brokenglass Posted April 8, 2009 Posted April 8, 2009 I really don't even know where to begin, there's so much to explain... I am 26. My ex is 25. We have been together for 6 years. We have a son together, who will be 4 this summer. We recently separated back on January 2nd. After trying to "work things out" for about 2 months, she ended the relationship on March 1st, mainly due to actions by myself immediately after the initial separation (I regretfully slept with another woman I knew on a drinking night with co-workers). I did what I did and then tried to forget about it, tried to put it behind me and focus solely on my girlfriend (formerly fiance at this point). I stopped a lot of things, started to change a lot of things about me that had become problems that led us to the separation. After many weeks of talking, we both decided that we needed therapy, which I started that week (end of February). After my first session I realized I couldn't keep it from her anymore and I told her what I had done back in January. As you can guess, she was devastated. There was a lot of back and forth of us doing things to eachother to get back at what the other had done. On numerous occasions, instead of communicating to eachother what was wrong, we would suppress it, isolate or withdraw, and get angry. It started to affect our child, from her end and my end. We separated initially because (through my incessant spying and paranoia) found out she had messaged a man that she had expressed interest in leaving me for about a year ago. Back then, we reconciled and tried to work through things, but I never took it or her seriously because we still lived together. Things went well for about 3 or 4 months, through the summer. Once fall and winter rolled around, my paranoia and ill feelings and spying on her went through the roof. I was looking through everything she was doing, questioning her on things I saw constantly, completely innocent things. And in hindsight, I had nothing to worry about. She was depressed about life, and has a family history of depression, but she wasn't trying to find someone better. I know she'd admit that she probably didn't try as hard as she could, but her hands were tied for much of it, and I didn't do anything to help either. Constantly whining about bills and money, resenting her for not getting more work, talking to other women on the internet and overly complaining for attention that I didn't feel like I was getting from her (more like I wasn't giving her enough attention in reality). Through my selfishness, self centered attitude, paranoia, jealousy, anger and resentment I pushed her from desperately trying to continue to love me, to, I can't take this anymore I love him but hes driving me insane. We separated and I didn't take it well at all. I was constantly whining and crying about everything, seeing our son made me very emotional. That first week apart was horrendous, I never felt so weak in my entire life. When I went drinking that night and I went to that woman's house, I felt like a drug addict desperately looking for a quick fix to feel better at that moment. After the incident, not saying anything to anyone and suppressing it made me feel even more guilty and worse, which led to me being much more emotional to her than I was. For a time I calmed down and came to grips. Valentines Day came and was one of the best days I have ever had in my life. I spent the day with our son and the night with her...it was that night that I knew that we could work this out and that I was truly happy being with her. I had made the personal commitment to change myself because I was tired of living the way I was and being unhealthy, letting my mind cloud my judgement. In the end, this would benefit everyone, not just myself. Well as I said earlier one of those steps was therapy, and then the next step for me was telling her what I had done and getting us tested (which all came back negative). Since then, she has moved everything out of our townhouse our son grew up in for the first 3 years of his life. I cannot move out until June, which makes me very sick and uneasy sometimes just being there. I've decided that I want to reconcile with her, even though I am 99.9% positive she has no interest in that. The whole NC thing is really non-existant with us. I talk to her almost every day, just about random things. We haven't talked about the relationship in a few weeks now...we mainly talk about things going on in our personal lives, except for the very personal (I know shes talking to other guys, possibly sleeping with them or dating them, I haven't been as lucky). We talk about our son...we see eachother at least once a week and usually spend Monday evenings with him and eat dinner. I'd like to take him out more by myself but my financial situation has gotten very bad since we separated and its difficult to afford gas to drive over to their house. I've gotten into the gym (or tried to anyway), I am trying to eat right and cut back on my smoking a little...I try my hardest to act happy and better when I am around her, but its very difficult. She doesn't seem to be bothered by anything, which hurts even more. I desperately want to reconcile, and I know its probably not going to be anytime soon. I am trying to take it as slow as possible...I've decided I'll ask if she wants to go out sometime in the next few weeks, but not right now. Again, I am very sure shes talking to other men. Shes been staying up very, very late often at night since the separation, sometimes up to 4AM. I am not nearly as lucky in the female department...I am not from this area and don't nearly know as many people as she does. So, for right now, I go over there, I help her with everything she needs help with and I listen to her when she talks. I try to be understanding and sensitive to her feelings and thoughts...I help out with our son as much as I would if we had never split, I try to help her come up with plans and what not with things shes up to...I guess I am trying to be her friend again, I don't know. We have these moments where we are sitting around, smoking, talking and laughing and we look at eachother, and I can see in her eye that she still loves me, that maybe it could work if we just give ourselves some time to be ourselves... and then when I'm away from her, I become a complete mess, unless I know I'm about to see her. So, in the meantime, for today I wait. I am seeing her tonight to go Easter shopping with our son, shes taking me up to the airport tomorrow for my flight this weekend and picking me up when I return, and then again Monday night. I try to keep reminding myself: Never say never. No one knows how they will feel tomorrow. But on the same token, it might be too little, too late. And if thats the case, I am mortified at the situation I have caused. Sorry for the long post everyone.
