How to cope with the sadness

[raizen]

This is rather long but I would like to share my story with you.

 

I had known this girl for half a year until I started having feelings for her. We were both in our first year of college back then. I am not that much of an outgoing person whereas she was, she enjoyed going out and partying a lot. We were both good students though and we spent quite a lot of time together studying and also we were always sitting next to each other during lectures. I was shy and it took me 6 months until I confessed my ever growing feelings for her. She gave me a reply that totally shocked me which was that until a couple weeks ago she thought she might have been pregnant with another guy. This was during the summer holidays. After this, we didn’t talk for a while until the next academic year started. We spent less time together as she was in a relationship with someone but she wanted to end it. I respected her relationship and didn’t get involved, but asked her twice if we could be together someday. First time she didn’t give me any straight answer, but the second time (by now she had broken up with her boyfriend) she told me I was too good for her and that she wouldn’t want to lose me. I told her that it was allright and that she could never lose me. I had never had a girlfriend before and later on I wished I had been more confident and regreted many of my mistakes with her. I loved her a lot and even after she rejected me, I had no anger towards her and I even gave her a present for her birthday that she genuinely said it was the most beautiful and thoughtfull gesture anyone had ever done for her. I always treated her like a princess and cattered for any of her needs. I know now that this was a mistake and that I wasn’t a challenge for her. I wanted our story to end in good terms as she was going to leave for a semester to study in another country and after she would leave I wanted to move on as I had given up all hope of being with her and I was at peace with myself. In the days prior to her departure though, she came over to my place and we slept together for 2 nights ( there was no sex involved, just cuddling) and she showed a lot more affection to me than she ever did, but I had already given up all hope of us being together and just wanted to enjoy the little time we had.

 

She soon left abroad and I thought I wouldn’t see her at all until she would get back 6 months later, but she told me that we should see each other on skype and I agreed with it. We started speaking awfully lot on skype until I told her that it’s not such a good idea since I was still in love with her, though I wanted to move on. She then confessed that she had been in love with me even before I had started to develop feelings for her but that she wouldn’t want to date a colleague. I was completely baffled and exhilarated as she said that she wanted to be my girlfriend. We were together now or at least that’s what I thought. It was the first time I had ever experienced such strong emotions and I loved her with all my heart and I genuinely think that at some point she did it too. I was going to visit her after my exams and we were counting the days until we would be together. Those were 4 months of deep love, with her constantly telling me how much she loved me and that I am the only one she could ever imagine raising children with. I was shocked at how fast her thoughts were drawn towards having a family together, but I also started fantasizing about it. We had a fight during these 4 months due to my insecurities of not seeing her for a couple of days on skype, but it was nothing serious and we continued being very much in love, until one month before I was going to see her, she started not calling me so often on skype. I didn’t bother too much though as we both had exams and also I didn’t want to seem to needy as I had been during our fight over my insecurities. We still talked though 2 or 3 times that month on skype, although she seemed a little bit colder towards me, but as I was inexperienced, I didn’t bother too much with that. On the day before I was going to take a plane and go visit her, she sent me this huge text on facebook in which she said that she can’t be in a relationship right now since she is afraid that I might grow to hate her due to our differences. Her feelings were also motivated by the numerous couples in her family that were going through some rough times at that moment. She told me that she misses me, that she still wants me to go visit her and that she needs me, but that she can’t be in a relationship with anyone untils she figures out what she wants to do with her life and she doesn’t know when this feeling is going to go away. She also told me that she figured out that her place is not in our home country and that she wants to live abroad after finishing her studies. I was heartbroken, but called her and told her that I love her and that it doesn’t matter and that I will go visit her and support her and always be at her side. So I took the plane the next day and stayed with her for 2 weeks in which she was as cold as ice towards me and she would go out in the evenings and come back the next day, while I was staying back at her place, wondering if she’s okay or not and sometimes even going out checking any bars to see if she was safe. Those were the most terrible 2 weeks of my life. I bursted into tears when I left back for my country, but she was almost emotionless towards me. We just hugged and that was all.

 

The next year was also though since I had to see her everyday for our last year of studies. She had told me that she understands any decision that I would take regarding our friendship, but I decided to still remain friends as it was excruciating not talking to her at all ( although I did try ) when I had to see her 5 days out of the week. For the first time I felt anger towards her although I hated myself for feeling that way, but I couldn’t control it. I found out that she had been together with someone whom she had met when she was abroad and I wanted to know if she had started being with him while we were suposedly together. She told me at first that it started 4 months after I had visited her as she continued going back in that country for a week at a time, only for me to find out later that she had been texting him even before I went to visit her. Confronting her later, she now said that they were together 2 months after I visited her, although I couldn’t really believe her and was even thinking that all the nights she went out when I visited her were in fact spent with that guy. I had really hopped that we can still be friends, but finding out that she lied to me and they might have been together while I was there tore me apart and by the end of our last year of studies I told her that we should end our friendship and I don’t want her to contact me anymore and that I wouldn’t contact her anymore as well. We had a fight on the phone, when she texted me saying what a horrible person I am. I only replied that I am sorry she feels that way and I apologize if I had hurt her, but that I am nobody’s mockery. This was the last time we ever spoke.

 

Fast forward 2 years, I have the most amazing girlfriend whom I love very much. We have been together for over a year now and we’re planning a future together. The only thing that is bothering me is that I still can’t forget the pain that the other girl caused me, although most of it has faded away. I would of liked to have a warm memory of our time together, but I sometimes wonder if what we had was true or not or if she just led me on so that she would have someone to get back too if things wouldn’t work out well for her abroad. I feel that I will carry this emotional scar with me forever. I stress the thing that I don’t want to have anything to do with her anymore, though I don’t hate her. It’s just that my memory of her is one that saddens me. She has blocked me on Facebook, but I sometimes bump into photos of her due to mutual friends we have. I now know that she has been together with the same guy and I wish them the best in the world since she seems happy and I am glad for her.

 

I just wanted to put my experience on paper and to ask you in case you have gone through a similar situation, how did or do you cope with the sadness? I mention that I am an active guy who works out and runs a lot as I like taking care of my body. I am also involved in a lot of things as I always want to become a better version of myself.

 

Thank you very much in advance for reading my post and I am very grateful to those who could give me advises on how to manage this situation.

[kendahke]

You're still too hung up on her. Seriously. She shouldn't be able to command this much of your attention at this point. And if you're this hung up on her, you're not being fair to the person you're supposed to be with. Your memories--it is what it is and that's all it is. It was an interaction that didn't turn out as you had planned--you're going to run into a lot of that as an adult.

 

You are choosing to carry that emotional scar, no one else. You can just as easily decide to resolve all issues surrounding said scar so that it is settled and put to rest so that you aren't entertaining thoughts of how much pain someone who has moved on has caused you while being involved with someone else. There's not enough room for the both of them, so you need to choose who deserves more of your attention--the ex or the one you're with now. If it's the one you're with now, act like it.

 

The way I cope with the sadness of relationships is to not get involved with someone new until I'm well and done with sadness over a failed relationship. I don't drag anyone else into the mess because it's my baggage to sort, not theirs.