Intense/sad breakup

[IcemanJB]

I'm just writing this mainly to get my thoughts written down somewhere. You're free to comment and whatnot if you'd like.

 

I met my ex (damn that hurts to type...) in December of '07. There was something sparked immediately, but timing and whatnot just wasn't right. She is very good friends with my sister. We hung out semi-often all the way through July '07. She moved back up here for school in August, and we started hanging out a lot, and things progressed rapidly. We eventually became exclusive, and I didn't have a care in the world while I was with her. She's 19, I'm 22. I can say I was extremely happy when I was with her. I specifically remember her saying about 2-3 weeks into it: "I've been happy like this before, but I've never felt this content...ever."

 

School started getting rolling, and we couldn't see each other as often because of schoolwork. Also, she likes to go out at the end of the week, so our time was extremely strained. I made it a point not to be needy or overbearing and let her do her thing. She's independent and that's one of the things I like so much about her. Then came last Thursday...she came over pretty much unable to speak. I hadn't seen her in a few days, but I could tell she had been thinking a lot or whatever.

 

It took her 15 minutes to start saying what she was going to say because she could hardly breathe. Basically she told me she feels bad going out (and smoking occassionally) when I hardly go out at all. She doesn't want to give up having fun since she couldn't do that the last couple years; which sucked she said. On nights when she's not out, she's usually in the library until pretty late. She mentioned my dream of flying jets for the AF, and my job-search after I graduate. I told her she needs to put herself first, not me; even though that KILLED me inside to say; I've NEVER had a connection like this before. She told me that's exactly what she had been thinking, since she always used to put her brother, mom, boyfriend, etc. in front of herself. She said several times that she still has a lot of feelings for me, and was crying pretty much the entire 2 hours she was over; she said she hadn't cried that much since she was 5. She also said we were just starting to get serious (we were) and that she wouldn't be able to put as much into the relationship as I would, and she'd feel horrible about that. She's right, so I guess it's better not to drag it out. I still have a lot of feelings for her, but I know the right thing to do is let her go...I hope. I almost broke down a couple times, but held it together. She was unable to say "we're done". She just couldn't do it. I pretty much had to break us up and kick her out, even though it was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time.

 

I've been a complete mess for the last few days. I don't get it; we were only "official" for a little over a month. I've been with girls much longer than that and been over it by the next day. My sister came over yesterday, and I lost it in front of her. I've never cried in front of anyone before. I just got a text from her saying my ex is in much worse shape than I am, and that just kills me.

 

I don't want to be the one to hold her back from going out and having fun and being young, but this is the worst thing I've ever gone through in my life. I hope I'm doing the right thing; I kept telling her she was doing the right thing by bringing that up.

 

Thanks for reading, any comments are welcome.

 

EDIT: this could be moved to the Breakup forum...