Losing your future

[83_Dan]

I thought I'd open a thread to discuss a point that I find particularly hard to deal with: the loss of a future together.

 

I will tell you part of my story first (I could write a hundred pages about this but I will try not to ). My girlfriend broke up with me about a month ago. We started dating about a year ago and I immediately fell deeply in love with her. In my eyes she was perfect in every way. Of course after some time you start to see flaws but they were never things that didn't want me to be with her. She did an internship at my work so we saw eachother pretty much every day which kind of fastforwarded the relationship. However, she is Spanish and in the summer she went back home for two months during which period I visited her twice, then she came back for two months and went back to Spain again to do another internship in November. Since then we were in a long distance relationship. This certainly wasn't easy but I was able to visit her every two/three weeks for about 5 days and we skyped in the meantime. I was totally committed to make this work, mainly because the idea was that we would find a way for me to move to her after she finished her internship. She will be looking to do a PhD abroad since the economical situation in Spain really sucks right now and of course I was hoping she would come to the Netherlands but if not, I could try to find work as a post-doc wherever she ended up.

 

The reason she broke up with me is because she felt trapped and no longer free to do what she wanted. Now of course this doesn't make sense if you consider the fact that most of the time I was half a continent away from her. The thing is that I have gotten to know her as a person who is in conflict with herself about what she wants. On the one hand she wants somebody that takes care of her, listens to her, and shows her that she's special, and on the other hand she wants all the space to whatever she pleases whenever she pleases. In previous relationships she could always do this, but she broke up with them because then didn't care about her. I do care about her but it makes her feel trapped. So basically there is just no way of getting it right with her. This also became apparent when she said on many occassions that she knew she would always be happy with me, she wanted to marry me, have kids, live together, the whole deal and then suddenly break up and seemingly forget about all this. The break-up was actually caused by an argument we had. When I visited her last month we had plans to spend a nice weekend together but when I arrived she informed me that she'd rather go to some carneval with her friends. I didn't like this, she eventually starts crying, I give in reluctantly but I'm in a such a bad mood all weekend that she eventually says that she doesn't think we work.

 

I feel like s*** to be perfectly honest and I keep on thinking about losing that future we saw together. I'm at an age now where I really want to settle down with someone (30) but she is 6 years younger and I guess that also scares the crap out of her. One side of her likes this idea and the other side doesn't want to be tied down in any way. Now I never said to her that I wanted to have kids right now or marry her any time soon. In fact she was the one who brought this up in the first place and I have always been very careful discussing this seriously because I knew that she wasn't ready for that yet (and neither was I because I just wanted to spend many more years alone with her). But I did like to talk with her about it and I was certain I wanted to build up this future with her. And now that future is gone. I kept on hoping for a while that maybe she would change her mind but I spoke with her about a week ago to discuss this because she was giving me these signals that gave me hope again. But her replies were the same: confused, not sure about her feelings, not ready for a relationship, feeling trapped, scared of what's to come. So I told her to not contact me again because I know it will only continue to give me hope.

 

How are you guys dealing with the notion that the future you saw with a person you loved very very much is now gone? And do you have any thoughts on the reasons why my ex broke up with me. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[coralie]

YES. This is actually one of the hardest parts about it all. The pain and the suffering and missing him is all something that I know logically will go away or lessen with time. It's awful to go through right now and every day is beyond horrible, but I know eventually I'll move on. But that future and the dreams that I had planned with him? That will never ever happen. Somehow that seems worse in a way.

 

I know I have to stop thinking of it like that though, because the truth is that it was just plans and really, it was an imagined future, so no one knows if it would have worked. The actual future I would have had even if we had stayed together without any issues could just as likely be a complete nightmare for all we know. When I'm having some hopeful and positive moments, I like to think that the future I will have going forward will be ten billion times better than any future I would have had with him.

[singme2sleep]

I don't know if it's always about age, just the person's own basic maturity level. I'm 25 and I truly want commitment and marriage etc. but got some it can be scary...

[Amelie1980]

I don't know if it's always about age, just the person's own basic maturity level. I'm 25 and I truly want commitment and marriage etc. but got some it can be scary...

 

I don't think its about age either.

 

I've never been scared of.commitment. My last guy is nearly 37 and can't commit to more than 1-2 dates a week.

[Love4Pain]

Do you know how long her other relationships were, the ones where she didn't think they cared about her? There are some people that just can't commit to any one relationship unfortunately, and if she is that type, would you be ok knowing that she will do whatever she wants? I'm thinking she means like an open relationship?

[83_Dan]

I know I have to stop thinking of it like that though, because the truth is that it was just plans and really, it was an imagined future, so no one knows if it would have worked. The actual future I would have had even if we had stayed together without any issues could just as likely be a complete nightmare for all we know. When I'm having some hopeful and positive moments, I like to think that the future I will have going forward will be ten billion times better than any future I would have had with him.

