edgecrusher96 Posted June 27, 2004 Posted June 27, 2004 First of all, sorry about the long post but words are a rather limited form of expression... I broke up with my boyfriend nearly 2 months ago. I am 21 and he is 33. We met when I went on a work experience placement as part of my degree and became very close friends. I had difficult times at work and he was there to listen to me and help me out, that's why I grew increasingly attracted to him. It was also at a stage in my life when my ex-boyfriend kept ringing me several times a day because he recently broke up with his then-girlfriend, so he tried to get back to me. I got really pissed off at this so I guess my attraction to my guy friend was a bit of an escapism thing at the time as well. At work, it was very easy for us to see each other, obviously. However, my work experience placement finished and I had to go back to study. Since then, my friend has expressed romantic interest in me and in hindsight I unfortunately reciprocated that, but we only went steady for like 2-3 months before breaking up. In this period he developed really deep feelings for me and in my opinion, fell in love with me way too fast. I guess I'm also guilty of falling in love too fast, seeing that he was my first true love (the relationship before him wasn't too serious and quite weak). But then I realized what I was getting myself into and broke it off as soon as I came to my senses. There were several reasons I broke it off. Firstly, I come from an ethnic background where my family are really traditional. They think I should not date at my age, or indeed date interracially at any age. I'm also not allowed to stay out late. I brought this up about 2 weeks after we went steady, but because I liked him so much at the time, I agreed to keep the boyfriend a secret from my family. Because I only saw him twice a week and mostly during the day, this wasn't too hard. However, as the feelings got stronger (way too fast), my boyfriend started to complain to me about why I can't see him more often and I could see the frustration increasingly growing on his side. I tried to explain that to him and he eventually agreed to see me on my terms and restrictions, but in my heart I knew that this would only be short lived. Because he's falling in love with me so fast, he'll just get frustrated again that I can't increase my contact with him. I figured that he'll get sick of it eventually and dump me. I remember him saying that he was sick of my curfews and even when he went out with a 16 year old girl (he was 20 at the time), the young girl had more freedom than I did. I don't like to hear that I'm worse than a 16 year old, it was a huge blow to my pride. I figured that if he felt that I'm worse than a 16 year old, and that he wants to have a relationship similar to that of normal couples, then he shouldn't be seeing me i.e. go find someone else who can offer that. I think the distance between us also played a factor, he lives a 40 minute drive away from me and also it was logistically difficult for us to meet up during the week as he goes to work and I'm back at school. We usually met up during the week in the late afternoons after he finishes work, and now that I look back at it, because it was the end of the day we were both tired and irritable and didn't get along anywhere near as well as we did compared to when we were still friends back at work. However, the main reason of the tension between us was probably because we wanted to move the relationship at a different pace. Unfortunately, it took me 2 months of serious dating to realize this. Because I am still at university, I don't want to get into anything too serious too soon. After dating for a while I realized that I don't want a relationship after all. In the short term, the relationship was taking up very much of my time which I feel could be better spent working on my study and career aspirations. What makes it doubly frustating on my side was that I declared my feelings for him, so it's like betrayal when I said that my feelings have changed and I am no longer interested in going out. I'm probably too free-spirited and ambitious to compromise my ambitions for anyone else, and I have a lot of ambitions. I would like to be able to accept job opportunities interstate or overseas (if one popped up) without being tied down by a boyfriend. I am only 21 years old and should be meeting different people and trying to find my way around in this world, not be bound by a serious commitment. In the long term, it also looks like that our life goals are different. My boyfriend would love to have kids while I cringe at the thought. Because of our age difference, if I end up together with him, then if I compromise and have kids for him then I'll still be quite young and will barely have my career established. Since my boyfriend is 33, he has already spent his youth working in different places around the country and working overseas. He works in a semi-management position and has a decent salary and home. Because he already has his career and finances well established, and has already sown his wild oats by travelling, at this stage in life a relationship is top priority. I can't say the same about myself though - I am a poor university student who still lives at home and does not have my career established. I am definitely not Ready to Settle Down and will be casting about for many years. What made me think that a relationship with this guy will work out? We are obviously at different stages in life and there's no way we can intertwine our lives. Anyway, all these factors resulted in my decision to break it off. The breakup was relatively amicable, tempers didn't fly and there was no fighting. However, I still wanted to be his friend as we were friends before we went out and that meant a lot more to me than our hollow relationship. I've come to learn that relationship can only last as long as the romantic feelings last, but after the passion is gone, at least for me, the friendship feelings stay. He agreed with staying friends at the time, so we continued to keep in contact via phone and email. About 3 weeks after we broke up he sent me an email saying that he missed me and asked if I could give him another chance and that he is willing to go a lot slower. I don't buy that for a minute because you can't expect someone to slow down the pace at which they naturally move at, that will only result in frustration as I've already learnt. I figured out that if he's getting angry with me wanting to move at a slow pace, then sooner or later he'll dump me anyway because I can't meet his needs, so I might as well dump him first and save both our time. I'm that sort of person - I believe in killing the cancer cells early before they spread everywhere and do all sorts of damage. Also, I've decided that because I'm so ambitious, I don't want to work on a relationship at all right now, no matter what the pace is. Anyway, my boyfriend asked if we could meet up and discuss getting back