We're both moving out, end of 2 and a half-year relationship? Is there hope?

[wildspaces]

Okay, a bit of history: We met online when I was 23 and he was 26. We met in person rather quickly. He was everything I was looking for, the no-bull**** guy. I never doubted what he felt and everything just kept getting better and better. He lived about 30 mins away so we only saw each other on weekends. I still lived with my parents. We fell in love after about 4 months and decided to moved in together after a year and a half. We both agreed we could see each other together long-term. Never any real fights, very kind towards each other, always enjoying each other's company.

 

After moving in together things became a lot more comfortable but it stayed good for awhile. We didn't go out on as many dates and we just started to get into routine. He got busier with his work outside of work (deeply immersed in the arts) and I was a student. We were both busy, and most of the time seeing each other meant eating together or sleeping together. We'd still talk, but there was a lot less intimacy. I thought this was just the change of moving in together. I did more and more for him when it came to cleaning the apartment and going out with him to experience his artistic life. He would still get me little gifts and do things to show he cared, but he rarely initiated much anymore (time together, sex, kisses). I had a few deaths in the family over the course of that year and he was very supportive. Always there for me during the particularly difficult times and to listen to the things I was going through. He didn't share much of his life or thoughts though. The issue of us going out together became a sore spot. I stated how necessary it was to keep our relationship growing and he just said "but I see you all the time".

 

I felt like I was in a constant battle to feel attractive and desired by him. He always loved going out and doing things with me before, what had changed. He was putting his artistic endeavor first all of the time, but still telling me he wanted to be in a relationship with me. He kept saying the things I was asking of him would take time. I just kept seeing how there weren't being any efforts made on his part. Finally, I kept pushing and he expressed himself a little better. He explained some of his social anxieties and reasons why he felt very fearful of and stressed out by all the things I wanted to do with him. I was very understanding and wanted him to know I was very happy to help him through this and we could choose things that would be less anxiety provoking for him. We ALWAYS had a good time when we actually went and did these things, and it always made the relationship stronger. He was able to put aside all of his pressures to be this great artist and just be himself with me. Ps. I have also been greatly involved in the arts from a young age so I understand what it is like to be so wrapped up in that mind frame.

 

I would say that it was about 4 months ago when things really picked up for him. He was experiencing a lot of great success and was busy busy busy. He was truly starting to ignore me completely, but kept convincing me that he wanted the relationship. I felt like a china doll on a shelf that he would play with when he saw fit. I ask myself if I had more of a life separate from him if it would've helped? Maybe, but since he was giving 0% I still think I would've been asking for the 10% when I stopped being busy with my own things. So I cried to him and told him how lonely I was feeling and to tell me if he really just didn't want a relationship right now. I couldn't believe that he didn't want me because outside of his work we were great together. He made one effort one month and planned a date for us. When I asked for a repeat and if it could be of my choosing he became defensive again and busy. He could never actually put me on his schedule in his cell phone out of fear that something more important might come up that day. I think the resentment built up and the way he was showing me he didn't care. All the while we have maintained regular sex (weekly, usually twice a week). That has never been lacking passion or true love. All the while he has also told me he loves me. He has admitted now that for some time he was merely just saying it.

 

One night I had to deal with a crappy situation on my own with the apartment and instead of being helpful he brought up something completely ridiculous and said I was going to have to deal with that on my own because I had been there. I was so mad that he was saying I was responsible for paying some particular fine that I had nothing to do with and I was so stressed with exams coming up that I wrote him to "**** off". We have never sworn at each other and he was deeply hurt by that. I explained what I was feeling in the moment and I hadn't truly meant it but I guess everything got worse from then on. What he couldn't give just kept becoming more clear and yet he didn't want to break up. I wasn't ready to do it but I was thinking of it more and more. He invited me out to a few of his art things a couple of weeks ago to make one last attempt to feel for each other again. Of course it was wonderful and he said he felt butterflies and feelings and he made love to me and told me he loved me. It felt like we were back on track again. If only he could give me those outings every few weeks I'd be fine. But the Monday after that weekend, he was cold and distant and back to withholding affection. I told him how upset it made me and how childish he was acting. How could he feel what he felt and then just go back to feeling distant from me.

