ex girlfriend is not sure of a second chance or start dating new guy

[thebigguns]

to try and keep a long story pretty short. me and my ex dated for around a year and everything was a great up until about the last few months. she told me she needed a break(really was breaking up with me) and that she wasn't feeling appreciated enough anymore. at first this was very hard to accept but i did. i kept minimal contact with her for almost a month and a half. she was at school at the time which was a 2 hour drive from where i currently live. she tried contacting me a few times as i did the same. i tired to keep the conversation as casual as i could be but breaking up over the phone hours away does not make it easy. she recently just got home from college and will be home for a few months. we have seen each other since then mostly by me initiating first contact. she rarely has tried to reach out in the past few weeks. the reason i feel is because she is currently talking to some other guy from back at school. i know this because she has told me that she has hooked up with one of her long time guy friends. hearing this really hurt but i have learned to accept it. we are not together anymore. since she got home we have hung out a few times. during our meet ups we would talk, laugh, and joke. we even tell each other that we both still love each other. we still kiss each other, no making out or hooking up but we still show our affection towards one another. (prolonged hugs and cuddling together while watching some movies). i asked her if she would be open to giving things a second chance but she said she is not sure. she is still talking to this guy from up at school. they are not officially dating but i do know they talk every day in a manner that a couple would. im just not sure of what i should do. we have talked about this guy that she is currently interested in and i have kept my cool about it being the mature one in this situation. no bad mouthing about him or anything. i just want her to be happy in the end. im not sure how i should approach this situation. should i back off again? keep minimal contact again? should i show her that things can be different with me a second time around? i know she is going to see this guy a few times this summer and knowing that is painful. any advice would be much appreciated.

[EthanH]

ok first of all.. you said she broke it off because she wasn't feeling 'appreciated'?... is this a reasonable thing for her to say, and if so, why had you started to treat her differently?

 

I think the thing about the guy at her college is difficult, because essentially she is telling you that she is trying to move on. That doesn't mean she will be able to do that, even if she begins something with him. If it is rebound, it probably won't work. It is her way of coping, when someone breaks up with someone, the person who has been dumped usually thinks it is easy for the other, and it isn't true. Even if she is confident she made the right decision, she will re-assess her decision all the time, and moving onto someone else is usually the most obvious way to draw a line under everything.

 

The thing is also, that while I don't know much about your situation, do you really want long distance?, a couple of hours way is quite an obstacle and if she is young and just at college, she isn't going to want to be tied down. This says nothing as to how she feels about you. It is just the reality of the situation.

 

Let me know about what you think about these points and then i will try and reply back more...

[thebigguns]

well, i think it all started after i accepted a new job. it is very demanding work which takes up most of my time. around 50 hours a week i put it on the regular. there were many times that i could not drive up and see her. she did make efforts many times to come down though. when i think back on it i could have squeezed more time in here and there. ive been in one long distance relationship before where i had no choice but to drive out to see this person. that relationship ended badly and i guess in the back of my mind i didn't want to put all this effort in for nothing again. plus i think being that far away with limited contact fighting over anything whether it be something stupid or serious is very hard to resolve. she is a very strong girl that dosent not like to show her true feelings. i felt like every time we would fight nothing would be fixed and it slowly turned into a huge mess. every time we would talk we would get off the phone mad at one another. i do see your point about her being young and in college. she just finished her 3rd year so she still has one more year of school to go. im still not sure of what i should do though. i feel like following my heart but at times i feel like in situations like these you just have to follow your head and go against what your gut is telling you.