logic

UPDATE: Hey all, I know I haven't been on in a while, was going through some really tough doo-doo there for a minute. BUT..... After about 2 weeks of total NC, she called me last Sunday. In tears. Said she was miserable. Couldn't stop thinking about us. Misses me. Long story short: She's been dating this guy from her office. He's 39 (10 years older than her), just separated from his wife. She knows it's a total rebound for the both of them. Says they don't have much in common besides their respective relationship drama. Says he's been there for her as a shoulder to cry on, and she's been there for him as well. Says he's really upfront and honest with her, and that they both have "zero expectations" right now. Taking it one day at a time. I saw her on Monday, she cried. Told me she really wishes we could be together, only it cannot happen right now. And she's right. Everything is still too fresh, the pain too real. Too strong. Says she never realized what it meant to really love someone, until I broke it off, and told her we had to go our separate ways. I did that purely for self-preservation purposes. And also because I was convinced she didn't care anymore. Boy, was I wrong. She was checking my Myspace page evry day, obsessively. I was checking hers, too. I was posting blogs that were intended for her. So she could know a little of what was going on in my life. She doesn't blog. So I knew nothing, except what I was making up in my head. I came within 2 inches of hating her, of not caring. Of convincing myself that she had moved on, and discarded me, us, everything. Boy, was I wrong! Saw her again on Tuesday. Jumped the gun. Thought she wanted to get back together RIGHT NOW. Was wrong again. We both cried. We kissed. We were confused. In pain. We both know we can never be just "friends". She says she needs time to heal, to "wipe the slate clean". Says she doesn't know how long it will take. During the course of the conversation, I said "maybe in 5 years we'll bump into each other..." "It won't TAKE 5 years!" she said. We decided that the only thing for us to do right now is to keep our distance. I just hope she'll work through her pain sooner, rather than later. I am not really worried too much about this guy she's seeing. I have a feeling that once they run out of relationship issues to talk about, they'll part as friends. I trust her judgement. She can spot an * * * * * * * from 300 yards. She won't let him hurt her. I don't know the guy -- never seen him in my life. I just worry that he is like every other guy out there, and that he's got his agenda. But she's smarter than him. She's smarter than most people I've ever met. She's just confused and hurt and vulnerable. I never knew that True Love can be so painful. So damn hard. That two people can want to be together so badly, but know that it doesn't work right now. Man, I'm rambling again.. Sorry. Any ideas on how to proceed? Seems that Scruff's advice was spot on. Thanks, mate. Can't wait to hear your (and everyone else's) thoughts on this. I'm trying real hard not to think about her being with this guy.. It's damn hard. I don't want to know anything. I don't want to know when she's with him, or what they're doing. I just keep reassuring myself that it's a distraction. A diversion. And I am trying to trust her. To trust that she'll make the right choices. At least now I know that she really loves me. And I love her. And with that, shouldn't we be okay in the long run? Alright, enough rambling. I'm all ears now.

Hey everyone, this is only my second day here, but I already feel like I can share with you all freely. For those of you that haven't seen my fist thread from yesterday, break it down simply: Me and my GF of 2 1/2 years (friends for 5 years before that) broke up about a week ago. We had been living together for a little over a year, and things were going pretty badly, so we decided that I should move out (she could afford to keep the place, I couldn't by myself). We were going to see if things improved once we no longer lived together. She wanted me to get my life together, for me to stand on my own two feet. Once I moved out, things got much worse, because I became angry. We broke up. We left it open-ended intentionally. The idea is that RIGHT NOW our relationship is not working anymore. We both love each other deeply and (I believe) truly. So this is now day 1 of absolute, total NC. It's hard. I keep telling myself that this is the only way it can be right now. We can't be friends, even though she wanted us to be. We decided we'd speak again in a month. We'll see if that works. So right now I am looking for anyone to spend time with, to get my mind off of recent events and the current situation. I just recently got in touch with a female friend of mine, who seems really excited to see me, and to catch up on things. She was always just a friend. She still is, at least to me. I don't know what her intentions are. My question is: am I wrong for expressing interest in seeing her, even though I am doing it really out of extreme loneliness? I mean, she's a friend, and it will be fun to hang out, but I probably wouldn't be getting in touch with her if I weren't in this situation. Am I going to be just using her? Or is this okay? Moral dilemma. I am not yet trying to move on, per se, because I still maintain hope that my ex and I can reconcile someday. So am I being evil here? Let me hear your thoughts.

Scruff, Mate, you are cool in my book. Thanks for the advice! Cheers!

Scruff, See, you get my point. I have this gut feeling that this isn't just another breakup for her. Heck, I KNOW it isn't. She told me so herself. She never intended for us to simply walk out of each other's lives. She even told me that if I wasn't going to be in her life, she'd be devastated. Well, for now that's exactly how it's going to be. For now, I don't know her anymore. What the future holds is unkown. But I am almost 100% CERTAIN that our story is far from over yet.

