GF needs "space" day after her divorce finalized

[SamuraiSocks]

Hi. I'm a divorced dad of 3, my girlfriend has 2 kids and was going through the final stages of her divorce and just finalized a week ago, both of us in our late 30s. My divorce was final about 7 months ago, we met online and had been dating for about 5 months. Both of our marriages were over a decade long.

 

My GF and I originally met online and are long distance, a couple of states apart. It was a fairytale beginning: we met randomly online as I was just about to give up on online dating. We started innocently chatting, had a connection, and a few days in discovered we actually went to college together 20 years ago, lived in the same dorm with bedroom windows facing each other, and never met. Sparks exploded after that, we both fell head over heels for each other. The sex was the most intense and passionate of my entire life and just kept getting better for months and months. But way more importantly, we connected intellectually, conversationally, and even in all the weird neurotic daily habits we both have, the kind of things most people find annoying about their partners.

 

We are both seasoned relationship veterans coming off of failed marriages. We both had already had previous dating relationships post separating from our ex's (i.e. previous "rebounds" out of the way) so we knew what we had found in each other.

 

A couple of months in, her ex entered the picture. I won't go into details but he was(is) not mentally healthy. You may have heard horror stories of jealous ex's but I can virtually guarantee this one is in the top 5% of the worst. He was emotionally, verbally and physically abusive to her towards the end of the years together. When he found out about me, he stalked me, threatened my small children in the most vile ways, harassed my ex-wife, basically made my life hell for several weeks. To this day, I have never spoken a word to the man, but I was awarded a permanent protection order in my state based on his behavior.

 

Yet our relationship survived that and stayed strong. Ironically, although we were hundreds of miles apart most of the time, we had better communication than I ever had dating or being married in my whole life. I am not super chatty usually, even listed on my dating profile that you don't need to talk to your SO every day. Yet I was so connected with my GF, we literally were in constant contact every single day since the day we first chatted. Almost 10,000 text messages in 5 months!

 

Fast forward to one week ago, her divorce is final. It represents 18 months of process for her in total (my entire divorce was filed and resolved inside of that time frame, + about a month before I met her, albeit with a 1 year separation before it).

 

She texts me that her divorce is final. I reply with a cheery congrats and asks how she feels. She responds tersely with "super emotional". We talk about it later and she says it is not what she expected at all, that facing the finality of it made her really sad and really sad for her ex and just a wreck. Which I understand.

 

But then her tone with me abruptly changed throughout the rest of the week. We normally plan our next visits with each other over skype, and when I started suggesting dates, she seemed totally not interested in me coming out. Normally we see each other every 2-3 weeks, I've even cancelled plans last minute to see her sooner because she couldn't wait more than 3 weeks. But this time, even though our best option was about 4 weeks out, she suggested 6 weeks out. It was the first time she did something that kind of hurt me.

 

I get off the call feeling very bothered. I realize all of her texts have been very distant, very single response replies since she told me it was final. I don't sleep very well that night, and the next day I wait to see how long until she'll text me. We usually fire off texts at each other by 9am, but I got nothing from her all morning. I finally ask her later how she's doing... with me specifically.

 

Then comes the bomb. She tells me she needs to "stop f**king around" and get her life together, and scale our relationship back, that she just wants to be on her own. I am shell shocked and hurt because a) she apparently thinks of what we had as "f**king around" and b) just at the time I expected she would want and need my support the most, she is pushing me away. She clarifies later that she didn't mean it that way, that what we had was special, but she definitely wants to get some space, and wanted to tell me because it wouldn't be fair to string me along. My one shred of hope is she added to that, that she was hesitant to lay it out to me because "she doesn't want to lose me forever".

 

I've never once in my life been at such a total loss and dealt so much pain in a relationship. I thought my divorce was difficult, but at least with it, there were years of resentment and obvious issues I could make sense of. How does someone take a fairytale love and literally overnight, turn it off?

