Crushed

[Patrick7573]

My fiancee broke up with me last night saying that she thinks I love her more than she loves me. Now take into consideration that she pursued me to get back together almost a year ago and get married. I wanted to take things slow but she wanted everything done asap so we planned to get married in Nov of this year. Within the last few weeks she started acting differently but kept insisting everything was fine. Last night she finally admits that everything is not fine and she was hoping her feelings would change but they didn't. This was the sencond time we were engaged. I can't believe I left myself open for that kind of hurt again but I really thought that if I really gave it 110% this time and was there for her all the time that things would work. Is she unstable or is there such a thing as being to good to somebody where they don't appreciate what you do, instead its expected? Somebody please give me some advice so this never happens to me again in any other relationship.I feel so lost and alone now.

[midori]

I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. I think that your post contains some of the answers you're looking for. You shouldn't have to give 110% to a relationship, because that implies that your partner isn't giving everything she could ... or that what she is capable of contributing isn't enough. Relationships are give and take, sure, but if you feel that the bulk of responsibility for a relationship's success lies with you, then I think the relationship is in trouble.

 

I was there myself. And I got burned by a man who couldn't commit to me, then changed his mind and said he did want to spend his life with me, but soon after that broke up with me. ??? Of course I spent months and months wondering, "what if I'd done this, that or the other differently, what was I missing, what wasn't I thinking of?" But the truth of the matter was that my failure lay in my inability to perceive my ex's inability to give fully of himself to another person. I'd overestimated the power of my love for him in the face of a couple of decades of pain from a highly dysfunctional family featuring an emotionally distant father and a manic-depressive, alcoholic mother. I'd overestimated his faith in himself, and underestimated the tenacity of his destructive, hot-cold cycles of emotional intimacy and distancing.

 

Why is it that when one person flakes out and is all over the place with their emotions, and with what they say they want, etc., it's their relatively sane and stable partner who asks, "what am I doing wrong?" You're not doing anything wrong, other than taking what sounds like a troubled woman at face value. When someone wants to rush into a big change or commitment (like marriage), or when they refuse to discuss what's going on in a meaningful way, it's a safe bet that something is wrong -- with them. Wow, you care for her more than she cares for you: not a good reason to bail from a relationship, is it? Except that it is ... but you're the one who ought to be bailing. No one deserves to live in a perpetual state of anxiety and uncertainty about their partner's commitment and happiness in the relationship.

 

As I said, I've been exactly where you are. I know all too well the grief and confusion and despair you must be feeling right now. Having been through it myself, I'll tell you about some of the mistakes I made in the last year: I wondered what could be done to save the relationship. I believed my ex just needed a bit of time and patience and forbearance from me. I kept him at the center of my emotional life long after he broke up with me, even though he'd cut communication with me because it was, he claimed, too painful for him. I read in his self-inflicted angst about losing me genuine love for me that I believed would prevail in time. I believed that he meant what he said when he said he loved me so much it hurt. I believed he meant all of the things he said. I failed to realize in a meaningful way that he is a truly messed up person whose continued presence in my life couldn't be anything but toxic.

 

My recommendation (that is, what I wished I'd done a year ago): put her behind you, completely and totally. Close that door. No matter how much you miss her. No matter what happens, no matter how much you hear she does or does not miss you. Move on with your life. IF she ever gets over herself, her doubts, and/or whatever else is making her a weak, waffling emotional coward, she'd need to make a genuine effort to win you back, provided you were even willing/available to give her a chance. It's the only way you could have any assurance that she meant it. It's also the only way she could demonstrate to herself that she meant it.

 

Chances are she won't try to come back; emotional cowards typically don't have the wherewithal to face up to the messes they make or to turn things around (which is why they're emotional cowards). So don't count on seeing her again. Instead, based on her present behavior, you have ample proof that she is not a good person to have in your life in any capacity. Not because of you, but because of who she is.

 

Good luck. It might take a while to get over this, but you will, and you'll move on to better things. Believe it or not this is for the best. Better to find out now that she's messed up than to find out only after saying "I do."

[Patrick7573]

Thanks for the advice Midori. I'll try but you know how hard things are right now. I swear its like the clock is going backwards today. Today is going by so slow! My mind is consumed with thoughts about her breakup conversation with me. I keep hearing her say those horrible words that she loves me but not the way I love her and she doesn't feel like she can commit to a marriage at this point in her life. Less than a month ago she is emailing me from work saying how she can't wait to be my wife. Now she just turns it off like a switch? How long did it take you to move on and did you already find the person who is worth your time and effort yet?