 

We had a big long talk about how neutral he feels about everything and not just me (everything in his life). He does have a history of depression and self-esteem issues (although he comes from a normal type family). He said he hates himself and doesn't feel he can give real love right now and it won't be fair to me to stay in this relationship. I've been crying for a week and sorting through all the possibilities and I know that a separation is the right thing right now, but there is no hate between us. He's finally been man enough to be honest and open with me and we've talked more than we ever have. He won't go see a relationship counselor with me though, but says he's going to consider counseling when he's on his own for him. He says he need to make art his number one priority now and himself and to figure out what he wants for the long term. He admits that he is selfish and this is something he wants to work on. He doesn't think there are irreconcilable differences between us, but he cannot give to a relationship at this time. He admits to having feelings for me but not at this time. He said he did have them a few weeks ago and all of those feelings were real, though he questions if they were false because they only happened out of the environment of the apartment. I don't believe that it means they were false, and of course we had feelings for each other in the apartment and over the course of everyday routine as well. I can't believe that he doesn't have feelings. I think he is pushing them away right now, because the main struggle has been between me and his feelings for me, and his need to deal with himself and his career goals. I know I need to take what he is saying at face value right now, but I am an extremely good psychoanalyst and I don't believe he feels absolutely no romance anymore. I think it is just buried by the work he needs to do.

 

So it is not a messy breakup we have been talking for the past 7 days as we still live together. Sometimes he's been annoyed by it, but we're not at each others' throats. I am moving back to my parents and he is moving back to his day job area. Everyone is telling me to move on and I am getting to that point that I will be able to, but I can't get to the point where I believe we just weren't meant to be. With other relationships, I knew right away that we weren't right for each other or I no longer felt anything for them. But this was a big big love, even as things kept on, it was becoming a real love. He won't talk much about the future as he doesn't want to give me false hope. He says he wants to stay friends and that is all he can say right now. He said he has never wanted to do that with anyone else and he cares for me and thinks I'm a good person. We're not sure about no contact at the moment or if we should just check in every so often with each other. He said he can't give me a last kiss when we leave because it would be inappropriate. But he could kiss me lovingly less than two weeks ago? Another sign of how he is repressing his feelings. He doesn't look happy, but he hasn't cried or really dealt much with the breakup and I know that isn't because he doesn't feel anything.

 

I'd love to chalk this all up to a learning experience and just feel like the good memories were just that, fond memories I'll remember when I'm old. Unfortunately I don't feel that way, I feel like this separation is opening a new chapter for us, not closing the book completely. He isn't saying I'm not the girl for him, he's saying I can't be right now. He also hasn't said he doesn't love me, he's just saying he doesn't have feelings right now. Well how much do we all know how much feelings change even in the course of a relationship? I will be okay if we are just meant to be friends or not in each others lives, if that's how I feel as time goes on especially when I see him again later. If we both really feel that, then this was just meant to be what it was. But there isn't hatred or anything negative hanging over us like there was in past relationships, and we were never "just friends" and always meant to just stay friends. So I don't know how to just pretend any less. I told him that I'd always at least want to consider each other as more in the future as we begin to heal, because I feel we'd be denying a truth if we don't. It doesn't mean I want to get back together with him for some time if that were to ever happen. He said if he felt that again for me then he'd be happy about that, but he has no idea how he'll feel. I only ever saw the better man he could be, and I don't see how he'll change into a man I don't recognize or approve of. He's a wonderful, talented person. I carried a torch for someone I loved a long time ago but I always held on to that people we were when we first met or who I wanted him to be. 7 years later now I see I don't know if I love him for who he is because I don't know him now. I want to forget the people me and this current man are to be able to see if we can love again as new people. It just feels hopeful to me. I feel like I can't see why we couldn't, because dynamics never really change completely. I still get along with many exes but the love died when we broke up. I don't think it has here but only time will tell.

 

This has been SO LONG. Sorry. What do you all think? Does it seem like there could be a happily ever after to this story as we both mature and change. I know a lot of the things that happened while we live together seemed hopeless, but there was still a lot of love there, just different expectations. If we let go of those expectations and allowed ourselves the freedom to be who we needed to be, perhaps it could be love anew. I actually wrote my spiritual medium advisor (she's a wonderful person that gave me guidance in love and life 4 years ago, and she is truly gifted). I don't need opinions about why some of you might not believe in this. At the time she told me I wasn't in love with my ex boyfriend 4 years ago and I wasn't. We broke up and I also never went to see the long-distance guy I was pining for. She said he was too immature and didn't know what he wanted and he was. So now, I have asked her for guidance regarding this man. I will post when I receive it. I am just looking for some affirmation or deaffirmation to what I am feeling.

