Why?

[scienceguy]

adamt,

 

That pretty much described my experience as well. She trashed me the last several month we were together, and when we broke up, she actually told me that I was a burden and the relationship was tying her down. Painful to hear.

[LisaUk]

Sciencguy, thanks for yur reply. I have thought a lot about what you have said and I agree with some of it. I think perhaps my love did blind me to some extent but not in the way you would expect. It blinded me to the fact that an 8 year engagement is way to long, and I readily excepted his excuses every time setting a date was bought up. Even though we were together from such a young age, he was 27 years old by the time he proposed to me, we had been together 12 years and living together 2 years by that time. (we went to different colleges 200 miles apart for 3 years).

 

The fact that neither of us had been in previous serious relationships, well I think if your unhappy you now, you don't need a comparision. He still has no comparision but has decided to leave, perhaps he thinks the grass is greener, he should come on here and read some of the stories about how other women have treated the men dumped on here. Perhaps then he wil realise just what he has thrown away.

 

Did we have problems, no I really don't think so, we hadn't been arguing since we bought our new house a year and half ago, were there signs I missed, I will keep thinking, but at the moment I would say no. He didn't become distant, he didn't stop talking to me and asking about me, he didn't stop being affectionate (friends have commented how he would hug me or take hold of my hand), he said he was so happy that my confidence had improved so much since I lost 5 stones (14lbs in a stone, I'm British) and how proud and pleased he was that it was having such a positive effect on our lives.

 

Just to demonstarte how lame his reasons were "you didn't want me to have a motorbike, you don't like me to go out too much and you don't like me going on stag dos", seriously. I was not keen on him having a bike again as he had an accident on the one he used to have, I was worried, but equally I would never have stopped him getting one. He wroked very long hours, leaving at 6am and returning home 7.15 pm, he had after work dinners, socials and over night conferences regularly, he often bought work home on weekends and on vacation! I don't think asking for some time with him was wrong of me, I have a personal dislike of stag dos, but I never prevented him from going on them, even though I had little time with him due to his work commitments and these do's very often involved 3 or 4 days away.

 

If these are all I did wrong then God help him if he meets a women like the ones some of the guys on here have had to deal with.

 

I would have compromised on these issues if he had told me he had them, it's the first complaint about them that I've heard! In the past if we argued about them, we reached a comprimise. That's what I thought, but turns out he lied said he was fine with it and built up resentment instead.

 

Personally, looking at the whole picture I truly believe that had I not insisted he honour his commitment to me, I would still be sat with him, at home on the sofa (couch).

 

Sorry for the rant! I do take your point but I think the time frame involved makes it unrealistic that he would stay if he were truly unhappy all that time as he has said. It's good to have other peoples perspectives though as it brings either a different understanding or more clarity to my situation, so thank you for taking the time to reply.

[redy2]

i think dumpers have already made up thier long before you actually get dumped they dont want to be with you. and have done dis-associated their feelings for you by the time you get dumped. my last one just started trying to nitpick stuff to try and find something to argue over to give herself justification. but i didnt argue with her. lol which actually made her get even more mad.

 

but she was done turning cold emotionally and shutting me out of her life weeks before. so i could see it was coming. so was no suprise. so when i get dumped they usually distance themselves prior to it.

 

now when i got dumped. i just told her i accept it was for the best. i had a good time with her and enjoyed out time together. i think that bothered her more than me trying to convince her to stay. then id get text about who i was going out. how could i do it so soon after she left etc etc. i told what you expect me to do sit at home and cry over you? dont get me wrong i love her and wish he hadnt left.

 

best thing to do when dumped is dont over react. easier said than done.

[adamt]

i think dumpers have already made up thier long before you actually get dumped they dont want to be with you. and have done dis-associated their feelings for you by the time you get dumped. my last one just started trying to nitpick stuff to try and find something to argue over to give herself justification. but i didnt argue with her. lol which actually made her get even more mad.

 

in my case, she started to focus on the gym months before we split up. at the time there were no other warning signs so i thought i would benefit from a fit female. then a couple of times she showed she was becoming selfish. again i didnt take much notice because these things happen sometimes. then the sex stopped but i thought external stress was causing that. then she started to nit pick over trivial stuff that had never been a problem. then she started talking under her breath and once or twice i said what did you say and she said nothing. then i noticed she rolled her eyes once when i was talking to someone. on my birthday she wanted to go to the restaurant of her choice. then i noticed when we were out she would talk to other people more than staying by my side. then when in bed she seemed to go straight asleep and slept facing away from me. it does creep up on you unaware. when you notice things you tend to think you are making something out of nothing. it is hard to see the wood for the trees in the period when the dumper is making the transition. its all sad to think that at the end she was probably desperate to finish it but never had the courage to follow it through. makes you feel the 3 year relationship has wated your life.

