The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Dumped out of the blue
Hikkins
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I think I'm mainly posting here because venting is part of the process, and I apologise that this is the same thing that comes trough this forum every day. Honestly, I don't know what I want to gain from this, but here I am posting anyway.
So, a few months ago I met my now ex-girlfriend, and from the first moment we met it was amazing. No, I'm not embellishing. I've been in plenty of relationships, and I can honestly say that though this one was short, it was the best relationship of my life. We clicked on every level, had lots in common, the sex was amazing, and we had loads of fun. I really felt this was going somewhere good, and she always said the same.
Today, out of the blue she dumped me, via text. To quote:
"look, I really like you and everything but I don't know if this is working out like I wanted it to. I think I'm not over my ex and it's not fair on you to keep being led on when I'm not as emotionally invested as you deserve. I love our time together, but if this carries on I'll only end up hurting you."
I met up with her afterwards, we talked, it was obvious there was nothing I could do to change anything.
I know that I need to move on, I know I just need to put this down to experience, but this one is eating me up.
For the last 2 years I've been in a string of empty, disposable relationships/one night stands, and finally someone came and snapped me out of it. We were both happy, and there was no sign of anything being wrong. Scratch that, there was nothing wrong. She even said so herself. And that's what I don't know how to deal with. I've been in plenty of relationships, and things have gone wrong towards the end, and even though it's sucked to break up, there was a part of me that knew it was the right thing to do. But this just strikes me as completely fucking wrong.
In a way I do understand it. It's not a great situation to be with someone when you're still not over someone else. But they split up YEARS ago, and there's no chance of them really getting back together. And I know when it comes to emotional issues it's stupid to try and put reasons to things - you can't help the way you feel.
But still, I can't reconcile this whole thing. We were happy, ridiculously compatible, and everything was great. And I think more than anything I don't know how to deal with that.
I know there are plenty of fish in the sea, and all those platitudes, but I've done a fucking shitton of fishing, and I don't think I've ever come across something this awesome before. I'm not going to be so melodramatic as to suggest that I'll never come across anything like this again, but I do feel genuinely doubtful that I could.
I'm really fucking lost here.
So, a few months ago I met my now ex-girlfriend, and from the first moment we met it was amazing. No, I'm not embellishing. I've been in plenty of relationships, and I can honestly say that though this one was short, it was the best relationship of my life. We clicked on every level, had lots in common, the sex was amazing, and we had loads of fun. I really felt this was going somewhere good, and she always said the same.
Today, out of the blue she dumped me, via text. To quote:
"look, I really like you and everything but I don't know if this is working out like I wanted it to. I think I'm not over my ex and it's not fair on you to keep being led on when I'm not as emotionally invested as you deserve. I love our time together, but if this carries on I'll only end up hurting you."
I met up with her afterwards, we talked, it was obvious there was nothing I could do to change anything.
I know that I need to move on, I know I just need to put this down to experience, but this one is eating me up.
For the last 2 years I've been in a string of empty, disposable relationships/one night stands, and finally someone came and snapped me out of it. We were both happy, and there was no sign of anything being wrong. Scratch that, there was nothing wrong. She even said so herself. And that's what I don't know how to deal with. I've been in plenty of relationships, and things have gone wrong towards the end, and even though it's sucked to break up, there was a part of me that knew it was the right thing to do. But this just strikes me as completely fucking wrong.
In a way I do understand it. It's not a great situation to be with someone when you're still not over someone else. But they split up YEARS ago, and there's no chance of them really getting back together. And I know when it comes to emotional issues it's stupid to try and put reasons to things - you can't help the way you feel.
But still, I can't reconcile this whole thing. We were happy, ridiculously compatible, and everything was great. And I think more than anything I don't know how to deal with that.
I know there are plenty of fish in the sea, and all those platitudes, but I've done a fucking shitton of fishing, and I don't think I've ever come across something this awesome before. I'm not going to be so melodramatic as to suggest that I'll never come across anything like this again, but I do feel genuinely doubtful that I could.
I'm really fucking lost here.
Hikkins on
0
Posts
The breaking up via text is fucking cowardly. That is all I have to say about that. Though it could have been worse.