I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. I think that your post contains some of the answers you're looking for. You shouldn't have to give 110% to a relationship, because that implies that your partner isn't giving everything she could ... or that what she is capable of contributing isn't enough. Relationships are give and take, sure, but if you feel that the bulk of responsibility for a relationship's success lies with you, then I think the relationship is in trouble. I was there myself. And I got burned by a man who couldn't commit to me, then changed his mind and said he did want to spend his life with me, but soon after that broke up with me. ??? Of course I spent months and months wondering, "what if I'd done this, that or the other differently, what was I missing, what wasn't I thinking of?" But the truth of the matter was that my failure lay in my inability to perceive my ex's inability to give fully of himself to another person. I'd overestimated the power of my love for him in the face of a couple of decades of pain from a highly dysfunctional family featuring an emotionally distant father and a manic-depressive, alcoholic mother. I'd overestimated his faith in himself, and underestimated the tenacity of his destructive, hot-cold cycles of emotional intimacy and distancing. Why is it that when one person flakes out and is all over the place with their emotions, and with what they say they want, etc., it's their relatively sane and stable partner who asks, "what am I doing wrong?" You're not doing anything wrong, other than taking what sounds like a troubled woman at face value. When someone wants to rush into a big change or commitment (like marriage), or when they refuse to discuss what's going on in a meaningful way, it's a safe bet that something is wrong -- with them. Wow, you care for her more than she cares for you: not a good reason to bail from a relationship, is it? Except that it is ... but you're the one who ought to be bailing. No one deserves to live in a perpetual state of anxiety and uncertainty about their partner's commitment and happiness in the relationship.

 

As I said, I've been exactly where you are. I know all too well the grief and confusion and despair you must be feeling right now. Having been through it myself, I'll tell you about some of the mistakes I made in the last year: I wondered what could be done to save the relationship. I believed my ex just needed a bit of time and patience and forbearance from me. I kept him at the center of my emotional life long after he broke up with me, even though he'd cut communication with me because it was, he claimed, too painful for him. I read in his self-inflicted angst about losing me genuine love for me that I believed would prevail in time. I believed that he meant what he said when he said he loved me so much it hurt. I believed he meant all of the things he said. I failed to realize in a meaningful way that he is a truly messed up person whose continued presence in my life couldn't be anything but toxic. My recommendation (that is, what I wished I'd done a year ago): put her behind you, completely and totally. Close that door. No matter how much you miss her. No matter what happens, no matter how much you hear she does or does not miss you. Move on with your life. IF she ever gets over herself, her doubts, and/or whatever else is making her a weak, waffling emotional coward, she'd need to make a genuine effort to win you back, provided you were even willing/available to give her a chance. It's the only way you could have any assurance that she meant it. It's also the only way she could demonstrate to herself that she meant it.

 

Chances are she won't try to come back; emotional cowards typically don't have the wherewithal to face up to the messes they make or to turn things around (which is why they're emotional cowards). So don't count on seeing her again. Instead, based on her present behavior, you have ample proof that she is not a good person to have in your life in any capacity. Not because of you, but because of who she is. Good luck. It might take a while to get over this, but you will, and you'll move on to better things. Believe it or not this is for the best. Better to find out now that she's messed up than to find out only after saying "I do."

 

[C]

If she changes like that, she was never sincere, may be she was infatuated with you, but never truly in love. She probably liked the challenge of winning you over. Once she did it, she lost the interest. There's people out there who would give you 110% back for you efforts, don't waste your time with somebody who is not serious about you. It's her who has a problem, not you.

Thanks for the advice Midori. I'll try but you know how hard things are right now. I swear its like the clock is going backwards today. Today is going by so slow! My mind is consumed with thoughts about her breakup conversation with me. I keep hearing her say those horrible words that she loves me but not the way I love her and she doesn't feel like she can commit to a marriage at this point in her life. Less than a month ago she is emailing me from work saying how she can't wait to be my wife. Now she just turns it off like a switch? How long did it take you to move on and did you already find the person who is worth your time and effort yet?

[midori]

It took me a while, nearly a year before I was really on my way to putting him behind me. My circumstances are a bit unusual: I left the city I'd lived in for a decade to move to where I was going to start graduate school. So in addition to getting over my heartache, I was trying to settle into a new place, make new friends, and do well in my classes. As I mentioned earlier, I prolonged my agony about my ex by failing to recognize that the problems were entirely his and that he wasn't going to change.

