Wanting a second chance: If you have time, advice would be great.

[SarahM]

I am a woman, 21 and I recently broke up with a partner of less than two months. One would probably think "what is the big deal? It shouldn't be too hard to get over if you weren't even going out for two months." On the surface, this is very true. However, I have known this young man for almost four years before we started going out. For two of those years we were friends and for one of those years (this past year) we became very close and great friends before we started going out. We saw each other through difficult experiences including relationships with other people. We also worked together on the same project (a literary magazine) all this past year with great results. This past year, we told each other everything, helped each other out in many, many ways and became best friends: all before we started going out. When we started going out, the first month was absolutely wonderful. We had virtually no disputes, and it was really just like a continuation of our friendship except with some kissing and physical closeness added in. We were very honest with each other and we both expressed our mutual caring for each other regularly.

 

I am really going to try and tell everything exactly like it happened, even if it may make me look bad. I would love objective opinions from anyone who has time to offer them. Ok, here goes: In the second month of our relationship, I began to experience problems with my family, I started a full time job and worked part time at another, for a total of 55 working hours a week, and I started taking two correspondance courses. These new stresses in my life had the unfortunate effect of making me more dependent on my partner for my happiness. I should not have allowed myself to become more dependent on him, but it happened. What happened soon after is that we became physically intimate. It was a wonderful, beautiful experience, but even as we were experiening it, we both knew it was too soon in our relationship for it to happen. Even so, our will power was not very strong, as we were very attracted to each other, and we continued to be physically intimate. I have a problem with physical intimacy coming too soon in relationships because most of my past relationships where this has happened have never ended well. When my partner and I continued to be physically intimate, I began to doubt my trust for him. I had absolutely no reason to do this except for my past experiences with other partners. I began to judge him based on prior experiences with other people. Subconsciously, I began to dismiss our wonderful, strong friendship that had developed over the past years.

 

Not long after we had become physically intimate, I raised my voice to him on four occasions and argued with him in a confrontational tone of voice. The issues I argued with him over were in relation to our different ways of viewing things in the media. He and I are both critical of the media, he hopes to have a career related to media/cultural studies and criticism, and I hope to have a career in a sociological field. I felt we needed to discuss our ways of viewing certain media but I should've been much more amicable about it since we both are already of a similar mindset in regards to the media. What caused our problems was not the different ways we view certain media, but the way I reacted and talked to him about the different ways we view the media. As friends we have always been able to discuss things that we disagree about in a constructive and amicable fashion and we always end up learning from each other and seeing it from each other's point of view. Because we were a couple and because I was already feeling insecure about our physical intimacy, I acted in fear and spoke to him confrontationaly about our different ways of viewing the media. This was very wrong of me, and there is no excuse for the way I spoke to him. I was dismissing our wonderful friendship and instead just looking at him as my partner, when I should have been looking at him as my close friend and partner interchangably.

 

After these four incidents, I was very regretful and apologized to him. He responded by saying he felt that he needed to break off our relationship because he was feeling unsure of himself. He said he wanted to go back to being just friends. I protested but ultimately accepted his decision. He made this decision at a time when he was going home for the summer and I would be staying where I am. He lives about three hours away now. The thing is, we were so close even just as friends that our present situation is very difficult. We have gone from talking every day, and seeing each other almost every day to talking maybe once every two weeks on the phone and not seeing each other at all. When we talk on the phone, we try and keep the topic friendly and not divulge into more "couple"ish things. We had a friendship that was very rare, and he openly acknowledges that. Our mutual friends always go on about how great we get along and his friends say there is a "positive energy" around us when we are together. This is their opinion of us as friends and also as a couple.

 

I feel that what happened in the last month of our relationship was very much my fault and that there is a lot of potential to keep building on what the first month was like. I know I was terrible to him on those four occasions and I am deeply regretful. Those moments were me at my worst. The rest of our time spent together, including our three years of knowing each other and the first month of our relationship were me at my best. I need to deal with my personal issues and he has to deal with his. But I feel such a frustration at the idea that we may never give our potential as partners a fair chance. Less than two months, especially given the mostly great times we had during that time, is not enough time to determine that things aren't working. I am not desperate and I don't want to pressure him to give us a second chance. I know that it will be much easier for us to go back to being good friends if we are able to know for sure that we won't work as a couple and if we give it a fair chance. After giving it a fair chance, if it still seems like it won't work, I know we can both agree to end the relationship amicably. However, if after giving it a chance, things work out, than we can keep building our relationship. I know the mistakes I made the first time around, and if we gave it a second chance, I know I would have my stress under control and never again allow myself to dismiss our wonderful friendship. However, my problem is, I am not desperate and I don't want to pressure him to give it a second chance but I know if we don't, it will be a lot harder to go back to being friends.

 

We have been broken up now for almost two months and it is not getting any easier; if anything, it is getting harder. I would appreciate any advice, feedback, criticism, ranting or anything else. I apologize for the length of my post... I'm just trying to give a clear picture. I know I probably will emerge looking a bit stupid! I appreciate any help.

