GF moved out out of nowhere - totally devastated

[tart6245]

1 minute ago, Acacia98 said:

This makes me uncomfortable. How different is it from an agnostic woman dating an atheist man and expecting him to attend church with her after she converts to Christianity (or whatever)? Yes, relationships require compromise. But certain kinds of compromise are unfair, even unethical, to demand of one's partner.

(And yoga is much more than just sitting on a mat and stretching, or at least it is in the country of it's origin.)

Yes. I’ve never known a relationship to end because a partner wouldn’t go to yoga with them. I’m not saying that isn’t a dealbreaker for some people, but not everyone can do yoga. 

[Acacia98]

2 minutes ago, tarheelian said:

Yes. I’ve never known a relationship to end because a partner wouldn’t go to yoga with them. I’m not saying that isn’t a dealbreaker for some people, but not everyone can do yoga. 

You know what? If it's a dealbreaker, so be it. She has a right to date someone who shares her interests. But it's not right to guilt-trip you about it or push you to do it over and over again. 

[trident_2020]

9 minutes ago, Acacia98 said:

This makes me uncomfortable. How different is it from an agnostic woman dating an atheist man and expecting him to attend church with her after she converts to Christianity (or whatever)? Yes, relationships require compromise.

Showing interest in a significant other's hobby isn't anywhere near the same as adopting their religious beliefs.

I'm viewing this as just one of many examples as to why they were simply incompatible and or unwilling to compromise for each other.

 

 

[tart6245]

12 minutes ago, trident_2020 said:

Showing interest in a significant other's hobby isn't anywhere near the same as adopting their religious beliefs.

I'm viewing this as just one of many examples as to why they were simply incompatible and or unwilling to compromise for each other.

 

 

I showed plenty of interest in her hobby. I bought her gifts to support her yoga and educated myself on her studio and classes and took an interest in her schedule and woke up at the crack of down for her. Just because I was not cut out to go to classes with her doesn’t mean I didn’t show interest or support her doing it. 
 

 

[Gaeta]

3 hours ago, tarheelian said:

I know she could have chosen to talk to me. I asked her why she didn't, and she said I'd just be defensive 

So you have a history of going on the defensive when she approached you with a relationship dilemma. I see you believing this breakup happened out of the blue, I think you need to be brutally honest with yourself and recognize it might not have been THAT much out of the blue. Reminds me when I left my ex-husband and he asked me to give him a 2nd chance........2nd chance?? I had told him for 12 years I felt lonely in our marriage, he had 12 years to fix it. The way I saw it I had given him 12 chances. 

[tart6245]

9 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

So you have a history of going on the defensive when she approached you with a relationship dilemma. I see you believing this breakup happened out of the blue, I think you need to be brutally honest with yourself and recognize it might not have been THAT much out of the blue. Reminds me when I left my ex-husband and he asked me to give him a 2nd chance........2nd chance?? I had told him for 12 years I felt lonely in our marriage, he had 12 years to fix it. The way I saw it I had given him 12 chances. 

And I’m sure that’s what she’d say but I wish she’d have communicated the severity of our situation rather than telling me she was all in on our relationship. It’s difficult to be the best I can be when I’m getting conflicting information and being told she’s happy then packing up and leaving. If anything I was the one communicating my frustration over issues much more often than she did. 

[LivingWaterPlease]

2 hours ago, tarheelian said:

 If anything I was the one communicating my frustration over issues much more often than she did. 

Not just based on this statement alone. Based on most of your posts it seems clear that the two of you are incompatible. Re: the yoga issue. I don't think you should have had to go with her to yoga class to keep the R going. But, it's one example we have access to that, to me, represents the way you two dealt with each other. You're two very different people who had two very different ideas about life. It seems with just about everything you write, the two of you had different ideas about. She may have become tired of living like that.

You say that it was sudden. Sometimes a person continues to try which involves saying encouraging things. It's possible she did that and then one day, she just couldn't any more. It had been building for awhile but she kept plugging along. I don't mean to make it seem all your fault. I just think it's both of you. You were very different from each other. She wanted to move in together. You thought the timing was bad, etc. Seemed like with everything the two of you had different perspectives and desires.

And above you admit you were expressing frustrations more than she was. It can get very old listening to someone express frustrations. She may have tired of it. Yes, she could have made changes due to the frustrations you expressed. But, she didn't care enough to do it is the bottom line. So she left.

[trident_2020]

The proverbial straw, so to speak.

 

[tart6245]

On 1/1/2021 at 8:17 PM, LivingWaterPlease said:

Not just based on this statement alone. Based on most of your posts it seems clear that the two of you are incompatible. Re: the yoga issue. I don't think you should have had to go with her to yoga class to keep the R going. But, it's one example we have access to that, to me, represents the way you two dealt with each other. You're two very different people who had two very different ideas about life. It seems with just about everything you write, the two of you had different ideas about. She may have become tired of living like that.

