Ex broke up with me, said some strange things...

[Bandit01]

Hi.

 

Okay so this is weird. My ex boyfriend of around 4 months broke up with me around a week ago. It's long, and confusing, and i'll try and give as much detail as possible.

 

I'm 21 and he's 23. We're both guys -obviously a gay relationship.

He's the type of guy that loves spending time with his friends, as well as going out drinking at any given opportunity. I've known this from the start and it hasn't ever been a problem - I've always been fine to let him do what he wants.

 

Anyways everything with us started pretty quickly, we started seeing each other, spending a lot of time together, and then around two weeks into this, he asked me if we could put a label on it. I obviously said yes. A couple of days after this, he told me he loved me, to which i replied that i loved him too. I was telling the truth.

 

Everything was good, you know? I lived in my father's house at the time, although my father lived with his wife elsewhere. So me and my ex pretty much had the house to ourselves, could do what we wanted when we wanted etc, and it ended up that he stayed at my house every night for around a month or so - we'd practically moved in together.

 

It was at this time that we decided we would go to a theme park for a weekend, but the day before this he said we'd needed to talk and said he didn't know if a relationship was for him - he said that he really liked me and had fallen in love with me but he didn't know if it was the right thing - he said it could cause problems down the line as he would potentially end up picking his friends over me and didn't want to hurt me. We talked about it and agreed to try and see how we got on. We agreed that, if we had no plans (such as going out for dinner or a movie, etc) and he decided he wanted to spend time with his friends even if we had plans to do something like watching a movie in the house, then this was fine.

 

This rarely happened - we spent a lot of time together still and things returned to normal. Obviously we had little spats over stupid things and ended up bickering but this was always resolved quickly and through talking. We didn't have a big argument at all throughout the relationship.

 

I'd like to think i was a good boyfriend - I tried to make him happy, and was there for him when he needed me. I wasn't clingy, i didn't blow his phone up all day every day, we just maintained contact and if he was busy i let him come to me. I also really, truly loved him.

 

Having talked to him about the relationship, he said that problems started a few weeks ago, when he and his parents had an argument, and his dad ended up trying to get him to leave home. It was a stressful time, and because i had moved in with my dad and his wife, it wasn't like he could just come stay at mine without any problems. Long story short he did come stay with us for a night, but this wasn't anything out of the ordinary - this happened frequently, a few times a week, so it wasn't like this was a new thing. At this point i'd been living in my stepmom's house for around a month.

 

Anyway so getting past that, he'd stayed without much problem, and it turned out that he and his parents patched things up and he went back home. a week later, he went on vacation to greece with his friends on a party holiday. During this week, i let him call / text me - who wants to be bothered by their boyfriend all day when they're having a good time in a foreign country? I was surprised. Every chance he got, he text me, called me, and told me he really missed me and loved me and all of that. He's not really affectionate most of the time, so this surprised me. I thought it was probably just because he missed me. He told me he couldn't wait to see me when he got home.

 

So he returned home and things were okay - we spent a lot of time together because i had a couple week's holiday at work, and he hadn't returned to work just yet. Then, on sunday, he called saying we needed to talk. He drove to me and we ended up sitting in his car talking. It was so weird - he held my hand, told me he 'loved me, absolutely adored me' but that this relationship was not making him happy at the moment, and that the best thing to do right now is break up. He said he didn't want to drag it out by becoming more and more unhappy and ending it down the line with us hating each other.

 

This was the only reason he gave; i obviously asked questions, tried to delve a little deeper, but he said he didn't know, just that something was making him unhappy. he said that it was nothing that i'd done, and that feelings had definitely not changed, he was still attracted to me, and there was nobody else, but he just wasn't happy any more. He told me that he was definitely not writing it off completely for the future, but he didn't want me to wait for him if something / somebody came along that made me happy.

 

He told me that two people who love each other and end on good terms generally gravitate back together, and he said that this was quite possible, though he didn't want to make any promises. He said that he could realise he made a mistake and come crawling back in 3 days, or he could be sending me a 'congratulations on your engagement' card in 3 years time. He said he just didn't know.

