How do I know it is really over?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
How do I know it is really over?
1
Fri, 03-25-2005 - 6:46am

I have posted here before and it has really helped. Here is my situation. I was dating my boyfriend for over a year and things were generally great. We both went into the situation not looking for anything serious, but then our feelings grew. We broke up over a month ago and still talk to each other every day. We are in our mid-twenties and just about to finish grad school. When we broke up, I was in complete shock, but thinking about later, not as much as I originally thought. He said he didn't want me to make a life decision based on him and that we both have so much on our plate that we need to figure that stuff out first before we figure us out. I knew what we were doing after graduation was going to be an issue. I just always thought we would try and work it out. I thought if you loved someone enough then everything works itself out.

I made a mistake last week by letting him stay over. Everything just felt so good...it was like we were back together again, but then something hit me over my head. Although we spent like 48 hours straight together, then when I found out he had dinner with his ex (who is engaged) and I know he wouldn't have done anything and called me right afterwards, I just felt sick to my stomach. I feel sick with the thought of him being with someone else, with no longer being the first person he thinks of to do things with. He calls every day and because of class, I see him every day. I can't avoid him because of seating assignments.

So I talked to him about these feelings...he reiterated that he doesn't want to be in a relationship right now because he is scared about graduating and starting over. I was like, so you are telling me that you don't want your past in your future? He kept repeating to me that he doesn't know if he made the right decision by breaking up with me...I told him that if he really wanted to be with me then he would do whatever it took, including moving to the city where I will be. He said that only time will tell if he made the right decision...then he said if we ended up in the same city he wanted to be together...why is he doing this to me?!?!?

We basically only have 6 weeks left of school before we each go our seperate ways for the summer. Where do I go from here? He is so intertwined in my life that absolute no contact won't work. I really thought we had something special...why won't he let me go? He said he has to figure out what he wants with his own life and it isn't fair to drag me through that without him being 100% sure that he wants "us." Ok, so I understand that...so when ever I tell him it is over he gets really upset and says I should just stop trying to force things. I know I can't force us to work, I really do know that. But what about trying to force us not to work? We have broken up a couple times before always to find each other again. I know the feelings there, could this just be an issue of bad timing? My gut and my heart says we are meant to be, however irrational that is, but that is my feeling, but my head says just to pull away. Please help...I just don't know how to act or what to do. It is hard when your life involved someone for a year and a half and then trying to rebuild it with only six weeks...thanks for reading.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2004
Fri, 03-25-2005 - 8:39am

"why won't he let me go?" If I had a dollar for every time I'd heard that, I'd be on vacation this weekend.

He's not the one with the problem letting go. He's getting exactly what he wants - no commitment companionship and sex, to buffer him against boredom and loneliness, until his next adventure and the next phase of his life starts. You're the one not getting what you want, but clinging to unrealistic hope that you can transform this situation. So you need to put a stop to it, because it makes you unhappy.

You don't have "only six weeks" to "rebuild" your life, and, frankly, I think that's what scares you - you've got forever, the rest of your life, all to live on your own. Starting now.

You have to assume it's "really over." You actually have to take him at his word, as an adult with his own mind, that when he broke up with you he meant it, whatever nonsense he's feeding you now about "maybe some day." I'll tell you - I've done the on-and-off thing and the clean break, and the clean break is best. When you've been in a long term relationship, ending it completely is a big, huge step. The person who ends it understands that there is a good chance you'll be angry, hurt, want nothing more to do with them, and will promptly go out, get a tattoo, end up on "girls gone wild," and find a new boyfriend. Or something like that. He may hope he can keep you on the back burner, for sex and comfort when he needs it, and "just in case" nothing better comes along. But, before he ends it, he knows there's a good chance he'll never see you again. And he's okay with that - that's what he intends. He's fine with losing you, you seeing other people, you never seeing him again. He decided that was the price he was willing to pay to get what he wants from life and to free himself from a relationship that didn't work for him. How do you get back together after that? Some people do it, yes, but some people are very scared of being alone and have great difficulty adapting to change. (Honestly, with a 50% divorce rate and the highest rate of intimate partner violence in the industrialized world, the U.S. is chock-full of people with unhealthy attitudes and unrealistic expectations about "love," so the fact that you're in the mainstream with your hopes and expectations doesn't mean they're healthy). That's why a relationship that's "on again" usually, rather promptly, becomes "off again" in rapid succession.

As with most people going through a breakup, you are presently very "other-focused." You're playing armchair psychologist, trying to understand what he's thinking, what he intends, why he behaves as he does. You've set up your life on a timetable geared toward his departure, living your life on his schedule. You're heartbroken, confused, and he's the one who caused your pain, but you're responding to his needs and whims, just catering to him as if he weren't the one who just hurt you. It's time to put you back front and center, to pay attention to yourself, your feelings, your needs, and your healing. A breakup is about breaking the web that connects you, so of course he is presently "intertwined" with your life in all kinds of ways - you have to start breaking those ties, for your own well-being. So, stop talking to him. See if there really isn't any way you can sit elsewhere in class, but if there isn't, there's no reason for you to be talking to him during class, anyway. Go, learn, then get out of Dodge, and don't talk to him, stare at him, or pass notes. No more sex with him. No more hanging out. No more chatting, reassuring him, or being a support system for him. It will, of course, hurt like hell at first. But the lingering breakup, the drawn-out attachment, is worse for you in the end.