I love you, but you need to find somebody who will love you as much as you love them

[Antwonswan]

Hi,

I have been lurking here for the better part of a month but thought I would share my story and ask for some advice. I am 27 and she was 23 for the majority of our relationship. This post is long (apologies).

 

I met my ex-girlfriend last summer. I initially met her at a pub a month prior and couldn’t get her off of my mind. She gave me her “number” which turned out to be a fake number (previous bad experience with a stalker she ended up telling me once we were together), but almost a month later, I discovered that we had a mutual friend. I met her at the same pub again and spoke with her; we laughed and chatted and enjoyed ourselves at the pub, spent almost all of our spare time together over the course of the next three weeks, and started dating a year ago.

 

I moved back to my home town the day after we began dating (she and I both knew this before we started dating, but said we would give it a shot as she was leaving for school that fall to another city that was a 6 hour drive from my town), spent a week of holidays with her last summer and would drive to her home city (2 hour drive from my town) to spend the weekends with her, before she moved away for school. We did everything together – we went camping together, partied together, met each other’s parents (and hit it off exceptionally well with both sides), we are both dedicated to living healthy lifestyles (both track our nutrition and go to the gym 5x a week), are avid football fans, etc.

 

She ended up moving away for school and things continued well. Given the distance, we made plans to see each other on all major holidays, and regularly spoke over skype/FaceTime and constantly texted each other. I visited her and helped her move in and get settled before her classes began, we attended some pro sports games (cheered for same football team) and visited her at home when she returned for Thanksgiving (Canadian) last year.

2 weeks after Thanksgiving, I had planned on flying out to see her and we had plans to go to another sports game. That night, she told me she loved me. I remember that day, place and moment like it happened yesterday. I told her that I loved her too, and our relationship continued to grow and get better and better.

 

She finished her schooling in December and returned to her home town. I visited her and we spent time together as every couple does when they are newly in love. We spent time with her friends, partied, had fun, etc. She visited my home town and came to church with us. I do not practice every Sunday, rather I go to mass on Christmas and Easter. She came with me and even sang along at mass (she is a phenomenal singer). We spent half of Christmas with my parents and the other half with her Dad in her home city, before travelling to the mountains for our own vacation over New Years.

In January, she returned to school, and I returned to work. I would visit her every few weeks, flying out to see her (some of you may think- “why is he always going to her?” well I viewed the situation as me having a career job with a good income vs. her being a broke student, it made sense). She visited me for the Valentine’s Day weekend/my birthday and things were unbelievable (as you can imagine - the bonus of having a birthday so close to Valentine’s Day).

 

Things continued to go well, and she returned home for Easter. She asked if she could spend Easter with her mom (she didn’t see her mom at all over Christmas due to her mom being away with family due to family health problems) and I said OK. I saw her the next weekend as she was home from studying again and everything went smoothly (or so I thought, anyways).

The entire time, we would regularly text, FaceTime, watch movies together via skype, etc. She returned home for another holiday and I visited her. The entire length of our relationship, we spent as much time together as we could due to almost all of the relationship being long distance. The alone time was great, we would hit the gym, cook together, have sex, shower together, sleep together, make breakfast, visit family and friends together, everything. Only one time she asked for “space” – at Easter.

 

At the beginning of June, I was scheduled to attend a friend’s wedding. She didn’t think she could afford to come to the wedding given the fact that she was broke. I accepted that fact and would have flown to see her that weekend anyways had it not been for the wedding. The night before the wedding, we are texting and I eventually say I am going to bed. She kept trying to keep me awake, before finally calling me and surprising me that she was driving to surprise me and be my date to the wedding. I was BEYOND ECSTATIC. I was incredibly surprised. She ended up coming to the wedding with me, and we spent the weekend together. It was great (or so I thought).

Fast forward to the middle of June. We are talking throughout the day, and she is due to finish her classes and return home at the end of the week. I would be driving down to see her and spending the weekend with her, before we were scheduled to go on a trip together to the mountains. Then I get a phone call (FaceTime)…

 

“I don’t know if I feel the same way about you as I did at the start,” she says. “When I met you, I thought I would want to settle down with you, but I’m not sure I want to settle down yet.” She went on to tell me that she was “mean” to me, and that I didn’t stand up for myself. Throughout the relationship, I prided myself on being able to handle any form of criticism and take it in stride. I told her that if I would say something if she ever said something to me that I couldn’t handle. She ended up telling me that I “deserve somebody else who would love me as much as I love them.” She said there was nobody else that was in the picture, just that she didn’t feel the same way about me, she lost the spark she once had, and didn’t want to lead me on. She said I was a slower person (I am not retarded, just take a while longer to do the average task – too much multitasking at once) and she was a faster person and it drove her nuts having to wait for me. I would have thought that this particular issue could have been fixed, but I guess not.

That discussion was the hardest discussion I have ever had in my life. I had previously dated a girl for 3.5 years (age 22-25 for me) and was dumped, however I eventually saw that that initial relationship would not work out – too much **** to have to settle with – screw that. The relationship with my most recent girlfriend (the girl in this story/post) was the relationship that I had thought would be the one that would evolve into being engaged, and eventually we would get married.

 

This breakup hit me like an absolute ton of bricks. I was devastated. I went from thinking earlier that night “everything is falling into place! New job, family life is going well, my girlfriend is amazing and loves me as much as I love her (see above about the June wedding), I had just sold a car, and it was summer. Best of all, I was going to get to see my girlfriend every weekend and even for a week at a time… I hadn’t had that luxury in a year!” to “what the **** happened!?!?!”

