Finally indifferent, but what got me there shocked me.

[radrluv72]

I've been posting here, off & on, since last December when my ex abruptly & unexpectedly dumped me 2 days before he was deployed to Afghanistan. Without rehashing every single detail of what happened, I'll let you know that we were extremely happy together, and I never had one indication that something might have been brewing on his end. No change in behavior, nothing questionable...and then all of a sudden, after a romantic night out & having met his best friends, my ex started spouting off non-sensical reasons that he needed to break up with me. Non-sensical in the respect that his "reason" came from out of nowhere and made zero sense. I was devastated & heartbroken. I implemented NC 3 weeks after we broke up, and I will be hitting the 11 week mark of NC tomorrow.

 

During this time, I had been trying to piece together in my own mind if there had been something that I had done that would have caused this sudden change of heart. My best guy friend, about a month after the breakup had opened the door by explaining to me that my ex may have simply thought that I was too good to be true--meaning that I wouldn't stay faithful to him during the deployment. He'd been burned a couple of times in that previous year, but I never knew to what extent. He's due to come back home from overseas next month, and last weekend sheerly by accident, I saw that he was active on the same personal dating site that we had met on, clearly communicating with someone new. At first I was upset, but quickly got angry & fed up. That's when the journey to my newfound indifference towards my ex began...but not quite what got me there 100%.

 

I had never been dumped like this before...literally never. It wasn't a clear cut case of him cheating, being a jerk, suddenly finding me unappealing...things that are more tangible & defined. And it was because of this that I carried it around with me for so long, just trying to find a reason why he turned on me like he did, and to stop blaming myself in the process. In talking with my best guy friend this weekend, I had told him that I couldn't possibly be the only person in the world this had happened to...how does one to go being in a happy, romantic relationship to all of a sudden having the rug pulled our from under you by a cold, emotionless person who is all of a sudden someone you don't even know? So, I started doing some digging.

 

I had come upon another site similar to LS, talking about men who won't commit. In the discussion of the article, a rather well-spoken individual brought an interesting point that not every "commitment-phobic" man is made from the same mold. We all know the typical type of person that won't commit...they're freaked out about losing their freedom, they're habitual daters, blah blah blah...but the type of "commitment-phobe" this person was speaking about was actually one that suddenly bolts because of an anxiety attack...meaning this. This type of person, whether man or woman, wants and believes in a whirlwind romance. They pursue the object of their desire hard and persistently, living and believing in something lofty, highly romantic, and fantasty-like. However, when the moment occurs that the object of their desire is theirs, something happens. They become victim to an anxiety attack...not because they don't want love or to be in love, but there is a severe negative association with being in love. So they quickly bail from the relationship and quickly move into a new casual one, refusing to see their part in why the breakup happened to begin with.

 

Now, here's where it gets particularly interesting...the "negative association" with love bit. The negative association could be a myriad of things...abandonment issues, being severely traumatized by something in childhood or a prior relationship...things like that. A lot of the people that fall into this kind of a "commitment-phobe" category have long strings of short relationships under their belt, and frequently do the dumping because of a need to get out of the relationship before they get hurt, even if there's no signs of that happening. The commenter also suggested reading further into this issue by reading up on personality disorders & how they pertain to a certain type of commitment-phobe.

 

Finally, after all these weeks, I finally felt like I wasn't alone. The poster had put my relationship with my ex out there for me to see with my own two eyes. Was it a whirlwind romance? Well, he certainly tried to make it one. After our first date, my ex was already talking about taking a trip together, which had made me step back a little. He was incredibly romantic & he did pursue me in an impetuous manner, but not to the point where it was creepy or seemed off. He seemed perfect...so I finally gave into my heart and let him in. Two weeks before he broke up with me, I had told him that if I was the person that he wanted to come home to after his deployment, I wasn't going to go anywhere. I was his. Two weeks later, he abruptly ended it. Finally...an ANSWER.

 

But I didn't stop there. I did do some digging regarding the whole personality-disorder-commitment-phobic thing...and what I found shocked me. The personality disorder related to these types of people who end relationships doesn't just end with those who suffer major anxiety/panic attacks, but there are also a percentage of the people who actually suffer from bipolar disorder. And that's where I had to stop.

