Status Report

[Zapbasket]

It's been seven months since my partner of 5 years broke up with me over the phone (12/5), six months since we last saw each other (1/4, after going home for the holidays on the other side of the continent and not allowing me to join him as planned on this trip), and almost 5 months since he sent me a cold, punitive e-mail telling me, basically, to get lost (2/13). One year ago around this time, we wandered all over the city scouting for areas we'd want to live in together (he was moving from his home city to be with me). One month ago, I finally was able to find and move into an apartment in this city that I can afford; it's a great apartment in a great building in what is fast becoming one of the hot residential areas in this city.

 

Finally, we are in the same city, as we'd wanted for the last three years--a 15-minute subway ride away from each other and we are more distant than we ever were. There has been no contact since 2/13. The irony of this is very hurtful and confusing.

 

I have been through hell. I have also had some wonderful times. All day of every day, he has been on my mind. There has not been one moment where I have not had him somewhere in my thoughts.

 

I feel like I have become witness to my own mourning process. This process has me in its grips; I feel as though huge tectonic plates are shifting at all times in my mind. Moving to the city was very emotional, because it symbolized to me the beginning of the process of moving on with my life without him. I no longer have to commute, and so it is easier for me to meet new people, take up new hobbies, strengthen my career connections. Strangely, though, a month ago it also felt like moving to the city would somehow bring him closer to me, because only now can it be said that “we live in the same city”—the words I’d dreamed of being able to say for the past several years. It’s been painful to have the reality I knew would set in, set in: we may live in the same city, but we are as distant as though we never knew each other. Living here doesn’t make me more desirable to him, doesn’t make him want to come back…. Of course not, as he doesn’t even know where I’m living. My life as it is right now is completely unknown to him, and unless he initiates something, I want to keep it that way. It’s the only source of power I feel I have in relation to him anymore. I know where HE lives, I know what HIS job is like, I have a pretty good idea of who he’s associating with…but he doesn’t know any of this about me. I like that. It gives me the feeling of privacy I feel I need to start incorporating into my life and habits some of the changes his presence in my life inspired me to make. With him not knowing anything about me, I feel I can freely make these changes in a context of loving and missing him, and make mistakes along the way, and go through the awkward in-between phase of having changed from who I was but being not quite yet what I’m aiming to be…and I can go through all this tenderness and rawness without him seeing me be so weak.

 

The discovery that living here in no way “brings him back” (I knew this, of course, intellectually, but emotionally was a different story) has propelled movement of these “Tectonic Plates of Mourning” faster in the direction of letting him go. As some of you know from my earlier thread, I’ve been fighting for two weeks with the impulse to contact him. Recognizing the futility of doing so, and reminding myself that HE broke up with ME and so it is incumbent upon HIM to make contact since it is a known fact between us that I did NOT want to cut off our associations, has been very painful: it makes him fade a bit, at times, in my mind. Because if there is to continue to be no contact—if that’s what must be since it’s out of my control and HE’s making it be that way—he MUST fade. I haven’t totally conquered the impulse to contact him.

 

I can see now one reason why I am having so much trouble letting him go: I still had much to learn from our relationship, and from him. He took a different approach to things than I do, and I found that very inspiring and refreshing. I want to “become” these parts of him that I admire. As my mother has always said to me, often what we admire in others is some aspect of ourselves that is latent within us. I felt that with him I was developing in a very positive direction, and I want to continue that development. Without being servile, for example, he follows rules, whereas I have always been adamant that one should follow one’s common sense and creative impulse. This led me to take 9 years to finish my undergraduate degree, going through 5 different undergraduate institutions—not because of laziness, believe me—and while I feel I have reaped tremendous intellectual and spiritual rewards for following my own path, I also have paid a price…as we all pay a price when we don’t do things in the time frame and in the manner in which we’re expected to do them. He has always done exactly as expected, and he never ruffles anyone’s feathers. I’m generally very well-liked and always have been, but very often some people seem quite befuddled by me—this combination of admiration and trepidation that I’ve inspired since I can remember—and it’s always hurt my feelings. No one questions what he does. He also has a longstanding network of friends and family; he’s much more of a ‘joiner’ and I feel like I need to learn better how to be a joiner…without, of course, crushing my independent spirit. He has no idea how much I looked up to him in this respect. I watched him, and felt safe, deriving guidance from his actions and choices, and just the ‘vibe’ he gave off as he went about his life. Now that he’s gone, I feel like I no longer have that guidance.

 

What’s ironic (and sad), is that he looked up to me for my independent spirit. He would often look at me with such infatuation and affection and admiration…. And the irony is that this very independent spirit—a refusal to take things at surface value—is what irritated him, as well—and as far as I can see, is in large part what led him to break up with me. On one of our last weekends together last fall, we were talking, such as we did, about the future, and he stated that he wanted kids in the next two years. I was exasperated, because to have kids in that time frame, we’d need to have a wedding date…and he’d never discussed marriage with me. Instead of saying, “Well, then, where’s my wedding ring?” as I should have, I stammered something about not being quite ready to have kids. This led to a talk about other future items, like whether I’d want to go on to a Ph.D. and where that would be, and he got all upset as he was always wont to do with the subject of a Ph.D. (“If it took you so long to finish your BA and MA, how long is it going to take you to finish your Ph.D.?”), and I got so exasperated: I never said definitively that I wanted the Ph.D., I was just thinking about it, and as it turns out, I’ve decided to want indefinitely before taking that step. I said to him, “You know, you seem to see me as this renegade, but in truth I think my future plans and desires for the future are pretty run-of-the-mill; I think you and I pretty much want the same things.” And he said, “I guess it’s just that you always want to talk about them.”

