Can't let go...

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-09-2005
Can't let go...
40
Sun, 10-09-2005 - 4:47am

This is my first time to this site and I find it comforting in the late hours of the night when gried tends to strike the most and calling a friend is not an option. I have posted a response to many of the messages and am now going to post my story...

My ex and I broke up July 27th after a three year relationship. We became engaged after six months and moved in together shortly there after. The relationship was rocky from the start. Looking back I think it is because we went to fast. Early in our relationship he wrote me several heart felt poems and even though our relationship was tumultuous we connected with each other and fell in love. I broke up with him only because I felt like he was pushing me to do so. Three weeks had gone by and we had not seen each other. He said he was busy...yet he had time to go to a friends house after work. His behaviour made me nervous and I didn't know whether I was coming or going. He wasn't coming out and saying "I want to breakup" but his actions were like a sounding board. July 27th I called him after work, hoping that he would want to get together and end the distance that he had put between us. When I asked him what he was doing he told me he was sleeping. That just pushed me over the edge. I told him that we needed to breakup. He said "okay". I was floored, that was not the response I wanted and breaking up is not what I wanted either and yet I felt like he was pushing for me to do it because he was to much of a coward to do it himself. Since he responded as he had, without any question or fight, it only solidified that he was pushing me to do the dirty work.

What little pride and dignity I have left is all I cling to. I have made the biggest fool out of myself that sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't even recognize who I am. I keep trying to contact him, first it was through email and he didn't respond. I shot out one last email asking him to help me find closure because none of this was making sense. We were having trouble getting along but never did he stop telling me he loved me and our intimacy never waivered. I thought that the way we felt about each other would get us through our disagreements to a point where we had harmony. In his mind the conflict was pushing him further and further away. I have called him several times and apologized for my mistakes and I have told him how I feel about him because I didn't want to look back and wonder if he knew how I felt about him. I contacted him (face to face) yesterday and we talked for 45 minutes. He cried, said he was hurting but it (the relationship) just didn't work. I can't grasp that. Doesn't love conquer all? Never once did he say he wasn't in love with me anymore. I was still standing firm, ready to work through whatever it took to make the relationship work. I believe in love and I have always fought for what I want. I keep fighting but I am afraid that he has already laid down and died. I guess I thought we could work through anything and I am still in shock that he is going to walk away from me.

I just want to breathe again. I am tired of hurting and spending every moment thinking about him. He hasn't tried to contact me at all through all of this, I keep contacting him. I get impulsive and make bad decisions and in turn wind up looking like a complete idiot. In his eyes I am sure he doesn't even recognize the worm I have become. I am generally a very strong willful person but in this situation I have been reduced to a lower life form. I have never felt this kind of love before nor felt this kind of pain and quite frankly I don't know how to manuever through these uncharted waters. I am hoping that everything will make sense when I am able to look back on it six months from now, I only hope that the sense that I make of it is something that I can live with and does not wind up making me wonder "what if" or "I should have done this..." One thing I am sure of is you can bet he isn't sitting on a 'breakup' website at 2am wallowing in how much he misses me!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2005
Sun, 10-09-2005 - 8:07am

Java....

I've responded to your posts (in other posts) but I wanted to respond here as well.

Letting go is all we can do right now. We have no other choice. It hurts like hell. We will never, in a million years, understand how someone who seems to love us one minute is running like hell the next minute, acting distant and downright mean or cold. My ex just did that 4 weeks ago, only to turn around 3 days later and act like I was the best thing on earth, again. Then the next week go right back to his distant behavior. Shocked is the work I'd use to explain my feelings, although it doesn't seem quite as strong as it should be. Maybe "blown away" would describe it better.

I hope that somehow your pain eases up very soon. I know I have a very long way to go. It's just the beginning for me. It's the second time around for us. I went through this in February, too.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2005
Sun, 10-09-2005 - 9:30am

I wanted to share some insight my friend had for me. It might be obvious, but helped me to hear it.

When I went on and on about not understanding how he could seem to love me one minute and then be cold to me the next and bounce back and forth, my friend Tammy said this:

"The reason why you don't understand it is because you are viewing the relationship from a healthy perspective." It doesn't make sense to me because it just doesn't make sense. His fear is making him do wacky things...

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2004
Sat, 10-15-2005 - 8:41am
I just went thru the exact same thing, my boyfriend was cold and distant for months, when I would ask him what was wrong, was it me? he would say no nothings wrong, I love you, etc.. But in reality in his heart he had left the relationship months ago, but he just would not say it out loud to me, I heard from friends that he was saying things like he wasnt sure it was gonna work out because we fight alot, but the reason we were fighting was because he was pushing me away and I could feel it! Then finally when I had to go into the hospital for surgery and that day he was supposed to drive me to the hospital he says, can u get someone else to drive you? I want to go to work early today! That was it, I flipped out cried, screamed, and he just sat there calmly looking at me like I was insane. And is now going around telling everyone that I was crazy, insecure, always accusing him of cheating(which I am now sure he was since he was with someone the next day), I tried calling him when I got home from the hospital and the response was like are you kidding me, I am so past you, you were the worst relationship I ever had and hung up on me. He was so cruel when I needed him the most but I miss him more than anyone else in my life, I mean we lived together for 9 mos and in the beginning talked about marriage & children, I became great friends with his mom and dad and his niece, and now its just all gone and I have sobbed everday for the past 2 weeks and have an appt with a counselor on monday because i cant sleep or eat, while he is running around happy, dating and just carefree as can be, I cant believe he doesnt miss me at all.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
Sat, 10-15-2005 - 11:09am

It is so hard, isnt it to try and get inside their heads but what a total waste of energy. The only truth we know is our own. And that truth for 99.9% of us here is we are in pain and suffering.

