4 year relationship done

[ravfour4]

Hey all,

 

I'd like your opinion as to why my ex-gf did what she did and on what I should do. I'll try to keep this brief while explaining all the necessary info.

 

We met 4 years ago at a concert and hit it off instantly, "love at first sight" you could say. We maintained a long distance relationship (~2 hours away) for about 8 months, driving back and forth to see each other every weekend. Then, we moved in together and lived together for 3+ years, we were about to hit out 4 year anniversary.

 

I had always planned on marrying her after I had sufficient money for an awesome house and wedding, she challenged me socially and I challenged her intellectually, we were a great combo, but the peak of passion started fading after around 2 years. We got a dog and were forced to move out of our apartment because of it (she often did spontaneous things that ended up being detrimental for me), she wasn't there to help me move because of poor planning (also something she did often) and I was furious about it. Things slowly became more argumentative and we started butting heads all the time, over small dumb stuff. I felt like we were acting like a "married couple" in which neither of us was really trying anymore. I was consumed with my busy job where I kept getting promoted and my Dad was battling cancer which caused my to shut off my emotions to avoid getting hurt. I figured things would work out since they always did when we had a couple days in a row to spend together (she worked retail and was barely ever around).

 

She gave up and broke up with me. She also quit her salaried job for a part-time no health insurance gig. At first, I was glad since I was sick of all the tension we had. Then, my emotions came back and I was miserable, I'd check her phone, laptop etc. to see what was going on, to understand. I found out she was "in love" with her much older married co-worker with kids. I'd seen flirty texts from him in the past, but she'd always say "he's married". Amongst all this my dad's condition worsened and he eventually passed away, she was very nice throughout all this, but insisted she didn't want to get back together and wanted to see what happened with this guy. It tore me apart. One day she'd be flirty and nice, talking about being scared of moving out. The next, she'd ignore me and text this guy all day in front of me. After 2 months of living together after the break-up on this terrible rollercoaster, she finally moved out yesterday. The day before, we took our dog to the park, went out to dinner (something we rarely did before) and she wanted to watch one of our favorite shows together. Now she's gone and likely with this married man who's going through a divorce.

 

My plan is to stop talking to move on, but I'll need her to continue to take our dog out in the middle of the day and she still has a ton of stuff here and a key to my place...I feel better now, but when we spend time together, I fall in love again. I realize our issue was that I wanted her to grow up and be more mature so I could envision her as a wife and she wanted me to be more spontaneous. It's a fixable mistake in my mind, but I feel it's too late.

 

 

Side note: She has a crazy past involving a physically abusive relationship with an older man and she had a very tough time with her parents explosive divorce (dad left for another woman, mom was left in shambles and neither focused on the kids).

 

Why did she do that? She's going towards a terrible situation when my situation is much more favorable and I'm very capable of becoming the person I was before, and I had wanted to, I just was lazy and didn't have the motivation to do it until now. How is she so sure we'll never work out? And what should I do?

Edited April 4, 2015 by ravfour4

[No Limit]

She's unstable and has the self-esteem (and possibly brains) of a brick. Her soon-to-be-divorced-guy probably sensed it ten miles against the wind and is just glad he has a new girl who might deal better with his hobbies like cheating etc.

[Satu]

Welcome to Loveshack.

 

Tie up all the loose ends as speedily as you can and go strictly no contact.

 

I know that isn't very appealing, but it speeds up the healing, and helps you move on to the next phase in your life.

 

Once you've tied up the loose ends:

 

No contact.

 

*No direct contact in either direction. No sending or receiving of messages. No replies. Block any means she might use to contact you.

*No indirect contact through third parties.

*De-friend or delete from all social media. No monitoring of her on social media.

*No 'little birds' feeding you news.

*Tell people that you don't want to know anything about what she is doing or saying.

 

All the best,

 

 

Satu

[ravfour4]

Thank you No Limit, that's the type of response that helps me hop out of my emotions and realize what's happening logically She also said she doesn't care about herself at all, so you're probably right on the money.

