Don't know where to start....

[ElChup]

I didn't think I'd do this, but I feel so low at the moment that I feel maybe I have to get down some of my confusing thoughts and seek peoples' advice.

 

I recently split with my fiancé. We were together until a month ago, however I officially moved out of her apartment 11 days ago.

A little background, she is 36, I am 32. We had be together for almost exactly3 years, engaged for the last two. Over that time we moved in together and even went to the extent where her father bought her an apartment that would basically be our home together. I even helped to design it and choose the furniture. It was wonderful, and with her family in a wealthier position than me, the home we lived was well beyond what I could have afforded anytime soon. However, I supplied all of the kitchen stuff and utilities, home cinema and so on, which I had in my own apartment, which, in turn, was then let to tenants.

 

It was good life and all was going well until an unfortunate happened earlier this year. I lost my full time job. I am a lawyer and without the fulltime job I could not hope to meet my financial commitments. Worst thing was, it wasn't my fault. My boss had breached his contract with me in a big way and this led to tension. Add that to the fact that in the current climate nobody is hiring means that as of today I still only work part time. Things became difficult after I stopped working full time. I could no longer pay the bills and was struggling to even meet my own standard financial commitments. Things became tense, at the same time we were deep in preparations for the wedding and her father was pushing for it to be booked and paid for. By conicidence on 3rd of October it was the third anniversary of our meeting and I made the mistake of going out with the boys for beers. I had asked her permission, but I have since learned that I should nonetheless had stayed. Anyhow, she used that as a catalyst to bring the relationship to an end.

 

However, I am missing out something very important here....and that is the nature of our relationship. We couldn't live with each other and couldn't live without. We both had very similiar personalities to the extent that we were both stubborn and also very independant in our thinking. Both of us wanted to wear the trousers in the relationship and from day one that caused arguments. Now, although we had arguments, we also deeply loved each other as well. In fact I was smitten with her. I placed all of my emotional dependance in her and she was, quite literally, my life. We had both been single for years beforehand and we both thought this was going to be it. Equally, all her friends had gotten married and moved away and I was her right hand man, if it were. We would commumicate by phone, text and email always when we were apart, such as at work, and we always struggled if we had to spend any more that a couple weeks apart.

 

As I mentioned before, she brought an end to the relationship. However, she did so with much regret and was, and remains, in two minds about it. Her heart told her to stay, whereas her head told her that she couldn't live in a relationship where there were arguments once a week (she had come from a family where her parents never argued). In addition, time was not on her side and she felt there was too much risk in getting married to be with my current finnacial situation being the way it was. She left the relationship very much still loving me and appeared to be pretty devastated.

 

For me, things couldn't have come at a worse time. Since I have no full time job I cannot get rid of the tenants in my own home as I need the rental income to cover the mortgage. Thus I am in a fix. I have had to move back into my parents' house while putting my stuff in storage, which is a small working class house with a tiny bedroom for me to be in - the one I grew up in, in fact. They live along way out of town so I am cut off from everyone and everything I am used to. Add that to the fact that they are not very easy to live with. I have not just lost my soulmate, but my entire life right along with it.

 

I feel that I have destroyed my relationship and my life with it.......yet at the same time the fact that we would have arguments played on my logical mind and I went on hoping it would resolve itself.

I am almost at rock bottom. If it were not that I had my own home, and that small chance of returning there once I get back to work, then I would be suicidal right now. But I don't know if I have the energy to go and get that job.....even though I am, at the same time, desperate to return home. I fear that I will be stranded in this misery for a long time.

Also, she really wants to stay friends and, with her being a really good person, and having had her stick by me during a time of illness two years ago, I have been open to the idea. We have even gone out once since I left, although that had been arranged since before the split.

 

I have so many questions I have to try and answer:-

 

1) How to resolve the fact that this is not a situation where she has met someone new and no longer has feelings for me. Knowing that she is out there, upset and faced with having to start all over again at 36. I so wish I could go back there and be the person she wants....but I guess that can't happen now.

 

2) How to stay friends and fly in the face of the no contact rule. I cannot just shut her out of my life. We lived our lives together and so much of what I own is linked to her. In the last few weeks together, after the official break up, we were very civil to each other and enjoyed each other's company. We gave each other a send off. For me that has been easier than simply walking out. It brought me the first stage of closure. We are both very mature so there was no silliness about it.

