First break up. Am I at wrong or did I completely misjudged her from get go?

[Justmike101]

I don't plan on getting back with my ex or anything like that but I really need some answers to the question because I want to learn something from it. I never got closure from my ex and I do not trust my judgment regarding my break up because I am so inexperienced. So please help me out.

 

I dated my ex for about a year. She was my first GF and my first love. We were each other's first physically as well. She liked me in high school, and she found me 6 yrs after graduation on myspace. That's how we started. She really liked me when we saw each other as grown adults. The very next day after we got together officially as a couple, she broke up with me saying her Catholic mother would not approve of me since I was a Christian. She said both of her brothers in laws converted and she expected me to do the same if I wanted to be with her. I wasn't particularly religious but I felt what she was asking was very indignifying. We put this on the backburner and just went on.

 

I know she was also seeing 3 other guys simultaneously just before she met me, but apparently she said she stopped talking to them after she committed to me. However, she still kept in contact with them. I wasn't jealous or anything but I mentioned it to her that I didn't like it.

 

We dated seriously for about a year and towards the end it got serious. She talked about marriage and moving in with me and what not. At the time, I had just graduated from UCLA and was studying hard for the law school exam. We decided to meet our parents and introduce each other. I feel like it was getting pretty serious and I really considered her as my fiance. Then I realized towards the end of 1 yr together that she became increasingly distant. She works full time and she's busy and all, but it got to the point of seeing each other only once or twice a month. I made every effort to see her despite taking classes full time and studying for the lsat. I feel like I was too readily available for her and made all the sacrifices. Well why not, I decided to get serious and I loved her.

 

Then it happened. Upon graduating college, I was offered a very high paying job, which was great since I could finally get a place to move in together and actually buy her stuff. As a broke college student I didn't do too much for her as I was not working. I always felt bad. I was so happy and promised her I'd take her shopping with the first paycheck I get. Anyway, the time came. It was my first day at work and she was on her way to vacation with her sisters. I get a call from my lawyer's office. He tells me since I graduated my visa can no longer be extended. I had to forfeit the job.

 

Out of desperation and extreme pressure, I cracked. I text msged her (cuz she had no reception) if she would marry me. I showed signs of frustration and disappointment. I told her that I was very upset and wanted to escape back to my home country. (even tho I lived in the US most of my life)

 

Her next text msg back to me was "I don't think we're meant to be."

 

Well, it really shocked me at her response. She didn't ask if I was ok or why I was being so extreme. I was totally confused and heart broken. I responded back to her saying "ok."

 

When she came back, I tried to reconcile with her saying that I never meant to hurt her by proposing in such dispicable manner. I apologized. But I also showed anger towards her saying she should have asked if I was ok and that she should have supported me. Afterall, it was only a week ago since she wanted to move in together. She said she wanted to take it slow from the beginning but wanted to keep the relationship open. Within a month she was already going out with friends and meeting guys. She even told me not to call her babe anymore since it felt awkward. I went NC.

 

about a month later, which would mark 2 months since breakup, she tells me on AIM that she had just met another man. Like a serious one she liked. I died. This is when I became desperate and clingy. I began calling her nonstop and AIMing her. She needed space so I gave it to her but she found another guy in the process. I really felt like life just crashing and losing the will to live. She really began treating me like crap after that, calling me a stalker, telling me to move on and that she doesn't love me anymore because she is so over me. It's been 6 months since the break up and only now I was able to gain myself back somewhat.

 

(this is my ego talking from here) I never needed her. I was doing fine. I was a pretty good looking guy, confident, educated, and very ambitious. She found me. I gave her a chance after waiting to date all thse years. Now I am left with nothing. I wish that she never found me on myspace but it's too late. I think I have been too naive. What did I do wrong? Where did it go wrong? the only closure I got from her was that I talk down at her all the time and she feels like crap being with me. She says Im verbally abusive and I will never change. I don't think that's true I think thats just her feeling she had at the moment. I never cussed her out or used foul language towards her. I do express frustrations and anger at times but I dont think I ever verbally abused her. I thought all couples fight and argument. For her, she just text msgs me essays instead of arguing it over with me. It was very frustrating.

 

Anyway, what should I learn from this?? I feel like I lost so much over somebody so cruel and cold.

[Justmike101]

i just realized this is a very long post. i apologize.

[Justmike101]

anyone want to chime in?

[dazedconfused]

In the most brutally honest way possible bro.. If you dont want this feeling dont date. HOW in a world of over 2 billion people are you going to find your soulmate first shot? 0.0000000001% chance what I would say you can take away from this... If your gonna date, make sure u settle for nothing less then your idea of a perfect women... I too went thru something similar to you. i know exactly how u feel about it all u can do is pick ur feet up and keep moving on.

[Ronni_W]

Justmike,

It's not that you "should", but that you can choose to learn from your experience if you want:

 

1. Don't just react to difficult situations and trying circumstances. When you're feeling desperate or extremely pressured, take the time to think before you act or speak. Learning stress management & relaxation techniques or taking meditation classes will help you stay calmer in a crisis.

 

2. If you act like a desperate, clingy stalker, then you can expect people to treat you like crap.

 

3. After your relationship ends, don't blame your ex for the fact that you got into the relationship in the first place. (People who do that just sound lame and pathetic and whiny.) The truth is that you made your own decision to progress the relationship past the initial dating stage. Take responsibility for ALL your own choices and decisions.