[dresden]

I'm sad for you because it sounds like you had a great friend in this man but your intimacy issues got in the way.

 

Instead of asking him to try to be a couple again, why not ask him to be your close friend again? You have apologized for your four outbursts and you probably talked to him about why they happened.

 

So maybe the next step is to start over as friends only. If something further develops, you will hopefully be more mindful about your trust issues and talk honestly and openly to him about things.

 

I think this is a friendship worth trying to salvage. And remember - I don't mean to sound like an mom here but that's what I am - you are only 21, dear girl. You have SO MUCH life ahead of you. It's painful to break up with someone you love, I know. You'll keep growing up and changing and living your adventure.

 

Put your trust in yourself and be strong. Someday someone wonderful will show up for you when you are ready for that. It might even be this guy.

 

Hugs to you.

[SarahM]

Thank you for the advice. I think you are right. Right now I am going to focus on being good friends again, and try and fight the desire to be more. For now I think that is the best thing. If anything does develop further, I will be much more open about my insecurities and much more amicable about expressing them. School is starting again for us in September and he and I have at least one class together. So, I'll be seeing him on a regular basis and that will be a good opportunity to get back to being friends again and build from there. I am deeply crazy about him romantically but I will try my hardest to tone down those feelings. I'll let you know how things go in the next little while! Thanks again for taking the time to give me advice (its my first time using a forum like this so it was nice to get some useful feedback )

[RecordProducer]

Sarah, what I've noticed through your post is that you don't really consider this man your boyfriend, but rather a good friend with whom at one point you started having sex.

I don't think you raised your voice for no reason; you probably felt the issue subconsciously and wanted to test him. You wanted to give him a reason to leave you and see if he will. And he did. Your worst fears became reality, because you contributed to it.

In any case, after a few years of great friendship, he just doesn't seem to be in love with you. Even if you stayed with him, you would realize that later and it would have been even more painful.

Rule number one (that I don't respect myself, that gives me the right to tell you how wrong we are): never show a man that you're emotionally dependent on him. Act easy!

Nothing depends on you now. he broke off so it's him who can make advances if he is interested, not you. If this is going to be sex+friendship and not love then you don't need it. All you can do is be cheerful with him, don't look at him like a god, and date other men. If he is afraid to lose you, he will initiate a new beginning; if not then it wasn't meant to be.

BTW, whether sex comes early or later in the relationship has nothing to do with feelings. Besides, you knew each other for a few years. You're trying to find a rule that made your previous relationship go down. Your theory is mere superstition if I may call it that way. The rule is - people are either right for each other or not. Some men want one-night stands, some want casual relationships, some are serious. They don't see all women with the same eyes and intentions. Attractive women think that men want them only for sex, unattractive think they don't fall in love with them because they're not pretty. Nothing of that is true. Be yourself and you will find your happiness in love sooner or later. You only need one man for that purpose! Imagine that all your ex-partners were right for you, now wouldn't that be odd?

[SarahM]

Thank you for the reply. I think one thing I did not make clear in my initial post is that I very much considered this man my boyfriend. In my initial post I focussed too much on portraying the friendship of our relationship and not the romantic involvement. We definitely further developed our friendship into romantic attachment when we became a couple. I don't have sex with just "good friends." Sex to me is very valuable and even though it came early in our relationship, it was very meaningful to me and my insecurities were unfounded as I have acknowledged. However, he and I were not in love with each other when we had sex. We deeply cared for each other but we were not at the level where we could say "I love you." I would prefer to have been at that stage before we had sex and that is partly where my insecurities came from. Sex has a lot to do with feelings for me. I acknowledge that you may view this differently and it is quite an individual thing; everyone has their own viewpoint.

 

I agree with you that I didn't raise my voice for no reason, but the manner in which I did so was rude and dismissive. There are better ways to debate a topic than raising one's voice, especially since he had not said or done anything to provoke me (he had not raised his voice at me, or spoken rudely to me, etc). I rose my voice out of my own inability to deal and articulate the insecurities within me. Instead of raising my voice I could've made myself much more clear by remaining calm and speaking conversationly. However, perhaps I was subconsiously giving him a reason to leave me. I think you may be right about me making my worst fears a reality.

 

Also, to clarify something you said, we were not in love when we broke up. We cared deeply for each other and were moving towards falling in love, but, for he and I love is something that needs to grow and doesn't happen over night (I know that he and I both view love this way as it was one of the many topics we openly discussed as friends and then as a couple). We love each other as friends, but love in the romantic sense, involves more time. Again, you may not agree that love takes time, and I respect your opinion. But mine and his opinion are as I have indicated.

 

Whether or not we can or will fall in love with each other romantically remains to be seen. I greatly care for him so on my end, I could see it most likely happening. Whether or not he could fall in love with me eventually I do not know, as we haven't as of yet given it another chance. I agree with you that the next advance will have to come from him in regards to resuming our romantic relationship. If he doesn't make that advance, of course I will live with it and move on.