Does "I just don't feel it" translate to anything else?

[Tybalt]

Well, I started dating someone some weeks ago, admittedly rather quickly after getting emotionally disentangled from an on/off again disfunctional relationship of a few months. This new guy had started to integrate me into his life, introducing me to friends, seeing me on a regular basis, etc. We became intimate after a couple weeks of dating and deciding to be exclusive, and that aspect seemed to be going well too. He was making plans in the future with me, and although emotionally things were progressing on a slower pace than I've experienced in the past with the "instant connection," I actually felt this was healthier than anything I have been in for many years.

 

He texted me at work yesterday to ask me to a party, and we had plans for him to come over to my place and I would cook him dinner, then attend the party afterward. Instead, I got a call at 6 pm and he dumped me over the phone. I'm quite confused about this course of events, as are my friends.

 

He told me he couldn't explain more concretely, but he just didn't "feel it" with me like he did initially. He said he is looking for the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with (as am I), but he doesn't always feel comfortable around me, though he said sometimes he does. He also said he really liked me, I am a good person, and he doesn't really want to stop seeing me, but he feels like he should. He was making plans with me hours before this conversation, so it is confusing to me. He'd publicly posted an event on facebook for his birthday and made me an admin to the event earlier this week, too. I stayed over just two nights before.

 

I realize, in essence, that it doesn't really matter why he doesn't want to continue to date me. However, I thought things were going pretty well, so I am concerned about honing my own perceptions and interpretations for the future.

 

He has had some bad relationships with verbal abuse and cheating in the past. We were calm, mutually respectful, kind and supportive to one another. He told me he thought I was "stunningly gorgeous" when we first started dating, so I don't think he found me physically unattractive. He is 5 years younger. A friend of mine thinks perhaps he is looking for bells and angels singing in the heavens, but that is an immature perception and not real love. As she says, "love is MADE not FOUND." I agree with this.

 

As a side note, I did delete his number from my phone, took myself off as an admin for his birthday event, though I haven't unfriended him on facebook, as I don't want to seem like a drama queen. However, I intend NC. I'd just like to sort this out and reconcile it in my own mind somehow.

[radrluv72]

Wow, does this sound familiar.

 

My story isn't too unlike your own. My ex dumped me two days before he deployed to Afghanistan, in an extremely abrupt & unexpected manner. The night that it happened, it was going to be our last night together until he returned. We had planned for me to take time off from work and go to Portland when he got back. Two weeks before, he was telling me how happy I made him and that he didn't want to lose me. On tghat last night, we had a romantic dinner downtown, he took me to the officer's club for a party and he introduced me to his best friends. Later when we got home, in bed, he started telling me that all of a sudden that he didn't see a romantic future for the two of us. He said that he didn't get to see me as often as he wanted, that as much as he appreciated how independent I was I never talked about getting married, and that when he we due to be restationed in Texas in 2 years he didn't think I'd go with him. He also switched gears on me by telling me that he didn't know what I was to him and that he didn't know how he felt about me. I rebutted every basis he gave for ending things until he finally spit one out that he knew would break me...that apparently there was another girl who was on his mind that all of a sudden had become available, but she knew nothing about the fact that he was thinking about her in that manner. I was devastated. After that, he refused to talk about it any further, and like Jeckyll & Hyde, suddenly turned into this cold, detatched person that I didn't even know...literally, in a moment, right in front of my eyes. That was 4 months ago.

 

For 3 weeks after the split, I tried as best as I could to be "friends" and be cordial, but then I found out that the girl he told me about didn't actually even exist. It was a lie. I finally confronted him on it, but he still wouldn't talk about things and refused to budge. I had finally had it at that point, and ripped into him via a lengthy message through FB. I told him not to contact me until he was ready to have an honest talk about what was going on with him. He promptly defriended me on FB, but didn't block me. At the end of that week on New Year's Day, I mailed almost everything he gave me back to him in Afghanistan with a hand-written letter telling him that I loved him. That was 13 weeks ago, we've not communicated since. I didn't expect a response to the letter I sent him with his things, and I didn't get one either.

