Rolta

The absurdity that the criteria for a 'good refugee' is 'someone who can install Sky within 3 months of landing'. The implication that those from outside Europe can't do that is also absurd. These comments don't come across very well, and maybe we should all just be happy that our country isn't getting bombed to shit in this festive period.

2 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Comon chap, we are talking about different people. I'd be shocked if any of the migrants that come over on boats could be fitting Sky TV in less than 3 months. Even if we brought them over like the Ukrainians, I still wouldn't bet they would be in a skilled job very quick.

Does anybody even know any of the afganistan people brought over after the war in a skilled job?

Again I'm ceratinly not sticking up for the Tories, but it just seems like an impossible job the way they are coming over the channel.

You're the one presuming that the people coming over on boats have no skills. I've definitely read plenty of examples of people coming over on boats being often highly skilled and educated. The amount of people displaced in Syria and Afganistan and so on who have a lot to offer and who had good lives before being forced to flee just like the Ukrainians is huge. Your comment just makes it seem like you think people from certain countries don't get educated, which if you actually look into things seems to be very wide of the mark.

No player was magically playing through 11 players. He didn't do great but neither did anyone. 

On 13/12/2023 at 19:07, chrisvilla4 said:

Late to the party offering any advice maybe,  but I think it wise to try and separate the words and the actions. Almost like the difference between your head and your heart. Saying 'I love you' carries some weight when said, but do the actions match up, are they showing you they love you etc. 

Break ups are never easy and carry some emotional ties. Best of luck.

Her actions stun me to this day. Mainly the brutal about turn. I'm left dumbfounded multiple times a day. This is why something else going on in her head, drawn from her upbringing or whatever, seems the only thing that makes sense. It's like the person I knew had a mind swap with someone else.

On 13/12/2023 at 17:32, Vancvillan said:

Three months later she called me and said she'd made a mistake and wanted to know if she could come back out to see me. I told her I'd moved on and met someone else. That someone else is now my wife, we have two kids and this year celebrated our 20 year anniversary.

I had a lot of questions for my ex that didn't get answered during those dark months, and it took a while to realise I'd never get them.

Fast forward to now and I hadn't thought about that situation in years until reading your post.

Not saying yours will play out the same, but accept you won't get the answers you deserve and move on with your life. Maybe she'll come back and maybe she won't, but waiting will just block other chances to do other things.and be happy sooner.

This was interesting to read Vancvillan. You can be my inspiration! (Also that's terrible that your ex got with your friend).

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm one interview down one more to go today, so things are moving on one way or another.

3 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

@RoltaI think this will come back round. You’ve inadvertently triggered something that has really hurt her, but in an irrational way. I don’t think she was looking for an excuse to get out or anything, it’s something more genuine than that IMO, but still an overreaction.

Bide your time and wait for the olive branch. Keep an open mind and try to talk it through.

Thanks Kent! I waggled my olive branch at her (ah this explains everything) quite a lot over the first few months, but I've taken a step back now. Let's see what happens. It's extra odd as I'm interviewing for jobs in different countries—Spain and UK as I said above—so I guess whatever will be will have to be. I don't have a clue about her plans.

3 hours ago, Vancvillan said:

There is 100% something else going on here and it has nothing to do with Emi Martinez.

If she's cut off all contact then honestly you're better off taking care of yourself. Your 2025 self will thank you for it. It sucks, but it gets better every day and it's not like a death where it sits with you forever.

If she contacts you then you can talk, but she needs to be open about what really upset her. Let her talk. Don't feel like you have to solve anything, just listen. And then decide if what you've heard is enough - be compassionate but remember that your own mental health is more important than anything.

Thanks. It's been three months now. We did talk a bit a month in, but I made it happen as she was being really demanding about me sending her money and various other things. I said, 'I don't even know why we broke up, and you're walking all over me here. We should talk about this like adults'. So she relented—previously she'd been saying things like 'I'm not in the right mental headspace to talk about this'.

I think I mentioned it in another thread, but when we talked on Zoom she didn't have anything to add other than she vaguely said she didn't want to be in a relationship. It didn't really explain the ghosting/stonewalling, or how she could about turn on an 8 year relationship so quickly, but I was being compassionate at that stage so didn't mention the ghosting/stonewalling at all, nor how confusing that is for someone to process—especially when a week before our row she was proclaiming how much she believed in us and was telling me she loved me.