Find some strength within to get your individual power back. Someone here said act like they do a little, cry a little less and toughen up a little. It helps, believe me. I was the person crying and crying and calling and emailing and each time felt worse and worse.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-11-2005
Sun, 10-16-2005 - 10:53am
You sound as if I could have written this post. My Bf of 3 years, and I just broke up, well i kicked him out becasue i found out that he was cheating. I still want him back, but i know that I should just let it go. I call him, email him, and have even spent the night with him sinc ei found out last Monday (no sex, touching, not even a hug) i just asked him to stay becasue sleeping is the worst. I look at what I was a smart intelligent women, who has been reduced to a crying weak person. We lived together for two years, and nothing seemed wrong, I am still in shock about this whole thing. I fewll like i will never be loved and inlove again.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-17-2005
Mon, 10-17-2005 - 10:51am


Your story is very similar to mine. Me and my ex of 2 years also broke up on July 27th, over the phone, the exact same way. (Our relationship was also problematic from the start, things moved so quickly we moved in together after 5 months). I called him to do something, and yet again he said he was busy, so finally I got mad, said we should break up, and he said okay. And yes I also figured that he was too much of a coward to do it himself, so instead he pushed me away and ignored me until I got the picture and broke up with him. We did get back together a week later, then 2 weeks later he broke up with me again. Then again we got back together in september, and 2 days later we broke it off again. Throughout this whole ordeal he has continued on seeing me, telling me he loves me and misses me, sleeping with me, yet saying he doesnt know if he wants a relationship with me. And of course, pathetic little me took anything I could get, so I kept on seeing him and sleeping with him thinking he will eventually want me back. BIG MISTAKE. He just played me like a little doll because he knew he could. I have sent him numerous emails, text messages and phone calls that were left unanswered. And finally 3 weeks ago today HE ended things for good. I cried, I yelled, I begged, but then I just let it go.

And now, 3 weeks later I am doing just fine. I stopped all contact with him. I didnt call him, didnt email him, nothing. I was sad and I missed him like crazy, but after a few days the pain started to die away. Thoughts of him became less frequent. Last weekend I met someone and now I have the biggest crush on him, and my ex is just a distant memory. He did however call me on friday..wondering if I wanted to go out for coffee..and i said no. I am really proud of myself. Anyways, the point is, if you want him back, you should stop running after him. The more he thinks he can have you whenever he wants you, the less he will want you. You have to be independent, move on withyour life, go out and have fun. Hopefully he will realize what he is missing out on. If he doesnt, then too bad.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2005
Mon, 10-17-2005 - 12:10pm
I totally hear you.. my ex hasn't tried to contact me either and it boggles my mind. I call him, I text him.. Sometimes he responds, sometimes he doesn't. I sit here and read how much better everyone does with the no contact thing and I want that to be me.. but I go strong for a few days, then I just break down and text him. Then I feel worse beause I feel so pathetic.. I mean I know he's with someone else, he claims he's happy.. but I still can't accept we're over.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2005
Mon, 10-17-2005 - 3:10pm
god i know. it sucks knowing you're the one doing the contacting/hurting etc. one of my friends asked the other day why this was so hard for me and not him, and i said because he moved on before we even broke up! i'm just starting! i need to catch up. i didn't text or call him yesterday (a first) and he didn't contact me either (another first). it's hard and it sucks and it's totally unfair that we're the ones driving ourselves crazy while they're just getting on with their own lives. i'm going to keep at it though, even though it's killing me. i'm trying to spend more time with friends, just keep busy. it's hard knowing this isn't affecting him at all. i want to be as over him as he is over me!
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2005
Mon, 10-17-2005 - 6:46pm
Yah.. thats how it is with me too. Towards the end of our relationship I was really busy with school & work and he said he "Started to move on" Sadly tho, I don't even have a desire to date anyone else and I don't know how he could have, especially when we were together.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-09-2005
Mon, 10-17-2005 - 8:13pm

It gets better, trust me. It has been almost three months since my breakup and I am just starting to feel better. I did the same thing for over two months, contacting him every week or so, I didn't want my memory to fade out of his mind. The thing I had to tell myself is that he isn't contacting me, I am the one doing all the contacting and this should be a big sign of how he is feeling. Bottom line, if someone wants to be with us...the WILL. It won't be this hard. You are a human being with a life ahead of you and you deserve great things if you are capable of giving great things. This site and the message boards has helped me immensely when my friends grew tired of listening to me. It is a great resource and trust me, it gets better. I only got better after I adopted the two week NC rule. If you can go two weeks with NC you will start to feel better but only time is going to get you out of this. The natural process will start to take hold and you will embrace it rather then fight it. It will get easier and easier as tme goes on.

Good luck, I truly hope you feel better. If anyone is living proof that it is possible it is me. I have gone from crying everyday to not crying at all...in fact I can't cry even if I try to make myself.

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