for an overly friendly ex!

[Mythodea]

People, I need some advise quickly, please!

 

Background

 

My ex girlfriend of four years broke up with me three months ago. During the first couple of months she was really cold and even mean to me several times.

 

But then, about three weeks ago, we had a really deep conversation and she went from being the proud, mean ex to a really nice person who apparently really cares about me and that I'm doing well and I'm happy.

 

She began dating another guy two weeks after the break up, and she's still with him. I decided I didn't want to get involved with other people yet so I'm still on my own.

 

Problem

 

About three days ago, I had a really really terrible experience that really crushed me and I couldn't avoid calling her for support. She was extremely nice to me, helped me out with the whole thing, calmed me down, talked me up about the situation I went through and even called my family to make sure everyone was ok. When I finally got home from the incident, we Skyped for hours and we even fell asleep together (like we used to when we were together); when I woke up in the morning, there she was still on Skype, smiling at me.

 

For the past two days she has been texting me really nice things and even sending me quotes that will cheer me up and give me strength. She is just so supportive!

 

As you can probably guess, this is driving me nuts because she's clearly doing this as a friend who apparently really and genuinely cares about me because she told me during the conversation we had that she was not going to get back with me right now because she thinks it's too soon for me to have really changed the things she didn't like about me; plus she's already seeing someone else and she says it's not fair for her, the other guy or me to leave open doors with other people. She thinks that she is either fully in with the guy or not at all, no half-open doors with anyone else. We did agree that maybe one day in the future we will meet and give our relationship a second chance. That we should just trust that God will give us what's best for us and that if we're really meant for each other, we'll find our way back to each other.

 

Solution

 

When we broke up I went NC for about a month and it really helped me, but it didn't improve my chances since she was extremely happy with her new life.

 

After NC I came back to make subtle attempts at getting her back but she was just unresponsive to them. She would talk to me but she wouldn't agree for us to see each other at all.

 

I eventually realized it was pointless to keep trying at that moment so I stopped and just focused on myself. Except for the time I asked her to have the deep conversation three weeks ago and the call from three days ago, I have never tried to contact her or anything. But a week doesn't go by when she doesn't text me or gets in touch with me in some sort of way.

 

My dilemma is that I don't want to be rude and just ignore her, so I reply briefly and politely to her messages. And at the same time, I don't know how could I possibly ask her to stop contacting me when she has been so supportive lately and she is really getting out of her way to make sure I'm fine and staying positive.

 

If she weren't seeing anyone else this would be a great oppotunity for us to reconnect, but she seems really involved with the other guy and she clearly told me she's just doing this to support me and making sure I'm fine.

 

Request

 

I really don't know how to handle the situation because attempting to reconnect with her will probably not bring her closer to me as a partner and it will just make her life easier for her new relationship. But on the other hand, even when I plan on going extremely low contact with her, she gets in touch with me way more often than I plan on talking to her.

 

I don't want to fall into the ex friend-zone, because I saw how that's like since while she was with me she was great friends with one of her ex boyfriends and I would hate to be that guy as well. I don't want her as a friend, I want her as my partner.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much!

Edited August 23, 2014 by Mythodea

[seekingpeaceinlove]

What do we know here:

 

1.) Your ex is in a relationship now with no intention to leave.

2.) You cannot handle a friendship with her

 

You need to look after yourself and go NC indefinitely. If will not be rude if you tell her that you've greatly appreciated her support and friendship in the last month but that you realize that you cannot continue staying in contact with her since you are trying to heal and move on with your life. Tell her to please respect your request. You don't need to say anything else.

 

Remain NC and push forward with moving on with your life. Don't feel guilty. Your ex is happily in a relationship with someone else. You don't owe her anything and if she's a decent person, she'll respect your wishes and leave you alone to heal.

 

Good luck and stay strong!

[Mythodea]

Thank you for your advice!

 

While I am willing to go NC indefinetely if that's what it takes, I would still like to have a long-term plan for reconciliation.

 

It's true that NC is great for getting yourself together and moving on, but it doesn't fix anything between you and your ex-partner. Only communication will get things fixed and sorted out.

 

I do acknowledge right now is not the proper time for such communication but what would you say is a solid plan for reconciliation in the future?

[elseaacych]

There are no solid plans for reconciliation on the dumpee's part.

 

Hear me out.

 

You have no timeline.

 

If you go after her, or keep responding to her, she's just going to lose respect for you more than she already has. So cut her loose, graciously. Say to yourself: I need to love me first. Go NC. Block her everywhere, except for one or two lines that you know she won't use unless she's seriously looking to get back to you. But keep her contact information locked away.

 

She has not done that for you. She moved on within two weeks after a four year relationship. That is not emotionally healthy, dumper or dumpee. And here's the thing, if you let her keep acting buddy buddy with you, you will get put in the friend zone, and you will be her emotional chew toy. And she will chew on you at will.