She also said she loved me too in an email exchange a few days later (mostly the emails are about the flat. They're not very open from her side).

Anyway, she's stubborn as hell and her defences were clearly way up when we spoke. I've seen that side to her appear from time to time over the years. I feel she's not the sort of person who backs down when she's made this kind of decision, so I'm not holding my breath. There's no real communication now. She hasn't seen her dad in 20 years as I mentioned. We had some great times, but yeah what can I do but focus on myself!

2 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Without speaking for @Follyfoot I think his statement was more about ladies and when the decorators arrive and how they can be.

Stating the obvious here, but it's now time to look after number one.

It's a proper kick in the stones but time is a healer.

Yes indeed! I'm finding Villa being actually good now a massive help. Ironically when we moved to Madrid it was the year we were relegated, so I like the Villa poetic bookending. Technically I think that means we're going to win the league. And every time Emi is a hero, I just think how much my ex is a bit of a dick!

On 11/12/2023 at 15:01, bobzy said:

Sorry to hear about your situation @Rolta.  It's particularly horrific for you (I imagine) that there's not what you'd consider a "rational" explanation to suddenly ending the relationship and it would be beneficial for you to get that; whatever it may be.

I suspect there's a massive link between this blow up and her childhood (from what you've said), which makes me think you're never going to get the rationale.  Either the relationship may rekindle once she decides she can communicate effectively again or she'll be so stubborn with her belief system - whatever that may be - that she cannot face it.  Mental trauma is incredibly complex.

You've just got to stay strong for yourself.  Whatever happens, in any facet of life, time continues.  Life goes on.  People can be in loving relationships with any of a vast array of other people.

Thanks Bobzy. Yeah it's just been too bizarre. The person I went out with for 8 years didn't seem capable of stonewalling/ghosting. I'm not sure if Follyfoot is aiming his comments about sensitive men at me, but that kind of thing is so wide of the mark if so. Anyway, she did it, and I'm still processing it. It's more difficult because we lived together in Spain. Our whole lives were over here (and we came over together), but we were also planning on leaving together this January and changing careers. After she disappeared, I quit work because I started a course. But then the course wasn't right and I left (good decision)—things have definitely felt a bit limbo-y. The pillars of relationship, job, and city all fell apart in an instant. This has taken some getting my head around. I have interviews for three different jobs ongoing, some in Spain, some in the UK which is positive in its own way.

3 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

A friend of mine was recently kicked out of his common law wifes home, it came from nowhere, no build up, just ended one night. Since then that relationship has got worse and worse and there is no way back. My wife raised a point that perhaps she is going through the menopause as apparently there are days when my wife feels like killing me. Is your former partner of an age when potentially she could be going through the menopause?

She's 36. I hate saying this next bit, and I understand how it comes across. But I don't think it helped that it was an argumentative 'time'. (I say this having been with her for 8 years, and I know I know I shouldn't say it but I also know there were often times in similar parts of the cycle where it seemed like she wanted to have an argument). But I mean, that doesn't explain the stonewalling/ghosting/disappearance. It was a perfect storm of things coming together to make such a shitty situation happen though.

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

She sounds absolutely mental. I know it was 8 years but it sounds like you're better off out of it. She's essentially projecting her bullshit onto you, emotionally manipulating you, and gaslighting you when you called her out on it.

Thanks Stefan. Yeah it's been such a headfuck. What you say feels true, but it's been so out of character for her for 99% of our time together. She usually seemed pretty relaxed and easy going, but it's also probably true that she suppressed near enough everything. She had a negativity that came out of her sometimes too. She did flip out on me about a year and a half ago when I was cooking and we were having a chilled out night together in the middle of a very chilled out holiday month (housesitting in a mansion surrounded by some amazing countryside). She started insulting me from nowhere (first about putting the recycling in the wrong place), stopped letting me speak for five minutes while doing these insults so I just couldn't defend myself. I was so shocked/surprised. It went on for about ten minutes in total, me trying to rationalise and talk to her, but she just kept on jabbing. And then I said (a bit loudly—like middle loudly) 'Let me speak!' and smacked the table in frustration (erm it was very frustrating being insulted from nowhere and mainly not being able to speak). I did leave the room then, and was pretty obviously angry. She the next day told me I needed counselling and that I had anger issues. I just couldn't believe it that she spun it on me.

