Question for women who have been engaged and/or married...

Could you tell me what you would have done in my ex-fiance's situation? It helps me to talk about this as much as possible in order to understand and cope with her actions. I've posted all over these boards about this. I keep blaming myself for the breakup.

I was engaged to my fiance for 6 months...we were together for 4 years before that. About 5 months into the engagement I started to get all these nerves when thinking about the wedding. We've had our share of problems throughout our relationship, but we've always worked our way through them. I kept thinking about these and other negative things about the relationship and I started to get scared. I didn't tell her right away and I let my actions do the talking. I was becoming kind of distant and we were fighting a lot more.

I finally did tell her that I had cold feet and maybe we should postpone the wedding and she seemed to have understood. We talked through it the next day and decided to have the wedding as planned.

About two weeks after this we got into a fight and I told her that I had been really depressed lately and that there were times when I didn't see a point in life. I am on medication for depression but for some reason around this time it got really bad. This really upset her and she wondered how I could be miserable and not see a point in life when we were supposed to get married and have a future together. I told her it had nothing to do with her but she thought otherwise.

I guess this revelation coupled with the fact that I said I was nervous about getting married really hurt her and she said that she wanted to call off the wedding and she gave me the ring back. A couple days later we were talking and she just wanted to know more. I told her that I felt a bit smothered living with her because she can be anal about cleaning and other things, and I also told her that I felt a bit pressured into getting married because in the past she had always brought it up. I don't know how truthful those things were but I told her that because she was looking for reasons as to why I was acting the way I was and why I had cold feet.

So weeks went by and we told all of our family members about calling off the wedding. I was devastated because I now realized that I did want to marry her and my feelings that I had came out of nowhere, but I dealt with them and put them behind me. We still lived together and I was supposed to move out, but we started to talk again and spend time with one another, and we started to get along. She suggested couples counseling so we started going almost every week. We were getting along great, no fights, no drama, nothing. We were making strides in therapy. Each day that passed I realized how much I loved her and wanted to be with her and how sorry I was for my past feelings. I wanted to get back on track with the engagement but she was still cautious.

For 2 months I thought things were going great, then this past weekend she calls our relationship off and says she has realized that she doesn't love me the same way anymore and things don't feel right. It shocked me because I thought things were getting better and we were putting the past behind us.

So now here I am back where I started...she calls it off and now I am going to move out. I know I should have moved out when she called off the engagement and gave her some space, but I didn't.

But my question is to women out there, if you were my fiance, would you just end the engagement and call off the wedding because of your fiance's cold feet and other feelings? I never once told her I didn't love her, I never once told her I didn't want to be with her. I got scared, and I got depressed, and I thought she would be there to help me through it, but I guess it was too much for her. She has a hard time putting the past behind her, especially with men. Her father wasn't there for her much, and she had a very abusive step father who ruined her childhood. I feel like she was looking for the perfect person in me.

I'm going to do NC and move out. I need to work on myself for now, but all I do is blame myself for those feelings I had, I feel like this is the reason she ended the relationship. Our therapist told us in order to move forward we had to let go of the past, and I feel like she can't do that. It would really help me to know how other women would have reacted to this situation. Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long!

I've been on the other side of this situation - I was the one with cold feet -- and in one case although we weren't engaged (nad we weren't because the few times he wanted to propose I told him not to because of my cold feet but I also didn't want to end the relationship).

Here is what I learned (or confirmed, I guess, because I already knew it). First, once you share the "cold feet" with your partner, you have to accept that your partner is perfectly justified in reacting by ending the relationship -- she/he is not obligated to stick around and help you resolve your issues. In part this is because for many, engagement/marriage also has to do with timing, so if there is this unspecific cold feet your partner may not want to risk investing more time in the relationship when you can't (understandably) even give her an estimate of how long it might take to resolve these issues (especially if you have to discover the issues first).

Some women/men might be willing to give it a specific time period espsecially if there is counseling going on, but when you get engaged, the only point (at least to me) is to pick a wedding date asap and get married (whether the wedding is a few months after or if you're very young, a few years). That's of course my opinion but I don't consider an engagement official without a wedding date.

The second related thing I learned was that my partner is not my therapist and therefore it was unfair of me to subject him to the cold feet - yes, of course I had to tell him, but after telling him, sharing the details, or analyzing the potential "why I have cold feet" more than briefly -- big mistake, and unfair to my partner.

