knime32 Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 My ex and I of 6 years broke up at the beginning of December. We've pretty much had no contact with each other and he's started seeing someone, but they aren't serious. He called me last week, and I stupidly answered the phone. We talked about our breakup and words that were exchanged and we both apologized. Apparently, neither one of us were happy because of outside forces and pressure in our relationship and a lack of communication and explaining our feelings ultimately led him to end our relationship. He's called me twice since then and we've talked about things and he wants to know if we can keep talking but is confused about what he wants. He says that he's happy and that he sort of likes this new girl that he's talking to but may want a chance at us again but really is confused about what he wants at the moment. The reason that he even found this new girl is because someone set him up on a blind date with her and I think that he is into it because its new and exciting not because its the right thing for him or us. Before we broke up and where our trouble started is when I graduated from college, lost my job that I had, and had to move back in with my mom. Our relationship took a massive step backwards. I became unhappy and bitter at the world and lashed out at everyone for not being able to get a job. Before all of this happend we were talking about moving in together and he talked with friends about proposing to me, now we're here. Is this relationship even worth saving and can it be saved? I'm really lost and confused about what is going on and what to do. I really do love him and care about him and I don't want to see our relationship dwinddle away because of things that were outside of our control. Any advice out there from you experienced people? Should I keep talking to him and work on fixing the problems that were in our relationship even if he isn't sure what he wants or should I just move forward and go back to NC? He wants to keep talking and see where things go with me, but I can't sit back and wait on him, espcecially when he's exploring his feelings for someone else as well.
Simon Attwood Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 I'm sure there will be plenty of dysfunctional and deconstructive advice to follow, but .... This guy loved you and was prepared to commit towards you. But then things changed, you changed. Things in your life seemed to be falling apart and as you said; you were lashing out and blaming everything and everybody for what was happening to you. Consider this paragraph from Erich Fromm; The Fear of Freedom; Life has an inner dynamism of it's own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived. It seems that if this tendency is thwarted (by others, or perhaps by ones own unconscious fears) the energy directed towards life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes in to energies directed towards destruction. In other words the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually independent factors but are in a reversed interdependence. The more the drive towards life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive towards destruction; the more life is realised, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and social conditions that make for the suppression of life produce the passion for destruction that forms, so to speak, the reservoir from which particular hostile tendencies - either against others or against oneself - are nourished So your growth was temporarily thwarted and you resorted to very destructive behaviour. Is it any wonder he is apprehensive about approaching you? So he pulled away to protect himself from your destructiveness. Now that you have come to terms with that destructiveness and seem to be over it. He is tentively considering coming back, but he is testing the water carefully because he is now scarred and remembers how hurtful and destructive you became. It's hardly confusion, and if he is confused then he has a damn good reason to be confused. You need to understand how you made him feel by your behaviour. Perhaps you need to show a little more tolerance and patience and accept that it was your behaviour that has lead to him being a little apprehensive in his attempts to reapproach you.
Author knime32 Posted January 6, 2010 Author Posted January 6, 2010 I love that excerpt that you included and thank you for sharing it with me. I think I may have made the situation on my end seem a little more severe than it was. I just shut him out instead of explaining what I was feeling and I was angry at everyone around me..not overly horrible but just enough. But never the less, I see where you are coming from. I also left out the fact that we have broken up before, by his choosing, but he came back begging me to take him back and that he had made a huge mistake. I never really understood why he left before, because the problem with me is a recent occurrence, something he has admitted he's never dealt with or seen before. We both have admitted fault here and we both realize that because we didnt communicate with each other or relationship was compromised in the end. I feel like the reason we broke up is trivial and with a lot of work and effort can be made whole again. I really feel that if someone else wasn't in the picture, that we wouldn't even be here right now this much later after the breakup. I realized very early on in the breakup that I had become a person that I hated, I wasn't myself anymore and that person is gone forever. I never want to be that way ever again...I found my love of life again and realized that the things that were happening weren't my fault and they weren't in my control (to a degree) but the way that i treated people was and I've apologized to everyone I've come in contact with since my job was cut because of the economy at the beginning of July. A job will find me, when the time is right. I just keep applying and keep my head up and that's all I can do. I just have to keep my faith strong and everything else will be answered, I just wish that it didn't take losing our relationship to realize who I had become, what we had become, and that he opened up to me instead of chosing to end our relationship and jump into another one.
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