Next steps...

[cjd1955]

Warning - this is a long read. Really appreciate anyone taking the time to read it.

 

Back Story:

 

We met in 2011 abroad through a friend when I was on holiday. What was just a casual conversation over a burger turned into a Facebook connection, and talk of grabbing a beer in London one day when she moves over.

 

Fast-forward to early 2012 and I get a message out of the blue saying she has moved to London, is looking for people to hang out with. Conveniently, she’s staying with a friend living just a few minutes away.

 

The rest from that point is history – we ended up becoming official a few months after and in terms of experiences and life together, I have just had the best 3 and half years of my life. I was (and still am) convinced she is my soul mate. This relationship became the most important thing in the world to me - thinking back to how we met, through to the life we have built in London, and how we constantly challenging ourselves to have new experiences and grow together has been more than I could have ever dreamed of.

 

There were always bigger questions – she doesn’t have a visa to stay so is tidied to her current company who have sponsored her (and could end anytime), I have ambitions to get the strongest CV I can get in order to have the best chances of starting again when she eventually wants to move home, and I would go with her. When that is, whether we want to travel beforehand, how much money we need to do it etc. are all things that we danced around the edges of in recent years. At the beginning though, we did have a serious conversation about this and committed to this being the real deal, given the big decisions like these that might come down the line.

 

She is the most amazing person I have ever met. She is also my best friend. She deserves nothing but the best. To be so happy, loved, respected and appreciated at all times.

 

After the honeymoon period, life in London got on top of me more often than I would have liked and I had a really hard time not letting this spill over into my relationship. It's been a roller-coaster ride of juggling priorities, people and personal issues over the past two years that has clouded my thoughts and vision. Things like changing jobs, and taking on much more responsibility, having knee surgery and taking a long time to recover, and playing the renting game in London and dealing with living in places I didn’t want to.

 

At the end of last year we decided to move into together in March this year, which again caused a lot of stress – I struggled to deal with the frantic nature of London accommodation and didn’t place enough trust that ‘everything will just work out’. We eventually found a dream place, with plenty of time to spare, but I made this much harder for her than it needed to be. I was just inexperienced, stupid, and unable to see sense.

 

There is a fundamental difference between us – I can bounce out of frustrations of arguments the following day, eventually forgetting these moments even happened. She remembers, keeps it all bottled up and lets it chip away at her happiness. It’s a trait of my personality – I can be irrational one minute, perfect and loving the next. I’ve always wanted to fix it (for me, and for our relationship), but never understood how much it was affecting her and us until it was too late.

 

I hate to use this as an excuse, but because of everything going on I really struggled to see clearly – perhaps not being able to pick up on the warning signs, being able to prioritise her and our relationship, and being able to put things into perspective.

 

As a side note, 18 months ago, we nearly broke up. She wanted to end it but we managed to talk it through and we both said that we actually didn’t want to end it, we just wanted change. As a result, I bucked my ideas up – changed things in my life, dealt with stress better and things took a turn for the better.

 

We then had another year of great times – moving into together etc. but the niggles have returned – I eventually returned back to my old ways and have not done anything about it. Unfortunately, we didn’t have an ultimatum conversations (which is what I think I respond best to), and I wasn’t able to see the light soon enough.

 

We have unbelievable memories together. We are alike in so many ways and like I said in the beginning, there have never been any questions about our compatibility or ability to have fun. Amazing holidays, great nights out in the city, but the frustrations and little niggles would become more frequent, because of me.

 

We broke up 2 weeks ago. 3 months after moving in together. She has moved out and is currently staying with friends whilst the dust settles and we sort out what we’re going to do about the flat. I had slowly nudged her closer and closer to the cliff edge and now she’s fallen off, the spark has gone and although it’s clearly incredible hard for her (even a few weeks ago we were on holiday having a great time), she has clearly got to the point where she had to build up the courage after thinking about it for some time. I am still living in the flat with all her stuff around – it’s hard.

 

Since then, I am blaming myself for pushing away the best thing to have ever happened to me. I have excelled in every other area of my life but have monumentally failed to fix the most important thing in my life. I am crushed but tried to put as much energy (productive or not) into figuring out what I can do to talk this through to her.

 

I sent an unprompted email 5 days afterwards explaining how I felt and that I wanted to fight for this relationship. It needed to be made black and white and now I can finally see what I did wrong. In summary:

 

• Not opening up to you about personal issues if I don't feel like it.

• Not respecting you as an equal partner in this relationship.

• Being too selfish and losing focus on what’s important for us, not just me.