 

You need to take a look at what your relation really looked like. This will take you probably a couple months to sort out because emotional traumas like this are not solved in a day long think session. Revelations come in fits and spurts.

 

Given that she has decided to move on, you need to move on as well. If she comes back to you before you've had the chance to go experience life without her, there will be resentment on your part because she's gone out and experienced life and love somewhere else while you got deprived of the opportunity. You know she can leave you, and will leave you at any time. You need to build up confidence in yourself, and in love. Go out, have fun, fall in love. You have to want to do so, though.

 

Most of all, do things for you that only you can do for you. Get yourself some life experience. Give yourself permission to love someone else, or not, for awhile on your own timeframe.

 

You will know when you can contact her again. And that is about 3 months after the date that a mention of her name or your past relationship does not give you pause, does not make you feel as though you just got shot through the heart. When you've gone through all the emotions, love, hate, despair, knocking her off the pedestal, putting her back, and then knocking her off again, nothing, then only to feel a faint remembrance of good days gone by. Maybe three months after that is when you contact her.

 

But you should also be living your life, because only by living your life to it's fullest, without her, can you get to that point where you can contact her. Or rather, she should contact you. Which do you think would be most effective? You asking her back, where you don't know where she stands, risking rejection? Or, her begging for you back, where you both are on the same page? You have no idea when that could possibly be.

 

You really only have two choices here, and they can't be put on a timeline.

Edited August 23, 2014 by elseaacych

[Mythodea]

God damn how come I didn't find this forum earlier. Thank you for that advice as well!

 

I know calling her in such emotional state was not the best thing to do, but I was just overwhelmed and couldn't help it. But you're right, she has apparently moved on to someone else and staying buddies will do no good, specially for me.

 

I have thought long and hard about our relationship and came up with some good conclusions. And actually, thanks to this forum I discovered the GIG Syndrome, which I have never even heard about before and as it turns out, it perfectly fits what happened, so I can pretty safely say she's experiencing GIGS.

 

I acknowledge I'm still very attached to her, but I also have a burning desire inside of me to go out and meet new people and experience new things. See what else is out there, fall in love again or maybe just have some crazy adventure with someone. It's a bit hard to do because I keep thinking about her all the time and I compare everyone I meet to her, but at least I am able to recognize it when it happens and then I try to stop doing it.

 

It's really tough to think about cutting her loose but I understand it's for the best. So if she keeps contacting me in the friendly buddy buddy way, I'll just have to grit my teeth and do it. I understand what you mean when you say there is no such thing as a reconciliation plan nor a timeline for it. I guess the best way to put it is as a friend did: "your best chance at getting her back is by moving on with your life and being the most successful and happy person you can be". That will attract not only the ex but other women and at that point I might not even want her back because I might have attracted someone even better.

 

Would you agree?

Edited August 24, 2014 by Mythodea

[elseaacych]

Mythodea, I can tell you that it is absolutely the case. I wanted to reconcile with my ex. In fact, I was positive that it was going to happen within six months of the break up. Well, that came and went. Nothing happened. Once I started doing things like working out, taking on new hobbies, going out again, just doing things because they made me happy, did I see improvement in my mood and dating prospects. I felt like I was free to be myself. I went out a couple times with some new friends and had waaay more fun than I did with my ex when we were going through our troubles.

 

However, this does take some time. And you are still likely to go through all the emotions around the breakup. And it can be very ugly. My timeline since the break-up has been about nine months, and it involved five months of clinical depression, therapy and meds. I know I am still not over it. There are still days that I want to hear from him. But, I do not necessarily want to get back with him. Again. You can't put a timeline on your feelings.

 

I would hesitate to call your ex's new relationship GIGS, because she was in a new relationship very shortly after breaking up with you. GIGS is typically classified by a party animal mentality and wanting to go out and live it up. Since she's already in a new relationship, it looks more like she was having at the very LEAST an emotional affair during the end of your relationship. How this impacts her trajectory, I cannot tell you, but you cannot base how you live your life on how YOU think her life is going, because:

 

a. You don't know how her life is going

b. She rejected you, and has made it perfectly clear that she wants to move on. Why wait around for someone who, at this point, is only using you for her own emotional benefit, with little regard to your feelings? Seems pretty lame, no?

 

Last thing: I know you may feel some anxiety about cutting her loose. It seems like you are shoving her away forever. But, if you keep her contact information somewhere, you know you will be able to find her. Technology is amazing. If you de-friend her and block her on facebook, you can always unblock her and re-friend her. You can always add her phone number back to her phone. You can look her up in the phonebook if she moves. You are not cutting her loose in the sense you think. You are just giving yourself space to think, and if, in the interim, she wants to put substantial effort into finding you, she can.

 

Bottom line: Do not wait around for someone who isn't giving you the respect you deserve. Go out and live your life. You will be a much happier, healthier, ergo more attractive individual.

 

Hope this helps.

[Mythodea]

That really helps indeed!

