despair over sudden, but respectful breakup

[redsmurf]

I was with her for nearly 18 months. We were both from different corporate professional industries, with demanding jobs and both of us traveled for our work very frequently.

 

 

Due to this we were apart often in many different countries, in different time zones, sometimes for days or a week at a time (2 weeks at the longest), sometimes overlapping, usually not. but we both lived in the same city and shared an apartment and had a relationship.

 

 

Obviously there was a huge amount of trust and autonomy that came with such a situation, but i was totally devoted to her, and both her words and actions indicated that she felt the same way about me.

 

 

she was a special girl that had so many great qualities that i recognized early on, and as i watched her over time, she became more and more gracious and really blossomed into a wonderful woman, like you just knew that she was destined for great things. very kind and caring.

 

 

Anyway, we always were great together as a couple and when we weren't in person together, we would be in constant txting or skype every single day, nearly always initiated by her, in retrospect usually many times per day.

 

 

I really adored her and her words and definitely her actions indicated the same about me. every time we were in person it just worked, although I must admit that she was the primary nurturer of the relationship, I was totally into her and giving my best to the relationship with what i had and always trying to anticipate what to do next to meet her needs and progress the relationship, but somehow it was like she was way more sophisticated when it came to the emotional and needs part of the relationship, even though she was younger than me, it was like she was always one or two moves ahead of the curve.

 

 

Obviously being the guy, there were times where I made small mistakes which hurt her feelings, almost always usually caused by when i wasn't paying attention to her or if i wasn't behaving in the way that i would consider the standard to which i hold myself (times where i wasn't giving my best)

 

 

I was way further along in my career and successful and she was early on in her career, but in the time i knew her career really started to take off, especially in the last 6 months. Whilst I am quite successful, the industry she is in is male dominated and exposes her to those that are in the next tier of success (ie the ultra, ultra successful), so she was starting to get much more versed in how to network in this situation with powerful men. Obviously like throwing bambi to the wolves, but what can you do when you have two professional people as a couple that are both ambitious and want each other and encourage each other to be more successful.

 

 

In the time I knew her she was a very kind and caring woman, loved to be adored, was very needy and emotional and craved assurance and attention from me. She would share what was happening in her life, and she would tell me when she felt I was not paying attention to her in the way that made her feel adored. Not in a demanding bitchy way, but in a way that she would shine brightly when i gave her those things and she would feel sad when i wasn't with her.

 

I saw her move from being a nice and sweet girl, into a much more developed, confident, caring, successful organised and outgoing woman that was also secretly fragile.

 

 

That is, all the good qualities that she had when I met her were still there, its just that they developed more and more into what I would now describe as a "full grown woman". throughout the entire relationship, she made lots of effort and always treated me well.

 

 

Times where she would get huffy or attempt to play games I would be able to anticipate this and hold my ground and she would always extend the olive leaf. In fact she said early on, one of the things that attracted her to me is that I was the first guy that she dated that wasn't a pushover and wouldn't kiss her ass at the first sign of her getting pouty.

 

 

There was only one time where she ever treated me disrespectfully at a time where she was needy - she indicated that she missed me a lot, didn't like that she was thinking of me 24/7 and that she was so into me, that she didn't like that she was totally vulnerable and emotionally subservient and invested into me and "that she will go find another guy to distract her from me, just to make me jealous". At the time i felt this was a power play, but in retrospect was a major red flag juncture in the relationship - this discussion was the "several months" before the blindsided breakup.

 

 

Anyway we were in constant communication and always making present plans and future plans together, scheduling complex plans months into the future, about things to do and activities etc. Everything appeared as normal right up until the two weeks when it wasn't and then it ended.

 

 

In the last two weeks I knew pretty much straight away that something was wrong, she said everything was "ok" when i first noticed, but a few days in I knew certainly something was up just by looking at her face and when we did discuss it, she said that it was over, and that there may not be anything i could say or do that would change her mind.