 

I consider myself a pretty resilient and stable person, and usually am able to self-coach my way through almost anything. For the first time in my life, I don't know what to do. I don't know if I'm deluding myself with hope that she'll come back after she heals on her own, or if I should just walk away now and never look back.

 

I went through several stages pretty rapidly, anger, frustration, sadness. At first I told her goodbye. But I was such a wreck imagining life without her, I came back the next day and told her I had her back. Currently, I've decided I will support her decision. I gave her some bits of advice that I could think of. I then told her I won't contact her again until she is ready and reaches out to me, whether that's a week, a month, or a year. I also said that although I'll be quiet, I'll be thinking of her constantly, and that she has all my love and support while she deals with this.

 

But. Oh. My. God. Does this hurt.

 

Internetz... hear my plea! What should I do? What shouldn't I do? Has anyone been through this? Is there hope? Am I being a dummy? Please tell me there's hope.

 

My two best friends, a married couple, strongly believe there's hope. They think she will come back to me if I let her have her space and she has time to process. I don't know if they are just trying to say what I want to hear right now to ease my grief though.

 

I'm already arranging therapy to help myself, and having been through a painful D already, I know all the things I should be doing for myself to keep from wallowing in grief. What I'm hoping for is someone out there has been through the same thing and can say "It's a long hard road, but in the end, it worked out for us." Or any professionals in this forum that can comment in the abstract on similar situations?

 

I've been searching all over for similar stories, and so far found only one site where actually a few people had the same experience. Unfortunately, most of the advice was very religious which is not what I'm looking for. I need practical advice on odds and steps to take to give our relationship the best chance of success of coming back together after she's had time to process her new reality.

 

I'm also hoping by sharing this, maybe someone else in the same boat finds it and knows they are not alone. Because it is absolutely and utterly devastating, and I know just knowing someone else has been through it helps.

 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I promise I will post updates as this progresses.

[Steen719]

I know your pain. I lived your pain and as a matter of fact, am still living it. I am divorced (infidelity on his part) and reconnected with an old bf. He pursued me for 5 months, calling every day. He came to visit; it was a great visit, met my son, planned a bunch of things together and left telling me to think of this as a new beginning. 3 days later, I finally heard from him and you guessed it. The gig was up. I was unbelievably hurt. I didn't deserve how he broke it to me, waiting three days and I sure didn't understand it. I still don't, although I have some ideas - but this is your thread.

 

Move on. She would like for you to stand in the wings in case she decides she wants you again. You are better than that. It is her issue, not yours. If you continue in limbo, you will only hurt yourself. It is a terrible place to live.

 

I believe that some of my angst is because of my divorce. I know what you mean by at least there were years of issues to justify that. This was sudden, unexpected and devastating. I get it. I do. Mine was not a rebound - too far out, I think, but it hurt like rebounds do when they fail. It was the first try out of the gate after my divorce and I was rejected. IT HURTS!

 

I am so sorry you are going through this. I think you need to talk to friends about it, get it out, cry and finally accept that she ended the relationship. If she comes back at a later date, you might feel differently about going back with her than you do now. You may decide that you are not willing to give your heart so freely to someone who can't decide whether they want you or not. For me, the bridge is burned, never to go over it again. Is it hard? Yes, but I am moving on with my life and trying my best to give him the least amount of power I can and keeping what I can for myself. Leave her alone and go forward.

 

{{HUGS}}

 

Oh, and there are a couple of people with similar stories on here who might answer with some good advice.

[carhill]

Personally, I'd leave it alone and continue going about daily life.

 

People handle divorce differently. It's entirely possible that she may grieve it the same as death and such grief is a process, for her, that excludes you. Also, she may consider your presence to be a reminder of the death process, so unwelcome right now.

 

If faced with such a dynamic today, I'd offer my love and bid her goodbye, respectfully. No ifs, ands or buts. Then go on with my life without further contact. She made a choice and it has consequences. In those I would wish her well.