But that being said, her reasoning is not uncommon or invalid. Perhaps the quickest way to feel better (which you DO NOT have to do - don't feel forced) is to accept the reality of the situation, and more importantly, understand why things are the way they are. It's kind of her (if it is indeed the case) to let you know that she isn't over her ex, or that she has other misgivings and it's not fair to you to lead you on and further with the impression that those feelings don't exist. We've all had a relationship (or two...) where one or the other had second thoughts or conflicted emotions about a relationship but masked them to our significant others because we really wanted it to work out.
It'll get easier over time.
It's going to take time, but try not to let it eat at you. It sounds like she was pretty clear that there was nothing you could have done differently, or nothing you could have not done, to make things better. It's her problem, and that shit just happens sometimes.
Did you know she had baggage from her ex? Like, was it a nasty breakup? We've all had bad breakups, and the fact is that even if you meet the right person you might (consciously or unconsciously) skip them over because you're just not in that state of mind. She's gotta be able to take care of her own shit before she can be in a relationship, and if it's any consolation it's probably a pretty jarring epiphany for her to realize she isn't.
The best advice I can give is to give yourself space from her. I stayed in touch for a long while and it made everything a million times harder. I didn't really start to recover until I finally realized I couldn't do it anymore (see her as just a friend) and cut off all contact. It's incredibly difficult to do this (you'll convince yourself you might still win her back) but it is the right thing.
Also try to come to terms with the fact that you'll probably never get an answer or reason that satisfies you.
I wish you the best though man, its a sucky thing to go through.
That said, I am having a pretty hard time keeping my shit together. I'd try and do something constructive, but I'm new in this city and don't know anyone/have any kind of social activities, so I'm a little boned.
To answer mr mich's question - no, I had no idea she still wasn't over this guy. When it comes to stuff like this she's actually pretty well adjusted. She's not really the type for emotional hangups. Or so I thought anyway.
I sent her an e-mail explaining my feelings and asking for some answers about half an hour ago. Hopefully she'll reply and shed some light on things, maybe even give me some closure. On the other hand, I could be back here imploding all over again. Fingers crossed for the former.
Yeah, this.
There's probably no way to make you understand this now, but "answers" like the ones you seek simply don't exist, and even if they did, they wouldn't be any help. The reason your mind understands holds no sway over your heart.
Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Last.fm | Pandora | LibraryThing | formspring | Blue Moon over Seattle (MCFC)
This, except for the fact that she was very clear what was going on in her head, from the sound of things. She is not over her ex and don't want to lead you on. That is the only answer to be had, here. You might not like it, but it is still the answer, and all attempts to badger her into making up a new one that you will like better are all but guaranteed to make everybody feel worse.
What exactly is it that you want her to tell you? What do you think you could possibly hear that will give you the closure you feel you need?
I never got any real reason then, but I did follow the good advice given in this thread and just broke off having contact with her. No good can come of it.
Much later down the line I pieced things together a bit from the very little info she gave me, info from what others gave me, and my gut intuition and realized she had been cheating on me. It still hurt hearing about it years after, but it would have royally fucked my day up to hear that from her at the time.
So yeah, cowboy up and move on. To paraphrase The Dark Knight, she's the girl you want, not the one you deserve.
You deserve better.
Okay, so first, there's no such thing as closure. At least not in the way you are thinking. There is nothing she can possibly tell you that will make this better. There IS no explanation that will take away the hurt or speed up the process. In fact, contacting her actually does the opposite. Time is the only way to get closure, and time is always the only thing that will bring closure. Don't fall into the trap that you need something to move on from this. The only thing you need is time, and fortunately you'll get that no matter what.
This isn't a good attitude to have. Belittling the girl is not something you should be doing in this situation.
She was honest and upfront with the OP, I can't imagine anything better than that.
Huh? She broke up with him in a text message - for me, that's good enough reason to belittle her, but I really didn't do that. You'd know it if I were to belittle her.
I said the OP can do better - as in find a person who doesn't walk away from her relationships with only a modicum of formality because she's too much of a coward to break up with him to his face. On the grand spectrum of break-up etiquette, she could have only done worse if she had just suddenly refused to answer his phone calls.
