Hello everyone, I'm new to the board.

[UnicornGirl]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the board. I had a horrible breakup one month ago with the love of my life. We would have been together 3.5 years as of about a week ago. He is 20, I am 19. I'll go into details further but I wanted to say hello, introduce myself, and offer a bit of advice. I've been reading the book "How to Get Your Lover Back" and "Men are from Mars: Women are from Venus" and I've gained a lot of insight into what happened. I would recommend them both.

 

He wanted to leave totally, but I said what I wanted to do was mutually break up and see where it goes, and in the future we may have a relationship, we may not. We have spent one great day together since the breakup and we have both been busy with college in the past 3 weeks so have not seen each other again yet, but I hope we will soon. Good luck to everyone, I am hoping for the best for all of us here and so thankful to be able to read all of your posts and share experiences. I am currently in counseling but this helps too, as my counselor is more focused on ME than the relationship, naturally. Good night everyone and good luck!

[Rayne84]

Hey, we're of similar age, and I went though a similar, mostly amicable breakup a while ago. It's taken a long time, but my ex and I are really seeing eye to eye this days, and don't know where things could go . Just try to keep a positive mental attitude, focus on you (and school!), and live each day with the attitude that you will be happy (you'd be surprised the wonders that that works.) It may be too hard to be his friend now, but the more you do what I mentioned above, the easier that will come. Good luck!

[Urban Rubble01]

So who initiated the breakup ? What was the reason ? How long has it been ?

 

Anyway, I feel your pain. I just turned 22 and my 21 year old girlfriend of over 3 years just told me she needs a break from us to deal with her last year of school. It's been 3 weeks. I can empathize with what it's like.

[Haunani]

I just wanted to say *Welcome*.........This is a great community with tons of advice to give and get......

[UnicornGirl]

This all happened a little more than a month ago. I had just arrived at college, and was really upset and not liking it. We were arguing a lot on the phone, and generally unhappy with each other. He felt like my attitude was bad about school and he was trying to help, but it was offending me. Nothing he tried worked, and after thinking about it I realize he was probably feeling helpless and inadequate because of all this. In general, it hadn't been a good week.

 

We also had a tough summer -- some pretty hopeless fights and general discontent. I was going through a rough time with my family, crying a lot, lots of personal problems. He was, I think, feeling hopeless and "not good enough" because he wasn't helping me. I kept feeling like things were changing between us, and I was sad all the time.

 

He drove up to college (his is about an hour from mine) and stayed with me overnight. We had a wonderful, happy time -- he held me in front of the mirror and said, "Look how beautiful my fiancee is." (We had talked about marriage a lot before, and were planning to get an apartment together after college, so talking about marriage was nothing new and not the reason for our break up at all.) He went to school the next day and all seemed fine.

 

The next day we had a bad fight -- I was basically saying he couldn't understand my hardships because he and he said, "We're not friends anymore." I began crying and protesting, and he said it was over. I went over to his college to visit him that afternoon, even though he insisted he didn't want me coming over there. I pleaded with him when I got there, cried, hugged him, told him how much I loved and admired him and all of these wonderful things I think about him and that I realize I have been so sad I haven't been acting as loving as I feel toward him. He pushed me away every time I tried to touch him. When I sang "our" songs, he said to stop, because it was too sad. Issues in our relationship -- like a big trust issue -- were resurfacing. He is hurt by the fact that I have never fully trusted him, which has a long back story I won't go into, but basically he violated my trust early on in the relationship and I took him back. That was more than 3 years ago, and I never really fully got over it, though I told him I would. I think I needed time to myself to sort out the trust issue and I wish I had done that this summer. But I didn't -- I was afraid I'd lose him if I said I needed time away from him. Anyway, too late now. But he said he was upset that it always takes a breakup situation for me to say I'll change. And in the past he had threatened to leave if I didn't start trusting him because it hurt him so badly, and I had always cried and said I was sorry and he'd come back. I think he finally pushed me away, and was feeling really resentful. Now I am in counseling and am sorting out my trust issues, which I haven't told him about, but which is really helping me.

 

I stayed over that night because I missed all of the trains back to my town, but we didn't sleep next to each other. He seemed just exhausted and sad at the end of the night. His birthday was that weekend and we had planned that summer to spend the weekend together despite the fact that he was supposed to go on a trip with a school group. That night as he was going to sleep, I said, "I think we need a few days to just not talk and be apart." He said that was a great idea, and when the issue of his birthday came up in our conversation, he said, "Well, we have three days to think. My birthday's not 'til this weekend." I went back home -- he walked me to the station but didn't hug me goodbye as he usually does.

