superm0nkey Posted December 6, 2007 Posted December 6, 2007 Hey guys, I'm a newbie here so please forgive me if I don't get everything right . I just thought I'd share my story with the forum - maybe it will help some of you out there cope with your loss. I was with my ex for a little over three years. We met through a mutual friend and had a strong connection from the very beginning - actually it was pretty much love at first sight. When we met we were both just freshly out of relationships; hers was a broken engagement and mine was a long time girlfriend. Both of our former relationships were emotionally abusive and we spent a lot of time leaning on each other for support. I guess that should have been the first sign that things weren't going to work out . After about six months we decided to move in together (told you we were moving quickly) and another six months after that we got engaged. At the time I wasn't really ready to get married but I figured that sometimes you just have to play the hand that fate deals you. We spent a bunch of time looking for venues for the wedding - but this is when things started to go slightly pear shaped. My ex tended to make life altering decisions without consulting me and that was really becoming a problem. One day she sat me down and told me she was quitting her job and studying full time from now on... something she had never mentioned before that day. I asked her how she was planning to support herself and she replied that she was planning on using the money we had in savings. It was kind of a tough situation, she was two years older than me and had previous stated that she needed to own her own home by the time she was 30. I told her I supported her decision but it was pretty obvious I was freaked out. She eventually decided to stay at her job and together we postponed the wedding for a year so she could figure out what she wanted to do with her life - the second sign things were going pear shaped. Roughly six months after this my ex sits me down and tells me she's quitting her job and taking time off. I asked her how she planned to support herself - she told me she was getting paid out some money by her employer and that would be enough to tide her over until she started working again. Once again this freaked me out but I told her I supported her decision. I guess that would have been OK if we didn't have to bail her family out of their financial problems. It wasn't cheap. This is when things really started getting ugly. She wasn't working and I wasn't willing to dip into our savings because a) we had the wedding coming up and b) she wanted a place of our own in the next year. It got to the point where I was working to support both of us for no good reason and I started resenting her for it. For the next eight months she was constantly in and out of work as she got jobs and then quit a few weeks later for various reasons. In the mean time we were forced to move houses a couple of times... it was a real nightmare. I was stressed out and developed a drinking problem. I told myself I was drinking to cope but in reality I was just doing it to get away from the crappy situation I was in. We started hanging out less and less and by the end we really didn't spend any time together at all. Around the end of the year my ex went on holidays with a girlfriend and while overseas hooked up with another guy. She then pretended to be sick so she could stay another week - I called her on it and asked what was really going on. This is the kicker... she ended our engagement via text message. When she got home she gave me the "I love you but I'm not in love with you" speech and said a bunch of other stuff engineered to make herself feel less guilty about what she'd done. I just packed my stuff and moved out. She booked a ticket and flew back overseas saying she was planning on traveling and teaching english to orphins. One thing she said to me that will always stick in my mind is that she "had to book her ticket before she changed her mind" - not really sure what that was supposed to mean. Call me crazy but making rash, life changing decisions while on holidays just isn't a great idea. That was two and a half months ago - I was pretty screwed up for the first six weeks. Actually, I was a mess. The turning point for me was when I started seeing a therapist to help cope with the situation. After a few weeks I came to understand that I didn't actually love my ex... she was just something beautiful that I wanted to have. Discovering that showed me that I had a long way to go before I was ready for any kind of long term relationship. I guess it was kind of unfair on her and contributed to the failure of our relationship but I just didn't know that was how I felt at the time. In the end her breaking things off was a get of jail free card for me. After I worked all this out the pain of the breakup pretty much disappeared - I stopped drinking and got back into my life. I even ended up hooking up with a couple of girls since. It's amazing what a change in perspective can do. This coming year is going to be my chance to discover myself and work out what I really want out of life... and who I want to be with. Anyhow, that's my story. Hope it helps.
polywog Posted December 6, 2007 Posted December 6, 2007 Wow. That covered all bases. Hope you keep posting, whether for support or to encourage others. It sucks, what you went through!
shadowplay Posted December 6, 2007 Posted December 6, 2007 That was two and a half months ago - I was pretty screwed up for the first six weeks. Actually, I was a mess. The turning point for me was when I started seeing a therapist to help cope with the situation. After a few weeks I came to understand that I didn't actually love my ex... she was just something beautiful that I wanted to have. Discovering that showed me that I had a long way to go before I was ready for any kind of long term relationship. I guess it was kind of unfair on her and contributed to the failure of our relationship but I just didn't know that was how I felt at the time. In the end her breaking things off was a get of jail free card for me. I question the fact that you didn't love her. If this is the case, why do you think you were unable to love her? To me that sounds like sour grapes more than anything. It's easier to tell yourself you lost someone you didn't love than someone you did. What's more likely is you fell out of love with her after she used you and cheated on you. It sounds like she treated you pretty badly and it was a good thing the relationship ended. But at the same time I think you may be deceiving yourself/rewriting history to cope with some of the pain.
Author superm0nkey Posted December 6, 2007 Author Posted December 6, 2007 Hey shadowplay, I can understand why you might think that and you're entitled to your opinion - it would appear to be the logical conclusion. Honestly though, in hindsight that's just how I felt. Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees. I don't harbor any animosity towards my ex... if anything I just regard her and the situation with indifference.
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