Can this be fixed?

My bf and i broke up a week and a half ago. We had known each other for years and he had always wanted something to happen. We started off as best friends and our relationship blossomed. We were the perfect couple to the point where no one could believe how settled an happy he was, he had already told everyone i was the one and we had discussed marriage in length. I ended up going through a few things 4months into the relationship that heavily impacted my moods due to hormones. The day before we broke up we had a lovely day and we had discussed how much we love each other and care for each other and he told me how he could never imagine us breaking up but he wants a drama free and happy relationship like we previously had. The next day we were at a lunch and after consuming a lot of alcohol, someone who i don’t like made a comment and due to our heightened emotions from alcohol consumption, my partner and I had the biggest fight which then caused our break up. We went from being best friends to so in love in such a short period of time.We were planning our futures together and I’m devastated to know that because of my drama, this has all ended. We have said we will have dinner together next week and I just want to go into it being able to salvage it. I have a feeling we may have to start as the amazing friends we once were and work our way back to a relationship. I just need some advice as I am anxiety ridden with guilt over how things ended.

I understand how much men hate drama, and when women become too emotional. I want to be able to prove to him that things will be different this time. He text me and said dinner would be nice and when everything settles we will be the amazing best friends that we were. I just don’t think we can be only best friends. When we fought he did say nasty things but as previously stated we had consumed over 5 bottles of wine and it was probably not the best time to have an argument. I just wish before yelling and carrying on I would have just stood up and left. His best friend had told me that how angry I got frightened him and I’m pretty sure, I have left a bad taste in his mouth. Is there any way I can fix this? A man can’t just turn off his feelings for someone they fought so hard to get. Just three days before the fight he had organised a surprise delivery of a new hairdryer and straightener to his house so I wouldn’t have to take mine over. These clearly aren’t the actions of a man who was planning on breaking up with the girl he practically lived with and wanted to marry. I am so confused

What was the comment that caused this fight?

What was the comment that caused this fight?

I had a pregnancy termination and this acquaintance of his I don't get along with me sent me a malicious text saying "you should have kept the baby" after I didn't acknowledge him. This was after he said "you're playing a dangerous game" because I didn't want a bar of him. I had so much wine that I kept getting angry at my ex when he was just trying to calm me

My ex hates drama and the way I reacted was the straw that broke the camels back

Thanks Joalin. I have tried explaining this to him in a rational and much softer tone but the damage had already been done. He had told his best friend that he loves me more than anything but he was almost frightened by how angry I got. That can't possibly be a turn on for a man.

He even said to me, that he could probably never love anyone the way he does me but the drama really annoyed him and he wanted the easy, happy relationship we initially had. I know if we start hanging out again, it will be very hard for us to turn off our chemistry and our emotion because something has been there between us for such a long time. Everyone is telling me that no contact will do wonders, but that's easier said than done

Sorry you are going through this. I understand you were hurt by your colleague's insensitive comment. I don't understand why you became angry with your boyfriend when he tried to comfort you. Did you feel like your boyfriend was siding with your colleague?

It sounds like your behaviour caused a red flag in him and he listened to it. I've been looking at my own anger, so I might not be the most perfect person to offer advice. Anyway I encourage you to think about how you behave when you are angry and decide if you could benefit from learning how to better communicate your emotions. Thinking about this might help you with convincing him it won't happen again. He needs to feel safe being around you and comforting you when a third party upsets you.

You mentioned that he was nasty to you during the argument. Is this something you should be concerned with? I suggest you talk with him about this. You both may need to look at how you communicate.

I hope you work it out.

Forget about no contact as a means of getting him back. Don't go there. The acquaintance of his is a low life. I have my opinions on termination but it was your choice and nothing to do with him. I think ANYONE would have got angry at that. Maybe you got angry at the wrong person in the wrong way.

You need to talk openly and honestly but I cannot promise the outcome.

Good luck.

Looking back now, the way I reacted was out of character but I had consumed so much alcohol throughout the day that it heightened my emotions.