 

I tried to put a brave face on for my friends and family. Of course they knew I was upset, especially at first, but as the weeks and months wore on I tried to keep my despair to myself so as not to burden people too much. Especially since I was around new people, I didn't feel I could parade my grief around. I started visiting this site -- thought anonymous strangers would be able to give me new insights into what had happened. And that did help. But the best thing overall has been when I've been willing to say to people, "I'm feeling low and I'm needing distraction." I've had some great friends who've picked apart my defunct relationship with a fine-toothed comb with me, trying to make sense & meaning of it all. My parents have been saints in talking to me ad naseum about my ex (just today I was talking to my mom about him -- I have reason to believe he may have just married a woman he met a couple of months ago, a week after he and I met for a day after not seeing each other for nine months. We were all over each other that day, he was sobbing that he still loved me but we "just couldn't be." He'd made up his mind, although he still couldn't tell me why. The next week he met this woman, who lives thousands of miles away from him (they both work overseas, but in different countries) and he "fell in love." They've spent at most 3 weeks in each other's company. I stopped talking to him in January, after he dropped his bomb about meeting someone new. And now it seems he might have married her. Ouch).

 

The best thing you can do is be up front with everyone you know: tell them exactly what happened. If they have some insight into what's going on with her, of course you'll want to hear it. But you also want to convey to them that you need their support, their company. You don't want to hear about her, you don't want them sharing information about you with her (if they're mutual friends). She's dead to you. Meeting new people will ultimately be good, but it's too soon. Unfair to anyone you might meet. But that doesn't mean you can't be building new foundations for a few months down the road, when you might be ready to venture out on dates. Try taking a class you've always meant to (foreign language or painting or whatever). Try volunteering for something you're genuinely interested in (I'm going to start voluteering one or two days a month at an animal shelter. I love dogs but can't have a pet right now). You'll be doing things that have nothing to do with her, meeting new people who might prove to be interesting in and of themselves -- and/or who might eventually introduce you to new people.

 

Let yourself grieve and mourn. You deserve to. You've had the rug pulled out from under you, it's no wonder you're stunned. Let your friends rally around you -- they'll want to, but if you're like most guys, they're probably afraid of being too intrusive, of insulting your pride.

 

Whatever you do, don't let her get to you. I'll bet you haven't heard the last from her, but rest assured that anything she has to say to you in the next month or two (or three or nine) will not represent real change in her. The kind of crap she's put you through is not something that just happens to people when they've had a bad month. She sounds like she's got deep-seated issues, one of which is rather narcissistic selfishness. You love her more than she loves you. That's rich. What nerve. Don't let her put her angst and grief over the situation back on you. She hurt you, not the other way around. She doesn't get to cite her own pain as a mitigating factor. You don't have to support her in this, and take it from me, if you do try to support her in the hope that she'll realize how great your love for her is and how much she needs it, you will get burned even worse (speaking from experience). People who can do what she has done do not care how much they take from another person and how little they give in return. They've always got self-justifications. My ex is a journalist, often in dangerous situations. He couldn't have cared less about the pain I was in when he broke up with me, he was too wrapped up in his own pain, and then with the demands of his job. How could I reasonably expect him to be there for me? That was the whole problem: it was all about him. Always was, always would be. When he dished up his news about meeting this new woman (utterly unnecessary news to share with me) he labeled my disgusted response as "bitterness" and tried to convince me that I was being unreasonably hostile about him. I told him, in effect, to go to hell. I should have done that ten months earlier.

 

Focus on yourself, completely. She does not deserve any further consideration from you. Don't let her eat up your time. Don't let her drain your strength. She ended it. She needs to face the consequences of her decision on her own.

Thanks for the advice Midori. I'll try but you know how hard things are right now. I swear its like the clock is going backwards today. Today is going by so slow! My mind is consumed with thoughts about her breakup conversation with me. I keep hearing her say those horrible words that she loves me but not the way I love her and she doesn't feel like she can commit to a marriage at this point in her life. Less than a month ago she is emailing me from work saying how she can't wait to be my wife. Now she just turns it off like a switch? How long did it take you to move on and did you already find the person who is worth your time and effort yet?