I think I just wanted to move on and be happy so I didn't call her out. As I say it was a weird outburst from her, so I just put it down to 'one of those things'—nothing typical of her or who she was. A weird blip. We were happy from then on, properly good times, all the way to Emi-gate.

I can't remember every detail I said above, but we had a pretty great relationship for 8 years with some very very occasional hints that she had something else going on. We were talking quite a lot about her dad in the last week we were together (I think I mentioned that her dad had seemed a bit manipulative and generally very unloving in her childhood and she hasn't seen him for 20 years and never usually talks about him—her sister tells peeps her dad is dead). I was wondering if we'd stirred up some of that stuff.

20 hours ago, Genie said:

Are you 100% she hasn’t got someone else? The “being in a great place” before the split might have been her over compensating for her bit on the side? Just a theory. Certainly sounds odd. Hopefully one day she opens up on what it’s all about so you can at least have some closure.

Yeah no way. It would probably have been impossible the way we were living.

19 hours ago, Mr_Dogg said:

The Andrew Tate toxic masculinity bullshit had broken up a lot of relationships, but there's the opposing female versions as well now.

It sounds like she was vulnerable to being influenced by such people and it may have changed how she thought and perceived experiences. 

I feel this is more a likely trigger. Not only is there the stuff she was sharing on Instagram, I also ran into one of her friends from her book group who told me that she and a few others were getting a bit man-hatey and militant. They're all feminists, but the friend said she thought things were getting out of hand.

So I feel it's a combination of us arguing about a topic she was very invested in due to its feminist angle (obvs she didn't argue with me well and just insulted and stopped me speaking) and me rejecting her in that moment, leaving the room to sleep elsewhere in a time of stress (jobwise—anyway, she suppressed her emotions, so who knows how much she was stressed about) and something in her seemed to flip. When I left, and I said 'I wish you hadn't come back' it felt so raw and cutting. I think it hurt her deeply. But we do all say stupid shit in arguments, and the fallout was not justified. 

15 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

I'd forget her and start to move on. I wouldn't waste another second on her.

If she can just do that after 8 years then she's not worth even thinking about. Rolta deserves better from where i'm standing.

Thanks Rigo. I see the sense in this. So often I'm aligned to that, but there's plenty of the other more nostalgic side too. Especially at Christmas, gah.

14 hours ago, Xela said:

Agree.

It'll hurt like buggery, but you need to move on. Knowing that you are still there could be a power play by her. Drop her a note, sort out all you outstanding shit and wish her well for the rest of her life and delete her details. 

The power play thing—after hearing her accuse me of a power play the morning after it did just seem like projection. She basically took everything she unfairly accused me of and did it to me. I feel gaslit. Jesus—it's so sad though. We were well and truly entwined up to that point. We'd had some beautiful times (I know that's always the story).

Long post above. Thanks for the replies everyone.

18 hours ago, Davkaus said:

How long has it been since this incident @Rolta?

I'd echo the posts about there perhaps being more to it, and unless things are absolutely unsalvageable, it might be worth trying to figure out what those other things are.

Unless one or both of you are just completely set on being separated and don't regret it being over and done with, it sounds like it might be worth working through it, preferably with a proper couple's therapist. I can see why people are saying you dodged a bullet, but if there was none of this for 8 years and it's just all blew up, I wouldn't be keen on just letting it end over something as an escalated disagreement like that after a few drinks end it.

