sad breakup but i understand, am i wrong

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-13-2007
sad breakup but i understand, am i wrong
3
Tue, 02-13-2007 - 7:06pm

so i was with him for about 10 months. we met at bad times. it was finals time in law school and my last year and his second. then i had the bar all summer that made me crazy and upset and then the waiting for bar results and the stresses of all that and jobs and such. well he is an accountant full time at a big accounting firm and goes to school at night. we connected and clicked really well early on. he was there for me through bar hell. but 5 months in he was stressed at work working to midnight and he had to take a leave of absence which set back his school plans. the other problem is that this is all of his good guy friends' last semester of school. and he has one more year. so i 5 months, he freaked out when i wanted to discuss us and told me he couldn't talk to me any time soon. well i found out he went out every night for a week and a half and got drunk with his friends and didn't call me and i was a wreck. the finally called and apologized and we talked and he said that he felt like depressed about work and school and family and drinking didn't help and he realized and he didn't handle our situation well. so i slowly gave him another chance and things were going along swimmingly. he started wanting me to verbalize how i felt more and said he wanted to make sure our relationship was growing and everything.
then this past week (exactly a week ago) he called me like normal but only to tell me that he couldn't go out with me anymore. and i was in shock. i knew that school was picking up and tax season was picking up and he had very little time to spend with his good friends before they all left him and he was alone in town this summer. and i understood that friends are important and if he had to go out with them i understood cause i knew he had little time but i would get sad we couldn't spend more time together. cause before things picked up i was spending maybe 2 nights in two weeks at my own place. and then our time together slowly decreased but we still talked and emailed everyday.

so three days later he called after the break up on the phone (which was the biggest slap to my face) to say he wanted to exchange things but also to talk things out cause he realized the phone thing was wrong. and he always says that he isn't good with relationships and does the wrong thing but doesn't realize till later. so i hesitantly met with him and we talked and cried for 4.5 hours. it was a good talk but i realized in the time he broke up with me that i couldn't be with him. the timing was off. he couldn't be there for me and i can't be with him until he gets his act together. and so we talked and he does want to be with me but can't right now. he started crying about how he has to support himself and unlike his friends can't fall back on family at all. and i know he helps send money to his little sisters. and so i told him i understood cause i do. i told him that maybe he could only juggle 3 things (work me and friends) and when there is a fourth (school work me and friends) he can't do it. and he would cry about how he wished he could juggle and maybe others could but he didn't know why he couldn't. he would choke up and cry when he said he didn't konw if he was making the right decision but this was what was best. and he asked me what my last ex did wrong in the break up to have him never give him another chance. so that he wouldn't do it and make the same mistakes. and he kept saying how he felt like i would move on and find someone better in no time.

my friends all say he's selfish and its all bull and he didn't care enough about me if he let me go. but sadly i fully understand. law school is tough. the last thing i want is for him to fail school and i knew with tax season coming up it would only get worse in terms of less time together. and sure he could see his friends less but i understood cause if my friends were all leaving i'd want to spend as much time with them too. and that left less time for me to see him. and he would say on sunday nights he'd want to hang out with me and i'd come over but he should be reading for school and i would tell him to but he wouldn't. and so i completely started bawling cause my bday is friday and he gave me my birthday present which was 280 tickets to a music festival. and i just started crying and saying how this whole situation sucks. but i fully understand. cause i can't be with him if he can't get his act together and i would say why can't you get your act together and he would cry.

he would get upset when i would talk about how i lost someone in my life now and he would say i will give you the time you need but when you're ready if you are let me know when it would be ok for me to call you. i know how this goes. i've gone through breakups before. i need to move on. but it doesn't help that my friends bash him and say he is selfish or immature. cause he's stuck in a hard place, i understand. and maybe in a few months he will be out with another girl or i will be over this.

but am i wrong to be so understanding? only a handful of friends understand his situation. hope lingers that maybe this may work out in the future but the uncertainty makes me sad and i know i must move on. and we both knew that things were going well with us. and acknowledged that neither one of us really wanted this. and it may not work out in the future. but now i'm wondering based on friends' reactions if i am a sucker? he has told me he will respect my wishes and understands that i can't talk to him and he will give me the time and i had told him i dont' know how long or if i ever could have enough time to talk to him again.

is it wrong to just be so sad about this whole thing? when my friends start bashing him it makes me feel worse and wonder why couldn't he keep me around. but he said that it would be more selfish right now for him to keep me around knowing he couldn't give me what i needed. i believe him. fully. and strangely my cousin who is a guy had his gf break up with him last month for the same reasons (work and family problems). and he said he believes her too.

do these situations EVER work out well? cause now i am not signed up to do a half marathon in end of april and just trying to move on. and i guess let a little bit of hope linger.

any comments, suggestions to move on or think about this situation, or am i just an idiot?

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2007
Wed, 02-14-2007 - 11:36am

Welcome to the board tamygotchi.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-13-2007
Wed, 02-14-2007 - 11:53am

thanks for the reply. i've gone through breakups before and broken up with folks and its never easy. i guess the thing is that his friends are in their last semester. most are moving back across the country. and they really aren't that busy. my last semester was a breeze cause by then you just don't care and want to have fun before taking the bar.

none of them work fulltime and they just hang out and go out. at this point in school you have SO much free time. its like senior year in high school, you're just coasting at this point b/c you know the school isn't going to fail you and your gpa can't get any better. so he's told me its hard b/c they are in their last semester and they forget that he isn't.

anyways i understand maybe i am giving him too much credit but i'm honestly not sure if i could work full time with peak seasons and have done school, esp knowing he couldn't get it together last semester and had to take a leave of absence. and that he has to help support his family sometimes too. he just seems stretched too thin. i get angry sometimes but then i just don't want to fester in the angry. i just want to slowly move on. i do want to believe that he hopes it will work out later but again, i may have moved on in the process or vice versa. i guess i just don't want to feel like i've been duped but in that four and a half hour convo everything he said i truly believe as geniune and not some guy way of trying to feel less guilty. he seemed conflicted knowing that if he let me go i might not be around later. and he always said that he knew i was a catch when we were together and the guys liked me.

i was talking to a good guy friend of mine the other day and he did think it was strange that he broke up with me and yet told me that when i was ready to let him know if he could call me again. he thought that was odd since he broke up with me. the whole thing is odd but oh well.

training for a half marathon now. just don't want to feel like i was duped and usually in these situations timing is off and the last ex broke up with me only to realize he was an idiot and two years later was still trying to be with me again but by then i was over it since he handled the break up so poorly.

anyways. sorry if it seems like i am defending him so much. my cousin's gf broke up with him a month ago for many of the same reasons (work problems and having to support her family and problems with that) and saying that she couldn't be there for him as much as he needed and it was selfish for her to keep him around just to have him there if maybe he could be better off with someone else and he said he believed her too and hoped it worked out but fornow just has to move on.

anyways. i ramble. thanks for you response.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2007
Wed, 02-14-2007 - 12:06pm

Hi again, both your guy and your cousin's girlfriend are showing how they cope under extreme pressure.