 

I don't think his reasons for breaking with me were necessarily the same as the reasons that your ex gave you, but I can tell you what my best male friend told me after I told him what happened with my breakup. You see, although my ex was a pilot and a soldier, he was also incredibly awkward and didn't have a lot of self-confidence in himself, especially where I was concerned. He wasn't drop-dead gorgeous or physically perfect, but I didn't care...the things I found him were things that I'd been looking for in someone for a long, long time, and I fell very deeply in love with him. But my ex had been burned in the past...he had told me when we started dating that he had 2 previous girlfriends in that same year who had dumped him because of his job. I suspect that it was because of the fact that he travels so much, but I also think he was cheated on by someone on his first deployment overseas. My best guy friend believes that my ex deliberately sabotaged his relationship with me because he thought I was too good to be true. He cared about me & saw himself with me in the future, but just simply wasn't ready. He got scared, freaked out...I think he may have also not trusted me to either stay faithful while he was gone for 4 months or thought I would find someone else "better" than him & not want to return to him when he came home. There's alse the possibility he could have a genuine phobia to commitment. True commitment-phobics have a very lofty & unrealistic idea in their heads about the type of person they want to have a future with. They have histories of frequent, short-term relationships. They will pursue someone hard & persistently, pushing for a commitment because they genuinely want & believe in it, and when they get it, the anxiety takes over and they fear the worst. In turn, they wind up leaving the person they pursued for fear of being left themselves, and quickly enter into a new casual relationship. The person that they left doesn't know what hit them, and it can be quite devastating.

 

So, you're probably not off the mark in thinking that he may have a very unrealistic view on what a relationship is supposed to be like. My ex was also younger than me...I'm 38, he'll be 25 in the next week. Ordinarily, I usually don't date guys that young but he was extremely mature for his age in a lot of ways...he was a literary geek, highly intelligent...he was extremely multi-facted personality. But he wanted so much so soon...after our first date, he was talking about taking a trip together, which caused me to back off for a couple of days. I also sometimes had a hard time making him understand that my work schedule didn't sometimes allow romantic spur-of-the-moment visits in the middle of the night, and that I couldn't go bar-hopping with him in the middle of the week when I had to be up before 5:00am the next day for work. I think because of his confidence level, he took it the wrong way as that I didn't think he was important enough to give him more of my time...when ironically, most of the time we couldn't see eachother that often because of his job. But at least I was understanding of it.

 

My ex is due back from overseas within the next couple of weeks...I'm a little apprehensive about it. I still love him very much and have always wanted him back, but there would have to be an extremely honest & forthright conversation about his expectations before that would happen. At this point, since he's not contacted me since I sent his things back to him, and I don't know if he'll attempt to contact me or not. My gut says no, based on suspecting that he feels guilty & awful about how much he hurt me, and probably still doesn't have the maturity level to know how to approach me. I've cried a lot in the past 13 weeks and recently reached a point of indifference, but that comes & goes as well. I haven't dated anyone yet...I'm still comparing other men to my ex, which clearly means that I'm not ready.

 

The whole "I just don't feel it" thing...that's such a cop-out, especially based on how out of the blue the breakup happened. Trust me, it's a maturity issue. If it happened like that, the truth is that he probably doesn't know what he's feeling, and he has to sort that out on his own. But if there were signs along the way that something was off...in his behavior, his comings & goings, ect...then "I just don't feel it" would be just that.

 

Initiate NC. If he's genuinely confused, if you push at him, he'll just be resistant. Do just like you said & work it out in your own mind, take the time to heal. There's nothing that people with our situations can do to make our exes realize that they need to grow a little & that their heads are in the clouds about what true love is supposed to be like...it's work. When it finally dawns on them about what they had & what they walked away from, it may be too late...you may be with someone else who's already learned what true love is.

[Tybalt]

Thank you for sharing your story. That sounds extremely painful, and I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this. I'd be nervous about him coming home soon. Do you have a plan about how you're going to handle it, especially if he contacts you?

 

I defriended and blocked my ex-boyfriend tonight on facebook. I simply can't handle it. I looked at his page, it looks like he had a great day. And a pretty girl who works with him at his new job posted that she might come to his birthday party and he answered with strong encouragement. I just don't need to see that. If she's the real reason he stopped seeing me, or if she isn't, I don't need to suffer the speculation.

 

The hardest part for me right now is excising him completely from my life, though I know it is necessary. It's just a cognitive problem for me to think that the man I was intimate with and slept snuggled up against three nights ago must now be a complete stranger to me. And I will likely never speak to him again.

 

I spoke at length with my dad about this tonight. I described the situation in detail, told him things my ex-boyfriend said, etc. He said his sense is that he might not have been honest with me about what he wants, meaning, he may not really want to get married and settle down like he said. My father said he sounds like he might be a serial dater. This would totally fit with what you described, too, in terms of the behavior of a commitmentphobe. He is in his 30's and he is seeking an idealized relationship (that he stated himself might be impossible or unrealistic), so maybe this is the case.

