won an ex back but NC questions for vets/girls also

[zdawg89]

So like most of you I’m sure, I was a longtime reader of this site (1.5 ago) and now, I’m a first time poster. Maybe this will teach you something, maybe you will find it a waste of time, but bear with me since I have my own questions for you all.

So like a good portion of us in our early 20’s we broke up with a long time GF ( mine was 3.5 years from college) We were very close to engagement. 9 days actually, but it was supposed to be a surprise. My breakup had completely blindsided me since I still loved her very much.

 

I am the first to admit, I made my mistakes. I was working very long hours at a bank and just couldn’t make enough time for her. We started having problems which naturally as a male, I thought were no big deal but she had been bottling them up for a while. Then she met this co-worker at her new job who coincidentally lived one street over.. one thing led to another.. they were spending a lot of time together because they were best friends or so I was told.. I think you see where this is heading.

 

 

She ended up calling it quits since I still had no idea anything was going on (I found out a month later).. so, with the engagement was cancelled, I was a mess and I didn’t know what to do. I tried calling her, texting, emailing. We had long talks, about how I was going to change and we should work things out.. Meanwhile she didn’t tell me the truth about this guy and we got back together maybe 2 times in the span of 3 weeks. When I finally, learned about the guy I didn’t seem to care (I was so blind in retrospect), all I wanted was her back and I was willing to do anything including forgiving her at the time for cheating, just to get it to work again. It didn’t matter and we broke up. I was so naïve and stupid at the time.

It seemed the more I called, the more she pushed away/became distant. Then I stumbled upon this site.. I stayed up those late hours back when I became in insomniac due to the heartache and just read as much as I could seeing any parallel stories..

 

What I did find was that people had much worse tales than I could even think up. Literally I wouldn’t even wish some of them on that guy who broke us up… Anyhow, the second chances thread all lead to the magic that is NC.. so I decided to give it a whirl. Usually when I do things like this, It’s not half-assed either. It’s very easy to cave but I just stuck to my guns for the payoff.

For those that are new, I swear it works. Maybe not the first,second or third weeks. Maybe not the first, two, or three months.. but it works.. It gave such a startling strong reaction from my ex, I almost wanted to post on the board then but I didn’t wan tto jinx things….. Now I wasn’t exactly 100% Non contact, It’s nearly impossible even for most of us. But I was 98.65% if you want to be exact.

 

Don’t call, wait for her to. When she initiates the conversation, be cold, maybe a little friendly but not overtly so as to wreak of desperation..Always be the one to leave the conversation first. If you act like you have something better to do than waste your time with her, she’ll read that and it will get her thinking…. It drove her nuts. She dumped him, came right back to me in 5 months.. Now the hard part was whether I could really forgive her for cheating and I just couldn’t. Horrible realization but my friends and family who I hadn’t told up until this point convinced me that there was better out there, despite me turning a deaf ear to them for what felt like a millennium at the time.

Bottom line: She also wasn’t able to stay away from her co-worker even if I told her to stop hanging out with him so much. This led to our I believe 3rd breakup. It seemed so final. At this point, I just felt that I deserved better and that I shouldn’t have to defend myself and think about the status of my rlshp and whether I could trust her every day. It wasn’t an easy decision to come to after spending 3.5 really great years with her in college. I continued NC. Not on purpose this time, I just really wanted space and time to work out what I thought were my trust issues with women. I worked on myself and re-evaluated the mistakes I made and what I wanted and expected in a future gf. She came back again. We bumped into each other at a party, told me she got rid of the co-worker for good and said she thought we should start over from scratch. I told her I couldn’t do that and the ship had sailed.. She said she wanted to remain friends so we’ve spoken on and off… Now

In the last years, ive dated 3 girls around the same age but they just didn’t work out. Either, my trust issue got in the way or it just didn’t feel right. However, the way these ended seemed a little more natural/mature than my ex had been. They were all great people but it just wasn’t what I wanted.. then I met this girl and now I’m back on this site… hah.