Oh, and she maintains that she loves me deeply. Like, seriously loves me. We used to sit around and fantasize about getting married, and even picked out names for our kids. Plus, the last time I saw her (last Friday), as I drove her home, she started talking about what our kids would be like. That keeps me going. When I said good-bye to her that night, I remember saying that I was looking at this situation as if we were connected by a sort of cable, and that the connector between the two ends of the cable had gotten all corroded and fouled up. And that the signal was weak and distorted. So I said that we should disconnect, clean the pins in the connector, and then try to plug back in. She said it was a really good analogy. I just hope she doesn't forget that idea with time. I'm not trying to be in her face anymore, I won't keep trying to put us back together. I'm going to give her time, and am going to basically stick to Jayar's "Reactive NC mode" idea. Meaning -- I won't make the first move. Unless something truly amazing happens, I will leave it up to her to reach out to me.

Wow, you guys are great! Fair and balanced. Both sides of the fence. I like that. (Seriously). See, the thing with me and my ex is, we were SO totally attached by some sort of umbilical cord, that I have a feeling she simply doesn't know what she's getting herself into by not having me around. True, that dependence and attachment varied from time-to-time, but overall we really WERE two parts of a whole for a long time. And again, she NEVER said that it was truly over. SHe just said that "this relationship isn't working, RIGHT NOW..." Plus, I know that she is a very strong-willed person, and that she has very strong convictions of what's right, and that she might be doing this for the good of the RELATIONSHIP, because she might feel like we need to RESET this whole thing and try it again later. NC for a month doesn't mean that we'll be getting back together after the month is up. No, it just means that we'll be staying out of each other's way. In the meantime, I can keep working on bettering myself and putting my life on the right track. ANd then, we'll see....

Alright, first off I wanna say that this site is excellent. I just found it today, but I can already see that it will help me get some perspective on what's going on. So here's my story: About a week ago (Thursday, July 27th) my GF of 2+ years and I broke up. We had been living together for about a year and 4 months. We have known each other however, for almost 8 years. I met her in College, my Sophomore, her Senior year. That's right, she's 2 years older than me. On top of that, she is the only serious, long-term relationship I've ever had. On top top (LOL), she is the only woman I have ever been with (in the biblical sense). You can see where this is going (major freaking pain). In any case, our breakup was more or less mutual in the sense that we both knew it had reached a dead-end and was going nowhere, fast. However, this doesn't mean that we hate each other, on the contrary -- I love her more than ever before, and she says she loves me more than she ever loved anyone else. Background: (I swear I'll try to keep this short!) Our istory is such, that we were always more than just "friends". There was always this sexual tension between us, from the first week that we knew each other. I knew I loved her very early on, but had no idea what to do about it since she was always involved with other people. My lack of experience with women made me think I had NO CHANCE in hell with her. So I didn't try. I would stick around as long as possible, until I could no longer bear seeing her with other people. Then I would disappear for months. Inevitably, we would end up best friends again, over and over. Until one day, she moved to Seattle with her then BF. I thought I'd never see her again, and it made it easy for me to think I was OK with it. However, I never forgot her, never stopped kicking myself for letting her get away. 2 1/2 years ago, she came back to NYC. She then began looking for me. She tried the Internet, and found my name thru a Google search on my buddy's website. She emailed him, he forwarded it to me, but left her email address out ( * * * * * * *). She did not give up: she looked my Dad up in the White Pages and finally called my house. We met up, and I knew that if I didn't at least try this time -- I would be giving up my last chance. So I did, and it was amazing, and a year later we got an apartment together, and we were happy, until we weren't happy anymore. I now sit and look back at all those little moments when I should have been paying attention, should have been close to her, instead of watching TV or whatever... I see all my mistakes. I have begun a radical overhaul of my life and my inner self. I quit smoking. I am going back to school. I am trying my damndest to get a better job (one of our biggest problems was that I work a dead-end * * * * job, while she is on a career track, making 2 times the money I do). Basically, she realized she couldn't live with someone as un-motivated and lazy as me. This led to resentment and frustration on her part, which I picked up on, but thought she was just getting bored. So I got angry and withdrew, and our love-life suffered as a result. Which in turn exacerbated her frustration, which made me even MORE withdrawn, and so on and so forth... This is our 2nd day of NC. She wanted us to stay friends, but it was not meant to be that way. I couldn't stop trying to put it back together (I regretted the breakup the same day it happened), and we realized that we need to go our separate ways. FOR NOW... So, even though we are now supposed to be NC, she sent me an article she found online (about religion VS science, a common hot-topic with us), with the subject line "interesting read, enjoy!". * * *? How does that work? I replied with a simple "Thank You". Not exactly NC now, is it? I want to call her so badly (which I did a couple times AFTER we broke up), but I know I shouldn't. The deal was: we were going to stay out of each other's way for ONE MONTH. We texted each other a couple times right after that, and I even tried to go back on that one month thing, but she said no. And now she sends me an internet article. What am I supposed to do? She and I both said: "This chapter is over, but the book is not yet closed". Very open-ended. So, do I keep up the NC in the hopes that she will realize this is a bad idea? I know I have changed so much in the 3 weeks we haven't lived together, and even in the week that we've been "single". I know that if I ever have another chance at this, that we can make it work. But she says she doesn't have any more to give to our relationship. FOR RIGHT NOW.... One thing I know -- getting OVER her is not an option to me. Same as not breathing is not an option. C'mon, opinions, thoughts, advice... Bring it. I want to know what you guys think. PS: Told ya it was gonna be long...