When a girl wants to break up, do they say so clearly or just let you work it out?

[confuuuuused]

OK I would love some advice on how to handle this...

 

Some background first - I met my gf when we were both travelling in Australia (we are both from UK). We became good friends and after a few months started dating. After two months dating we were sharing a flat, to save ££ and we got on so well. Due to visa constraints we had to leave Oz but travelled together for two months. In total we were dating about 4 months, together 24 / 7 for most of that. Everything seemed to be going great. She had some more flights on her ticket while I was broke so she travelled alone another 6 weeks, while I wenr home but we agreed to carry on dating when she got home. She got back, we met up, all was good, spent a week together it was great. Bcos we live at opposite ends of the country we talked about maybe sharing a place to save on rent, looking for jobs in the same city. All good... then she gets offered work on a cruise ship (she has worked on ships before). Great money, only 6 weeks and I had been offered some temp work in NY anyway (which subsequently fell through). It is important to note she has been travelling /working for the last 4 years (she is 25 now and I am 28). But I thought hey, six weeks, thats not too long, we can hook up when she gets back.

 

THEN..they ask her to stay longer (undefined duration) and after some deliberation she agrees. She tells me its because she nees the money plus the work experience is good. Fair enough though I may have acted a little pissed off initially. But then 3 weeks ago she sends me this letter - see below - and now I don;t know what to do. It looks like a cliched way to dump someone - 'it's not you its me, lets be friends, I'm not ready for commitment' - its all there but then she ends saying she doesnt want me to date anyone else. She still calls me pretty regularly and we just chat like nothing happened, just about stuff we've been doing. She still signs off 'Love X' in her emails. It's now 8 months we've been gf/bf, though of that as I said we only spent the first 4 months together plus a week when she came back, she's been on the ship since then. The other thing which plays on my mind is her first boyfriend, they were together 2 years b4 she started travelling, she went away, decided she wanted to end it but didnt know how to so basically dropped the bombshell a year later when she came home - she said she didnt want to do it to him by email / phone. But I'm thinking, poor guy, he waited a whole year for nothing (she was even seeing other people abroad) - and more importantly, I don't want the same thing to happen to me.

 

So, on the one hand, do I read between the lines that she wants out and get out now rather than being miserable, waiting for her indefintely when she's no longer interested but daren't tell me so outright, or on the other hand, given that I love this girl, i don't want my paranoia to wreck something that was so good - maybe she does love me and is just scared, i would hate to end it if there was a way of resolving her fears and salvaging our relationship, I would hate to be selfish and say 'I can't wait for you' when in reality, if she loved me, I would wait as long as it took.

 

Please read her long email to me below, maybe you can make more sense of it than me!

 

 

 

"How are you? I’m sorry I haven’t written for so long, as you may have guessed that that was the transatlantic & now I’m in the Caribbean. I wanted to call you before I left & tell you that it would take a while but I wasn’t able to & had to work.

 

So how are you? How is everything, your job, your life, it feels like a long time since we spoke. Its afwul to write that, its so hard to be in contact when your at sea.

 

I’m fine, been doing lots of thinking & lots of stressing about everything, me coming to the Caribbean, How long that they want me to stay here, but mostly about us. I know you were expecting an email about us a while ago but really it is impossible to write something like this, partly because its hard to find internet, & have enough time to be able to stay there & write & not be disturbed & partly because I don’t really even know what it is that I want to write to you & what I am thinking.

 

I’m sorry, this isn’t easy to read, I think its that hardest thing I’ve ever written, but I have to write it. I would prefer if we could speak about this, about us on the phone but you know that I am not good on the phone, my words all get mixed up & I start to talk about the weather or what place I’ve been to.

 

So why has the girl who has a fantastic boyfriend decided to run away to the ship where she is alone. I don’t know. Honestly I don’t know what is wrong with me. It’s not because I don’t like you, or anything to do with you, but I don’t know what is the reason. I defiantly have reservations about us moving in together, in London. I know I said I wanted to but now I have had some time to think about it some more the thought scares me a bit. It’s not that I can’t do it, more the implication of what it means for us. I know that it would be great & we would have fun, so I don’t know what I am scared of. Also there is that I don’t really like London too much, but that’s not really a thing, it’s just a place to stop for a while & earn some money.

 

As for us. I think you are great. I love spending time with you, talking & hanging around & I really miss that. The one think that I know that my reservations have nothing to do with you.

 

One of the reasons that I wanted to go traveling was to become more independent & really to be confident within myself & what I do. Sometimes I think that maybe this has backfired on me slightly. Now I think I am scared to give up this independence. I know I don’t have to stop being independent but moving in together & if we are starting to talk about traveling together afterwards should be all about us planning these things together. Now I have really had time to think about this I’m not sure if I am really ready to start planning our lives & thinking in terms of two peoples lives. I know that that may sound really selfish, but it would be even worse to try to commit to something that I am not feeling ready for.

 

I know that you were not asking for some sort of major commitment & it may sound like I am overreacting. We were just talking about moving in together because it would be great, lovely, fun & we would save money. But it is that first step & for some reason I chose to come here instead & I am trying to explain why I did that, & explain to myself as well as you. I don’t know, maybe this is normal, because after all we did only spend a couple of months together, however well I feel like I know you & especially going from the lovely safe niceness of us traveling together to me doing probaly the most scary independent thing that I have ever done alone. I loved our traveling together, it’s not that I didn’t. so I don’t know what it is, scared of commitment, scared of being in love, scared of getting hurt, scared of letting anyone get any closer to me, probably all of the above. I think that I have had such a strange wondering traveling life for so long that I have built a kind of wall to protect myself & this is hard to let anyone past it. It’s a long time now that I have had to know that at the end of this contract, at the end of this work visa in this or that country that all my best friends, the people that I have come to rely on for everything is this time, I will leave & I have to say goodbye & may never see again.