 

4. In future relationships, and there likely will be MANY more, remember that it is YOUR job to maintain your own high levels of self-confidence, self-respect, self-esteem. Put thought and energy into achieving your personal (non-relationship) goals. Don't allow your Self to get all entangled and "lost" in the relationship or in your partner's image of you.

 

5. You don't have to be screaming and swearing for it to come across that you are being condescending/talking down to others.

 

6. Depending on HOW you express your frustrations and anger, it may well be that your communication style is aggressive/abusive. In any case, what was important for your ex is that SHE felt that was how you sometimes communicated with her.

We all can learn to communicate in healthier, more effective ways; and to listen with more attention and awareness of the other's perspective.

 

7. For couples to fight and argue is generally non-productive and futile. Learn to express your own wants, needs, preferences and dislikes in a calm, kind, rational way; how to compromise; and how to look for win-win solutions in apparent stalemate situations. Also, learn how to LISTEN without becoming defensive, when others are expressing their needs, wants, preferences and dislikes.

 

 

So. Since there is so much learning that your ex has facilitated for you, all in all, it was a very successful relationship, yes?

 

It is perfectly okay to appreciate everything that the relationship did for, and gave to, you when it was going good, as well as the potential for self awareness that is its legacy...and to just let the crappy stuff be over-ridden by the positive stuff. That is a choice that you can make, to focus on the 'beginning' that is inherent in this ending.

 

Even so. 'Endings' do have a habit of sucking. Hugs and good luck with your healing and recovery.

[Justmike101]

Justmike,

It's not that you "should", but that you can choose to learn from your experience if you want:

 

1. Don't just react to difficult situations and trying circumstances. When you're feeling desperate or extremely pressured, take the time to think before you act or speak. Learning stress management & relaxation techniques or taking meditation classes will help you stay calmer in a crisis.

 

2. If you act like a desperate, clingy stalker, then you can expect people to treat you like crap.

 

3. After your relationship ends, don't blame your ex for the fact that you got into the relationship in the first place. (People who do that just sound lame and pathetic and whiny.) The truth is that you made your own decision to progress the relationship past the initial dating stage. Take responsibility for ALL your own choices and decisions.

 

4. In future relationships, and there likely will be MANY more, remember that it is YOUR job to maintain your own high levels of self-confidence, self-respect, self-esteem. Put thought and energy into achieving your personal (non-relationship) goals. Don't allow your Self to get all entangled and "lost" in the relationship or in your partner's image of you.

 

5. You don't have to be screaming and swearing for it to come across that you are being condescending/talking down to others.

 

6. Depending on HOW you express your frustrations and anger, it may well be that your communication style is aggressive/abusive. In any case, what was important for your ex is that SHE felt that was how you sometimes communicated with her.

We all can learn to communicate in healthier, more effective ways; and to listen with more attention and awareness of the other's perspective.

 

7. For couples to fight and argue is generally non-productive and futile. Learn to express your own wants, needs, preferences and dislikes in a calm, kind, rational way; how to compromise; and how to look for win-win solutions in apparent stalemate situations. Also, learn how to LISTEN without becoming defensive, when others are expressing their needs, wants, preferences and dislikes.

 

 

So. Since there is so much learning that your ex has facilitated for you, all in all, it was a very successful relationship, yes?

 

It is perfectly okay to appreciate everything that the relationship did for, and gave to, you when it was going good, as well as the potential for self awareness that is its legacy...and to just let the crappy stuff be over-ridden by the positive stuff. That is a choice that you can make, to focus on the 'beginning' that is inherent in this ending.

 

Even so. 'Endings' do have a habit of sucking. Hugs and good luck with your healing and recovery.

 

Thanks for your advice I'll take it with a grain of salt. I don't think that it's overtly simple, as I understood your response to be. It wasn't all my fault and some of the things I mentioned may not be my wrong doing at all. I wasn't the one who broke up. I was willing to change and work the relationship. She wanted out. She was already going on dates a week after we broke up and met someone else 2 months after our break up.

[gldngirl]

The bottom line of all relationships I've been in boils down to this. No matter how much you love the other person, or how much you want it to work, or how much you're willing to work on it, if they want out, then let them out.

 

The first and hardest lesson I learned in love was You can't change someone.

 

Letting them go is hard but if you can learn anything from her behavior, learn that the harder you try to cling, the further they will pull away.

[Mikey Action]

The bottom line of all relationships I've been in boils down to this. No matter how much you love the other person, or how much you want it to work, or how much you're willing to work on it, if they want out, then let them out.

 

The first and hardest lesson I learned in love was You can't change someone.

 

Letting them go is hard but if you can learn anything from her behavior, learn that the harder you try to cling, the further they will pull away.

 

 

Yahtzee on this one. Imagine dipping a fist or a cupped hand into a lake to get water out. Which one gives you the most water? certainly not a tight hand.

 

Let her go. Relationships just don't always work. There are some exes I have realized that I will always carry a flame for, that's just the way it is. In those cases, it is better to never see them or talk to them again.

[Justmike101]

but why was it necessary for her to break up with me at that point? I just don't understand because a week ago she was begging me to move in with her and we talked about marriage and all.