My Story....very long!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2005
My Story....very long!!
1
Mon, 01-16-2006 - 7:07pm

Hi,

Below is a posting that I responded to someone with my story. My ex and I are now broken up for over for months. We have only seen eachother once in that time to exchange stuff and for me to get back the money that he owed to me. It has been so horribly sad for me and I feel like I am heading for a setback. In this time of our breakup he has been in therapy and everything that I thought he would be working on or fixing seems to be not happening. The hard part is that I still love him. When I saw him two weeks ago, my heart melted it was not that I thought he did not love me but he loved me with all that he had. We kissed goodbye passionately and I still have a knot in my stomache. We did not have contact except for two times because of the money/stuff. Now since I last spoke to him I decided to let my feelings be known to him. I called him yesterday something that I never do and we had a conversation about my true feelings and everything that I have felt over the months. I know I have to let him go and I am going forward in my life but I wanted him to know that I love him and that I did want our relationshipt to work. He said that he is trying to figure out why he never finishes things in his life and knows that he is always consumed with guilt. I went and saw the therapist tonight that my ex and I used for couples counseling this summer and he said that I had to follow my heart and be true to myself. My ex thought I was doing so great, I just wanted him to know that I still cared for him and life always has to go on. That is it...that was my one shot he knows where I stand and my heart hurts alittle more. I guess I needed to say this because when I saw him he said something about hope and I told him I had no hope...but that was a lie, I think in the bottom of our heart we always hold on to hope. You just cannot pin your life to it. You have to let go and still go forward. His personnel therapist told him that saying when you love something set it free! I do believe that saying because sometimes you have to get away to see clearly....still it hurts!!

NYHope06

Hi MaybeinJanuary,

When I saw your post I felt like I could write it myself. I understand what you feel because I am 34 and am in the process of re-building my life. When I read the paragraph you said that you feel so totally lost and transient it struck close to home. I feel the same and that is something that I need and want to change for me.

Although, it is a long one here is my story: This is the first time I am writing on a message board about me. I am 34 years old and out of my last relationship which was for 3 year since September. The last few months I have been heartbroken and now I am trying to pick up the pieces and have wondered why I stayed for so long. I loved my ex a lot and I guess I saw something in him that he never saw in himself. When I started to date him 3 years ago. I was just getting out of a 6 year relationship and swore to myself I would never stay in a relationship that did not have the potential for me. So what happens, I fall in love with him and we talk about the future. He mentions to me early in the relationship that has a huge amount of debt from a previous career of being a Dr. He has not been a Dr., for about 10 years. He is now working for a non-profit agency. The work is rewarding and he does and did a wonderful job but it did not pay enough money to pay off student loans and he was defaulting constantly on payments. So, I told him about the options he could take and gave him tons of information about the laws and debt recovery services. It took him two years into our relationship to finally go into a debt program. I would grow frustrated with him because he claimed to want a future and stuff like that and he never put the effort in to try and correct things. Another big problem we also had was that he works in a predominately female orientated field where he dated a few of his co-workers. I actually was working part-time at the same job and that is where I met him too. He also works a lot and really does not get paid for ½ the time at work. He would just get comp.time that he would never be able to use because he was working so much. So pretty much it was use it or lose it. So, I would feel frustrated when I would need him to do something or something would come up and I would want him to attend and it always seemed like he never had the time for me. He would be away on work trips every other weekend it seemed and than when he got home from a trip he was too tired to do anything. In addition, if we did do anything at home....It would have a lot to do with his mother, who was a widow and pretty much relied on him to be the man around the house. So he was her new husband I guess. I end up trying to take care of things for us, help him out by doing the laundry, shopping, etc....write his checks for his bills to make sure that he would not be late and just pretty much do all of the wifely chores with out being married....he was always grateful and I truly loved him and was hoping that he would get some kind of direction from the help that I offered him. We would argue about the fact that he was always working constantly and his girlfriends at work were witchy with me. One because they were jealous of our relationship and it just seemed like high school there. I did not want to spend the one day I had off with him spending time with them. So another one of our frustrations grew between us the fact that he was always away on work trips, camping, etc...(recreation work trips) and our future was never something that he put in the picture. We talked about living together and we practically were, I just felt like we were never official unless we paid his mother rent or if I paid rent also. We started fixing the apartment in his families home. Removing walls and putting hardwood floors in.....time was ticking away and I never knew when I was going to officially move in. We took the walls down in the kitchen and he was supposed to finish the kitchen and this is something he wanted to do for me. I understood that since I was with him things would be tight financially for him until at least he had his debt restructured. But, I did not understand how everything else in his life...Like his job was more important than me. He could never find time to finish things and I guess I always knew this about him. He was not a young man, he actually just turned 40 earlier this year so I thought that he finally wanted to fix things in his life. We end up splitting up and I am hurt because he would tell me to trust him and things were going to be ok.

We broke up on our vacation in September....we started talking about his fears and how he feels worthless and how he feels that he never did things for himself. Going to medical school was not something he wanted to do and he made a career path for his parents. He was married and divorced and is pretty much in the same spot since his marriage ended. I am hurt because I felt like I was his friend and I really tried to work things out for us. I would grow frustrated with myself when I would get annoyed that I was always last and his job took everything he had in life. But, it took everything because he was so willing to give all of his time away!

Since our breakup, I applied for a mortgage myself....got approved. Started looking around for places and have grown frustrated with the amount of money I poured into my relationship...Because it was for us!! I went on vacation out west and got to clear my head a little only to wonder if moving away and starting fresh is something I need. I am going to devote the next year to me and try and figure out why I let things get so out of hand. Off course, I am thinking and trying not to be too hard on myself for the fact that I am starting over and feeling like a kid because I am with the parents.

I know this email is long....I edited things out and have re-read it. Re-reading your relationship on paper after things happen...is kind of weird to see. I would always view other peoples relationship issues on these sites and want to type something about a specific circumstance and never did. I guess writing about the whole thing was the only way I could get it out. Hope it make some sort of sense!

Hopefully, things are getting clearer for you in your life! The New Year will be great for us.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2005
Mon, 01-23-2006 - 1:44pm
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