he says it wasn't my fault

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2004
he says it wasn't my fault
6
Sun, 01-09-2005 - 10:48am

My boyfriend of about 6 months and I just ended our relationship. About a month ago, he told me that he thinks we should just be friends. We'd had something of a fight - though it was more just me unhappy with myself (not even with him) and he felt like he was making me unhappy. Though that was all cleared up, he has been unable to show me any affection in the past month, because he still thinks that we should just be friends. He says he still cares for me, but the desire for friendship is stronger, because he knows that friendships almost always last longer than relationships. I feel like he is running scared, but I haven't been able to convince him otherwise. He says that he feels like an prick because he's been stringing me along, and says that I deserve someone who can provide what I need in a relationship - and he said that there is absolutely nothing that is my fault in this - it's just his own personal problems. He is lacking in really close friends, and I WAS one of these friends until he decided to try something more with me. He didn't think there would be an issue, but eventually he realized that he couldn't handle it. He feels that he needs this type of close friend more in his life than he needs a relationship... I pointed out to him that the others who used to fill that role moved on with their lives, and even if I could fill that role for him, eventually I would do the same. He says that he'd rather have me in that position for a brief period of time rather than not have me in that position. I think he is so confused about life and priorities, and I want him to realize that I can always be there for him if I am his significant other - and then I would never need to move on with my life because he would always be a part of it. But he is so afraid of us not working out that he'd rather take the safe route and have me as a friend.

The worst part of this for him is that I cannot be a friend to him - not while I still have these feelings. So he's still stuck in the same position anyway - I am no longer in his life. But he knows that while he still thinks that I should just be a friend, he cannot show me the affection that he thinks I deserve. It feels to me like he doesn't really care for me anymore, but he says that's not true... and said it numerous times. He's just having conflicts in his head, and the stability of a friendship is winning out. Meanwhile, I have a broken heart and feel absolutely miserable and lonely... and I just wish that he could see things the way I see them. I know that if he ever does come around, he has to do it himself - I can't do anymore to convince him. I'm doing what I can to cope, and though there's a little glimmer of hope that sometime he'll come around, I can't believe that it will happen. This hurts so badly though because what we both want is for the other to be happy - but I would be happy with a relationship and he would be happy with a friendship, and so with these differing views the only thing left to do is to not have either. I miss him so much already though, because he WAS my best friend and had eased the lonliness I felt when I moved to a new area.

Please share your thoughts... there isn't too much I can do at this point, but consolation would be really nice...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Sun, 01-09-2005 - 11:06am

Consolation...okay.

It sucks and it hurts to find out that the feelings and emotional investment you've made towards the relationship weren't fully returned and equally invested by the other. It is going to take time to get through the grieving process of a break up, but you will get through it and come out from under the cloud of doubt and wishful thinking that covers you now. It sounds like your XBF is a descent guy, not completely truthful, but with enough character to end the relationship instead of stringing you along pretending, or worse, becoming a complete jerk so YOU'd break up with him. I can completely understand why you can't be friends with him right now, it's too hard to be around him when you've still got feelings for him. You can't just magically turn them off, the pain is still fresh for you, whereas he's been contimplating breaking up and working towards not having feelings for you for a month now.

So take your time to grieve for the relationship as it was, for the relationship you'd hoped it'd become, and for the relationship you lost, be it real or hoped for. Don't keep things bottled up inside and put on a show of being okay for his sake, that'll just prolong the denial phase. Sooner or later you'll realize and embrace the fact that he's done you a favor in letting you go. Now you can find the guy who's perfect for you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-10-2005
Mon, 01-10-2005 - 11:13pm
I don't have any consilation for you except for this - you're situation, as you described it (i'm certain there are many differences), is my own as well. So, I suppose my message is that you are not alone in having to deal with this awful, confusing, and maddenning situation.
I can completely relate to feeling as if you've lost your best friend while at the same time wrestling with the reality that he would like to continue being your best friend.
I have no advice, personally i'm sick of hearing how i'll eventually get over it, and so on...i'm sure both of us will do that, but for now I feel it is important to grieve for the loss that has occurred.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2004
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 10:59am

I think I figured out what the true issue is in my situation...