That's what friends, family and therapists are for because what is your partner supposed to do -- she can't reassure you because she is a potential reason for the cold feet and of course she is way too biased - she wanted to marry you, after all.

Look, it's good that you didn't go through with the wedding at that time, I probably would not have subjected her to all your analysis and talking about the cold feet, and as far as specific flaws in the relationship that she could legitimately work on, even you said you weren't sure if those flaws were the reason for your doubts.

I definitely agree that when couples have specific issues they should work on them, and not run at the first sign of problems -- that is part of being engaged and married (or in any committed relationship) but when the problem is this vague "cold feet" which likely is all you and nothing to do with her, that is a problem that you must work through on your own, and since it goes to the heart of the commitment - you told the woman you proposed to that now you weren't sure if you could keep your commitment to her -- she was perfectly justified in throwing in the towel (and she did put in effort to help you work through this).

Also, telling her that you proposed because she wanted marriage so badly might have been true but certainly didn't give her confidence that you were in this for the long term.

I realize that now you do want to marry her, that you recognize that you made some mistakes and I am sorry that she doesn't want to give you another chance. Some women would, some wouldn't - it's very subjective - but I hope what I've shared shows you one perspective.

(I went through this more than once - and in one case, he kept giving me more chances until finally he threw in the towel when I again told him I was having vague anxiety/doubts about moving forward. I didn't blame him for reacting that way of course -he gave me many chances. In hindsight I realize we were not a good match and it took a number of months after the breakup for it to click for me why we weren't right together -- even though we had tried the NC/take space thing a few times over the years I would miss him, want to try again, but never really understood what wasn't right.

I do know that for some people with cold feet it never really clicks as to "why" -- and you just have to accept that for whatever reason it didn't work (I guess that is when people chalk it up to commitmentphobia but I don't buy that entirely).

Well in her case she was ok with just the cold feet part. It was the other stuff and my behavior that hurt hour most. I should have never told her that I felt pressure. I don't think I really did I was just trying to give her reasons for the cold feet. Stupid me. I should have just talked with a therapist and kept my mouth shut

Well in her case she was ok with just the cold feet part. It was the other stuff and my behavior that hurt hour most. I should have never told her that I felt pressure. I don't think I really did I was just trying to give her reasons for the cold feet. Stupid me. I should have just talked with a therapist and kept my mouth shut

Please don't beat yourself up. That is not the reaction I intended by my post. It's very hard to think clearly when you're in that situation of being about to make a lifetime commitment and feeling panicky.

I'm so sorry to hear things went this way for the two of you.

I don't know that this will help, but I'd like to offer my thoughts as to how she might be feeling. You say her father wasn't around much, and her stepfather made her life hell. I don't know that she was looking for the perfect person in you--that may be partly true--but I would venture that she came into the relationship with abandonment issues at the very least. She put her trust in you, and likely pressured you to get engaged as a way of securing a promise that you would always be there, and weren't going anywhere--and her abandonment fears were triggered when you told her you had cold feet.

I am guessing that when you then told her you had felt pressured to be engaged, and felt smothered, she heard "I got engaged to you despite these doubts and feelings, and so now I have cold feet. If I have doubts later on down the line, I may not want to stay in the relationship then, either." More abandonment fears. I am not saying you shouldn't have shared this--not at all. I'm just venturing a guess as to how it might have made her feel and why.

She tried to get over her fears and rebuild what you had, but honestly--when she started to feel close and comfortable again, she probably also got very scared that she would be hurt again, and so pulled away.

You say you went to counseling, and I think that's great...but I feel that the only way to work this out would be to address both of your issues in such a way that she KNOWS you are in this for the long haul, and won't be out the door if you have doubts 5, 10, 15 years from now.

Please understand, I am not in any way judging you, or saying that this is your fault. I'm just trying to paint a picture from what might be her point of view. Having grown up with a father in the military who was gone half the year on various assignments overseas, I know what it means to have abandonment issues, and how it's affected my relationships.

This can't have been easy for either of you. Please don't beat yourself up. No one is perfect, and everyone comes into a relationship with flaws and issues...sometimes we just trigger those specific issues in one another.

Thanks to both of you. I know I shouldn't but I can't help but beat myself up. Because it feels like I ruined the best thing I had in my life all because of some weird feelings. I thought she was giving me another chance when we started going to therapy. I don't know what happened. Do you think she might ever give me another chance? I am going to move out and give her some serious space and work on myself.