 

when we split up i realised she had changed a lot over 6 months. physically and emotionally. seems like she has gone from a homely girl wanting to settle down to someone who wants to be busy socialising. i didnt have a problem she was changing but clearly she was distancing herself so didnt want me to come along and change wioth her. being 36, how long will that last before she starts wanting to settle down again.

[scienceguy]

...

The fact that neither of us had been in previous serious relationships, well I think if your unhappy you now, you don't need a comparision. He still has no comparision but has decided to leave, perhaps he thinks the grass is greener, he should come on here and read some of the stories about how other women have treated the men dumped on here. Perhaps then he wil realise just what he has thrown away.

 

Previous relationships help a lot when making decisions about a current relationship. When I look back on my previous relationships, I realize that all these problems that I chose to ignore. There were things my ex did that I did not think were very respectful towards me, but I allowed them to go on. Looking back, I would've communicated more clearly, etc. These are things you only learn through experience. He had nothing else to judge his relationship against.

 

 

Just to demonstarte how lame his reasons were "you didn't want me to have a motorbike, you don't like me to go out too much and you don't like me going on stag dos", seriously. I was not keen on him having a bike again as he had an accident on the one he used to have, I was worried, but equally I would never have stopped him getting one. He wroked very long hours, leaving at 6am and returning home 7.15 pm, he had after work dinners, socials and over night conferences regularly, he often bought work home on weekends and on vacation! I don't think asking for some time with him was wrong of me, I have a personal dislike of stag dos, but I never prevented him from going on them, even though I had little time with him due to his work commitments and these do's very often involved 3 or 4 days away.

 

Superficially the reasons are lame, but all three examples you gave sound like he felt trapped in his relationship. On some level, he probably realized that he had outgrown it, and was feeling resentful for staying in it. I'm guessing that's what happened.

 

It does seem like he wasn't particularly introspective about his decisions. Obviously people don't break up over motorcycles, etc.

 

Again, I'm sorry that you have to deal with these things. Break ups suck. They hurt like hell and can really affect you for a long time. The most important thing, however, is to get your life moving again so you can be happy, independent, and find a new man. Gradually try to stop looking at the past and make steps to move forward in your life.

[LisaUk]

I feel for you adamt, I feel the best part of my life has been wasted. I was with my ex 18 years from 15-33. I have to start completely fresh and I am terrified to date having only ever been intimate with him.

 

You didn't notice the signs at the time because you loved her so much and as such you trusted she would do the right thing by you, that doesn't make you foolish, but her selfish.

[adamt]

You didn't notice the signs at the time because you loved her so much and as such you trusted she would do the right thing by you, that doesn't make you foolish, but her selfish.

 

this isnt meant to sound arrogant just up until end of january i felt i was the one slight more incontrol of the relationship. she was keen to get a house and stuff which i didnt have a problem with. i think i was comfortable and assumed we were fine and took her for granted too, i felt the next step was the house then after that kids and marriage. i felt things were on track. thats probably a side that let things go. problem was she started to push me away and i think i started to step back because i didnt want to feel rejection and wanted her to reassure me she wanted me. after we split up she said she wished we had talked more often about how we felt.

[hopefulInFuture]

the thing is I don't think there exists a universal definition of what constitutes a terrible problem and what not. I think the quality of a relationship for each person is defined differently and it's based on their expectations. This is why some people forgive cheating and some not, some people forgive laziness and some not... the thing is that there are a lot of factors involved. And 2 people in a relationship never feel exactly the same and interpret differently the dynamics of a relationship

 

Having said this, people don't always dump the others because the other person is not right for them. Sometimes they do this simply because they are not happy with themselves at that time. Or because they feel they want to see what else is out there before making a commitment. The reasons might be a lot. But you know what, we will never understand the dynamics of any relationship.

 

Even if you check with the counselors, they say that there's no prediction for which marriages could survive. They say that sometimes the most perfect marriages fail, while the marriages they would have never betted on survive and strive. It's got to do with a lot of characteristics. It depends on what each of the people involved in a relationship is willing to put in at a specific period of time and for how long.

