EthanH Posted August 2, 2010 Posted August 2, 2010 I am such a confused mess atm. I have written on here before, I know there tends to be a group on here who just say 'give up' or 'move on'... which is fine, maybe it is realistic, and maybe it has worked for them, but I just want to hear from people who are in my situation AT THE MOMENT, just to discuss things and maybe hopefully be able to make more sense of it. My girlfriend broke up with me in February. At the time she said it was just because it wasn't working. Since then, we hooked up a few times, but after a few days, she got cold feet. I tried to get her back, and I think my intensity scared her, or maybe the fact that she couldn't understand why I would want to be with her when she so clearly pushed me away. I think it worried her that I would want to be with her no matter what she did. At the time, I could see why she thought this, but when I thought about things, I saw the issues we had, the fact she wasn't sure if she wanted to be with me was a massive negative, but ultimately, if I asked the question 'do you still want to be with her?' my answer continued to be 'yes'. And so ultimately, I didn't see the logic in pushing someone away who I knew I still liked. After a while, I began to accept things, but we still both knew we liked each other. We were best friends before we got together, so that complicated things as we are so used to being close. Having said that, we have never really just been friends. In mid-May, she had exams. We hadn't spoken to each other for about a month, but friends told me she was really struggling, and I knew the exams she had were ones she was very very stressed out about. On two separate occasions, her friends mentioned to me that they thought that if I made it clear I was wishing her luck etc, it would really help, just to take the pain out of the situation. I went to where she was revising, gave her a hug, wished her good luck, and was about to leave when she said she wanted to talk about us. This was unusual as usually it was me pushing over and over. On this occasion, I had gone specifically not to speak about us, I had gone to show I could see past all that and do the right thing for her. She got emotional, but I said I thought she should just concentrate on what was important (ie her exams). Later in the week, she asked to meet up, and we began meeting up, eventually we hooked up. I always left it to her to contact me as I didn't want to be seen to be pushing things. And I didn't want her to be able to blame her for 'tricking' her into getting back with me as she had half-heartedly warned she was fearful of before. For the whole of June, she would call me at the end of the night, be it after she finished at the part-time job she worked at or after she had been out on a night with friends. I know what it sounds like, it was never just a 'booty-call' and it was never just because she was lonely... It was pretty clear that she made a real effort to keep things with us balanced, as before when we went out, she would push to spend all of her free time with me, whereas now, she would spend the hours she had free between work with friends. I spent a few of her days off with her and I took her out for a few meals. But on the whole, I left it to her to contact me. She told her friends on a number of occasions that we were essentially back together. Last night she was in town before she went away for the summer, she was meant to be meeting her father, who was going to take her home the next day. I walked her to her work that day, she came out and said she wanted to see me after she finished work that afternoon but wanted to sort things with her father for that night. I didn't hear anything from her and so presumed she had gone for a meal with her father. Went to be, and then got a call at 2am from her asking if she could come over to mine, and that her father had decided to come in the morning and she had gone for drinks with friends. I basically told her I was sick of being fitted in at the end of her night, she got annoyed, and hung up. And then called me 25 times, left me a voicemail, phoned my land-line and wrote to me on facebook begging to see me as it was her last night. I saw her the next morning and she was very emotional and said she was going to miss me. Her first summer job was for 3 weeks. It was away in another part of the country. She phoned me every night. Texted me. Basically as if we were dating. Told me she missed me all the time. Told me I was the main topic of conversation she had with her friends from work. Until a few days before she was due to come back, we spoke on the phone and she told me that she wasn't sure if she wanted to be with someone she wasn't sure she liked enough, and needed to think about things. I thought about it all... I have always said to her I wanted to be with her, I accepted everything...friends who are girls, who are friends with her also, tell me they cannot understand why I still want to be with her and that I treated her better than any guy they know, including their own boyfriends! I eventually decided to write to her. Just said that i felt I needed to have more respect for myself than to allow her to make me wait for her, that she knows how much I like her. It feels like she has never really been scared of losing me no matter how much she pushes me away as she always knows she could get me back if she wanted. And to be honest, that has probably been true. And I would love to think if she asked me to get back with her now, I would say 'no' but I know i would probably say 'yes' and be so happy. So I sent her the email, and later that night I got a text from her saying 'ok. hope you are ok. x x x x'... and I have not heard anything from her since. Friends say that she is just thinking, that it is something which she really does need to think about, and it is good in a way that she hasn't contacted me. I'm 100% sure I won't contact her as I know doing that would lose any impact that the email has had. It feels weird, because I have never pushed her away. We were essentially together two months, and now, nothing. I told her I want her to want to fight for me, to run after me as when she broke up with me, that was what she said she wanted to be able to do. Anyone else in a similar situation?
Don Ho Posted August 2, 2010 Posted August 2, 2010 I think you're chasing and she is losing interest because of it. You're not being much of a challenge and, I think, too available. While you make it sound like you mostly keep you cool, I think you need to back off. You need to be a little unavailable. What I have learned (or re-learned) lately is that the woman, in a way, calls that shots. That means if she's into you, she will initiate contact. So, you should have not always answered her texts, her calls and gone out with your friends and been busy. That makes you more interesting. If she's really into you, SHE will tell you she wants to be in a relationship with you. You said, "It feels like she has never really been scared of losing me no matter how much she pushes me away as she always knows she could get me back if she wanted" You are and do wait for her and she knows it. How unappealing. You need to back off telling her you like her so much, want to be in a relationship with her and so on. Pretend you're James Dean .... just kick back and let her come to you. If she doesn't than she's not that into you and you have to accept that and find a woman that is that into you.
Author EthanH Posted August 2, 2010 Author Posted August 2, 2010 thanks for your reply. Agree with a lot of what you said, but there are a few things I want to add after reading your comment. 1) When I say I don't think she thinks she has lost me, I base it on what her friends have told me. The time we were 'back' between mid may and mid july, we were incredibly close. The problem was that I was very distant, in the sense that I never really made any effort to contact her, I left it up to her, as that was what she wanted, I didn't want to force things... but the problem with that was that all it ended up doing was making her feel really needy, she looked back on things and felt she was always wanting to see me, and instead of seeing it to mean something, she just saw it as a negative and something which she should rebel against. 2) The problem is, I did back off, and when I did that, she called me every night... but the problem with this is, I think she felt like something had changed (because it had) because I was so into her when we were dating, we would both want to see each other whenever we could, and although she wanted more space, when she had that, it just made her feel like something had changed and therefore 'too much water had gone under the bridge'... <<the main thing I'm scared of is this: I think she will miss me a lot, especially now that I told her that I don't want to be with her unless she sorts out totally how she feels about me, and gives me the respect that I deserve (something which out mutual friends have thought is an issue for a long time, something which she admits but cannot seem to change things)... ultimately I know that the respect thing is only going to come when she sees me differently, she can't just 'get' her respect for me back, and so to do that, I need to demand it... my life in the next few months is going to change dramatically, as things get back on track... and I'm pretty sure as soon as she sees that, it will have an impact. The thing I'm worried about is that because she does really genuinely care about me, even if she misses me a lot, even if she does consider getting back with me, she will stop herself as she will be worried of messing me around or being seen to be messing me around. If she realises she still wants to be with me, I want her to feel that she shouldn't just dismiss that feeling.
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