Maybe someone can help?
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| Mon, 03-14-2005 - 11:02am |
Maybe someone can help me out, because I've been trying, but I just don't know what else to do, (this is kind of long, sorry) :(
I was with my boyfriend for a year and a half, and everything was going great, then one day he called me and said he didn't want to be with me anymore.
We had been friends for 4 years before we realized there was something more to our relationship and decided to start going out. That year and a half were the best of my life. He was the first man I ever loved, and I was the first girl he loved. I have a bad past with regard to relationships and he helped me to overcome that and it brought us even closer.
He was everything I wanted in a partner, he really was my best friend in the world, and so much more than that. His family was crazy about me, my family thought he was great, and we have all the same friends. After we'd been together for 3 months he was accepted at another school and had to move half way across the country, but we survived that. We would talk everyday we were apart and see each other every day he was home or I would go visit him. He told me everyday how much he loved me, how special I was and how I made him a batter person and his life was better because of me. And I felt the same way, being with him made me happy in ways I never knew existed.
But now this... he had been home for Christmas and we were as happy as ever, then a week after he goes back to school, he calls me and says that we can't be together anymore. He said that he still cares about me very much and wants to be my friend, that he still loves me, but it just can't be in the same way anymore. And he said I did make him happy, he just feels there is something missing, that he should be happier. He also swears there is no other girl, and I do believe him, because like I said, we have all the same friends (even his roommate is my friend,) I would find out rather quickly if there was another girl.
Nothing makes any sense to me though. We were so great together, I have never been able to talk to anyone as I talk to him. And while I realize that you shouldn't stay in a relationship if you're unhappy... well, you can't spend your life always wondering if maybe there is something better out there, because than you never really will be happy with what you have.
I just don't know what to do, he's confused and questioning a lot of things right now, his school and career, his decision to move. If there really is someone out there better for both of us, then this is all ok, even though it hurts so much. What I'm scared of though is that this is all a mistake, I worry that everything in his life is so messed up now that he's just running from everything. What if he is the one? What if down the road we both look back and realize that yes, we were that great and we should be together, but by then too much damage has been done?
It's been 2 months since he broke up with me, I cry less and I'm trying to get on with my life, but I still love him so much and can't imagine how there could be anyone else better for me, or better for him than me. We still talk once in a while and he'll often cry if the conversation turns to us. He has said that if could just be with me and be happy then he would, he would choose that in an instant over all this heartbreak. He said that if we are meant to be together, that it will happen.
I know I can't wait for him to figure things out. I'll date other people should the chance come along. But I feel so sad and hopeless that not only the person I love feels he can't be with me, but we both seem so unhappy and I feel breaking up is a mistake. It's a challenge jut to get out of bed some mornings because it all feels so wrong, so hopeless. It's been 2 months... if this is the right thing to do, why hasn't it stopped hurting? I don't know what to do...

Ah, the patronizing phase. This is the stage in your breakup where you honestly, truly, and fervently believe that he's made a terrible mistake breaking up with you, that he's confused, that he's only hurting himself, that he's going to regret it, and when he finally wakes up it may be too late. Yes, we all go through that. Very few people, and very few who end up here, think that the ex who dumped them out of the blue made a wise and well-reasoned choice.
While your situation is very common, I think it might help you to examine the assumptions underlying your "he's making a terrible mistake" mindset. It is patronizing. It assumes that you know what's better for him than he knows for himself. It assumes that he's less capable of making mature, well-reasoned decisions for himself. It assumes he's impulsive and driven by emotions, rather than able to act reasonably based upon his values and goals. It assumes this breakup was the result of some temporary insanity, rather than a deliberate choice he'd been contemplating for some time before the end. It assumes he's like some kind of child or mentally ill person, incapable of making good choices for himself. And it suggests a lack of respect for him as a person.
I don't intend that to sound mean, I just bet you never looked at it that way before. But, you have to admit, if you think of him as an equal, and you respect him as a person, and you believe that he *is* fully functioning as his own person, capably making his own decisions (where to go to school, what career to pursue, what organizations to join, what values he holds), then you have to come to terms both with his decision to end the relationship and with his right to make that decision. You have to believe that he knows what's best for him the same as you know what's best for you. You have to believe that he knows if a serious relationship is not the right thing for him at this stage in his life. You have to believe that he knows when he's with someone that he just can't see himself with in the long term. You have to believe that he makes the best choices possible with the limited wisdom he possesses, that he makes his decisions in an honest effort to give his life meaning and to express his goals and values, and that he didn't make this decision with the intent of hurting you, but because he thought it was necessary for his own life. And you must believe that he knows what's better for him, having lived in his own skin all these years, better than you do.
"My life is pretty crazy right now and I'm not sure what I want" is a common reason given for breaking up. Frankly, sometimes it's true - while in college, while just getting established in life, there are so many options and possibilities, he may not have a good sense of how he envisions his life shaking out, and may not be prepared to the obligations of a long term relationship while he is still in an "unformed" state, still discovering himself and experiencing life. Sometimes it's a reason chosen to minimize your pain, in favor of "I just don't love you anymore" or "I've met someone else" or even "I'm gay."
Now, your current state of mind is understandable, in part, because you did not see the breakup coming. That's why you believe it is a blip, an impulsive act, not a thought-out decision that he made. That's because he didn't include you in the decision making process. But he didn't just wake up one day and decide to end a more than year's long relationship with you. He's been thinking about it for a while. He's been struggling with his feelings that there's something about the relationship that doesn't mesh with his life, versus his genuine and sincere appreciation of you as a person. Maybe it would have been more mature and more honest to have shared that developing doubt with you, rather than springing it on you as a fully-formed decision to leave. But it does happen, people keep it all internal until they've made up their minds, and they even continue to act loving and intimate, continue to make future plans and allow their partners to believe there's nothing wrong.
His decision to end the relationship was almost certainly the result of considerable time pondering the pros and cons, and your perception that he'll come to his senses and realize his mistake is probably based upon a mistake as to how much thought and deliberation went into making that decision. If it would help, and you believe he'd give you an honest answer, you might ask how long he's been thinking about ending the relationship, but it can hurt more to realize he was deceiving you by acting loving and happy for weeks or months while he was deciding to end things. This is just the awful bite of the end of a relationship, this is how it always happens, and it will be easier for you to accept that he made what he thought was the best decision for his life and start making the best decisions for you.