caving in...............possibly against my better judgement

[not_a_happy_camper]

i'm new to this, but i've been reading for a while. any help would be appreciated.

 

My ex-boyfriend of 17 months (long distance, my first relationship) broke up with me 6 weeks ago. The break up took place over 4 weeks. And was very painful and confusing. I’ll not go into detail. Things went belly up one weekend due to something he did, and after three weeks of pure confusion, we met up on a Friday night, and decided we’d give it a go, and see how things went. We kept to light topics, work, etc, but didn’t address what was going to change at that time. We met the following night, we were both out with friends. At a quiet point, he said things weren’t the same. I said of course they’re not, we need to talk about it, it’s unrealistic to expect things to go back to normal straight away. (he’s 27, a little on the immature side, I’m 25). He said let’s meet up tomorrow and talk. All cool and the gang I thought. Didn’t hear from him till late Sunday afternoon. We meet up in the evening. He got straight to the point. We’re not right for each other, I’m doing this now to prevent it happening in six months time. Long distance relationships don’t work anyway (the only other relationship he was in was long distance also……). And we haven’t talked about what happened (I thought that was why we were meeting up, to talk) he said he’d probably regret this for a long time, and if he ended up ringing me in a few months begging me to come back, I’d know why. He wants to be friends. He’ll call me in a few weeks………at which point I intervened to say, I don’t want this to be over. He said ok, we’ll take a break for a few weeks……………then no, this is only dragging things out, I need a clean break………ok.

 

I emailed him nearly two weeks later, saying we could never be together again. I didn’t bitch about him. Nothing like that. but I guess I felt in my mind, that I needed to do that for closure. Because if I had broken up with him when things went wrong originally, I’d probably feel better. But I didn’t, because I cared too much, and wanted to make things work. I showed the email to a close friend, to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake in sending it. So I sent it. And got a swift reply in which new information came to light. He also said, he was miserable without me and that hearing me say we could never be together again hurt even if it was true. I pointed out I was sending it for closure, but there was stuff I didn’t know before, could we talk? He brushed me off.

 

I deleted him from my facebook, because we kept checking each other’s profiles. Not helping. I deleted his phone number. That helped, even though I know it by heart.

 

He dropped my stuff back to me the following weekend, and I gave him his. It was ok, friendly but not familiar. I closed the door and cried so hard when he was gone.

 

I was out the following week with friends, beginning to feel normal again and have some fun. He came into the room……….saw me, made eye contact, and turned on his heel without saying hello. Ouch. I spoke to a mutual friend during the week who said he’s having a hard time coming to terms with the break up.

 

Since he dropped back my stuff, there’s been no effort at contact from either side. Three weeks without a word. I was doing ok. He texted Christmas eve. A generic happy Christmas text. No biggie. Except it’s set me back big time. All I could think was, why would he bother now? I sent him a reply. Thanks, same to you and your family. Got no reply, wasn’t expecting one anyway. I knew he’d be home for Christmas. Suddenly everywhere I go, I’m looking for him, hoping I’ll see him somewhere we can’t avoid each other, just to break the ice again. I’m beginning to think about all the wonderful things we shared. I had pushed them to the back of my mind, with a lot of effort. I’m forgetting how bad I felt the last few weeks we were together. But then I’d thought we could sort things out then. He just seemed to not want to try. I know the happy Christmas text can’t have meant much more than “i’m thinking about you, but that’s all, nothing more, have a nice Christmas”. And I’m not sure we could ever be together again. He thinks I don’t want to be anyway, after the email I sent. And he’s made things clear (ish) to me. It just seems that, even though I’ve made myself so busy with distractions, especially since he texted me, I seem to think about him more and more. I miss him every minute of every hour. And the urge to text him is killing me.

 

i don’t know what my reason for texting him is. Like I said, I don’t know that we could ever be together again. Maybe I need to see him to remind me how much he hurt me, and send me on my merry way back to the world of singleness! Maybe it’s to see if he could possibly ever love me again, or if I could ever love him the same way. Or maybe it’s just to spend some time with the best friend I’ve ever had. Either way, I want to see him.

 

I feel I’ll be setting myself up for a massive rejection. I’m a proud person. I don’t know that I could handle that. I feel I want him to be the one reach out………..since he did the breaking up, and caused the original rift! But he’s proud too……….And I can’t waste my time hoping that he’ll text me. I’m sure he’s not spending his time wondering about me. I don’t know that he’s seeing anyone or not. And too proud to start asking mutual friends……..but he did say it would be a long time before he could consider being in a relationship again. But then again, I don’t know. I can’t see the harm in texting to see how he is, but I feel it would be with a motive other than that alone. And I’m afraid that he won’t want to even say I’m fine, how are you? Maybe that’s silly. And also, friends and family are against texting him. Possibly for all the above reasons…………….as well as the fact that they think I can do better. He’s a good person, just not good enough for me is the way they’ve put it. But then they don’t feel the way I do about him, do they? Please help. I hate the thoughts of thinking all of this over new years! Apologies for the length of this, if you’ve read this far, thanks! All opinions appreciated

[saturnfell]

Hi,

 

It's hard knowing someone we care about is back in the area. Since he's back I think it's only natural to have an urge to want to bump into him, but in my opinion it's better if you don't.

 

I wouldn't contact him. You said he caused you a great deal of pain, he needs to apologize for that and pursue you if he truly cares and show you how sorry he is. Your curiosity is normal as well, but still, I would go NC. He knows how to get in touch with you.

[peacebyinches]

If you contact him you will lose any progress you made since Christmas. If you don't you will never know, but honestly you probably already know.

[confused_2008]

Isn't it crazy how so many people want to text the ex after the breakup just to say hey what's up? You want to feel that the connection is still there. In some cases it's an ego thing, but a lot of times it's just missing the person. Anyway, what do those texts accomplish? It really boils down to worthless contact in most situations because it doesn't solve any problems, just a 'fix' of that person for the short term. Also, I think texts are so impersonal but they can stir up so many emotions when you are in the vulnerable position you are now. The other person could be rolling their eyes or thinking they hate you and none of those feelings are conveyed in their response to you.

 

That was kind of a random rant but my point is don't text him. It's a temporary 'fix' to your bigger problem of coping with the breakup and it will only set you back.

[not_a_happy_camper]

Hi,

 

You said he caused you a great deal of pain, he needs to apologize for that and pursue you if he truly cares and show you how sorry he is. Your curiosity is normal as well, but still, I would go NC. He knows how to get in touch with you.

 

he did apologise. only when he found out how upset i was. not because he thought what he'd done was wrong. that was an issue for me. he got angry, and made a silly mistake. i realise it was silly (but still a really big mistake with many other implications, too complicated to explain), but he said he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't do it again. i told him if he couldn't, he obviously thought it was an acceptable way to treat a person. which isn't good enough.

 

so i can see the reality of the situation. why would i want someone who can hurt me the way he did? because in spite of it all, i still care so deeply for him. i don't know how those feelings will ever go away. we'd planned to travel together. talked about living together. it's hard to let all of that go.

 

i won't contact him. you're right, he knows where i am if he wants to get in touch. he did text for christmas. i don't think that means a thing. but there's nothing i can do. i just find it very hard to let go of the hope that he might contact me. i already feel it will never happen. and that really hurts.