gobain Posted November 6, 2004 Posted November 6, 2004 Okay, I need some opinions. It helps me a great deal to read the posts here (and I've posted some myself about this relationship along the way). There is a great deal of conversation and advice about situations from the perspective of both the dumper and the dumpee. My problem is that I'm not sure from which perspective I should look at things. Synopsis of the break-up. I told him I couldn't see him anymore because it hurt too much. I told him the truth - that I loved him very much but that it was becoming more and more difficult to feel incidental to his life. We dated for a year and I saw him once a week. It was as though he wouldn't LET me love him - as if he didn't want me to love him. He said from the beginning that he knew he was a hard guy to be with - plus he had been dealing w/ some stuff for awhile. He told me he cared about me. He asked if we could still be friends and I told him that I would need some time to step back from my feelings for him. He was preparing to leave for the summer and we both said that we thought maybe that was a good thing, considering. I wrote him shortly after this and told him how much I really did love him and that I felt like I had abandoned him. I told why I loved him. I told him why I had been feeling left out of his life. I wrote that if he was willing to talk to please call me. He did call. He thanked me for the letter and said that me it meant alot to him. He asked if he could call me while he was away - "I don't want to go the whole summer without talking to you" were his words. I said I'd like that and asked him if I could write to him while he was away. He said that he would call me and give me the address on the following Sunday. He never called that Sunday. Or the Sunday after. Then the following Wednesday he left a message saying that he'd been busy and this was the first moment he'd had to call. No address included. Eventually I left a message for him saying that I wasn't sure what was going on. He had sounded sincere enough but until I heard from him I - quite obviously - had halted my letter writing for now. I made my point but was not a witch about it. He didn't call back. Skip to September. He comes back. I decided to call and see how his summer was - trying to do the whole "be friends" thing and all that. We chatted and caught up and all that - no discussion about the other stuff - I wanted it to be light, you know. I did tell him that I had missed him and said he'd missed me too. Anyway, I called a few days later and left a message saying that it was nice to talk to him and for him to call me sometime. He called about 2 weeks later and left a message. I had just been in a car accident a couple of days before so I didn't answer. I was - and am - still really confused about everything so I waited a few days and just left a light message. Didn't hear from him after that. I sent him a card for his birthday and a few days later left a message saying I called to see if he had a nice birthday and all that. That was two weeks ago and I still haven't heard from him. So now we get to my question: Am I still the dumper? Or am I now the dumpee? Is he doing NC to get over me? Or because he never really did care after all? I'm trying to accept that it's over. I'm trying to accept that he didn't mean it when he said that he wanted to remain friends. I don't think I'm doing a very god job at it though. I think it would really help to hear some answers to my question about the dumper/dumpee thing. Maybe if I could figure out from which way to look at things I could get my feet under me in dealing with this. So thanks for listening (or reading as the case may be).
SoleMate Posted November 6, 2004 Posted November 6, 2004 Am I still the dumper? Or am I now the dumpee? I think you're still officially the "dumper", but the breakup was triggered by his distance, so it's ambiguous. Is he doing NC to get over me? Probably. Keep in mind that when you were hot and heavy, you still had a distant relationship with minimal contact. So we know that his baseline for contact frequency is already much lower than typical. Or because he never really did care after all? I think that's a big assumption. In all likelihood, he did care, it's just that his threshold for taking action based on caring is high. My problem is that I'm not sure from which perspective I should look at things: dumper or dumpee? I think you're asking the wrong question. I would recommend instead asking "What do I want my future relationship to be like?" and specifically, "How much closeness or frequency of contact do I want?" To me, it seems pretty clear that you want a typical close relationship, where each of you becomes central to the other's life. There's no right or wrong, but my impression is that your preference is more typical than his, so it shouldn't be that hard to find a man who wants a lot of closeness. And here's another thought: when you are confused by how your lover is acting, because his words are telling a different story...believe the ACTIONS over the WORDS every time. To be specific, if he says he wants to be friends, but then does nothing to maintain the friendship, just take that as his wordless way of saying he DOESN'T want to maintain the friendship. These ghost people can really drive you nuts. You want to be close to them and love them...but they just flit back farther into the shadows. They slip through your fingers. The frustration can be overwhelming...
Author gobain Posted November 7, 2004 Author Posted November 7, 2004 Thanks. Oddly enough, when I got home a few minutes ago there was a message from him. He said he was calling to see how things were going and all that and to call him when I had the chance. Now I'm REALLY confused. You're right about believing the actions - that was the problem with him - his inaction was hard to deal with. I'm not sure if and when I should call him back. The last time he called the thought occured to me that he was probably just looking for a place to watch the fight on pay-per-view that night. I dismissed it thinking I was being too hard on him. Guess what? There is a fight on pay-per-view tonight. Call me overly suspiscious if you like, but it's a strange coincidence.
Recommended Posts