What you need to do is reach a point where you can look at the experience with your ex from a 3rd person perspective and fully understand why it happened and, most importantly, how to prevent it from happening again, because hindsight is 20/20 and you should be able to tease out red-flags.
I had one and only one relationship that has gone down as the most painful, worse than my ex-wife and custody battle situation, but the upside is I know that's the worst it's ever going to get. I simply won't become as emotionally invested and vulnerable again. So in a strange way, I have that bad experience to thank for exposing all of the conditions that will result in emotional pain that severe. It has innoculated myself from future pain. That's not to say I haven't had drama since, I have. But I have developed a thicker skin and I don't lull myself into a sense of security. I do miss that loss of innocence but it's just better this way.
I haven't read the Mark Manson give no F's book but that's kind of what comes to mind here. Pain isn't all external. It is something everyone sort of generates inside themselves through their hopes/fears/insecurites. I think men tend to follow a logical tree through life. We want assurances that if we do X, Y, and Z we will get a predictable outcome. That's simply not how it works with women. One moment you can be the center of their world and the next it's "just somebody that I used to know". Briffault's Law and hypergamy.
When you think someone has more honor and integrity than they do, it's traumatic because it makes you second-guess your own judgment. It makes you wonder whether you can ever really know someone if you had such a false (idealized) image of the other person. So again, I have tried to become more philosophical. When you enter into a woman's life it is the product of a set of lucky circumstances. No matter how good it gets there's no guarantee it will last. It would be nice if there were loyal women out there who will stick with you thick and thin, but that's the NAWALT fantasy. So for me, I always look at it one day at a time. Expect the worst but hope for the best and you'll never be disappointed.
I had one and only one relationship that has gone down as the most painful, worse than my ex-wife and custody battle situation, but the upside is I know that's the worst it's ever going to get. I simply won't become as emotionally invested and vulnerable again. So in a strange way, I have that bad experience to thank for exposing all of the conditions that will result in emotional pain that severe. It has innoculated myself from future pain. That's not to say I haven't had drama since, I have. But I have developed a thicker skin and I don't lull myself into a sense of security. I do miss that loss of innocence but it's just better this way.
I haven't read the Mark Manson give no F's book but that's kind of what comes to mind here. Pain isn't all external. It is something everyone sort of generates inside themselves through their hopes/fears/insecurites. I think men tend to follow a logical tree through life. We want assurances that if we do X, Y, and Z we will get a predictable outcome. That's simply not how it works with women. One moment you can be the center of their world and the next it's "just somebody that I used to know". Briffault's Law and hypergamy.
When you think someone has more honor and integrity than they do, it's traumatic because it makes you second-guess your own judgment. It makes you wonder whether you can ever really know someone if you had such a false (idealized) image of the other person. So again, I have tried to become more philosophical. When you enter into a woman's life it is the product of a set of lucky circumstances. No matter how good it gets there's no guarantee it will last. It would be nice if there were loyal women out there who will stick with you thick and thin, but that's the NAWALT fantasy. So for me, I always look at it one day at a time. Expect the worst but hope for the best and you'll never be disappointed.