God I think I've screwed up here (boyfriend)

[please_help_me35]

So to all of you girls who were kind enough to take the time to respond to my posts yesterday, particularly in the one about "boyfriend suddenly doesn't trust me re: birth control." As you may recall, he or ?we (I was the one who told him he could NOT have time to think about what he wanted to do) broke up, last night. Despite it all, I was devastated.

 

In one of those stupid emotional moments of patheticness, I felt compelled to email him and tell him I was sorry for my part in things and I acknowledged that I was sure that when he said he needed time to "think about what he wanted" (me or not), he was really just trying to cowardly put off officially dumping me right there and then..........and that I think part of our problem was that our relationship was such a whirlwind from the start, very intense and that we missed a lot of the important things along the way, like actually going on dates and such.....that maybe we should have just put the brakes on a bit (he was way more intense in the beginning than I was, his talk about marriage and the future and where did I see "us" in a year, etc).....and started back over.....just dating and getting to know each other, without all the serious stuff and bringing up issues and such. I then assured him I would not contact him again.

 

A couple of hours later, he mailed me back (much to my surprise)..told me that his suggestion to have time to think was just that, not his way of buying more time before he dumped me. And he mentioned that "starting over" had a lot of "merit" and that I should phone him as soon as I could.

 

I didn't rush to phone him, I had to think. He has hurt me a lot.

 

But I eventually did.......and he was so nice to me, said that he really didn't want me to "go", but he just felt it might be best if *HE* "left" because he feels he'll never live up to my expectations and that I'm a really good woman and I deserve a lot.

 

Anyway, he said that we should try to just start over......(this was his suggestion).........no talk about marriage/dream houses/the future....but to just focus on going out on "actual DATES"...like him taking me out for dinner and a movie on a Friday night.........*NO SEX*.......just kissing ........that we'll just go out for the evening and there'll be no spending the nights at each other's houses........just taking things really slowly.......not speaking to each other daily...........that I am a "really cool girl" and he really likes me and he just thinks we both jumped into everything too quickly.

 

I must say, to have him suggest all this, I was very shocked and flattered. He obviously cares more than I ever gave him credit.

 

I asked, "so if we do this, does this mean that we'll be exclusive and not seeing or dating other people?" He was very quick to tell me that he's a "one girl guy" and that he would definitely not see other people, and he'd expect that I wouldn't see other guys.

 

It was sounding almost too good to be true.........but in the back of my mind, I was thinking to myself......"this is such a PERFECT little arrangement for him".........now he has even more time to himself...........he can make me even LESS of a priority. We'll MAYBE see each other once a week and he'll still get to live life as if I weren't in it.

 

You see, part of the problem, or my problem had been that in the beginning, he did take me out a few times and loved spending time with me. But as the weeks passed, it became less....and due to our very conflicting schedules (I work Mon to Friday, office hours, he works the midnight shift, 5 nights in a row, and his 2 days off generally don't fall on the weekend), I missed him terribly. There were even times when we would FINALLY have a night when both of us didn't have to work the next day (a week ago friday, for example)..and he would decide he "just wanted to hang out at home and watch TV and spend time with his dog."

 

Anyway, I think that this is going to be completely agonizing for me. For example, as per usual, I sent him a very quick email this morning, just to say I hoped he had a good night at work, and that he'd have a good sleep in the day. This had always been our "way" of communicating, from the start. And the usual thing would be, he'd mail me when I got home (I'd be at work already), telling me he was home and he'd ask me to call him before he went to sleep.

 

Well after ALL we've been through, I stupidly expected he'd respond to this brief little email this morning, or phone me at work...like he's always done at least once during the day just to see how my day's going. Nothing. Not a word, not a peep. And it was always like him to call me shortly after I'd be home from work, to say 'hi' and ask how my day was. I haven't heard a word from him.

 

I am hurt and angry and feel that if I go for this, I'm just going to be taken advantage of. How can you "start over"? I have had very strong feelings for him......now I'm expected to just get the odd phonecall once a week and maybe see him for an evening, and that's not going to rip me apart? It's like he's going to be able to have his cake and eat it to.

 

It makes me wonder what he's up to here. Maybe he's seeing someone else and "starting over" and not wanting to spend very little time together will give him more time to see someone else. I dont' want to be played for a fool. This is all so weird.

 

I have not SEEN HIM in 8 days and despite our problems, I miss him immensely..I miss seeing his face, kissing him, him hugging me......how the hell can he not MISS ME? Christ, after everything that's taken place these past several days, our 3 day period of not talking ...you THINK if he really DID care, he would be here tonight to see me.......that he would WANT TO....that he would miss me the way I miss him.

 

How could I be satisfied starting over? I'm not sure how I could go without sex, without the odd night sleeping together and spending the night together....or him making me breakfast.......I'm going to have to just be content with acting like two strangers who barely know each other?