 

Yeah it's true things might have been terrible in the end, but when you love a person so much you automatically think it will be fantastic. It's funny really how losing things that didn't actually happen can cause you as much or even more pain then the things that did happen.

[83_Dan]

I don't know if it's always about age, just the person's own basic maturity level. I'm 25 and I truly want commitment and marriage etc. but got some it can be scary...

 

I don't think its about age either.

 

I've never been scared of.commitment. My last guy is nearly 37 and can't commit to more than 1-2 dates a week.

 

Do you know how long her other relationships were, the ones where she didn't think they cared about her? There are some people that just can't commit to any one relationship unfortunately, and if she is that type, would you be ok knowing that she will do whatever she wants? I'm thinking she means like an open relationship?

 

I guess it is mostly her personality, cause I've gotten to know her friends and they are the same age but much more mature in a relationship, but still maybe the idea that I am in a different phase of my life just scares her. From what she told me she's always had relationships where she could just go her own way, without taking the other person too much into account. I don't mean an open relationship, I actually asked her this and she said that she would never want that. No, she could always just go away with friends, do her own stuff and never had anyone demanding attention because her ex boyfriends were the same type. However, they were also people who didn't give her the attention she also wanted (when she needed it) and that's what caused her to break up with them in the end. Most of her relationships ended after about a year although with her highschool boyfriend she stayed together longer I think. I am someone who makes her a priority and show her all the love and affection I have and most of the time she likes it, but at some times she just needs her space and then I become a nuissance. And she basically decided when she needed it and when not. I really think that (definitely in this point of her life) she is not able to have a serious committed relationship with anyone. I wish I could have been the one to show her how things should work but she literally told me that even when she was together with someone, she still felt alone. And with me it was different because I was there for her whenever she needed someone to talk to or help her, but it's something so unfamiliar to her that it scares the crap out of her at the same time I think.

[Love4Pain]

It's hard to describe what I want to say in reply to that. To me it sounds like she wants a boyfriend/relationship purely on her terms. Actually no, she doesn't want a boyfriend she wants a toy she can pull out when she's bored. Like she wanted you to sit there and wait for her to tell you when she wanted your attention and not exist the rest of the time. It seems like she has a very selfish personality. She broke up with her previous boyfriends because they acted the same way to her that she was acting but she didn't like it when they did it. How can you expect someone to care about you the way you want them to on those conditions?

 

It doesn't seem like right now she's able to handle the responsibly of being in a relationship. For now you may just have to cope with the fact that she needs to figure out what she wants and not drag you through heck while she does.

[83_Dan]

I agree that she seems very selfish. The thing is that I always made her a priority, I would have done almost anything for her, but I know that she wouldn't . When I talked with her about this, she would always say that I was too obsessed with her and to a certain degree I admit that I did focus too much on her. But on the other hand it is my opinion that if you truly love someone, you should make them a priority and make sacrifices at times. And I also think that it is not strange that I expect that we spend some time together when I haven't seen her in several weeks.

 

The last time I spoke with her (about a week ago) she told me something that actually really hurt me. She said that ever since she went back to Spain she felt so pressured because I always wanted her to answer to messages I'd sent her and that I asked to skype with her every day. And I replied to her: "you do realize that you are making this stuff up now right?". I can absolutely guarantee that I did not ask her to skype with me every day and I already got used to her not replying to questions like "how was your day today?". In fact, often she would ask me something along the lines of "if you want we can skype tonight". But she didn't write very often that she wanted to skype with me. So not only did she wrongly convince herself that I asked her every day to skype, she also felt obligated to talk with me when she had free time, creating her own pressure. This hurts me so much because it feels like she was just doing me a favour when she talked with me, she didn't actually want to. Of course, whenever she asked if I wanted to skype I would say yes if I didn't have anything important planned. Even if I was a little tired I wanted to because she was so important to me and I always enjoyed talking with her. And the strange thing is that she never came across as annoyed in these conversations, or that she didn't feel like talking. I would tell her about stuff that I did, things that happened and I would ask how things were with her, if her internship (which caused her a lot of stress) was going better, give her advice, but also talk about fun stuff of course. And I know she enjoyed it, I really do. One look at her eyes always convinced me of that without a doubt. But I guess that at the same time that independent/busy side of her would be building up pressure.

 

It is really difficult for me to understand how her mind works because she truly has two completely opposite personality traits which seem to be fighting it out. And I completely agree that someone who is in this much conflict with herself about what she wants in a relationship cannot be in a relationship. When I feel good with a person that person gets 100% of my devotion and she will never ever have to be afraid that I won't be there for her when she needs me, but I never got even 50% from her. And while I realize that this is a recipe for disaster and this relationship would have probably ended sooner or later, there is still a part of me that wants to fix it, that has hope that she will change, that wants to build a future with her. Cause when she was in her devoted "mood" I loved her so much that my heart is trying to convince me that that was the way she always was when I know for a fact that it wasn't.