Zorba

Talking about or being still in contact with the ex is a big red flag, especially if they go straight to you soon after. It usually means they're still not over the ex and the slightest hiccup and they will often go back to them.

The drop off in sex is a big red flag. Like others have said a drop off in contact or interest is another. I've seen them all, I've done some myself. You can still be caught out though. I have been before on two occasions and as it's halloween I'll I shall fill your hearts with tales of horror and woe..... Muhahahahahha. [Cue organ music] Sometimes there are no signs at all. Nada. Zip. Rein. The big zero. I looked back and looked hard and I couldn't see it and I would be the analytical type. Neither could her friends or her family. Completely out of the blue. One day great/normal/love you's/I'll be with you forever, etc, 24 hours later with someone else who she knew for less than an hour. Then she was "confused". I'm not bloody surprised in fairness to her! the second one a few years back and this is a beeeeuuuaty. 1 year relationship. All going pretty good. No major issues. All good stuff. One night I'm over in her place for the weekend. Make love, very sweet and tender stuff, light on the gimp masks. All very nice. Lots of "I love you's" and "you're my life" etc. I had to meet someone the next morning so off I went after breakfast together and more of the naughty stuff. We were to meet up later that afternoon. I get a phonecall late morning. She needs to "talk". Now normally that would send up flares, but I didn't think anything of it because of no other signs at all. So I meet her as arranged and everything seems fine and then she drops the bomb. She met someone at a business meeting and thinks she may be in love with him and that she's meeting him later that night and it might be better if I go home for the weekend...... Hmmmmmm says I. Well actually what I said at that point would fill this post with red asterixes(asterixi?). Of course she came back 8 months later out of the blue as they do. I think my response was Goodbye, but more using two words involving sex and travel...... Another one. A friend of mine was going out with this woman for 3 years. Engaged to be married. Wedding date set for the next year. Lovely couple, perfect together. Very nice. They go away for a weekend, with both sets of their parents. They have a romantic meal and go to the hotel bar and stare into each others eyes for a while. He's been driving all day and he's very tired, so he goes to bed first. The parents are still around so she's in conversation with them. She says she'll see him upstairs very soon. "Love you, Love you too baby" etc. He falls asleep. he wakes up from a deep sleep in the early hours of the morning worried about her. Goes downstairs and can't find her. The parents thought she went up to bed soon after. An hour passes and she finally shows up. She tells him she can't marry him now as she's met someone else.[Cue organ music again]. Yep she met someone at the bar earlier. the barman as it turned out. She "falls in love" and dumps the fiancee on the spot. can't explain it to him, her parents and friends or even herself. She claimed she still loved my friend, but..... She lived with the barman for 2 years. She finally left after he beat her up just one too many times. You would think the first punch might do it but.... Of course she contacted my friend the ex after that, looking for a second chance. I'm proud to say he told her to take a long walk off a short pier. He's happy now with a great woman. Even horror stories have a happy ending.... Tune in for more tales of woe from the broken heart crypt of love...

Nail on the head. this true love stuff is best left in under funded TV movies. Happens all the time. Circumstances can force one's hand in a relationship, any relationship in a good or bad way. Beyond basic incompatiblity if a couple are pretty good together(no one's perfect, if some think that's not true they're daft) and have been together long enough t know each other and have a loving relationship, it's amazing how easily outside circumstances can force them apart. One of the two women I truly loved in my life is a good example. We loved, respected and cared for each other very much. We still care for each other now although she's in love and living with a great guy for the past 5 years. Anyway, enough back story. When we were together, she got an amazing offer to work and live in another country and I couldn't have gone with her at the time. There was no way around it that would have realistically worked and we looked for one. We were young and this was the best and probably only opportunity for her to really live her life and follow her dream(which worked out for her too). We split up. In fact looking back, I dumped her as I knew she wouldn't have gone. We were both heartbroken about it, but I couldn't have lived with myself if she had stayed for me out of love. Now we were a good couple, objectively as good as or better than 90% of the couples I've known. We were compatible in all the ways that count, yet we split up due to outside circumstances. Hey maybe some sap may say if it was "true love" it would have worked out or some nonsense. I consider what we did and how we did it truer love than you find is often defined as such. That's not that unusual an example. I've known others where for whatever reasons, even reasons from within the relationship that could have been worked on, but for one reason or another it didn't work out. Some of these were great relationships. Sometimes, it's not a plan, there's no pattern, the universe doesn't get involved and as inlove123 says sh*t just happens. BTW, I pretty much agree with the first part of your post and I wouldn't worry about your age. If you're getting this stuff pretty straight in your head at 18, you're ahead of the posse by a looong way.

I have to agree with inlove123 on the pride issue. I know one couple who have gotten back together very successfully and it was down to the woman(the dumpee) getting back in touch with the guy(dumper). I know both of them very well and I know this guy, although he loved her, there is a snowball's chance in hell he would have contacted her. He's cut off family members for good over serious falling outs. I mean cut off, bye bye, you're not my family anymore kind of thing. Ok she made the first move, but it's quite easy to see where two people of a similar temperament could easily never contact each other, yet they could have worked. Now of course people can wheel out the banal pat answer that "well if it didn't happen it wasn't true love". At that point you have to get into definitions of what true love is, does it even exist, beyond the pages of fairy tales and what are the circumstances that help it grow or stifle. Plus while we can all look to successes and say that's why it happened that way, because "it was meant to be", it ignores the situations that didn't work out yet the same criteria were applied. Sometimes the solution lies in the obvious, oft times it doesn't, wisdom is knowing the difference. It's all too easily swayed by one's own experience and the mistake can be made that this applies to all or even most. I'm guilty of that myself, everyone is. The trick is to try to resist that. As an example. I've gotten every single ex that dumped me back(even one I didn't want back). In only one case did I apply strict NC and that only lasted 6 weeks and I made contact. The rest was LC or just normal contact. If I was to extrapolate that to everyone else I would be preaching contact or at least very short NC and then to LC or just contact, plain and simple. That would be equally wrong. While strict long term NC will help people move on in situations where there's no hope and indeed will often show them why there was no hope, it's not the be all and end all and shouldn't be treated as such. It also of course depends on the emotional strength of the dumpee. If you feel vulnerable or overwhelmed NC is the way to go. Balance is the thing. A period of NC is healthy and needed in 90% of cases. When you get your head back then LC if the other party is open to that is probably going to garner the best results. Even if it to effect closure for good.

Yes "size does matter" has some truth, but a few years back an ex of mine left me high and dry for a guy with a good bit less in the trouser department(don't ask how I know and I know he was self conscious about it again don't ask me how I know). They're still together. What does that tell you? It tells me that I wasn't satisfying her in some or most other areas. Looking back I have to say I wasn't. I was being a * * * * at the time and no amount of extra inches/CM in the * * * * dept. made up for that. Good lesson for me learned. If you worry about the size of your penis without worrying about other things you're doomed to failure. It's part of the package(no pun intended), but as I found out to my cost, it's not the be all and end all of a good relationship.

Basically because that just needed to be repeated.