[Patrick7573]

Thank you Midori and "C" for taking the time to understand my situation and thank you for your advice. I'm going to try and move on but its not going to happen over night. We have known each other for 9 yrs. I was 19 when I met her and she was 17. She had a boyfriend when I met her but I didn't care and I went after her. She didn't cheat on her boyfriend with me or anything but she did end their relationship. My big mistake then was pursuing a relationship right away. I should've given her time to deal with her break up. We were on and off constantly but we could never seem to find somebody else. We would always compare that other person to us and it wasn't fair to the other person but thats what has always happened. I just really believed her this time. I felt that being she is going to be 27 that she matured and was really ready for commitment this time. I guess deep down I always knew she was emotionally unstable but I thought I could help her through it. I guess I would need a PHD in Psych to be able to help her. She needs to speak to someone so she can finally live a healthy happy life. I wish her the best in life and I pray that god keeps her and her family safe. Thank you both for helping me with this. I wish you all the love and happiness in the world.

It took me a while, nearly a year before I was really on my way to putting him behind me. My circumstances are a bit unusual: I left the city I'd lived in for a decade to move to where I was going to start graduate school. So in addition to getting over my heartache, I was trying to settle into a new place, make new friends, and do well in my classes. As I mentioned earlier, I prolonged my agony about my ex by failing to recognize that the problems were entirely his and that he wasn't going to change. I tried to put a brave face on for my friends and family. Of course they knew I was upset, especially at first, but as the weeks and months wore on I tried to keep my despair to myself so as not to burden people too much. Especially since I was around new people, I didn't feel I could parade my grief around. I started visiting this site -- thought anonymous strangers would be able to give me new insights into what had happened. And that did help. But the best thing overall has been when I've been willing to say to people, "I'm feeling low and I'm needing distraction." I've had some great friends who've picked apart my defunct relationship with a fine-toothed comb with me, trying to make sense & meaning of it all. My parents have been saints in talking to me ad naseum about my ex (just today I was talking to my mom about him -- I have reason to believe he may have just married a woman he met a couple of months ago, a week after he and I met for a day after not seeing each other for nine months. We were all over each other that day, he was sobbing that he still loved me but we "just couldn't be." He'd made up his mind, although he still couldn't tell me why. The next week he met this woman, who lives thousands of miles away from him (they both work overseas, but in different countries) and he "fell in love." They've spent at most 3 weeks in each other's company. I stopped talking to him in January, after he dropped his bomb about meeting someone new. And now it seems he might have married her. Ouch). The best thing you can do is be up front with everyone you know: tell them exactly what happened. If they have some insight into what's going on with her, of course you'll want to hear it. But you also want to convey to them that you need their support, their company. You don't want to hear about her, you don't want them sharing information about you with her (if they're mutual friends). She's dead to you. Meeting new people will ultimately be good, but it's too soon. Unfair to anyone you might meet. But that doesn't mean you can't be building new foundations for a few months down the road, when you might be ready to venture out on dates. Try taking a class you've always meant to (foreign language or painting or whatever). Try volunteering for something you're genuinely interested in (I'm going to start voluteering one or two days a month at an animal shelter. I love dogs but can't have a pet right now). You'll be doing things that have nothing to do with her, meeting new people who might prove to be interesting in and of themselves -- and/or who might eventually introduce you to new people. Let yourself grieve and mourn. You deserve to. You've had the rug pulled out from under you, it's no wonder you're stunned. Let your friends rally around you -- they'll want to, but if you're like most guys, they're probably afraid of being too intrusive, of insulting your pride. Whatever you do, don't let her get to you. I'll bet you haven't heard the last from her, but rest assured that anything she has to say to you in the next month or two (or three or nine) will not represent real change in her. The kind of crap she's put you through is not something that just happens to people when they've had a bad month. She sounds like she's got deep-seated issues, one of which is rather narcissistic selfishness. You love her more than she loves you. That's rich. What nerve. Don't let her put her angst and grief over the situation back on you. She hurt you, not the other way around. She doesn't get to cite her own pain as a mitigating factor. You don't have to support her in this, and take it from me, if you do try to support her in the hope that she'll realize how great your love for her is and how much she needs it, you will get burned even worse (speaking from experience). People who can do what she has done do not care how much they take from another person and how little they give in return. They've always got self-justifications. My ex is a journalist, often in dangerous situations. He couldn't have cared less about the pain I was in when he broke up with me, he was too wrapped up in his own pain, and then with the demands of his job. How could I reasonably expect him to be there for me? That was the whole problem: it was all about him. Always was, always would be. When he dished up his news about meeting this new woman (utterly unnecessary news to share with me) he labeled my disgusted response as "bitterness" and tried to convince me that I was being unreasonably hostile about him. I told him, in effect, to go to hell. I should have done that ten months earlier.

 

Focus on yourself, completely. She does not deserve any further consideration from you. Don't let her eat up your time. Don't let her drain your strength. She ended it. She needs to face the consequences of her decision on her own.