LoveinNEB Posted July 31, 2004 Posted July 31, 2004 Hi everyone, this is my first post in this forum and I have a very heart-breaking and difficult situation on my hands. Here it goes... I dated this girl for about 4 years. She is Younger than I (iam now 22 and she is 18...yes I was robbing the cradle! lol) anyways... for 3 of those 4 years I lived across the country going to college while she lived here in Nebraska. Anyways, I decided last year (Jan of 03) of move back here and be w/ her because I realized that this is the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with. She is everything I always wanted in a girl. Unfortunately, It didn't end up so. Fighting became the norm when I moved here and 7 months after I came, we broke up. I was heartbroken, lonely, and really missed this girl I loved so I chased her. For 3 months I said everything, did everything, and nothing would work. So eventually... I dragged on. 7 months later, this past spring, she came knocking on my door and back into my life. Our grandmothers had passed away a week apart and we reached out to someone we loved. I took her back because I had felt that I had done so many wrong things but could never really pin point the cause of our breakup. Well, 4 months later.... she is gone again. She says we fight too much and that Iam an jerk, etc. But I feel the cause is that I just didn't feel her trying enough. She would blow our weekend plans constantly, and always felt like I was overbearing her... I realize that this is a co-dependent relationship. Where I, the one who is afraid of being abandoned is attracted to the girl who is afraid of losing her self. The more I push the farther she backs away....and when i'm finally crushed I sink back into my self and let go....only to have her come back and repeat the process (well it has only happened once) Most reading this would probably say, why do you even want a relationship like this? And I always say because i love her. I honestly don't picture myself being w/ anyone else ever and she is and has always been everything in a girl i've ever looked for. I have begun chasing her again for the last month (ofcourse w/ nothing working) and iam back to square one. Iam so afraid that if i let go again she'll be out of my life forever. What if she's had enough? I feel like i have let her down in so many ways but yet... i love her so much and i just want it to work so bad. Why is this relationship not working? Honestly, when she came back she promised me she would never do this again but once again here we are. She says she loves me (but how can you honestly do this to a person you love once, let alone twice?) If she does come back.... please someone tell me how do I break this vicious cycle because it's tearing me apart. I love this girl w/ everything Iam ... how can I keep her happy? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated and if you need any more info...let me know and i'll try to explain. Thanks, LoveInNEB
Author LoveinNEB Posted August 1, 2004 Author Posted August 1, 2004 bump... i'd really like some feedback from some of you
rubie Posted August 2, 2004 Posted August 2, 2004 hi... I am reserving this space for my reply which will come when I am drinking my chai latte in about 10 minutes or so.
rubie Posted August 2, 2004 Posted August 2, 2004 Ok, my latte is here and I am ready to give you my two cents on your situation. The only validity that I can use to back what I am going to say is that I was in a relationship with a guy for about three years that was quite similar to your situation. We even went so far as to live together for the last six months of our relationship. We had plans for marriage and we were generally happy - or so it seemed. Once we lived together (regrettably it took us having to cohabit to realize that we could not make it together), we realized that we fought way too much and we were just generally too different. Where we thought we had things in common, we infact were quite different and we nearly drove each other crazy with inane arguments about random things that should have had no significance in our relationship. ANYWAY, what I am saying is, if you guys fight too much and she breaks weekend dates/plans with you and you are somewhat dependant on her [in my relationship, we fought and I was the one who was dependant and he broke dates ] you two should go ahead and move on. You will most likely never be content with that sort of relationship. I know it's not what you want to hear and I know this may be a vague response, but it is a response nonetheless and I hope I helped in some way.
