heartbfree Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 Here the back story: My ex-girlfriend who will be 27 in one week, broke up with me (32) 3 weeks ago after a 4 year relationship. The breakup was my fault. After working in a dying industry for 10 years i decided to call it quits and move on to something else. This lead to sort of a 2 year mid-life crisis of trying to find myself again and i was acting selfish emotionally and not paying attention to her needs and the needs of a healthy relationship. She recently moved back to her parents house after buying a new car in effort to pay it off faster. Needless to say, when she broke up with me I immediately recognized my errors and fixed all of them. Not only in hopes she will recognize that I just simply lost my focus, but for my own good and future as well, regardless of her. When she broke up with me, she stressed how much we were good friends and how she wanted to keep that. How right now she doesn't want to date anyone and who knows how she will feel in the future, and how she is afraid things will go back to the way they were if she just came back. She called me 36 hours after the breakup. Just to say hi and see how i am doing. A couple days after that she wanted to go get dinner. She called me multiple times, usually immediately after she gets off work, just to say hi and see how i am doing and even made plans to hang a couple more times after that. Just dinner and some televison as friends is all it was. I put on my best friend face this whole time even though she knows very well that this is not what i want. Once she even wanted to go to dinner twice in 3 days! She mentioned how she noticed i am changing for the better and i told her i had learned a lot about myself and my errors already. Still...she acts like she wants to just be friends. I can easily see she is not doing well, and not sleeping either. I only called her maybe twice this whole time, while she had been calling regularly. About every 2-3 days. Always just to say hi and always just as friends. Sometimes her calls last an hour and a half and sometimes they last 2 minutes. I did not beg her to come back ever as i am old enough to know that for someone to come back it has to be a mutual feeling and things have to be right in both parties minds and hearts. While i hid it from her best i could, i have been a ball of anxiety. Not sleeping or eating in a regular manner. A literal rollercoaster of emotions and over analyzing her actions of calling and wanting to hang out. Is she just confused about us? How is it she is so easily able to become friends who speak regularly just 36 hours later? I know her friends and her habits and she was communicating and seeing me more than most of her other friends. What is her end-game plan here? We stay friends until she dates someone else? If she never does comes back, I am supposed to not date anyone until she does? None of that makes sense to me so it eats me up inside and gives me hope that she is coming around. The contact makes me extremely happy during and immediately after our encounters but then i go back to having panic attacks and anxiety. After we hung out two days ago, she called me just to say hi the very next day. This call was extrememly hard on me because before she called i recieved two rejection phone calls from job interviews. Usually hearing that "i love you and everything's going to be okay" would boost me up and now i cannot get that from her. Still, i played the part and let her know that her calling made me happy and really brightened up a bad day. Last night, after much thought i sent her a long message explaining how i cannot be in contact for a while and i will let her know when i am ready to be friends. How i cannot allow myself to love again with a whole and unbroken heart if i receive her calls and visits regularly. How when we speak in person my love for her doesn't allow me to say this feeling out loud. How i really want us to try again but if that is never going to happen then i need to heal. I stressed the fact that i am indeed the same man she fell in love with and that if she decides she misses me than to give me a call. Did i make the right decision???? I really want her back and i am without a doubt 100 percent willing to do anything to facilitate that. Her actions during the breakup are confusing because i don't know if she's just not sure she made the right decision and needs time as friends to figure it out. Or if she just feels guilty about hurting me and wants to make me happy, or if this is some kind of test to see if we are indeed friends first and foremost before we try again.
mantlefan Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 Last night, after much thought i sent her a long message explaining how i cannot be in contact for a while and i will let her know when i am ready to be friends. How i cannot allow myself to love again with a whole and unbroken heart if i receive her calls and visits regularly. How when we speak in person my love for her doesn't allow me to say this feeling out loud. How i really want us to try again but if that is never going to happen then i need to heal. I stressed the fact that i am indeed the same man she fell in love with and that if she decides she misses me than to give me a call. Did i make the right decision???? I really want her back and i am without a doubt 100 percent willing to do anything to facilitate that. Her actions during the breakup are confusing because i don't know if she's just not sure she made the right decision and needs time as friends to figure it out. Or if she just feels guilty about hurting me and wants to make me happy, or if this is some kind of test to see if we are indeed friends first and foremost before we try again. I wish I could give you advice. I think there are a lot of similarities here with me. I don't know what to tell you, other than I think you did better than I did, writing her every 2 weeks, and trying to be friends while in person while trying to work on the dead relationship in letters. I actually thought I could do both. Turns out she left me for someone else and I didn't find out for months while she lied to me. And she told me almost the EXACT same thing that you say your ex said here: "When she broke up with me, she stressed how much we were good friends and how she wanted to keep that. How right now she doesn't want to date anyone and who knows how she will feel in the future, and how she is afraid things will go back to the way they were if she just came back. " I thought there was no way she could have left me for someone else. She even told me that there was no one else. But she lied. I don't know if it's the same for you, but don't consider it impossible like I did.
KaliLove Posted March 29, 2014 Posted March 29, 2014 Yes, you made the right decision. She's using you to cushion the blow of the break up. You won't heal if you stay friends.
Trovador Posted March 29, 2014 Posted March 29, 2014 She is using you for comfort, while another guy enters in the picture... if she wanted you back. by now nothing in the world would have stopped her of doing so... even if she wanted that, you are in no position to offer her something stable... both of you need to keep a healthy distance from each other... Something struck me out as odd, though: "being the same guy she fell in love with..." Maybe you need to think of yourself (no need to tell her this) as "a much better guy than the one she fell in love with..."
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