BlueThunder Posted March 4, 2013 Posted March 4, 2013 My girlfriend and I were together for 3 years until the past May. I'm 26 she's 25. Things were going really well. We were talking about buying a house, the future, all of that stuff. Then, pretty much out of nowhere, she ended it. She was scared she was missing out on something better, she wanted to be young and not committed, and basically, she wasn't happy. Totally caught me by surprise, and I was in a bad place for most of the summer. Fast forward to November, I'm doing much, much better. Not thinking about her constantly. Not thinking about her at all, really. I was good. Which, of course, is when she calls. It wasn't an easy or fast decision, but we eventually got back together. Not really in the way you're "supposed" to. We jumped right back into things, and picked up where we left off. I still felt bitter about what had happened. It wasn't a lack of trust, more the after effects of what I had to do to cope when we broke up. We've been together again for 4 months now. The past week or so I've been hit with a lot of confusing feelings. Since we've gotten back together, I've had far less patience with her than I used to. Things about her that I've always been ok with, or been able to deal with, I can't anymore. I've come close to ending it once already. She's working on bettering herself, but I'm talking more personality traits. I just don't have the patience to deal with her anymore. This has really come up in the past week. I've been questioning if we should stay together, or just end it now. I brought up how I've been feeling, and she didn't handle it well at all. She doesn't understand why all of this is coming up now. I've forgiven her for making the mistake of breaking up over the summer, but, I don't know. I pretty much had to hate her, and force myself to not want her. All of the good and the bad. Since we've gotten back together, the good is ok, but I can't deal with the bad. But yeah, she's been a mess since I told her. Really, really upset. Confused. Thinks I'm doing this to punish her. Thinks I'm manipulating her. When I explain where I'm coming from, she stops accusing me of that, but I don't know. I'm not trying to hurt her. I'm generally confused, and I want us to work, I'm just not sure if we can at this point. Does any of this make sense? Am I being unreasonable? I think a lot of it is me being selfish, too. Things happened when we weren't together, and she has a lot going on right now that she's dealing with. It's kind of affecting our relationship, and honestly, I feel for her. I just don't want to deal with that, I guess. I don't know. What should I do? I mean, I wanted to marry this girl before. Still kind of do. We had/have a great relationship, it's just different now after the breakup. Help?
TaraMaiden Posted March 4, 2013 Posted March 4, 2013 Have you looked at the "Second Chances" forum lately? The ratio of UNsuccessful vs successful, is frightening. Second chances rarely work. Because the changes have to happen BEFORE you re-commit. You don't trust her to not do it again, so you treat her badly. It's not spite, it's self-preservation. You've built a wall.... She may have tried to change, but the first 'good times' is over. And nothing will bring it back. You can't 'go back to what it was'..... Sorry chum, but - this has to end. It's a toxic and dysfunctional relationship and sometimes when someone breaks up with you, even though it rips your heart out and sends you spiralling into despair - maybe they had a point. You were in really good recovery before she came back on the scene. Sad to say, I think you should knock it on the head, break up, recover and learn. Both of you. 1
cavalier99 Posted March 4, 2013 Posted March 4, 2013 I think that it might be time to move on if you feel that way. Or get counseling? If you think it is worth it? I guess i have some questions. What were the effects of NC for you. Does the effort to maintain NC and burn that person out of your head just make it sooo hard to let that person back in. Did you get so much stronger that you now sorta feel indifferent towards her? Did the power sorta shift? Just curious. I know you touched on this point but is a after effect of NC a severing of that deep emotional bond? 1
Skalabanan Posted March 4, 2013 Posted March 4, 2013 Have you looked at the "Second Chances" forum lately? The ratio of UNsuccessful vs successful, is frightening. Second chances rarely work. Because the changes have to happen BEFORE you re-commit. You don't trust her to not do it again, so you treat her badly. It's not spite, it's self-preservation. You've built a wall.... She may have tried to change, but the first 'good times' is over. And nothing will bring it back. You can't 'go back to what it was'..... Sorry chum, but - this has to end. It's a toxic and dysfunctional relationship and sometimes when someone breaks up with you, even though it rips your heart out and sends you spiralling into despair - maybe they had a point. You were in really good recovery before she came back on the scene. Sad to say, I think you should knock it on the head, break up, recover and learn. Both of you. I'm with Tara on this. Spend a few hours reading the second chance forum, I specify a few hours because you could easily spend days/weeks/months and in some cases years obsessing over the detail in that forum. I went back for a second chance with my ex after 3 months and I can tell you now, it wasn't even close to being enough time, for us it needed to be closer to a year and it would've worked. It's a massive regret for both of us, if we was patient and thought with our head we would've been fine. The fact that your here questioning the relationship means that you have your answer already in my mind. I disagree with Tara about the wall situation, it can come down but you need to be apart for a long length of time and potentially reconcile as a fresh releationship, let the past go completely, never say never.
Author BlueThunder Posted March 4, 2013 Author Posted March 4, 2013 I think that it might be time to move on if you feel that way. Or get counseling? If you think it is worth it? I guess i have some questions. What were the effects of NC for you. Does the effort to maintain NC and burn that person out of your head just make it sooo hard to let that person back in. Did you get so much stronger that you now sorta feel indifferent towards her? Did the power sorta shift? Just curious. I know you touched on this point but is a after effect of NC a severing of that deep emotional bond? It's not so much that it's hard to let them back in. I mean, she's already back in. I think I kind of touched on this above, but that was a random mess of what's going through my head. She's back in. I don't feel indifferent. I've been nauseous this past week thinking about all of this. If I end it, it's going to destroy her. That makes me feel horrible and it's the last thing I want to do. I do care about her and I do want to make her happy. But I guess burning her out during NC, which I absolutely had to do because I wasn't good while we weren't together, has made me less tolerant for the not so desirable aspects of her personality. Relationships and love to me is loving someone not in spite of the bad, but because of that. Because that's what makes them who they are. That's how I felt about her before. I knew what she was and wasn't and I still wanted her. I wanted to be with all of that. But to get over her, I had to focus on the bad, and convince myself I didn't want it. Want any of it. I had to hate her basically. I got over the hate before she called, and I don't hate her now. But I did. And I'm finding that it's sort of coming back. If that makes sense. The power definitely shifted too. Not sure how I feel about that. She's pretty much indicated to me that she absolutely doesn't want to be with anyone else, and won't want that. It's me or nothing. It's kind of scary, and I'm not sure if she'd be able to end it again. Especially after realizing how badly she messed up before. The breakup was awful and caught me totally by surprise. Getting through it was a nightmare, but I eventually did. I don't hate her, and I definitely do trust her. I understand she made a mistake, and wants to make that right. But there is still some resentment. And I had to do things to cope that are coming back in a way. Does that make sense?
TaraMaiden Posted March 4, 2013 Posted March 4, 2013 I disagree with Tara about the wall situation, it can come down but you need to be apart for a long length of time and potentially reconcile as a fresh releationship, let the past go completely, never say never. No, I agree with you... That's why I used the Present Tense... "You've Built a wall".... This is what he's done. But it can be UNdone. Sadly though, in this case, I think it best they separate. And for good. I don't think a third try would be entirely healthy....
Recommended Posts