radrluv72 Posted January 2, 2011 Posted January 2, 2011 Why would the person who broke up with you tell you to keep the things he gave you when you tell him you want to send them back to him? I wanted to send them back because I didn't want anymore reminders around me of the pain of the breakup. He said for me to keep them because he felt the good far outweighed the bad & that there was nothing wrong with having a momento of that...but yet he was the one who broke up with me. I personally, without getting into a very long-winded story about what happened, found out that my ex broke up with me 4 weeks ago because he did something--and I'm still not sure what--that he felt tremendously guilty about & apparently felt it was easier to break up with me, out of the blue, and not tell me what he did, rather than tell me & hurt me. Ever since the split he's had extremely guilty & accommodating behavior towards me. Last Monday, I told him not to contact me unless he wanted to have an honest conversation about whatever it was that happened, and he defriended me on Facebook as a result...pretty much because I think he interpreted that was what I meant. I know he that he's been keeping tabs on me through Facebook since we broke up through things he's said. Despite the fact that we split, I believe that breaking up with me is not what he really wanted to do, but he felt that he had to because of whatever it is that he did. But checking up on me through FB, wanting me to keep his things...I think he doesn't want to the door totally closed. I would think if he really wanted it done & over with, he wouldn't be withholding whatever it is that he did. The only thing that he would say to me was that he wasn't ready to talk about it, and that was 3 weeks after the split, when I found out that something happened & confronted him on it. I wound up sending almost everything back to him, except for the silver AF wings he gave me the first time I stayed the night with him (yes, he's military), and I included a handwritten letter, telling him that hopefully one day he could find it in himself to come to me & tell me what he did. I told him that whatever it was, I more than likely would have forgiven him. I also told him that I loved him dearly, and that my door to him would always be open. But I needed time, just like he did. I have a feeling he may actually be relieved that I kept his wings. I don't know why...I just do. Ideas? A guy's perspective?
Jake99 Posted January 2, 2011 Posted January 2, 2011 Wow, I'm wondering if he is related to my ex-gf! lol. To be blunt, I would suggest he cheated on you. Sorry to say but his actions appear to guilty and that is exactly what my ex-gf did.
LifeIsGreat Posted January 2, 2011 Posted January 2, 2011 Cheating? Maybe, maybe not (but probably yes). He has made himself very clear even if you don't agree or understand. Is he being inmature about this? Maybe. But he is who he is. Now your job is to let him go, even though you don't want to. Read all the info. on LS about no contact-- AND FOLLOW IT. I'll never understand why so many people want to keep hanging on, licking crumbs off the floor, and trying to analyze everything. If you REALLY love someone and they want to go, you will let them go. Yes, it will hurt and you will grieve. But letting them go is the right thing to do- for them, and you. It's like my Mom used to say-- when in doubt, do the right thing.
Author radrluv72 Posted January 2, 2011 Author Posted January 2, 2011 Well, I think you're both right. I think he "cheated". Question is, in what respect. You see, our relationship was a bit unothrodox. When we first started dating, I had told him that I didn't want to get too attached because of the fact that I knew he was going on the 2nd deployment of his AF career in 2 months, but I liked him, & wanted to enjoy what time we would have together while he was here. Somewhere along the lines, as it happens, I started to have deeper feelings for him. 2 weeks before he left, we talked about it. He had told me that I made him happy & that he didn't want to lose me, saying that I made him forget all the things that drove him mad. He was very up front & said that he didn't trust himself to commit to anything serious, but when he got back in 4-6 months, if I was still interested, then maybe we could revisit the possibility of getting into something more serious. And I was fine with that. My response to him was that if he felt I was the one he wanted to come back to when he came home, then I wasn't going anywhere. As I look back now, he might have interpreted that as my trying to force a commitment out of him, but honestly, I wasn't. My thought pattern was that when he would leave, we would say our goodbyes and go our separate ways for 4-6 months, and when he got back, who knew. And that's the honest truth of it. On our last night together, we went out & had a nice romantic dinner downtown, he took me to the officer's club for a party, and then we went back downtown again so I could finally meet some of his best friends & hang out. When we got back to his place & went to bed and started talking, he blindsided me. He started to tell me that he didn't know how he felt about me & that he didn't