together. This I did, and I reminded him of the reasons why I broke up. The next day, he emails me thanking me for discussing the issues with him and that he is always available to talk about anything with me whether it is personal or study related. A week later, he offered to help me out with a university project at his place, and at the time I felt somewhat relieved that perhaps he was starting to come to terms with the reasons for the breakup and that we could communicate openly once again. My visit to his place went surprisingly well, until he brought up our past relationship again. I told him upfront that I just want to be friends and even though he was disappointed, he didn't react to it too severely. I simply thought that some more time needed to pass before we can truly be friends. In an attempt to re-establish our platonic friendship, I offered to go out to lunch (not a romantic candlelit dinner) with him and shout him some drinks on his birthday, which was a week after my previous encounter at his house. I bought him a card and a CD as a present, basically trying to be thoughtful without being too personal/romantic. I was still a bit nervous around him though so I drank a bit to try and break the ice. My boyfriend said that he's never seen me so deliriously happy before and that he's hurt that I couldn't be that happy in our relationship. The lunch ended with him feeling really hurt. I rang him 2 days later and he was really stand-offish. I figured that it was due to the events of the birthday lunch and that he wasn't over me enough to meet me in person and hang out the way friends do. So I emailed him apologizing for hurting his feelings and that I will leave him alone for a while (not my intention to leave him permanently) and give him time to get over me. Now I probably did the very wrong thing here, as he replied to me saying that there is no real problem with staying in contact and that he would still like to meet up after my exams are over and continue to help me out with my studies. But three days later he sends me an email that said: I am getting sick of your little games, if that's how you feel then I am truly sorry. I wish you all the best for uni and hope you have a happy and joyful life. Please don't bother contacting me anymore. That is only three days after saying that it's ok to stay in contact. I'm so confused with the mixed messages. I tried to ring him on the same day I got the email from him to ask for an explanation but he never answered the phone. I eventually got through a week later and he went on about how I've strung him along all that time and that I've lied to him by saying that I love him and will stay by him only to dump him later. I asked if we could be friends at any time in the future, and he said that he doesn't know because he thinks I'm a liar and have broken his trust over the entire period we went out. Maybe I should have seen from the very beginning that this wasn't going to work out because of the age difference, ethnic difference, life circumstances, distance between us etc. Even though I don't exactly agree with him saying that I can't be trusted, I think I tried to end things ASAP once I knew they were not going to work out. It was never my intention to string him along. A lot of people use the no contact rule as a way of playing hard to get but I know that deep down I have no ulterior motives to my offer of friendship. I accept that we are at different stages in life and a relationship would be way too awkward and take away from my long term happiness, but I genuinely do want to be friends because that's what we were before. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest now if he dated someone else. I've tried telling my boyfriend this, that he can see other people and I'm not stopping him from moving on, but he said that he needs to get over me first and he doesn't know how long that's going to take, but he just wants to distance himself from me. Human emotions are so volatile. One minute he's on about how much I mean to him, the next minute he's telling me to get out of his life. Maybe I just rationalize too much :-/ So this is my dilemma. I just want to be friends, nothing more, nothing less. In fact I'll even try to support him wherever I can if he is in another relationship. With the email he sent me, is he just angry with me at the moment because he wants more? Do you think he'll ever forgive the hurt and be friends with me? Or does he think I've betrayed him so I'm not worth being friends with? I'm willing to give the friend thing another try. As I said, I'm ok with him seeing other people so I don't think I'm playing any games or keeping him on a string. Now, we broke up in mid-April and I received the piss-off email at the beginning of June. I'm thinking of not contacting him for another month and a half, and then I'll send a quick 'what's up' email to try and break the ice. If he ignores me then I'll probably get the message that he no longer wants to have anything to do with me. What do you think? Please help me out as I am so stuck and would like our friendship back.
kgal Posted June 27, 2004 Posted June 27, 2004 So...you're saying that you're fine with just being his friend....but he wanted more and it hurt him everytime he tried being just a friend? I can relate if that's the case. I had a great friend for about 8 yrs and then we turned things serious....we both fell in love....but his background is much different than mine...and so he's not allowed to date either....and he kept me a secret from his family. Mine knew about him...so it was harder and more frustrating for me that I couldn't have him the way I wanted. I just didn't understand and I didn't want to. I think you should def. give your ex time.....in time those romantic feelings will hopefully get less and less...and if there was a solid friendship before....and he feels it's worth keeping...he will contact you I'm sure...once he has some time to accept how things are and have to be with the two of you. Hopefully my reply wasn't way off...I didn't have much time so I skimmed thru your post. Good luck with everything!
TommyGirl Posted June 27, 2004 Posted June 27, 2004 Well.....you two are on different paths, I understand your reasons for breaking up with him, they sound very legit, but he wants more than a friendship. Let me tell you...there is nothing worse than wanting more than a friendship from someone who only wants just a friendship. Do me and him a favor and leave him alone. If one day HE wants to be with friends with you, that's fine. You do not know the amount of time it will take him to get over you, so just let him call you when he is ready. Leave him alone, and let him go on with his life. I hate to say this but you are in a way toying with his feelings, you don't see it. He sees you hanging out and still wanting to be friends as a sign that you may want him back sooner or later or that you still have feelings for him. Let him go.
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