 

He admitted profusely last night, when making this "suggestion" that he was very wrong to not take me out ever.....so wouldn't you think that he'd put his money where his mouth is and he'd have contacted me today to really show that he's serious about wanting to 'start over'......and he'd suggest we do SOMETHING?

 

I think all I did was give the guy a greater opportunity to make me a very low priority on his list.

 

I woke up this morning feeling good for a change.....I actually was able to sleep without my stomach being all in knots. And to not hear from him all day, it was like a knife in my heart. How much effort does it take to write back 10 words in an email to say "I hope you have a good day at work" ??? Or call?

 

It makes me wonder if he's "changed his mind" about the whole thing, and I'll be the last to know.

 

This is like torture. I feel like all I did was give him his cake and the ability to eat it too. What has he done or said since last night that has SHOWN ME that his words aren't just WORDS?

 

I am just so down in the dumps here. It shouldn't be this way.

 

Do you think he's just trying to keep my hanging on by a thread? Does this sound to you like a guy who's just playing games with me (but for what reason? If he didn't want to be with me, he doesn't have to have anything to do with me......he could have just left me alone and done his own thing).

 

I am so confused.

 

And Moimeme, please don't think I'm an idiot.

[camcutie]

Please Help Me,

 

I am so sorry you're going through this. You sound exactly like I did so many times I can't remember them all. One thing you MUST do is listen to yourself, I can tell from your post you've been doing a ton of thinking.

 

Your thinking of quite some possibilities here, and thats great because I never did and 4 1/2 yrs later I'm sitting back saying I wish I had listened to myself instead of being so naive and always making excuses for him to convince myself he was telling the truth, or couldn't possibly do THAT to me.

 

If your going to work at it here, you must both work at it. IMO when you've been with someone for sometime and have grown together it's not possible to rewind time and pretend you just met. It may be, on the other hand, possible if yrs had past since you saw your first love and there was still a spark. In your case, as well as mine, because I've tried several times before, we being the ones who don't want the "BREAK" are always sitting back wondering; and thinking; and losing sleep; and not eating. While they're out living the life they want we're stuck in living hell. Is it fair? I wish I answered that honestly a long time ago.

 

Listen to yourself please for the sake of yourself.

Keep me informed.

[please_help_me35]

Thank you, camcutie, for taking the time to respond and for your thoughtful words.

 

I just feel like I'm the biggest jackass for agreeing to go along with this. I feel like all I've done is give him carte blanche to continue living the life of a single guy, yet knowing he has me when he wants me.

 

There has got to be something going on here, like someone else.

 

My post yesterday was about him saying, out of the blue, on the phone, during one of our big discussions (hadn't spoken in 3 days because he'd raised his voice to me about a question I asked that he didn't like, and I told him I was hanging up, and I did just that)..telling me that he didn't feel comfortable "cumming" in me when we had sex (to note, we hadn't had intercourse for a week and a half...this coming from a guy who has the sex drive of the energizer bunny)....because he was suddenly worried about getting me pregnant, and that he didn't even trust the Pill that I'm on (99.5% effective, and I'm a nurse for God's sake, and a decent woman who would never trap a man)......that came out of nowhere.

 

Now, he wants to "start over" and practically act like we're just some casual friends who get together once a week, maybe talk on the phone once in a while...........NO SEX (so is he getting it somewhere else and he feels that if we don't have sex, then he's not really cheating on me???).....to go "backwards" like that, when for the past 2 months we have spoken each day (if nothing else, to say "hi")........to all the nights we've spent overnight at each other's houses.....sleeping together, snuggling up together all night in bed.......the hours we've spent talking and getting to know each other.......me making him wonderful dinners .....now we're just going to act like casual aquaintances? This is too f*cking weird if you ask me.

 

I interpreted "starting over" as us just chilling out and taking a focus off all of the "issues" I've had with him...to just be like we were in the beginning......to laugh, to joke, to talk, to spend time together, without a bunch of pressure.

 

But he didn't even have the decency to contact me today. It has ALWAYS been that he could call me when I was just home from work to see how my day was, or he'd email me before I left work for the day, telling me to call him when I got home. Like I said, our schedules don't jive much anymore.......and sometimes a few days would go by that we wouldn't see each other, and our only communication was him asking me to call him in the morning, before he went to bed (works nights).....or him calling me after work, or before i went to bed. he was the one to usually initiate this, it was not me.

 

I was falling in love with him .....I had very deep feelings for him........and my heart feels so heavy because it's been over a week since we've been together........but he obviously doesn't feel the same way, for if he did, wild horses wouldn't keep him from having come over tonight to see me. I mean, WTF?