Ideally the people we like wouldn't break up with us at all, but given the info I have, I'm perfectly content in reiterating that there are people out there who will afford him better treatment than what he got.
This is simply a relationship that wasn't going to go anywhere. It's over now.
Skoal Cat is correct. Besides, she met up with him right after to talk about it. Nothing cowardly there.
I've grown into a much better person though all of my breakups. Ideally there will be one person who doesn't break up with me and we grow old together etc etc, but I've really cared about several people. Its a good thing all of those relationships ended, because now I'm seeing someone amazing.
And there are people who will do worse. She texted, met up, discussed, and was pretty direct with her feelings. That's pretty damn good in my book. Breaking up with someone does not make a person terrible. It's easy to think that way when you're hurt, but it's not actually reasonable.
Astoundingly true.
Because yes, they did run you through the ringer, and it's hard to be held up as a good person when you are ultimately hurting somebody. Them's the breaks. Be prepared for vilification.
But again, I'm a strict judge of character. Lots of people are saints during the relationship. Not so many can keep it up when it comes time to make the hard choices.
(I have other reasons, from the info given, to feel comfortable telling the OP that there are better people out there, but that is neither here nor there. The important part is that he moves on.)
Straight up nailed it. You want to understand what happened, but there's not really anything to understand. She may have been honest about why she left you, she may have made up an excuse to protect you. You have no way of really knowing for sure unless you can read minds. You should stop looking for answers from her because those answers won't really help you in any meaningful way even if she obliges.
Break ups suck man, no two ways about it. We all know this. I'm nearly five months out of a two and a half year relationship with the girl of my dreams. It was mainly due the strain that we put our relationship under by doing long distance (she's been studying Music in Leeds, and I've been at Drama School in London.) I'm doing ok, but I went over to YouTube today to clean out my channel and found a little comment from a year ago, on the first video I posted.
"I love you xxx"
And that hit me like a hammer in the face.
And he break up itself was hard for me, living in a mostly unfamiliar City. I was at Drama School with a bunch of awesome guys and gals, but I'd segregated myself from them with my and Jess's long distance relationship to the point that after Jess and I broke up, they felt like strangers. My close friend who I live with was busy with a new girlfriend at the time so my main support was gone. It's really tough, no doubt.
Now, this chick, even though she's severed all contact with me, still has the capacity to kick my arse nearly five months later. And I know it's because I didn't take the advice that everyone's giving here and just leave it alone, don't go looking for closure or some kind of reconciliation. You won't find it. I'm still suffering for it now because I refused to let go. I didn't sever contact with her straight away, I tried to be friends, called her, spoke to her over Facebook. And that was how I found out about her new boyfriend, via her friggin' Relationship Status, less than a month after she left me. And that changed everything, made me bitter, made me even less willing to let go. Not healthy.
It'll save you some pain in the long run man. Try and take some comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone in feeling like this.
Decide on the next line by the rhyme when I choose it.
Also I put songs on YouTube
The musings of this lonely rube.
I made a thread once. It didn't end well for me.
And to be clear, let's not villify her here. Aside from the fact that this came by text, everything else was pretty good about our break up. Quite frankly, I appreciate the fact that she has been direct with me, met up with me and talked to me about the situation. And like it's been said earlier in the thread, not being over your ex is a pretty fair reason to end a relationship.
When I saw her on Sunday, I think I was still in too much shock to actually ask half of the stuff I wanted to know, and given that she was quite on the spot, I don't think she really had all the answers to the questions I did ask. But given that things did end pretty amicably, I thought it would be worth just getting those last few things off my mind. And honestly, I feel much better for just having written that message, even if I don't get any response.
I know from past experience that cutting all contact is definitely the only way forward in this situation, so unless we can somehow rectify our relationship, which I'm not hopeful of, then that's what I'll be doing.
I guess what's hard for me, as I've said before, is that this has come completely out of the blue, when everything was going amazingly. Usually somewhere down the line you can look back at a break up and think, yeah, that had to happen. You can look back and take some kind of lesson from it, like "no more crazy chicks", and "try to be a little less high strung next time". I can't help but think that the only thing I'm going to get from looking back at this is "you can do everything right and still get screwed", and I'm finding that in particular hard to deal with.
