ExLibra Posted February 20, 2018 Posted February 20, 2018 I find myself needing to vent about a very old breakup (25 years). By way of background I am married (15 years), with kids. I was in a relationship in my early 20's. It lasted a little over four years, my longest romantic relationship other than my marriage. We were exclusive for all but a very small subset of that time. It was pretty serious: my ex told me on numerous occasions that we were soul mates, we talked about our future together. Our relationship was long-distance for most of the four years. We both moved to a new state to be together, and she broke up with me shortly thereafter. I had seen this coming, so it wasn't exactly out of the blue, but a couple of things made it especially hard for me. First of all I thought that her reasons for ending the relationship were kind of shallow. The reason that I was given was that the "queen bee" of the group that my ex was hanging out (a friend of hers from college) had a thing about relationships and refused to hang out with her if she was in a relationship. To be clear: I had never met any of the people in this group, so it wasn't any personal dislike of me. My ex's friend just flat out refused to hang out with anyone in a relationship. Even 25 years out this still sounds kind of insane to me, both on the part of my ex and her friend, but from what I heard from mutual friends of ours it is more or less the truth. The second was the way it was done. Again I pretty much knew that I was going to get dumped and while I really did not want the relationship to end I was kind of looking forward to just resolving everything. The way it ended was that she just disappeared for four or five days. I was freaking out because she hadn't told me that she was going anywhere and none of our mutual friends knew where she was and she didn't live in the greatest neighborhood and I was fearing the worst. Four or five days after she dropped out of sight I got a phone call from her in the middle of the night (like 2:00am or so) on Valentine's Day breaking up with me. It was a very short call: she told me that the relationship was over, she wouldn't let me discuss it, she refused to meet face-to-face. The whole call couldn't have lasted five minutes. I felt like this was cruel and cowardly and disrespectful and just a wholly unacceptable way to end a multi-year relationship. We had talked about moving to the same place, and she encouraged me to go to graduate school based on where she wanted to live (it was my second choice). While that in no way compelled to remain in a relationship that she wanted out of I do think that, at the very very minimum it meant that I deserved a face to face and a chance to talk. I can maybe understand a phone call if one of the partners was abusive or a cheater or something like that, but that was not the case here. We were completely NC for a number of years - neither of us tried to contact the other for about four years, I didn't respond to her attempts to get back in touch for probably another four. We have sort of slowly drifted back into contact. I kind of like hearing from her, but at the same time I find it really upsetting. Despite the fact that I hate the word "closure" I really feel that I never got any closure from this relationship. When I hear from her I am still bothered about the way that I never got a face-to-face or a chance to talk. I am even more bothered by the fact that it bothers me. I feel like I am being a bad husband/father for even worrying about it. So the reason for this post is that I just got an email from the ex recently. I mostly don't think about her much anymore but hearing from her always sends me off kilter. After some debate I gave her a (much condensed) summary of what I wrote above: I basically told her that I felt that breaking up over the phone and not allowing me to talk about it was unkind and disrespectful, that it made the breakup much much harder for me, and that I felt that I deserved better and the relationship deserved better. While she was a pretty good sport about being blindsided over a 25 years gone relationship she seemed kind of dismissive about the whole thing. She admitted in general terms to handling things badly but she defended her decision to end things over the phone without a talk. She said that she was still in love with me when she ended things and she didn't think that she would be able to go through with the breakup if it was face to face. OK, some questions. * Am I wrong in thinking that I was treated badly? The ex more or less agrees with the facts as I've stated them above but insists that it wasn't such a big deal. I really feel like this was just terrible, terrible behavior on her part. I find it astonishing that she could say that it was just a normal 20-something breakup. * I obviously need to work on my own feelings here. Any suggestions? I would be a little bit sad to go complete NC forever, but maybe that is what I need to do? I know someone is going to ask but I do not want to get back together with the ex. I am happy in my marriage, I had opportunities to get back with her when I was single and I was not interested. That isn't what is going on here. Thank you for listening. I feel better for just having written this. I look forward to your comments.
clam Posted February 20, 2018 Posted February 20, 2018 Does your wife know that you keep in touch with your ex? If not, that’s a pretty big secret to hide considering you’ve been emailing her for years. If yes, how does your wife feel about it?
