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Post-breakup Detritus: picking up the pieces [follow-up thread]
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I wish I could find the Karnaugh map for love.2^<3Registered User regular
I wish I could find the Karnaugh map for love.2^<3Registered User regular
Sorry, kind of groggy from lack of sleep...
I recently posted in a previous thread about a messy breakup from a 4-year relationship (shitty timing, blindsiding, emotional infidelity, etc.). I got a little too emotional which resulted in the thread being closed. Also, foolishly not heeding most of the advice in the thread I've met up with my ex. This was my ex's idea, not mine, and because we were in the same area, I didn't have to go out of my way to facilitate it (she did). As we haven't had a chance to talk after a rather abrupt phone and email exchange right after we broke up, it left me with a lot of questions. I hoped meeting up with her in person would give me some closure.
In the two weeks between the breakup and the meeting, I actually started feeling a lot better. I ended up doing well in my classes, and things were looking up in general. I wasn't obsessing about our relationship anymore, but if I let myself think about it I'd get really upset and angry.
The meeting was mostly positive but still left me really confused. My ex apologized for the shitty timing, execution, the emotional infidelity, and said it was ultimately a spur-of-the-moment rash decision she hadn't put much thought into. I've had a hard time nailing down what eventually led to her decision, but the best I've been able to get by helping her think through it is that our relationship was good when we were still physically together, but started going south halfway through when we started going long-distance. Long-story short, all our conversation devolved into just whining about our work and nothing else positive which led her to seek emotional fulfillment elsewhere.
The thing is, she never raised this as an issue during our relationship, so we never really had a chance to fix it. IMO this needn't have been fatal to our relationship; we could've very easily made an effort to talk about other things. For some reason we just both felt locked-in into this one mode of communication which then led her to believe that not only do I always whine to her about my life, but that my life IS actually miserable. However, this was not the case at all. I was thriving in school, making a lot of friends, and pursuing all kinds of cool opportunities. I just failed to convey this to her, because I didn't want to seem arrogant. I felt like if I talked about how well I'm doing in a class, or how cool a lecture I went to was, I would appear like I'm bragging or something. This is, of course, ridiculous. But, I also find it tragic, because I could have easily fixed this if she had ever brought it up.
If I feel that we broke up under the wrong premises, is there any point in trying to salvage the relationship? I find it really frustrating to end a relationship not because of a fundamental incompatibility, but because she had made wrong assumptions about me. Ironically, I feel more "date-able" than ever, with several women in my life courting me. I honestly think it was a dumb communication problem that could be easily remedied.
As a side note: in a way that's too complicated to explain in H&A thread form, our professional lives have become tied in bizarre twist of fate. So even without a relationship, it would be HIGHLY favorable if we could at least revive our friendship. Help?
I recently posted in a previous thread about a messy breakup from a 4-year relationship (shitty timing, blindsiding, emotional infidelity, etc.). I got a little too emotional which resulted in the thread being closed. Also, foolishly not heeding most of the advice in the thread I've met up with my ex. This was my ex's idea, not mine, and because we were in the same area, I didn't have to go out of my way to facilitate it (she did). As we haven't had a chance to talk after a rather abrupt phone and email exchange right after we broke up, it left me with a lot of questions. I hoped meeting up with her in person would give me some closure.
In the two weeks between the breakup and the meeting, I actually started feeling a lot better. I ended up doing well in my classes, and things were looking up in general. I wasn't obsessing about our relationship anymore, but if I let myself think about it I'd get really upset and angry.
The meeting was mostly positive but still left me really confused. My ex apologized for the shitty timing, execution, the emotional infidelity, and said it was ultimately a spur-of-the-moment rash decision she hadn't put much thought into. I've had a hard time nailing down what eventually led to her decision, but the best I've been able to get by helping her think through it is that our relationship was good when we were still physically together, but started going south halfway through when we started going long-distance. Long-story short, all our conversation devolved into just whining about our work and nothing else positive which led her to seek emotional fulfillment elsewhere.