 

We waited the three days. I called him every now and then, and called a little more than we had agreed to because I was so distraught. He finally called the third day and said, "I'm sorry, there's just too much hurt." To make a long story short, I told him what I wanted to do: break up but still see each other and remain involved in each other's lives, and see where it goes -- we might get back together, but we might not. (Emphasis on the "might get back together" on my part!) He said that's exactly what he wanted, and he was really impressed with how I put it, because he wanted exactly the same but couldn't put it into words. He said the hardest part of this was the concept of not seeing me anymore.

 

We talked on the phone every now and then, and still said "I love you." He went with his group instead of with me for his birthday, which I said he should do. For my birthday we got together, but the day before he said he didn't want to stay the night since we should take things one step at a time. We got together for my birthday, and he planned a bunch of fun things for us to do. Sometimes he was distant and odd, sometimes I felt this amazing connection and bond and we had so much fun. It was in the quiet moments that he got awkward, not looking me in the eye, talking about school a lot. He hugged me goodbye, a tentative hug, but several times -- and drove away late that night. We talked on the phone a bit over the next two days. One day he said he might call me the next day -- and then didn't call. I called him 8 days later and he was painfully casual. Later I told him how it made me feel like I was running to him and having to hold up the whole friendship on my own when he was doing things like not calling. He thought he had called me, and only slightly believed me when I said, no, it had been me that called 8 days later. He said he understood but coldly told me to stop repeating myself so much. He said he felt the same way as he did on my birthday and nothing had changed.

 

We have both been busy with schoolwork and have not been able to see each other. It has been really hard since my birthday -- three weeks ago -- and we are getting together for lunch tomorrow. Sometimes he calls and leaves me a message in a voice I don't recognize -- it sounds like he's trying to sound cool, or grown-up. He is confusing me with his behavior, but I am trying to just love him. I think he's protecting himself and trying to "be strong without me," that type of behavior. Tomorrow we're getting together for lunch--which I initiated. I'm going to try to just move forward by not being posessive or needy, but just spending time with him and having fun with him. I am having trouble, however, coping with his switch in behavior, with his casualness. I sometimes hate him, sometimes think I don't ever want to see him again. But fundamentally I love him, and I don't want to be with anyone else. My feelings are summed up in that I want to be with him, but not right now. I'm just trying not to sabotage things by yelling at him when he doesn't act how I want him to. Our love was so strong and so beautiful, and I want nothing more than to be with my beautiful companion again.

 

Today I went to see him for lunch. It went well, actually. He gave me a hug goodbye, a real hug this time, with less timidity. We flirted a bit at lunch and were generally happy. I wanted to take a later train but he walked me straight to the station and said, "Oh, don't worry, there should be a train right now." He has a lot of work to do, and I guess he didn't have time and wasn't expecting to spend more time with me. I felt a bit hurt, but let it go since we had such a nice hour and a half together. I'm going to talk to him about his behavior, today, though -- but I think I'm going to be loving about it instead of angry, as the book I am reading advises: I'll say, "hey, you know, every time I ask you to get together, you are hesitant and noncomittal, sometimes resistant. I love you and I want to spend time with you, but maybe you don't want to see me anymore." That's a gentle message to him that I'm not going to be waiting around for him forever, and if he says, "No, I do want to see you, it's just I'm busy," I'll accept that at face value and let it go. But it will send him a gentle message that I'm not going to stand for being taken advantage of, which I'd rather have than a situation where I'm chastizing him for not treating me right.

 

Anyway, that's the gist of it. I can't believe how ridiculously long it is, but anyway ... I'm hoping for the best.

[Urban Rubble01]

Well, we're in pretty much the same situation. Like I said, I've been with my girl for about 3.5 years, she told me almost a month ago that she needs a break from us to deal with school and work. She says she still loves me, she wants it to work out and that it's not about wanting to see other guys. We've seen each other once (and I'll see her Tuesday) and we talk about once a week.

 

Hopefully since out situation are so similar we can keep each other posted on what's going on. I have 2 threads started in this forum about my story if you care to read more. Aside from that, it seems like your taking the right course of action. All we can do is be there for them, let them know we love them and not push too hard.