He wasn't ready for a serious, adult relationship. He hadn't seen anyone for a little over 4 years before we started dating, and likely forgot what it's like to be in a relationship.

Looking back, there were a lot of signs that pointed to this, but I chalked it up to just his quirks. There was this imposed restriction on how much time he felt that we should see each other every week. He told me that he would prefer only 3-4 days a week with me. This didn't mean that he wanted to DO things with me 3-4 days a week... he meant that we were only allowed to *see* each other that many days a week. So, even if I had other plans earlier in the evening, if I came over late at night to sleep, that somehow counted as time spent. Because he'd said that he wants this space, I always let him call me, or invite me over. He couldn't help but call me almost every day anyway, because he definitely wanted me there more often. I understand that couples need their space; when we were spending a lot of time at his place every week, sometimes I would just be in another room reading - and we wouldn't even see or talk to each other for a few hours. Or I would fall asleep several hours before him - but that all counted as time being spent together to him.

He also wasn't able to communicate his needs to me - he felt like he needed to just accommadate for everything that I wanted, and would make sacrifices for me that he couldn't really handle. When the truth came out about these, I felt awful that he felt he needed to do these things.

So I'm a little more at peace knowing this now. There is some hope on my side that he will come around and BE ready for a relationship sometime in his life, and possibly that would be with me. But if he came to me in a week and asked to have me back, I would tell him that I don't think he's ready for a relationship, and that we would need to wait until he genuinely was - and if he could convince me that he was ready, then I would consider it. He told me several times that this was by far the best relationship he'd ever had, and given that he did the right thing in agreeing to cut it off for my sanity, I know that he definitely cared about me as a person. Though he's not very open about his feelings, he's ALWAYS honest and would never lie to anyone. He's too much of a nice guy.

In the meantime, I've been trying to expand my circle of friends, I'm working on getting a dog (since I've always wanted one, but was spending way too much time at my bf's house to take care of one), and I even went around looking for a part-time job as a bartender to fill the hours after work. (Making money is better than spending money) I'm really looking forward to having a dog, actually, and it's been keeping me cheerful whenever I start to get down about my breakup.

What do you all think? I really believe I've pinpointed the problem. I think that I myself would do good in not getting romantically involved for a while (after all, I am only 23), so that I can focus on myself and getting all the stuff that I'd always said I wanted to do, done. I've made a long list of movies that I want to see, books I want to read... it helps to see all the stuff that I've wanted to do/see, so that I can just pick one when I'm feeling lonely and DO it. Then I feel a sense of accomplishment and just feel a lot better. :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2004
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 12:51pm

Honestly, it generally takes at least 6 months to really start to get a sense of whether you're compatible with someone. It absolutely hurts to have a relationship end, but at this point, you should BOTH have been doing investigative and analytic work to really determine if you were right for each other. It sounds like he was thinking carefully about whether you two would mesh, but you might have accepted him, lock, stock, and barrel, shortly after you began dating, and proceeded without question after that. It may be that you have some tendency toward co-dependency, and invest a lot in a relationship very early and get very serious very quickly. His rationing out of time could be a sign that he's a bit mentally unhinged (at least, that he's commitment-phobic and not truly interested in letting go and being close to a long-term partner), or it could be a response to a perception that you were dramatically more serious than him and a bit needy. I don't know you, but a shorter-duration relationship of 6 months, while it is a loss, should not spark a great deal of pain unless you were too serious too quickly and too unquestioningly, because it's really just barely time to really start to know the person you're dating and to begin to really think you're in love, not just in infatuation and need.

