Lemontang Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Well for all the breakup stories I see here, I see very few about those talking about doing the dumping. Well in short I'm in what most would say is a pretty good relationship in part. We hit it off pretty well about 5 months back and found we had not just similar interests but even our idiosyncrasy and sayings etc and our infatuation level was pretty high. I even thought I'd loved this girl (heck I took her to a lemonheads gig. To drag her to that must be love right?). But like all things what comes up must come down and I'm finding myself no longer being attracted to this girl. Sure she's great, has a killer body and for all intensive purposes she'd be a great friend (yep the friend line). But I'm just not interested in her in a more than a friend way. So after weeks of debating saying this is a phase I'll get through it, I've decided to pull the plug. Hence the next dilemma. Now I've broken up with girls before with minimal fallout bar one. But this ones a bit different. I'm her 2nd ever boyfriend (the 1st was 6 weeks, and she's 33). She's recently come out of an extreme bout of depression, extreme as in she spent months on end at home doing nothing and suffers near debilitating anxiety at the drop of a hat. This was before she met me. She's clearly come leaps and bound since and is much happier, and her friends say since meeting me she's become a new person, especially as I'm around to support her through her ups and downs. Now I will make this very clear her emotional issues as such have had no bearing on my decision, if anything it made me want to stay around more as I was more than happy to help her through some stuff. No matter what the illness everyone deserves to have someone care about them. But it's her fragility of her falling back that worries me. As an example her father had a heart attack just before Christmas and had a triple bypass (he's ok now). She'd already been under a lot of stress with work, and this simply broke the camels backs and understandably so given the circumstances. This resulted in her having to increase her medical dosage so she could cope and has been taking days off work on and off since trying to get herself back together. All along I've been around supporting her. Now that she's almost back on her feet I'm about to do this to her, which makes me feel sick. I'm not a commitment phobe, not suffering from gigs or anything like that. I'm just not into her like I thought and fooling myself into believing that I still am doesn't do anyone any favours. So it's not a case of what should I do, but rather how to ensure she has the support she needs when I do. I'm not so worried about being label the poster bad person by her for calling it a day, that's to be expected. But rather it's the spiral of what she's going to go through with these issues and the added fact she's not very experienced either in the breakup game. Any suggestions? Not for my benefit but for hers.
D-Lish Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 You can't force yourself to love someone when you don't feel it. I do think that many men like the initial challenge of being a white night and riding in on a horse to save the day- but when it comes down to it, it's a whole lot of work to love someone that has issues that are beyond our scope of understanding. The bottom line is that you can't remain in a relationship simply because you know your presence benefits them when it's not actually benefitting you. There is no easy way to go about this. It's admirable to want to make sure she's going to be okay when you leave, but you aren't doing either of you a favour by sticking around when you aren't happy or invested in the relationship.
Author Lemontang Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 I've been thinking the same thing. It's just how to tackle this one which is the issue. For all intensive purposes I didn't know about all of these issues when we first started dating. But then nor would it have scared me away. My mum works with people of various mental issues etc and has been since I was a kid so I've been exposed to a lot of the ups and downs and see what they go through. If I hadn't had this kind of understanding I guess I'd be like most people and just go "She's nuts" be ignorant about it and bail without looking at the bigger picture.
FreeToBe Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Lemontang - Clearly, you care about her and are trying to be decent about a tough situation - you're in an understandably tough spot... Do you know any of her close girlfriends well enough that you could confide in them prior to breaking up with her? I would contact one of them just prior to the actual breakup (not giving them too much time to consider forewarning your girlfriend). Would that work in your situation?
Author Lemontang Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 I've thought about doing that and in part it's a wise move to make. But I also think she deserves the respect to be told directly first. In doing so I'd then contact her best friend to advise her of it and for her to step in.
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