What I don't understand is why she ended things. She said she didn't love me the way she used to and loved me more like family. When I asked her if it had to do with the cold feet fiasco, she said she didn't really know. But how could that not be the reason?

Interesting - you thought it was ok to tell her you weren't sure about why you had cold feet but now that she has doubts you don't understand why she doesn't have a specific explanation - just consider that.

I agree that she might have abandonment issues but I differ with Chigal in that I don't think there needs to be an explanation like that - I think her reaction is entirely understandable for any person who thought she had a mutually committed relationship with marriage in the near future.

Well the difference is that I had my doubts about getting married so soon. Not ever. Is postponement such an awful thing. She has doubts now about the entire relationship. I still wanted to get married and I told her shortly after the cold feet thing but I guess at that point she no longer trusted me. But why did she give me another chance via therapy and then decide to bail two months into it?

Cold feet is one thing.

Telling a girl that she is smothering you by living with you...and you are getting married...is very hurtful, and another thing. Why would I want to promise to spend the rest of my life with someone who can't stand to live with me? Unless you plan to live in separate residences...

I was married to a guy who almost called off the wedding because he thought I wasn't a good enough housekeeper. For me, I thought if THAT was the only problem, for two busy people, we could either occasionally have someone come in, or he would just know that I couldn't do it all myself and he needed to pitch in more. Well, I did wish that he DID call it off, because it was a miserable marriage. I wasn't a total slob...he was just a beyond white glove test person who complained that our home didn't look like a model home 24/7.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles. If she is anal about the house...then step aside and let her do her thing if you really love her and everything else just fits.

But its too late for that now.

Also, if you are medically depressed a girl can wonder if it is just a passing thing, or if she is going to be married the rest of her life to someone who is going to be chronically depressed and that she is going to need to take care of.

I know that they say love conquers all. If I was married to someone and they developed a problem, I would be there with them through it. And I have But as far as looking for someone to marry there would be certain things I would wonder if I could handle. I could fall in love with and marry someone who was blind, had limited use of their legs, or something like that, but based on my past relationship experiences, I don't think I could marry a depressive person unless they had developed good coping/dealing with mechanisms to recognize what's their "stuff" and not constantly take it out on me. I could deal with physical limitations - no problem. But I couldn't deal with someone who couldn't give me their heart. I have been there before, and it was a very lonely, lonely marriage even though the person was in the next room.

Well the difference is that I had my doubts about getting married so soon. Not ever. Is postponement such an awful thing. She has doubts now about the entire relationship. I still wanted to get married and I told her shortly after the cold feet thing but I guess at that point she no longer trusted me. But why did she give me another chance via therapy and then decide to bail two months into it?

Because when yu get engaged and then postpone the wedding indefinitely, you might as well be saying "never" because then there's no point at being engaged (at least to me as I wrote, engagement simply means that you need some time to plan a wedding, but you have a wedding date). And you didn't tell her right away that you still wanted to get married - and so you risked her taking that to heart (understandably!) and losing trust. It shook her up and not everyone can get over something like that, especially since as you said you weren't truthful about the reasons (and she probably could sense that).

I will add that telling someone reasons that you knew before the proposal (that is, not issues that came up after you proposed) is a red flag and sounds like an excuse to bail.

You cannot put any of this on her, sorry or make the distinction about "doubts" especially because you started this.

There's a pertinent Sex and the City episode where Carrie accepts Aidan's proposal, gets cold feet and keeps stalling on a wedding date, finally saying she needs more time. He agrees but one night he gets frustrated and tells her that he wants to get married now - she asks again to wait and he responds "what will you know in 6 months that you don't know now?" (something like that) and of course her 6 months was just an estimate - I totally saw his point.

Look at it this way - she was VERY tolerant to give you the time she did and to go to therapy - that was her limit as far as effort to invest in the relationship before realizing that she couldn't trust you enough to make that lifetime commitment. It's unfair to blame her for not putting enough effort in (and realize that she put in effort to make the relationship work before this happened, too, right - as everyone does in a serious relationship).

 

I don't know that this will help, but I'd like to offer my thoughts as to how she might be feeling. You say her father wasn't around much, and her stepfather made her life hell. I don't know that she was looking for the perfect person in you--that may be partly true--but I would venture that she came into the relationship with abandonment issues at the very least. She put her trust in you, and likely pressured you to get engaged as a way of securing a promise that you would always be there, and weren't going anywhere--and her abandonment fears were triggered when you told her you had cold feet.