 

Good luck with your life and the gifts (your three kids) it has blessed you with.

[SamuraiSocks]

Thank you guys for the responses. Here's a bit of update.

 

I went to some counseling today, which was helpful if for no other reason than to just talk to someone without feeling like I'm burdening a friend. We didn't have time to go super deep in the first session obviously, but she told me a couple of useful things that gave me some hope.

 

One, she confirmed that a divorce finalizing, especially in a situation where there was controlling/abusive behavior, is a grieving situation. It's closing the door on a dark chapter to be sure, but it's closing a door. She said also that in abusive cases, many people tend to just shut down parts of themselves and go numb once they have closure. (Unfortunately there's no telling for how long those emotions stay numb, or if they ever come back at all... it's completely up to the other person and how they choose to react :\) She said there's no clear cut pattern or black and white answer of what usually happens in this scenario... results end up all across the board. Which I took as a positive.

 

The other quick advice she gave me at the end is if I want to have the best shot of coming back together, if I want to help her the most now, that I should focus on what's best for me right now. Of course the irony of that is that my GF was the best thing for me in a long time.

 

She said the last thing you want to do is end up rushing back into it when one or the other of us is bending over backward for the other. The best shot at a healthy relationship is if we both come into it on equal terms and wholly healed.

 

I know that's been said a million times, but hearing it from a professional was helpful.

 

I realized during the session that a hidden huge positive of this going down like it did is that my GF was completely honest with me at the moment she felt something wrong. I can see how if we end up together again, that decision is going to be a huge source of trust and bonding for me... as it is the complete opposite of what my ex-wife did (which resulted in irreconcilable status by the time she did tell the truth).

 

I also reached out to her best friend on Facebook, who suggested I should give it some time and see where it goes, and that she agreed with my assessment of the situation. Not a huge confidence boost, but not a "GTFO and move on" either.

 

I'm still having a very hard time comprehending how someone going through this wouldn't want the support of the person who's been there for them night and day for months, a person she described just a month ago as "the true great love of her life". I can't help but replay in my head the way she laughed and smiled when we were together or over skype, how it felt like pure sunlight radiating on me. Missing that so much.

 

I just have to keep telling myself that she needs to prove to herself that she can do this on her own. That maybe we had progressed far enough that she felt long term commitment reverberations starting to happen which spooked her for the similarities in how her marriage originally began.

 

Anyway, another day down.

[Misadventure]

SS,

 

Chin up..it's not over til the fat lady sings and says get the eff out of the bar or go home with the bartender, right?

 

In an odd way, I hear what she is saying and get where she is coming from. It may have been a tumultuous relationship, hurtful, and the way it ended probably even more hurtful. But it is what she knew. Even when she was in limbo.. it WAS limbo...there was no finality. The realization and a slight case of denial (which is part of the grieving process) may have had to set in again. She may need to go through the process on her own for a bit..not lean on anyone.. but on herself.

 

In that time though you can remind her (without smothering her)... Hey.. remember us... I don't know if there are some personal jokes between the two of you or something that will instantly trigger a good memory of you two within her. She needs to remember all the good and who she is NOW..without you telling her..but maybe showing her.

 

Just an example.. and this is lame but its all I can think of at the moment.. if you guys ever played games with friends or anything like that.. cards against humanity for example.. find a white card with one of her answers that made both of you laugh so hard.. and tape it to her front door.

 

Something like that.... its a hook.. without being too much...

 

Something that will make her flash to something you all shared that will make her smile.. it will bring a warm feeling, it will make her wonder, it will make her curious, it will make her THINK.

 

As for you...don't grieve too hard just yet..you are still in the bloody bar.

[SamuraiSocks]

Well I'm not really looking for input, just chronicling the journey as I go, as promised. So here's the latest.