 

Ps. I don't really need help on how to move on and why he was terrible for me. I know we will never work unless it is under new circumstances but if you have true advice about that I guess feel free to drop a line. I am currently 25 and he is 28.

[wildspaces]

Nobody has anything to offer or say?

 

I just want to know mainly if anyone has ever seen this behaviour from an ex. Disliking himself, needing space for all his goals and objectives, and then to have him grow up and have the relationship work later? Especially because it's not an ending full of hate.

[pteromom]

That's really LONG. That's why you aren't getting replies.

 

It sounds to me like he just doesn't have strong enough feelings for you to inspire him to actually put effort into the relationship.

 

It is possible that's because he's just numb toward life in general, and it's possible that it's just you - but it doesn't really matter, because the result is the same. You feel more and he feels less, and you desperately want love and he's apathetic about it, and you want to spend time with him and he wants to do art.

 

Rather than focusing on what might happen in the future, or why he is the way he is, you need to be focusing on yourself right now. Focus on that which is in your control.

[pteromom]

"I am an extremely good psychoanalyst and I don't believe he feels absolutely no romance anymore. I think it is just buried by the work he needs to do."

 

Again - whether he does or doesn't feel romantic underneath it all, the result for you is the same, and it sucks.

[kristi628]

I went through almost the exact same thing. He basically told me everything you said. He's depressed, he's numb and doesnt have emotion, just a constant low feeling, he wants to see a counselor, he doesn't know how to be in the relationship, and so on and so on.

 

This is just my situation so please dont take this the wrong way. We also lived together and now he's living at his parents and i'm in the apartment for another 3 months. Couple of weeks after he left we decided to give it another chance. BAD IDEA. He cheated on me with another girl and it's been over since.

 

I'm not speaking for your ex bc i dont know him. But this was very similar to our situation. (WIth a few more bad scenarios in between) but basically we feel into a routine.He got bored with me basically. He started getting noticed in his career and things took off. I was no longer exciting for him any longer and he found someone who is I guess.

 

Not saying this is what is going to happen with you guys. Maybe he will realize he made a mistake and he wants to actually try. But I do know that whatever he told you, you should probably take it as the truth. If he is depressed then he needs professional help, and there's nothing you can do to help with that. It's something he will have to do on his own.

 

At the end of the day he wasn't treating you right. And you deserve to be with someone who is going to put as much effort into the relationship as you bc he cares that much.

[veggirl]

After moving in together things became a lot more comfortable but it stayed good for awhile. We didn't go out on as many dates and we just started to get into routine. He got busier with his work outside of work (deeply immersed in the arts) and I was a student. We were both busy, and most of the time seeing each other meant eating together or sleeping together. We'd still talk, but there was a lot less intimacy. I thought this was just the change of moving in together.

 

So that was a year and a half into the relationship, and then it continued that way for the next year (is what I'm gathering by your time-table)? A year is a long time to allow things to go on like that, it really should have been nipped in the bud right away cause you ended up wasting another year you didn't have to...

 

I felt like I was in a constant battle to feel attractive and desired by him. He always loved going out and doing things with me before, what had changed. He was putting his artistic endeavor first all of the time, but still telling me he wanted to be in a relationship with me. He kept saying the things I was asking of him would take time. I just kept seeing how there weren't being any efforts made on his part. Finally, I kept pushing and he expressed himself a little better. He explained some of his social anxieties and reasons why he felt very fearful of and stressed out by all the things I wanted to do with him.

 

That's confusing. He did all these things like going out with you, loved doing them in fact, for over a year and then suddenly was crippled with social anxiety? That makes no sense, where did that come from? Sounds like an excuse just to get you off his back, tbh. He knew you would be understanding, he knew you just wanted SOME kind of answer, so he came up with that.

 

I would say that it was about 4 months ago when things really picked up for him. He was experiencing a lot of great success and was busy busy busy. He was truly starting to ignore me completely, but kept convincing me that he wanted the relationship.