You say that it was sudden. Sometimes a person continues to try which involves saying encouraging things. It's possible she did that and then one day, she just couldn't any more. It had been building for awhile but she kept plugging along. I don't mean to make it seem all your fault. I just think it's both of you. You were very different from each other. She wanted to move in together. You thought the timing was bad, etc. Seemed like with everything the two of you had different perspectives and desires.

And above you admit you were expressing frustrations more than she was. It can get very old listening to someone express frustrations. She may have tired of it. Yes, she could have made changes due to the frustrations you expressed. But, she didn't care enough to do it is the bottom line. So she left.

I get that. I just hate now living with the notion that I drove her away more than anything else. Yes, we had many differences, and perhaps that was ultimately what did us in, but I do know my constant worries about her happiness did not help matters. I think she finally came to the conclusion I'd never believe she was happy and I'd never be happy, and she left. 

It's either that, or she lied to me 2 weeks before she left by telling me she wanted the relationship more than anything. 

I may never know exactly what happened and what went wrong. As each day goes by, I start moving against trying to reach out to her. I just think the chances I get a negative reaction or no reaction at all are much higher than her responding positively. 

It also does not help that I drove by her on the street yesterday. I glanced at her for a brief second and she looked at my car as I drove passed her. It's just so hard to believe 2 weeks ago, we were living together and in a relationship. 

[Acacia98]

On 1/2/2021 at 1:08 AM, trident_2020 said:

Showing interest in a significant other's hobby isn't anywhere near the same as adopting their religious beliefs.

I'm viewing this as just one of many examples as to why they were simply incompatible and or unwilling to compromise for each other.

Yoga proper is actually tied to religion. But Western popular culture has this way of adopting ideologies and practices and separating them from the contexts of their origins...

Setting that aside, though, there are parallels. When two people are not passionate about the same thing, whether it is religious or secular, it can be tedious for one of them to keep pushing the other to do the one specific thing they don't want to. It could be a religious person pushing an atheist to go to church, a physics professor pushing his wife (who is not remotely science literate) to attend physics lectures with him, a drinker pushing her teetotaller husband to go down to be pub with her and her drinking friends, etc.

If two people really want to be together, they can find a neutral activity to participate in together and engage in their special hobbies at other times. But if sharing a specific hobby (or religion or whatever) with a significant other is a person's biggest priority, then he or she should look for a partner who wants to engage in that specific activity. So it's okay if a woman decides that she really needs her partner to love yoga. It's okay for her to break up over it. But it's not okay for her to keep pushing him to do it once he's tried it and decided it's not his thing. And he shouldn't feel guilty about not being passionate about it either. 

[LivingWaterPlease]

17 minutes ago, tarheelian said:

I get that. I just hate now living with the notion that I drove her away more than anything else. Yes, we had many differences, and perhaps that was ultimately what did us in, but I do know my constant worries about her happiness did not help matters. I think she finally came to the conclusion I'd never believe she was happy and I'd never be happy, and she left. 

It's either that, or she lied to me 2 weeks before she left by telling me she wanted the relationship more than anything. 

I may never know exactly what happened and what went wrong. As each day goes by, I start moving against trying to reach out to her. I just think the chances I get a negative reaction or no reaction at all are much higher than her responding positively. 

It also does not help that I drove by her on the street yesterday. I glanced at her for a brief second and she looked at my car as I drove passed her. It's just so hard to believe 2 weeks ago, we were living together and in a relationship. 

I'm so sorry tarheelian.  For whatever reason she didn't choose to express herself and what she was feeling honestly. Had she done so, you could have probably worked through your issues.

 

 

[tart6245]

4 minutes ago, LivingWaterPlease said:

I'm so sorry tarheelian.  For whatever reason she didn't choose to express herself and what she was feeling honestly. Had she done so, you could have probably worked through your issues.

 

 

That's why this is so hard. We didn't have any major issues that I was aware of. We broke up over things that could have been worked on. Maybe our ages play a factor here too. Since she is much younger than me, it's easier for her to just cut ties and find someone else. 

I've just never been through a breakup where there were not any obvious signs that things were ending. It just seemed to happen so randomly. I keep fighting the urge to reach out to her thinking this was all just a decision made irrationally and she will be willing to work with me and this was her way of getting me to really address her concerns. The other side of me says, she made the decision to move out rather than talk to me and trying to contact her would only make her upset and drive her further away. 