 

For me it's like whenever I don't talk to her or just don't know anything about her for some time, I slowly but surely start to improve and think less and less about her. Then, all of a sudden, she contacts me in some way and it all comes back. It's frustrating because I love talking to her and hearing from her, but at the same time it doesn't let me move on.

 

That part you mention about "being free to be yourself" is something I am just realizing right now. The problem is that, for example, one of the things she absolutely hated about me was how many hours I would spend playing videogames. So after she broke up with me, I didn't touch a videogame for at least two months, just because I was willing to do and change whatever it took to get her back. But now that I realized she doesn't want me back right now, I figured I was free to go back to that hobby which I so much enjoyed, and I felt so relieved that I could do it freely and without anyone looking over my shoulder! And that applies to other areas such as certain friends of mine I couldn't see very often because she didn't like them or some places where I couldn't go anymore for the same reason. It's really a freeing experience that I need to learn to enjoy to the fullest and most importantly, the thought of finding someone that will accept me as I am and with whom I can do those things I like without it being a problem, gives me hope and puts a smile on my face .

 

I probably didn't explain the GIGS thing enough. I think it is GIGS because she is not in a relationship with the new guy yet, they're just seeing each other. She told my sister at some point she didn't want anything serious with anyone, but that might have changed by now, who knows. And when she broke up with me, she explicitly told me that she felt she was "wasting her youth" since we didn't go out that much anymore. She said she wanted to go out and meet people, socialize, have fun and so on.

 

And so she did, she began smoking out of nowhere the very same day she broke up with me and ever since, all she has been doing is partying, going out, travelling, I know for a fact she has been going hungover to work sometimes, she got a new place with a roomate and she invites people over all the time, stuff like that, party animal stuff indeed.

 

That makes it all that much harder to know she's apparently having the time of her life while I'm having to deal with depression and crying every other day.

 

I have tried to do the same thing and go out as much as possible and meet new people. Some times it has been great and I've felt so well about it, but other times I guess I just did it so I wouldn't have to stay at home alone thiking about her. So I had no energy going into the party and just sat there, bored and depressed about her.

 

I have met some great people though, even a couple of girls and I reconnected with so many friends that I had lost touch with over the years. I can say my social life is definetely getting a great boost, but my love life is another story.

 

Anyways, I'll wait a few more days to see if she's still contacting me, and if she is, I'll probably come back to this forum to get some advice (and courage) to finally cut her loose.

 

Lastly, do you have any movies/shows/books/articles/videos/podcasts or anything that helped you cope with this situation or helped you move on? I've watched a couple of movies that really cracked me up such as "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"... it's a pretty funny movie that just cheers you up and makes you laugh a bit at your situation. Any other suggestions?

[elseaacych]

Whatever you think will lift your spirits. It's up to you. I tried to read Eat, Pray Love (Guy asks for Divorce from self absorbed woman, self absorbed woman goes instead to "find herself" through eating italian food, yoga retreats and other new agey stuff), and really found the narrator to be a whiny little b-tch. Legally Blonde was more my speed, and it was about being awesome after a breakup. I had better luck feeling better about my life when I watched what I wanted to watch, read what I wanted to read, and listened to music I LIKED.

 

That being said, try to stay on the lighter side of things. Nothing too depressing, nothing too sappy or love-y dovey. If you can get your tv watching in at a gym, even better. The key is to be dynamic.

 

Video games and other media are great. I'm a Sims fanatic, and can easily sink hours into my virtual family. However, there comes a time when you have to put them down and actually participate in other activities, because it takes away from developing other sexy hobbies like cooking, art, or playing an instrument. But, if you have a passion for what you like to do, nurture it, because if you can engage someone in a conversation about something you are passionate about, it will shine regardless of the relation to their life.

 

As for the waiting around. Every day you do that, is another day that you could have been out living your best life. Do it now while you have some momentum. DO NOT WAIT AROUND. You've already indicated that you don't want to.

 

So don't.

 

Block. Move on. Be awesome.

[Mythodea]

Thanks for the encouragement, you've been of great help!

 

One final request. Any suggestions on what to say or how to phrase my request for her to stop contacting me?

 

I want to be honest so I'm thinking about telling her that I know she has moved on and I respect that and it's only fair for me to do the same. But I cannot do it if I keep talking to her and seeing her and being all friendly with her. That I enormously appreciate the support she has given me but it's not healthy for me to be doing that. That I need time to heal and move on with my life.

 

I know her and I know she will not contact me if I ask her not to. But at the same time I wouldn't like not to hear from her again for the rest of my life. I'm sure at some point, in a very long time from now, I'll be perfectly fine to talk to her or see her and not feel disturbed at all.

 

How would I phrase this?

 

Also, if she ever is thinking about getting back with me, I would certainly like to know. Even if I cut all communication with her, there are some lines such as e-mail where she can reach me for sure. How should I phrase this?

 

I'm sorry if this is confusing but this might be the last piece of communication I have with her in a very long time so I want it to be as clear and effective as possible. Thanks!