 

It's been about two weeks since this started. I've been doing pretty well for the most part, reading lots of stuff online and in books, keeping busy with my own work, kids, etc. We used to play Words with Friends a bunch before my old phone got some problem and wouldn't let me play games in it anymore. I got a new phone last week and the game worked again, so I started a new one with her and she immediately played back (and began thoroughly kicking my ass in it like she always does, because SMRT which I love about her). We take a turn or two each every day, but no chatting. I know she plays it a bunch with a lot of people, so I don't think I can read that much into that, but it did feel like a positive for a few days.

 

I had a really productive day today, had a great run and workout, saw my therapist again too and was doing great up until about an hour ago. Then I got hit by a big wave of discouragement while sitting in my apartment hot tub tonight.

 

I know this isn't about me, and I know that it's selfish to make it be. I logically can acknowledge that she needs time on her own to sort things out. Yet I can't get away from the thought of how anyone that was legitimately that close to someone, who legitimately cared for someone as much as she constantly said, could just cut off communication cold turkey for weeks like this while otherwise operating normally day to day. And I can't lie about how my feelings are affected, that would be dishonest to myself.

 

This is compounded by things like Facebook. Even though I try to stay off, inevitably Facebook decides she should be the top of my news feed when I do check in. When I see her making idle Facebook chat like nothing is different today than two weeks ago, and liking posts of her friends but none of mine like she used to, it makes me feel left in the cold and lonely. And yes I have other friends I talk to, but it's not the same as interacting with someone you feel shares your brain and soul, or that little bubble of joy you get when they give you a simple thumbs up on your lame attempts at humor or some random pic.

 

I guess I feel like if I were in her shoes, and I felt I needed to be alone to deal with some stuff, I would need to be ALONE... and would disappear from online altogether for a while. Needing to only be alone from me is making me uncomfortable, and I'm trying to acknowledge that.

 

I think what troubles me about all of that is how she often would say she became unhappy with her ex originally because she felt alone in the relationship. And I'm starting to worry about how much I'm feeling that exact sentiment, even though I'm doing everything I can to stay positive. I don't know how long I can sustain this without building resentment, and that will certainly be the death of this thing. Long distance is hard enough even if things are going well.

 

It's not like I need constant contact, but I want her to just say something, anything, every once in a while. Give me some hint that she's OK, or that she's getting stuff done, or even that she's still feeling confused or distant. Saying absolutely nothing to me while continuing to (or giving the appearance of continuing to) interact somewhat normally with everyone else... I'm sorry, it just feels really ****ty and it makes me inclined to not believe the expressed need to just be alone for a while.

 

I don't know. This is so manic, I've never been like this. I go from moments of absolute confidence and determination, devising crazy romantic reunion plans, to the next day feeling like maybe I'm not going to even like her anymore because of the hurt of being pushed aside, and feeling like I should just send all of her stuff that's at my apartment back to her in the mail.

 

So that's where I'm at today. I know I'm overanalyzing. I think I just need to go to sleep sooner, it always seems to be at night when I'm weakest.

 

Anyway, week two. Thanks for reading, it helps me to just put this out there.

[SamuraiSocks]

Another update as promised.

 

So I started reading the book "Getting the Love you Want" that someone in another thread here recommended. It's really helping me get out of my own head and try to listen to what my GF (ex? what do you call a GF when you're "on pause"??) is actually telling me, instead of only listening to me. I can see now that all my initial reactions were based on my own expectations and unconscious needs. Not that they are wrong or bad reactions, but I've had to take extra effort to get off the "universe revolves around me" train, and really pay attention to what she's saying.

 

I tried to put the techniques from that book into practice last night (mirroring, validating, empathizing specifically), and asked her for a good conversation to reset my understanding. She agreed and we texted back and forth a lot. I tried really hard to keep it centered on really understanding what she means and what she's feeling. This actually was really helpful for me, and I hope for her, and I think it cleared up some confusion in my head about what is going on.

