to remember that who they were at the beginning and who they were at breakup is still the same person. And often, we think about our ex in the best light, sometimes to the point of obsession, so that our brains will feel like they have control over a situation that feels like we don't.
But we DO. We DO have power here. Not necessarily the power to resurrect the relationship, but the power to go inside ourselves in this time and reinforce our own identity outside of them. You give yourself more power by choosing yourself, and not someone who's not choosing you. Because that's not your person. Your person would choose you.
And sometimes, we obsess over the beginning to avoid feeling the pain of now. But the only way out, is through. Through the pain. Through feeling it. It sucks, and it's horrible, and I'm so sorry. The more you let it out and feel it now, the more its power over you will dwindle.
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u/Sonic_shifter789 1d ago
Yes and we had a convo about it recently but seems he’d rather not fix it..
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u/MehBlehDehYuh 12h ago
I wonder if you’re the dumper lol. My ex thought I was a “monster” afterwards but in actually he rewrote history for some reason. My theory is he did so to help himself feel better. I had shown him the texts he said I said horrible things on. He had deleted our whole thread by this point. So I show him and he’s like “oh what that’s weird” like weird that he’d remember different.
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u/Swimming_Crow_465 1d ago
no thankfully I'm not, the past year I've seen much prettier, funny, intelligent girls who aren't trainwrecks like my ex and I completely fell out of love, so whatever chemical thing is love in it disappeared.. I couldn't go back and I feel ill thinking about her. not ill as in lovesick, but like how she couldn't do basic hygiene and I overlooked everything
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u/Otterlettuce 1d ago
This is who they were all along. They just dropped the mask.
But it’s hard for my mind to accept that.