AnLandy Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 Tuesday was one of the those surreal days. I had made plans to have dinner with my ex-boyfriend (we broke up just under two years ago) at a restaurant near his house, which is about 65 miles from where I live. The price of gas being what it is, I decided to try and kill five birds on one tank, so I planned to meet him for dinner, stop at my favorite store, go to the wholesale flower market, pop into Barnes and Noble, and meet up with my ex-fiance to exchange the last of the crap that we left at each other's houses. The two of us just broke up a little over two weeks ago, but we had talked prior to this, and things went well, so I wasn't really dreading this meeting. When I met my old ex-boyfriend for dinner, we actually had a really good time. I found myself talking to him like he was an old friend, no awkwardness or resentment. It was pretty cool. We've seen each other quite a few times over the past year, and I think that we've finally crossed that bridge where all that's left between us is a nice sense of shared history and friendship. Then I met my ex-fiance, and things got really odd. He planned to meet me at the bookstore, since it's near his place, and asked that I call him when I got there. When I called, he asked where I was, and I told him I was inside at the cafe. He said he would find me. I just assumed that he intended to pop in, exchange bags of stuff, and leave. He actually sat down at the table, and we proceeded to have an hour-long conversation. We talked about a lot of things, none of it really related to our breakup or the relationship, but it was that wierd "first meeting" vibe that just feels a little creepy and a little comforting at the same time. ] Eventually, he had to get home, so we ventured to the parking lot, where he got my stuff out of his car and handed it over. I gave him his bag, and told him that I had included a list of emergecy phone numbers that he had given me, in case something happened to him and I needed to call his family, employer, friends, etc... He told me to go ahead and hang onto it, since I was the "person closest" to him down here and he really wanted to know that someone had his numbers. At that moment, something odd happened. For the first time since the breakup, I actually felt angry. I just looked at him, and in as pleasant a voice as possible said, "Sweetie, that aint my job anymore." He just looked at me, stunned, for a few seconds, and then just said, "Ok." He then mentioned my birthday, which is six weeks away, and implied that he would still like to take me out, as we had planned when we were still together. I told him that I had already made plans for my birthday, and he just looked at me oddly and said, "Oh." We said goodbye pretty quickly, and he drove away. The whole exchange just drew my mind back to the night we broke up. After the "conversation" we decided to go Starbuck's, just so we could get out of the house and breath. I wanted to change clothes, but he just sat there on my bed looking at me. I asked him to leave my room so I could change, and he just said, "Why?" I told him that I would feel wierd undressing in front of him at that moment, so he left, though it was clear that he didn't understand why I had asked him to leave. When I walked out of my bedroom a few minutes later, he was in the bathroom peeing with the door open. It's really odd how our minds shifted gears at such a differenct pace. Once we decided that the romantic part of our relationship was over, he immediately went into the "Ex" compartment in my mind, that place where I put men that I will no longer be sleeping with, getting naked with, sharing bathroom space with, dealing with family obligations with, and taking responsibility for when he's sick, etc.... Tuesday night, I started to get the message that the two of us still have very different concepts of "being friends" post-breakup. He seems to want to continue many of the aspects of our previous relationship, just without the sexual and romantic element. I'm just looking at him as a nice person to hang out with occassionally, someone to talk about work, our families, and mutual friends with, an activity partner for things that we both enjoy doing, and a source to call on when I have IT poblems. He still seems to have me partially in "significant other" mode in his mind. I'm not sorry that we got together Tuesday, but I think that I will be letting some time lapse gefore I call him again. We have both expressed relief that the relationship is over, and we agree that it was the right decission. We both want to be friends, but I think we need to let a little more time lapse before we start figuring out what "being friends" means for us.
