My rollercoaster relationship

[Oaktree101]

Dear Loveshack community,

 

I have just gone through a terrible breakup and wanted to get the views from some of you on what happened. I am surely speaking to a lot of friends also but some topics here are so personal that I’d rather address these in an anonymous community. I am trying to understand what really happened, mostly to avoid trauma and be able to live again in a sustained and happy partnership.

 

This was about a one-year relationship and actually my first, which many will find odd given that I’m a guy in his early 30s. I grew up as a nice kid, a little nerdy, surely not a football / fraternity bro, and frankly avoided relationships or even flings while in high school and college due to massive insecurities about my physical appearance (always quite slender, started balding really early, had another physical feature that I thought takes me out of the dating market forever). My insecurities compounded over the years as ironically I didn’t want to be “found out” by a girlfriend for not having any previously so completely ignored the topic.

 

Maybe in an attempt to compensate for this, but also due to raw talent, what defined me during my youth was competing in athletics at national (and my trainers said surely soon world-class) level. This went on until college when I had a terrible training accident, from which I have recovered almost completely, but which killed all of my hopes of ever turning my talent into a career. Purely by accident I discovered a completely different career area where my intellectual aptitude and willingness to push through things led me on a track towards the top. I was happy overall, completed the equivalent of an ivy league education for my field (I am based outside of the US) and worked and work in top firms all over the world, living in large cities which were quite the contrast to my very rural roots. I met lots of women during these years, who were genuinely attracted to me for the person I was (for some reason!), but again my insecurities made me forego any opportunity that presented itself.

 

Eventually, I decided to see a therapist to work on my fears that were holding me back, and these objectively turned out to be unwarranted. Almost as an “experiment” during my therapy, I got involved in online dating to just try seeing women, and oddly completely fell for the first one that I met. This wasn’t out of desperation (other online acquaintances that were attractive all-around were just converting to real-life meetings also) but rather because she was literally all I ever wanted in terms of personality, cultural background, world views, and so on. She was in her late 20s and single for a few years after a long relationship that had ended in an epic battle (driven by her ex, according to her…). Also, what I must mention here is that she was such an incredibly attractive and sensual woman that I literally thought I had won the lottery when I found out that our strong feelings of attraction were mutual. In hindsight I realize that, against my distorted self-view, I had become quite an attractive potential male partner, being a genuinely humorous person, driven, charming, on a good professional track and actually quite athletic thanks to quite some time spent in the gym (gone were the days of being the odd thin guy). I am still balding obviously but it seemed she didn’t really care considering the “package” she got. What a massive relief…

 

Our relationship escalated to become very intense very rapidly and I would often find myself reading “dating for dummies” style books while at work to somehow conceal my utter inexperience. I think the most daring part of our relationship and frankly my life actually was when we went beyond kissing after a few dates and I for the first time made such good use of my guidebook-based knowledge as an internet-educated cunning linguist that she almost literally got a heart attack and said she had never experienced or even heard of anything like this being possible.

 

I was a very happy man those days. We both were sure we had found our soulmates, wanted lots of kids and grow old together, and so on. I guess – but don’t really know – that this is quite normal when there’s butterflies. The ensuing months were beautiful but I started to sense that things were maybe not meant to be forever. She came from a very different background (working in her family-owned company and she was scheduled to take things over eventually) and early showed signs of always having been the local “princess” that is always right. She, never having gone to college and having lived her entire life in a small town next to my city, had a very different way of solving problems, relying exclusively on feelings and following (often fearful) tendencies to better leave things unchanged because “that’s how it’s always been”. I on the other hand am, maybe due to my education and work training, super analytical in everything and listen to emotions only as a second step when making decisions.