My ex has always been perfect and never ever nasty, people end up being nasty when they're angry. I keep thinking I wish I just bit my tongue and didn't get so angry at my bf but at the time I felt so helpless that I didn't know how to react.

I never ever thought it would come to this. It has been such an eye opener but I feel so helpless as to how to show him I realise that my behaviour was concerning. Unfortunately the alcohol and what my body had gone through clearly didn't help me

I think if the strength of your anger scared him, you need to immediate de-escalate the drama. Agree to meet him, and when you meet, no matter how much you want to cry or get upset, keep a hold on yourself to show him you can and will control yourself. Do NOT drink anything at all.

You need to tell him that 5 bottles of wine was WAY too much to drink and you got totally out of control and obviously you and alcohol are not a good mix. And promise him you will never again drink more than one or two glasses of wine at a sitting so this won't happen again. Also tell him that the termination really messed with your head and screwed up your hormones and emotions, and you need some time to get over it and think this anger was displaced grief and upset about that. Apologize to him, and tell him you were out of control and know it, and it won't happen again.

See if that will reassure him. Then you have to be very careful that you eliminate drama from the relationship and avoid drinking and that kind of situation again. He will trust you again if you let enough time pass with no drama or fighting. And if necessary, offer to take an anger management course so you won't have such an outburst in future.

First of all - alcohol, regardless of the amount, is never a good mix for anything serious in nature.

The abortion remark - its no ones business what you chose to do with your uterus. I have my own beliefs as far as that is concerned, but again - its YOUR uterus. No one has the right to insert their two cents. You have to live your life, and YOU have to live with your choices. Only YOU can decide what is best for you.

So for that, I'd say brush it off and don't let it bother you. Ignorance isn't always bliss, and that case right there just proved that.

To address men and drama - drama doesn't discriminate.

Men, women, teenage girls, hungry toddlers at the grocery store - drama is there. I suppose it all comes down to what your definition of drama is. Life has its ups and downs... some call it drama, I prefer to call it life on lifes terms.

For anyone to expect you to be constantly happy, or to even believe that your entire relationship can be the two of you holding hands as you tip toe through tulips while it rains glitter and a rainbow leads you to a unicorn - is unrealistic. Relationships without fighting or disagreements, aren't healthy. To me thats a strong sign that communication does not exist. People are going to disagree and have a difference in opinion - and thats okay. Drama will come up in any healthy relationship, and its how the two of you deal with it, that ultimately defines you.

If you can face it head on, hash it out, and find your way back to one another, then great - keep moving forward.

But if you can't handle ANY drama or you avoid speaking up due to fear of confrontation, you have no business being in a relationship.

And finally - turning off feelings? Men and Women are both capable of shutting down. I'm guilty of shutting down and pushing out myself. My now ex boyfriend once pushed the envelope a bit too far and I just shut down, shut out and walked away. I hit a breaking point and found that I no longer cared.

I would say that yes the two of you could absolutely sit down and talk through this, but you need to talk. Not hold back out of fear, not try to be a Stepford Wife with perfect intentions - but be human. Be you. Speak what is on your mind, and if you can' t find any resolution, cut your losses, walk away, and learn from the experience. There are billions of people in this world, are you really going to allow just one to ruin your life?

It is possible to disagree without turning it into a drama. Yes, individuals who love each other will still have differences of opinion. The question is how you resolve them. You can do it by shouting your heads off, smashing things and storming out of the house, then tread on eggshells for the next week for fear of a repeat. You can be "passive aggressive" and verbally agree without having the slightest intention of honouring that agreement (my Dad was the expert at that!). You can also be firm without being rude, confrontational and dramatic. Sometimes it is better to be the better person and not meet a candle flame with a forest fire. It isn't weak to stand your ground firmly without retaliation.

Some people have a bigger temper than others. Some are quick to pounce on the smallest of wrongdoings and turn it into a drama, whilst others will take so much until it's the final straw. Some people grow up in families or cultures where it is normal to raise their voice over what others would see as trivia.