 

My best friend, who I've known since I was 20, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her early 30's, after years of going back & forth with doctors trying to figure out her emotional highs & lows. It's not the "typical" bipolar disorder that one associates with just simply being...well, for lack of a more appropriate word, "crazy", but it's about severe depression & conducting one's self in a pretty questionable manner when they're on a "high". For years my best friend was the textbook "commitment-phobe"...she had multiple sexual partners, more causal relationships than you could even count, and frequently would dump these guys the moment they were clearly into her, finding one little thiong wrong with each guy & quickly moving on to the next one. She was highly premiscuous & put herself in a lot of dangerous situations with poisonous people. And when she hit her lows, it was downright scary. But nothing was more frightening than the fact that these highs & lows didn't bother her at all...she thought this was the way everyone was. I'm happy to report that she's a completely different, and more evened-out person than she was before she was diagnosed. She's happily married & at peace.

 

So, how does this relate to my ex? Well...big time. When the word "bipolar" first came into play when talking about the commitment-phobic person...the first thing I thought of was my best friend and how she lived her life prior to her diagnosis. And then I started thinking about what I knew about my ex. I nad never really witnessed any extreme behavior myself, but I sure heard about it. Hard-liquor drinking binges, getting into fights, and some of the exes he told me about. My ex had lost his virginity at the age of 16, to a girl who made him watch her cut herself before they had sex. Another girl told him to hold a gun to her head as they had sex. And he had told me these stories so casually...as if there was nothing out of the ordinary...like those kinds of things happened to everybody.

 

On top of that--and I don't know for a fact if this had anything to do with it--but I knew that prior to his deployment, the military ahd him taking different types of prescription drugs. Not just the types to ward off any potential diseases or infections, but I know that sleeping pills & other types of drugs were involved...one morning after I had stayed over, he'd shown me several of the pill bottles, and I just found it odd why he'd be taking all of these drugs, hopping from one to the next in short doses.

 

So for the past few days, I don't know if I feel better about this new possibility of why my ex broke up with me having come to light...was it a severe anxiety attack? Is he bipolar? Was the sudden emotional shutoff to me a sudden "low", brought on by his being deployed or a reaction to something he was taking? Regardless of what that answer might be, in an odd sort of why, I'm finally at a point of indifference...but now I'm more concerned than ever as who what's going on in his head. I know that the next girl is going to be in for the same exact thing. Yes I know, it's not my problem anymore...but I'm genuinely worried. Just when you think you know someone...something comes up that you didn't see or expect.

[TryTryAgain]

Thanks for posting your story of arriving at indifference.

 

I too wonder if my ex suffers from bi-polar disorder. I have been questioning whether or not she is a commitment-phobe or not too. Your post has possibly shed some light on my situation, but who knows.

 

I'm glad you have hit that point of indifference.

[willowthewisp]

My ex left me after nearly 20 years in the same way, he left right after we booked our wedding, then ran out and got another women really quickly, moved her in and proposed. He was engaged to me for 8 years, we lived together 10 years.

 

The trigger for committment phobia is different for each phobic, my IC explained it to me, for my ex it was marriage, he was quite happy to be with me and live with me, clearly, he did it for nearly 20 years, but when we booked the Church he said he woke up in the night having an anxiety attack and felt like he was going to die.

 

For your ex, you met his best friends, that, in his mind was the trigger, letting you a bit further into his life = committment.

 

There's a good book might help you, it's called He's Scared, She's Scared by Stephen Carter.

 

As for the next girl, well honey you can't worry about her, even if you were able to to tell her, do you think she will listen and accept the help or do you think she would think you are interfering as the ex. Sad, but that's how people think. She'll have to look after herself and YOU are more important, make your own well being your priority. When you are left in such a way it is VERY difficult to let go and to not self blame because it really is completely non sensical, I hope you get busy living your life and try not to concern yourself too much with what is going on his head, chalk this up to a lesson learned about what you need to look for next time (no rushing behaviour from him). I really hope you can do this, it's been two years for me and I still cry most days despite IC, I hope you do better than I am.

[Ajax]

There's a good book might help you, it's called He's Scared, She's Scared by Stephen Carter.

 

.

 

Currently reading this myself and I also recomend it.

[radrluv72]

My ex left me after nearly 20 years in the same way, he left right after we booked our wedding, then ran out and got another women really quickly, moved her in and proposed. He was engaged to me for 8 years, we lived together 10 years.

 

The trigger for committment phobia is different for each phobic, my IC explained it to me, for my ex it was marriage, he was quite happy to be with me and live with me, clearly, he did it for nearly 20 years, but when we booked the Church he said he woke up in the night having an anxiety attack and felt like he was going to die.

 

For your ex, you met his best friends, that, in his mind was the trigger, letting you a bit further into his life = committment.

 

There's a good book might help you, it's called He's Scared, She's Scared by Stephen Carter.