 

What became problematic was that she tried to heavily control me. When I wanted to get involved in competitive athletics as a hobby in my spare time again after some time off (takes between 1 and max. 5 hours of training time each week), she said no. She would bring up an array of arguments why I couldn’t go train (“too bad for your heart, too time intensive, too expensive…”) which all wouldn’t withstand debate, for us to then conclude that I can go training, for her to restart the discussion with a completely new set of arguments the coming day. My girlfriend is working side-by-side with her extremely dominant mother, and I wonder if my not being allowed to train was actually her mum’s perspective that my girlfriend then had been tasked to project on me. The extent of her mum’s role was incredible – my girlfriend had wanted to become a ballet dancer but instead had been forced to become a bank teller and afterwards join the family company, working mostly in accounting. Her mum had ended my gf's brothers' relationships if girlfriends were deemed unfit. The one brother who went to travel internationally was officially labelled the “weirdo” and stripped of his inheritance. In any case, I think my girlfriend and I had potentially 40 (fourty) separate discussions on why I couldn’t go training even though none of her arguments made sense.

 

There were a lot of other issues: my girlfriend started to criticize my clothing style, told me that we needed to get involved in more activities together (here she explicitly actually said that her mum had this opinion even though my GF and I sometimes agreed we had plenty of identical hobbies and activities), and told me that I should consider wearing some “fashionable glasses like my dad” even though my eyesight is 20/20. One day she said she thought my nose was odd and I should consider surgery.

 

There were also a few instances when my girlfriend would accidently miscommunicate with her friends or family, all instances which led to me having to calm her down for the whole of a weekend each time over how incompetent her friends and family were (as opposed to herself realizing that she was the reason for why things had been misunderstood). There were other issues like her agreeing to me seeing friends or family in other cities, just to shout at me a few days later for not “valuing her enough” by virtue of having been gone (even though we had agreed on this previously?).

 

Really important also was the fact that I am in a field whereby by switching employers and cities you can very highly accelerate your career (and also, avoid getting trapped!), and she was undecided between being supportive of this idea (“I can finally move elsewhere and do what I want”) and not (“I am wedded to this town as I will lose my inheritance if I move away”).

 

Looking back I realise that she is really a very different character to me and that potentially in her eyes the perfect relationship was, like with her parents, that of a very dominant wife and an inferior, intimidated passive husband. You can probably tell from this post that I am not a good match for that role description and I almost never gave in to her demands that I found inappropriate. Yes, I did go for a run every now and then during the week. No, I didn’t follow all of her fashion advice unless it was good (which it often wasn’t I’m afraid). No, I didn’t get eyeglasses. And well, I was secretly thinking that I will try to have a great career in the area she lives in, however that I would eventually, if badly needed, look into employment opportunities in other cities and confront her with that need if it ever came up.

 

The last full month of our relationship was terrible. She became quite distant and aggressive towards me. After a particularly bad instance – I went to her place for dinner after work and she basically nagged a full three hours, making fun of my attitudes, my goals and my looks – I sent her an email the next morning saying that I thought we’d had a terrible evening and that we’d need to have a serious discussion on how we wanted to treat each other. I said I had expected a loving, respectful and caring relationship but that I wasn’t sure if that’s what she actually was after.

 

The discussion was short and she gave a half-assed explanation, just barely apologizing for her behavior. A few weeks later during dinner, she told me in cold blood and “out of the blue” that she wasn’t in love anymore and only wanted us to continue as friends. I was shocked and couldn’t discuss at all and just said “staying friends is not on the menu”, to which she then fully collapsed. I drove home.

 

A week later on the phone she told me that she had just lost that loving feeling for me and that she thought we had “nothing in common”.

 

I felt terrible for the first few weeks and missed her but today (a few weeks post breakup) wonder if this is really due to my missing her or just what she represented to me (an emotional harbor, oftentimes a best friend when she wasn’t trying to fully control me again). Frankly I was and still am in complete fear that I will never meet anyone that hot and that sensual again – our sexual chemistry was unmatched according to her; as you know, I can’t really comment . I wonder if I should have done things much differently and give up some parts (of a lot?) of who I am and what I stand for to keep her – but maybe you agree that this would have been too much.

