Taking a break?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-19-2004
Taking a break?
4
Sun, 04-30-2006 - 9:35am

Ok, this is something of a long story.

A little over a yr and a half ago, I met a man we'll call J. J had recently moved out of his marital home, and was hanging out with a group of my friends often. He and I developed a good friendship. We would talk often, and while I feared that there were feelings developing I swore them off for months. I knew that I had no business getting involved with a man who was so freshly divorcing.

Well, unfortunately that didn't last more than a few months. Once he kissed me, there was no denying it any further. However, I was very cautious. I told him it was a bad idea, and that he shouldn't be jumping into something so soon. He told me that he had never had a friendship with someone like the one we had, and that he knew who he was and what he wanted out of life. He was actually in counseling at the time, and told the counselor about me. He told her that he didn't want to involve someone in a rebound relationship, and asked whether or not she saw a problem with him getting involved with me. She gave him the go ahead, saying that she thought he had been emotionally out of his marriage for long enough. That gave me some piece of mind, but not full.

Well, let me tell you, J is prince charming. He is one of the most awesome men that this world has created. Genuinely. 5 months after we had become a "we" I was in love. He had dome everything in his power to show me that it was safe to love him. It was safe to depend on him. We talked about everything. We did everything right. We weren't impulsive in any of our decisions. We waited a long time to involve our children (9 months actually) in the relationship, and I have met the XW on a few occasions.

Things seemed to be progressing perfectly. I had it all. Then, a few weeks ago he started acting distant.

I asked him about it, and he admitted that our relationship had fallen on the back burner. He says that everything has come crashing down on him, and while he wants to go back to where he was 3 months ago (happily with me) he doesn't know how to get back there.

He's talking about the divorce. All of a sudden he has a lot of guilt for the failure of his marriage and what lies ahead for his kids. He insisits he doesn't want to be back with her, and that it's not even an option, but for some reason he is going through something emotionally that he cannot get a grip of. He says he loves me and doesn't want this to be over but that he needs time to work through these feelings. We have agreed that he probably needs to get into some kind of counseling again. And I have no choice but to understand that he needs time. He says that he can't love me and be with me the way he wants to if he's like this.

He and the XW went to lunch the other day and kind of hashed it all out. They both admitted their faults, and guilts and agreed that they were making the right move, and don't belong together.

I'm obviously heartbroken. I can't understand that he needs to go through this alone, but have to give him that. I have been through he!! and back the past week and a half, anf talked about this over and over with him.

I lack the understanding of how this all happened, and how this works, and how this is supposed to work for the future.

He won't let me go, I have told him that he can. I have asked him to tell me if his feelings have subsided, and that if he already knows its over forever, to please just say it, and let me begin healing now. He says thats not it. He doesn't want it to be over forever.

It's such a mess, and I am going through such an emotional roller coaster. I'm sad, and confused and mad all at once.

Any suggestions from divorced people? Any ideas of how to go about this? Any questions? because I can't possibly type it all here....thanks in advance.

Jen

158/140.5/130

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 04-30-2006 - 12:09pm

Oh, I'm so sorry. He got really, really bad advice from his counselor, IMO. Even if you are "emotionally out" of your marriage, divorce STILL has a huge effect on you. Having had the experience of thinking I was "fine" during my own divorce, since I was the one who initiated it, etc, when nothing could have been further from the truth, I now follow the rule of thumb of not dating anyone whose divorce hasn't been *final* for at least a year.

So...I hope he goes to a different counselor this time!

You need to let him go and move on. Put any hope you have for things working out WAY up on the shelf in the back of your mind. Maybe you'll find your way back to each other, maybe you won't...but if it's meant to be, it'll work out.

What do you mean he won't "let you go"? Is he trying to have his cake and eat it too by staying in touch during this break, is that what you mean?

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-19-2004
Sun, 04-30-2006 - 12:36pm

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Precisely. Last week I told him I couldn't give him that. I told him I had to move on and not talk to him. He called me the next day crying, saying that he couldn't do that. I insisted, and tried it, and although I obviously didn't last long, I can't just give up on him.

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I agree. My head tells me that 100%. But we were in love for a year and a half, we mended our children, our friends, our families and our business contacts....and it's not like he's wronged me, he's truly lost in his own life, and I feel like I would be abandoning my best friend, and only man I have ever truly loved. I wish it were that easy.

But you are right, I cannot hold onto this hope that there will be something in the future. But I can't find a happy medium. I don't think there is one.

He will be seeing another counselor, because the one he was seeing left our area. Which is why he stopped going to begin with.

I know of the one yr rule. I knew it then. I took a chance, a really, really big chance. It backfired badly. But bottom line is that I still love and care for him even if we never got back together. We have a friendship like no one else. I don't know that it's right to just walk away from that. To just write someone off forever.

I wish I hated him. I wish he had cheated on me, or beat me or had done something horrible to make this easier. I'm at such a loss.

Bottom line:

I know I cannot hold out hope.
I know that no contact is best.
We've come too far to just throw it out the window and forget each other.

Jen

158/140.5/130

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 04-30-2006 - 12:43pm

It sounds like you know what you need to do...I know it's easier said than done, though. No, there isn't a happy medium, unfortanately...it's just not possible to go right from being lovers to being platonic friends.

And yes, you took a risk, and it didn't work out...but that happens.

Why do you think it would be "forever" if you moved on now? I'm now friends with several of my exes, but it took varying periods of no contact to get to the point where we could reconnect as friends. Never say never...I would think of it in terms of postponing the friendship rather than "writing him off forever". If you're meant to be friends, it'll happen...just not NOW.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 04-30-2006 - 11:27pm

I don't have anything to add, but wanted to say that I agree with Sheri - and you - 100%.


You have to let him go and move on. There's nothing else to do, no matter how either of you would like things to be, they aren't that way and hanging on only makes things worse and hurts you more. A clean cut is necessary for both of you; he's got things to work out within himself, he can't do that while dealing with you and you need not to be hanging on to something that isn't.


I think too that just because it isn't and can't be now doesn't mean it can't be in the future. Ending it with him now in no way means you can't pick up in a year or so (providing you're still available and interested) when/if he's through this. Ending it now doesn't necessarily end it permanently in my book, but you do need to be able to put him firmly behind you and move on for now, not expecting anything in the future; it may well never happen.


I know it hurts. Don't kick yourself too much, chalk it up to experience, learn from it and move on.







~ cl-2nd_life

"Experience is what you get
when you don't get what you want."

~ Author unknown








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"