 

 

Upon more discussion with her, she went on to say that she's been feeling this way for months, ever since she became more involved at work. not to blame myself, shes been looking for something different. she never wanted what we had to be more than what it was, and had a feeling that i felt the same. that i never made her feel like she was special, that i overthink things, that we had lost some of our connections - she didn't know if we were bf/gf or just lovers and my words and actions weren't always the same. that she felt I am a good man, but she doesn't want to be in a relationship. i asked her if she had already left me in her heart and she (almost tearfully) said "maybe" but that she was happy to know me and wanted to cherish our final moments together.

 

 

Whilst we were in constant communication, clearly there were things she wasn't saying in the months lead up to the breakup. I did adore her and tried my best, usually when we disagreed or had something go wrong generally it would be something that I said or did inadvertently to cause the situation, owing to that I wasn't always as finely tuned into her and her emotions were much more complex than mine.

 

 

Whilst I was making a lot of effort to learn from situations where i caused neglect, address it and not repeat again, sometimes the constant travel and timezones would dull the page we were on, which isn't an excuse for me, but it part of the reality of the dynamic of the relationship.

 

 

Mix that in with the corporate travel life, after work networking, time away, a young pretty girl and wealthy alpha males, and yeah doesn't take a genius to join the dots looking back. That part of it isn't killing me, i get it.

 

 

When I asked her about is there another guy, she said no there wasn't and that i shouldn't think that. she also said, and I think she let it slip out, that she's not with anyone that she's committed to. she then said that we are in a different situation now, and that she wants to make a fresh start and move forward that she has goals she needs to achieve and her plans are specific and don't include anyone. (which implied me specifically)

 

 

So presumably, either she did certainly have an affair in the months or weeks leading up to the breakup or met some guy or guys she wants to date or had some guy lined up in outerspace that shes thinking about, or has just started to click about her life and career moving forward. The way I interpreted it was yes shes probably with a guy, or maybe not but it doesn't matter anymore cause in her mind she is not committed to "anyone" including me. In any event she was clearing the decks of me and i had no choice in the situation.

 

 

The thing that I am struggling with and is causing me the most turmoil, is the way she handled the breakup. She handled the whole situation in a swift, precision like, but respectful and caring way where her feelings or mind did not waiver at all throughout the entire process, she was totally consistent with her words and actions through the breakup process, everything she was saying was literal, there were no games or tests being played as far as i could tell.

 

 

In that she never doubted what she was doing, was not cruel to me, but all the affection stopped instantly and i was now being dealt with like a professional acquaintance rather than her boyfriend from this moment on. She only broke down once throughout the entire process, of which i was able to cheer her up and make her laugh with a few words - i was tuned into this women, but as it turns out not where it counts for her.

 

 

Obviously, it hit me hard, i was a mess inside and it has since destroyed me. I really didn't see it coming. Before the breakup i thought very highly of her and due to her emotional maturity I foolish assumed that if anything was going wrong she would speak up and try for us to work it out. However I did have enough in me to keep my composure when in person with her and the emotional rollercoaster I went on i was mostly able to contain inside and not fall apart in front of her.

 

 

There was really only one or two slip ups where I would have been slightly stronger in my handling of things during the breakup as the whole relationship was going down and there was only a couple of times where the subsequent txting exchange almost got out of hand, but we both managed to diffuse it.

 

 

Mostly the entire process stripped my confidence with everything, left me as a shell and probably diminished me in her eyes. But also it wouldn't have been congruent for me to just walk away and go no contact either, I think she would have handled that easily too. It did feel like she was rewriting our entire history about what i meant to her as the thing was coming to a close, and that what we had wasn't as what i thought or felt it was.

 

 

I tried to distance myself and put some space between us and suggest that we take some time apart, but she came back and said there should be no rules, and that if i needed to talk to her she would be there and if she needed to talk to me she would want the same.

 

 

As time went on i realised, that she was way more emotionally aware than me in handling the breakup process, so she backed me into a corner where I realised that poor or childish behaviour on my part would not be tolerated and that i was being held to a high standard, and that i didn't want to damage her memories of me or leave things on a bad note. She said she missed me and cared about me but this is how it is now. Basically i had to keep it together on the outside while it was destroying me on the inside.