 

As for the next girl, well honey you can't worry about her, even if you were able to to tell her, do you think she will listen and accept the help or do you think she would think you are interfering as the ex. Sad, but that's how people think. She'll have to look after herself and YOU are more important, make your own well being your priority. When you are left in such a way it is VERY difficult to let go and to not self blame because it really is completely non sensical, I hope you get busy living your life and try not to concern yourself too much with what is going on his head, chalk this up to a lesson learned about what you need to look for next time (no rushing behaviour from him). I really hope you can do this, it's been two years for me and I still cry most days despite IC, I hope you do better than I am.

 

I don't know that I agree thatv his introducing me to his friends was the actual trigger. When we first start seeing eachother, he had told me that he had been frequently showing his friends my Facebook (aka Stalkbook) page so they knew who I was, to brag about me, ect...whatever reason. He'd been wanting me to meet his friends for some time ("Oh, they're going to love you, you'll fit right in, I can't wait for you meet them,") but with his work schedule and mine, a lot of times just meeting up for a couple of drinks just couldn't happen. No, I sincerely believe that when I told him that I was willing to wait for him during the 4 months he would be overseas was the trigger. He had been dumped by 2 girlfriends (so he said) in that previous year because of the fact that he was active military & had to travel so much...I highly suspect that he was dumped by someone while he was on his first deployment to Iraq the previous year, or maybe something happened while he was training for the military when he was younger...I'm not sure. All I knew was that there was a big part of him that was insecure when it came to me...by best friend had the idea of trying to fix me up with her son's football coach when I started seeing my ex. I turned her down at the idea and had mentioned it to him when things were still casual--probably a bad idea at the time, but I can tell you he never forgot about it. He would mention it now & then, even when I had totally forgotten about it myself.

 

No, I'm not necessarily worried for the next girl...I probably feel more sorry for her than anything else. Who I'm worried about is him. Although it may be over, I still have concern over his well-being having come accross this information. My ex isn't bad guy. As a matter of fact, he was my prince. He treated me better than anyone else I had ever dated in the past...cared about me & "took care" of me. I adored & loved the hell out of him. And comparing myself to girls he'd been with in the past, I'd go as far to say that I was probably the best and most normal thing to happen to him. And that just by itself may have been another factor in why what happened, happened.

 

And yes...it is true, when someone up & leaves you like this, it's enough to make you crazy. Some of my friends would ask why, after so long, would I even still be digging into this, even since it's been almost 11 weeks since I last talked to him? Well, I'm one of those people who just doesn't accept something that doesn't make any sense at face value. I will dig until I have an answer. I don't like guessing & assuming...I'd rather have fact. I know that he cared about me. But something in him made him suddenly push me away, hard and fast. The 3 weeks I spent trying to talk to him about things...it was like talking to a wall. I now wonder if shutting himself off to me in such a forceful manner was his way of "protecting" himself from me--aka, the "negative association" he had with being in love.

 

I almost kind of wish that he had been the kind of commitment-phobic that's just strictly emotionally distant, aloof, and treats their gf/bf like a mistress/lover that he or she doesn't tell anyone about...then it would have probably taken me a lot sooner to let go. Now that I'm at the point of indifference--or rather, just not hurting & sad anymore--I was maybe at about 75% if taking care of myself, now I'm there 100%. I don't know that he might get in contact with me when he comes home next month...I know that I don't have any hope for it, and I'm certainly not waiting anymore, not that I ever really was. I'm just not really sure when this specific type of situation happens after the fact. If I'm going to continue to base it on the behavior of my best friend prior to her diagnosis, she did have a habit of getting back together with ex-boyfriends that she did have a good emotional connection with prior...as a matter of fact, the man she's married to now was her high school sweetheart. I'm not saying that this is a guarantee my ex will be back on my doorstep...but if he ever does, you better believe there's going to be some deep, serious conversation going on. Meanwhile...I'm going on with my life, in the best way possible.

[radrluv72]

Thanks for posting your story of arriving at indifference.

 

I too wonder if my ex suffers from bi-polar disorder. I have been questioning whether or not she is a commitment-phobe or not too. Your post has possibly shed some light on my situation, but who knows.

 

I'm glad you have hit that point of indifference.

 

The fact that it took me almost 3 months to find out that I wasn't alone in this particular type of situation told me that either it's just not talked about enough, or people tend to dismiss it too easily for something that's easier to grasp. It's always easier to classify someone as being a tramp, psycho, freak...than actually look a little bit deeper and see that there's more than what's happening on the surface. "Don't judge a book by it's cover", as they always say...

