Broke up 3 months ago, and met him 4 days ago

[Rebecca0870]

Hi everyone.

 

I stumbled across this forum some days ago when I decided to meet up with my ex and later on - surprisingly - regretted it.

 

This whole thing is now clear to me, but would love to hear your 2 cents on it.

I'm sorry it's going to be somewhat of an essay to explain how it all happened:

 

 

We dated for about 6 months, during which I saw his parents, met some of his friends and also in the end had long-distance for about 2 months.

I was slightly depressed when we met, and later on I realized meeting him made it worse for me.

 

He was always a bit distant; couldn't communicate properly and I always felt a bit like I had to settle for things.

I learned he had been diagnosed with schitzophrenia and that he had 'times' when he just caved in and had problems trusting anyone. I witnessed some moments where he went from absolute turmoil to this fake optimism in less than 3 hrs.

 

During our dating I knew that he had the tendency to be manipulative, to twist things for his advantage and sugar coat things. He was a sucker for respect, so social gatherings and situations were always a game for him.

But we had our good moments and I saw that with patience, there was a good person inside.

 

Closer to the summer when I was flying back home for 2 months, things got better because I had the urge to leave and was constantly saying how i wanted to go back home. But it was also due to me getting pregnant unexpectedly - I was still on a pill.

He made a 180, started to go to the hospital with me and took care of me, gave all the affection in the world.

I was a bit surprised that he had the ability for this and he told me that he didnt want the kid to grow up without his father. I'm 31yo. and was sure I would keep the child, with or without him.

We found out that it was an ectopic pregnancy (outside the womb) so we had to do an abortion.

It was an intense time but it brought us closer together.

 

When I flew back home I told him I was happy to go and wanted to be carefree and just forget about everything related to the pregnancy and the country I was doing my studies in. During the LDR we talked alot though calling and that made our communication so much better. I was waiting to fly back at the end of the summer and was actually optimistic we had reached a mutual point in our relationship where he was respectful and considerate of me.

 

We then decided to book a small trip to another country where he was going with some friends, to meet up and see each other before I was coming back.

During that trip I realized he was still the person who'd cave in and couldnt communicate and I felt alone, even when with him. He also said things like he cannot do the 'relationship thing' and other stuff that really hit me hard. On the last day of the trip I told him I couldnt do it anymore and that we should break it off now that we still enjoyed each other. I told him I felt restricted when with him, because I never knew what kind of mood he was having. He then actually said that he thought everything was good between us and that we were making progress. I also mentioned, that I know what a good relationship is like and that ours wasnt that..

 

It was a peaceful and respectful ending where we both cried and agreed to 'see how things would go' for the next couple of weeks I was back home before flying back to his home country. Truthfully, I thought I would either get over him now that I was being honest about these issues, or that we could work things out since we were on a good path and things were progressing.

 

Well our contact became less and less and I felt anxious about flying back, which before had felt like a joyous thing.

On the day of my flight, I called him and we talked a bit and agreed he'd pick me up from the airport. I stayed at his place and it was good, but I sensed the mutual respect wasnt there and that it had dripped to this state of 'just hanging out'. The next day when he was driving me home, I asked him if he did some thinking about the whole thing and how he felt, because I felt somethings shifted. He said everything was good and that we should just do our own thing (you do yours and I'll do mine). I was pretty shocked. I thought we would at least have a real conversation about it, that this is the final decision, but it felt like he already decided for himself. It felt like he was leaving me this time and it was taking place in a car while driving to my place.

 

The last thing I saw of him was when he was trying to keep his pokerface and quickly hugged me in front of the car. I was just shaking my head in disbelief. He then looked away and shed some tears while sitting back into the car.

I knew I wouldnÂ’t contact him.

 

 

In the beginning he liked some of my pics on ig, but i then sent him a message i will block him so we can do this smoothly.

After 1,5 months I saw him once at this outside bar, but didnt go talk to him. Im pretty sure he saw me too, but respected my decision to have NC.

 

I was doing fairly ok, even met someone else during this but it didnt work out since I noticed I wasnt happy with how things had ended with my ex. Couple of weeks ago I started to check his ig more and noticed becoming more furious on how he could just give us up like that. At a party last weekend, I met a mutual friend who told me he had been asking about me about a month ago.I then decided to send him a message and meet up with him on neutral grounds just to discuss and see how I would feel. Something came up and we decided to meet at his place, where his roommate was too with some friends. I already knew this was nothing but trouble but made up my mind on seeing him. We catch up and laughed about some stuff and I felt relieved we were on good terms. He also said he was surprised that I was so consistent with the NC, I think his exes all came back within a week. I was about to leave when he then said that it would be great if iÂ’d stay. I felt this old warmth and .. stayed.

Of course we had sex though I tried to put it off when he started to come close to me. I knew that wasnt the reason I went there for.

 

It was amazing as it always was, but I felt used in the morning. We talked some more but noticed I was the one telling him how I felt about the breakup and what I learned during NC. I didnt go there to continue from where we left, but to see that we were good with things.

His opinion on this was that he still likes to hang out with me but is happy to do things as he pleases.

 

It has now been 4 days since this happened and I kinda took a step back with my process of getting over him. What happened, happened and now I need to pick myself up again.

 

I am disappointed I let him talk me into staying but also know in the end it was my decision. Im going back home for Christmas and can reflect on this without the fear of bumping into him.

 

Is there other people who experienced similar things and how did you go about them ? I donÂ’t really feel I got the answers I was looking for and still think our talk on the trip was his way out which he then used without any proper discussion. I know Im better off without him, but all the wortlessness came flooding back in and Im ashamed I even contacted him.

[GinON]

It seems like you broke it off with him first, then got upset when he became cautious and moved on before your return visit.

 

I am not sure why you expected him to be as open and trusting after that.

 

Then you go and have sex (which is totally fine) with him and regret it.

 

It looks like you are having trouble knowing what you want and setting boundaries for yourself. This is normal enough behavior, but if you are unhappy with this you may want to learn to recognize this tendency and either embrace it or work on changing it.

 

Perhaps you want certain things from relationships but do not think you are worthy of them and accept less than that. I would get some help with that and then you wont have these uncomfortable dramas going forward.

[Rebecca0870]

I understand where you're going with this, but I do have to add that he wasnt really putting as much effort in the relationship and made false promises to me. This of course made me question the whole thing where I thought if bringing it up during our trip we could work it out. But he didnt even have the decency to just say that we should break it off immediately.

 

Instead he let me believe that we would consider the breakup on our own and then have more or less a final discussion.

Which only happened because I felt he made the decision but couldnt get it out but instead still picked me up from the airport like nothing had changed.

 

bBoth of us have had tendencies of feeling worthlessness when dating. Unlike him, I have actually worked on it for years, but thats another matter entirely.