 

 

Although we dropped off eachothers radar, from then on true to her word, she would reply promptly to anything i said and i would do the same, however the messages were now clinical and all the caring and affection was gone like two strangers. She also was careful enough not to rub anything in my face about whether or not she was seeing anyone new, and i was not about to confront her about that. We haven't seen eachother since (its been a long time now), and at this point its the longest we have not seen or spoke with eachother since we first met.

 

 

Although she was hurting me so badly, she was treating me in a respectful way, in all the discussions we had they were emotional but never was a harsh or deliberately hurtful word exchanged. There was one moment were there was a single tear that i shed in front of her and she jumped on it straight away and said there were to be no sad faces, she said if i was sad that would make her doubley sad and she doesn't want to deal with that kind of hurt.

 

 

The despair and torment that I have been going through I need advice on. The breakup really devastated me, firstly because I didn't see it coming at all, she never made it known to me as she was going through the process in her head, it only became obvious to me two weeks out and and that I felt i was blindsided and presented with the breakup, not as something that could be worked out or saved, it was that the decision was hers alone and had been made and this is how it is and how it will be now. Its like the most important person in my life is now gone completely and I am left with nothing but the memories and an empty life. Like this bird has flown.

 

 

I haven't spoken to her in a long time, but by all indications she is happy still, has moved on with her life, presumably is with someone new and hasn't missed a beat. She did have a huge network of girl and guy friends, even before we met.

 

 

It felt like she got away clean to leave me deal with the wreckage but then again i myself didn't want the thing to breakdown into a mess or name calling for spiteful hurting arguments etc like a war of the roses situation. How do I deal with a situation where someone i cared for deeply has exited my life so swiftly and permanently, moved on to bigger and better things, throwing me away like a piece of trash. I think about her every day still, miss her terribly, but there is nothing I can say or do at this point to bring her back.

 

 

I've had lengthy, lengthy conversations with female friends about this in much more detail than is written here. I'm ashamed to admit i've broken down and bawled in front of multiple female friends as i've tried to make sense of it all, and the general advice i keep hearing from female friends is this. That the guy first and foremost has to be the guy and act like the guy. That he's responsible for her and she trusts him. He needs to take care of her and lead her, but that she owns the relationship. That she needs to respect him, but when she wants 100% he should give 120% and then when she wants 150% he should give 200%. I was also heavily criticized by one female friend who said, even when my girlfriend was breaking up with me this clinically, I should have been more over the top and dramatic and fought hard to convince her that i cared for her and shown up unannounced to "fight for the relationship", she said women loved to be cherished and made to feel special and that from her point of view, my ex gf probably felt i didn't care enough.

 

 

So how do you keep something together in a fast mobile world when you are not together 24/7? How do you deal with a situation where you are blindsided, even when you are talking everyday, but not talking about the right things? How do i move on and repair my deep heartbreak when I've lost someone that i cared about and admired and who was actually a kind person that cared for me and that still ended up breaking my heart? What to do when that special woman gets to your level but is bombarded by better offers? will she always upgrade? Do i really have to settle for a lesser woman that sees me as the trade up? The joy that i felt with this woman was sublime. But the hurt has been deeper than any other breakup i have experienced.

[TaraMaiden2]

I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but the questions are pretty much irrelevant, because even if you receive answers they will neither soften the blow, nor make things any clearer.

 

Your best bet is to distance yourself both physically and emotionally, and get used to being on your own.

 

If your job means that you travel extensively and are separated from a partner for long periods of time, either focus on finding a more static partner who will understand and be able to live with that - or change job.

 

When we have certain circumstances in our lives which bring an upswing, and positive results, something else, somewhere, will always, but always suffer.

 

When you dedicate your time, in a major way, to achieving a specific professional goal, there is no way you can dedicate the same amount of devotion, energy and attention, to emotional matters.

 

QED.

 

You can't have it all.

That's the reality of where you are and what you do.

If you don't like the results it's brought you - then you too, need to make some changes.