The thing is, she never raised this as an issue during our relationship, so we never really had a chance to fix it. IMO this needn't have been fatal to our relationship; we could've very easily made an effort to talk about other things. For some reason we just both felt locked-in into this one mode of communication which then led her to believe that not only do I always whine to her about my life, but that my life IS actually miserable. However, this was not the case at all. I was thriving in school, making a lot of friends, and pursuing all kinds of cool opportunities. I just failed to convey this to her, because I didn't want to seem arrogant. I felt like if I talked about how well I'm doing in a class, or how cool a lecture I went to was, I would appear like I'm bragging or something. This is, of course, ridiculous. But, I also find it tragic, because I could have easily fixed this if she had ever brought it up.
If I feel that we broke up under the wrong premises, is there any point in trying to salvage the relationship? I find it really frustrating to end a relationship not because of a fundamental incompatibility, but because she had made wrong assumptions about me. Ironically, I feel more "date-able" than ever, with several women in my life courting me. I honestly think it was a dumb communication problem that could be easily remedied.
As a side note: in a way that's too complicated to explain in H&A thread form, our professional lives have become tied in bizarre twist of fate. So even without a relationship, it would be HIGHLY favorable if we could at least revive our friendship. Help?
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There was a lot of anger and name calling on your part in the last thread, let this go and work on your communication skills for your future relationships.
Neither of you are ready for that commitment. Let alone more.
Snub her friendship overtures? No offense dude, but you were calling her a cold bitch two weeks ago, you're not ready to be her friend
She went out of her way to apologize to me. Is it impossible for a friend to at rare occasions act in a bitchy way, apologize for it, and be forgiven? I'd like to believe people are greater than the sum of their faults.
Look, you two got together and even though you were civil, your meeting still devolved into whining and complaining, even if it wasn't necessarily about each other. While it's true that your current life stresses may have played a contributing factor in your breakup, it's also true that people use a third-party to excuse the actions/feelings they have directly. Couples will complain that work is stressing them out so they have a diminished libido, when the real problem is that they have a bad attitude and it's easier to say "Work makes me sensitive" than "I find you emotionally unattractive tonight."
Should you snub her? No, don't be rude. But with what you wrote, it reads like you're looking to get back together with her because you realized that the problem isn't an inherent part of you. You are not an undateable guy. However, nothing you've written here, and I doubt anything you discussed with her, actually made it sound like you worked to solve the actual problem you two had -- neither of you liked the distance, she didn't want to deal with the distance anymore, and she broke up with you. You getting back together doesn't solve the basic problem that she doesn't like the distance problem, and simply puts a band-aid on a relationship that's probably got something deeper going on.
No one in this thread knows what's going on in your ex-girlfriend's head, but what you've solved is your own personal depression -- not the faults of the relationship. Whenever I've broken up with someone, after a short while, I feel really good about myself too. I realize that yes, there were problems in the relationship, and I was at fault for some of them, but I still had positive qualities, I liked myself at heart, and my experiences with that relationship made me realize what I actually needed in a relationship.
In this case, your girlfriend makes it clear that she doesn't like long-distance relationships. If you try to get back together with her, the same issues will resurface, although they may manifest in new ways.
Can you be professional friends? Sure. Can you be normal friends in the long-term? It's possible. But only after you've both moved beyond where your relationship is now.
Your previous thread was pretty emotional on your part so maybe you presented yourself, or your relationship, in the wrong light. We can't know what your ex-girlfriend is thinking or feeling, but if you want to pursue anything with her, you will need to address the actual problem, not just the reasons why the breakup happened. People don't break up with each other on a whim (and those that do shouldn't be dating anyway).
I absolutely agree with this, OP. And to it, I would add that your present thread STILL reeks of resentment and blame on your part.
I think you will be much happier in life if you realize that no one is ever obligated to stay in a relationship with you, or fix a relationship if they don't feel like it. She was not out of line with when or how she broke up with you. She does not owe you any explanations. She does not have to make this all make sense to you. It sounds like she was open and reasonably kind with you, and didn't twist the knife any more than necessary, which is basically all you have the right to expect in a breakup.
She did not wrong you. At all. The sooner you accept this, the happier and healthier both you and your future relationships will be.
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That single incident doesn't define your relationship, but it does paint you in an incredibly unflattering and immature light, especially considering it wasn't a singular occurrence and the name calling wasn't only directed at your ex. There was lots of petty complaining and defensiveness going on in that thread and you're starting to do it again in this one.
I guess I have a seriius problem with this part. Because I do think there is a "morality" of relationships and breaking up etiquette. For instance the problem of cheating or starting a new relationship before your current one is over is precisely identical to the prisoner's dilemma. I'm not sure why relationships are put on such a high pedestal that is ethically inscrutable. Is there no conceivable way to go about things that is wrong?