It's been three months now. I've reached out to her a few times, but nothing's really happening. I keep mentioning dismissive avoidant attachment theory. Obviously this is the way I am making sense of it right now. The way it's written about online is that when people with that kind of background of childhood neglect detach they can really put their guard up for months on end and any kind of reaching out I do will only make things worse. She shows every sign of being dismissive avoidant—she has always been weirdly closed about her emotions, and reacted weirdly when I tried to talk to her about things that were bothering me (in life, not about her). We also got along amazingly and were so close and well-aligned at the same time. We're both pretty independent and not needy. If I ever went to her with something that was bothering me (again not about her), she'd always be very logical about it, which is apparently a sign. I'd be expecting a bit of sympathy, but she'd react with something like, 'What are you going to do about it? What steps are you going to take?'. She definitely had self-esteem issues, but put on a good show of being strong. Maybe we all do that though. You would never know if she's upset about anything until a few months later when she'd crack. She trusted me and was open with me, but as I say, I feel as if the mix of emotions and my reaction to leave her and go sleep elsewhere in the parents' house in an emotional time landed really badly. I apologised a thousand times. Even then, it's difficult to describe how frustrated I felt with the way she was responding to me before I left. I know I needed some space. Obviously I'd not leave if I had the chance again. It was such a destructive few hours. I'm still in our flat in Madrid and there have been some really tough moments of missing her.

There was none of this kind of thing for 8 years, and we were definitely happy. I am so sure of it, and yeah it blew up out of control—but even then the argument was shitty, but it was just an argument. I barely go a week without hearing about another couple doing the same or worse.

I'm still open to her, but there's not much I feel I can do. It's been so much to get my head around.

EDIT: Honestly, writing all this is just bringing back so many memories. I've highlighted the fall, but the good times were near constant. We were real partners in life.

21 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I thought Emis behaviour was a bit childish but he comes across like that anyway. As for all men’s sport being toxic, well who’s being  sexist there?

It does sound very extreme Rolta, and as you say I bet you wish now you hadn’t brought it up but jeez man 

She was never one to really talk about things on her mind (this is partly why I wonder if she's dismissive avoidant due to childhood trauma), but the only thing she ever listened to were feminism podcasts. As I say, I'd be accused of being as woke as anyone, and consider myself a feminist, but she'd had a few moments where she really got militant when there was a macho sexist incident like with Rubiales. I appreciate these incidents can be quite affecting, and like talking about it. Since the breakup my friend told me she was posting stuff from an influencer called The Slumflower, who comes across at times like the feminist version of Andrew Tate, maybe crossed with a little Ayn Rand too. There's a big emphasis on men being problems and taking them for everything you can.

I definitely wish I hadn't brought up the conversation. In an hour we went from having a chat about food with the parents, to obliterating the relationship.

20 hours ago, Genie said:

On the face of it, she flipped out over something reasonably small (especially when you consider they have 2 kids). But in reality she hadn’t wanted to be with him for several years and is now happily rid. She said he had gambling debts, drinks heavily, lies a lot and is now happier than ever.

In summary, it’s probably not the row that finished the relationship.

I obviously wondered all this myself, but I am so sure we were in a good place in every respect other than she did break down in tears back in June about her not knowing what she was doing career-wise. Having come over together to teach in Spain we were in a transition point no matter what, and there was some stress. We seemed to be facing up to it together. We talked on Zoom a month after the breakup, but it was so weird, and I didn't bring up the ghosting at all. I was trying to just be positive and to be relaxed and not make her defensive. I don't know why I did that (ok I watched a stupid 'get your ex back' video on YouTube), but it just made it a really one sided conversation, but even then she had no explanation why we broke up. She had nothing.

The day she blocked me on whatsapp we had a conversation that went like this...

I hadn't heard from her for a week, except for one message on the day of the wedding saying she just needed some space, another on the Monday saying she just needed a break and that everything was going to be OK, and two days later her being pissy with me about paying her the rent money, where she said 'I won't be paying rent in October, so you need to decide if you want to hand in your notice'. It was so indirect. I gave her some space, then two days later she dropped out of the whatsapp groups and then nothing else.

Finally on the Sunday I got a response. I was like 'I don't have a clarity about what's going on.' She said, 'I have clarity.' (EDIT: She also said I was disturbing her peace—she is for the record not usually an absolute arsehole). I said, 'Do you want to share it with me?' She said, 'No I don't have to explain myself to anyone.' I said I didn't even know if we'd broken up (obviously the signs weren't good, but we hadn't actually talked about it like adults to, which I was obviously expecting). She said that she had made her decision and that we'd broken up. I was like, 'I respect your decision, but should we not talk about this considering we've been together for 8 years, and we've been so close.' She said, 'I don't want to do that. My wants, my needs 100% of the time.' I apologised for upsetting her (again, let me say that in the argument I went to her because she upset me, tried to talk to her, then she insulted me/stopped letting me speak), and said I was sad about how she said me leaving the room was the kind of thing her dad would do to her mum (I think I mentioned that she hadn't seen her dad in 20 years), and she wrote 'I am being emotionally manipulated and that is not OK and I am removing myself from this conversation.' And she blocked me on whatsapp. I was so lost, totally in shock.

