Should I give up?

[stillinlove90]

My ex and I had the best relationship until we relocated to a new city together. Once we got there, our relationship dynamic changed. He couldn't find a job until 3.5 months Of moving there, and we broke up after 4 months of moving. We stopped having sex as often. He got insecure whenever we went out and said he felt invisible and as if he was the ugly duckling of our relationship. He was also upset that I used to model, even though he didn't care earlier in our relationship. He didn't like my dog...

 

A month before we broke up, I was coming up with plans to fix all of these things, and didn't Tell him because I didn't want to stress him out and wanted to surprise him. I ended up moving out a week after we broke up and back to our hometown (9 hour drive).

 

Well, 3 weeks later, he is saying he realizes that all of our problems are fixed and that we didn't break up because of incompatibilities or "normal issues". He says that by keeping in contact, he is not just trying to slowly phase things out but genuinely thinks we can rekindle one day. For now, he wants to stay friends, communicate, but still needs "months" to get back on his feet. In quotes...

 

"Long story short- team effort. Figure out personal lives. Be strong as individuals. If in time it's still appealing, we would be stronger for eachother. And stronger as a force. Keep communication open. Boom."

 

Today I told him I need 2 days of no contact to process my emotions. It caught him really off guard.

 

The wait is driving me CRAZY. He said there's potential for him to move back, but not in the short term.

 

Wtf do I do??

[13Hearts]

IDK the whole story but from reading what he wrote I will say he is right. You do not want to be dependent, independent or codependent in a relationship. The ideal is to be INTERdependent. That means each of you is strong and stands on his or her own two feet, each person is self-actualizing and pursues his or her own goals and interests, and is able to be apart from eachother as necessary and still able to trust the other person is taking care of your joint interests in your absence and vice versa.

 

For instance, if you were married and had children and you absolutely had to go on a one-week business trip (say your job was very important and the trip was a matter of the nation's security or something), you would need a partner who you could trust (1) to stand on his own two feet that he doesn't need to hook up with another woman because he can't support himself emotionally without you, (2) to take care of the house, lock the doors when they went out and not burn it down somehow while you're gone, (3) to be trustworthy that he's not running around getting drunk or hooking up, and (4) to take care of the children, feed them, get them to school and pick them up, etc.

 

So, while he is working on strengthening himself, you need to work on strengthening yourself. So that you can have a healthy relationship.

 

Get busy working on you and building your own life.

[stillinlove90]

I'm so scared of waiting it out and having him decide he doesn't want to rekindle... He says it makes him sad that I don't believe his intentions. It's so hard not having a definite amount of waiting time

 

I've already gotten a job and feel like a strong person on my own, but I do very much think he may be the one

[stillinlove90]

My ex bf and were together for a year, lived together for the last 4 months of our relationship (in a town we both moved to together, 9 hours south of our hometown). I moved back to our hometown after we broke up. We broke up 3 weeks ago, 1 week which we were still living together because I was trying to decide whether I wanted to move back home or not. I'm 25, he is 28.

 

Reasons for breakup: he felt insecure, didn't like that i modeled in the past, my dog stressed him out, etc... all problems which i was working on and he now realizes are fixable.

 

however, he STILL wants to stay broken up and potentially work things out in the future. He says he needs time to improve himself. When I asked if he genuinely sees us working things out or if he is just slowly phasing things out, he said it was the first option and that he's sad that I don't believe him..

 

QUESTION:

HE still is totally okay with us communicating all the time. Facebook chat, texting, google chat...

1. If it's not painful for him to chat with me, wouldn't that mean that he doesn't have an emotional attachment?

2. WTF do you do in the meantime to keep yourself sane when there's no set amount of time for rekindling things?

3. Keeping in contact is super painful, but also nice to work on our friendship. However, I think most of my reasons for keeping contact is because I'm worried that he will forget about me or lose feelings?

 

**I am still very much in love with him and convinced he is THE ONE**

[PegNosePete]

Personally I would not want to be held in limbo like this. I would put a definite timeframe on it - treat it like a trial separation. Tell him that you will not contact each other for 2 weeks, and after that, you will expect a final decision on whether he wants to try again or not. During that time neither of you will date others.