I'm convinced I need a lot of professional help as I'm clearly the crazy person in the room. I'm saying this devoid of sarcasm.
Then the best thing you can do is try to find someone else who shares those values. Insisting that she treated you abominably is not really defensible, and more importantly, it is not productive. Get up, dust yourself off, and -- in time -- find someone that holds similar opinions on relationships, if that is important to you.
It is perfectly normal and okay to be angry, upset, furious, etc, with someone who just broke up with you. That's a stage of grieving, really, and if you didn't experience it at all, it would actually be worse in my opinion. That said, I cannot overemphasize how vital it is that you work past this idea that she did something genuinely "bitchy" or "shitty" to you. She did not. She broke up with you, and that is all. She did not wrong you.
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Not snub, acknowledge that she has come to you and explained everything, but tell her that you need time to deal with the emotions from the outbreak and reset your priorities.
You do not need to be friends to be colleges, I have several people I work successfully with that I do not like.
You need to figure out what you actually want out of relationship and will need time and distance to determine if this relationship can meet those needs.
For the italicized it is way too soon, for the bolded, good god do not let yourself be drawn back in emotionally. I read that last thread, and if you were being accurate at what happened, her actions were cruel and brutal.
You need to keep drawing on the emotional support that helped you out through the original breakup, you clearly are better but not over it.
She started a relationship with another dude, hence the emotional infidelity. Maybe I just suck at explaining the situation?
Guys, I'm having a terribly hard time with this. I swear to God I'm a reasonable person. I excel in a hard science that requires me to be coldly rational. Nobody has ever accused me being unreasonable. And yet, given the overwhelming response I'm getting here I'm starting to doubt the integrity of my sanity here. Which is why I am not kidding about seeking professional help.
Look, if there was just a communication problem of some kind (it sounds like there was a lot more than that from your last thread, but whatever), sure, you could remedy that if you were still in the relationship. But the relationship has ended, dude.
Don't dwell, or decide to start stalking your ex.
Move on.
Keep yourself together. The possibility that everyone here is right does not preclude your sanity. As has been said, cold hard logic sometimes falls short in emotional situations- and even the most coldly logical person is occasionally lacking in self-awareness. Some things we see best from within, and some things can only be seen from without.
Don't freak out.
Also, there's no shame in seeking professional help, especially after mental and/or emotional trauma. Therapy works- that's why you need qualifications to be a therapist.
OP, does it make sense to try chasing after someone that is not in a relationship with you, and that has moved on to someone else? Is it likely to make your life better or worse to start stalking this person and try to somehow 'get them back'?
The thing is, it doesn't really matter why your girlfriend broke up with you (well, I mean, it does matter - but not in terms of this discussion). The fact is that she did, and she has a new SO in her life, and you need to get on with yours. It's completely irrational (well, unless your objective is to be a bitter & miserable person who possibly also needs to deal with a restraining order down the road) to try and keep someone in your life that doesn't want to be there anymore, regardless of how whether or not you think they have good reasons for cutting ties with you.
I don't know how consenting to meet with someone who will drive three hours to see you qualifies as stalking. If anything my ex is the one who is actively trying to see me, not the opposite. This only compounds the issue because I am the one who has to exercise restraint in not seeing this person. Its very hard for me, despite all we've been through, to actively avoid being friends with who used to be my best friend. Honestly, I have no idea how stalking at all even came into the equation. It seems to be indicative of other thread tropes though.
The point is not to have a referendum on whether she is right or not. The point is not to invalidate my legitimate anger. Her specific actions was to start a relationship with someone before ours ended. This seems to me to map perfectly to the prisoner's dilemma where your options are cheat, or end the relationship amicably.
It's the way that you're framing the issue. She contacted you to see how things were going (seems a bit weird to me, but whatever), has lunch with you and shoots the breeze, and your interpretation of this is, "She drove 3 WHOLE HOURS to see me! There were just communication problems. She broke up with me for the wrong reasons. I can make this work,"
This is where things can (and I've seen this in the past, on many occasions) develop into stalking. She has an SO and she has moved on. Someone asking you if you'd like to get some lunch and talk about the good 'ol days is not them asking to rekindle a recently ended relationship (again, it's weird, and frankly I probably would've turned down her offer, but that's just me), but that's the interpretation you seem to have seized.