I know a lot of people may see things as "her" issue as "daddy wasn't around." At some point, people grow up. They manage to do okay for themselves as adults. Heck, my two cousins - dad wasn't around but they both have great marriages. One married in her 20s and has 3 great kids and an awesome friendship with her husband. They are a true match. One got married at 40, but it wasn't because of dad issues. She was an international business person and dated but never had a second/didn't meet the right one.

I think that we have to take the onus off of her as in "oh, it was her fault because she had issues" because she is not here, and focus on what can be changed or focus on the person who is perceptive and here asking questions.

No matter what the issue...except being abused as a child and stuff like that...we all have "a part" in it. If there is a breakup it is not "all one person".

I'm not trying to blame her. I'm just trying to get all the blame off of me. Thinking that I am the sole reason for the end of this relationship is killing me. But it is what it is. If its meant to be it will be. If not I just have to deal with it and try to move on.

Interesting - you thought it was ok to tell her you weren't sure about why you had cold feet but now that she has doubts you don't understand why she doesn't have a specific explanation - just consider that.

 

I agree that she might have abandonment issues but I differ with Chigal in that I don't think there needs to be an explanation like that - I think her reaction is entirely understandable for any person who thought she had a mutually committed relationship with marriage in the near future.

You are right, Batya...it is entirely understandable...it just might be even more traumatic for someone who had these issues to begin with, is what I was saying.

Also does it mean anything had anger issues? She threw a plant at me and smashed my guitar when this was a happening. Was the justifiable?

You are right, Batya...it is entirely understandable...it just might be even more traumatic for someone who had these issues to begin with, is what I was saying.

Oh I could not agree more!

Also does it mean anything had anger issues? She threw a plant at me and smashed my guitar when this was a happening. Was the justifiable?

Question for you... what's more important? Being "right" in this situation by successfully managing to assign some of the blame to her, or trying to understand it through her eyes so you can either a) repair the situation and/or b) avoid same issues in future with either her or someone else?

It sucks that you guys aren't on the same page currently, but it sounds reparable...

Also does it mean anything had anger issues? She threw a plant at me and smashed my guitar when this was a happening. Was the justifiable?

But there you go again trying to keep a scorecard. Of course that is not justifiable behavior in any circumstance - but that is irrelevant to the risks you chose to take and the situation you created - meaning that yes you are right it is not justifiable to treat another person that way but the real issue is not that but whether she was justified in choosing not to continue the relationship given your doubts and how you reacted to those doubts.

I agree that you have to choose between being right and being close. Which is more important to you?

Question for you... what's more important? Being "right" in this situation by successfully managing to assign some of the blame to her, or trying to understand it through her eyes so you can either a) repair the situation and/or b) avoid same issues in future with either her or someone else?

 

It sucks that you guys aren't on the same page currently, but it sounds reparable...

I do want to try to see the situation through her eyes, that is why I am asking how other women would feel. I know its wrong of me to try and assign blame to her, but I can't help it right now. It's how I am dealing with it and I know its not the right way.

You say our situation sounds repairable? How do you figure? She basically said she doesn't love me the same way anymore. We have been broken up for a week. I am moving out next weekend. I vowed to do NC. How on earth can I repair this? The ball is in her court, its her decision. Me telling her I was wrong before and that I want to marry her and be with her isn't going to make a bit of difference at this point.

Could be your evil cousin "Ego" is in the way ](*,)

Get rid of him and maybe you can start to open yourself!

Otherwise, set her free to find someone else who will truly, truly love her like she deserves. If you care one iota about her you wouldn't want her to suffer with less than what works for her.

And on the other hand, if she really doesn't give you the love you really want/need, set yourself free. Be kind, we are all in our own turmoil and you should give yourself no less. If your doubts are deep, let her go.

If she is worth the fight to you (and you can picture yourself growing old with her), a grand gesture might be in order... only if you want to keep her, if you want to marry her, if this was a temporary case of cold feet and now you're over it.

If not, well who would consent to continue the yoyo torture except two stone cold masochists?

I'm a woman, and I've been married....I kind of lost track of the question you were asking, but I have some thoughts about cold feet, and a story (mine).

I was the one with cold feet after I had a flash that we'd be like my parents. My parents did not have a very loving relationship, and did not seem to talk about issues, just kept a quiet tension. When I expressed cold feet to my partner he was crushed and felt rejected. I decided my feelings for him were much stronger and more important than my cold feet, and went ahead with the wedding.

