hurt and confused...help
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hurt and confused...help
| Fri, 03-28-2008 - 8:42pm |
Hi everyone,
My boyfriend of 2 years broke up with me exactly 2 weeks ago... I'm so lost and miserable. I can't stop crying. I miss him and I want him back, but I don't think that will ever happen. I can't imagine my life without him.... The worst part is that I didn't even see it coming.

Hello Loren,
I, too, was in your position a
Welcome to the board loren567,
::He said he was sick of fighting with me all the time. We do have frequent small arguments but it's always over stupid stuff and we both let it go right away.
::I can't believe it's just the fighting because it wasn't bad at all...I swear!
One of the differences between men and women is that when something happens or becomes
Hello Everyone,
I too just broke up with my boyfriend of almost 4 years. Actually I feel like it is a break up over email even though his exact words were " lets take a step back in our relationship" what the heck. We were planning on getting engaged this summer and married next year. Obviously that won't happen. He
Welcome to the board marzbarz8,
Sounds like you have a good plan for yourself. Sorry you are going through this.
....."He said he was sick of fighting with me all the time. We do have frequent small arguments but it's always over stupid stuff and we both let it go right away."..... The truth of the matter is that your ex apparently *didn't* let it go right away, no matter what he said. Not only that, but it IS very possible to break up because of differing conflict styles. For some people, it IS a dealbreaker, so just because you were okay overall with the little fights here and there (or all the time) doesn't mean he was. So things weren't all that great for both of you after all.
It's true that women tend to look past rough patches in a relationship and are most times, able to take in the "big picture" of a relationship: its pros, cons, strengths, weaknesses, and can take all of that into consideration when things get bumpy. Men, on the other hand, tend to really focus on the most salient parts, meaning, the parts of the relationship that stand out the most, and in this case, it was fighting. Not saying it's your fault AT ALL, just saying this is what he was focused on. Women think, "It'll be okay later," while men think, "It'll be this way forever."
Good news is that you can learn new ways to discuss and disagree that don't feel like fighting. Trust me, me and my ex went through the fighting too much thing and came out alright (at least conflict-wise). We're both Hispanic, so our arguments could get very fiery sometimes, not horrible, just fiery ;-) Go to the Problem-Solving for Couples board here on iVillage and look up "Rules for fair fighting" or something like that. Make it your priority list. Do NOT force him to talk to you or to try and explain it to him, it actually works much better if you never let him know what you're up to and simply show him by example AS THINGS COME UP. That first one is the doozy, after that, it gets really easy. He will have no idea what happened to "fix" it, he'll just know it works ;-)
This has been some massive wake up call for you, hasn't it? So are you ready to get up and get to work on this, or are you gonna hit the snooze button?
Good luck,