Now, you might be thinking I've left some details out here, but to maybe show that I haven't in a couple of emails about our flat situation and just sorting all that out, she told me that she loved me still. She also told all her friends that I was still her best friend. She also, apparently, before we left in the summer, was monologuing about how romantic our story was, how we met in the UK, then went to Spain together.

The idea is in my head that she was really stressed generally speaking, that me leaving the room in a mood was just another example of someone abandoning her, and it triggered a lot of barely suppressed childhood issues that has made her put her defences up. She's done it before, but never like this. I think she was maybe in a vulnerable place and the argument was just the straw that proved too much. EDIT: In the aftermath, I did mention I was open to a kid/marriage. She'd always been a little negative about having children, but at the same time also said she was just scared and that she was open to it. She had told one of her friends, again back in June, that she could see us having a kid. I'm not sure that talking about that duo in that emotional moment was the right move tbh, but then at that stage I was just trying to find a good honest place for us to talk from, but she never responded.

20 hours ago, MaVilla said:

dont take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you dodged a bullet.

Thanks for your whole post there. You're not the only one to have said this.

33 minutes ago, Lord Willard said:

Him and McGinn battling with us in the championship to now battling for a champions league place. 
 

What a journey, what a player. 

He only battled against us in the Championship.

23 minutes ago, Genie said:

Then the indirect cost of housing them for years because they couldn’t be arsed to process their applications.

As always to the financial benefit of a massive private company I believe (Serco).

For some reason I'm watching Mansfield Town Vs Port Vale on TV and Bowery, interestingly, was just listed as playing for Mansfield as a right back, also while wearing number 9. 

42 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I think Threads made a MASSIVE error in releasing before it was really ready with lots of features still unavailable. If they'd waited till it was fully functional then the mass migration would have probably worked instead of what happened which was a ton of people trying it and concluding it didn't work very well. 

Yeah I'm ready to move. I have a blue sky code, but it just didn't seem very intuitive. Twitter and tweets was such a great bit of branding too, nothing else has the same feel. Definitely not **** 'X'. 

12 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Yes, we all use products and services from providers we'd rather not. 

I just feel Musk / Twitter has become an outlier which it's fairly easy to avoid.

I'd never buy a Tesla or a Tesla home battery and i'd never sign up to Twitter. I won't even click a link anymore. 

I was just picking issue with the I'm happy to carry on as I don't see it comment.  The rest is purely personal.  Personally I'd prefer to do my tiny bit to shut him the **** up. 

It's hard to find an alternative for what Twitter does though. I'm sure we'd all move over if there was a decent alternative, but there isn't really. For the record, I hate Musk, and think he's an idiot.

2 minutes ago, Thug said:

It’s not about if Olsen is a good keeper or not, it’s about if he can play our system.

He can’t.

He just can’t.  

Either change him, or change the way we play when he plays.  I don’t understand why this concept is so difficult. The whole defence starts to panic when he’s in goal for this very reason. Let the guy boot it.  

 

Some of the passes he makes, and the intensity he nails them are absolutely **** insane (sure he does make some good saves though). I don't know why I'm replying to you particularly here!

34 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

The really interesting thing with DMT is that people who have no connection to eachother whatsoever are apparently seeing the same kind of visions, down to some relatively fine detail. I didn’t even know DMT existed until earlier this week.

edit - that’s people taking it recreationally

It's not a drug. It's crossing into another dimension. Unfortunately the only time I took it I was smashed, and I don't remember what the aliens said. I only remember saying, 'It's true. It's all true.'

No idea what that was in fact—what was true—and I and the people I was with were all so temporarily space travelly that we broke the pipe and couldn't take any more to go back and find out. Good stuff. Would do it again. It only lasts fifteen minutes, but they're the most unexpected fifteen minutes you can imagine.

2 hours ago, Wezbid said:

Why isn't that top our shirt. It looks great! 

It is our shirt!

EDIT: Ok I wasn't the first one to say this.