Author LoveinNEB Posted August 2, 2004 Author Posted August 2, 2004 Thank you so much for your response i really appreciate it and your opinion. Unfortunately, I wish I could. I love this girl. And I think love should be more than just saying it. I have experiences and memories w/ this girl that I consider the best times of my life. To be more clear.... i LOVE this girl Do sometimes I wish I weren't in love with her now? Hell yes. Do I see how she was 2 years ago.... and wish for just 5 minutes I could have that back? Without a doubt. Believe it or not, i'm not just some delusional love sick puppy. I see the bad and i'm seeing alot more lately. What iam trying to do is break this cycle. Obviously 1 way is to walk away... but i'm not ready to do that yet. I was just hoping that there is some way I can spark this girl's faith, trust, and love back into me. Because that's what I want. This girl is only 18.... I often wonder if age relates to her confusion about being w/ me... and if so... is there a chance she will grow out of this and continue to love me like she used to....does it come back? I don't know. I guess the thing that makes the most sense of out of all this is a saying my friend said to me the other day. "You fall in love with someone by choice. You stay in love through work. You fall out of love by chance." Wow, alright. Am I getting in touch w/ my feminine side or what? I need a beer.... lol
rubie Posted August 2, 2004 Posted August 2, 2004 I see your point, which is exactly the same reason why I stayed with my ex for almost three years when in reality I believe our relationship was as good as over about a year and a half into it. It was because "I LOVED HIM", which I did. He was my first love so it made it harder to let go but we were both young. I was 17 and he was 18. We changed and within that year and a half time frame, we were entirely different people. We were starting to be the people we were becoming as adults, and there was no going back. However, staying together only caused more heartache and fighting but we stuck it our for another good while. Blah. I guess in my defense I can say that I learned a lot from being in a relationship like that and that I would never let myself stay that long in a bad situation again. And yes, her age has a great impact on it. She is still young. She is changing and trying to grow up and you two are at totally different stages of your life. If you decide to stay together, be prepared for more of the same stuff because this cycle is only starting because of the fact that she is maturing, growing up and is more than likely really confused about what she wants. Furthermore, if you two took some time off (and I don't mean a month or whatever, like some real time off where you guys were just friends but not in a relationship) she may come around and realize that you are something she wants in her life. You never know though, in that time your feelings may change for her. When I left my ex, yes I left him even though I was the needy dependant one, I recovered a lot sooner than he did. He still contacts me from time to time dropping hints that he misses me etc... But I would never go back. Ever.
Author LoveinNEB Posted August 8, 2004 Author Posted August 8, 2004 Okay I have a little update on my situation. Last sunday I went over to her house and we had a nice long talk for about 2-3 hours. It seemed really comfortable talking to her and we even set up a date for Tuesday night. Well, Tuesday came and we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesdays... we had a good laugh, but I could tell she was still confused about things. She told me she's at a plateau in her life and she feels like she's stuck. She doesn't know what she wants but still tells me she loves me. Well, I admit I did push it a little Tuesday.... taking her to some of our special places to maybe spark that love in her again... and well.... at the end of the night I asked her if she'd like to hang out again on Friday night. Maybe watch a movie... whatever. She said sure....and that she would call me. Well, Friday came and I hadn't heard anything yet until about 4pm. She calls me up and says "I know you're going to be mad about this... but i'm not going to hang out w/ you tonight"..... my response was a dumbfounded, "okay...any particular reason WHY?" "......I'm just not going to...." I sadly said "okay..." and she responsds with... "I'm sorry Ryan, I don't mean to hurt you...." and that was the end of the conversation. Not even a freakin' reason why she was blowing me off at the last second. My guess is that she felt too much pressure too quickly, and honestly i'm taking it as slow as I can but it's just so hard pretending to just be her friend. I love this girl.... But now i don't know what to say to her. I thought we were really making strides this week and going somewhere... but maybe i pushed too hard and now i'm back to square 1. I know she is confused right now...but I feel what she did was wrong. It's so easy for her to just walk away now! Unfortunately, she never calls me and i'm always the one making contact w/ her. I feel so damn hurt, confused, and I DO NOT want to be some growing experience for this girl. Sadly, I feel that's what i have become. I feel like she is going to meet someone new and fall madly in love and i'm going to always feel like she is the one that got away. Why can't I just get on with my life? More importantly, why is she doing this to someone who loves her more than anything. I guess my question is....now that i've obviously done something wrong again... do I back off or do I call her and say i'm sorry for pushing to hard on Tuesday... and that no harm was done. It would be a lie...because this ****in' hurts....I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable. PLEASE HELP. P.S. - rubie.... how did you EVER walk away?