That’s always how it starts right? I’ve known this girl maybe 3 months and I was well aware of the fact that sure, she had just gotten out of a 3 year rlshp and I’m sure she was still fragile. He had ended it, twice.. they had broke up maybe 4 or 5 times during the span of their rlshp or so she told me. I didn’t want to be the rebound at all since I thought this girl was special but it wasn’t up to me. Either way, we started off as friends and we just hit it off so well. I used to think my ex and I, in our better years were on the same page, but this girl took it to another level. Any trust issues with women and hurt I was feeling from my ex, seemed to go away when I was with this girl.. even in such a short time, who knows what it was. We spoke almost every day, hung out every couple days.. we went out on a couple great dates until I finally kissed her last Friday…the date had gone really well.. I remember thinking she was so nervous during our kiss and that I was going to tell her the next day, that I’m willing to take it slow. Instead what I got was of course a phone call/an email basically dumping me before we technically started going out. In it, she stated that she’s not over her ex.. Now from what I’ve learned in the past, despite how upset I am over what I thought could have been something special I knew to just keep it my reply short and simple. Whatever, great potential there was I knew it was up to her and if this was just bad timing then I can accept it and I’ll mope on it later. She had stated in her email that I would understand how she’s feeling, (I had begun telling her a little about my story) that she still wants to try to reconcile with her ex and [FONT=Arial] “that it would be deceitful of me to act like I don’t have that on my mind all the time, when I really do.” And the truth is, I can accept it from her easily because it’s just complete honesty which is something I don’t think I’ve received from a woman in a long time. There are ways to break up and there are ways to do it with class and I have respect that she cared enough to do it this way.. Nevertheless, I want to keep my options open down the road with her in case things with her ex don’t pan out and she gets better. So I didn’t write back something suckup like “I understand”, or “you’re amazing” or even “don’t be afraid to call!” I stuck to my NC rules, and I mailed the following. [/FONT]Hey,

I'm surprised you feel that way, I thought it had potential. I'm sure

it's been tough for you lately. It sounds like you still need to work

some things out. Good luck with everything, I'm sure everything will

work out. keep in touch-me.

 

Very impersonal, very short which was very uncharacteristic of our email conversations at work.. I’m sure it freaked her out to some degree.. what I got back was the following:

Hi-

I think there's potential too, but I'm just not ready. I had a lot of fun,

but I just don't want to get into a situation where I feel uncomfortable or

where I mislead you in some way. I don't think I'm ready to move on, and it

would be unfair of me to keep going out with you when I still feel like I'd

like to try to reconcile with my ex. I'm sure you can (maybe?) relate.

After three years with someone, it's hard to just let it go without trying to

make things work. Please understand. I hope we can keep in touch, because

I really (really) have enjoyed talking/hanging out with you. If you don't

want to, I'll understand, but I hope you're not angry and want to keep in

touch. – her

My question to the vets and the girls is the following.. She has lots of guy friends… some girls are like that and it’s fine. But I don’t want to be just a friend nor be lobbed in with the rest of the collection. However, I don’t want her to feel like she can’t ever approach me months from now or a year from now, just to say hey. Does this email from her warrant a response back? at all? Even a short one? I just can’t tell from the tone of it. One of the things I’ve learned is that even if I want to, you positively cannot complement a girl in these scenarios, where she hurts you. That’s because if you do, she knows she has you in the palm of your hand. Call me cynical but you know it’s true. However I just can’t tell/don’t know what even to write back. I can’t say “it’s ok” because it’s not. Can I even write “I understand” even if I do ? If the roles were reversed, I’m not sure what would cause me to call up a girl months from now.. I’m just not wired to do that. Usually when I make a decision, it’s pretty final. It’s not like I want to wait around for this girl to come back either but I don’t want to compeltley end things where she’s afraid to approach. All suggestions are welcome. Be plain honest, if i should just leave it where things are and that I blew it forever and that's it. I’m on this because this was sent to me yesterday and I realize that I am probably not in the right frame of mind to make a good decision simply because this girl and I had become good friends and I just miss her too damn much.

- z

[CaliGuy]

I'll try to keep my response short.

 

If you want to be put in the friends zone with her, then be her buddy. If not, don't hang out. Keep the replies short and sweet and get a life. By that I mean, date other girls. Are you going to wait around for her to resolve her feelings with her ex? That may never happen. You can never be friends with someone you have romantic feelings for. It will only serve to keep you down in the dumps when you realize you can not have them.