If she calls you up in the middle of the night and says, "I made a mistake. Will you take me back?", well okay (...I personally would think long and hard about the emotional / mental state of someone who is so compulsive about such a big issue, but again, that's me). But don't wait around for that call, because it's not at all likely to happen, and don't fool yourself into thinking that she's just waiting for you to dial her up.
To be perfectly frank, your two breakup threads (and, more tellingly, the sexism thread that preceded them) paint you as a fairly petty person, quick to complain and lay blame when things do not go your way, lobbing value judgments from behind a rampart of emotional pseudo-logic. If pressed, I'd wager these attributes played a part in the breakup itself. I say this from a place of genuine concern, because if these threads are an indication, you could be in danger of developing (or more accurately, cementing) some extremely unhealthy attitudes about women and relationships.
Please, OP, give yourself space from this girl, and time to grieve and heal. We really do want the best for you, as hard as that might be to accept right now.
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And as others have said, you are most likely never going to get the type of closure you are looking for from her. The only closure you are most likely going to receive will be of your own doing when you've taken the time to heal and let things settle and come to your own conclusions and realizations. It's a part of growing and I sincerely hope that in time you'll come to see that, whether it be on your own or by perhaps talking to a counselor or someone else who can really help.
I feel the same way as I imagine someone with Dyscalculia does when you try to teach him/her fractions. I don't get it. I can take a leap of faith and take your advice, but it doesn't make sense to me from first principles. What you call pseudo-logic is just pure logic to me. Honestly, I don't feel like I'm being trolled, I just feel like I don't understand.
Maybe if I recap/clarify a few facts:
1) Our relationship was very good for the last few months before we went long-distance. This is going by solely what she told me.
2) The relationship ended when she (emotionally) cheated on me with another guy two weeks before we were about to get back together and decided that she wasn't happy with the long-distance thing. <-- This is the part I am angry about. Cheating isn't generally considered a nice thing to do, and she said she feels guilty about that. Also the timing on finals week sucked. But hey, the heart wants what the heart wants, other peoples' life goals be damned. The only mysterious part, is that she's not sure exactly what about the long-distance is bothering her.
3) After the first exchange we had, I had cut off contact completely for about two weeks, only sending short polite responses to her messages as advised in the thread. I have not actively contacted her in any way since then. Only she has contacted me, to which I have answered her politely.
4) She then wanted to make plans to see me when I visit a friend in the area (three hours away). To which I, maybe foolishly, consented to.
5) When she came we enjoyed hanging out, as friends, but naturally a discussion about what happened between us transpired. Given the proximity, it would be odd not address it at all at this point IMO. While we had some serious discussions, we also joked about what happened to keep the drama level down. We both have an attitude to attack the awkwardness head on in order to diffuse the situation.
6) My ex has a history of making according to HER, rash decisions when she's under a lot of stress. And she volunteered that this may have been a rash decision, that she made due to stressful circumstances. I did not intuit, suggest this, or corner her into saying this. She said so herself, deliberately. On another occasion she also said she wanted to have a "break" instead of "breaking up" which I declined because I did not think it was a good idea.
7) When I tried to give my interpretation of what happened, she generally agrees with me (i.e., she agrees there were communication problems between us and that has played a major role in the long-distance sucking). But she has a hard time coming up with her own interpretation other than she wasn't really thinking that much due to stress. Don't ask me, I don't know what this means either.
8) I started the conversation saying explicitly that I did not want us to get back together. I mean this. Right now or even two month from now is a bad time. I guess I started the thread with too much emphasis on salvaging the relationship, but for me this would depend on a lot of factors, and would take a lot of time. Definitely not something I want to jump back into. However, and there is no way I can say this without sounding creepy and fucked up, when we were hanging out together in-person it felt exactly like how we were before we went long-distance. As in, the same chemistry and attraction that kept us together for 4 years. I am not, at all, suggesting that I'm going to pursue that right now in any way. But if the long-distance interaction is what killed the relationship, is it so unusual to think that if we didn't have that problem then we would be able to be together again? I'm guessing yes, but only by looking from the lens of future posters. Intuitively, it does not make sense to me.
9) I am still continuing with the minimal contact, but am now am not only responding politely to emails, but also sometimes actively making VERY light contact. As in, look at this funny whateverthefuck.