 

Due to my historical insecurities that sometimes come back now (was I actually not attractive enough to keep her over the long term?), I still feel like a won the lottery once with getting her and will never be so lucky again. But then there are days where I think that simply she wasn’t the one, and that I will love again, and that "on paper" objectively I actually am a lovable attractive person. I am still going back and forth between missing being with her and laughing at how mean she could be. I remember that a few weeks before she broke up with me I had discussions with my dad and a friend on how I wanted to break up with her because she was so rude – maybe I have been out of love for a while now, too, and just see my ego hurt a little for her having been the one to break up.

 

Any views on what you would have done in my shoes, much appreciated.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Oaktree101

[Fhsjkfjrhsdh3646]

She stood in the way of your dreams, screw her. If she was worried about the time you would spend, she could have at least come to a compromise with you.

[BlueIris]

I don’t think you did anything wrong. You just saw that personality, character and compatibility are important IF you’re looking for a lifetime relationship, maybe not so important if you’re looking for a relationship that’s going to be short-term. It’s a pretty classic situation that most people go through, I think.

 

That initial phase in relationships is often awash with emotion and desire- limerence- and people often don’t pay much attention to what their new partner is actually like, or it’s so hot and sensual they just don’t care, or unpleasant personality and incompatibility become evident over time and the shininess wears off. Some folks love the thrill of rollercoasters and some don’t, and I think most eventually seek a balance of thrill and intensity and compatible and sustainable.

 

So, going forward, know yourself and what you’re like in relationship, choose what you want in a relationship and in a partner, and find where the balance lies.

[Oaktree101]

Thanks guys. I just was surprised by how she ended this and wasn't even up for a discussion later on to see if we can maybe fix things. I sometimes feel like a loser for not having been able to "keep" her - did she fall out of love because I was so different or did I become less lovable in her eyes also? Maybe this is her just ending things because she "would never be able to keep me in her town forever" (she so often said this) and now going on NC to protect herself.

[preraph]

She was indeed very controlling. On top of that, she was taking on a parental role toward you and that will kill romance every single time. Telling you what you could and couldn't do for physical activities, that's extreme! Most people would just be glad they had someone interested in physical activities. You're not her child, but that's how she acted. Obviously, from your comments, she has identified heavily with her parents as role models and seems to be trying to recreate that environment. She isn't mature enough and her own person enough to understand that's now the way it works. She may never be.

 

She was beautiful and on her best behavior early on, but this is why you don't go marry someone after a few months and wait.....and wait.... because eventually that mask drops further and further off and you see what a person is really like. I know you're hurt and confused and insecure about the future, but everything you've said about how you handled your insecurities and inexperience early on was smart and smart. You didn't make them her problem and you plowed through them while getting help through therapy. You rebounded from the accident that caused a major fork in the road by adapting to something else and doing great at it. There is just absolutely no reason to fear you are not going to just keep doing great. We all have ups and downs, but you are doing just fine getting back up. So give yourself a moment to process things, and then do what you've done so well so far. Get back up. Good luck.

 

P.S. "OakTree" is a very good name for you.

[Oaktree101]

Thanks. Nice words, much needed.

[Oaktree101]

I am having a very hard time letting her go. In a call we had two weeks after breakup for me to understand why she left she said we had turned out to be too different to continue and that her love had vanished. We had been fighting for a few weeks as things had turned sour. She said my being very direct and straight and her being emotional meant this just couldn't work.

 

I realise this is largely my fault. I come from a "world" where people communicate explicitly and make decisions based on open facts. She obviously does almost the inverse by communicating more implicitly and hoping for B while saying A. I haven't met many people like this and she is likely the most extreme in this regard, however this style is part of a character that I deeply love.

 

In hindsight I made many mistakes:

 

1. She didn't want me to go training also because I am already quite lean and would be looking "even leaner, more dead" when going back. I told her that training was what I really wanted to do and, as emotions rose, that I was sorry for my body type and that she would need to accept this or "else find someone else if I'm not attractive".