 

Well, yeah. Having a live in girlfriend who accepts little to no attention was better than having to start over and find a new one, because he at least still got....

 

regular sex (weekly, usually twice a week). That has never been lacking

 

 

What he couldn't give just kept becoming more clear and yet he didn't want to break up.

 

You need to not think this way. It's not that he COULDN'T give you what you needed, he just flat out didn't WANT to. He was being completely selfish, thinking ONLY of himself.

 

He invited me out to a few of his art things a couple of weeks ago to make one last attempt to feel for each other again. Of course it was wonderful and he said he felt butterflies and feelings and he made love to me and told me he loved me.

 

Yes, it's all fine and dandy when you give in over and over to HIM and go do whatever he wants, it's fabulous for him when you fit yourself into his schedule and he doesn't have to do the same. That's completely unfair to you.

 

We had a big long talk about how neutral he feels about everything and not just me (everything in his life).

 

Except his art, right?

 

I think he is pushing them away right now, because the main struggle has been between me and his feelings for me, and his need to deal with himself and his career goals. I know I need to take what he is saying at face value right now, but I am an extremely good psychoanalyst and I don't believe he feels absolutely no romance anymore. I think it is just buried by the work he needs to do.

 

But he has shown you, over and over again, that he does not have romantic feelings. He puts forth no effort. Romantic feelings aren't a burden, they aren't a stress. They are what makes the stress of regular life so worth it, your romantic relationship is what makes the duldrums of work that you're buried under seem okay.

 

Another sign of how he is repressing his feelings. He doesn't look happy, but he hasn't cried or really dealt much with the breakup and I know that isn't because he doesn't feel anything.

 

He's not repressing his feelings. He is telling you how he feels and you are making excuses for it rather than taking what he says for truth. He's not crying because he's been checked out for the entire past year. He hasn't put forth even basic effort for a year.

 

I'd love to chalk this all up to a learning experience and just feel like the good memories were just that, fond memories I'll remember when I'm old. Unfortunately I don't feel that way, I feel like this separation is opening a new chapter for us, not closing the book completely.

 

I'm sorry but I think you are in major denial. Have either of you put any type of time-table on this separation? Are you broken up? Is it up to him if/when the separation ends?

 

He isn't saying I'm not the girl for him, he's saying I can't be right now.

 

He's just trying to not hurt your feelings. If someone is in love, why would they give that person up potentially forever if they didn't have to? I can tell by your post that you would stick with him if he would let you, if he would say I'm so sorry please stay and I'll figure this out, I'll make it better, I'll be better... you would stay. He isn't saying those things, he is okay with letting you go, again potentially forever.

 

I think you are grasping at straws here and pretty much reading the situation in the way that is easiest for you to take. He HAS fallen out of love. All of his actions show that, even his words show that--telling you he has no feelings. He's not a robot. He has feelings, just not for you how he used to unfortunately. It honestly sounds like he just flat out fell out of love. I think you should take this is a permanent break up. If it ends up being different at some point, deal with it then, but for your own sanity, don't count on that and treat it as a 100% forever break up and being the healing process.

Edited December 13, 2012 by veggirl

[wildspaces]

Hi veggirl, I appreciate the bluntness. I know sometimes that is exactly what people need. I have been getting that a lot from friends and family. They say I am making too many excuses for him. Perhaps that is true.

 

Just for the record though. Living together wasn't always terrible and completely boring. He would make the effort especially earlier to take me out to restaurants and I think this whole situation was also clouded a lot by my grandfather passing away last year and my father this past January. He also made efforts on Valentine's day and did other little things for every so often to show he was thinking of me. We still texted tons during the day, he still told me I was beautiful, still planned on doing things with me for quite a while. I'd say it changed most back in the summer of this year. Plus we had just moved in together, the first year isn't supposed to be a piece of cake? It's why most marriages fail within the first year I think. Plus supporting me through family deaths must've been hard on him too.