[celesteundress]

thats some sage wisdom right there hopeful in the future

[adamt]

I just wonder when the warning signs start appearing and after the potential dumpee has fixed the issues how many potential dumpers change their mind and become happy in the relationship. In most cases i think the decision to end it has already been made and it is lying dormant ready to rise up once it is triggered. There is no way back.

 

is there any differences with the sexes. ie Women seem more emotionally attached so once that starts to go then no way back. Where as men might be kept happier because the physical side improves.

[asuman]

Theres no commitment phobia...

theres no issues dumpees have to work out.

All the stories Ive read on this board are ones that the dumpers told the dumpees. Theyre always lame excuses but they are never the real and only reason.

 

The dumpers lost interest. Simple as that. They started losing interest at some time, and started looking elsewhere, and found someone. Theres no pain, theres no real long lasting guilt. Once you lose interest in someone, you generally dont get it back...mostly because the dumpees hound you about it and drive you further away. The dumpers want to move on and forward, most of the time moving forward with someone new and exciting.

 

Reading all the stories on here, you'd think it would be more complicated, but all the stories have made it easier to narrow it down to the same basic thing.

 

So true. Everything said here is 100% accurate.

 

Some of you know that I got dumped just today. I didn't even bother asking her what the reason was. Been there done that. The point is that she lost interest, somewhere along the way. I have no idea where or how. I do know that my harassing her by demanding answers that she wouldn't want to give me isn't going to have her come scampering back to me. That will probably never happen, but the only chance of it would be by my shutting her out of my life, getting over her and moving on. All she knows about me is based on 7 pretty nice dates and a calm break-up conversation. So yeah, maybe she'll call me in 6 months. (This actually did happen to me once. Girl blew me off after 2 dates. I left her alone. A full year later she emailed me out of the blue asking if I wanted to see her again. I was dating someone else by then.)

 

Not to be arrogant. I've been a blubbering mess in past break-ups. That's just never worked. Live and learn.

[adamt]

first the sex may stop or get less frequent. they just dont feel in the mood.By the time the nit picking starts the dumper is getting ready to break up. They have stopped being comfortable in your company. then they want to be with you less and less. they start to catch up with old friends or they only want to go out with you to bars when mutual friends are there with you. you ask them why they are trying to put you down with nit picking and why they hardly spoke to you in the bar with friends. they probably say dont see a problem or they dont know why they are nit picking and they subconsciously are preparing themselves. i guess it can be gradual that it is hard for the dumper to see their feelings changing. they only notice when you end up arguing over something petty.

 

In my case the ex g/f was always the more chatty one in the relationship. first i noticed the sex was less and less. (even though she was pushing to get a house with me) body language in bed suggested she was starting to distance herself. eg sleep facing away from me, go to bed just before i do, hardly undress infront off me. comments on me to stop looking if i am in bed and she is getting dressed or undress. spending more time on the laptop(and facebook) in my company. then she would be less chatty and i was finding it harder and harder to get a conversation going. She would get more selfish on where she wanted to go with me and wants other people about. then nit picking over things that were never a problem and seemed be trying to belittle me and loses sense of humour with my jokes. then talking under her breath and rolling her eyes sometime. she starts to sit further away from me on the sofa or in a taxi. No talk of planning future holidays with excuses. the final chapter are those moments of silence when you can see she is thinking something. I guess this is the time when she wants you to step up and ask what is wrong, and read her mind and do the dirty deed of breaking up so her concience is clear. Once you are broken up its a huge relief of the dumpers shoulders which moves onto the dumpee

 

That is the build uop to getting dumped by a female, next time i will know when it is in the pipe line. Not sure for men if it is as gradual because a bloke may just stick it out if he is getting his leg over(a fook buddy) and look for someone else in the meantime. is it harder to see you are about to get dumped by a boyfriend?

 

at the time it might seem sudden but on relflection after the break up it was not sudden. When it is gradual you dont notice it and put it down to bad days at the office and a passing phase. Then you just cant believe that the dumper can walk away so easily and forget about all those years together and move on and cut all contact. But imagine if you have just spent 3-4 months realising you dont want to be with someone. My ex wanted to change her facebook status the week before we split up but said she wanted to split up in person. By 9am next day her status was back to single. it does hurt when you spend 3 years with someone and they just cant wait to get out of the relationship. you just cant believe they didnt want to be with you that much. are you really that bad a person to be with?

