Luke17

Davie, I understand how you feel and am sad too. My ex-gf has a new boyfriend and I despise him. As much as I want to think that they'll break up and she'll come back to me, I realize that there are 3 billion other women on this planet and lots of them are capable of showing me more love than my ex ever did. Let her go knowing that one of these days, a new girl will come along who will have all the qualities you loved about your ex and none of the things you hated. Remember that most of us on here are sad, but it is that sadness that will allow us to appreciate all the happiness in our lives to come.

So, I've been doing NC since Thanksgiving. She contacted me two days ago to say congrats on my new baby cousin who was just born. Pretty random reason to make contact and I'm not even sure how she found out about it. Anyways, I didn't respond to her text but did send her a quick email the next day to say thanks and ask when her sister (who's pregnant) is due. I thought I should be polite and at least acknowledge her. Maybe this was dumb. She emailed me back immediately asking what's new with me but I didn't respond. She called me that night and I didn't pick up. I texted her back about an hour later saying that I was out and couldn't really talk. I got another text from her last night asking if I was out again and I said yes. She then wrote back "just get a gf" which I found to be kind of odd. I realize that I should probably not have responded to any of her contact but I felt like it would be rude not to. I ended up calling her tonight, I guess out of curiosity to see why she was contacting me and to let her know once and for all that friendship won't work between us. We talked for probably too long, our relationship came up as well as her budding relationship with her "career guy" who is still in Europe. She said she wanted me to get a girlfriend so that she'd know I'd be okay. I told her I was fine with things and told her that being friends is not going to work. She kinda said she still thought of me as a best friend but I asked her if it made sense to be dating one guy and stay best friends with your ex. She kept asking if I was okay with things and I reminded her that she was the one who had been trying to contact me. I told her that it'd probably be the last time we spoke for a long time. Even though I broke NC, I feel like I gave her some things to think about and that I got better closure for me to forget about reconciling.

The Hierophant, Thank you very much for the advice. I've been wanting to get a female perspective on my situation and I really appreciate hearing your optimistic take on things. What you've said about how you think she's feeling is the same thing I've been picking up on in my brief interactions with her. Based on what everyone has told me, I don't think I'll see her if she wants to meet up around Christmas time (and I'm suspecting she will). When she contacts me again, I guess I should just be honest and say I have no interest in hanging out as friends and that I don't want to hear from her unless it's because she wants to give our relationship another shot. This will be hard because I'd love to see her, but I'm sure it'll be just as hard on her and might make her finally see how badly she wants me in her life. In the meantime, I am going to do my best to suck it up and move on with my life and really accept the fact that it's all on her at this point.

I haven't posted anything in awhile and I just wanted to give an update on my situation and see if anyone had any advice/criticism on how I've been handling things with me ex. Anyways, this past weekend she was home for Thanksgiving and sent me a text asking if we should see each other while she was in town. I asked her what she'd want to do and she said she didn't know. I suggested coffee which she agreed to and we settled on meeting up on Saturday. That night (Wed.), she was out at a bar and called me to see if I could give her a ride home. I didn't go and let her brother pick her up instead. On Friday night, she texted me again and asked "coffee tonight or tomorrow?" I responded by saying that I was going out that night and we'd stick with doing it on Saturday. The next day, I texted her to ask what time she wanted to meet up and she called me back awhile later saying she was too tired and was going to take a nap instead. I told her that it was fine if we didn't meet up but she kept saying she felt bad and agreed to meet. At first we were just going to meet at the coffee shop but she called me back to ask if I could pick her up which I did. We talked for about an hour, catching up on what we'd been up to since the breakup. No talk about our relationship or dating other people but she did say that she was having a hard time getting over me. I acted like I no longer had any interest in getting back together. I tried to keep it light and be funny/confident, basically treating it like a first date. I drove her home and told her maybe I'd see her somewhere down the road and she told me not to be so dramatic. As soon as I got home she texted me saying "Good talking to you! We'll have to do it again over xmas! Take care!" I'm wondering if it was a mistake to see her and whether or not it would be a mistake to meet up with her again when she's back in a couple weeks. I realize that if any reconciliation is to take place, it's still a ways off but I want to know if this friendly casual dating can be a good thing in reminding her of what she's missing out on. I know that letting her think of us as "just friends" is not a good thing but I am certain she still has feelings for me whether she's willing to admit it or not. What do you guys think?