 

As for NC working, it works as it's intended. To get over someone as quickly as possible. No contact is not meant to bring them back to you (and in your case you can see getting back wasn't such a good idea. Where there is no trust, there can be no relationship.).

 

People are fooling themselves if they believe NC is going to win their ex back. If your ex has fallen out of love with you nothing you can do will win them back. It's best to move on with your life and forget about them. If someone truly loves you, it wouldn't get to the point where they tell you to take a hike while they "get it on" with someone new.

 

That's my $0.02.

 

Cheers.

[Rooster_DAR]

I'll try to keep my response short.

 

If you want to be put in the friends zone with her, then be her buddy. If not, don't hang out. Keep the replies short and sweet and get a life. By that I mean, date other girls. Are you going to wait around for her to resolve her feelings with her ex? That may never happen. You can never be friends with someone you have romantic feelings for. It will only serve to keep you down in the dumps when you realize you can not have them.

 

As for NC working, it works as it's intended. To get over someone as quickly as possible. No contact is not meant to bring them back to you (and in your case you can see getting back wasn't such a good idea. Where there is no trust, there can be no relationship.).

 

People are fooling themselves if they believe NC is going to win their ex back. If your ex has fallen out of love with you nothing you can do will win them back. It's best to move on with your life and forget about them. If someone truly loves you, it wouldn't get to the point where they tell you to take a hike while they "get it on" with someone new.

 

That's my $0.02.

 

Cheers.

 

Wise words here.

 

N/C does work, my EX came sniffing around after 3 months of totally cutting her off. She begged me to come back, and after one week of B/S she started her confusion between me and her affair guy. N/C does work, and many times they come back around, but a breakup is a breakup and the odds of people working things out after this are slim to none IMO, especially where cheating is involved.

 

Cheers!

[jmargel]

Zdawg,

 

Unfortunetly you were the rebound in alot of ways and that just about happens all the time in these situations. Her relationship with this other guy is going to be on/off for quite awhile to come. You'll be put on a roller coaster with this girl if you decide to stay in the scene.

 

I think the last email she wrote was her closure. She has your number, email address and knows how to get in touch with you. I would recommend not writing her back, since you know you just can't be friends with her. You'll just end up hurting yourself.

 

Thing is just like you thought there would never be a chick to replace your ex-gf, there will be a chick that you match up even better than this previous girl.

[notmakingsense]

Yep -- that note was the closure letter. No response from you needed. Just move on. She'll find you if she wants you -- but you forget about it. Just get yourself back to the point where you are ready to pick up and start dating others.

 

What is great about this thread is that you have experienced NC from both a dumper and a dumpee's perspective. As the dumpee this time, it is way more important that you not give in to your needy compulsions to keep in touch. All they will do is maybe secure you a spot in the friend zone.

 

She'll contact you again -- especially if things don't work out with her ex. You don't need to ignore them, but don't ever give her the impression that you would come runnning back to her. The best way not to give off this impression is to have actually moved on, dating other women, etc. -- because at that point, you won't care so much.

[zdawg89]

Thanks for the help. not saying a word for awhile if ever... in day 2 of detox mode.... :-(

Although, this does seem easier than the last time. Maybe, I've just gotten better at it even if i miss her.

I'm taking the advice as well as trying out the whole, "date 10 other women as soon as you can and then see just how special this one is" to get over her.. last time it took me a while to date someone and i think i felt 200% better as soon as i did that however, hard it was to begin with... (my rebound from my first breakup- never called her again after hanging out for a month..i could argue bad timing but the truth is she drove me nuts with some of her habits hah). At the time, I even wished i did it sooner. So to make a long story short, i have a date this friday with someone new i met yesterday... not putting a lot of stock into it since I still feel like crap but who knows.. if anything else, it keeps me busy and my mind off things. but anyways just wanted to thank you for reading my rant. side question: coming back here sort've opened up some old wounds from the first time i found this page.. Anyone been browsing here a while? also, what do you think the breakdown of readers/posters is gender-wise? It always seems like much more guys post than girls which would sort of, go against the common trend of this matter.. I don't know. maybe i jsut have stereotypes from that hbo show i hate... Why do i need to know these things... I don't know.

peace

z