The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Long term lurker looking for some Wednesday Wellness advice.
I broke up with my girlfriend of 6 years a few weeks ago. The core reason was that I wanted to meet other people - she was my first and only relationship and while what we had was amazing in many ways, I couldn't shake the thought that I might be missing out on more. If I'm going to marry and have kids with someone I want to be damn sure that they're the right person, and I wasn't. I decided to throw away an incredibly stable and largely happy relationship for the chance of something even better. I felt that if I didn't I would live with regret, or just end up breaking up later down the road, which could be even worse. I'm worried this makes me seem selfish and naive.
I've never broken up or been broken up with (again, first relationship), but boy are they fucking hard! She moved out of my place and I don't see or talk with her any more, but I'm paradoxically still surrounded by her every day. I'll drive past restaurants we used to eat at, hear songs we used to listen to, see things in my house that remind me of her. I remind myself this is what I wanted, it's not like this new reality was thrust upon me without my consent, but it's sometimes hard to remember why I wanted it in the first place. I'm wondering if losing her was the only way to make me realize how much I needed her in my life.
Time heals all wounds and I know things will only get easier, but I haven't let go of her yet. And I'm not willing to let go quite yet either, which means things may get even harder before they get easier.
Just musings now, I'm continuing to think and reflect the next few weeks. Happy to answer any questions or take feedback/thoughts from folks.
I don't know what you did right or wrong and won't pretend to.
I'll just note that the worst romantic mistake I ever made was dating a mediocre girl for a year in college. I never should have dated her, she was fine but I was never serious about her while she loved me.
Dumping her hurt like a bitch. I hated to hurt her like that. Watching her cry that hard hurt so bad, and she was wearing my rowing sweatshirt when I did it; and she took it off and refused to wear it out, so knowing she walked home in the cold made me feel so much worse. I dumped her on Friday and cried until Monday. It was like putting my dog down.
On Monday the woman who is now my wife got back from her visit home. She brought me a care package from new England. She'd been advising me "as a friend" to dump the gf. She had been scheming, like a sexy teenage Palpatine, on this subject for weeks. By Thursday she was my gf. This was the best decision I ever made.
I can't predict how it will end for you, but I can say that regardless I understand your pain. I hope all goes well.
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