Author ExLibra Posted February 20, 2018 Author Posted February 20, 2018 Thanks for the comment. My wife knows, and is fine with it. I should maybe clarify: saying that "we've been emailing for years" makes it sound (at least to me) like contact is a lot more frequent than it is. I will get an email from this ex every two or three years, I will usually send her a short email in return, and then it will be another two or three years with no contact. We're talking maximum of maybe six or seven emails in 15+ years.
springy Posted February 20, 2018 Posted February 20, 2018 What does she want ? What do you want? What is the purpose of staying in contact after all these years?
Purepony Posted February 20, 2018 Posted February 20, 2018 Your wife sounds awesome for habdeking this mess like that. Block the ex give her some of her own medicine and take your wife out for being awesome !!
Author ExLibra Posted February 20, 2018 Author Posted February 20, 2018 That is a great question. I am really not sure what she wants out of contact, which is maybe part of the problem. I really don't think that she is trying to get back together, or I would definitely go completely NC. As for me I have known her for a long time - well before we dated. I feel that it would be a little sad to let that relationship end. I would like to be just regular friends, but I see that we are definitely not there right now.
Gillys Posted February 20, 2018 Posted February 20, 2018 I dont think you’re wrong for thinking you were treated badly. I had an ex dump me through a text message once and it made the break up very difficult to get over. My ex also gave the same excuse for not giving me a face-face conversation. I don’t think its necessarily the break up itself that hurts the most, but the utter lack of disrespect given to the dumpee and the relationship. (Which seems to be where you're coming from as well in your original post). If she didn’t try to defend her decision and just admitted to handling the breakup poorly (being young and selfish at the time) do you think you could have let go of the uneasy feelings towards her? 1
Author ExLibra Posted February 20, 2018 Author Posted February 20, 2018 ...I don’t think its necessarily the break up itself that hurts the most, but the utter lack of disrespect given to the dumpee and the relationship.... If she didn’t try to defend her decision and just admitted to handling the breakup poorly (being young and selfish at the time) do you think you could have let go of the uneasy feelings towards her? Exactly. I was expecting the breakup. I wasn't expecting the complete lack of respect. I would have been a lot happier with at least some acknowledgement that I deserved better, but I do feel somewhat better for just having told her that this wasn't an OK way to treat me. 1
SevenCity Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 That must have really cut deep to still be affected all these years later. I think at a minimum all she had to say was “I’m sorry, that was pretty crappy of me”. That would have acknowledged her crapiness and you could have forgiven her. I’m with the other poster who says you should just block her and never respond. Let her see how it feels.
DevastatedJDC Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 My ex hid behind a phone call after 11.5 years (also on Valentine's Day), and now a year later I'm also finding that's the hardest part to get over. Couldn't even do it face to face after all those years - total lack of respect..... I truly think if we had met face to face, we might have mutually agreed to part and even been friends, but the fact that he thought he had to be the one doing the telling and wouldn't even do it in person - that hurts and is just wrong. It's just unfinished business that is hanging over my head and I'm letting it drive me crazy. I'm trying to get over the burning need to let him know how awful he handled things - still have a ways to go. Glad to know I'm not the only one who lets something like this bother me.
Author ExLibra Posted February 21, 2018 Author Posted February 21, 2018 My ex hid behind a phone call after 11.5 years (also on Valentine's Day), and now a year later I'm also finding that's the hardest part to get over. Couldn't even do it face to face after all those years - total lack of respect..... Glad to know I'm not the only one who lets something like this bother me. Sorry that this happened to you, and after 11.5 years. That sucks. It does help knowing that other people go through this. Maybe we should form a club. I'll start working on the secret handshake.
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