ThoughtfulAndWaiting

Hello everyone, First of all, I want to thank all of you for your insightful comments and your time. It is much appreciated. I've read and considered everything you've posted, even if I haven't directly replied. I thought some of you might be interested in how the story ends...or begins. In short, her and I have reconciled and agreed to move forwards together with what we've learned. This has come after exchanging thoughtful words, kind gestures, and lots of patience. She's invited me to travel with her family out of town for a week and a half as well. From experience I know that this invitation does not come lightly. It appears we are on the road to healing and rebuilding things together. I have learned and will not make the same mistakes again as I did before. I felt I should share this (a) since there does seem to be a lot of sad stories of love and loss on these forums, and perhaps they needed brightening up a bit with a happy one, and (b) to once again thank you for advising me to be kind, respectful, and patient. I hope others might be able to learn from where I went wrong, and maybe themselves also get second chances they may doubt they deserve. All the best, everyone. It is my fervent hope that you never hear from me again. 🙂

This was definitely not a fling, just to be clear. I'm not seeing anyone, and neither is she, as far as I know. When I asked her out (before we first started dating), she asked that I wait and give her time until she was ready to date again. I did, and we were friends only. After a long while, she told me she was ready to date, and then we did. I will wait. I will be patient and wait, thanks. I agree that we communicated poorly on this issue, but otherwise, our communication was actually great. It was just we had a major failure to communicate on something (what I perceived as emotional distance and a lack of commitment from her), which coincided with some stressful events on my end. That turned what should have been a simple-to-resolve issue into something that I didn't reach out to try and resolve. It was stupid and foolish of me to give up like this, and I feel awful. I really feel so terrible about this. I feel so bad for hurting her like that. Thinking back on it, I have no idea how I managed to do something so stupid with someone so great. I will regret this for the rest of my life. I feel awful, and wish we could get back together. I'd never let her go ever again and spend every day proving it to her. I will provide updates if I hear from her. But at this point, I don't know if I will.

These are all great points, thanks. I'm keeping my distance and not contacting her. Explained this way, it makes sense, thanks. If our situation was reversed (if she dumped me, and then contacted me a few months later), I would probably need time to think, too (and more than just a couple days), even if I was dying to get back together with her. My head would be telling my heart to take things slow, to make sure I didn't rush into anything that could be hurtful again, including hurtful to my pride. Hell, I'd probably make her wait even a bit longer on top of that, just because I'd still be a little hurt and would want her to know it on some level. Yeah, I made it clear to her that it was resolved, and I talked about why it happened, and I told her what I should have done instead of breaking things off when I sensed she was distant. (We also talked about where that distance came from---turns out it was nothing, just some poor communication.) Thanks for asking. Very true. I know her well enough to say that our intimate phone call was definitely a positive sign of her opening her heart again, but to what degree, I don't know.

Hi. I have a bit of a pickle here and could use some support. I'm a male in my early 30's. I knew this girl from grad school for about 2 years. There was always mutual interest between us, but due to COVID, and us being with other people at the time, nothing ever really happened. Eventually, we started dating, for about 3-4 months, and it was amazing for both of us. Our conversations were always deep and thoughtful, we were both respectful and kind, and talked all the time. We appreciated and supported each other whenever we could. We went on lots of amazing road trips and had really fun adventures together. Everything we did was magical and fun. Due to some extreme stress that I was going through at the time, and some occasional emotion distance from her, I broke it off after 3-4 months. I was under the impression that she wasn't as serious about the relationship as I was (although it turned out I was wrong, as we'll see). This was a very stupid thing to do, as you'll soon see. Two months after we broke up, she sent me a happy birthday message, which was very nice. She clearly remembered. I thanked her and wished her well, but her only reply was "thanks", and no further conversation occurred. Then, two months after that, I decided to text her. She was friendly and agreed to a phone call a couple of days later. Our chat lasted one-and-a-half hours, and it was amazing! We reminisced about all of our good times, what we did wrong, how we could have communicated better (and what we could have communicated better, or done better in general). There were lots of laughs and even a bit of flirting from her during all topics we covered. The topic of marriage---briefly---came up at one point. I know her well and can say with certainty that these things would not have happened if there was no interest from her; she takes relationships seriously. In our phone chat, I laid it on the line for her---I apologized for my stupid mistake, and told her what I should have done instead, i.e., communicated about the stress and emotional distance. It was at this point that we found out that neither of us was trying to be distant, we just communicated our support in different ways and sometimes didn't align properly. We both talked about the ways we had improved ourselves in the last 4 months or so. We also both agreed that if we could go back in time and change things, that we would. We agreed that we both still thought of (and even missed) our great memories together, from time to time. I asked her if she wanted to start talking some time about rebuilding the relationship with what we've learned now. She paused, and said she wanted to think about it. When I asked why, and if I had done something wrong, she said I hadn't, just that she needed to think. The conversation once again got light-hearted, and we shared some more laughs just like we used to before. She even asked me pointedly if I had met anyone. After some more chatting, I asked what she needed from me to help her, and what kind of space I should give her. We agreed that she would text/phone me when she was done thinking, and that I would give her space to do this. We hung up on friendly, positive terms. (She even texted me afterwards about a cute picture of my cat that I sent her during our conversation.) As I've mentioned, I know her pretty well; there were a ton of very positive signs from her indicating that she was interested (and she has never done that lightly), and no negative ones (aside from the time she needs to think). These were some of the same signs that she used to indicate interest in me before we first starting dating. What's confusing me is the time she needs to think: what is the time to think for? I honestly believe that she is still interested in me romantically. Also, it's now been almost 4 full days since our conversation; she's not the kind of person to leave someone hanging permanently, either. So, how long will she keep me waiting for? Thanks for reading.