Thomas X Forever Posted April 8, 2009 Posted April 8, 2009 Firstly, she will never be completely out of your life. You have a kid together. Take some solace in that. Secondly, she won't get nearly as much male attention because she has a kid. So it's not like she's going to jump into some eager guys arms anytime soon. Believe me, at that age, guys aren't looking for girls who have children... once again, at that age. Take some more comfort in that. Now, you need to keep seeing a therapist/psych and helping yourself. You can only pull her back through saving yourself first, if that's what pushed her away in the first place. Any psych will tell you this. You sounded as if your selfishness may have been narcissism. If that's the case, you are proof that events in life can change narcissism. Psychologists generally believe narcissism is irreversible. But your case is another example of a success story. (Assuming you were narcissistic. But I'd have to evaluate you for HOURS and HOURS about your ENTIRE life to determine if you were a narcissist, so don't take what I'm saying right now with too much grains of salt). All in all, it sounds like you're improving. THIS IS A GOOD THING!
Author brokenglass Posted April 8, 2009 Author Posted April 8, 2009 Thomas thank you so much for responding...I didn't expect anyone to read that wall of text. The one thing I will not be doing at this moment is stopping going to therapy. It has helped an awful lot and although its gotten a bit expensive, I have to stay in it. I absolutely have to, because if I don't I am going to lose focus. I completely agree with you that my selfishness may have been a form of narcissism. I do feel like a very completely different person than I did 6-8-10 months ago. Its an ongoing, daily struggle...waking up in the morning is hard enough, let alone trying to make myself eat, go to the gym, go to therapy on Fridays, etc. As for guys not looking for girls her age with children, she has a very high number of male friends, many of whom she has slept or been in relationships with before we got together, so I fear that some of those guys might have wanted her for a long time, and considering the attention from me was lacking for so long, its now on her again but from elsewhere. Not to mention the man I mentioned in my OP, that she was going to leave me for. She's since started talking to him again on a regular basis, although she has denied it in the past. To be completely honest I have no idea if they are communicating, but my gut tells me she is. Not to mention shes taking a vacation to his state with her parents in a few months. I do take solace in the fact that her and we will be connected forever, because I do love her very, very much and care about her and our son a great deal. I also take solace in the fact that I do know her very well, inside and out, and the same goes for her knowing me. I consistently remind myself that I have the "1up" on probably most men, that I know what went wrong, I know what I need to change about myself and I know what must be changed in order for us to love eachother again. Whether or not she is game remains to be seen...but I have hope, I just am not sure she cares anymore.
Thomas X Forever Posted April 8, 2009 Posted April 8, 2009 Dude that was not a wall of txt. Someone made a topic on here yesterday that took like a minute to scroll down through, and I wasn't even reading it. Just scrolling down. You can't be a narcissist though in reality. I see that now pretty clearly. Someone narcissistic has such a hard core. I'd wager to say, you wouldn't find one in this section of the site. Because they wouldn't be sulking over a breakup, because at their core they don't care. Or they don't show they care. They only care about how good they are. So glad we could rule out narcissism so quickly. She will ALWAYS care about you MANY times more than any other guy, because you have a kid with her. That's a fact, just straight up. She still cares, of course she still cares. Every time she looks into your childs eyes, she cares. Your child is an extension of you. Keep working on yourself, and give her some space for now. Think about writing a love note with flowers. Apologize only a single time for how selfish you were perhaps, but don't dwell on your mistakes (thus reminding her of them). Focus rather on the things you'd like to do with her and your child.. talk about how much you love your child too, and her. Name some favorite memories, and then name some places you want to go with her in the future. Like cuddling on the beach during a sunset.
Author brokenglass Posted April 8, 2009 Author Posted April 8, 2009 I have thought about the flowers...I just don't want to jump the gun and do it too soon, and on the same token I don't want to wait too long. I actually sent her roses to her workplace with a note on Valentines Day, which she was so happy about. So in that respect, I don't want to be cliche, I am in the process of designing her some business cards that I had promised many, many moons ago. Treading carefully here, I truly want to work this out. What I want to do next is approach her father and meet with him. I talked to her step mother some weeks ago and she said she'd have her father call me, but he never did. I am attributing that to him being angry over the night before she moved her stuff out; she had come over and it got very heated and physical and I imagine hes angry over that. But I will be seeing her and our son all night tonight. I am looking forward and wish the hours would move quicker.
Recommended Posts