 

I feel like I'm being played here. I surely didn't envision "starting over" resulting in me feeling even worse and more upset.

 

If he wanted some "space" then he should have f*cking well said so........how much effort does it take to respond to someone's email? For almost every day of the week since we've been together, the usual thing was.........he'd get off nights at 8am, I'd be at work by then. He'd email me when he was home from work to tell me he was home, and he'd ask me to call him (if I wasn't busy) just to say "hi" to him before he went to sleep. When he used to get off at 6am, he would ask me to call him then, before I left for work, "just so I can hear your voice"...he would tell me that I was the first thing he thought of when he got up in the morning, and the last thing when he went to sleep.

 

Nowwhat is all this? I felt him pulling away for the past few weeks, or I guess the intensity of the whirlwind start was wearing off..but now it's gone completely the other way and I'm even MORE miserable.......also because I wonder what the hell is really going on???

 

I don't know.

[camcutie]

If it would make you feel better read some of my posts your NOT alone, I know that doesn't help you feel better, but just spending time venting or listen might.

 

Let me tell you, I'm not sure if I wrote it in my previous post or not. Be thankful through all this he's not coming over and having sex w/you then leaving you stranded for days w/that on your mind also. Listen to what I heard from my ex "would you rather I go somewhere else for it if you won't. I don't want to make a mistake I will regret forever if I was with someone else" after saying those things and of coarse stupid me going along w/it, I would be sitting here for days after with no phone call me "we were taking things slow to try and work things out. The ball was always in his court. Surprise, surprise he was with someone else........

 

Cam.........

[please_help_me35]

s

[moimeme]

I don't think you're an idiot. I think you're an addict - I know the signs 'cause I've been there. Something makes us WANT to make it work even though we know it's bad for us. Eventually, the knowledge will win out, you'll free yourself, and you'll find happiness.

[please_help_me35]

I think maybe this is an addiction, one I've surely dealt with in the past. I had a book from a long time ago, given to me by a friend, called "Love Slaves" (something about "how to end your addiction to someone") but it was kind of boring, lots I couldn't really relate to. Are there any books, related, that you could personally recommend?

 

It's funny, and ironic....over the past few years, I've dated a lot of guys who I ended up dumping, because their "crap" just didn't seem to be worth it for me..and I felt empowered to have finally (or so I thought) found the strength and wisdom to know when to move on, and stand up for myself. But every once in a while, a guy like this current guy will come around......and I somehow get really sucked in.....and feel a major "connection"...and then I lose objectivity and my backbone turns to rubber. I think it's a "certain kind of guy"......they start out like a "good guy", then before long, you realize they're more of a "bad guy"....the kind you're not positive you could ever totally trust......the kind of guy who goes from pursuing you madly, to the kind of guy who, once you're hooked (or they've hooked you), they begin to pull away and treat you like crap......but there's some sort of stupid freaking "bond" there (probably not reciprocated) and it becomes a mission to get them to understand you and fix their "issues" and to damn well start treating you good. They can sh*t all over you, and you continue to sit by, stomach in knots and going on little sleep and food, stressed and trying to make sense of it all, feeling empty and clinging to any little shred of hope or caring from them, yet you're "hooked" and although you come close to telling them to beat it, you become 'weak' and can't follow through....OR, you do tell them to take a hike, but then you second guess yourself, and doubt yourself....and wonder if you acted hastily.....and you try to get them back. It's a freaking stupid vicious cycle that's an exercise in futility, that just leaves you, subconsciously anyway, feeling like a fool, questioning your dignity and self respect.

 

I have very easily and sometimes almost coldly, dumped nice guys who came on to strong, were too "intense in the beginning".......who made me feel smothered........yet I meet a "bad guy" who does these things and it hooks me. Have you ever noticed that, too?

[camcutie]

Please help me,

 

You've just written my life story. It's very true everything you said, I felt like I wrote it. We just need to realize we MUST break the cycle, and it's not health for us.

 

I've been seeing a counselor since May I've read alot of books, it is an addiction. Some people like me for example even with out knowing it we relive in one way or another our childhood, or what we grow up with. I didn't grow up in a very loving family, I mean us kids were very loved but my parents, I never really saw what it was like to have a wonderful, loving relationship full of caring, compassion and so on. My parents are divorced now because my father was caught cheating and my mother finally couldn't take the emotional abuse anymore.

 

So for me I think I always thought relationships like that were normal. The guys I meet that were "smothering and nice guys" to me that wasn't right, I needed someone strong willed and controlling because that was my father. My mother always gave her heart to try and never stood up for herself, that was me......

 

It took me a longggggggggggg time to realize all this, now I know those "smothering and nice guys" are what love is truly about. That's what I want not to relive what I watched my whole life and thought was right.

 

Hope this helped alittle. Good Luck................