When the Urge to Reach Out to Your Ex Feels Unbearable
There comes a moment in almost every woman’s recovery when the urge feels unbearable.
He’s going away with his girlfriend and asks to change the co-parenting schedule but didn’t say why. You assume it’s for a work trip. The children mention something casually and you learn it was a romantic vacation. You feel replaced, rejected, erased and taken advantage of.
Your body floods with jealousy, panic, longing.
And the thought forms:
I’ve gotta email him and tell him what I think!
Recently, Chloe, a woman in one of my Hearts & Minds Divorce Recovery Groups described a similar experience in a chat with the group.
She wrote:
“It is eating me up with jealousy, rejection, abandonment feelings and anxiety. Would any of you think it wise for me to ask him about it?”
What followed was a masterclass in peer-led recovery as the other women in the group guided her through their own experiences. (All names and identifying info have been changed and the group members okayed my posting this).
Chloe
Ladies I have a question - my ex is in Mexico this weekend and told the kids only at the last minute, saying it was a work trip. Some of the kids, he hadn’t even told. It is eating me up with jealousy, rejection, abandonment feelings and anxiety. Would any of you think it wise for me to ask him about it? We have had zero conversations about speaking for months when I asked one last time if he would consider speaking to me and he said best to get through the divorce first. I had asked (by email) for him to speak to me many times in these last two plus years and there was one email excuse after another.
Thoughts? It is hard to live with this pain.
I know you all understand. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow!
Ling Ling
I asked myself to do two things when it comes to communicating with him:
1. The initial 30 days: No contact and minimal responses to his emails as needed.
2. After that initial 30 days of “detox”, I only reply when he initiates communication.
This had worked out for me. Some days are harder than others. There were for sure at times I was obsessed about reaching out or finding out…I talked myself out of it. It was quite empowering looking back knowing as hard as it was to resist my temptation, I was able to live through it.
Many times I got so close to pick up the phone and call…I feel good now that I didn’t.
Bottom line I ask myself, what do I have control over this very moment and let’s recognize my struggle, recenter and focus on that. Journaling and reading give an outlet to my thoughts and internal conversations.
"You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
And yes, I totally understand. I totally know that feeling of “eating me up”…Send my prayers to you.
Chloe
Ling Ling! Thank you for your strategy, wisdom and empathy!!! I have started a good novel and have been doing yoga, and cleaned some of the basement getting ready to sell my beloved home in Phoenix.
I also made a decision to go on a cool trip for my birthday in March.
Thank you so much for your prayers. I know after 2.5 years it’s better but there are some periods where the pain is just so painful.
Christine
Not entirely the same, but this reminds me of when Ian (ex) did not take David (son) on a travel soccer weekend because he had a "dinner" he wanted to attend. All I knew (because I asked) was that the dinner was not work-related and was of a personal nature. Once I knew that, I stopped asking, because I knew it was with "her" and he was prioritizing her over his son. (I found out after the fact that this dinner actually was a charity fundraiser event with homewrecking whore b****'s parents. Very public debut, with people we both knew in attendance. This dinner occurred prior to our divorce being final).
We had a meeting with the family therapist about it, because I was adamant that his decision was not in David’s best interests, and I was told that I am not entitled to know anything about this dinner. Even though it directly affected my son (he traveled with another family) and me (if I was going to travel instead of him). Not only that, I was told that what is in David’s "best interests" is my decision when he's with me, and Ian’s decision when he's with Ian.
Not what I expected at all. All that to say, now that you are divorced (even though you're still in the 90 day window), you can ask all you want, but he doesn't have to tell you anything. And why would you torture yourself with the truth (if you got it, let's say he's with someone else), or asking yourself whether he's even telling the truth? He's not the man you married. My advice is to not talk to him at all, to the extent you can avoid it. It would just add more pain. I understand how this situation can set you back on your healing.
Chloe
Christine - thank you so much for your story, too! The whole thing about the kids is so unfair! My ex hands out money and expensive gifts to my kids like candy, while having his lawyer say in court that he is practically impoverished and needs alimony from me! (I only got out of alimony by a settlement and paying for more of college 70%! And he makes plenty!
I think both of you are wise. I am so tempted to reach out in the 90 days to beg him to come back, but I would lose my dignity (again, since I tried it so many times). I just want my life and family back… and am working to recreate it one little baby step at a time.
Thank you for your honesty and strength!
Eliza
I was just listening to an autobiography and at the point her husband died, she told her therapist that she couldn't see anything in front of her but a plain desert. No trees, no flowers, nothing. She was someone who had an amazing husband but also an amazing career and despite being very in love she had been very independent until he was very sick from cancer. She had also just lost her dog not long after her husband and so she was feeling very alone. What she wanted was to feel independent again and once again be ok being alone in her own company. We've talked often about being widowed in a sense because the husbands we knew and loved are gone.