 

If you don't hear anything from him after 2 weeks, assume it's a "no", and move on with your life.

[Confused Guy23]

If keeping in contact is painful for you, you need to stop all communication with him. You need to tell him that you two can't be just friends.

 

By maintaining contact he gets to have his cake and eat it too. If he really wanted to be with you, you two would be together.

 

Don't keep hoping he'll get back with you in the future that will just prolong the hurt you're feeling. Give him a decision either be with you or cut off communication. It's too soon for you to be just friends.

[PegNosePete]

Well, this is a rather different story than your other thread............

 

You should stop contact with him. You can't be "friends" with an ex for whom you still have feelings. It will just lead to hurt for you.

 

You need to move on with your life. If one day he comes back, then you can take it from there. But until that day comes, you need to move on. Don't put your life on hold for someone who may or may not decide he wants you back.

[testmeasure]

When I was a little younger than you, I did this kind of thing. In my case it was a girl who had a hard time making big decisions. I had feelings for her. So I let her spend about a year deciding whether to start a relationship with me.

 

The pain and confusion you describe doesn't get any better. The entire time you spend as "friends" while waiting for him to decide to "rekindle" will feel exactly the same as day 1 of it. You're doing a good job of capturing and describing the pain and confusion. If you accept this state, there is no cure and there is no solution. Six months from now, a year from now you will feel exactly like you do today.

 

The problem is, you've got this pain and confusion on one side of the scale. On the other side you've got this:

 

"I am still very much in love with him and convinced he is THE ONE"

 

It's a dilemma.

 

If I was in the same situation couple decades later now, someone might be able to convince me that it's wrong in principal to let someone be "deciding" and hold you in limbo. In my 20s there probably would have been no way to convince me of that. But, I didn't have anyone to tell me that the pain and confusion would be the same for however long I let it go on, which I probably would have believed.

 

In my case, she did eventually decide to start a relationship and it lasted 5 years. It had it's problems but was overall good and we both grew. It truly and honestly was just that she had a hard time making big decisions about anything big, and so it took her a year.

 

In your case you already had a relationship and now he wants to put it back to the "deciding" stage. It's hard to see how that's not stringing you along. Or holding you in reserve as a backup option while he can date other people. That's got to be at least a risk or possibility you need to think of. But wanting to both be able to stand on your own two feet does makes sense.

 

I'm not clear as to why there isn't an alternative of having a long distance relationship, remaining exclusive and committed, but agreeing to work on the same things and only move closer together after they are fixed. In a way though, that's a dangerous thing for you to try to get him to agree to, because he could easily just agree to it, still regard you as just a friend and do whatever he wants. If the idea comes from you, basically you're just handing him a way to string you along. The real question is why he didn't ask for this if he does want you back after fixing his situation.

 

So if the choice he's giving you is "friends" that might "rekindle" or nothing, it all just comes back to your pain and confusion weighed against your feelings for him.

 

There is an element of it not being right for him to put you as "friends" while he gets to decide if and when to "rekindle". But I don't know if I could be convinced of that so I'm not putting a lot of effort into convincing you of that. It's at least something to think about.

 

So, if you're going to weigh the pain and confusion against your feelings for him, the thing I do want to convince you of is that the pain and confusion will last and be exactly the same the entire time he is deciding to "rekindle". I think if someone had told me that, I would have believed it. At least then you'll weigh the two accurately.

 

 

.

[mightycpa]

He wants to be broken up, and he knows you don't. So the best move for him is to keep you tethered emotionally. This gives him options, a shot at your sexual comfort when things are dry and a great big boost to his ego. I'm not sure what's in it for you. False hope?

 

I would simply tell him that sadness is a natural consequence of breaking up, so both of you will need to learn how to deal with disappointment. Tell him that seeing other people is also a natural consequence of breaking up, and that you don't want to know about him doing it, and you don't understand how he would want to know that you're doing that too. Do you want to know about it? I can't imagine that.

 

Given the trouble that you've described, his wishes and yours, I don't see how this relationship doesn't end at some point. Might as well get it over with and consider it done.