Lyssa Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 Give it more time and I'm sure you'll be able to talk to him like you did with your other ex. Some guys find it easier to be friends right after a break up. Me being a girl, I find it a bit hard to do so especially if I still had strong feelings for him.
kizik Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 I'm just looking at him as a nice person to hang out with occassionally, someone to talk about work, our families, and mutual friends with, an activity partner for things that we both enjoy doing, and a source to call on when I have IT poblems. He still seems to have me partially in "significant other" mode in his mind. No, if you have any soul at all you will not do ANY of the above with him. That's not an option. How are you going to be friends with an ex right off the bat, especially when he's made it clear he still has feelings for you? You really don't understand something: he still loves you. You don't love him - fine. But get it in your head that spending ANY time with him (as evidenced by your last meeting) is going to hurt HIM. It won't hurt you, I guess. But as I've said before, do the poor b@stard the courtesy of cutting him loose.
Author AnLandy Posted July 17, 2008 Author Posted July 17, 2008 No, if you have any soul at all you will not do ANY of the above with him. That's not an option. How are you going to be friends with an ex right off the bat, especially when he's made it clear he still has feelings for you? You really don't understand something: he still loves you. You don't love him - fine. But get it in your head that spending ANY time with him (as evidenced by your last meeting) is going to hurt HIM. It won't hurt you, I guess. But as I've said before, do the poor b@stard the courtesy of cutting him loose. Actually, he's doing great. He's already put his profile back up on a few dating sites, he's meeting a woman he knows through his bowling league for coffee on Saturday, he's treating himself to a trip to Frisco to see some old friends next month, and he's going home in a few weeks to throw a bachelor party for his best friend. He is not in love with me anymore, and I am not in love with him. We still love each other, but not in a romantic way. He confided to me yesterday that he had already reactivated his profile on eHarmony during the last month that we were together. He wasn't contacting any of the matches, but he was starting to look at other possibilities. I wasn't hurt or angry about this. I think that we both saw the end coming, but we didn't know how to stop the momentum of the relationship that we had already put in motion. He told me that after we had the breakup conversation, he was a total mess for about a day. Then he woke up 48 hours later feeling this tremendous sense of optimism about the future and all of the possibilities that it holds. He's excited to be free to find a woman who can be the type of partner that he wants in his life. Even back in May, we were starting to see the writing on the wall. As soon as someone made an offer on my house, he started asking me if I could back out, if the deal was set in stone, could I change my mind before closing, etc... He didn't want to move forward, but he didn't want to give up on a commitment that he had made. I was having doubts about moving forward, but I was still hopeful that we could work through the problems. We both just finally got honest with each other at the same time. When he told me that he didn't want to move in together, that he wanted to back off from moving the relationship forward, and that he really didn't feel we were suited to be together, I agreed with him. Please get off this ongoing rant about how I broke his heart, kicked him aside, or am calously playing with him and his feelings for me. He doesn't love me in a romantic way anymore. We have both acknowledged this to each other. We aren't pining away for each other. If anything, we are both simply missing having a person there in our life to act as a partner, to offer support, to be a companion, and to lean on when we need it. He doesn't love me anymore. He doesn't want to be with me anymore. He knows that we made the right choice. He is happier now than he has been since March, when things really started to go bad with us. He is optimistic about finding "the one". He has clarified what he wants out of life in a way that he just couldn't do when we were together. He thanked me for finally having the honesty to say what he had been trying to avoid saying for over a month. "I just don't want to do this anymore. I don't want the same things out of life that you want. I love you, but not in the way that you should love the person you intend to spend the rest of your lfie with." He told me that he was so relieved that he didn't have to say those words because he was so scared of how much they could hurt me, and he cared about me as a person too much to intentionally hurt me. He THANKED me for having the honesty to just end it. Stop projecting yourself and your relationship onto him. When I saw him last night, there was a lightness and a sense of ease about him that I haven't seen since March. He was back to the man he was when I first met him, a very laidback, content person whose comfortable in his own skin and just wants to enjoy the routine of his life. He's excited and optiminstic about his future because it no longer means making compromises for our relationship that he really wasn't sure he wanted to make. I'm feeling the same way.
kizik Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 I have nothing invested in your R. There is no other reason I respond to your posts than to try to HELP. Don't worry, I won't be doing that anymore.
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