10) Our relationship, as friends, is still on a precipice. Because if she decides to pursue it I don't think I can be fully supportive of her relationship with the new guy if it was born out of cheating on me. I think this is reasonable. But I'm not categorically eliminating the possibility that I might get over it, after a long time. Even if we have to work as colleagues, that's going to suck really hard.
Does this help to show why I may be a little bit confused and angry? Or maybe at least complicates the situation?
I imagine that this is why your relationship was fine, then it went long-distance and fell apart.
Again, these are details that do not matter in terms of the discussion about what you ought to do right now, which is move along. Do we understand why you're angry / confused? Sure. Move on. Is it weird that she invited you to lunch? Yes. Move on.
I think you're bullshitting yourself. You sat down to lunch, you felt some attraction to your ex, and now you want her back. I mean, that was more or less the entire underlying premise of the OP. If you didn't want her back, you wouldn't be bothering to make a thread about it; you'd just be, well, movin' on.
Which is what you should do, by the way.
Again, it doesn't matter if you think you've 'fixed' the problem that you think caused the break-up. Unless she actually calls you up and asks if you want to date again, that shit's over - just because you think it's all better now doesn't somehow automatically mean your ex is going to be interested in you again.
Thinking, "man, i should have communicated better. I'll do that with the next girl I go out with" is fine.
Thinking, "man, if i communicate better now, things'll get better between us" is not fine. She's done with it. Just because she's being friendly doesn't mean she wants you back. And, more importantly, if you can't be friends with her without harboring some desire to win her back, then it's best you politely decline any more offers to hang out. I don't think that's snubbing her at all, and she should understand, since she broke up with you in the first place.
Here is some good advice I picked up and actually applied successfully from the thread(s):
1) Keep your distance: I have done this for the most part. I don't think minimal/trivial email contact to keep things amicable is really counter to that.
2) Move on: I am struggling with this. But for the most part I think I did a relatively good job at it. I did well in my classes, made new friends, and now hanging out with an old friend over break. Except for times where I can't help but think about it, which is when I turn to the forums, my days are fully occupied with things NOT her. I think I am allowed to have the occasional relapse.
3) Don't resent her for breaking up with you: Absolutely, I agree. the ONLY thing I am resentful about is the cheating and the shitty timing. Not breaking up with me in of itself. I have reiterated this many times over. I feel shitty about the breakup, but that's different than resentment.
4) You are not entitled to a relationship with someone: this is a good thing to keep in mind, but I don't think any of my actual actions indicate that I feel that way. Just because I entertain the notion that we might still be good together doesn't mean I feel like she's obligated to be with me. I've never said or done anything to that effect. I simply pointed out that we might have broken up due to a misunderstanding, and that is extremely unfortunate. I'm not positing this is absolutely true, but it is strongly supported by circumstances and what she told me. Let's say she broke up with me because she thought for some reason that I cheated on her. And then she found out I didn't. Would it be unreasonable for me to wonder if we could get back together? Okay now substitute cheating with something else.
I think there is a lot of good advice, but I think it's natural that general statements about relationship won't always be a tight fit for every case. I go into specifics in cases where I feel like, hey, it's slightly more subtle than that.
All of that being said, I am going to continue moving on. For instance, I have the option this weekend between meeting up with her again or going back home. I'm choosing to go back home, to get more space after we had that conversation. I live in another state that is far away. However, a new discovery led to the possibility that we might have to work together in some capacity. It's really complicated as it involves our past in our home institution and a bizarre coincidence. This means that I may very well be forced to continue to interact with my ex, but not out of my own doing. This makes the distance/space thing difficult for obvious reasons. This is why I want to get to some sane place about this situation so it doesn't cause me to relapse every time we have to interact again.
As for the question of whether or not you should try to be friends with her, the answer is probably no. You can have a professional relationship with another human being that you don't talk to outside of work. You can and should decide to be courteous and cooperative with people you need to work with, as a general rule, and this is no different. But she's not you're girlfriend, and if you have a brain in your head you will stop thinking about her as someone who left you on some false pretense or as someone you should be seeing outside of whatever requirement there is to interact with her, because your words all over this forum indicate that you cannot handle it. You cannot meaningfully be friends with someone you resent the way you resent her, and all you can seem to do is blame her. I don't give a fuck what you call your friends, she's NOT your "friend" and I very much doubt she would take the name-calling in good humor.