[Gaeta]

52 minutes ago, tarheelian said:

It's either that, or she lied to me 2 weeks before she left by telling me she wanted the relationship more than anything. 

At some point you'll have to stop trying to figure it out. I am 1 month post breakup from a 5 year relationship. The night of our break-up (I did) he called me 5 times to tell me he loved me and didn't want to lose me and I couldn't end us, etc etc. I was in crisis and could not have a conversation. The following day I contacted him and left a message that I had calmed down and I was ready to talk. He never got back to me - ever even if 24 hours before he was begging me to not end our relationship. Don't waste your energy trying to figure it out. If she wanted to be in your life she would be. That's all you need to know.

[tart6245]

20 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

At some point you'll have to stop trying to figure it out. I am 1 month post breakup from a 5 year relationship. The night of our break-up (I did) he called me 5 times to tell me he loved me and didn't want to lose me and I couldn't end us, etc etc. I was in crisis and could not have a conversation. The following day I contacted him and left a message that I had calmed down and I was ready to talk. He never got back to me - ever even if 24 hours before he was begging me to not end our relationship. Don't waste your energy trying to figure it out. If she wanted to be in your life she would be. That's all you need to know.

I suppose in time I will stop asking that. I guess the one thing I keep clinging to is her saying "you said if I moved out, we couldn't stay together." I did say that 7 months ago when I expressed concern that both of us working from home in a small apartment together would lead to a breakup because I couldn't imagine us living separately again and staying together. 

Again, it could just be her saying things to deflect blame by using my own words against me. 

You're right though - if she wanted us to work and was fully committed, she'd have talked to me and given me an idea of the severity of these problems and another final chance to fix them. Instead, she just chose to leave. 

[JRabbit]

On 12/23/2020 at 2:48 PM, lana-banana said:

. People don't pack up overnight just because they suddenly want something better.

This is not true in my experience, my best friends BF of three years moved out in the same exact fashion, days before XMAS and back to his parents house.  His sister was getting married a few weeks later, and he had been hiding his GF from his friends back home the entire time plus other lies, and didn't want to face the inevitable outcome at the wedding I'm sure.

He is still at his parents, and single.  He has a boatload of other issues though, so there were definitely issues but they had to do with his emotional stuntedness instead of another woman.

 

 

[Cookiesandough]

She’s been thinking about it for a long time.

[tart6245]

38 minutes ago, JRabbit said:

This is not true in my experience, my best friends BF of three years moved out in the same exact fashion, days before XMAS and back to his parents house.  His sister was getting married a few weeks later, and he had been hiding his GF from his friends back home the entire time plus other lies, and didn't want to face the inevitable outcome at the wedding I'm sure.

He is still at his parents, and single.  He has a boatload of other issues though, so there were definitely issues but they had to do with his emotional stuntedness instead of another woman.

 

 

If her parents did not live a block away from me and I had not seen them about a month before she left, I'd say sure, this is possible, but given all those circumstances, I don't think she met anyone else or was leading a secret life. I do think she had been planning to leave at least for a few weeks before the day came that she did. It's possible she made the final decision the night before she left for good and struggled with it prior, but I never bought she just decided on leaving entirely before it happened. 

[tart6245]

17 minutes ago, Shortskirtslonglashes said:

She’s been thinking about it for a long time.

If so, I wish she had not dragged my family along for weeks and having them invest time and energy into her. I last saw her family about a month before she left, so at the very least, I don't think she was seriously considering anything before then.

It also doesn't help that she struggles with self-esteem and would say things like "I know I annoy you / I know you think I'm gross / I know I burden you." None of those things were ever true, and I'd tell her that, but it was things she'd say nonetheless. I really just think she started to believe I didn't love her and made moves to leave thinking I'd never dump her otherwise. 

I wish there was something I could do to tell her none of that was true. The side of me that thinks I should reach out tells myself my silence / lack of emotion when she left has only confirmed her belief that I didn't want to be with her. 

[JRabbit]

1 hour ago, tarheelian said:

If her parents did not live a block away from me and I had not seen them about a month before she left, I'd say sure, this is possible, but given all those circumstances, I don't think she met anyone else or was leading a secret life. I do think she had been planning to leave at least for a few weeks before the day came that she did. It's possible she made the final decision the night before she left for good and struggled with it prior, but I never bought she just decided on leaving entirely before it happened. 

Sorry I was not suggesting that happened to you, just explaining to the other poster that it doesnt always mean there is someone else involved.

[LivingWaterPlease]

4 hours ago, tarheelian said:

 

It also doesn't help that she struggles with self-esteem and would say things like "I know I annoy you / I know you think I'm gross / I know I burden you." None of those things were ever true, and I'd tell her that, but it was things she'd say nonetheless. I really just think she started to believe I didn't love her and made moves to leave thinking I'd never dump her otherwise. 