 

2. Having to urgently spend two weeks in untaken vacation days before they expire I had suggested to go on a training camp for my sports. She originally said this was ok, then didn't like it, then okayed it again, then said no. My going on vacation alone would generally be "not acceptable" for a fresh couple like ours even though looked at without any cultural bias was a sensible thing to do. I apparently also "killed it" in her eyes by virtue of the camp being during her birthday that she claimed I must have forgotten - I honestly didn't but purely due to timing there just was no other way of making this work, and I had offered to fly her in on the weekend to celebrate her birthday there (which she refused because I would certainly "be more interested in working out than spending time with her" (?).

 

3. When she went to, in our last month, constantly nag and insult me for my looks and make fun of my ambitions, I eventually sent her an email to say that we badly needed to revisit how we wanted to treat each other in our relationship. I told her that she wasn't treating me respectfully and that I didn't want to go on like this unless we could change. She told me during our call two weeks after breakup that exactly this mail had sent her over the edge and was the last straw. My sending this to her work account (the only one she reads) was deemed rude. She had no interest in apologising for her behaviour or more importantly discuss what were the underlying reasons for this.

 

I think it is obvious that, had I appreciated how different she is to me and the people I deal with routinely, I would have communicated and acted with her very differently. I think this is part of getting to know each other. I still think we are in a fight and need to solve our problems. She isn't someone who confronts her problems and fears at all (she's regularly firing people reporting to her for smaller mistakes, she is stuck in a job she hates for fear of losing her inheritance) but I would really like to get her to do this in my case. I spent some time in the military before college and know from inspiring mentors there that you can only get ahead by confronting your problems and "hugging" fear.

 

Am I just being emotional for having a bruised ego or is this true love and a cause fighting for? My natural tendency is to never give up despite bad odds, so this may be influencing me here, but deep down I still love her so much, I think. I'd love to send her a letter explaining all of this.

 

She did love me wildly (looking at her emails now) for half a year and suddenly had turned cold and distant, probably because she realised we were not identical and this leading to problems. I don't think you need to be identical to sustain a relationship. She said that she always loved me and looked up to me also because I was so passionate but would never lose control no matter what happened - an aspect of this trait is that I tend to be less emotional, this being precisely why she now thinks we are not a good "fit".

 

I think we are a very good fit if you maybe look at this from a very old-fashioned point of view with regards to relationships. I think that if I had cared more for her and had been more of a gentleman - which I very well can - and had more appreciated that she isn't as rational as me, we'd still be going strong.

 

When she said her love was gone she said there is a rule (she often defined "general life rules" based on a very small number of observations - scientifically this isn't really a sound approach but that's culturally how she works) that if your feelings are gone after half a year, it's over. I told her that we were in a bad spot because we are not solving our problems but that otherwise we were deeply in love. She said the rule applied regardless and was sorry . Obviously easier to say this than openly confront a couple's, and one's own, shortcomings.

 

Is this just my brain playing tricks with me? I am trying to look ahead and see other women but I can't get her out of my head. She had so many things going for her that I fear I will never be able to "replace" her. Do I write to her? Maybe I am driven by fear of "not finding someone better" myself, maybe the degree of her immaturity and cultural differences are just too vast indeed.

 

I don't even want to go back to my sport anymore. This was a luxury that I was adding back to my life, maybe because I had been so used to doing this while single (also to fill up time). I much badlier need her, or someone like her (hard to find). I get enough action and fulfilment out of my job. I can exercise on a reduced level and maybe do something re. my weight indeed - she actively did the latter too and I honestly appreciated that.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Oaktree101

[losangelena]

OP, stop.

 

No, you don't need this woman in your life. You don't want someone so rigid and demanding. While I might get miffed that my BF decided to go out of the country over my birthday, or writing and email over having a face-to-face discussion, those to me don't sound like grounds for breaking up.