 

I hope that you don’t feel like I lied to you, like I planned to not be in London. When I said that I wanted to stay in London with you I really meant it, I don’t know what changed, or whether I just thought about it more & got scared. I really wasn’t planning the cruise ship thing again, it was just when you were talking about your New York thing, I wanted to have a thing too. I also intended to only come for the 6 weeks, it seemed like the sensible job offer to take for a short time but maybe the longer I stayed I got more scared of coming back. I didn’t think that it would work out like this.

 

Please don’t think that all this is a load of rubbish, an excuse. More than anything I don’t want to mess you around, just to explain why I’m being so rubbish.

 

You asked me to tell you when I will be back, where the end is. I don’t know whether I can answer that, more than anything I wish I could but i'D probaly be lieing to both of us. I could say when I think I will be home, but maybe I will end up being just as rubbish then as well. I don’t want to be on the cruise ships forever, but I can’t promise what will happen when I get home either. I don’t want to write this, but I know that I can’t expect you to hang around & wait for me indefinatly when I am acting like this and from what you have already said or implied, you won't wait which I suppose is fair. I don't thnk Im in a place to say anything because of it. I hope that you don’t find anyone else in the meantime, obviously. I know that I’m not looking. I really hope that you don’t hate me so much that you don’t want to keep in touch, I still want to, I hope you do too.

 

Anyway, I’m sorry about my rubbishness, if there was anything I could do to my brain to stop it from being so stupid I would! I’m sorry if your only just realizing that I’m such an idiot, messed up girlfriend.

 

I’m not sure what else to write, please speak to me, email, when you get this."

[SoleMate]

Well...this does not sound like the usual blather that is used as an "easy" alternative to the truth. It sounds as if she is being as frank with you as she is with herself. She is a young person who is dealing with independence, commitment, and deciding about life.

 

...she ends saying she doesnt want me to date anyone else. 'I can’t expect you to hang around & wait for me indefinitely when I am acting like this and from what you have already said or implied, you won't wait which I suppose is fair. I don't think I'm in a place to say anything because of it. I hope that you don’t find anyone else in the meantime, obviously. I know that I’m not looking.'

 

Well, she lost me there. Sounds like she is open to finding someone else but also really hopes that you will continue to be available, either as a fallback or perhaps if one day she realizes that you are her one true love and she wants to come home to your (otherwise empty) arms. She's not a total "user" - she doesn't have the chutzpah or dishonesty to manipulate you into waiting with empty promises. She's being more honest than the average LDR "needs space"-r that we hear about on LS.

 

Most separated lovers would do ANYTHING to close the space between them. They'd work their other plans so that they could be together, because being together is one of their highest priorities. Only truly essential goals (like family obligations, education, health, world peace) would delay their togetherness.

 

Bottom line: You two had something great during a trip. She doesn't expect it to go anywhere from here but would be happy if you decided to pine for her permanently.

 

My advice: Cry, punch your pillows, say goodbye in your heart, and move on. Keep her as a friend only if it is not too painful. Your life is too precious to waste for someone who won't make you a priority.

[johnnywinner]

I know how you feel. I WOULD NOT GIVE UP. i THINK MY GIRLFRIEND OF 3 YEARS HAS DONE A SIMILAR THING TO ME. FOR 3 YEARS SHE WANTED MARRIAGE. NOW SHE TOTALLY CHANGED AND i AM SITITNG HERE WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED? YOU KNOW WHAT? THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO KNOW WHY ? WE CAN not figure them out. They have their reasons. I guess they are not aware themselves. I THINK YOU SHOULD NOT WALK AWAY. i SAY GIVE HER TIME, SHE MAY MISS YOU AND SLOWLY GET OVER HER FEARS. MAYBE, THE FEELINGS FOR YOU WILL OVERSHADOW HER FEARS. i would not talk to her. I would just say hi and keep in touch, but just a hello. If she will want that. If in time ,she calls you and would like to see you ,then you have a chance. But the key is no pressure to get back together and no serious talks about your relationship. It may be that she will begin to miss you and want you to get back together.This is my opinion. I hope it helps. If you like you may read my story on my girlfriend and I in the second chances section. I wish you luck. Happy New Year. .best wishes johnnywinner

[confuuuuused]

Thanks guys. I think I'll do a combination of both these things. Stop emailing her, don't answer the phone when her number comes up, but not officially break up - if she wants to do that she'll have to do it herself and make it clear that's what she's doing. I guess with any luck she'll realise what it would be like to lose me and decide she doesn't want to. But in the meantime, I'll just go out with my mates and try and have fun and try not to hope that she'll come back, just see what happens. Thanks again, I know it was a pretty long post to get through!

[confuuuuused]

Just to update you, Solemate you were dead right. She just emailed me to say she couldn't keep lying to me any more, she cheated on me a few eeks ago and can no longer be committed to me in case it happens again. She wants to be friends for now 'and see what happens in the future'. If she thinks I'll still be waiting for her, she's dreaming!!!