Break up due to grieving

[Bozena]

Hi to all! I don't know if you have come across this grieving-break up trend but it seems it happens a lot. I am at my 30s and so my ex. we met at September before I leave my country and I went to other country to work. We started exchange chat messages etc and when I returned to my country we started dating. He is very picky with his girlfriends and I was his third girlfriend and because we have common friends everyone had told me that he was really in love with me. I was with him two. After one month I left my country again and we kept on a long distance relationship. Although from the rest you will read you might find it difficult to believe, everything went great between us until his mother died to cancer. Then he started become distant, he even tried to visit me but he was still distant and when he returned from his trip back to his country (our country) he was more distant than ever. I didn't tell him anything, rather I told him that I fully understand his condition and it is a serious matter and not to feel guilty of not contacting me. Our contact became really limited to once per week, but our common friends told me that he still says that we are doing ok. Then some weeks ago I asked him if he has ended our relationship and due to his depression he doesn't have the courage to tell me. He told me not, but he is thinking over it because he has no energy at all. then 2 weeks after he called me and he told me that he is unsure about everything, doesn't know what to do and that he doesn't want me to keep me waiting because he doesn't know when his depression will be over. He thanked me for my attitude all these days and asked me what I think about his decision. I told him that I don't agree since I can wait as long as he needs, but I respect his decision, but if he feels better at some point in the future and decides to want to be with me he can come and we can discuss over it if I am still aroung. And then at the same night, a friend of mine found him really drunk and he told her that we broke up and that in the beginning he was very in love with me, but then he found me immature!!! Yes this was his gratitude to the girl that put every selfishness aside in order to make him feel better and not to be a burden at him. After a few days another friend asked him and he told him that we broke up due to distance reasons (this is a lie of course because I will return in some months in my country. Anyway, I found him at chat and I told him that I believe his reasons for his break off were others and not that he didn't wanted me to wait. And then he told me that he really doesn't know anything, he is at loss, he is even considering taking antidepressants and that he cannot think with a clear mind (hmm probably I should have tell him, that is why he thought of me as immature). Of course I am not talking to him back first again, although I still have him in my fb and chat accounts, because it will seem more immature to delete him. I actually don't have any problem remain on friendly terms with him, but I guess he would have been scared of talking to me.

Do you believe that his reasons were grieving related and tried to find an excuse to others (because he hide his grief) or did he actually find a characteristic that I luck? Because everyone says that I could be blamed for anything else but immaturity.

Anyway, do you think that when he will finish his grieving situation might seek for me?

Edited June 11, 2013 by Bozena

[inaya42]

i'm so sorry for the breakup of your relationship. it sounds very confusing. it is likely that your relationship ended because it wasn't long or solid enough to last through such a devastating loss as the death of a parent. (that is not an excuse; it is a real reason.)

 

do not contact your ex at all in the time before you get back to your country. give him this time to heal and to mourn. once you get back home, you can start to slowly rebuild the relationship as friends if he is up to it.

[Bozena]

i'm so sorry for the breakup of your relationship. it sounds very confusing. it is likely that your relationship ended because it wasn't long or solid enough to last through such a devastating loss as the death of a parent. (that is not an excuse; it is a real reason.)

 

 

I agree that this is a real reason. When I am saying about excuses, I am referring to the fact that he said that I was immature or the distance thing reasons that he told to our common friends. Could he made such excuses to others and to himself in order to justify how come from the "really in love" state ended up in "apathetic" state? I really don't blame him that he cannot give more to this relationship right now (since it is an ldr and it was only 2 months when this happened) but I a just wondering if there is any hope for the future.

The fact that it is such complicated make it really difficult to forget it. I never really have any particular problem of staying single for long periods or move on from break ups but this is so difficult to forget it. Because everything went great and after this everything ruined. And by the way it is probably kind of the same in his head. When he says that he was really in love with me it was the time that everything went great, and then he found out that I am immature. This cannot happened because after that he stopped talking to me, although I tried to comfort him. Maybe in his trip here he saw a behavior of mine that he exaggerated over it and characterized me as immature in order to have an excuse for starting being distant and apathetic.

I won't contact him because on the one hand I don't want to be a burden at him and on the other, I think that the more you press someone the more he leaves. I believe at this point is better not to contact him and leave him all the space he needs. Because then it will be easier to think with a clear mind. Otherwise he might think that I am someone who waits for him and regard me as a burden or something

[inaya42]

honestly, i wouldn't take any of his other excuses to heart. in grief people rarely think logically, nor can they connect to good feelings and good elements in their lives. do not personalize this breakup at all. when you are back at home, slowly reconnect with him by asking how he is doing. if he is open to contact, then you can ask about hanging out in person. be friendly, and don't bring up the relationship. over time you will see what is possible between you going forward. good luck!

[Bozena]

Thanks a lot Inaya! Your kind words really helped me. Every friend of mine, even some of our common friends tell me to forget him since he thinks like that for me etc but I agree that he cannot think rationally. He even told me himself and I don't believe that he is pretending while he tells other people the truth. In fact I believe it is the opposite. I really believe that he is at a stage of depression now but he tries to act normal when he is with others in order to forget his grief.

It is not like I decline to move on or something and to be honest it is the first time that I am justifying someone. I never did that before when someone told me to break up for any reasons or if I saw something that was alarming for me, I was leaving myself. I am not the kind of girl who likes to stay in "ill" situations and hoping. It is just that I really believe that this break up is only related to his grief and nothing else. Sometimes I even think that I asked about our relationship too many times and he already think me as a burden, but to be honest, I have left all the communication to him and only 3 times I brought the relationship οn the foreground. The one to ask him if he had ended it (in fact if I didn't remind he might not ended up in this decision but anyway), the second when he called me to breaking up (so he actually was the one that brought it) and the third when I went and asked him if there was any other reason and if there is any other possibility of us being together. I told him that I am telling him what I feel in order to know it when he will feel better and that I won't never say anything else regarding us and he can contact me if he feels like and needs to talk or help for anything. Well I hope I didn't get really annoying. At least he hadn't deleted or blocked me yet.

Thanks for your advice. Do you think that I should contact him earlier if I go for holidays? Just to tell him that we will go out alltogether and invite him (with common friends so as not to think that I want to talk about our relationship) or just wait until I return permanently?

Edited June 12, 2013 by Bozena

[inaya42]

yes, I hear you. I don't think it was wrong to ask for clarification about the status of the relationship while you were in it and while it was ending. I do think it would cause anxiety or annoyance if you brought it up now...

 

my honest sense is that you should wait until you've moved back to initiate contact. that will allow more time for feelings to calm down and for your rapport to build again slowly. you might just wish him happy holidays in the interim and see how he responds... good luck!

[Bozena]

Your good words made me feel better and I am doing much better these days. But lately, a common friend of ours talked to him and he also mentioned the breaking up and she told him: "I hope that someday you will be back together" and he answered: "Time will tell".

But in any case, this is somewhat positive since it seems that what he told to other friends didn't really meant it, but, this friend of mine told me that he lately got a panic attack and I felt kind of worried, because his grief seems to become worse. Well I don't know a lot about grief but I was wondering, should I contact him after let's say two months if he is still not doing fine and try to convince him to see an expert? I won't say anything about the relationship of course since by now I am more concerned about his mental health.