 

She was able to more clearly express that the reason she needed to scale back our relationship was that she isn't ready for a "real relationship" yet. We were all fairytale stardust and then suddenly one day it got real. Her last visit, she was hanging out with my kids, my sister was visiting, and I was coming off a surgery. It was very much not a romantic getaway trip. And she realized she couldn't handle that phase yet.

 

Now she said she's feeling very positive in being alone and getting her life together, focusing on her career and new future, really for the first time since separating with her ex. She says she is feeling super productive and getting positive momentum. This was actually really a huge relief for me to hear, because of the lack of communication for weeks I was incredibly anxious that she was retreating into a depression shell.

 

I kept the conversation centered on her needs because I was truly trying to understand them. But I did ask for one thing, which was to clarify what "scaling back" meant to her. I told her that not knowing exactly what it meant was causing anxiety, as well as the total void of communication in the context of how much there had previously been. Unfortunately, she couldn't offer me any more specifics. But I was adamant that if she was serious about not losing me forever as she previously had said, I needed a framework to understand how to communicate in a way that made us both feel safe for where we each are at, i.e. without intruding on her focus and disrupting her positive momentum, and without me feeling like I had just been used and discarded.

 

I also stressed that I'm not looking for a deadline or a decision on "us", just a way to stay in touch that works for both of us without tossing a very special connection away with the proverbial bath water. She agreed that was fair, and I left it up to her to work on defining scaling back more, for me and for her so she can really define what being alone means too. If she does this, I have hopes for our relationship surviving this and thriving someday. If she doesn't, I don't think I will be able to sustain emotionally with her through the uncertainty. After all, I'm a human, I'm pretty awesome, and I deserve some parameters so I'm not swimming alone in the dark.

 

At the end of the conversation, I had a weird unexpected emotion of pride. I was proud of her. I'm not sure why, but I guess because when you see someone you love stand up on their own and get really proactive about improving their situation, it makes you proud of them. So I told her that.

 

Really working into the details of what she is thinking and feeling, and trying to put myself in her shoes and explaining it that way to her to see if I got it right helped lift a lot of confusion and insecurity for me about what is going on.

 

At this point, I have to acknowledge there's a 50/50 shot that after she feels she has her business taken care of, she may ultimately take the pragmatic road, decide that I'm too much effort, and look for someone local to fall in love with. If she can honestly find a stronger connection with another human than what we had, I would be sad for me but happy for her. If she doesn't find that connection but chooses to settle for something less in a relationship, I would be sad for both of us, because I know she and I both will end up less fulfilled.

 

On the flip side of that coin, the scariest thing actually is if she decides to come back to me. I'd like to think I would be ecstatic. But I'm worried about the scarring of the last few weeks. Although I understand what she's doing and why much better today than 3 weeks ago, it's still really hard for me to comprehend from my selfish point of view. I have a hard time seeing myself ever putting another human soul that I deeply love into a box on a shelf and ignoring it until I cleaned up the house. Given the dishonesty I endured from my ex over years, it's hard for me to get past feeling very insecure and untrusting of the legitimacy of the previous 5 months. It's going to take some serious work. And that makes my pragmatic mind kick up... why bother with the effort? Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to find someone nearby? Wouldn't it be easier to settle?

 

As I've been doing in the past year or so, I'm just going to keep being present in the moment and doing what feels correct as situations present themselves.

 

All I know in this moment is how I feel after spending almost 40 years flying around on this big rock, never lost but wandering and looking for someone to wander with. I've traveled all over, I've met many people and I've walked in many different shoes and lived in pretty much every class of society. In that time, I never met another human that I connected with so intensely, that I didn't have to filter myself for, and that I so immediately was willing to reveal all the good and bad of myself to.

 

Because of that, because I know how rare this, this relationship still feels like it's worth fighting for. It may feel like running into a headwind up a snow wall on a muddy mountain and someone is spraying you with a fire hose and then right at the finish line you get electrocuted and knocked out. Which I have also done. And when I finished that challenge, I was scarred, bloody, exhausted... and content. Maybe this will be no different. Or maybe I'll break my heart and fall off a cliff.