[Tybalt]

I did a little reading up on commitmentphobia. I know I'm looking to ease the ego blow and the feeling of rejection, but it sure sounds like him. He's had a string of short term relationships (1-2 months long, and now I'm on that list). He was ready to be boyfriend and girlfriend very quickly. He was very eager about pursuing and complimenting me, until he had me, and the compliments started to dry up. He NEVER wanted to plan in advance - it was always the day of kind of thing unless I suggested an activity in advance. He rents a room out of a house, just sold his car and bought a motorcycle, and basically is unestablished in his life situation right now. He has had quite a few jobs and just started a new one a couple of weeks ago. His last "long" term relationship, he moved to another city for her, but when things weren't going as he desired, he literally packed up his stuff in his car one day and drove to a new city - mine - without even telling her or leaving a note (she of course called him and he explained later). He didn't reveal all that much about himself to me. Not that he withheld facts, but he definitely didn't share how he felt about a lot of things. Including me. He is seeking an elusive and undefined "feeling" when considering a relationship that could lead to marriage.

 

His last girlfriend, a two monther, he stated he broke up with because she was irresponsible, but also because she told him she loved him. He found this outrageous after only two months and said he was fine after ending it because "It was only two months. I wasn't attached."

 

Whether the commitmentphobia is his continual pattern, or he just didn't like me enough, or the other girls, to give things a longer chance, I don't know.

 

I think it helps me to deepen understanding and figure out why something didn't work out so that I can address whatever part I had in it, and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

 

Right now I am feeling some real pain.

[radrluv72]

Thank you for sharing your story. That sounds extremely painful, and I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this. I'd be nervous about him coming home soon. Do you have a plan about how you're going to handle it, especially if he contacts you?

 

You're welcome...in all honesty, having been in NC for the last 13 weeks, it doesn't feel anywhere as near as bad as it did when it first happened. Stopping communication & staying in my routine was the best thing I could have done for myself. I still go back & forth with indifference, but I've realized that give my ex's history with dysfunctional women, I was probably the best--and most normal--thing to happen to him. He wanted love, he had it, and he walked away from it. Big mistake.

 

Everyone runs the scenario through their mind of what would happen if their ex contacted them, and although I've done the same thing, I don't think that in reality it's going to happen. Right now as he's finishing up his deployment overseas, it's been far easier for him to detatch because of how demanding his role is over there. When he comes home next month and gets back into his routine, it may be a different story. But will he contact me? No, I don't think so. He acted incredibly guilty when he broke up with me, and I'm sure he's still carrying it around with him when and if I come to mind...namely because again, he knows how bad he hurt me. He's just not grown up enough yet to own what he did to us.

Edited April 3, 2011 by radrluv72

[Fufu]

You sound like a very mature person

 

To answer your question on the thread.

Personally, "I just don't feel it" means lose interest in a person and/or doesn't see the person as the one.

[radrluv72]

I did a little reading up on commitmentphobia. I know I'm looking to ease the ego blow and the feeling of rejection, but it sure sounds like him. He's had a string of short term relationships (1-2 months long, and now I'm on that list). He was ready to be boyfriend and girlfriend very quickly. He was very eager about pursuing and complimenting me, until he had me, and the compliments started to dry up. He NEVER wanted to plan in advance - it was always the day of kind of thing unless I suggested an activity in advance. He rents a room out of a house, just sold his car and bought a motorcycle, and basically is unestablished in his life situation right now. He has had quite a few jobs and just started a new one a couple of weeks ago. His last "long" term relationship, he moved to another city for her, but when things weren't going as he desired, he literally packed up his stuff in his car one day and drove to a new city - mine - without even telling her or leaving a note (she of course called him and he explained later). He didn't reveal all that much about himself to me. Not that he withheld facts, but he definitely didn't share how he felt about a lot of things. Including me. He is seeking an elusive and undefined "feeling" when considering a relationship that could lead to marriage.

 

Yep...this was my ex as well. Despite a housing allowance from the military & that he had money to burn, my ex also didn't have his own place. He had told me that for a short while he had an apartment near the base but used his orders to break his lease. When we started seeing eachother, he was renting a room from one of his buddies, namely the guy he was going overseas to replace for 4 months. His only possessions were his guitars, his guns, his clothes and a bed...he said that everything else he had was in storage, but that he had no furniture because he had a problem with "owning things". He also very rarely slept over at his buddy's house when he was home. He usually wound up crashing at another friend's house. The only time he stayed at his own place was when I was spending the night.

