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Hello, just looking for some advice as to whether or not I should call things off with my girlfriend. We've been together about 9 months, originally we met overseas then she moved to my home town before we had really had the chance to get to know each other well. She is a nice girl, and shes fun, but I cant help feeling that we have differences. I have an academic career, she works in hospitality, we have very different tastes in music, I like to play sport and she doesn't, actually I cannot think of very many things we have in common. Apart from that she can act quite immature at times. So far I have just gone along with it. I know that she really likes me, but I dont really feel like I can see myself being with her forever. It seems awful to call things off because I can see how upset she would be, and I care about her. And for the most part I really do like spending time with her, and I'd feel lonely without her. What I would like to know is, how do you know when its right to break up with someone? At what point can you tell that the cracks in the relationship are too big for you to stay together?

Hi lgirl. I feel your pain. Thats a horrible situation. Its soooooo hard to get past these things. Cheating is just so wrong. I felt incredibly angry at my girlfriend when I found out she had slept with someone else. And things only got worse from there. I was so miserable about it that she dumped me, and that was 9 months ago. I just could not bring myself to trust her anymore. You keep running it all through your head... Why did they do it? What did it mean to them? What did I mean to them? I can relate to you wanting to hurt everyone you see who is like her. This person has caused you so much greif, you feel they deserve some of it back. My girlfriend cheated on me with a scottish guy, and still now whenever I meet someone with a scottish accent I feel uncomfortable. I dont have any real answers. Learn from the mistakes that have been made. I remember reading somewhere, when you find yourself going through hell, just keep going. Be grateful for all the good things you have going for you. Try to start afresh. It sounds like this guy doesn't have much of a future (no job at 33 is a little concerning), and as they say, theres loads of fish out there.

yeah. ego. jealousy. insecurity. competitiveness. I felt all that stuff with my ex, after she slept with someone else. I guess i just wanted to know that she really appreciated me more than him. Which was pretty stupid i guess.

Thanks for all the replies and advice : ) I think you are right in saying that I sometimes feel as though I am abnormal because I have different views to sex and relationships than a lot of the people around me. This confuses me because i want to feel 'normal' yet a lot of my friends do engage in one night stands and the like, and i know that these are generally good, nice, successful people so how can they be wrong? But as Ritzbitz said, I shouldn't buy into what people think is normal, because everyone is different, and if I think about it, i probably have just as many friends who have conservative views of sex as those who dont So i dont think ill ever choose to have a one night stand, i will reserve sex for meaningful relationships. Thankyou all again for helping me with this

Im starting to think I have a complex over sex and virginity. I lost mine when i was 20 (almost 21). Is that sad? The first girl I slept with i didn't have an orgasm because i didn't feel completely comfortable. When I was 21 I had my first long term relationship, that was the first time i was really comfortable with sex. She cheated on me (we were in a 'friends with benefits' situation and she had a one night stand with another guy) and that messed me up a lot because i have never been able to pick up a girl and sleep with her in one night. She dumped me about 6 months ago, because I had become so messed up and jealous over it. I've always been a bit hopeless with girls. Ive felt kind of afraid for a long time that I would never loose my virginity. Maybe Im picky about who i sleep with, or maybe i just use that as justification as to why i haven't had more sex/lost my virginity earlier. Maybe im just afraid of getting close to girls, because ive been dumped/rejected and had bad experiences with relatinships in the past. Maybe Im looking for something too meaningful, taking it too seriously. Maybe i just need to get over my ex. I really like girls, i really want to go out and have fun and have sex, i just dont want to have a complex over it. I dont know if what im saying makes a whole lot of sense, im having a hard time recognising my own emotions and sorting this out, can anyone else relate to what im saying?

Thanks everyone for your replies : ) i haven't said a word to her. She may end up calling me, in which case i may speak to her, or just hang up, but whether she calls or not i dont really care... im totally smitten with a different girl now. lol

Yeah, my only concern is that if i keep ignoring her, shell get more flustered and more anxious and ill feel guilty about this. maybe ill just wait, if it gets to the point where she calls me, then ill talk, and ill say "whatever emotional problems you have now you need to sort out on your own. you dumped me, i cant be there emotionally for you any more"