 

Either way, I always keep running and climbing.

[luvshaq]

This is to be expected when you date someone who's just coming out of a marriage. I would wait for the divorce decree to cool off before I dated someone.

[SamuraiSocks]

Well I've been up and down and across the board some more in the last 3 weeks. I've been seeing a therapist which is helping me dissect what's happening here greatly. On the bright side, I see pretty clearly now this has so very little to do with me. My therapist has validated a ton of my actions and approaches, and given me helpful feedback where I mis-stepped. If you are going through something similar, I cannot emphasize enough how important this was to hear from a professional and not just a friend.

 

I realized a couple of weeks ago that although I won't give my ex-gf deadlines, I have my own. I asked her to talk to me about this (at which point I realized we hadn't actually spoken other than texts and emails this whole time). At first she tried to blow me off for two weeks (!), and I said now or don't. So she agreed and we skyped. Amazing how much more productive a conversation that was.

 

During that discussion, I finally uncovered some creeping "minor" issues she had with me that she never brought up (just like my ex-wife did, hello my triggers), and one issue that I thought we had resolved that she was still extremely upset about. From that, it was clear to me that she's terrified of commitment and looking for ways to put me in a box as too similar with her ex-hubby so she can run away and not feel guilty about it.

 

Although the things she brought up were somewhat valid, they were hugely magnified in her mind, maybe because of the abuse she endured from her ex, maybe from her childhood issues, I don't know. The interesting thing is she told me I was projecting on her when I felt through our conversation that's exactly what she was doing to me.

 

I went through all this in detail with my therapist just today, and she also brought up my gf projecting without me mentioning it, at which point I told her that's what my gf said about me. She said that's common for people who are actually doing the projecting. She agreed that it seems like there are some much deeper issues at play here. This woman is not ready for real intimacy or a true committed connection. She may never be, based on how volatile her relationship with her mother is and the impact of her abusive ex.

 

I've put as much effort in as I can at this point. I hit a breaking point last week when I directly addressed her biggest issue, sent her a little text about it, and she gave me a frankly venomous series of responses back. I literally threw my hands in the air and said that's it. I'm not putting up with someone who treats me like I don't exist, who is so dissatisfied when I turn out to be a "real person", and who gives zero credit for addressing flaws and mistakes. That is just a lost and confused teenager in an adult's body, looking for a fantasy version of romantic love so they don't have to be vulnerable for real love.

 

So I disconnected from her online in most ways, because she has made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want me in her life, so I need her out of mine. I even deactivated my Facebook account entirely for a few days. I went back to Twitter for a while to keep up with news bits, since she isn't active there.

 

We still were in the midst of a Words with Friends game, so I finished that up with her. It came down to the wire, and she beat me by exactly 1 point. I had only one letter left, 'Y'. So it was one of the universe's cruel little poetic jokes, a metaphor for our relationship. We were almost perfectly matched, but in the end I lose, and all I'm left with is pondering 'Y'.

 

I had to get back on Facebook for work reasons, so I moved her into a restricted list so she couldn't see my posts other than work. Interestingly, as soon as I posted something for work she immediately liked it. She also tweeted something for the first time in six months, and after our WWF game ended she immediately started a new match (which I haven't played at all). My therapist suggested these could all be passive ways of indirectly communicating, but I don't care anymore even if they are. There are more decent ways of achieving "space" in a relationship with a human being that you ever truly cared for.

 

I did take her out of my restricted list, as therapy made me realize that was a game I was playing with her. So no more games.

 

I have come to believe through all my journeys in life, that love is a choice. Passion is a feeling, but love is a choice. We choose to love someone or not. We then find reasons to support our choice, to justify it or make us feel better about it. Maybe a kind of buyer's remorse psychology. But it's a conscious choice.

 

The way we met was so special and so unique and just so damn lucky. The way our brains danced when we talked is something I've never had with anyone. The way our bodies moved together would make a porn star blush. God I loved her.