 

I saw no red flags. Nothing. I asked her about the surprise trip to visit and accompany me to the wedding, and she said that was her “making a last ditch effort to see if she could re-kindle feelings for me and continue to love me.” She said that the surprise trip didn’t work, that she was finished with our relationship. I asked her how long she had felt this way, and she said she couldn’t remember. She felt terrible.

 

Some notes on our previous relationships:

I used to date a girl I went to college with for 3.5 years. She was my first girlfriend and I developed feelings for her. I loved her, but I eventually realized (post-breakup) that things would have never worked out and I should have left sooner.

 

My recent ex-girlfriend had been in an abusive relationship for about the same length of time. She had one fling before I met her, and once we met, she was beside herself with joy – “I never thought I would be treated this well by a guy ever,” she said when we first started dating. It’s all I can do to not think that she must be thinking “It was too good to be true!”

 

There are lots of “parts that hurt the worst,” however; the one that sticks out at the time of me writing this is her comment that she would “never settle for less than how you treated me. You showed and taught me how a girl should really be treated and I am forever grateful for that. You taught me a lot of things. You are amazing and I hope you know that I’ve never thought different of you; you just deserve somebody who will love you as much as you love them. I tried, but I don’t love you that way anymore.”

 

That’s the story. My thoughts right now, 6 weeks after the breakup, are scattered. I continue to go to the gym, strive to eat well and get enough sleep. It is difficult to eat – I will alternate between being extremely hungry/starving, to having no appetite as soon as I see food. Same goes for sleep – I will be exhausted after work/sports, etc. but have trouble sleeping due to always wanting to see if I received a message from her. I feel so lonely. Friends have helped, but there are only so many times I can tell the story before I feel that they are getting tired of hearing it again.

 

I have removed all of the pictures of she and I, unfollowed her from Facebook, etc. The hard part is battling memory triggers – calendar days (anniversaries of when we first met, camping, the day she told me she loved me, countless images in my mind of when we were together, etc.), songs, even activities I do throughout the day.

 

I read the forums and have read countless articles on getting over this breakup. I find faults with some of the recommendations:

1. Get a new hobby/go to the gym – well my hobby is going to the gym to improve myself physically, but right now it is as much a memory trigger as it is something to help improve myself. The endorphins from the workout help.

2. Spend time on yourself – well one of the things about a LDR is that you always have time to yourself, so I find it hard to think of anything else while I am filling my time with chores, hanging out with friends, walking alone, etc. – “this is all just to help pass the time until I feel better…” but I wake up each day and the battle continues.

3. Go No Contact – I have been no contact for 2 weeks now. Does it get easier? Not so far.

4. Make a list of her crappy qualities – well, the only one I can think of is that she didn’t ever want to try ice skating. That sucked cos I grew up playing hockey.

5. As hard as I try to take this girl off of the pedestal, I wish there was something that she did to piss me off or make me angry, but there wasn’t. She quit smoking when I met her, she matured alot, and changed her opinions on topics (religion for our potential kids, etc).

 

#5 makes this whole ordeal difficult to get over. My last ex had many qualities that I didn’t like, but put up with anyways. The current ex-girlfriend said she was mean, however every “mean” thing she said, I always took as a hint to better myself (we both constantly helped each other improve). She taught me new cooking ideas (so “learning some new cooking dishes to help cope” is out), we both worked on our fitness (so it is still difficult to have a good workout), and the fact that she was above and beyond what I was looking for in terms of a partner (learning from my first failed relationship) makes me nervous about “getting out there and meeting other women.” I had accepted this girl for who she is, she made my heart jump for joy every time I saw her or got to hold her hand, the bedroom stuff was amazing (she was my second intimate partner, I was her 3rd), and the fact that we had discussed future plans together about where we would live, kids, etc. made me feel like “this girl is the one!”

 

I try to picture myself with somebody who “loves me as much as I love them,” but I feel that I don’t have the mental strength yet to get out there and meet new women in hopes of one day starting a true meaningful, loving and long-lasting relationship with a woman I can grow old together with and love forever.

 

Now, I sit here, spewing my thoughts out through the keyboard to all of you, in hopes that somehow, somebody will decipher my ramblings enough to give me some advice on how to deal with this situation and heal from it.

 

Thanks – Antwonswan.

[erklat]

You're not on the same page. You know where the life goes while she does not.

 

It seems like your doing a fine job with methods to aid your recovery. It will get better in

time. You can check my story. I for one never thought I would be happy again and not want her

back. The time will come if you remain strong.

 

Next time don't go over 2y age difference.

 

Give your best to become emotionally not invested.

Like I don't give a fnck about your chit lvl over 9000.

Kind of.

 

Be strong and good luck.

 

Also the breakup line is the worst of guilt easing clichés there is.

Don't give her the satisfaction. Be civil but don't allow her to ease her guilt.

Edited July 29, 2014 by erklat

[hoping2heal]

She couldn't remember how long she had those feelings?

 

Well, I call bull**** on that line for days and days.

 

There's quite an obvious difference between feeling hopeful and optimistic about your love relationship and feeling like you're not into them anymore - these things aren't exactly subtle. So, my guess is the truthful answer to that question isn't a very nice one and makes her look like an *******.

 

Instead of communicating her feelings to you so that the two of you may have had a chance to figure out where they come from or if the relationship can be salvaged, she kept them to herself and made all of the decisions for your relationship. If you want a reason to be "mad" at her, I would say that's a pretty good one. If you want a reason to doubt things would have worked long-term...again, a pretty good reason. Pretty difficult to sustain a relationship with someone who lacks the ability to communicate honestly and stays in their own head about everything.