Sometimes shutting down for periods is the right thing to do. If you are a child and an adult is behaving aggressively towards you, you learn to avoid that aggression and you shut down as a self-defence mechanism. Unfortunately some people (like my late Dad and I) have carried this behaviour into adulthood but we all still have our breaking points.

To sum up, yes people do get angry with each other but the best thing is to defuse it and have a constructive discussion.

I am extremely hot headed and fight for things I believe in, he on the other hand is super calm and collected. We really did balance each other out. The problem with him is he is a vault and bottles things up and hates being emotional. I know the way I handled that situation was terrible and sometimes I can fire up and become very angry.

He unfortunately has it in head that we can't start fresh and this will be a reoccurring thing in our relationship. I beg to differ because everything turned when my hormones went crazy, but I don't blame him from tiring of it.

I just don't know what to do to prove to him things can be different. I have been going to a councillor to try and deal with my problems. The reason I am so keen to salvage this relationship is because I know what we had was special and I know he knows too. He is just too stubborn and pig headed right now to notice that on the 6months we were together, we did go through a lot and if the worst has come and gone, we are pretty lucky

I can see exactly where you are coming from but also his side. Even though I am more like him, I would have flared up in a similar situation to what you faced. The problem is he may well see it is something that will happen again. I don't know how the story got out but some things really are left private. I have a few things in my past that I keep quiet about in public and they are best not discussed. Perhaps he should have backed you up over the issue instead of calming you down.

Unfortunately, and will my former self of 30 odd years ago please note (!) that people do have a right to leave a relationship for whatever reason. Is he being "fair" to you by doing so? Probably not in my opinion but unfortunately that is his choice. I would be careful about overdoing the alcohol (again former self please note) in certain situations but that is your choice. Drinking alcohol is neither illegal nor immoral (unless you drive or something) but over-indulgence is something that we all need to be wary of in certain situations.

I wish you luck and think you'll need it.

Thank you so much for you advice. I definitely will need luck but this has given me the opportunity to really think about how I act. I know if alcohol had not be consumed so heavily things would have been different, but that is a learning curve for me.

Right now I have to work on myself and stay positive. Unfortunately one terrible action erased all the good memories we had so clearly my behaviour really impacted how he feels. Hopefully he can trust that it won't happen again when we do see each other eventually. I still do think he is being overly stubborn though.

Thank you so much for you advice. I definitely will need luck but this has given me the opportunity to really think about how I act. I know if alcohol had not be consumed so heavily things would have been different, but that is a learning curve for me.

 

Right now I have to work on myself and stay positive. Unfortunately one terrible action erased all the good memories we had so clearly my behaviour really impacted how he feels. Hopefully he can trust that it won't happen again when we do see each other eventually. I still do think he is being overly stubborn though.

You think he's stubborn and he thinks you've crossed a line. Strangely enough, you are both right! In MY opinion, you took your anger out on the wrong person. It should have been aimed fairly and squarely at the "friend" who made the remark. I don't think you crossed a line but he does. You would probably think (rationally) that if he behaved like that, you would be hissed with him but it wouldn't be a dealbreaker. Perhaps you could tell him that.

From what I've seen, we all have boundaries and they differ from one person to another. My view is that physical violence is a dealbreaker but the occassional temper outburst is irritating but not. My view is that you had every right to feel angry about a VERY insensitive remark.

I don't want to dash your hopes but he is not on the same page as you are on this issue. That doesn't make him a bad person but I can see that you would feel irritated by the situation.

If you are too quick tempered, I would see advice, though.

I suspect that perhaps this wasn't the dis time your fired up response bothered him. It was probably just the worst.

And while you feel like you balance each other out he may have felt exhausted emotionally. There was a great study a few years ago about how men react much more negatively than women and their heart rate pumps up to unhealthy levels. So for him he may have actually been ill or close to fainting and add to that fear of you may have caused him to get to a dangerous level of stress in his body.