I'm glad I did (although, we both think we should have eloped rather than have the uncomfortable ceremony) and we've had a great love. There have been ups and down, but always the undercurrent of love. Guess what, though, 29 years later, we're repeating my parents pattern, not the details, but the theme. Work kept him away from home for long stretches, and finally he just stopped coming home. This happened in my parent's marriage years after our marriage took place (so it wasn't a factor when I had cold feet). BUT is happening in my marriage now and I am the SAME age as my mother was when she went through this, same pattern, same number of years married.

It's freaky. I'm not yet giving up, I still do now want to be like my parents. And even if we do split, I do not want the acrimonious divorce my parents had. His parents are still together, so I can't say he's repeating his parents marriage.

But definitely, consider her parent's history, and your own parent's history as being somewhat of a factor in both of your feelings about marriage. It might not give you answers, but might help you understand what you are each working with.

What do you mean by a grand gesture might be in order? Would that even help? I thought after someone breaks up with you, you are supposed to give them space and give yourself space from them. I was planning on doing NC, but what do you mean by a grand gesture? Ask her to marry me again? I'm sure at this point in time she would say no.

Hi Tell Me Why,

I thought I might write a response before seeing everyone else's thoughts on this.

I was engaged for about 10 months. I got married a little while ago. I experiences some cold feet during the engagement, which I worked through. There were a couple of times when I told my fiance (at the time) that I was feeling those things (despite wise advice not to do so).

I have also experienced my husband (boyfriend at the time) go through something similar to depression which changed everything about the relationship while it was going on. Out of nowhere (it seemed to happen within days) he got hit by mental illness. We assume triggered by a particularly stressful situation, two weeks in unrelenting duration, that he'd just been under.

He went from adoring me to death, being certain that I was "the one" and being incredibly happy with life and our relationship - to feeling depressed, completely unmotivated, having occasional suicidal thoughts, feeling sad a lot and wondering if the reason for all of that had to do with our relationship (which was pretty much conflict free).

This was a man who chased me, persistently but respectfully, for three years and waited until I was ready to be with him.

He just switched off. His feelings seemed to have... either disappeared or covered by something very heavy that wasn't going away. He stopped being affectionate. He just withdrew. It happened practically over night. I dealt with it. Got him help. Didn't pressure him. Gave him time. And with therapy we got through it and with a proper psychiatric diagnosis and medication - he is now all recovered (although we'll always be on the lookout for a recurrence sometime down the line).

While I was living through the worst of it with him it took an enormous emotional toll. Of course you have faith that your partner loves you and it's just the illness that's making them behave that way. But faith is believing in something when you can't see it. When your partner is not only not acting like their old loving self, but is in fact acting withdrawn and positively as if they don't care about you - your faith is going to be tested in a very significant way.

Sometimes you aren't even really aware of the extent of the emotional strain that you get put through as the partner in that situation. I remember thinking I was doing ok. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, while I was stretching and cooling down on the floor of the gym I went to every morning, I started sobbing my eyes out - uncontrollably. It came out of absolutely nowhere.

When you are put through an experience like that, your emotional "well" starts to get depelted. I was thought to think about it like a balance sheet. On the "credit" side - all the happy memories, the good times, the acts of love and affection shared between you in the past, build up a list of credits. A bank of credits. When bad things happen and your partner treats you uncaringly, debits build up. As long as the credits outweigh the debits, you're in a position, emotionally, to withstand the troubles of the relationship. You have enough reserves, to fight.

But if the debits outweigh the credits, you stop having enough reserves, emotionally, to keep going.

I can only assume that having suffered, along with you, as a result of your depression, and then hearing you call off the wedding (which is really quite devastating), going through all the stresses of explaining to family and friends etc, and dealing with the fights, and what you told her about how you felt about her - I just think the debits overwhelmed the credits and she stopped having the emotional reserves to keep fighting for the relationship.

I also think the way your ex-fiance handled the situation - up until the point that she decided she could handle it no more - showed a lot of strength and maturity, love and care for you, and a willingness to fight and do what she could. But ultimately, all the bad outweighed the good and she didnt have the emotional reserve to keep the faith going.

I think at this point you have to give her a lot of space and if she wants to give it another shot - really work on building up the positive again. But if she doesn't want to try again, I think out of love for her, you should respect that.

