Any wisdom to share?

[Hermione]

Hi everyone...My ex broke my heart almost two months ago. I want more than anything to salvage this relationship. Here's our story, it's really long but I'd really appreciate any input or thoughts that anyone has...

 

We started dating four years ago when I was a senior in high school and he was a freshman in college. We went through a lot together (family deaths and personal illness, among other equally serious things) and stuck by each other through everything. In hindsight, we had a great relationship, and healthy. People joked that we were "joined at the hip", but we each had our own interests and friends also. We bickered and had typical problems that any young couple out on their own for the first time would have but we really loved and trusted each other. And it lasted for three years...but it was the first serious relationship that either of us had been in. He knew we had something good and had no desire to test the waters elsewhere, but I kind of envied my single co-workers. I worried that maybe I was just comfortable with my ex. We were in a typical rut, I think, and I was confused. I loved him, but I wasn't IN LOVE with him, I decided.

 

Then another guy came along. I was attracted to him and we seemed to get along SO WELL and we had SO MUCH in common and I just wanted to spend every minute with him. If I felt this passionate about another guy, then it just must not be meant to be, I figured. Looking back, I think the new guy could have been almost anyone...it just happened to be him that came along at that shaky time. I broke up with my ex for the new guy.

 

My ex was absolutely devastated. He cried, screamed...his emotions were so extreme that I thought he was acting "psycho". He was like this for about a month, then calmed down and became my friend again. He didn't date anybody else and made it clear he was still in love with me, but he stopped putting pressure on me to get back together with him. Well, I ended up breaking up with New Guy after the new-relationship glow wore off (only took three months) and the real problems of our relationship set in. Even though I wasn't truly in love with the New Guy and never had been, I still didn't recognize that I still had loving feelings towards my ex. He was still very much in my life, but in the best friend role. I took it for granted that he would be on the back burner for me any time I wanted him, I think. I began dating other guys, but not seriously (playing the field). It got old, and he stayed my friend through everything, then six months after I had dumped him, I got back together with him.

 

But it wasn't all better. It got really, really bad actually. We never discussed his hurt and anger over my breaking his heart. I had my own issues with the guilt of it...we both swept it under the rug, so to speak. We started arguing over every little thing...just nothing that was actually important. He got more and more distant, which scared me, because after dating other people I realized that I truly loved him and truly wanted to be with him. So I got clingier and clingier, which just pushed him away even more. On top of all of this, I started drinking too much to cope with everything, which he hated because then he had to take care of me. I see what a trainwreck we were now and even the things we could have done to solve it, but I could not see it then. I just figured we were going through a rough patch and that after everything he had done to be with me, he would never leave me. Hindsight is twenty/twenty!

 

Anyway, finally, two months ago, he came over to my house and broke it off with me. He said he wasn't happy with where he was in life (he didn't finish college and is at a dead-end job). He felt like I had become too dependent on him and he didn't know if he was in love with me anymore. And literally a week later he started dating a new girl. I haven't met her, but in one of our subsequent arguments/ discussions, which occurred a month after he began dating her, he told me that his love for me had tapered off at some point in the last few months and that he was pretty sure he was in love with the new girl. He said he LOVED me, but he wasn't IN LOVE with me. I acted as emotional as he did last year, and he felt bad, like I did last year. He said he still wanted to be "best friends", and that who knows what the future will bring, but he just doesn't love me like that anymore and he doesn't see us ever being more than friends.

 

We decided to have some space since I was so emotional. That was about three weeks ago. Since then we've had a few quick talks on the phone, mostly about a few bills that we have together. We only have a few mutual friends that we each talk to, and from what they've mentioned (I try very hard not to ask), my ex and his New Girl are still doing well. It took me a little while to shake the depression enough to even function, but since then I've been working on myself (going out with friends more, making concrete plans to finish college, not drinking since the break-up). But I still miss him dreadfully.

 

I don't honestly believe his new relationship will last...because I think I know exactly how he feels. I hope he's doing the same thing I did last year. But I want him to be happy. If that means that he's meant to be with the New Girl, or some other girl he hasn't even met yet, then that's just bloody awful for me. But I think we do "belong together" and I would never take him for granted again. I think we would have something amazing if we got back together and actually fixed what went wrong before instead of trying to ignore it. But I'm so scared it won't happen.

 

Basically I just want to get some advice, or opinions, or insight anyone might have from an outsider's perspective. Thanks for reading!

[BrandonBP]

I don't wish to sound terse, but it sort of sounds like you got some of your own medicine. When he was feeling absolutely wretched inside and the pain was screaming throughout his entire body over losing you, you decided that you wanted to be with the new and exciting guy instead of the man that loved you. You said to hell with his pain and his feelings.

 

Well, touche.

[gfto]

This is a perfect illustration of the fact that rejection doubles a person's interest level. I wish more men would behave this way after being dumped. Just smile, wish her well, disappear, and get a new girlfriend.

 

It sounds like, more than anything, you're just shocked to find out that you no longer have him on a leash.

[westernxer]

You both sound way too young to be in committed relationships.

 

Wait awhile, like five more years.