still in love but broken up

[Blanco]

OK, time for tough love: You kind of deserve this. You have disregarded advice in your other thread over and over and this is sort of your punishment for that. It sucks and it hurts, but she doesn't owe you transparency about her dating life. Young people who break up will date again. This was inevitable and it's why everyone was telling you to do the hard thing and move on.

 

Instead, you've stuck around. Your reward is a front row seat to her getting back on the dating scene. Bonus: you've now come across as weak and a little erratic with your reaction to this new development.

 

STOP. Your future self will thank you.

[Hurtingguy]

I keep reading everyone's replies and everyday that goes by they make more sense. My problem is im not ready to stop loving her I'm not angry at her I'm not resentful towards her. But again I'm sad the tears are back my anxiety is getting bad again all I can do is think about her no matter what I do or who I'm with she's all I can think about.

 

I feel lonely night time is very hard for me when I get I. To bed and roll over to hold her but she's not there anymore. I would do anything to have her back but there's nothing I can do and that kills me.

 

What I want to say to her right now:

I love you baby I miss you so much I miss holding you and kissing you I miss falling asleep beside you and waking up beside you every morning. I love you baby forever and always

[stockyoldfrump]

You have to create distance. There is literally no other option. This will drive you insane.

 

Let me tell you a story. I had my first serious LTR in graduate school. I broke up with my girlfriend because I needed to get my **** together and we agreed that we would try again when things settled down. We never stopped spending every day together. It was like we were dating, but without the physicality.

 

Eventually, I asked for her to get back together with me. But her feelings had changed and she said no.

 

First Lesson: Her feelings changed because I was giving her everything she got from being my boyfriend without her having to be my gf. All the emotional support, time, companionship was hers anyway, so why would she opt back into a relationship where there'd be hurt and confusion?

 

After she said no, I went on a three month campaign to try to get her back. I sent her letters and at first she was polite. She'd very reasonably outline the reasons she wasn't interested. But that wasn't good enough, so I took a train to the train station near her house and asked her to meet me. I bought her flowers and declared my love to her. She turned me down again. From this point forward, she treated me with distance. Not surprisingly, I had creeped her out. But I kept trying, only this time I tried to be subtle. I pretended to just want to be friends, but was constantly lavishing her with attention and gifts in the hopes she'd want to be with me again. Still didn't work. Eventually she grew more and more distant until, at the end, to even see her was immeasurably painful. She felt like a stranger, and I couldn't deal with it. So I tried one more time. I texted her and told her I loved her. This time she was forceful in telling me she didn't want this type of attention. I was broken and decided I could never see her again, so I went NC and haven't talked to her since.

 

Lesson 2: Eventually, I ended up out of her life anyway. What I wanted simply wasn't what she was going to give. I tried every conceivable way, but she just no longer felt that way and there was nothing I could do to change it. Typing that makes me feel sick even today because of the uncontrollable absoluteness of it, but eventually I had to face it. And the months I spent with her as a friend? I never enjoyed a single moment. I lied to myself at the time and told myself that having her in this way was better than not having her at all, but that was just what I told myself to forgive behavior that was patently counterproductive and, more than that, really disrespectful to both her and myself. She had given me two options: be my friend or let me go. I had tried to create a third option out of my own pipe dreams and stubbornness and it had blown up in my face. At the end of the day, I sort of deserved it too. After all, if I had loved and respected her or myself as much as I should've, I would have dealt with the pain immediately and started to heal. If I had, we might be friends today. More importantly, I would've had six months of my life that I'll never get back.

 

I would never minimize your situation by suggesting it's entirely analogous to my own, but I wanted to spell this out to illustrate to you that, while what you're doing is understandable, it WILL come back to bite you every single time. The more you chase, the more she will run away. The more present you are, the more she will take you for granted. More importantly, the more you allow yourself to be evaded and taken for granted, the less self worth you will feel you have.

 

Ask yourself seriously: if given a choice, what would you truly rather do tomorrow? Meet up with this girl and her new boyfriend and stew in sadness as they smile at each other and trade in jokes that only emphasize how abandoned you feel? Or would you rather not see her at all, and do stuff that you know is making you a better man?

 

Because those are your options, and they're all you have. She WILL find another guy and, the more you establish yourself in her life as a friend, the more she will expect you to be happily around while this guy is with her and there. You can not have your relationship with her in a vacuum, even if you'd be satisfied with that. So odds are, you'll eventually be put in a situation where you're forced to tolerate something that you simply can't tolerate. Eventually you'll FINALLY make the choice to get away from her, but by then she will no longer accept that you're acting reasonably on behalf of yourself as an ex. Instead, you will be the "friend" who's suddenly betraying her by creating drama at a time in your life when she's happy and doesn't really want to entertain this issue anymore. Not only will you not get to stay in her life, this will eventually make you into the bad guy. And it will make her dislike you. Is that what you want?

 

You can love this woman and still let her go. It's the worst feeling in the world to do it, but you have to. If you can't motivate yourself to do it, motivate yourself this way: every second you hang around her she loses respect for you. You are actively becoming the opposite of what she wants in a man. I am not saying that doing things differently will make her want you, but doing what you are doing is THE most unattractive thing you can do. In her eyes. Is that what you want? Further, you will hurt HER eventually. When she realizes you weren't really her friend, she'll feel betrayed and taken advantage of. Is that what you want? More importantly than anything, when you finally do get away from her - after immeasurable further damage - you will regret not having done so earlier. Is that what you want?

 

If not, stop.

Edited July 25, 2017 by stockyoldfrump