 

when the ex wanted a break, she said she couldnt sleep that night (bit like myself) but 3 weeks later when she wanted to break up properly she seemed to have no emotion and was relieved but sad

[scienceguy]

adamt,

 

Yah that pretty much describes what happened to me as well. A couple months before we broke up, she crapped on me a lot. She'd lie to me about how she spent her time, blow me off to go out with her friends, and pull away when I would kiss her on the cheek (a big sign that I didn't see at the time). She'd sleep away from me and generally, pick on me for little things. She started to turn to a guy friend for all her emotionally intimate needs, and when we'd talk on the phone, she'd flirt with him on the other end of the line. Looking back, there were a ton of warning signs, but at the time, I just didn't see it.

 

Like your ex, mine also felt pretty relieved when we broke up. Heck, she said I was a burden and that the relationship was tying her down. It was ungodly cruel and hurtful to say that, but it was true. To her, I was dead weight.

 

It's also difficult because it's a fundamentally bad situation. There are no answers like "karma" or "you'll get stronger for this experience" or "that person doesn't know what s/he is missing" anything like that. You simply got your heart broken by the person you loved. The End. The "dumpee" gets crapped on and nothing happens to the "dumper" whatsoever. The dumper gets to make the choice of ending the relationship, and the dumper doesn't get his/her heart broken. The dumper doesn't "lose" months dealing with all these things. It's tough to rebuild your life after this type of stuff. For you and me, you are forced to let go of all the things that you valued so much. And for her, she probably felt she was throwing out a piece of trash.

 

It's been about two years since my relationship ended, and recently she apologized for the way she treated me and handled things. It's helped heal certain things, but the whole thing sucks a lot. She was my best friend of several years, and now we barely speak to one another.

 

For me, this is one of the harshest lessons about relationships. To really form a meaningful emotional connection you really do have to trust the other person with your heart; obviously that trust is earned with time, but it entails an enormous risk of getting hurt. It can affect you for weeks, months or even years. It's scary that is the type of situation you're putting yourself into.

 

I dunno where this is going but I can definitely relate to what you're going through. It's a long, painful road.

[adamt]

hopefully some people out there will read it and pick up on the warning signs before they get dumped.

 

its hard to not look back to say 6 -12 months ago and think how happy the dumper was then. at some point that touchy feely you get from your girlfriend went in january. i think valentines night was the first time i picked up something wasnt right but just thought it was a moody moment. basically i had spent ages booking a restaurant but she didnt seem bothered about leaving the pub to go there. so i went in a mood and the night was spoilt. but by then we hadnt had sex for probably 2 months. then my birthday came and no sex again. again she was being selfish and wanted to go to a restaurant of her choice.maybe deep down i was in denial and hoped it would all pass.

 

last 4 months she had been focusing on herself and going to the gym a lot. she started to block me out and i knew less and less about what she was doing. saw some pics of her a couple of weeks ago and looks a different person. it hurts to think that she might have been so unhappy in the last 6 months that she wanted to change her appearance so much. she had been changing but not letting me know she was changing

 

when we split up i said remember the times from 6 months ago, she said she felt sad it hadnt worked out and couldnt explain why her feelings changed.

[Beeotch]

Realistically: if someone doesn't want something, no matter the dedication of the other,they still won't want it.

 

That's the truth.

 

Sometimes we do all the right things but for the WRONG people...working hard to maintain a relationship is terrific, esp when it goes both ways and this person wants you just as much; however, working and being diligent when the other person doesn't feel the same doesn't amount to anything.

 

You just allow them to leave. If they want to leave...let them go. I only want someone who wants me just as much.I was willing to go to hell and back for my last relationship...and I was mad he did not. He could not and still can't because he has his own issues....some people might not have issues and just are not interested...it sucks but it happens.No one is going to put in the work if they don't want it...they don't want it that's why they won't work on it, simply put...so I just keep it moving.

 

Don't want to force anyone to do anything...I want that person who WANTS to work things out etc.Sometimes it is not meant to be...and sometimes you know within yourself you have to walk away...that's also the truth. HOW you walk away is what makes the difference....but you can't expect people to not break up with you and work on the relationship if they feel it is not for them.

[adamt]

I've come to the conclusion that once someone is having doubts about the relationship, no matter what you do they will more than likely leave at some point. you just cant be walking around on egg shells worried that something minor will annoy them. My mood at the moment is frustration that she never talked to me earlier with any issues. but then again if i sorted out any issues and she was having doubts then she might have picked on other things.

[Nikki Sahagin]

I think its all been covered...

 

To be honest, there is no blanket reason why a person dumps another. Dumpers are not a universal group bound together by their reasons and motivations.