Thanks indigo, that was a really nice post and you made a lot of good points. You are right, all I can do is give her all the space she needs. I need the space to to work on MYSELF. I started another thread on here about how I lost myself in the relationship. My world revolved around her and I didn't really have my own life or own happiness without her, which is unhealthy. I withdrew from friends, didn't make any effort to reach out to people, and a lot times I just sat around waiting for her to come home when she was out with her friends and getting annoyed if she had plans and couldn't hang out with me.

I didn't have my own life and I realize now that this was a huge problem. So as for right now, I am going to work on myself, and work on being happy BEING ME. I need to find myself again. I lost myself slowly over the last 4.5 years because I was so in love with this woman that she became the most important thing in my life and I didn't think I needed anything else, such as my own life and friends outside of her. Now with doing NC, that is my goal. Make new friends, work on goals, and work on being healthy. Only then will I find peace.

what did you mean when you said a "grand gesture" was in order?

Hey, man. Guests from out of town or I would have gotten back to you sooner...

Think about every "chick flick" you ever saw that made you shudder

Seriously, there is a huge line between creepy/overbearing/needy behavior and powerful, sweep-her (or him)-off-their-feet "grand" gestures.

(Please remember, I said MAYBE a grand gesture is in order.) The grand gesture detail is different for everyone, but it always involves showing you are willing to give up your ego (looking good and being right) in service of the better prize, which is the relationship with her/him. Even if it means you have to claim a wrong was yours when it wasn't. Hey, I've done it. I'd rather have my husband than either 1) not have him or 2) have a crappy relationship with him.

Sometimes a real person just has to show the person s/he loves that 1) s/he may be a jerk but 2) s/he is HER or HIS jerk, and only his or hers.

This requires a large dose of humility, a few (but not many, and not ever neverending) "I'm sorries," and the willingness to speak one's piece and then wait as long as necessary for the answer. Trust me when I say, we women often wait to see just how far the man we love will go to get us back. And that doesn't mean anything bad or wrong. The more public, the less creepy, the more out in the open and vulnerable you are (as long as it doesn't involve uncontrollable weeping and groveling for a man or a woman), the more we respect and appreciate the efforts you make to "make it right" with your partner. And then it becomes part of your long history with your love (God willing).

Sometimes once the first person apologizes and lays themselves at the other ones' feet (that would be in private), the other person apologizes too and then they forgive each other. This creates a new, stronger bond that can carry a relationship forward into the future... better than ever.

I cannot tell you exactly what would work for her since I don't know her, but if you concentrate on what she loves and finds important maybe you can find something that will speak to that. In the movie "Pretty Woman," Richard Gere knew she wanted the knight on the white horse to carry her away. Instead he showed up in a white limo, with flowers, shouting his love for her from the sun roof of the limo.

One guy I dated sent me a stuffed monkey via courier (he was kinda hairy) with a note telling me what a gorilla he acted like and begged my forgiveness. He injected some humor into it, and it wasn't so horrible. There was no abuse involved so the pecadillo was forgiven.

My confirmed bachelor good-time-charlie boyfriend admitted he loved me on my answering machine (and I could hear the pain just pouring out of his mouth it was so authentic) after I dumped him because our relationship wasn't at all serious... and that is the guy I married.

Don't know if any of it will help but if you really want her, and you are in it for the long haul, wait for the right moment to make the gesture that will work for you and her.

Good luck

Thank you Wendy. Its just hard right now because the break up is so fresh. I think making a grand gesture right now wouldn't be the smartest idea. Like you said, when the time is right. Its just hard because today I moved out and I plan on doing NC and I just wish she would contact me because I know I can't right now.

This past week has been rough. She came to me crying the other night telling me she was sorry for hurting me, that she wants me to be happy, and that she cares about me very much, and that she thinks she is a bad person. Then three days later, she is mad at me because of how I am handling the situation. She thinks because I have been avoiding her, which is my method of trying to heal right now, that I am being a jerk and inconsiderate. The brief moments we did talk to each other these last two weeks, I wasn't in a great mood and she thinks that means I haven't been handling this like an adult.

Then she says it is selfish of me to do NC because we have been together so long. One minute she is crying and apologize, the next minute, she is mad at me and thinks I'm the jerk for wanting to avoid her! I don't get women!!

Its just so hard because if I had the chance, I would marry her tomorrow, thats how serious about it I now am. But I can't make her feel the same way. All I can do now is heal myself and if the time is right, hopefully something good will happen, and perhaps her feelings will change, but I know I can't just sit around and wait for that to happen.