I want to start moving on from this as soon as possible, but I don't know where to begin. I've only been living in this city for a few weeks, I'm a huge distance away from my friends, I often have to work fairly anti-social hours so it's hard to even go out and make new friends. So that's just leaving me feeling even lonlier. I'm probably going to end up spending a lot of time in the gym just to keep myself occupied, but that's not particularly much of a solution to anything. I'm open to suggestions here.
Every time I feel this way (as someone who's moved a lot so been in this situation) I pick up a new hobby that will force me to go somewhere and meet people, what it is isn't important; the hobby is just a medium by which to socialise. I've worked a lot of jobs with tough hours so I appreciate it's sometimes difficult to find something to do, but the best thing you can have is a good circle of friends close to you who you can see all the time and you can only find that by being out there meeting new people.
edit: plus some of these new friends will turn out to be pretty women which is a good thing
Actually it is perhaps the best solution possible. Working out is very good for your mental state, and is also very good for your physical state, which helps with confidence and gives you a better sense of wellbeing. Going to the gym is excellent.
To help with adjusting to being in a new city, perhaps take up some kind of class if there is anything that interests you. Language classes for example can be a lot of fun if there's a language you've always wanted to know more about. And you get to meet people, often quite different people than you would ordinarily meet, which is interesting. That's just one idea, you could do cooking, pottery, flower arranging, astronomy... just an idea anyway
Going to the gym is a great idea. Totally do that.
I didn't do it over an ex or anything, but it was absolutely 100% out of the blue for her, because up until the day I left her everything was completely fine (at least on the surface of course).
Just to let you know, I was an idiot and listened to her when she said she was cool being friends... fast forward over two years later, I pick up a new GF and she basically loses her shit over it... like we had just broken up all over again.
Don't hang on - I know you've said you won't, but make sure you hold firm. I really really liked my ex (but for a variety of reasons I won't go into) she just wasn't the girl for me. I would give anything to be friends and I realise now that my only chance at that happening was when I had the chance to cut her off for awhile. Now at this rate she's just going to end up as a name on my FB page... which makes me sad.
It's weird, in a way it's like the wound has been reopened. On the other hand, she looked fucking miserable, and I'm almost taking some solace from that. Not in some perverse way, like I want to see her suffer, because I don't. But I guess I was just worried that this whole thing was one sided, and didn't mean much to her, but maybe it did.
I think overall I'm feeling better today than yesterday, and yesterday was better than the day before. I am determined to get over this as cleanly as possible. But I guess ultimately, we live in the same city, go to the same gym, frequent the same bars - we're going to bump in to each other. I think in the spirit of trying to get over her and cutting contact, on those occasions when we do end up in the same places, I'm just going to have to try and ignore her. But I know I'm just going to end up staring at her, or feeling some sense of longing. I know for the time being at least, I'm drawn to her.
The obvious answer would just be don't go anywhere she does, but that leaves me stuck at home without anything to do. I don't want to spend my time tiptoeing around her. So what should I do?
Do what you want to do. You're already hitting the gym, which is excellent on several levels. Catch a movie, or rent one, or pop in a DVD you enjoy. Read, hit up Steam for a cheap deal or three, hang out with some friends you haven't seen in a while, just try to relax and go with what you decide you want to do. Listen to that little voice in your head for suggestions.
I lived with someone for a year not too far back and when she dumped me somewhat out of the blue I was in fairly rough shape. But I started up at the gym again, caught up on a couple seasons of shows I'd missed or heard good things about, read a bunch and tore through some of my backlog on Steam. You're not going to bounce back in a day or week or a month, but bit by bit, you'll feel better, it'll hurt less, and you'll find your center again. It's traumatic to go through a breakup of any sort, so let yourself grieve the loss and begin the road to recovery. Everyone hits a stumbling point of some sort now and then, but you'll get past it and be strong for this experience.
Man, I did that once. I still feel like a jackass...I saw her and things were fine, didn't see her for a week and the next time we went out I dumped her.
Looking back I honestly don't know how I could have done thing differently but...*sigh*. It still bugs me. I still think about her every now and then, I just hope she ended up happy.
@OP: Good luck dude, I've been there before. It blows, but time heals, blah, blah.