How should I handle this??

[dulcis_dolus]

Hello everyone! I'm new here, and would REALLY appreciate your help with my situation!! Literally any responses would be welcome, so please feel free to say anything! Here we go:

 

My boyfriend, with whom I had a strong, loving, and committed relationship, broke up with me completely out of the blue 6 weeks ago, because he said that an argument that we'd had three weeks prior had been playing on his mind, and he'd felt unable to talk about it. Realising that, he'd concluded that we shouldn't be together, because you should always be able to talk to the one you love. I was absolutely devastated by this, as I'm an extremely open and approachable person, and he absolutely could have talked to me about anything - as I demonstrated as soon as I'd convinced him to explain his reasons for ending it. He was surprised by how well I responded, and continued to be surprised every time we talked seriously after that, and, once I returned to the same country as him two weeks later - I'd been living abroad - we began speaking on the phone each night, texting once or twice during the day, and meeting up about once a week.

 

Things were going well, and I was being extremely patient, so as not to rush him, but there was a discrepancy between how he treated me on the phone, and how he treated me in real life. On the phone, he'd be warm and open, but in reality, closed off from time to time, and often distracted - though this is a general character flaw of his, so it's hard to judge to what extent it related to me. On one occasion, when we met up but he refused to hold my hand - responding to my request by saying that his hands were 'comfortable in his pockets' - he then proceeded to ask my question after question, in a really disjointed fashion, while ignoring my responses, and so I called him on it, and asked why he was treating me like that.

 

The only trouble was, I've been so desperately, desperately unhappy through all of this, and trying SO HARD to handle everything in such a way that we can work things out, that his behaviour that day just really hurt me, and so I got quite emotional I was angry, and I said that 'I was trying SO HARD with him, why couldn't he give me something back??' Which to be honest was unfair in many respects, given that he'd been making an effort with the phone calls, etc., but was TOTALLY fair in the moment! And he didn't reply, just started at the ground, so I said 'Okay then', and walked away :'( From that moment on, EVERYTHING broke. He broke up with me on facebook, deleted me, turned off his phone, and completely ignored me. I absolutely broke down, having never been so betrayed or poorly treated in my life, but then, after a week of me asking him to talk, we had a long and mature conversation where he apologised for treating me so appallingly, admitted that I'd had reason for walking away, and expressed his doubt that we'd be able to work things out, because so much had happened, AND, more importantly, he still wasn't sure that he could trust me not to make him feel like crap by crying so much during arguments (which was the original cause of his anxiety, prompting him to break up).

 

I said that I understood, but that I sincerely believe we have all the prerequisites necessary how an open, mature, and trusting relationship, and that we just needed to invest time into building it back up. Since then - 4 days ago - we've been in contact, but it's EXTREMELY difficult for me because I miss him so much it hurts, am horrifically unhappy, and really struggle with how much patience something like this requires, especially after having already made an effort to go through all of this before, and now having to start ALL OVER AGAIN!!! It's also difficult because occasionally he contacts me - yesterday morning he called me spontaneously, though only for 7 minutes :/ - but then he also lets me down a lot - said that he'd call again in the evening, then texted at 1:30am to say 'Sorry, but he'd got home late' - and rarely replies to my texts - I sent a message at about 8am this morning, and he replied at 3:30, but not responding to anything that I'd actually written The waiting is the worst part, because I'm DESPERATE to share my life with him, and feel painfully, painfully isolated, but know that I probably shouldn't push him :/ So how much pushing is too much, and how little contact from him is acceptable/leading me along? I’ve lost all ability to know if he should be making more of an effort, or if I should be being more patient, ESPECIALLY after losing patience before, and nearly pushing him away completely!!! Can you please give me your opinion/advice???

[CarrieT]

A few things....

 

The breakup was not out of the blue; he wouldn't have done it based on one disagreement - something was festering within him for a while.

 

With THAT in mind, your desperation is irrelevant. You can't force someone into a relationship who doesn't want one.

 

It hurts now - and I'm sorry, many of us have been there - but you are probably best to go NC and start the healing process. It will take time, but you will survive and move on.

[dulcis_dolus]

Something has been festering within him for a while, but it's only been his dislike of arguments - of which we've had two in real life, and 6 on Skype, in one year; really not that many! - and it's been exacerbated by his inability to talk properly about important things, and actually SAY that to me So, from my perspective, it WAS completely out of the blue, and now he's given me reason to believe that we can work on things, BUT, is also blowing hot and cold :'( There's clearly still care there, on his side, and he doesn't want to let me go - I know that he still feels jealous, as well, which surely means something? - but I don't know what approach to take for the best! :/ Should I go no contact, in the hopes that he'll miss me? Or should we just keep taking things slow, and I let him come to me? The trouble is that I find that really hard to do, because everything is moving at such a slow pace, with so little promise of positive results, that I honestly don't know if I can handle it :'( The only thing worse would be turning my back on this, though, and never knowing for sure if I could have saved it. A lot of people tell me that these things just take time - my guy himself has said that - but how am I supposed to handle things in the meantime?? Do you have any ideas?

[Samilia]

Hello..

 

It seems to me that you're making all the efforts in this relationship. I don't see crying as a valid reason to break up with somebody.

 

Then again he might have just slowly fallen out of love for you and is not willing to admit it, so he made up a bs excuse. He's probably conflicted with his feelings for you, that's probably why he's keeping you around, still sees you on occasion, etc.. he's just not sure of what he wants.

 

I would slow down on the texting, since he's not really answering, have him come to you rather than try so hard to get him back. I know you're desperate to get him back, but a bit of air for him and for you would do you a lot of good. Don't be available so easily, start doing a lot on your own, make him want you again.