 

Thanks Satu, I've already cut off electronic ties and since she abandoned all her friends during this, there won't be any little birds sending me news. That being said, I'll need her to take out my dog for the next few weeks, but I suppose after that I can cut off all ties. The only thing that makes me tentative to do that is the thought that she's only doing all this because of her crazy past (going towards the older guy for safety, wasn't able to handle pain of our relationship so jumped into the easiest new one instantly, despite it being a terrible situation for all involved) and that soon she'll realize it's a mistake and will come back...but even if that is to happen it would probably happen quicker if I cut ties. Nor do I necessarily want that to happen, the relationship would never be the same.

Edited April 4, 2015 by ravfour4

[ravfour4]

I want to hear more opinions!

[ravfour4]

After reading some other posts, I figured I'd add a bit more info for context.

 

When I first met her, she has no self esteem despite being very attractive due to a terrible ex bf (not the abusive one) that made her feel terrible. Anything I said made her feel amazing and she felt like she became herself for the first time again in years, it was part of what made us bond so quickly. She's probably going towards the same things in this new guy, feeling like I no longer appreciated her.

 

She lied about seeing this guy the entire time. When I saw her constantly texting someone "it's just a friend, I text him as much as everyone". When I caught her calling him "I like him, but I'll always care about your feeling more" (yeah right!!! her actions show the exact opposite). When I saw a lovey note from him "that doesn't mean anything, a lot of people gave me cards when I left". When I saw him texting I love you to her "we're not dating".

 

Before I left to take care of my dad and I saw the i love you texts, I told her how I felt calmly, where I think we went wrong and that I'd be willing to give it another chance cause there's no way she actually loves that dude, she said no. While I was with my dad for the last week or two of his life, she texted me nice things constantly, but nothing about "I care about you" or let's get back together. When I got back, she said they ended whatever it was because she felt really bad. I asked what that meant for us...nothing. A few weeks later, she's texting him again and she left up a google search for "dating a man with kids"..... Is she lying because she still wants me on the side? If I was doing what she was doing, I would feel terrible being nice to my ex, I wouldn't want to be around her and I'd probably just own up to it. If she's so sure it's the right thing and I've told her, just be honest, you think it's more hurtful, but it's not, why does she continue to lie?

 

As you can tell I've given this a lot of thought, I'm feeling better, I think about her (and just saw her a minute ago when she came to grab clothes) but it's not so emotionally fueled anymore and logic is finally back in the picture.

[Throldur]

After reading some other posts, I figured I'd add a bit more info for context.

 

When I first met her, she has no self esteem despite being very attractive due to a terrible ex bf (not the abusive one) that made her feel terrible. Anything I said made her feel amazing and she felt like she became herself for the first time again in years, it was part of what made us bond so quickly. She's probably going towards the same things in this new guy, feeling like I no longer appreciated her.

 

She lied about seeing this guy the entire time. When I saw her constantly texting someone "it's just a friend, I text him as much as everyone". When I caught her calling him "I like him, but I'll always care about your feeling more" (yeah right!!! her actions show the exact opposite). When I saw a lovey note from him "that doesn't mean anything, a lot of people gave me cards when I left". When I saw him texting I love you to her "we're not dating".

 

Before I left to take care of my dad and I saw the i love you texts, I told her how I felt calmly, where I think we went wrong and that I'd be willing to give it another chance cause there's no way she actually loves that dude, she said no. While I was with my dad for the last week or two of his life, she texted me nice things constantly, but nothing about "I care about you" or let's get back together. When I got back, she said they ended whatever it was because she felt really bad. I asked what that meant for us...nothing. A few weeks later, she's texting him again and she left up a google search for "dating a man with kids"..... Is she lying because she still wants me on the side? If I was doing what she was doing, I would feel terrible being nice to my ex, I wouldn't want to be around her and I'd probably just own up to it. If she's so sure it's the right thing and I've told her, just be honest, you think it's more hurtful, but it's not, why does she continue to lie?