 

I don't think the social anxiety just came about in the past couple of months, I think it's something he's grappled with for a while and his absolute need to have everything planned so he can prepare himself. This stems from other health issues he has. Like when he gets a call about doing an artist thing he suddenly knows he has to prepare himself for it and he has to do it in order to be successful. He says with me he can be himself, meaning he doesn't want to have to do the things that are hard for him if he doesn't have to because I'm not a work pressure. I know it sounds bad and lame and I pushed him to work on it. I think it truly is hard for him to do things out of his comfort zone (eating in restaurants, going out of our neighbourhood, going for a walk without a purpose). Did I mention he has ocd too? If I drove somewhere aimlessly and told him it was a surprise he'd die. When we went on vacation for a weekend he refused to do anything spontaneous like tubing because it wasn't planned. When he does his art stuff he's in the zone he basically forces himself. He does enjoy himself when I push him out of his comfort zone, but if it's up to him to decide he's very apprehensive. At first it seemed okay that we only did stuff in our neighborhood and then I started to question it more and more. That's why it didn't come up until later, but he's not lying about it.

 

So part of it truly was what he couldn't give me, but I also agree that it was his ultimate choice to decide NOT to work on it or give it too. He is selfish, he admits it and hates himself for it.

 

I think he struggled with thinking I accepted him and that we thought the same of the relationship and had the same expectations for it. Like I thought even though we saw each other everyday it didn't mean we were spending quality time together, and he thought that it was. So it's like well I thought she was on the same page as me, why should I want to break up? again I know I did a hell of a lot for him and so he took me for granted. I realize that. It's just him not being appreciative and realizing that a relationship takes effort, but you do it because you want to. Lack of maturity in many ways.

 

Well with the art great things are happening and he said he can't even appreciate those. But now he is turning it into wanting to feel it is his source of happiness, because I can no longer be, so he will continue to fail in doing the work he needs to for himself.

 

"But he has shown you, over and over again, that he does not have romantic feelings. He puts forth no effort. Romantic feelings aren't a burden, they aren't a stress. They are what makes the stress of regular life so worth it, your romantic relationship is what makes the duldrums of work that you're buried under seem okay."

 

He put forth some effort. At least a lot more when we first moved in together. He just had different expectations for what he was supposed to be putting in, and perhaps became more resistant to what I was asking because he never felt his efforts were acknowledged or that he could be that type of person.

 

He's not crying because he says he can't cry. He has so much of his own emotional baggage he needs to unearth. He hasn't cried for 15 years about anything. I don't think he checked out a year ago but he might've checked out of trying back in the fall. I do take what he is telling me now at face value. Not having feeling for me now means he doesn't have feelings for me now. I will move on because that's what the present is. But it doesn't mean in my heart I believe that our feelings even in the most recent past were false or just based on his need for sex. There were clear signs of affection and true loving even in the past few months. SO maybe it's come to a head and he can't have feelings now, but I won't believe they completely died a long time ago and I think they're buried now. I just don't believe that it's as black and white as he didn't give me love and so I should feel he truly doesn't love me and never did. But I do agree that it's all I can go off of right now so I need to leave it all behind in order to move on and have any hope for my own life in the future, whether he is there or not. I have to keep looking to the present for the answers of how to act and be, it's just that feelings-and that great understanding you have when you've been with someone for so long-will sometimes offer other truths that are hard to deny. So I'm not in denial of what I must do, I just feel there is more to the old story. I think people can be in love but know that it can't work at the present moment. Sometimes we're so clouded by our rational side (him telling himself he needs to do art and work on himself) so we choose to turn off the emotional as a defense mechanism.

 

Also I think you can fall out of love with someone in marriage or in any relationship. Do you know that the chemicals that cause us to stay in love last only about a year to two years. If you want to stay with someone long term and you aren't the types to idealize love, but you feel compatible, you need to keep recreating those chemicals. That means new and novel experiences. So sure I can see why he'd go back and forth from feeling to feeling a little less. It's unrealistic to think that someone is just going to stay in love with you in an intense way forever. It takes work. Love becomes a choice you keep making. There were times I haven't been attracted to him, or didn't like him. Staying in love is not as easily as just you do or you don't. But yes, in this situation he fails to realize that this current lack of feeling may not be permanent and I believe that all signs point to him feeling this way because of his own crap. If he felt nothing for me for the past three months that would point to it being a lot more to do with me. His actions proved otherwise and our time together did. It's just not as simple as it should be. I just think the more I loved him the more it made him push me away because he kept telling himself how unworthy of love he was. He'd cover himself up in bed, he couldn't take a compliment about himself. All of those things. The only simple thing is that now I have done everything I can and it has to be about me and making me happy now. So you're right about that.