Heres the background of my situation: My ex dumped me over 6 months ago, afterwards i was a wreck for a long time, i got angry at her and called her names, i tried to apologise to her, tried to win her back, tried to make myself look non-desperate (obviously making myself look more desperate). The original reason behind why she dumped me was that i had issues (jealousy mainly) with the fact that she slept with another guy while we were together. When I say 'together', it was a friends-with-benefits situation after i had originally dumped her, although i felt we were close and was hurt by her having a one night stand with another guy (whom incidentally was leaving the country the next day... and she knew that). Thats the short story, heres the long one if you're interested: link removed Anyway, i feel like ive really made great strides in moving on, i started no contact with her about a month ago and im feeling much better about myself now, more or less forgiven myself for my mistakes and also tried to learn from them. Recently she sent me an email saying she had an anxiety attack, which she has problems with from time to time, and she said she felt guilty about the fact that she slept with this other guy and that wasn't very safe for me (i assume she means in the sense that she could have passed on diseases to me). In the email she said the reason that she was sending it was she wanted to try to 'get rid of her guilt'. She said her new boyfriend thinks what she did was normal. She said shes sorry the email messes up my emotions even more. Pretty much ever since we broke up, every time i have contacted her she has told me to leave her alone and she wouldn't give me the time of day to listen to me, telling me im annoying and disgusting her (calling her names...). Which i suppose is fair enough, i was acting obsessive and stuff. Now shes sent me this email in an attempt to try and make herself feel better about herself, and in the process hurting me (it did stir up my emotions a bit, reminding me of how she hurt me). I think thats a little selfish. At the end of the email she said i wasn't allowed to call her back but i could email her back, once. Which i found patronising. So thats why i didn't reply, i made the decision for myself to stick to no contact. I think she really expected me to reply. Now, about 5 days later, i guess its still playing on her mind, because shes sent me an email last night asking me if i got her previous email, then a text message today saying she needs to know if i got it, and she thinks i must have because im 'refusing to answer her'. Its as though she wants me to reply and get angry at her so she can feel better about dumping me. Or if i reply and forgive her (which i have no intention of doing... shes treated me like crap for the past 6 months) she will feel better about herself that way. In the email she really didn't ask me a question, all she really did was say to me that she was feeling guilty, so what am i supposed to reply with anyway. If it was supposed to me an apology, it was a very bad one, it just upset me, and she said the only reason was to try and make herself feel better. So what do i do now? I could just keep ignoring her, but i feel thats a bit immature. I was thinking about replying and saying 'yeah i got your email. its not that im not refusing to reply, i just dont feel any reason to'. would that be a good idea? just want to leave her in the past now

What Miss M said sounds about right. People are selfish. Guys love to stroke their egos, and successfully bedding a woman makes a guy feel powerful. Guys aren't all like that. I've never had a one night stand, and dont think i ever will.

I have to say I totally agree with everyone else. I think you will regret sending this email down the line. It sounds like you spent a long time writing it. Since I started no contact with my ex things have been much better. No contact isn't always easy, but it helps you to accept and move on. Give it a go

She just emailed me, for the first time in ages, telling me she had an anxiety attack today (she used to have a problem with anxiety when i first met her). She said she felt guilty thinking about how her sleeping with jamie wasn't very safe and it could have affected me (i guess she means if she had transferred a disease from him to me). She said the reason she is emailing me to tell me this is that she wants to get rid of her guilt. She said she felt more for jamie than what she let on to me, she convinced herself that she didn't like him but really she did. She said shes sorry if this email stuffs my emotions up more (which it has a bit... im tired or remembering the stuff she did which hurt me) but she just had to say it to me. She said i cannot call her back but i can email her back. Once. So she obviously doesn't feel she even wants to be friends with me now (she also has a new boyfriend who tells her that what she did with jamie was ok and she shouldn't worry about it). So what should I do? Maintain no contact? email her back and say 'thats ok i forgive you, i hope you can get over your anxiety'? or say 'f*** you you treat me like im worthless now i dont care about you'? half of me wants to say both of those things... right now i think ill just delete it and never email her back. Things have been much better since ive started no contact. Would that be the best thing to do?

hmm. Good question For me it would be travelling overseas, exploring, learning new things, meeting new people, taking some risks, experiencing things that i have never experienced before. I feel like theres always more I could be doing in my life, if only I had more time (and money). I want to learn how to windsurf, play the drums, go to egypt, buy a motorbike. Next year im going to canada to learn to snowboard, I cant wait. Hopefully ill get to see the aurora borealis while im there

this is a little off topic, but your signature is so true! ive been thinking about this lately. In every relationship i can think of, there always seems to be one person who has the 'upper hand', the one who is happy, confident, and totally independent of the other. Meanwhile the other person tends to feel jealous, clingy, under appreciated. It seems that whoever cares less is in charge.