An alternative you should consider, particularly in light of your belief that he can grow up and "some day" you'll be together, is that his problems may be much more serious. I was involved with a supremely immature guy, and one of his hallmarks was that he would upset me (say something rude, deliberately hurt my feelings, etc.), and when I would get upset, he'd say he just couldn't ever seem to please me and maybe we should break up. So, instead of apologizing and taking accountability for his pain-causing behavior, suddenly he'd manipulated the dynamic to where I'm reassuring and soothing him, insisting that he was great and I loved him. This dynamic is also known as emotional abuse. You allow this behavior to happen at first, and may not even be aware that it is abuse, and over time it becomes devastatingly manipulative. Your partner becomes this emotional blackmailer, and you're always jumping through hoops to keep him happy, always being made to feel insecure by his expression of doubts or threats of leaving, and you get annihilated in the process. One big tactic of emotional abusers is taking something they know you desperately want, and which is a reasonable and appropriate request, like spending quality time together, and making sure you almost never get it and feel completely neurotic for even wanting it. This strict rationing of time really suggests that to me. Relationships require compromise, as well as communication of the reasons for one's boundaries like limits on shared time. He wasn't interested in any of that, he was interested in being the dictator of time. Exhibiting the desire for that kind of control is a big red flag that this guy has serious issues and is likely abusive.

He doesn't have to hit you or scream insults at you to be abusive. He has to undermine your security in the relationship, withhold things from you unreasonably (like time and affection), erect ever-higher hurdles for you to "prove your love to him" (by you making concessions, including limiting the people you see, activities you do, the need for you to make repeated denials of infidelity, etc.), make you doubt reality and the reasonableness of your own feelings, and generally wage psychological warfare against you. The sad thing is, people like this generally really hate themselves and have profoundly low self-esteem, though they often cover it well publicly. They may appear to be quite charming and a real catch. If you get a sense that you see a "different side" of your partner that no one else knows (and this is in more than a sexual and affectionate sense), then run quickly - this is a very bad sign. People who display very different personas to different audiences are likely to be self-haters and, ultimately, often abusers. Genuine, secure, integrated people are more or less the same person in all contexts - they may regulate their behavior appropriately to the venue (like at work), but they don't change their personality. People who have highy compartmentalized lives with very different persona for each occasion, and who have a profound sense of dislike for themselves, rarely have many friends, and tend to have compartmentalized friends with whom they associate in only limited contexts and who don't know each other. If you've got a guy with no friends, or only one, or those he hangs out with after work and those he goes out with on Saturday nights have never met each other, this is a big red flag.

A person with profoundly low self-esteem isn't a stray puppy dog needing rescue, this person truly dislikes himself, and because he can't love himself, he can't love anyone else. Other people are less real to him than he is, with all his inner turmoil, and he thinks less of hurting them and is less concerned with their needs than with his own. So long as you are no trouble and are adequately meeting his needs for attention and affection, "making him happy" and drowning out his inner voices of self-hate, then he'll give you the world. But when you start making demands, or stop giving 110% to his happiness because you want something back, then he loses interest, "realizes he doesn't love you," and goes out looking for someone new to appease the emptiness inside him.

I think it is at least possible that is what was going on with your ex. I recommend you google the phrase "emotional abuse" to see if any of the indicators were present in your relationship. Even if that is not the problem, you're right to conclude that an immature guy is not someone you want to pine for. Some never grow up, and while it is comforting to know that your relationship failed because of his inability to handle a mature adult relationship, you shouldn't hold out hope that he'll grow up some day and be ready to be involved with you. Good luck.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-30-2004
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 9:21pm
I'm sorry to hear about your break-up....I know what you're going through is really tough.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-23-2004
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 11:47pm

Milton,

I want to send a HUGE thank you to you for the insight you provided in your post.

I was recently involved in a similar circumstance to the one that initiated these postings. SO much of what you said rang true with my situation. I never, ever, realized any of it until you put it in black and white. Your post was a total wake up call that will definitely help me get over my breakup.