 

And just so you know, we were just over 2 months as well. There probably 3-4 days out of that entire time that we didn't talk to eachother, namely because he was on a plane somwhere. I feel sorry for whoever he lines up next when he comes home...they won't have a clue. But it's out of my hands.

[radrluv72]

I think "I just don't feel it" rings very true. There seems to be a tendency to grasp at "but he's mistaken" explanations ie, the it's really because of past trauma or really because he does not understand how relationships go or whatever. But when you think about how you yourself go about it, then maybe it falls into place, although unfortunately, not in the way you might wish.

 

You meet a guy, maybe aren't sure about him, so you continue on down the path with him for a while. Sometimes you feel nice things, say nice things, do nice things. What causes the defining moment where you decide he's not the one and you want to move on? Who knows, maybe quickly, maybe after wrestling with it for awhile, maybe hastened by an outside influence like your job causes you to move away or someone else is on your radar. You just know he's not it and so you move on. Sorry and good luck to you.

 

While this is true, I don't think this necessarily applies to this situation, based so far on what she's said. I can think of relationships I've had in the past where there were signs that things were going down the past of ending. But these sudden, abrupt breakups do happen out anxiety & fear, and they leave you feeling like you just got hit by a truck. Commitment-phobia is a genuine and real personality/anxiety disorder, but it just may not apply to every situation.

 

I'll never really know if my own ex has this particular disorder, but I do know that my ex does have an incredibly unrealistic fantasy of what a relationship is supposed to be like and has maturity issues, neither I can do anything about. Some people are just slower at realizing that maybe it isn't everyone else...maybe it's themselves...y'know what I mean?

[Tybalt]

I respect this point of view. It's hard to accept that someone was initially interested enough in me to make me his girlfriend, but once he started to get to know me, he decided he didn't like what he found out about me... Enough, anyway. I deleted the messages from him from 3 weeks ago telling me how beautiful and amazing I am. I really wonder how things have changed so much in his mind since then.

 

I do recognize that this was not a very long relationship at all. He never made specific commitments to plans until the day of, but he would throw out statements about expecting to meet my kid someday (I have a 7 year old), taking a trip together sometime down the line, and he did set me up as the co-host of his birthday party next weekend. I honestly thought things were going well.

 

This is difficult for me because I was in a very psychologically abusive marriage with an alcoholic, narcissistic cheater that ended a few years ago, and healing has taken time. I haven't gotten seriously involved for any length of time since then, primarily since the men I tried to date for awhile were disfunctional... i.e. manipulative or abusive like my ex-husband. I have been working very hard on myself, taking time to be alone and be comfortable single and heal from the marriage. This most recent relationship felt more "normal" than anything I have experienced in 10 years. Yet what I perceived wasn't what was happening. Maybe I can't even tell if a man is really interested in me anymore, maybe he has issues, or maybe it's all my issues, or some combination. I just don't want to keep nursing a broken heart over and over. I want to change, whether that means learning more about me or men or both.

[Tybalt]

This does make sense and I agree that the first phase of infatuation is all about projecting your needs and wants onto the other person. More time is needed to truly know the person, and then the relationship evolves or ends. Perhaps it is a semantics thing, with the terminology. For me and my ex-boyfriend, in my perception (and, I thought his) the label was meant to convey exclusivity and monogamy, and it was an agreement to try to create or develop a longer term thing in a slightly more "secure" space, without wondering who else the other might be seeing. And, with the physical involvement, being exclusive was also something of a practical and emotional necessity for me.

[Tybalt]

I really appreciate you and everyone providing perspectives. I am definitely an analyzer and given my past, I do not want to keep making mistakes. It took me years to realize what was going on in my marriage. I'm in my mid thirties now and don't want to waste any more time on dating emotionally unavailable or abusive partners. Perhaps keeping in mind what you said, Summer, I can be more careful and reserve judgment for awhile when I'm getting to know someone. And just because someone might be emotionally healthy or healthier doesn't mean it will work out. As you said, sometimes one of the parties just decides their bf/gf is not "The One" and there's nothing disfunctional going on at all.

 

In this case, it is important for me to come to some recognition of what happened, and whether he is commitmentphobic, so I recognize him as yet another type of man I want to avoid in the future. I realize it is all speculation and perhaps down the line I won't have the need to have reasons for it so much.