Thank for your comments, i appreciate it. I will definitely try to stick to a 'no contact policy' and try to forget about her. I have actually already deleted her number/email address/everything that reminds me of her from my life, now its just the memories of her that are swimming around in my head on a daily basis that i have to let go of (i wish i hadnt memorised her phone number!) Lessons that i have learnt: - dont become dependent on someone else for your own happiness. Maintain a level of emotional detachment and individuality in a relationship so that you can be happy for yourself no matter what happens. The old cliche, you must love yourself before you can be loved. - try to love people unconditionally. Dont punish your partner if they have done something which has upset you, allow them to feel the negative consequences of their own actions for themselves. I my case, i should have left her after she slept with someone else. Dont try to control them. If you feel you need to control them and you feel jealous, the relationship is unhealthy and you should let go of either your jealousy or the relationship. - In your life, you have no control over how anyone else feels about you, the only thing that you can control in your life is yourself

Well im not quite sure where to start with this. Its complicated... (arent they always?) I was with a girl for a year. Early on in the relationship, i dumped her, because she was falling for me and i didn't feel the same way. I dumped her out of guilt, i didn't want to end up hurting her more further down the line. She seemed to take it very well, she wasn't clingy and didn't contact me at all. After a few weeks of no contact, we chatted again, went to see a movie, and ended up in a sort of 'friends-with-benefits' relationship. She said very little about how she really felt about me, and I wasn't being particularly open with my emotions towards her either, i guess she thought i didnt care to get her back. But I thought we were close, we were making plans to go on an overseas holiday at the end of the year, and spending a lot of time together. Then, one night she was out with her friends, picked up a tourist and took her back to her place and they slept together. This guy was leaving the country the very next day, and she knew that, but she still slept with him. The next time that i saw her, she told me about how she went out, I asked her if she picked up (half jokingly) and she told me there was a guy who was interested in her, but she didn't do anything with him. She said to me a few times after this how he was a funny guy, and he had a cute accent. A few nights later, i found all these text messages on my phone from a guy named jamie, and she quickly took the phone off me. I told her that night that i "still felt very close to her", i guess that she realised then that i really still liked her. A few nights later, we were sitting in her room, she was checking her email, and there was one from this jamie guy again. So i finally said "what did you do with him?" and she said she didnt want to talk about it. I said "tell me or im leaving", again she said she didn't want to talk about it. I said "did you sleep with him" and she said yes. I was devestated. I know i had dumped her earlier, but i just was so upset. Looking back, i really wish i had just ended everything right there and then, got her completely out of my life. I made the mistake of thinking that i could get over what had happened, and i tried to work through it. I stayed with her. At times i got very angry and took it out on her, then felt bad and apologised. I guess i felt that i should punish her for what she did to me. This went on for a long time, i would bring it up when we were together, much to her annoyance, but i really just could not get it out of my head. I had these images of her sleeping with him stuck in my head. It was the first thing i would think about every morning when i awoke, and it would get me so down all the time. I came close to dumping her a few times, i guess i was just too gutless to follow through with it. I really liked her at the same time. well, after about 8 months of this, it got worse and worse, i started getting controlling of her and very jealous, insecure, depressed with these thoughts of her with another guy. I guess i was scared that she would do it to me again. Finally she dumped me. That was about 6 months ago. After she dumped me, i sent her something quite nasty, basically describing what she did with jamie, calling her a sl*t. My mentality was that if i got back at her it would help me to feel better about being dumped. how wrong i was... it just made me feel worse. Ive been apologising since then. And at other times ive been angry again, and lashing out at her. Then apologisting again. She says she wants space. I guess i cant really blamer her. Her latest contact with me was her saying 'seriously ben, if you contact me again i will change my phone number. you annoy me and disgust me'. I feel terrible that she has completely lost all respect for me... i feel like ive lost a lot of respect for myself. I think about all the mistakes i made. Sometimes i really miss her. I feel like everything was my fault, i feel guilty, i blame myself for how everything has worked out. I've broken all the rules after we broke up, i tried to get back with her and made myself look pathetic and weak. And now i feel like thats what i am. Now if i get angry at her i end up feeling guilty, if i try to be nice and tell her im happy for her she ignores me and i feel small. I really find it hard to have no contact with her, i find myself writing emails and text messages to her every now and again. She told me a while ago that she has a new boyfriend, and i found this really hard to deal with. She told me to just 'get over it', she tells me im crazy for acting the way i do. Ive acted in obsessive and crazy ways, one night when i was really down i sent her 20 text messages in one night. Am i crazy? I want to be normal... well thats my story. Im still working on getting over her. I guess the best thing for me is just to try to forget about her completely. The more i contact her the worse i end up feeling (pathetic, unwanted). I suppose i just have a hard time letting go. She was my first real long-term relationship, the first girl i slept with on a regular basis. I felt like we were very close, and for someone who knows me so well to tell me shes disgusted by me is hurtful. I have said some disgusting things to her out of anger. Maybe i am a disgusting person... she makes me feel so small. She cast me aside and hasn't looked back. And moved on so easily with her new boyfriend. I guess my problem isnt as big as some of the other posts on this site, but i really just wanted to let it out and see what people think. Am i normal for how i have reacted? Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else? can i forgive myself for how i reacted to her dumping me, making her loose all respect for me? Thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read it. I appreciate any advice.