 

As you can tell I've given this a lot of thought, I'm feeling better, I think about her (and just saw her a minute ago when she came to grab clothes) but it's not so emotionally fueled anymore and logic is finally back in the picture.

 

When your father was dying.. that is where she should have been there for you. The fact that she wasn't and was still talking with the other man.. I think that's all you need to know that this girl should be part of your past and not future.

[Satu]

I want to hear more opinions!

 

You seem to be handling things well. You've obviously done your thinking.

 

She's a troubled person for the reasons you've stated.

 

I hope it turns out to be as painless as possible.

 

In the meantime,

 

All the best,

 

Satu.

[ravfour4]

My biggest concern now is being too optimistic/hopeful. We were at each other's necks for the first month or two afterwards because I was constantly trying to get her back, to convince her we could fix things and to reiterate how much I cared (despite not showing it very much the last month or so of our relationship, everything she did annoyed me...I'm not sure why). After getting some closure on my Dad's situation (I'm 26 btw), I realized I needed to stop acting emotional around her.

 

Since I've done that, she's acting the same as when she was my gf and way nicer than that last month or two of our relationship. She'll talk in a cute voice, bring up old memories, mentions wanting to take some things that we bought on vacations together etc. but I'm 99.9% sure it's just because she still cares about me as a person and likes my company, not because she wants a bf/gf relationship again, but that stupid 0.1% somehow tricks me into getting excited that .."it's working! not being so needy is showing her my true self again and she's said over and over that she misses the "old me" "

 

When she lived here and was with that guy, they barely saw each other, she was almost always here and slept here every night (on the couch) and he was with his wife and kids. That dissipating into nothing seems likely, and I'm not sure if she'll come running back. At the same time, she's known this guy for a long time, so maybe she's 100% gone.

 

I also need to remember Throldor's point above, what she did to me I could have never ever done to her. I would have dropped everything in a second to help her if her mom/dad was sick. During that time she did ask if I wanted her to come visit, but why would I want someone who just told me they want to see how things go with this guy with me when I'm super sad about my dad...

 

She'll be back again early tomorrow to get more stuff... she certainly seems in no hurry to move out. At least once she moves out I can actually try NC to some extent and can much more easily gauge her thoughts based on whether or not she contacts me or not, otherwise we always saw each other and most of the time she was really nice.

 

Update: she just randomly busted in after leaving even though I told her to always text me before she comes over...what the hell

Edited April 4, 2015 by ravfour4

[No Limit]

Well, kick her out when she "busts in" or simply deny her access (unless she wants to get more of her stuff, in that case tell her to wait 2 minutes and bring her the bags). You have to set boundaries. And no comforting her.

[ravfour4]

She has a key to let my dog out for the next week or two and then I plan on taking it, I'm just surprised she didn't text to say she was on her way back and she didn't knock either, I coulda been smashing some woman for all she knew haha.

 

I already failed the "don't comfort her", I gave her a few DVDs to watch tonight since she doesn't have cable set-up. I had been thinking "make yourself look amazing so that's her last memory before you start NC", but I'm probably being too nice.

[ExpatInItaly]

She has a key to let my dog out for the next week or two and then I plan on taking it, I'm just surprised she didn't text to say she was on her way back and she didn't knock either, I coulda been smashing some woman for all she knew haha.

 

I already failed the "don't comfort her", I gave her a few DVDs to watch tonight since she doesn't have cable set-up. I had been thinking "make yourself look amazing so that's her last memory before you start NC", but I'm probably being too nice.

 

Gee, do you think?!

 

Grow a backbone, man. She isn't girlfriend material.

[ravfour4]

As long as it's not hurting me to be nice though, isn't it better to be the "bigger" person and be nice in these last few days before we're finally actually separated?

 

I've stopped reading into her actions since they made no sense and I know she's involved with someone else.