 

This woman created a fair share of negative ripples and rifts in my life. I overlooked and accepted all of that and all of her without question for the sake of love, because I made that choice.

 

I see now I got none of that in return. I wasn't allowed to be less than perfect. So as it stands, I got used. I was discarded when my value wore off, plain and simple. She's too afraid to own that. She's even more afraid to own that maybe we had real love, the kind that people look for their whole lives and never find.

 

It's totally one sided and unfair, and I'm worth much more than that. Maybe one day she'll realize what she lost, maybe not, who can say? I truly wish I could help her, but she pushed me away and there's nothing I can do.

 

Anyway, there's a lot of other details I'm leaving out, mostly because I'm just too tired of this whole thing now. It makes me so sad to lose what we had, but I've had enough loss in the last 3 years to last a lifetime. So this is how I learned what the term "sunk cost" in economics means.

 

I will never understand how someone can say to your face, while locked eye to eye in mid-hump, that you are the one true great love of their life... to constantly tell you that they can't stop thinking about you, and how lucky they were to find you, for months on end. And then boom, completely turn it off over the course of a couple of days or weeks. Guess that's why I'm not a psychologist though. Humans don't make any damn sense.

 

So now I have to figure out how can I ever trust anyone again after this. How can I even trust myself to recognize what is real and what isn't? Yay, more therapy, which I don't have time or money for!

 

Sorry for the sad ending, but I promised I would update as this progressed, and when I say something I mean it and see it through. I'm moving on.

 

All I know now is I'm going to love the everloving **** out of my kids so they can maybe avoid some of these awful heart wrenching and pointless relationship issues in their adult lives. If only I had that power.

 

Thank you to those of you who provided supportive responses. I sincerely hope you each find happiness in yourself and find a target for the love I know is in you.

 

For anyone else that has gone through a similar confusing heartbreak, I'll leave off with this bit of wisdom that helps me:

 

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.

Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow.

Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally

forward in whatever way they like." - Lao Tzu

 

Cheers!

[Mr. Lucky]

The way we met was so special and so unique and just so damn lucky. The way our brains danced when we talked is something I've never had with anyone. The way our bodies moved together would make a porn star blush. God I loved her.

Can't help but feel that in your understandable desire to give and get love (especially coming out of a tough divorce), you projected some qualities on to both her and the relationship that might not have existed. That she disengaged so quickly and coldly may be proof of this.

 

Given the vagaries of social media and online dating, I think it's more important than ever to enter such relationships with eyes open, heart guarded and pants zipped. But I may be old school in that sense...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Techie Artist]

We still were in the midst of a Words with Friends game, so I finished that up with her. It came down to the wire, and she beat me by exactly 1 point. I had only one letter left, 'Y'. So it was one of the universe's cruel little poetic jokes, a metaphor for our relationship. We were almost perfectly matched, but in the end I lose, and all I'm left with is pondering 'Y'.

 

That is just wow...

[SamuraiSocks]

A friend of mine sent me this, very helpful to read.

 

Masters of Love

Science says lasting relationships come down to—you guessed it—kindness and generosity.

 

Masters of Love - Emily Esfahani Smith - The Atlantic

 

I read back through all the written communication to my ex-gf during the lame fade-away/break up period. Although I am still so sad about the resolution, at least I can say I feel very much like I was a "Master" not a "Disaster" through it. This research summary also reaffirms my belief that love is ultimately a choice, not a feeling. Warm feelings come from the choice to love. You can find the good, or you can find the bad, in just about any person.

[Mr. Lucky]

This research summary also reaffirms my belief that love is ultimately a choice, not a feeling. Warm feelings come from the choice to love. You can find the good, or you can find the bad, in just about any person.

Agree 100%. I feel that happiness is a choice also. Plenty in every relationship to bring us either pleasure or pain. Our choice as to which we choose to emphasize...

 

Mr. Lucky