[AngelSerra]

I would really like to know how people can say that a break-up gets easier over time. The more time that I am without my ex, the more it hurts. I love him so very much and pray and hope and dream that he will come back. I ask God to help me, to let his will be done, and all I feel is a longing for my ex. We dated for two years, he brought up marriage and future frequently, and even his sisters thought that he would end up with me. One even called me because I had called her to tell her he ended things – when she saw my caller ID she said she got excited because she thought that her brother had finally gotten the nerve up to ask me to marry him. She was shocked to hear that he broke up with me.

This past year has had a few ups and downs for me, but through all of it, my boyfriend has been there for me. Early this year, my uncle who was only 53, died suddenly of a heart attack. A few months later, my cousin who was only 20 was accidentally killed when he was suffocated by the improper use of a device when he was wrongfully arrested. Both times, my boyfriend took time off work to take me to the wakes, and one of them was about 3 hours away from where he worked. He even went out of his way to take me to see my grandmother in the hospital – the hospital is about 20 miles away from where we live and he did this after he got off work and put his arm around me and was there for me and consoled me – and this was only 2 weeks before he ended things with me. My grandmother has since been admitted to hospice and the prognosis is not good.

I have been having a horrible month, and with Christmas coming up, I am finding it hard to feel the joy of the season with all that has happened this past month, and this past year. I just do not know what to do anymore. I have been praying constantly, asking God to help me, asking that his will be done. No matter what I do, it just gets harder.

He broke up with me about a month ago after I cried saying I was afraid that if he had not made the commitment to me by a certain point, that he never would. He was even talking about engagement rings three days before that, but that did not console me. The problem was my fears of abandonment were really coming from my mother and something a friend of his told me about their marriage.

In every serious relationship that I have ever been in, my mother has started to say negative things about me or about the guy that I was dating saying that she did not think that I or he was mature enough to make a decision about the rest of our life. She would start to make generalizations, and even though I would tell her that she was wrong about the situation, she could not stop making these hurtful comments. Eventually, even though I thought that I was trying to ignore what she said, I would start to internalize those things and start to fear exactly what she said and got emotional over it. Instead of realizing that these fears were from things that she would keep saying, I would act them out and either get emotional because I thought that the man would leave me, or I would become closed off, fear his departure and hurt him before he had the chance to hurt me. It is my love for the man who I just recently lost that caused me to finally see the pattern that I was in where long term relationships were concerned.

On top of that, my boyfriend always mentioned that when he thought of a good marriage, he thought of his best friend and his best friend’s wife. About a month and a half before he broke up with me, his friend’s wife told me that she and her husband were having marital problems. She said that they were both in counseling, that my (now ex) boyfriend did not know, and that she did not want me to say anything about it. She said that if I told him her husband would be very upset with her that she told anyone about it in the first place. I felt kind of dumped on because this was not something I wanted to know, and I felt just awful with the idea that I had to keep this from the man that I loved. It kind of tore me up inside because I thought that if their marriage had problems and if my boyfriend based his idea of a good marriage on theirs and it ended, he would just give up on the idea of marriage himself.

Here is how it all went down:

About a month ago, I was visiting with my boyfriend and his family making plans for Thanksgiving. I was very tired because I had not slept well the night before, I was on allergy medication which made me drousy, and then to top that off, I had a couple of beers because we were all together watching a sporting event. Since I had the lack of sleep, antihistamine, and alcohol as factors, I was more prone to be emotional and my judgment was not very sharp. I started to act out the fears that I kept getting from my mother that said she did not think he loved me, though he told me it often. My fears upset him because he said that whenever we got to the topic of marriage - the same thing always happened - I would get upset and start crying, he could not do anything about it, and we would just get nowhere. He said it was like beating a dead horse. Of course, instead of just looking at this as a figure of speech, I took his comment personally and thought that he considered our relationship dead, so I started to cry more. He told me that what I was saying was my mother, and I said that it was me - again, I allowed myself to get so upset and was so tired, that I did not realize at the time my mother's affect on me. He said I needed to get home and rest, that I would feel better after I got some sleep. He told me that he loved me and that he would see me later that week.

I went home, relaxed a bit and decided to call him and be more reasonable and let my emotions take a back burner. I told him that I knew he knew what I wanted, but I did not know what he wanted - I wanted to be more supportive of his needs. He told me over the phone that he was not what I wanted, that this was not working, and that he could not give me what I wanted. He said what he needed was time and space for himself and that there was something about the relationship that did not gell, but he did not know what it was. He said that he talked to someone in his family that said they saw signs in the relationship that reminded them of one from their past that did not work, so my boyfriend just threw up his hands and said if the other relationship did not work, then ours probably would not either. He even said that he had been trying to save our relationship for a while - which was a complete surprise to me, because he did not act or treat me any differently that I could tell. He even said that when we went out recently (before the break-up) that he started to notice other girls and that he had not ever done that before. Also, I was the first person he had dated in 7 years - he is almost 30, I am 28, and before me he said he did not date because he did not want to waste the time. The problem is, I was not completely ready for marriage either - it was all the negative things that I kept hearing from my mother - I loved him, I knew I wanted to marry him someday, but I did not want it ASAP. We did talk about the future when we were together – and a lot of the time, he would be the one to initiate it. I knew he needed time. But, nonetheless, he broke up with me. I so desperately want him back - I have prayed and asked God for guidance and all I see is my ex, and a future together. I miss him so much and love him so much.

He came over the day after he broke up with me to give me my spare keys to my apartment back and a check for money I had given him to pay for part of an event we were planning to attend. The look on his face was that of he could care less – though I am wondering if it was partly due to the fact I had a friend over (who is a guy) and though I had my friend go into another room so my ex and I could talk, I think my ex saw him walking across my apartment through my window when he was coming from the parking lot. What I do not get is how someone can go from cuddling very close on one night saying I love you to saying it is not working less than 24 hours later – and then the following day after the break-up, not feeling a damn thing and not caring at all! He left quickly, would not talk to me, and peeled out of my parking lot like a bat out h*ll, squealing tires and everything.

I did write him a letter explaining how I saw my mother's negative influence on me and sent it a week ago, but I have heard no response, though I told him if he needed time to think, I would understand. He has made no attempt to contact me at all since we broke up, and mutual friends of ours say that he just goes out with his married friends, and is not dating anyone, and does not seem to care. When we did break up I asked him if this was a decision that he would regret and he said that he would most likely, but it was a decision he had to make.

I really feel that he is the one for me, the one that completed me in so many ways that I never knew I could be completed before I met him. I want to have faith and I keep hoping that he will come to his senses and realize that we are supposed to be together, but when I start to think about him, I just start to cry and turn to desperation. I do not know what to do. How can someone go from talking about rings and three days later just throw their hands up and feel nothing? I do not know what to think anymore except for the fact that I know I still love him and if I knew he would be back soon, I know I would wait. I just do not know if that is the right thing to do. If you can please help me I would greatly appreciate it.