know what I was to him. He said that in 2 years when he was due to be restationed in Texas, he didn't think I would go with him because I seemed so firmly entrenched in my life here. He said that seeing once every couple of weeks, despite talking to eachother every day wasn't enough for him. And then he told me that even though he was physically with me, there was someone else in his thoughts. Hee told me while he hadn't been seeing anyone else, this person very, very recently became available. He also tried telling me that she was in his hometown of Portland, and while she didn't know that he thought about her this way that she would "probably figure it out pretty soon". At first, I didn't believe him about the other girl because the premise sounded rediculous. I knew for a fact that he only got back to Portland once a year. But he refused to talk about things anymore. The next day, I knew there was something he wasn't telling me, but he still refused to talk about it...just kept saying how sorry he was. The day before he left, I told him that I would accept what he wanted & would let him go. For the next 3 weeks while he got to Afghanistan, we kept in touch occassionally through FB, being cordial & friendly with eachother, but it was still bothering me. I knew he was keeping something from me. Sunday of last week, I'd pretty much had enough. We talked via chat through FB, and I asked him if the girl he told me about, if he was intent on pursuing her after he got home, and he said yes. What he said was this: he said that he didn't want to be in a serious relationship with me, because after a lot of serious consideration I wasn't the kind of person he wanted to be in a relationship with, and that he saw no romantic future for us. I asked him why, though. He said that he couldn't give me a single reason...and my response was that there may not have been a single reason, but there had to have been a main one. He said emotions were fickle...I said emotions aren't fickle, people are. I asked him then if he was in love with this other girl and wanted to try a long-distance relationship, seeing how he told me she was in Portland. He proceeds to tell me that he "didn't know how he felt about her", but if it felt right when he got back, he was going to try to make it work. He also tried to tell me that his decision to end things with me and his interest in this girl were strictly coincidental. Well sorry...but that's BS on all counts. I knew that he cared about me, and no one can shut their feelings off like a damn faucet, not even him. My guy was a romantic on all counts, but I'm very much a cut-the-BS person. His behavior with me ever since the split had been tinged with guilt and he was being way too accommodating towards me. And again, what he said about pursuing this other girl...if you don't know how your feel about someone, how can you can you're so intent on pursuing them in 3-5 months?! That's asinine. Well, the same morning we had this conversation, when I was fed up with his consistent non-answers as to what was really going on, I found out on my own. The girl in question...turned out that one, she really wasn't from Portland, she's local. I also found out that he had met her on the personals--just like how he met me--and I also found out that there were a striking number of physcial similarities between the two of us. Same height, same hair color, eye color...it was damn near rediculous. When I had determined that he lied to me, I confronted him again. I told him that I knew about her know, how they met & such. I told him that since he was now telling me that he wanted us to be friends, now was the time to come clean about anything else that he did, and that he'd just compounded everything by lying to me. I told him that this wasn't the first time that I'd been cast aside for what someone else thought was better, so let's just hear it. I also told him that I wanted an address to send the things that he gave me back to him, because this was the business of breaking up. He wrote me back the next day, telling me that it wasn't a matter of what he thought was better. He gave me his address in Afghanistan to send his things back to, but said that he was of the opinion that I should keep it all. He said he felt that the good far outweighed the bad, and that there was nothing wrong in having a momento of that. He then said that beyond that, he wasn't ready to talk about anything else. When I got home from work that night, I wrote him a pretty lengthy letter via FB, pretty much tearing into him & letting go of all the frustration that I'd been going through for those previous 3 weeks. I had tried very hard to be the bigger person, but I'd had enough. I had to make a choice between potentially pissing him off or finally waking up the next morning & feeling like I was on my way back to being myself again. I chose me. I told him that I didn't get how he could be "not ready" to talk about anything...I was already prepared for him to tell me if there had been other girls besides this one & whatnot...given my past dating history, I very much doubted that whatever he did that was so terrible, it couldn't have been anything worse than what had been done to me in the