So no it's not him being stubborn. Rather he could be protecting himself and his health.

I suspect that perhaps this wasn't the dis time your fired up response bothered him. It was probably just the worst.

 

And while you feel like you balance each other out he may have felt exhausted emotionally. There was a great study a few years ago about how men react much more negatively than women and their heart rate pumps up to unhealthy levels. So for him he may have actually been ill or close to fainting and add to that fear of you may have caused him to get to a dangerous level of stress in his body.

 

So no it's not him being stubborn. Rather he could be protecting himself and his health.

It was probably my worst outburst to date. I have a slight update. I was out last night with a fiend and he showed up to the same place. He came over said hello and gave me a kiss (very awkward) I was civil but not my warm and bubbly self. He spent 80% of the night watching me and since we share mutual friends he decided to have a mini outburst and have everyone leave because it was "awkward". This is a man who wants to be best friends yet he goes crazy when he sees me.

His best friend told me he is so unemotional and that I'm too good for him because he doesn't realise how he behaves causes people to become aggravated.

I just don't see why he behaved like that when our texts have been so nice and normal

Breakups are tough and he's suffering in his own way. I wouldn't overthink his behavior.

Breakups are tough and he's suffering in his own way. I wouldn't overthink his behavior.

I just think it is super childish to carry on the way he is and stand in a corner all night and just stare at me as oppose to coming up to me and discussing things like a grown man. He can keep saying that we make better friends but his behaviour last night was beyond weird and not how someone who wanted to just be friends would go about doing things. His friend said everyone knew i was so different but his lack of emotion numbs all his senses and he goes about being the way that he is. Since I have known him for so long, I have seen how he behaved with his other exes when we would bump into them in public when him and I were only friends and he was quite civil and nice to them. He went and started following one his exes on instagram today too, I know he knows I will see and its all for a reaction

So he text me yesterday apologising for how he behaved on the weekend and he just felt strange about us being at the same place and not being together and it was awkward. I haven't responded because I'm starting to think no contact is the way to go. His housemate told one of my best friends that I wore him down and he didn't think the fighting and bickering would stop. It has nothing to do with his love for me but that. How am I meant to show him I can work on that if he won't give me the chance to show him/

Well I think his housemates confirmed what we've been telling you ... that it was a culmination of fights and not just one.

The fundamental issue is that you have a different way of dealing with conflict than he does. Running back to him while you are miserable from a break up is not a good idea. I would advise you to take at least a few weeks if not months to get some space and to heal. In the meantime you can get a clearer picture on how you fight. Do you think you should change the way you deal with anger? Do you think firey is wrong? What would you do to completely change before you approach him? Would you be trying to change for him or for you? These are the questions to think about before trying to rush a reconciliation. That former relationship is over. Period.

Well I think his housemates confirmed what we've been telling you ... that it was a culmination of fights and not just one.

 

The fundamental issue is that you have a different way of dealing with conflict than he does. Running back to him while you are miserable from a break up is not a good idea. I would advise you to take at least a few weeks if not months to get some space and to heal. In the meantime you can get a clearer picture on how you fight. Do you think you should change the way you deal with anger? Do you think firey is wrong? What would you do to completely change before you approach him? Would you be trying to change for him or for you? These are the questions to think about before trying to rush a reconciliation. That former relationship is over. Period.

I have already started seeing a therapist so I can deal with how I handle my anger and frustrations and how to relax more. After a few sessions, I can already sense that I am not over thinking everything and becoming as anxious as I would in the past. I still know I have a fair way to go. I know if there is any chance of us getting back together, I have to work on myself because he sure as hell won't put up with that crap, no matter how much I and everyone else knows he love me. He left once, he will leave again. This was a massive eye opener for me. It's just playing the waiting game and working on myself that is the hardest part. I need to change for myself, this is clearly a personality trait that is unattractive. I myself hate when I get aggressive.