[ravfour4]

NC advice needed. So as you know, we've lived together the 2.5-3 months after the break-up, we hung out and it almost always ended up hurting me more. She finally moved out, but still needs to make a few trips back to get stuff. She came over yesterday multiple times and said she'd be over this morning. Truthfully, I was checking my phone a few times this morning to see if she texted, but wasn't that disappointed when she didn't, in fact I felt relieved. I'm finally free of that stress and don't need to worry about her calling her new guy from our back room anymore.

 

She just sent me a random song she thought I'd like and then said she's not coming over today. Up until now, we've always responded to each other and the only reason I want to communicate with her for the near future is about our dog, need to make sure she actually lets him out.

 

I think I've answered my own question, but don't respond right? I'm sure she'll text again if I don't respond, do I ignore again or do I just reply briefly with a "yep" or something like that?

[ravfour4]

Well..8 hours later I finally responded, just to make sure she could let our dog out tomorrow since she works downtown and had said she wanted to continue letting him out anyways. No response yet....we'll see.

[ravfour4]

Must...not...regress.

 

So yesterday was the first day I needed her to take our dog out. I texted her in the morning to make sure she'd do it and she responded. Then like 12 hours later she texted me again about our dog and about her day. I was out drinking for the NCAA championship and after a while gave in and responded, we didn't talk about much, but she never responded to my last "g'night" text which brought me right back to being angry and realizing I hadn't made as much progress as I thought.

 

She called me this morning to ask if she could hangout at my place with our dog and work for a bit, I feel bad about leaving him home alone so I said it was fine. Then she started talking to me about work and how it was going (not great) and I eventually cut it off saying I had to go.

 

Now...I want to contact her badly again, but I know I shouldn't since I'll likely get a lame response or no response at all. God damn this woman is addicting...

 

Can someone talk me down from being a fool and texting her?

Edited April 8, 2015 by ravfour4

[spiderowl]

Sorry to hear your story. I don't know why she behaved the way she did. Some people are just more spontaneous and impulsive and their behaviour can backfire if they are left with responsibilities as a result. It sounds like you were the responsible, steady one in the relationship while she was more impulsive and then left you to clear up (e.g. look after the dog). Basically, even if you got her back again, her nature would get the better of her and she'd be off after the next exciting attraction. This is not to say you are not exciting, not at all, but you need a girl who has a responsible side like you and who is not wildly impulsive. I think impulsivity is more about what censorship the brain is capable of exerting on someone's behaviour and not necessarily anything to do with her background.

 

I would not hope that anything will change her essential nature. If you think it will, you may well find yourself in exactly the same place again in a short while and wondering why nothing seemed to work. No point setting yourself up for more again.

[ravfour4]

Yeah, my thinking was that in the past she's done everything and anything to avoid feeling bad/pain. I knew early on in the relationship that there was no way I could ever hurt her feelings, she had too many defense mechanisms and a bad temper.

 

In this case, I think she was mad at me for not being perfectly what she wanted, was mad that we didn't work out (she kept saying she wish we had gotten married 2 years in) and jumped to the closest guy, a guy who had been flirting with her for years probably just waiting on this opportunity. They were both vulnerable as hell and "fell in love", while I (the more logical one) wanted to work it out, realizing that the things she was mad about were easily changeable. She was furious that I didn't want to go out more and do more things, yet I did....she just was never around due to a constantly changing work schedule that required she worked almost every weekend. Anytime we spent 2 days straight together, we'd fall in love all over again. For some reason we just got super frustrated with each other, she was mad I wasn't more outgoing and romantic anymore and I was mad she wasn't responsible enough to be my wife (wouldn't do the laundry, would forget to let our dog out etc.). I was brutally honest about the small things I didn't like and when she didn't make an effort to change them, I distanced myself, she distanced herself and we ended up hating each other.