past. I told him, why wait? If he really had decided that he wanted things over with, why drag this out? At the end, I told him that until he was ready to have an honest conversation about what really happened, not to contact me. I told him that I knew that he had guilt & that he felt responsible, and that I felt that him sitting on that guilt for a while longer would be a good start to being truly sorry. Upon getting my last e-mail, he defriended me, which I expected, but I don't believe he did it because he was pissed off. I think he did it because I told him not to contact me. I already knew that he'd been keeping tabs on me through Facebook ever since the split...he'd done that ever since we started dating. Hell, he *told* me so. He even had his friends look at my page when we first met, but told me that he had resisted to pull info about me on the "GOO"--which is a military based information system to pull pretty much anything you want to know about someone--when we started dating. He wanted me to tell my friends about him, my folks...we were that into eachother. 2 days after he did the defriending, he made it so his friends list was private as well as posts by friends, but he kept the rest of his wall open. I would think that after the defriending, if he really wanted all ties cut, and being a self-professed FB stalker, he knows how this works. He could have just blocked me or rendered everything to friends only viewings. I know that he figured out that I found out about the other girl through his friends list, because he added her right after we broke up. But knowing him like I do, and knowing that he was keeping tabs on me after the split, I'm inclined to think that he deliberately kept his wall open because he didn't want to totally close me out. Maybe this sounds completely over-analyzed, but I'm telling you, this is *him*. We're not talking about what some may classify as a typical cocky military lothario. If anyone would meet this guy, they wouldn't figure him for being military at all. They would think they've met an English professor with a love of language, opera, poetry and an penchant for the romantic whim that may mar his reality just a smidge. The first time I went over to his place, he had told me that he had been tempted to sit out on his front step, strumming his guitar as he waited for me to pull up in his driveway. This was how he was. There's definitely layers underneath the surface, deeper than one would think. After I had a few days to simmer down, when I got ready to send his things back to him, I sat down I wrote out a handwritten letter. I told him that I was truly sorry things happened the way that they did, and that I knew I had ripped into him earlier that week, but I needed to stand up for myself. I told him that I had stopped asking myself why did this to us, but what I knew is that he did *something*, and that whatever it was, he apparently felt it was easier to end things abruptly & act like he had just changed his mind, as opposed to telling me the truth and hurting me. I had told him that what he didn't realize was that I cared--loved him--enough that I probably would have forgiven him, but it was too bad that he couldn't see that. I told him that hopefully some day he could find it in himself to tell me what happened, but I needed time to heal, and that he needed time as well. I told him that I would love to just wipe the slate clean & start over again--the way that we should have--talk more, make things more clear. I told him my door was always open. And that was it. I sent the letter along with his things. I did keep the AF wings that he have me though, the first time I stayed over...they meant too much to me. I have a feeling he may actually be happy or relieved to find that I did keep them when he gets the package in a couple of weeks. And when I say that I would have forgiven him...that's the honest to God truth, whether he slept with this girl or not. Whatever's going on or whatever happened, I happen to know that she's still active on the personals herself, even after all this time. I have no interest in contacting her, even though I'm quite sure she knows nothing about me...I don't want anything to do with her. But I have to remember the nature of my relationship with my ex. We never put a stamp of exclusivity on our relationship persay, but it was clear that we were both crazy about eachother. And I don't know what might have sent him running...fear, insecurity, thinking I was trying to corner him...maybe we just didn't communicate effectively enough as we should have, but none of that matters to me right now. I've done what I needed to do, and the rest is up to him now. I'm not going to wait or put my life on hold, but if he ever finds it within himself to contact me, I'll listen. I firmly believe in my heart that this is fixable, but he's scared to death, and yes, acting in an immature manner. Yes, I am older than him, and that's why I accept the immaturity for what it is. Is he worth it? Yes, to me he is. But I'm not contacting him anymore. If I do hear from him, it probably won't be until he gets back. So in the meantime, I'm just trying to get through.
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