 

I also don't believe neccessarily in the term 'committment phobia' as I think naturally we all tend to both crave and fear committment all at once. This is the natural human tendency to on the one hand wish to pull someone close, and by the same turn, wish to push them away. Some fear this more than others, and some definately have more reason to, but it is a natural human reaction to sometimes want to be the furthest away from the one we love most, because in love and relationships many people tend to lose themselves, their dreams, their ambitions, their time etc, and it can begin to feel suffocating. We all at times wish to escape our responsibilities and just be alone, I think this feeling is recurrent. The nature of human sexuality is not as fixed or as explainable as human logic dictates. Who knows if sexual or emotional monogamy is even natural, guaranteed or desirable? We all crave monogamy and committment but yet we at the same time fear it, find it irritating, find it constricting - at least most of us.

 

Sometimes a person consciously chooses to leave a relationship and detatch themselves slowly and silently whilst the relationship progresses. To be honest this process can be hard to notice because in long-term relationships, it is quite normal for a person to 'reclaim' themself by having more alone time, new friends, new hobby's - however you can normally feel the change. You know that feeling when you just feel no matter how far away you are from them, that things are fine? Well when that shifts you can feel it. And its not just you feeling it, they do too. Normally when you are in love you want to engrain someone further into your life, but when you are slowly trying to push them out, it may not even mean you don't love them, but that other conflicting emotions/thoughts are arising. Also the checking out process is not neccessarily cruel or intentional - it is self-motivated but that doesn't mean it is cruel. Sometimes it can be, and not all exes are cruel, some are just very confused and to try to understand or look deeper or make sense of things, is just too overwhelming.

 

As the dumped, we usually try to paint the ex as cold, stupid etc, but as someone else said, us holding on is as much about fear of confronting our own fears and flaws.

 

Relationships are so complex.

 

Each individual has a personal set of beliefs, values, opinions, habits, personality traits, fears, ambitions etc. Two people need to mesh in so many ways to avoid adjustments and sacrifices that are too vast. It cannot always happen. Sadly in relationships we sometimes feel the need to escape, because we don't know HOW to go about solving things. The only way it seems to make sense is when we are alone.

[Nikki Sahagin]

I'd like to add that it takes a long time to know a person. At the honeymoon stage we all put on our best faces. Then the real us emerges but sometimes we still hold back our true selves. Who can say whether we knew them most or knew them less?

[adamt]

I'd like to add that it takes a long time to know a person. At the honeymoon stage we all put on our best faces. Then the real us emerges but sometimes we still hold back our true selves. Who can say whether we knew them most or knew them less?

 

yeah i think we had a 2 year honeymoon period. lots of trips abroad..etc then we started to plan to buy a house. (she was pushing to buy a 'dream' house) the sex had stopped even before she was pushing to buy a house together. talk about mixed signals.then a few months later she started to distance herself. probably started to question our compatibilty in the long term. in the end she said we were extremes and didnt have a lot in common. I tended to disagree but by then i think she had pushed herself away. she had never been out with someone for more than 2 years and never lived with someone and is quite independent. but in the end it was probably mix of a lot of things. she never really gave me the chance to sit down and try to work things out.

 

since splitting up she seems to have got back in touch with friends from 10-15 years ago

[stace79]

Hi all,

having been reading all the threads on here for a couple of days I would like to ask the following question.

 

Why do the dumpers give up so quickly on working things out with the dumpees before breaking up? It seems that the dumpers have no commitment to making a relationship work with someone who clearly is willing to try. Yet, the dumpees on here are in pieces, yet some must have been dumpers themselves at some point, so logically dumpers must have been dumpees at some point. If you follow me? Why do they just bail? It seems crazy to me! If finding a relationship is so difficult why would someone choose to just walk away without trying? I'm not talking about the cases where the two people have really had terrible problems and have tried to work it through first, I mean all the cases on here where the dumpee hasn't even known anything was wrong and has just been left, with no opportunity to resolve anything.

 

I know there probably isn't an answer, was more of a philosopical wondering really. Have people in general just come to regard other people as disposable and replacable?

 

Because sometimes it just will not work. Sometimes even if you DO love a man or woman, there are just differences in philosophy about life, money, religion, etc. Sometimes there is no logical reason for why love isn't there in someone's heart.

 

As far as people being disposable, I never feel that way. I'm typically very upset when breaking up with someone b/c I've had my heart broken and know how much it can hurt. Plus I like to think I'm a nice person and I wouldn't hurt anyone needlessly.