 

I know it's tough, I hope it gets better.

[Pod81]

To be honest, I'm not sure if this relationship can be saved unless he makes some serious changes to himself. Communication seems to be a huge issue in your relationship - you do all the communicating and he does NONE of it. In an open, mature, loving relationship, both parties needs to be able to communicate with one another to resolve any issues. In his case, he seems to be the type that would just keep ignoring issues until the last straw breaks his back and he does the drastic (breaks up with you). Just out of curiosity, how was his ability to communicate earlier in the relationship?

[dulcis_dolus]

Thank you so much for your replies, it means such a lot!! :)

 

And Samilia: Yeah, you could be right. He might well just have slowly fallen out of love with me - he's implied that more than once - but remembers how good it was, and so isn't completely sure that he wants to let it go. And I was truly starting to believe that, as painful as it was, after he broke up with me for the second time and made it truly official - deleting me on facebook, and turning off his phone, etc.

 

Now, though - since we talked the next day, he apologised for everything, and we've been trying for casual contact - I'm starting to feel like maybe he does still love me after all, or at least care very deeply, because why the hell would any guy put himself through that otherwise?? I mean, he ended it once, I immediately instigated a break for the two weeks that I was still abroad, and then I returned to England, it was going well, I hurt his feelings one night, he ended it again, and THEN he said that he wants to work on it again!! In some ways, obviously you could say that he's just competely messing me around, and that would be true. But then, from another perspective, I have to wonder WHY, and given that there's no sex involved, that this guy prides himself on his morals, and his personal integrity - ha, yeah, he actually really does! - and that I know he hasn't been with anyone else, and wouldn't want to be, I have to consider the possibility that he really does still care.

 

Even last night, for example, we had a pretty negative conversation, but today I've been trying to evaluate it, and I feel like the fact that it even HAPPENED is positive, in some ways. Maybe you can give me your opinion?

 

Basically, we've been trying for contact, like I said, but he's been giving VERY little, and so I've been finding it extremely hard. So last night I called him, asked if he was free to talk, and when he said that he could chat for a few minutes, I tried REALLY HARD to just be normal. He was being fairly closed, though - short answers to my questions, etc. - and so I couldn't stop myself from raising the subject, and said that, while I understood that this was going to take an awful lot of time, and that I didn't want to pressure him, I would really appreciate some consistency to our contact, rather than being made to feel as if I only half matter. And at that point, he got panicky, and started saying that he understood, but that he didn't want to talk about it right now, and that we could talk tomorrow, but not right now, etc. etc. He just kept saying that, and was like 'I get it, but I've told you that I can't commit to you right now. Let's talk about it later, I want to go to bed', blah blah. So I let him go, because there's no reasoning with him when he gets like that, but I feel like, surely a guy who didn't care at all would just tell an emotional girl who's essentially criticising his behaviour, and making him feel bad about himself, to just **** off? I mean, I know he HAS broken up with me, so that's a pretty big **** off, lol, but still - he's clearly not willing to completely cut me out, so that must show that he still cares?

 

Plus, there's also the fact that he said 'right now'. And the fact that, when I was extremely upset a few days ago, he expressed doubt because he said that he didn't think 'he'd be able to move at the speed that I clearly need him to', with regards to us reconciling. Aaand, during our big, post horrific breakup conversation last week, he also said that he's been missing me terribly, and feels like he's lost his most valued confidant :/ Sooo, quite a few positives, but then AGAIN, Pod81, you're quite possibly right - if he doesn't start communicating better, and keeping things to himself all the time, then how is this ever going to work?? I'm rambling, I'm sorry, lol! But any response at all would be appreciated!!

[dulcis_dolus]

And oh, as for his ability to communicate earlier on in the relationship, I suppose I never really knew, because he was absolutely crazy about me for a long time, and everything really did just feel perfect. We had no upsets between us for at least 6 months, apart from one really bad argument at Christmas while we were out one night, and which was completely and utterly his fault, because he accused me of flirting with his friends. Obviously I'd never, ever do that, so it was just him being an immature idiot, and me getting hurt and overreacting in the process, but we talked about it all the next day, seemed to express everything that was on our minds, and moved past it.

 

Apart from that - where he DID appear to be good at communicating - I just had lots of indiciations that he would be, because he's highly intelligent, fairly sensitive, extremely eloquent - he was a literature student, and is now a journalist - and we'd usually talk for 2 to 6 hours at a time, without exhausting everything that we wanted to say :/ He's also recently lost his mother - about 18 months ago now, before we were together - so we've talked a lot about that, and he always seemed so emotionally mature that I really had NO IDEA that something like this would ever happen! It truly has COMPLETELY shocked me, and even after 5 weeks, I still wake up unable to understand how it's even happened!

[dulcis_dolus]

Also, he never did 'talk about it tomorrow', as he said he would!! I waited all of Friday, and then, on Saturday, called him several times, with no response So, I figured that I'd just go NC on him, and see what happens - if I'm able to put myself through that again - BUT, then he texted Saturday evening! I could really use some advice :/ Should I reply or not??

 

Here's the message:

 

'Hey, sorry not been in touch. Been without my phone today. Hope you're okay. Where is your new placement going to be? Hope it hasn't been too stressful moving x'

 

On the surface of things, it seems quite nice. But it's nothing in comparison to the 5 or 6 pages text that I'd usually receive from him during out relationship, OR a consolation for how badly he's been treating me, AND it comes at a time, after he'd been temporarily ignoring me for two days, that I was planning to go NC!!! Soooo, what should I do??

 

Any advice would be great right now! :)