A little lost...

[visions]

Hi. I've been lurking more around these forums and reading responses. I guess I will write about my story.

 

At university in a different country, I met someone who would end up becoming my boyfriend. He was initially a good friend who I connected with since we were both foreigners and in the minority. He was incredibly supportive with me when one of my parents unexpectedly passed away during my studies. Shortly thereafter we ended up becoming a couple and it was good. We were our first loves and stayed together for the duration of our undergrad studies and later moved in during our masters studies. We even discussed the whole topic of having a family, etc.

 

It was toward the end of our studies that things started to fray.

 

Several factors came into play. I realized towards the end of the my studies I was dissatisfied with the field I pursued for that degree. Having come from a different (warmer & sunnier) climate, the rather gloomy year round weather, cold and significant day/night patterns also pushed me into a depression which is not necessarily uncommon for the region. On top of that, my other parent ended up getting ill which really got to me. I know I should have discussed this. I should have articulated my mental state more to my then partner, but for some reason my response at that stage was to get up and move back home and try to deal with myself (and everything else) there.

 

We communicated nearly everyday with this sudden long distance relationship on Skype. Once my parent's health situation improved, I flew back and forth to visit him, all the while going to interviews for doctoral or industry positions that I tried to push for in that country where he was located.

 

I should note, he never really questioned or stopped me or commented on why I moved back. He was... passive. He also never flew out to visit me. My parent pointed that our to me, but I was aware of this and decided to initially ignore it. When I brought it up, he would say he was busy and needed to work and study and it was harder for him to take time off (though he had no problem visiting his parents who were in a different country).

 

At some stage I was forced to explore other countries and regions for employment options due to the difficulties of the global economic climate that everyone is familiar with. During my long period of unemployment, I was further depressed being unable to have some sort of job or goal. I was also have other familial issues at home where there head butting about my lack of employment - with my parent not quite grasping the job market situation - that didn't help me mentally. (After my ex broke up with me, he apparently wanted to tell me to just come to him at that point but didn't seem to want articulate this either because he "didn't want to be the one to force me to do anything." The problem is I did not hold any EU citizenship and would need to find a justified residence permit/visa when I did not have a job or education program).

 

In any case, I ended up receiving a job position in back home. Right after that, I had a job interview that came after I received confirmation of my new position and they wanted to meet right when I needed to start my new job. It was from a company I applied to in the country where my then bf was (though in a different city). At that stage, after a rather dismal employment search of over a year, I was just frightened to potentially toss away a secure position (and gain non-academic job experience) and decided to not to risk for a maybe that would or would not lead to anything.

 

Shortly after that at around New Years 2 years ago, my ex told me he was "thinking of other girls" and wanted to end it so he wouldn't feel like he was cheating on me. It was kind of out of the blue since I told him I viewed this job as a short term position to gain experience and move on (it was the type of position that did not offer too much development and growth career wise other than providing experience). We agreed we would stay friends(because we were friends previously) though I was crushed. A few weeks after the breakup, he mentioned how he found someone and had feelings and I couldn't hold my feelings and let him I loved him and that it just killed me to hear about this. I told him I was willing to drop everything and just head back to him.... This was stupid on my part and made things a bit messy. He ended up dropping the rebound girl, but decided that he still did not love me romantically, but loved me like family... We still ended up maintaining communication and Skype calls for about 1.5 years after the breakup. In the last six months he started pulling away, especially the last 4 when he mentioned he met someone new. Our last Skype call which he initiated, he asked what to do with what was left of my things with him and we had this semi awkward conversation that felt like he was communicating with me more out of pity than friendship.

 

Skype calls switched to e-mails/text chats since he moved apartments... He started giving an excuse that he had limited internet access since they did not install it. And then he stopped all communication about 1 month ago. He seems to have blocked me on all the chat services we used. He just disappeared from ever appearing online even though he used to use them with regular frequency.

 

I find him to be a coward honestly. I understand the message, I just wish he would have given me the minimal respect of saying he wanted to stop communicating instead of just disappearing.I admit though that a small part of me views this as a type of blessing.

 

During the period after the breakup, I completely blamed myself for the destruction of our relationship. Guilt, self loathing... Could have, would have, should have... It wasn't until I spoke with a mutual friend of ours about 6 months ago who gave me a tough love speech where she kindly reminded me that it takes two to tango. Which helped remove a portion of the complete self blame and mental flagellation I have inflicted on myself. I guess part of the change in mental perspective came when I personally questioned if our relationship would have lasted if we were in the same country and in different cities after thinking about everything...

 

I'm a more active person, so I did not stay at home and eat containers of ice cream mourning the relationship. I did go out and date quite frequently (though it was a form of hell & purgatory with some of the individuals that I encountered mostly on online dating sites) . I never had something serious that lasted more than a month or two. Though more recently something has potentially developed with someone. I reconnected with old hobbies, and found new. Traveled. I tried to develop myself as a person (studied a language, did technical courses, etc.).

 

The problem is there is a still a part of me that cannot fully let go (though it is better now) and have some stupid hope of reconciliation. It hurts less and I much more mentally open to relationships, I have started to like myself again, etc. It just feels like he was the 'one that got away.' I am not sure what to do to get myself to stop feeling this. The pain is dulled, but not gone. I never realized the loss of a relationship could be so devastating and its effects so long lasting...