 

She broke up with me after the holidays when her job was most intense and then got a job where she didn't have to work on weekend. I re-fell in love with her as I expected despite all this craziness going on and she had already determined "it'd never work" and had moved emotions from me over to this new guy. I just can't believe she wasn't more there for me through the stuff with my dad, she texted me a ton nice things, but she should have dropped all this bs and just been by my side through it all like I was through her difficult times (which there were many many of).

 

PS - she just texted me. Glad I didn't give in sooner

Edited April 8, 2015 by ravfour4

[Riptide91]

The whole dog thing is a little ridiculous my man. It kinda sounds like a way to keep her in your life, it is a short term thing correct? Also, maybe I'm a bad person but perhaps you accidentally set it up so that when she comes over you're smashing out some girl? Haha no no I kid, anyways I hope you realize this chick is totally wrong for you and do complete NC and let this go.. She's going for a soon to be divorced older guy? She's picking damaged goods over you? (No offense to divorced people, I just getting a feeling this guy is a loser and left his wife cuz he's a cheater, i.e. Damaged goods) You deserve way better man!!! Waaaay better.

[ravfour4]

The dog is essentially both of ours, we got him together with the expectation that we'd be together forever. I paid for him, but she actually picked him up.

 

I was worried she'd try to take him, but she's letting me keep him and I want to, but I told her she could see him sometimes. Some beat ass custody deal, right now she just takes him out during lunch and I don't need to see her. Once I get his vaccines up to date, I'll enroll him in doggy day care and take the key back from her (she also still has a bunch of miscellaneous stuff here).

 

I should trick her and smash some hoe when she walks in, although I think that'd make the weird situation even more tense lol. I'll see her this weekend when I need her to take our dog for the weekend while I'm out of town, we'll see how it goes.

 

I agree that I deserve better, she was always a lot of work, had to calm down her overreactions, put up with her bad temper and her saying mean things etc. and I thought it was all worth it. Then she goes and turns on me like this not realizing that she devastated my feelings and that when we said we'd be together forever I wasn't lying, I was willing to work through anything.

[ravfour4]

Wow...earlier this week she was doing a few random nice things, texting me a bit more and randomly put away all my dishes one day.

 

I decided to call her yesterday since I need to see her on Saturday since she's watching the dog this weekend while I'm out of town and we had a nice and casual convo. She mentions that she cries everytime she leaves our place after letting the dog out, that she's been thinking about my mom being mad at her constantly and that she's been stressed out at work. I asked her if she'd like to grab a drink on Saturday and she said yeah! and that she wanted to know what I've been up to and that it could be a fun time. I was like "yeah whenever works for you I don't care".

 

She texted me this morning letting me know when she was letting our dog out and I responded hours later saying thx for letting me know and asking if we were still on for tomorrow. She has yet to respond (5-6 hours later) and I come home to my tv stand and a few other big items of hers gone and all my **** unplugged. WTF. I had been looking forward to just being ourselves tomorrow and not talking about us at all, but coming home to my place a mess just makes me furious on top of the no reply. Why wouldn't she just say "yep" or "no I don't think it's a good idea" anymore after being gung ho about it on the phone yesterday....

Edited April 11, 2015 by ravfour4

[ravfour4]

Wow! Earlier today my friend posted a picture of him at a big block party, I said "That block party was legendary!!" (it was the day me and my ex first started dating and was super fun, almost 4 years ago) and she just LIKED my comment (we're not FB friends)..... SUNUVA B she's torturing me. Not responding to my text but doing that...

Edited April 11, 2015 by ravfour4

[Seeker12]

I think you are overthinking a simple like, she probably is liking it mainly because she also agrees its legendary, mate this LC is still very unhealthy and her little actions you are beginning to overthink - ie her liking your comment is torture as she hasnt responded to your text.

[ravfour4]

Well, she finally responded. As of now we're meeting for a drink tmrw, if it's hard on me, makes me feel worse, or she's clearly still with that dude, I'm going NC.

[ZiggyZoo]

Oh man, why are you doing that to yourself? Of course they're still together, and meeting up with her in a social setting is going to hurt like hell. Save yourself the heartache and cancel.