damn it's hard letting go...

We took a vote and everyone said you should stay. We will miss your sense of humor!! Your emoticons are fun too 

Where are you going? Letting go of what?

That was a very vague and ambiguous message, pigfinn!!!

Let go of him.  It’s turning purple.

oh sorry, I guess I should have been more clear.

I am relating to the exboyfriend... and letting go of the anger and sadness and bitterness that I have for him.  I see him post on another forum, a runners forum that we were both part of.  I do not post there anymore, but am bitter to the fact that I can't, because he is there, and also that he flirts with women on there (some of who were my friends, go figure), and most of all, ,most people don't know how critical and mean he could be to me He is such a bullsh*tter, has them all fooled that he is such a nice guy.  I'm just pissed about it all, and I just need to let it go

Which running forum was this?

There are others, you know.  Better ones. 

yeah no kidding. Took me 2.5yrs to get the strength to stand up to him and tell him I did not want to be treated with constant criticism   He called it honesty, and said I was too sensitive.  He would always say "I'm just being honest", and I would tell him his "honesty hurts".   He criticized the crap out of me, but then on the other hand, was the sweetest guy around.  It was so difficult to decide what to do.  I started to notice on his last trip here that I was becoming very afraid to be around him.  I wouldn't speak anymore in restaurants with other couples, because he would always criticize me on the way home about something I said that embarrassed him.  Heck I couldn't even spit anymore when I ran.  He criticized me once about that, and I found myself changing my running habits.  I spat once while we were running, and he shook his head in disgust and said "women don't spit".... so to avoid further criticism, I quit spitting   (note... I did not spit all the time, just once in a great while, LOL!)  He even criticized me once because I had my shorts cuffed and said I looked like a redneck at the fest where we were at   It was ridiculous.  So in August, I called it quits.  I couldn't live like that anymore   He is so smooth with how he treated me.  His criticism was calculated well and always came at the most unexpected time.  It just pisses me off because everyone sees him as this great guy, like how I saw him at first, and noone knows how awful mean he can be   ...and of course, everyone probably thinks I was the problem in the relationship... because they would  never think anything bad of him.

I know, I just need to let it all go, but it still hurts how someone gets away with treating you like crap, and manages to keep their credibility with others... others who were once my friends.

I thought you were talking about the undies under your bike shorts.

just when I was beginning to like you

C'mon...you know you smiled...

oh I won't see him again... and those examples, are just a very small fraction of total criticisms entailed.  if his criticisms were just a few, it wouldn't have been so difficult, but there were so so many   but then of course, he would send cards and buy me gifts... but later in the day, boom after dinner with some friends, and then on the way home (he was very good at never criticizing me in public, it was always private)... he would say something like "i can't believe you were sniffing like that at dinner.  why didn't you go to the bathroom and blow your nose.  you embarrassed me"... and I would be like "excuse me?, I didn't think I was sniffing that bad?", and he would say "well you were".   He criticized me because he thought I ate too little.  He criticized me if I chose not to do a race after signing up because he said it was negative.  He criticized me if I went back for seconds at an "all you can eat" buffet.  He even criticized me once because he send I had too many underwear that were the same pattern.  He criticized me because he said I was disorganized because I would misplace my coffee cup in the morning.  These are again, just a few.

I am really venting here today aren't I?, LOL!!  I guess it's all coming to a head and I've kept these feelings buried for too long

that's funny, because that was always his excuse.... he was trying to help me better myself.  I would say "well I like myself the way I am", and he would say "everyone is always in need of improvement".  I tried to work with him on the criticism, but he would refuse to believe it was criticism.  He felt he was just telling me his true feelings, and that he was being honest, and that I was just an "emotionally fragile person", and that I needed to be stronger and not let his comments hurt me so much.  I told him over and over that they hurt, but he didn't stop

Finally, in August... I approached him and I said "if we don't work on this criticism, I need to get out of this relationship... because I am hurting", and he wrote back and said "you just don't want to be happy, you never wanted to be happy, this is about you and you being negative and always looking at the bad side of things".  So I wrote him back and said "so you are saying you don't want to look at the criticism", and he wrote back and said "again, this is about you and never wanting to be happy".  He wouldn't address it.  He wouldn't even do such much as acknowledge it.

So I ended it... it was impossible to get through to him that his "brutal honesty" was killing me inside

Does this clown know you have an entire online forum that gets on your back about your underwear and you don't need him to be the panty police? That is our job

Sounds like you have a case of jackassitis - an allergic reaction/condition resulting from constant exposure to a donkey. It'll pass. The key is to give yourself plenty of TLC and try to shift your energies from dwelling on the donkey to salving your wounds. Also, congratulate yourself on removing the verbally abusive pinhead from your life. You did right by yourself.

Death by papercuts. Ugh.

Let it out! If you have access to a heavy bag, that's a great way to purge that bitterness. Or, run hard. Have a good weekend!

ha ha   I don't think he knows of this forum actually, which is good!!!  He knew I posted on a triathlete forum, but I don't think he knew which one.  He is too busy smooshing the peeps on his runninig forum, sigh.

thanks After some work on my own, through a bit of therapy and some other online forums... I did realize it was a verbally abusive relationship indeed.  Have you ever seen this site... http://www.youarenotcrazy.com/