 

Don’t couples always need to talk about the future? Isn’t it reasonable to want to talk about what marriage means to each of you, what having children means to each of you, etc.?

 

I don’t want this to go on too long so I’ll save more for later. I am just trying to process all the ways this relationship mattered to me, and process all the ways I miss him, and trying to find within that a clear direction to take as I move forward with my life as a single person. Thanks for reading.

[Nemo]

, but emotionally was a different story) has propelled movement of these “Tectonic Plates of Mourning”

Careful you don't slip down the crack. You might never be heard from again.

, I’ve decided to want indefinitely before taking that step.

Wanting indefinitely is no fun at all. Just do it. You can thank me later.

[Zapbasket]

I meant "wait indefinitely." I don't want to go back to school for a long while.

[Nemo]

I don’t want this to go on too long so I’ll save more for later.

I'm looking forward to the next installment. And I agree with you on the school thing. It's a waste of time - there is no substitute for experience.

[Zapbasket]

I just spent nearly an hour staring into space, trying to imagine this relationship from my partner's perspective.

 

One thing that has hurt the most is that he quit on me right when I finally finished my MA and was free to resume a normal existence. For the past three years, he'd seen me at the lowest I'd been in my life--full of self-doubt and an awful feeling of pressure to get done with this degree. I felt that I had to do the best job I possibly could, 1) for external reasons, as my mother had paid over 40k for me to get this degree, and 2) for internal reasons, as I felt I had to sort out whether I really wanted to go forward with my life as the artist I'd always been told I was and that I felt myself to be, or whether I wanted a more "normal" life with a stable, reasonably lucrative career, etc. The pressure was enormous, and during the time I was sorting it all out, I was living at home, not employed, and I shut out most of my friends.

 

During this time, my partner and I were long distance. I tried my utmost to keep him in the loop about what I was feeling so that he'd know I wasn't just making excuses not to be with him. But when I imagine how I'd feel in his shoes, having a partner who was engrossed in a project and feeling so lost as to what career and life path to take, I see myself feeling compassion for the other person, but very frustrated. I see myself protesting vociferously: "I really DO understand what a difficult time you're having, but this is very hard on ME. I want you to do what you need to do for your future. But also? I NEED TO SEE YOU." In this imagined scenario where my partner's and my situations are reversed, I'd be the one making 120k. And while I'd consider taking a job in my partner's city while he finished his thesis, and consider saying, "I'm going to move there, get an apartment, and if I do so will you move in with me? And until you're done and have a job, I'll pay for everything"--I'd feel very vulnerable, like I was giving 100% and the returns from my partner would be dubious. I'd feel like I needed some confirmation that he really wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him, and I'd want some assurance--communicated by ACTIONS--that his thesis wasn't just an excuse not to be with me. Over time, I'd start to feel like I didn't really have a partner, and I'd start feeling sad and angry.

 

In an e-mail to me last summer, my partner wrote:

 

Okay, I feel something. I'm not sure if it's anger or frustration, or something in the middle. I feel like I've lost touch with you. I know you say I'm important to you, but looking back I start to question that. I'm exhausted from the constant fighting. The past three years have been extremely difficult, though there have been some wonderful times when we were together. I just get sad thinking about being in a relationship with someone for three whole years and only seeing the other person for a small fraction of it.

 

So it seems that what I'm imagining I'd feel in his situation, IS what he felt.

 

And then I feel terrible guilt and shame. How could I have allowed the person I loved most, and the person closest to me, to feel so very unloved? Why WASN'T I able to prioritize our relationship over my stupid thesis? I felt I HAD to do it, is the answer. I felt if I didn't, it might lead to me breaking up with him in the future, because I'd have all these unresolved artistic yearnings and I'd start to feel like I wasn't living up to my potential. I felt I HAD to resolve these issues or I'd never make a good wife and parent, and furthermore, I'd never be able to lead the balanced life I always wanted. My intentions were loving, and FOR the relationship. But in the process of fulfilling those intentions, I really wasn’t available for the relationship.

 

It’s amazing we stayed together as long as we did.

 

I’m left with this terrible feeling of being a lousy partner. I always thought I’d make such a good partner, as I know I am a caring, loving person. But I feel like I botched this all up, and lost out on a beautiful person, and while I may find someone more communicative or whatever, I may never find someone where the love was so apparent, and mutual, and there was the devotion to see something through that most unmarried couples wouldn’t have seen through. He broke up with me because he’d simply reached the end of his patience. Maybe. I don’t really know.

[Nemo]

I’m left with this terrible feeling of being a lousy partner. I always thought I’d make such a good partner, as I know I am a caring, loving person. But I feel like I botched this all up, and lost out on a beautiful person, and while I may find someone more communicative or whatever, I may never find someone where the love was so apparent, and mutual, and there was the devotion to see something through that most unmarried couples wouldn’t have seen through. He broke up with me because he’d simply reached the end of his patience.

Yes, well that's life. We only get one shot, sometimes. And we can only learn from our mistakes.

 

You didn't really know what you had until it was gone. And maybe you didn't appreciate it anywhere near as much as you should. But you might also be making things out to be a lot rosier than they were.

 

Learn what you can, and move forward. Dwelling on times past probably isn't going to be productive (particularly as you can't put yourself back in that mindset, and know exactly what you were thinking anymore).

[I love hot men.]

You didn't do anything wrong. If he were a real man, he would have had no problem with you moving in and not paying rent. He makes $120k for heaven's sake, and he was worried if you were going to pay rent or not on your much, much lower salary?

Sorry but I don't think he was in love with you. It seems like you were making all the efforts and he wanted you to cater to him. Screw that! Remember, you didn't make any mistakes here, he is just a jerk! The only mistake you made was possibly not dumping him years earlier!