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Good reason for being friends with ex?


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I know that it is generally not recommended to stay friends with an ex when you're still wanting to get back together.

 

But what if the reason for him to break up with me was about him feeling detached since I told him months ago that I had doubts about him and his intentions for dating me? He said that he has felt horrible since I told him those things, but he also said that he still cared a lot about me, and won't be looking for anyone. He still wanted to be in my life as a friend while he works to refigure himself out. Doesn't that mean that he wanted to be close again? to hopefully feel attached again? (We were friends before we started dating.) If that's the case, then isn't "remaining friends" good (maybe even necessary?) for building attachment again, thereby trying to fix what went wrong last time? If we go NC indefinitely and don't talk, how would his feelings ever come back, or my doubts be overcome?

 

When he broke up with me almost a month ago, I told him that if he's going to be focusing on himself, then I should move on and focus on myself too, so I couldn't be friends with him at that moment because I was still hurting, but I wished him well. He replied with "Okay... Please stay safe (my name)..." to which I did not reply, and we've been in NC since then for about 3.5 weeks. So I feel like maybe the ball is in my court (to tell him when I'm ready to be friends), or maybe I really need to wait for him to contact me first (to give him all the space that he needs to refigure himself out)? Not sure which is the right move for giving us the best chance of being back together...

 

As far as I can tell from his social media, he doesn't seem ecstatic about all this (unlike how male dumpers are usually portrayed to be). The day after he broke up with me, he changed his profile picture to something depressing. He hasn't changed his relationship status on facebook yet. In fact, the day before he broke up with me, he shared a song on facebook, which was kind of depressing and suicidal. Other than these, he's been really quiet on social media. I don't even know if he's still alive (we were in a LDR).

 

Since I know that my problem was not trusting him enough before, I've been trying to believe him more since I told him about my doubts. I've been trying even before the break up. Now, I'm struggling between wanting to believe him still, or just forget him.

 

What are your thoughts? advice?

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ExpatInItaly

Why didn't you trust him before? You need to think about the reasons you had concerns in the first place.

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Why didn't you trust him before? You need to think about the reasons you had concerns in the first place.

 

Thank you so much for responding, Expat!

It was a mixture of reasons, mostly on my part than on his:

 

  • In all truth, this doubt was probably a relic of my previous relationship, which was also LDR. My previous ex often told me how lonely he was, how there was nothing to do in his city, how he had no friends there since he had moved there, and wanted me to be there with him. I wondered to myself if he was only with me so that he wouldn't feel so lonely, because there were so many stories online about people getting into relationships just so they wouldn't be alone. (Please keep in mind that that was also my first relationship ever, so I was rather inexperienced, read every piece of advice out there, which probably just led to more confusion and doubts because no two situations are ever exactly the same.) But I never brought this up with my previous ex, so I suppose the issue was never resolved when I started to date my latest ex 3 months after I went NC with my previous ex (though we technically broke up a year before that, so I thought maybe it was time, maybe I was ready, and I was really happy with my latest ex when he wanted to become exclusive with me - I never told my ex that it had only been 3 months of NC). But my ex was also always alone, because he's an orphan and he was never adopted. He lived with a roommate and his roommate's gf. I wasn't really concerned about that gf, but living with a couple could make you want to be in a couple yourself, you know? He also has a few friends where he lives, but his best buddies were all online.

  • He said "I love you" to me too soon after we started dating. I had trouble believing that he really did love me already (we were maybe 1 month into the relationship). I was always really insecure, and couldn't fathom how any guy could seriously love me. All the guys who've had interest in me stopped being interested in me after a few months (except my previous ex). But my ex would say things like, "No, this couldn't be simply infatuation. It's already been this long, and I love you more and more." By then, we were maybe 2 months into the relationship, and he was comparing that to his friends' past crushes which would last only 1-2 weeks. So to him, he was pretty certain that what he felt for me was love. But to me, 2 months of summertime fun of course make us feel great. So basically, I struggled to believe that he really loved me, and instead, he may even have said that for ulterior motives (as is suggested by online dating articles often times, though I'm not sure what that ulterior motive might have been in our case, as we were in an LDR).

 

One time, he told me about one of his female facebook friends. She was very similar to me, except that she was prettier, closer to his age, and had more common interests with him. She's somewhat of a public personality, so she's often flirty with her fans on facebook. It always bugged me when I saw that he liked or commented on her public posts, especially the ones where she was trying to flirt subtly, and it enraged me that he would fall for her tricks. So one day, after he asked and asked again, I finally told him why I would "mysteriously" get upset from time to time for no apparent reason. After I told him, he immediately unfriended her on facebook. I didn't ask him to do that. He did that on his own. But he also said to me, "I don't care about unfriending her at all, but what makes me sad is that even after I unfriend her, I know you still won't trust me." I was really sad about what he said, but I could neither confirm nor deny what he said. I hated what I had become. A crazy jealous monster. I didn't want him to lose friends because of me.

 

I can understand how frustrating this might've been for him, because he was doing all the right things, but it seemed to him like nothing was working. Neither one of us brought up this issue again, because I was dealing with it on my end, while he apparently held on to the hurtful words for months silently. I had really been practicing to trust him more. And I think I've been making progress on this front (slowly), but I guess he just didn't see it because trust is an internal thing and takes time to build (like a seed that was still growing under the soil). Maybe he was also too wrapped up in his own negative thoughts by not talking to me about it. But just when I was starting to believe in him, he broke up with me.

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