My ex/mixed messages

[EthanH]

I posted on the 'break-up' thread, but I wanted to ask for opinions here with respect to the second chance aspect.

 

We broke up about a month and a half ago. It was her who ended it.

 

I will put as much of what she has told me and if anyone could let me know what they think this means, i would be most grateful.

 

She split with me, and since then, it has been so up in the air. We both agree we spent too much time together when we dated, it was largely due to the fact that I had to take a year out from my studies (we are both university students), so had a lot of spare time. I didn't fill it well. And I was available too often. But that has changed now, the one good thing the split did was make me realise that my ambitions had become clouded. I have really moved forward with that. I'm back at university next September and I have so much more in my life now, doing internships, I'm so busy, I have made more friends in the last few months than I did in the past year previously combined.

 

Since we split, she has admitted that the guy she originally fell for, the confident guy has become more prominent. The guy who she claims she considered the 'leader' in our friendship group. I guess at the end of the time we were dating, I became subdued. I didn't consciously think not to be sociable, but when I was with friends, I just didn't have much to say, and that isn't like me, I'm usually bubbly, I'm usually the first one to start conversations. And between us, we could just chat and laugh for hours and hours without noticing the time. So I think that has genuinely changed. She also admits she thinks I have changed for the better.

 

However, her issue was that she worried if she loved me as much as I loved her. Indeed at a point since we broke-up she told me that she was unsure that she ever loved me, she then told me that she did, and that she was trying to distance herself from the emotion of the situation.

 

That is the main problem, she admits that she switches off, she cannot deal with everything so pushes away thinking about everything.

 

She worried that I was more serious about her than vice-versa. And she said that once she got that thought in her head, she worried about it everytime we fell out. This was partly to do with the age difference (I'm 26 and she is 19) It was the only time when the age thing was visible. It was also a case of our experience in relationships being different, I have had a few fairly serious things and for her, it was her first real relationship. She also hated that she started to snap at me. This wasn't anything serious, it was usually about things so petty that on their own it would be difficult to remember. This built up over time, our friends started to notice it, and she began to hate herself for it. She tried to stop, I genuinely think she did, but she couldn't, and it made her hate herself.

 

So since the break-up, we had no contact for a week. In our small college town, that was quite an effort, we had to both drastically change our schedules so as not to bump into each other. After a week she was going away to another city as she wanted to get out of the situation where everyone asked her if she had made the right decision. Most of our college friends are mutual friends. She felt swamped with it I think. I gave her flatmate a letter to her flatmate and asked her to give it to her just as she left so she could think about things when she went away. She came back and told me straight off that she didn't think it could work. However, almost instantaneously, she admitted she missed me, wanted to hold my hand, wanted me to put my arm round her when we walked down the street. We kissed later that night, and in the next week we hooked up a few times. She also told me she loved me. But all along, although she admitted she didn't know what to do and was scared, she always returned to the view that she needed more time and wanted space etc.

 

Since then, when we have spoken... and I would say we have spoken like twice in the past month. She has told me again that she loved me. She has told me she doesn't want to be in a relationship with me but misses everything about us. That she liked 99% of the relationship.

 

It is almost like she wants to teach herself a lesson. She admits freely that she thinks she will regret her decision. But she almost wants to feel that regret. She also says she is scared that if we got back together again and it didn't work, she is worried that we wouldn't be friends and the chance of us making some relationship work in the future would be over.

 

She also says the problem as she sees it is that if we got back together it would go one of two ways: 1) she would feel she was too clingy, and rebel against this, and pinball between wanting to be close to me and not...and 2) she would hate the distant nature we would be... she doesn't want it to be casual, and not involved. I ask her why it wouldn't be a mix of both, why does it have to be negative? Why can't it be balanced, where we aren't clingy, but are also able to do our own things without feeling distant. She said it is just a feeling she has, but that she doesn't think she knows how to be in a relationship without feeling clingy to me. She thinks that if we got back together, she would want to spend as much time as possible with me and end up hating that and thus not being happy.

 

It is a total contradiction.

 

I'm sure about what I want. I want to see what it would be like for us to get back and have a relationship where we both have lives apart from each other, but still enjoy spending time together when we can. It is the kind of relationship we should have had all along, but it took the break-up for me to fully accept this. I'm so happy with my life atm, I'm chasing ambitious opportunities, and yet at those moments when I have time to myself, on the train back from my internship, it is then that I miss her, and wonder, it is kinda scary, how happy I would be if I had this life and then also had her, to spend time with together when we could.

 

I told her I just wanted her to feel frantic about it. I want her to feel under pressure to make a decision, rather than feeling that the option not to make a decision is the best choice. I asked her if she was worried about losing me, and she said she was, but didn't know how to act as a result of that.

 

Would be very grateful for any observations/pieces of advice you may have...and if you don't understand anything about what I have said, feel free to ask... thanks

[torranceshipman]

She ended it and she doesn't want a R with you, but she thinks you are a lovely person, a valued part of her history, and she HATES hurting you. You are familiar and comforting to her so she feels nice with your arm round her and hooking up a bit, etc, and obviously she misses the comfort of having a guy who loves her, as now she is single.

 

She seems to be coming out with a lot of vague stuff that doesn't completely make sense as she's found about 100 different ways of letting you down gently (hence the contradictory statements), simply because you seem to be questioning her so much, putting her under pressure, communicating with her, making her feel bad (because she feels bad about the decision already). She's made her feelings clear (partly because she is 19 and she knows she is way too young to be tied down right now). She'd even admitted that you were more invested than her. She snapped at you all those times because she didn't really want to stay in the R so you aggravated her a lot - hence her getting angry - but she is a nice girl so was obviously hating on herself for being mean.

 

Please leave her be - she just wants to be friends, and you pushing for more again doesn't help anyone and upsets both yourself AND her. You're now pressurizing her for a decision when she already told you her decision - she ended it!! So sorry you are hurting but you need to move on. At the very least you need NC as she already very diplomatically told you had lost the strong leader edge, and constantly chasing her for a 2nd chance right now is making that strong leader edge disappear even further into the ground. Show her you are strong, that leader guy she fell for in the first place, move on with pride, and let her just be a lovely memory from the past.