There is not a day that goes by that I don't want to talk to my ex but every time I think about it I remind myself that he is not the person I loved. He is a stranger who does not care about me. A lot of times I write him a letter that I will never send. I would advise against calling him because it will only hurt you.
Almost two years ago, before we had even started divorce proceedings I lost a woman who was my second Mom. She was one of the most important people in my life. When I texted my husband she had passed, I fully expected him to call me and comfort me. He didn't even respond to my text. That devastated me, and in all honesty was probably when I really knew the man I had loved for my entire adult life was really and truly gone.
I would encourage you to think about how he might respond and then how that will make you feel. And remind yourself that you are amazing and deserve so much better than anything he could offer you right now. Hang in there!!
Chloe
Eliza - another great response! With each of your responses my urge to write to him has softened. I do keep thinking he would respond, and respond with care, but then I’m reminded about how he has not done that for any other thing and the man I hope for is no more. It is so sad and unfair but we do deserve to find a better way.
Thank you for your honesty too and your strength.
Kaila
Yeah...that's rough Chloe..Just remember to be compassionate to yourself. The desire is completely normal and will be triggered here and there, but thankfully it will not last. Just remember that the brain takes a while to catch up with the person we are now dealing with. Take time to regularly remind yourself of who he truly is, when that desire comes, so that your brain slowly weans itself off the man he would often be when he was in his "loving state". It's more or less retraining our brains to fully conceptualize the person we have always been dealing with but just never had a full picture of, due to the whirlwind of emotions and walking on eggshells while in the marriage.
Also take time to tap when the emotions get unbearable. It has really helped me release those trapped emotions. Cause once again, the body keeps the score even though mentally we feel like we have moved on.
Rae
Chloe. My heart goes out to you. Only you can know if you can trust him enough to be in communication with him. Once (many years ago) I had a postcard that a friend gave me to send to a boyfriend after a bad break up—it said”I will always love the false image I had of you”. I didn’t send it to my then boyfriend—it seemed petty and childish. But I think of it now. Is the husband I loved gone—or did he never exist? I may never know which one —and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle—what I do know is that I need to move forward and that for me right now that means only contact around needed issues for the divorce or for our children. I am struck by Eliza’s wise words—is he worth your being vulnerable? Will contacting him mean you are moving forward or backward? Whatever you decide, we are here to support you.
Ling Ling
What an amazing group of beautiful, strong and intelligent women we are! I get such strength, wisdom and courage from all of you.
Chloe
Wow! Me too. Kaila and Rae - also amazing responses. What I read in them is a mantra: heal ourselves, remember the man we loved is no longer a loving man.
For the longest time while he was intermittently withdrawing then gaslighting and then love bombing, and I was getting frustrated, frightened and angry, I kept saying I was living with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and I literally said in the last months, “Will the real Jack please stand up” and of course that would get me a love crumb of how much we were soul mates and meant to be together and how much he knew he wasn’t nice and that I was working to save the marriage, only to see him turn his back on me yet again with some lie or avoidance of a hurt feeling - I would say “are you a nice person who does mean things? Or just plain mean?”
And he would just say it was mine to answer and figure out. But then would agree we were better and would do things for a few days and the cycle would begin again, until he said, “you are right, I’m not committed” out of one difficult conversation and walked out the door angrily saying he was ending the marriage. Slapped my wrist as I tried to stop him to talk. Hasn’t really spoken since and has only been. More mean.
I have to remember that. Just last week lied about all our utilities and what he had/had not done, blamed me for problems like I had made mistakes (which I did not), withheld an answer to a question about money etc.
I have to keep licking my wounds and saying it will be ok. I have a group of women who understand, strategies like tapping, journaling, my glitter paper project that gives me some sparkle to look at, etc.
Thank you thank you thank you! I have not written to him and have leaned on your strength to get through the hardest part of the wave.
Ling Ling
“I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.”
My therapist told me to stop doing “private investigator’s job”. 1. Only do it if you have the courage to confront him and be at peace with whatever the outcome is; 2. If not, it only serves the purpose of torturing yourself and perpetuating the obsession.
>>End of chat
So, having read what the women shared with each other, remember this. When the urge to reach out hits, it’s not a sign that you’re failing to heal. It is a sign that your nervous system is still learning that the person you loved is no longer safe to contact.
You don’t need to act on the urge to make it go away. You only need to stay present long enough for it to pass.
Each time you choose not to reach out, you are not “losing” him — you are reclaiming yourself.
Healing does not happen all at once. It happens in these small, quiet moments where you choose dignity over desperation, reality over hope, and self-protection over self-betrayal.
And over time, the space that once terrified you becomes the space where your strength lives.
