No contact in month, hopes of reconciliation

I had posted another thread a few days ago, but it didn't garner a ton of replies and I'm not sure I got everything in there that I wanted.

The short of it is that my first long term girlfriend broke up with me a month ago today. We both attend the same university and started dating almost immediately upon starting school, but the relationship was long distance over the summer and we only saw each other in handful of times the last few months of the relationship due to distance.

We started to have problems the last couple of months of our relationship. Namely my problems with her: moodiness (always my biggest issue with her. Her mother had actually made a comment about my ex's moodiness once as well), unwillingness to talk about issues in either her own life or our relationship

Her issues with me: namely felt that I could be manipulative (encourage her to go out rather than stay in, hang out with my friends more, etc.) and felt that I got too emotional/clingy when issues came up in our relationship.

Perhaps the biggest and most unusual problem in our relationship was that sex almost always hurt my ex. Being young and inexperienced, we both thought the issue would resolve itself as the more sex we had, the lesser the pain was, but the issue never went away entirely and grew worse with our limited in person contact this summer. Many of our other issues and really any fight we had seemed to stem from this problem.

Sometime around June I sensed a shift in her attitude towards me, and I felt always on edge when we talked. Fourth of July weekend she visited me, and while we had a great time, the last night she was there I made a comment that she perceived to be insinuating that her father had a drinking problem (I didn't know her father even had a drinking problem at the time, and nobody else present perceived the comment that way). She grew extremely upset, and the whole thing seemed sort of bizarre.

After this she seemed to make excuses not to visit me as often, so I brought up to her that I felt that something in our relationship wasn't working out. We had a long emotional talk, and I told her I'd give her some space and to contact me when she knew what she wanted. She called me the next day and told me she was glad that we had the talk and wasn't worried anymore because we both wanted the same things. I had essentially promised I would no longer become so emotional and wouldn't be manipulative and she had said she'd work on communicating more effectively. The next couple of weeks over Skype it seemed as if a weight had been lifted off of us and we seemed better than ever.

The next time she saw me was a couple of weeks after that conversation. We got a long the first couple of days, but there seemed to be an odd tension between us. On the last night she was there, sex came up and I told her I felt she never wanted to get intimate anymore. She told me I was crazy and kissed me passionately. As we started foreplay, however, I could feel her pulling back. She told me she was afraid of it hurting as it had previously. Stupidly, I suggested that we try it and if it hurt we could immediately stop. Later on, we began foreplay again and I could still feel her hesitating. I asked her if she was okay with where we were in the relationship and responded by saying "I still want to be with you if that's what your asking me" After a few minutes of silence she asked me where I was at. I said something to the effect of "I feel that our relationship has become really stressful lately and I feel a part of it is broken." I then grew very emotional and she comforted me. The day after she left she called me and asked for a break. When I asked where this was coming from, she said that our talk the last night we were there made her realize she wasn't sure she wanted to work on our relationship anymore. She said she wasn't sure what she wanted to do.

A couple of days later, I called her to check if she really wanted a break, or if it was just her way of easing into a breakup. She said she felt she needed a break up, and we both apologized for everything we did to bring it to this point. I suggested that she see a professional about the sexual pain, and apologized for ever making her feel pressured to have sex. She apologized for not communicating with me. We ended the conversation saying we'd miss each other.

Since that conversation, my ex and I haven't spoken. We left on polite terms, but there were tears on both ends. I can't help but feel that if I had told her I still wanted to be with her too on the last night we were together, we wouldn't have broken up. Although it wasn't my intention, I think that she feels like after I promised to no longer be clingy or manipulative, I was the very next time she saw me and could no longer take it. I honestly didn't understand the sexual pain on her part fully, and after some research realize it was never going to get resolved the way we went about it and should have been taken to a doctor. I just can't help but feel that most of my insecurities towards the end of the relationship were caused because I took her unwillingness to have sex as a sign she no longer loved me, rather than apprehension about pain. She had told me that she felt I was manipulative on our last night together because I asked her to promise we could go back to the way things were between us. In reality, I don't think I was being manipulative but rather being clingy because I didn't understand the situation and felt desperate to hold onto what I viewed as a faltering relationship.

I'm nervous about what to do when I see her in a couple of weeks. We will both be living in the same dorm next year, and have a job where we will be training together every weekend for the first couple of months. We were both each other's first serious loves, and I hate to think she may be gone forever. Is there anything I can do to help facilitate a reconciliation, or should I just move on?

It's time to move on. She feels manipulated and whether it was intentional or not, she was.

Look, first relationships are always hard and you learn a heap of things. Your first relationhsip came with it's own set of issues, so you shouldn't beat yourself up that there were things you didn't understand. Most of us can only understand things when we've experinced them ourselves.