The way I see it, many people have to stay in contact with exs for reasons of children, et al, and they get on reasonably well. Why not me?

 

3) We agreed that in the early stages contact would not be substantial, but she has still posted comments on my Facebook pages and sent me texts to see how I am....leading to big text exchanges. I know she still has feelings....but if I cannot win her back at the moment then what to do?

 

4) Picking myself up. Not sure I can do it. Don't even have the energy for my part time job at the moment.

 

5) Hoping to find someone in the future. This woman was a verrry hard act to follow. She was very beautiful, implicitly loyal and trustworthy, extremely dependable and loving and not only did I get all that, but we had a great lifestyle as well. I feel that she truly was one in a million, and I say that with logic instead of heart. Everybody thought so, not just me.

 

6) Feeling powerless to go and comfort her....and thinking of her in her home, all alone every night.

 

This was the first time I had been in a serious long term relationship where I lived with someone and shared everything day to day. For me it's like a divorce....and a divorce that left me with nothing to boot. I just don't know where to start.

[ElChup]

Suppose I typed too much for people to be bothered to read....

[brokenrightnow]

hi. it is OK. keep venting. but please whatever you do try your best to not contact her. for your own sanity. cut her off your life. like mom says "whatever belongs to you, nothing or no one will ever take it away from you"

[lilbelle]

Number 1. If there is anything you must do it is to get a job again. This will help everything. Second. Go no contact. Quit giving in emotionally to her. You are giving her all the power. Third. If all it took was a night with the boys then she is not ready to be married period.

[Limbo21]

Hey ElChup

 

Just read your post and I'm really feeling for you. No advice in the world is going to help you right now cos your depressed over losing everything you hold dear to your heart. Have you been to the docs? I know there's a stigma attached to anti-depressants but as someone mentioned this situation will only get better when you feel strong enough to get another full time job.

 

Your loss is huge and can liken it to mine (although different). You may have to go through the mill until you realise that no contact is the only way. You'll get to the point when you will look back and kick yourself for not taking everyones advice

 

I wish you all the luck in the world and I implore you to keel posting

 

goodluck my friend

[ElChup]

Number 1. If there is anything you must do it is to get a job again. This will help everything. Second. Go no contact. Quit giving in emotionally to her. You are giving her all the power. Third. If all it took was a night with the boys then she is not ready to be married period.

 

How am I giving into her emotionally if we are in contact and thats he contacts me more than her? Because she ended it and I didn't?

[ElChup]

Think I made a big mistake. I need to get some post from her so I have asked her to meet me for coffee next week, which she is happy to do, but it flies in the face of NC.

 

I do desperately want to form a friendship with her though. I know people say it doesn't often work....but then I'm gonna try my hardest for it to work. I think then if the boundries are reset it will be easier for me to operate as normal. I've just go too mucb other misery in my life at the moment to totally cut her off.

[sean1970]

I do desperately want to form a friendship with her though. I know people say it doesn't often work....but then I'm gonna try my hardest for it to work. I think then if the boundries are reset it will be easier for me to operate as normal. I've just go too mucb other misery in my life at the moment to totally cut her off.

 

No, you don't want to be friends with her and that's the problem. Being 'friends' with her is settling for second best and you have to learn that this is just not good enough and it wont be until you have healed.

 

'Trying your hardest to make it work' will translate it to trying your hardest to look needy and weak. Dude, Ive been there... One Sappy eMail, 2 drunk dials, and one 4 hour drive after one too many beers (lowers head in shame). If you can't convince yourself that this is indeed how you will look (and, Im sorry, you will if you do), at least give her some time to miss you. While NC is indeed for you to heal, it can have a bonus (and not one that should be banked on) in that the other person will miss you. Use this time to better yourself, get that job, improve your attitude. In other words, become more attractive.

 

Think about it; she gets the jokes, talks, friendship (something she wants) and you get little of what you want. You basically have a sign on that says 'kick me". Dont be that guy... Dont willfully accept the guilt you will have if she even gets a whiff of how you feel now...

 

It easier to write this trust me, splitting the atom would have been an easier task for me. If nothing else, take some time for you and focus less on her.