I wish there was something I could do to tell her none of that was true. The side of me that thinks I should reach out tells myself my silence / lack of emotion when she left has only confirmed her belief that I didn't want to be with her. 

tarheelian, the above bolded doesn't bode well for a healthy relationship. With her lack of communication issues coupled with such low self esteem I'd really be surprised if she's ready for a satisfying relationship with any guy right now.

Though I hate you're going through this for your sake, I really think it was only a matter of time until some other type of serious issue arose.

[tart6245]

16 minutes ago, LivingWaterPlease said:

tarheelian, the above bolded doesn't bode well for a healthy relationship. With her lack of communication issues coupled with such low self esteem I'd really be surprised if she's ready for a satisfying relationship with any guy right now.

Though I hate you're going through this for your sake, I really think it was only a matter of time until some other type of serious issue arose.

I knew of her issues and I wanted to support her. I'd tell her she was beautiful all the time and let her know how much I notice her because she'd tell me how she was always looked over all her life and how I was one of the people that didn't abandon her and always followed up on plans. But some of her insecurities did make me feel insecure in turn. It made me feel like I wasn't enough and she was just settling for me even though she was living with me and had been so patient with me over the years. She never told me I made her happy unless I initiated the question. Perhaps she was afraid to initiate any of that, but it didn't help me feel good. 

But she did initiate the breakup for whatever reason and likely planned it for at least 2 weeks while pretending she was living a normal life with me. In time, I may realize this simply was never going to work, but I am just not there yet. I know I could have been better and just hate I didn't do things better than I did. 

[LivingWaterPlease]

9 minutes ago, tarheelian said:

I knew of her issues and I wanted to support her. I'd tell her she was beautiful all the time and let her know how much I notice her because she'd tell me how she was always looked over all her life and how I was one of the people that didn't abandon her and always followed up on plans. But some of her insecurities did make me feel insecure in turn. It made me feel like I wasn't enough and she was just settling for me even though she was living with me and had been so patient with me over the years. She never told me I made her happy unless I initiated the question. Perhaps she was afraid to initiate any of that, but it didn't help me feel good. 

But she did initiate the breakup for whatever reason and likely planned it for at least 2 weeks while pretending she was living a normal life with me. In time, I may realize this simply was never going to work, but I am just not there yet. I know I could have been better and just hate I didn't do things better than I did. 

There are many gorgeous people with low self esteem. That was kind of you to support her and tell her she's beautiful! I'm sure you did many other things right, too.

It's important for you to know that you couldn't have made her, or anyone else, happy. Happiness is something each individual must find on their own.

 

[poppyfields]

On 1/1/2021 at 2:00 PM, tarheelian said:

Yes. I’ve never known a relationship to end because a partner wouldn’t go to yoga with them. I’m not saying that isn’t a dealbreaker for some people, but not everyone can do yoga. 

I do yoga regularly, I can even become obsessed about.  

I would never consider dumping a man I was into for not sharing this interest, good gawd lol. 

I might consider using that as an excuse to dump.  On second thought, no I wouldn't it's so lame any man with two brain cells to rub together would know it's total BS.

[tart6245]

8 minutes ago, LivingWaterPlease said:

There are many gorgeous people with low self esteem. That was kind of you to support her and tell her she's beautiful! I'm sure you did many other things right, too.

It's important for you to know that you couldn't have made her, or anyone else, happy. Happiness is something each individual must find on their own.

 

I know I was not at total fault for the failure of the relationship. I treated her well and adapted my life a lot to accommodate her after she moved in. More than I probably realize at this stage of the split. No, neither of us were perfect and we made mistakes, but we hardly had a toxic relationship where we fought all the time, which is why this was so out of left field. 

I know she was unhappy with her job, complained about her friends, etc. But I always thought she was happy and would work with me through thick and thin. 

[tart6245]

10 minutes ago, poppyfields said:

I do yoga regularly, I can even become obsessed about.  

I would never consider dumping a man I was into for not sharing this interest, good gawd lol. 

I might consider using that as an excuse to dump.  On second thought, no I wouldn't it's so lame any man with two brain cells to rub together would know it's total BS.

I don't think she dumped me over yoga. I did try it with her before but I just could not keep up. I think a lot of it had to do with her feeling like we weren't moving where she wanted and some of my frustrations I expressed towards how our relationship was. Because she had low self esteem, I think she felt I was going to eventually leave her and made the first move to get out. Some of my comments and frustrations likely pushed her towards the end. 

Can things ever be saved? My heart says yes but my brain says no - and that reaching out to her will not solve anything except maybe slam the door shut.