 

Please, knock her off that pedestal. You don't want a woman you can't communicate with and who refuses to deal with things directly. I guarantee, if what broke you up hadn't broken you up, it would have been something else.

 

Get out there and date more. Over time, you'll see how rigid this woman was and how frustrating and difficult a life with her would have been. Truly, you don't need that in your life—you can do better.

 

I know it's hard, but if you can, please stop turning it over and over again in your mind. It really, really doesn't sound like you did much wrong.

[Oaktree101]

Thanks. I am going back and forth between thinking it's been her fault, or mine, but good to hear you dont think I screwed up much.

[soyou]

I think you are a nice and decent guy. You're smart enough knowing what is right and what is wrong. Even though you are in love, you are able to recognise that her behavior is controlling and there is a misfit.

 

Trust your own gut. You've done the right in breaking up with her.

 

She will do more damages for you in the long run. Trust me, you will meet many awesome women along your journey. 7 years ago I was once very worried that I could never be able to find anyone who is as hot and sexual as my ex. But i was so wrong. I've met plenty of awesome men along my journey of 7 years. Things are just getting better!! Have faith in yourself and life. Everything will be alright ;-)

[Buddhist]

She sounds like she has histrionic personality disorder. She is controlling because she has to be the centre of attention at all times and will put on some high drama any time she isn't. Of course she doesn't want you doing anything that does not involve paying full attention to her all the time.

 

This isn't a normal relationship, it's not even close to one. May I suggest you research this personality disorder, and be better armed with all the warning signs next time.

 

Good luck on your athletics and also on finding a sane female next time round.

[Oaktree101]

Ok people, you got it. Consider this: four months into our relationship she told me the thought had crossed her mind that being a difficult person would make her a more attractive girlfriend. Reasoning: a lot of attractive women she knew were hard on their partners.

 

What can I say . Incredible how love, or attraction, can blind you.

 

I'm in attack mode again thanks to you folks. I will be a hero at work now, compete in a few races this summer while indeed doing more upper body training and weight gain and will continue my ongoing retail therapy to look nicer, which makes me feel great. I will get a girl that is better all around. Amen.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Oaktree101

[Oaktree101]

Jesus, I am still going back to missing her, all the time. I see myself as the idiot who couldn't "keep" her. This is so bloody hard. I have got all the time and flexibility I want now for my career and my hobbies - I would constantly love to travel back in time and save our relationship.

 

Maybe I just need more time. It's been weeks since we've spoken. Maybe these feelings will pass. I have moments of clarity where I am as forward-looking as posted earlier, however I sometimes wonder if this isn't all fake emotions that I got to have because society says so.

[Oaktree101]

I wish I could just speak to her and try sort things out. But I have the terrible feeling all is lost forever.

[Oaktree101]

Dear all,

 

Many thanks for your support. As an update, I am getting better every day. I have recognised now that my brain was basically playing tricks on me. She definitely wasn't the right one. I was clutching to the very idealised picture I had of her while in reality, once the honeymoon period was over after a few months, she was (is) actually quite a destructive, naive, cynical, negative, abusive character. I was ignoring the bad first signs (her treatment of others) during our first months together as basically I couldn't believe she is a bad person.

 

I couldn't let go of the feeling of being in a relationship with somebody (at least externally) beautiful. She was a big compensator for other areas in my life where I currently am not happy (job not 100% perfect and I could move to better positions; little social life in my current city) and I've realised now I need to - and now can, with lots of time on my hands - fix those before I can actually engage in a relationship again.

 

I hope this is useful for other people who find themselves in my position. As cheesy as it sounds: life goes on. I've heard from so many people that there can be love again after a heartbreak, which I couldn't believe over the last months. I am certain I will find love again, with someone who is much a better fit for me with my positive, honest, loving character. I've already been on dates again, and while I haven't met anyone really fitting yet, it was good to see that I can really be attracted to other women again - and that they like me, too.