rubie Posted August 8, 2004 Posted August 8, 2004 How did I walk away? I looked at my situation, looked at his situation and realized that we were not going anywhere. The way he acted toward me was an obvious hint that it was going nowhere, whether we admitted it or not. You can just tell. I'm not going to try and tell you what to do, but from what you post on here about this girl, it seems to me that you have already lost her. I hate to sound cynical like that, but as you mentioned, she is much younger than you and she is at a point in her life where she needs to find out what to do on her own. You can't really help her there. If you do love her, DON'T call her. This will show if she's worth all the effort you've been putting in. If she cares, she will call you when she realizes that "Oh snap... I haven't heard from Ryan in a while... I wonder why? Maybe I should call him before I lose him for good. Oh snap." Or something like that. Make her wonder about you. Don't be so available to her because she is taking advantage of the fact that you are so willing to be there for her. She'll make plans and break them with you a few hours before you're supposed to see each other and that is just discourteous to you as a general rule because you don't do that to people. PARTICULARLY if you care about them. If you are a learning experience in her life, then you should back off and give her the space she needs to learn and grow. I am not taking her side here, I am trying to help you. I know how you feel, I was in your shoes for a long time and I know it's one of the worst feelings in the world to feel like you are being used. Uncertainty is killer. I hope I have helped in some way but for now I'm out. Gotta go have some coffee and then work till one this morning. BLAH. Have a good one, yo. Private message me if there is anything you want to talk about that you're not comfortable with on here.
Goldmund2004 Posted August 9, 2004 Posted August 9, 2004 you need to let her go. i was in a relationship just like that, except that in the end i married her. we were married for 4 1/2 years, and the fighting continued...and got worse. eventually, she cheated on me, kept it a secret for a year before finally asking for a divorce. i didn't even find out about the affair until after i had moved out and went back to get the rest of my stuff before she moved into a new place. i was paying all her bills even after i initially moved out, because i LOVED her, and when i found out about the affair i cut her off. she then proceeded to sue me, borrowing $10K from her dad to pay for the lawyer, which I had to match with the rest of my savings and credit card debt, only to avoid paying her the $2K per month she wanted and had to pay her $1K a month for a year instead. LET HER GO NOW. FIND A WOMAN THAT LOVES YOU AS MUCH (OR PREFERABLY, MORE) AS MUCH AS YOU LOVE HER AND TREATS YOU LIKE A MAN THAT DESERVES RESPECT, WHICH YOU ARE.
rubie Posted August 9, 2004 Posted August 9, 2004 Originally posted by Goldmund2004 you need to let her go. i was in a relationship just like that, except that in the end i married her. we were married for 4 1/2 years, and the fighting continued...and got worse. eventually, she cheated on me, kept it a secret for a year before finally asking for a divorce. i didn't even find out about the affair until after i had moved out and went back to get the rest of my stuff before she moved into a new place. i was paying all her bills even after i initially moved out, because i LOVED her, and when i found out about the affair i cut her off. she then proceeded to sue me, borrowing $10K from her dad to pay for the lawyer, which I had to match with the rest of my savings and credit card debt, only to avoid paying her the $2K per month she wanted and had to pay her $1K a month for a year instead. LET HER GO NOW. FIND A WOMAN THAT LOVES YOU AS MUCH (OR PREFERABLY, MORE) AS MUCH AS YOU LOVE HER AND TREATS YOU LIKE A MAN THAT DESERVES RESPECT, WHICH YOU ARE. QUOTED FOR ACCURACY:cool:
Recommended Posts