That is why you should walk away and not try to be friends right now, and why you being friends and calling her names are mutually exclusive; you just can't handle it, and if you try you will ruin whatever vestige of hope you have of her wanting to deal with you in a friendly way in the future. This isn't some magical mystery: you aren't over being angry, and therefore there is no place for a friendship. That doesn't mean you should act like a dick, you still need to behave professionally. Your only options are not "snub" or "bestest friends". You also have the option to grow up, let it go, and leave your relationship where it belongs: in the past.
If you have to work together you can simply be polite and friendly towards her without being actual friends who hang out and do intimate friend things. You're doing the right thing by declining her invitation to meet.
I really wish I had used the word insensitive instead of bitch, but I meant to use them to the same effect. When I talk to her she completely understands why I am upset, and also makes fun of herself in good humor for being a "crazy bitch" about this exact situation. Maybe that word lost some of its sting in our generation? There is nothing about the parts that I am upset about that she does not acknowledge or feel guilty about herself. This means that independent of the breakup itself she admittedly says she handled things poorly. My hope was that if she acknowledges the shitty parts of how she handled the breakup I can forgive her and we can move on. And for the most part I have done that after our first conversation, but I still need more time, I agree. I don't think I said anywhere that I'm ready to "bestest friends" right now. This is more of a long-term thing that I'm looking at.
Has anyone here have the experience of moving to another country, making 2-3 good friends over the course of 5 years because everyone else in your department was a douchebag, having a family that is too caught up with its own shit to be supportive of anything, and then losing your best friend that you thought you have finally built a life with outside of your shitty family?
I feel, I don't know, defeated? I did not get much (read: any) sleep last night, and I think no matter how much I try to clarify the situation any more it's not going to help. Some of the stuff in this thread is really good and helpful. But some of it has no connection with reality. I can only work with the general sentiments and use it where I feel it applies. In terms of actions I think I'm doing exactly what has been advised in the thread. Emotionally/logically, a lot of it does not make sense to me at all. That's why I think at this point it's better I just see someone professional.
Emotions do not work like light-switches, and what you call "emotional infidelity" is simply her developing feelings for another man, something we ultimately have very little control over. Not only did she not cheat on you, k-maps, it sounds like she followed your explicit request, and left when she developed deeper feelings for someone else. This is not wrong. This is not unethical. This is not a form of infidelity. And this most certainly does not entitle you to pile invective and resentment on her.
And a final word: have you entertained the possibility that she is agreeing with you and calling herself a "crazy bitch" and such in order to soften the blow for you? Whether or not you agree with the practice, telling comforting lies in the wake of a breakup is a time-honored tradition, particularly for those doing the breaking up. If logic is truly important to you, I beg you to consider the fact that anything said in the immediate aftermath of a breakup is said under emotional duress, and consequently should be viewed with a fair amount of incredulity and scrutiny.
Feeling defeated is fair and it is healthy. Do not beat yourself up for not being able to sleep, and for being sad that something you cherished is gone. Give yourself time and space, and instead of focusing on perceived slights, focus on yourself. It is abundantly clear that you are not ready for further contact with her, no matter what your heart may occasionally tell you.
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Okay, I guess since this never happened to me it's hard for me to understand and/or sympathize with. From my, probably naive, perspective I've also met a few women I could be interested in taking things further. But I always put more space between us if I got a red light that anything was becoming serious. It's genuinely hard for me to see how you develop feelings for someone unless you let yourself do it. But that could very well be from lack of experience. For me it's always been, oh this person is cool/attractive, I wonder if we can be in a relationship. Then slowly things would develop to more serious feelings. But maybe it's different for other people. If that's the case, what is emotional infidelity?
I honestly don't think she's the type of person to say something just to appease me. There were other things that I was angry about that she disagreed with, I don't see why she would choose some arbitrary things to feel sorry for if that wasn't really the case.
You are still talking about this in this way. Please stop using this thread like a therapist, as though these are questions we can answer for you rather than something you have to work through. Some answers you have to grow into. You asked for advice about whether or not you should try to be friends, and I think you've gotten that. If you just want to talk about your previous relationship and how it didn't end according to some standards you made up, I'm going to close this thread because again, we are not your therapist.
Sorry, and thanks.