 

I told him i would miss him, and he replied by saying 'not half as much as i'm going to miss you'. He told me that he'd never felt like this about anybody else; he'd been in one serious relationship before, but he'd said prior to all of this that that had turned out to be more of a friends-with-benefits thing over a longer period of time. he said you didn't know real love until you had it, and that what he had with me was it.

 

I took the breakup well; put on a brave face and didn't cry, even though i was absolutely heartbroken. I've been a mess these past couple of days, but haven't contacted him because we agreed not to talk until the dust settled.

 

At first i thought he was just letting me down gently by saying all of that stuff, but he said he was being completely honest with me. Letting somebody down gently is saying 'i'm sorry, i will always care for you but this isn't right for me, we can still be friends'.

Instead, he said 'i worship the ground you walk on, adore you, i've never felt this way about anybody, but i'm not happy. I'm certainly not saying no to us in the future, but for right now, this is the best thing for both of us. I don't want you gone out of my life completely'.

Like i'd said, throughout the breakup we were holding hands, laughing and joking between talking, everything seemed pretty normal aside from the whole breaking up thing. He kissed me, hugged me, and told me he was going to miss me a lot more than i would miss him. He told me he loved me but for right now this was the best thing to do.

 

Asking people that have an outsider's view on it. They said that he seems to really love me but doesn't know what he wants, whether he's ready for a relationship or not, and is more than likely to realise and come back. Obviously, this is what I want. I have a gut feeling that things aren't done between us, you know? You don't say all of that stuff to somebody when you're breaking up with them unless you're pretty cruel, and i know he's not that type of person.

 

So i'm asking for your views, what do you think is going through his head? Will he come back? And how do i facilitate getting back in contact with him? We've not spoken for around a week now, though i've been missing him like crazy, i've restrained. I guessed that with time, he will contact me when he feels ready. But i want him back.

 

Help?

 

I'll try and answer any questions as fully as possible..

 

Thanks in advance.

[Ronni_W]

I call that the coward's way to break-up.

He was just blowing smoke up your snatch...to make it as easy as possible ON HIM.

 

It sounds like he knows exactly what he wants...the people who are trying to offer you comfort may be giving you just false hope instead.

 

It sucks, I know.

Big hugs.

[Survivor12]

The word "love" can be used to mean many different things, and there are many different kinds of love.

 

It sounds to me as though he cares for you a lot. He doesn't want to hurt you or for you to be hurt, he enjoys your company, he thinks you are a good person, and he wants you to be happy. Those feelings can be considered "love"...but it's not the kind of love that can sustain a romantic relationship.

 

Having love for someone does not necessarily mean that you are "in love" with them. Being "in love" is much more "internal"--a part of you & who you are. Being "in love" stimulates chemicals in the brain that creates feelings of comfort, happiness & satisfaction.

 

Ironically, being "in love" is really more about oneself whereas having love for someone is more about who they are. (Hence, the expression "you can't help who you fall in love with"--it is possible to fall in love with a person who has few redeeming qualities.)

 

On the other hand, we may love people for who they are--because they have lovable qualities--and that kind of love isn't so much about ourselves but about THEM.

 

Then, there is Agape love which isn't really about ourselves or them (look it up if you don't know what it is; it can be enlightening)...

 

My point is that it seems that your "friend" thinks highly of you and cares very much for you (which is a form of love) but isn't "in love" with you. Because there is a physical attraction as well, he may not himself understand why he isn't "feeling it" it in a relationship with you.

 

You may want him back, but even if he were to come back, unless his feelings for you change, you will only be setting yourself up for more disappointment.

My advice is not to contact him. If he hasn't contacted you, nothing has changed. If he does, be cautious...don't assume that he feels the same way you do. Guard your emotions and go slow.

 

In the meantime, look forward, not back. Don't hang on to hope...it won't MAKE him come back or change how he feels. Regardless of what has happened between you or what he has said, the fact is, he's not with you now. Thats the reality that you need to work from going forward.

 

I know it's not easy to let go of someone you love, but life does go on. Trust me, I'm living proof I never thought I could be happy again, but I am. You will be, too. Good luck

[Mrlonelyone]

Four months is very fast for moving in with someone. While there are times that does work out it usually does not.

 

It is my observation that when things work out LONG term it is a slow steady burn. One cannot sustain white hot passion and when that passion fades it feels like love fading.