 

I might want to stress though, that I'm probably not as good as explaining the whole personality disorder/anxiety attack/possible bipolar disorder thing as some of the articles I read. Anything you find online can be somewhat questionable and you need to take it with a grain of salt, but usually when you come up with the same result from different sources you're probably on the right track. Bipolar disorder also comes in varying degrees, and not every situation is the same. I didn't want to be in danger of simply dismissing by ex's behavior based on something chemically imbalanced in his brain, because I definitely think there's some underlying trauma in his life that he's either just learned to gloss over or doesn't talk about. With his being in the military, flying planes & going overseas, one would think that any series of psychological tests would catch it, but look how long my friend was misdiganosed. Anything is possible.

[Woggle]

I am not accusing you of anything but there are many cases of servicemen being cheated on left and right while they are fighting overseas and I think this was his fear. Sadly it is all too common. I am sorry you had to pay the price for that though.

[radrluv72]

I am not accusing you of anything but there are many cases of servicemen being cheated on left and right while they are fighting overseas and I think this was his fear. Sadly it is all too common. I am sorry you had to pay the price for that though.

 

Oh trust me, that was the first thing I dug into when this happened. I could totally understand if that had been his fear, but it was the total & absolute shutoff of himself to me that I couldn't understand. I understand what it is not be completely 100% trusting of someone in a relationship, either because they've cheated on you in the past, or it's still new and you're still not quite sure. But listen to the series of reason he gave me that night, in bed, when he broke up with me...

 

I don't know how I feel about you.

 

I don't know what you are to me yet.

 

When I move to Texas in 2 years when I'm restationed, I don't think you go with me.

 

As much as I appreciate how independent you are, you never talk about getting married.

 

I don't get to see you often enough.

 

I think about other girls.

 

I don't want you to miss out on something better.

 

...If he didn't trust me to stay faithful, that's the one thing he didn't say. And mind you, not 2 weeks before this happened, this was what he was telling me...

 

I don't want to lose you...you make me happy. I care about you. You make me forget all the things that drive me mad.

 

I don't think you're necessarily wrong about the trust issue, but I think that's only a small part of it. And the fact that he refused to even talk about things at all, I just couldn't believe. It was like I didn't even know him. And that's when I finally had to implement NC. For my own sanity.

[huskers11]

Do you remember where you read this article? I'm curious to read it myself!

[radrluv72]

Do you remember where you read this article? I'm curious to read it myself!

 

What got me started in looking was something I found on Relation****.com (not cynical at all, right?), talking about men who don't commit. One of the people who commented in discussion of the article was what shed some light on my situation, namely talking about the personality disorder & anxiety attack bit. After that, I started Googling "personality disorder commitment issues", or something like that...not a whole lot of articles there to choose from, but I can't remember which one specifically started talking about bipolar disorder being the catalyst in a certain percentage of those who are genuinely commitment-phobic.

 

Like I said, when you research this stuff online, you have to kind of take it with a grain of salt, but when multiple sources come to the same conclusion, it's a pretty safe bet that you're on the right track.

 

It's put me at ease knowing that I know for sure that I didn't do wrong (my ex even told me when we broke up that I hadn't done anything to cause to want him to leave me, just that all of a sudden he didn't want to be in a relationship with me), but at the same token, it's disheartening to know that there's nothing I can do to fix it. Clearly whatever is going on is his own issue to deal with, but he needs to recognize it first. I don't think he's at the point in his life yet where it's going to dawn on him that something might be off (he's only 24), but maybe in a few years, he will. But I certainly can't sit around waiting for that to happen...I've got a life to live.

[radrluv72]

By the way folks, here are some links to read up on true commitment-phobia. Recently I've seen some posts where the term is getting used a little more frequently, but I think it may be for the wrong reasons. Before one jumps to the conclusion, they need to understand that this phobia is an anxiety disorder; a mental illness. Yes, there are varying degrees of it, and some people suffering from the phobia can have more severe cases of it, such as those suffering from bipolar disorder, like I mentioned. But it needs to be established that yes, there is a big difference between someone simply losing interest in the person that they're in a relationship with, and someone gripped so strongly by fear & anxiety that it forces impulsive, irrational decision making. The more that I read about the disorder, the more signs I see know in my ex that I didn't realize at the time...and it saddens me even more to know that the entire matter was completely out of my hands. I hope to god this doesn't happen to anyone else on this site...I wouldn't wish this kind of devastation on anyone.

 

http://www.phobia-list.net/commitment_phobia/commitment_phobia.html

 

http://www.phobias-help.com/commitment_phobia.html