[Rayne84]

I wouldn't say anything to him at all, actually. If you tell him something it means you're letting him know you're uncomfortable with the staus quo-you want him to feel otherwise so that when he sees that you may be moving on, he'll believe it and it will scare him. Just make yourself unavailable; the message will hit him harder that he cannot jerk you around forever. Go out with friends, meet new guys, anything to make him see you're out having fun instead of moping in your room. Only then will he really begin to miss you, I think. It does work.

[UnicornGirl]

Originally posted by Rayne84

I wouldn't say anything to him at all, actually. If you tell him something it means you're letting him know you're uncomfortable with the staus quo-you want him to feel otherwise so that when he sees that you may be moving on, he'll believe it and it will scare him. Just make yourself unavailable; the message will hit him harder that he cannot jerk you around forever. Go out with friends, meet new guys, anything to make him see you're out having fun instead of moping in your room. Only then will he really begin to miss you, I think. It does work.

 

Good point. Unfortunately I had already talked to him before I read this!

It went really well, however. I said in a friendly, casual tone, "Hey, I'm always inviting you places and you're always unsure, vague, etc., and then you never invite me to do anything." Before I could get this sentence out, he was saying, "No you're not, you're not always inviting me places." I thought about it, and really, I haven't been inviting him to do all that much -- it just feels like more since I'm putting myself in the position of underdog, mentally. He then invited me to have breakfast with him 2 weeks from now. He's goingto stop by on his way home. I told him, "Well, let me make sure I'm going to be here that weekend" -- and he stopped short. He seemed confused and a bit jealous, but didn't want to admit it to himself. I actually may be going on a trip that weekend with friends, so I think I'm going to have to turn him down! I also said I'd go to a concert of his, but that's the night before the trip, and with transportation and everything ... he said he couldn't do anything this week " Because of work, believe it or not." I told him I believed him about being busy -- though it still seems a bit fishy to me. Whatever. I don't have the energy to be jealous or worry anymore. He kept mentioning female friends and how his choir is going on a tour of Europe at the end of January, and I just kept saying, "Oh, that's nice!" We passed by a concert which had one of his female neighbors singing in it and kept saying how it was her group, over and over again -- I think I shocked him when I said, "OK, great, let's go watch then!" and we watched for a few minutes. The girls were nothing special so I confimed I have nothing to worry about with his neighbor who he keeps mentioning so pointedly!!!

 

I feel like I'm gaining ground here, and less and less feeling like I'm the one begging for him to come back. I have to keep in mind that he doesn't know what's going on in my head -- I've been acting really casual and such with him, so that's all he knows at this point.

[UnicornGirl]

Originally posted by Urban Rubble01

Well, we're in pretty much the same situation. Like I said, I've been with my girl for about 3.5 years, she told me almost a month ago that she needs a break from us to deal with school and work. She says she still loves me, she wants it to work out and that it's not about wanting to see other guys. We've seen each other once (and I'll see her Tuesday) and we talk about once a week.

 

wow, almost the same situation ... we have seen each other 3 times since the breakup. the third time felt the most "right," I think ... when I'm away from him, I can hate him so much, but every time I see him, I know I love him.

[UnicornGirl]

I am doing so badly tonight -- I keep driving myself crazy imagining him being with someone else! Or plotting against me, or other horrible things. I keep imagining him thinking how he doesn't like me anymore, how he doesn't love me, how he doesn't think I'm beautiful or special anymore. It's ridiculous, but it's so hard to keep myself on track. I sometimes wonder, why would he have wanted (at first) to throw this all away if he DIDN'T think all the horrible things I'm imagining? It's so hard when someone loves you one day and the next is so angry and hurt that they want to leave forever. And he's acting as if he has moved on so much -- that only makes it worse for me.

[Urban Rubble01]

I know what you're going through, I do the same ****.

 

An older friend of mine told me this: You're doing no good torturing yourself trying to figure out what she's thinking. Different people deal with things in different ways. Just because she isn't showing it to you doesn't mean she isn't hurting or that this isn't affecting her. All you can do is be there for her for what she needs.

 

That helped me a little. You can't try to figure out what they're thinking because unless they actually tell you it's just needless speculation that brings no answers.

 

Try to stop thinking about how he feels or what he's thinking (I know it's amazingly hard). It does you no good.

 

If you need to talk send me a PM, it can be good to have someone to talk to. My brother has an AIM account so we could talk through that if you'd like.