• Not respecting important things to you and being your true partner – like when I resist being active on the weekends and getting involved with your friends. I know how important this is to you.

• Not recognising when there are actions I should take that would mean a lot to you.

 

I have committed to getting better. I’m booked into talk to a counsellor to talk through why I’m irrational and let stress get on top of me. I’m also a lot clearer on how important she is to me after being clouded about it all for so long.

 

We met up a few days after the email to talk it through. She’s obviously going through a really hard time. I said my piece and thought I might have been making progress to talk it over. Unfortunately after doing a few loops of saying the same thing in different ways, she said there is nothing I could say or do to change her mind right now. She needs time to do her own thing, and doesn’t see her feelings coming back. She made that clear.

 

I feel like I am still in denial about it all. I can’t see a scenario where she moves out for good. We've come so far. I am now giving her some space. Trying to get my life back, but can’t shake this urge to keep thinking of how I can fix myself for our relationship. To me, it doesn’t feel like I’ve done something fundamentally bad – I just need to get my priorities back in order and mature a little.

 

We’re going to have to meet again to talk through the flat logistics and divide up stuff at some point in the future. At the moment, we're not in contact. My hope is, however slim that might be, is that if I can focus on giving her some space and focus on resetting me and my mind, we can have an honest re-assessment of whether there is any other chance when we eventually get round to the reality of packing up the flat together.

 

So – in summary:

 

How am I feeling right now?

 

• Helpless - like there is nothing I can do to fix this

• Devastated that I have lost my soul mate, the love of my life

• Sad that I didn’t see and fix my faults earlier

• Stressed about a now uncertain future (living situation, moving abroad, staying in London)

• Can’t help but cling onto hope that probably isn’t there

• Like it’s all my fault

• Like my happiness will never return

• Like I will regret this and miss her forever

 

What am I going to do about it?

 

• Give her some space and time

• Create a better version of myself

• Speak to someone professional about my feelings

• Learn to communicate better

• Learn to just deal with this

• Stop letting it crush my life

• Not contact anyone associated to her

• Not look at anything to do with her (photos, facebook, instagram, twitter)

 

I'm not able to stay strong, especially every morning I wake up. I am able to not contact her, but the rest of the things are so hard - I can't see which way is up.

 

There aren't necessarily any questions for the community here – I just wanted to get my story out there, and see whether anyone has any thoughts. Would love to hear some reflections.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Edited July 7, 2015 by cjd1955

[d0nnivain]

At bottom I read that you have different communications and conflict resolution styles. You lash out but when you are done, your slate is wiped clean & you are ready to move on. She internalizes everything you say & each time you do an emotional dump you hurt her more and more.

 

 

Sadly, to me that makes you fundamentally incompatible. I'm more like you. I let it all out & then I feel better. I never did well with partners who took my emotional release more seriously then the opening of the pressure valve it was. While I have learned to be more sensitive & circumspect in my releases, I cautioned my husband early on that when I'm yelling, ranting & raving it's no big deal because as soon as I'm quiet I'm better. If I stew & quietly & carefully chose my words, watch out then this is not going away after a few minutes. He understands & just lets me vent without really paying attention to me. Your GF can't do that & you end up repeatedly hurting her.

 

 

Perhaps this has therefore run it's course.

[cjd1955]

Thank you d0nnivain. I fully understand your point.

 

The thing is, I do need to fix this, regardless. I am actually starting with a Counsellor tomorrow to try and fix it - it's not just with my relationship, it's always been a side of my personality that I have always had a problem with and this has been the catalyst to finally make this change and make it right.

 

The things I've noted down for objectives:

 

- Get a happier disposition:

- Management of my temper

- Ability to always treat my loved ones right

- Ability to always see the bigger picture

 

- Management of the breakup trauma:

- Need to be right for a new job starting in a few weeks time

- Understand why / how I let this go wrong

 

- Advice on how to fix my relationship:

- Help with showing my soul mate how I will change, even though we're apart now

 

I want to do this for me, but I also don't want this to turn into is one of the hardest lessons of my life - forever losing the girl of my dreams because I didn't see this as not acceptable sooner.

 

We will have to speak and probably meet again to arrange our flat logistics and divide things up. I am hoping this is in a few weeks and I have an opportunity to divert this conversation with some flowers, some immediate changes I've made and show her I have a new way of thinking.

 

Not sure whether that is killing my ability to come to terms with what has happened though in the meantime.

 

For now - I'm not in contact with her, haven't been since last week when we meet up to talk about things.