Letting go of a first love is difficult. I suspect your relationship has run its course and that you both have things to reflect on. Painful sex is awful at the best of times. To experince it in a first relationship would have been awful for her, and awful for you. Hopefully, it's taught you some compassion, and given you the knowledge that it's not always about you - there are often factors in other people's lives that have an impact on how they respond to us.

Seeing each other again will be awkward. No doubts about that. But it does sound as if there is goodwill between you. You will adjust to seeing each other but not being with each other, however it will take time and you may need to talk about it.

Make a real attempt to think about yourself and your own behaviour - particularly the manipulation stuff. Work on not being that person when you see her, and be gracious rather than bitter about the break up.

Yeah that's what I keep trying to tell myself, but its hard not to beat myself up. There's all these what if moments that I keep replaying. I don't want it to come accross like I was a total jerk to her about sex either, I never got upset with her over it or made her feel that I was angry, it just caused a lot of disappointment on both ends. I always made sure to tell her it wasn't her fault when she felt like it was, it was just sometimes hard to hide my disappointment in the moment. I think I pressured her at the end because I remember her telling me her previous ex and her hadn't had sex in over a month before they split so he saw it coming...we were well past that marker this summer. How sexually active she was with the previous ex I really don't know, but I got the impression that they had only had sex a handful of times so I don't know how aware she was of the pain issue and probably thought it was just from lack of experience.

As for the manipulation part- I actually was the one that had told her I could be that way in the first place and made an active effort to work on it and that hadn't been an active issue in our relationship at the end really, it kind of just got brought up again when we were talking about issues we had had as a whole.

Do you think there is any way I could go about trying to get her back if that's still how I feel? I don't plan on rehashing the issues with her or making her feel pressured for more, just kind of intend to gauge her reaction to seeing me when we get back. I understand that you suspect it ran its course and that is my suspicion as well, but I'd just like to know if there is ANYTHING at all I could do to not completely kill the odds of a second chance. 99% of our relationship we were very happy with one another and worked on so many levels.

If she wants to have any relationship with you, including friendship...it will be her choice, not yours. Listen and watch when you see her at school. If she is simply civil...that is your answer. Any pushing on your part will appear manipulative.

If she wants to have any relationship with you, including friendship...it will be her choice, not yours. Listen and watch when you see her at school. If she is simply civil...that is your answer. Any pushing on your part will appear manipulative.

I do understand that. When we were breaking up I didn't put up a fight and told her I respected her decision. Don't get me wrong I didn't try to play it off like it was what I wanted or that I wasn't upset, but I know I can't force her to do anything she doesn't want to do. For the most part, I think she would agree that I treated her very well during the course of our relationship, I really wasn't a controlling or jealous person in the least. The manipulation issue stemmed more from a few individual instances such as parties or concerts than it is representative of the relationship as a whole.

That being said I don't want to push her into anything at all. Do you think it would be a good idea to ask her to coffee or something similar to that effect if the interactions between us appear to be friendly? I don't want to rush into anything right away, I just know that I'm going to run into her fairly often giving our jobs and living arrangements.

I think you let her take the lead and mirror her interest level. If she shows no interest, then no...don't ask her for coffee. Your position at this point is to listen...and show you heard her.

Thanks, I guess that's really all I can do. It really sucks because I feel like I've had time to reflect on why the relationship broke down when it did and I don't think I would make the same mistakes again, but I know I can't just walk up to her and say that. In any case too I think that she would need to seek medical advice about the sexual pain in order for us to have a relationship with a shot at working, but I really don't know if she's ready to do that and I know its not my place.

I guess when I see her I will just be friendly, and keep the interaction with her to a minimum unless she appears to want otherwise. She had said at some point during the initial break up talk that breaking up didn't mean we couldn't speak, I just haven't contacted her since because I agree that if she was the one that wanted a break up any sort of interaction we have right now should be dictated by her.

Can anybody else please respond to this? I really need some more perspective.

I think Mhowe already nailed it, not much more to say.

You have already posted this...nothing changes.

You have already posted this...nothing changes.

I know, and I do appreciate your input. I'm just trying to get a wider variety of opinions, not that I believe yours is invalid in any way. Just want some varying opinions (not that I want somebody to post what I want to hear, just want a wide range of advice)

There is no other answer. You cannot make this happen.

I'm not trying to "make this happen", I'm just looking for genuine advice as to how to approach her. I don't expect there to be some secret method out of some ebook to win her back, just want to know if anybody who has been in a similar situation knows a way I could show her I understand where I went wrong and have changed for the better. I am trying to move on and don't plan on not dating others over this, its just that in this moment I strongly feel that things could work between us if I was able to approach her as a stronger person than when she left.

It can't. You are making this about you and not listening to what she has told you.

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