OpenHeart1, I think you were right on as far as my ex goes and needing to know that I would be able to support her someday. I'm sorry to hear that things didn't work out in your similar situation. It's hard when you know she still has feelings for you but is too scared to risk financial uncertainty to commit to a future together. It is this inner conflict that I can tell she's still feeling that is making it hard for me to move on completely. An update on my situation: Last night she called me to wish me an early happy birthday but I didn't have my phone with me so she left a voicemail. She followed that up with an email saying that she left me a voicemail and that she wanted to have some sort of relationship with me, but that it would probably be awhile before we could be friends. She also texted me today to say happy birthday. I waited a few hours before texting her back to say thank you for all the birthday wishes. I also found out that she IMed (look at all these forms of communication, gotta love technology) my sister and told her to wish me a happy birthday as well. What do you think her apparent need to make contact with me in some way means, if anything? I suppose it could be that she wants me to think of her as a good friend and make sure I got her message but it seems a little excessive to me.

I just wanted to apologize for writing such a long post. There's a lot of needless detail in there and I should have edited it a bit before posting, but I appreciate the responses. I am definitely not planning on changing for her benefit but for my own. I think she now realizes that we will no longer be friends but still says things like "I wish we could have just been friends from the start because then you could still be in my life." The parental pressure thing sucks but I realize that I don't really want to be with someone who is so easily swayed by their parent's opinion of me. At this point, I am excited about going out and meeting new girls, but would still be open to getting back together with the ex in the future if she showed me that she was willing to accept me for who I am/who I am becoming. Thanks for all the good advice.

About five weeks ago, my girlfriend of 18 months told me she wanted to take a step back in our relationship. She said she needed to figure out who she was and what she wanted and that she couldn't do that with me around. (We were living together at the time.) At first she said she just wanted to take a break but then said that she was pretty sure we wouldn't end up together. The main reason for breaking off our relationship was that I am a starving artist who was waiting tables and she is a young career woman with a 401K. She said that we don't have the same values or ambition and thereforeeee would never get married. When we first starting dating, she was very supportive of me and my dreams of becoming a screenwriter, not to mention the fact that she was very uncertain about whether her chosen career path was right for her. Deep down she wanted to go back to school to become a teacher, but job security is very important to her parents so she stayed at her job. As we kept dating and her mother and older sister started telling her to keep her eyes open for someone better, who had more ambition (and money) than me, she began to get worried about whether or not we were right for each other. Eventually, she developed a crush on a guy she works with who is more career-oriented and who her family would more readily accept as a suitor. However, she maintained that she still loved me, that I was her best friend and that I understood her better than anyone else. She was confused about everything and wanted to be single so that she could figure out her life. (Being that we are both 23, I realize that this is fairly common) In the end, she said that she needed to be practical and ultimately made the decision with her head, but said that her feelings for me had waned based on her worried thoughts about our future together. In any case, we were still living together for two weeks after we broke up, while I gave my notice at my job and got my plane ticket to move back home to Chicago from NC. During the first week, she avoided me like the plague and would cry whenever she saw me. After that, we started talking again and got along great (now as friends). She would still call me babe and give me mixed signals, saying things like I know we're doing the right thing followed by asking me if we were doing the right thing. I could tell she wasn't sure. I pleaded a little, not emotionally, but just asking her if there was anything I could do to fix things and she maintained that we just weren't right for each other. I accepted this and when the time came, she drove me to the airport, crying for most of the time. We hardly talked on the way there as the little boy she was babysitting was riding in the backseat (as a buffer I guess). We agreed to be friends (at the time I thought this might be possible and was unfamiliar with the wisdom of NC). Once I had been home for a week, she called me to see how I was doing. She said it would be hard not to talk to me anymore, that it was the hardest thing ever to lose her best friend and that she couldn't imagine her life without me in it. I just said we'll see what happens. For the next few weeks, our contact was limited to short friendly emails and brief IM convos talking about how weird it was to be apart. I was doing a good job of keeping my emotions to myself. But after three weeks of being apart, I realized how much I loved her. I caved and sent her a letter in which I told her how she had made me see the light and that I understood completely what I had to do in order to gain her respect, which was true. I reminded her of how in love we once were and that I'd like to try to "mend our broken life together." Before she received the letter though, she called me out of jealousy because she had read what another girl had written on my Myspace page. She said that she starting freaking out when she saw it and just called me impulsively. I acted cool about it and pretended like I was doing okay, but had to ask if she had received my letter yet. She hadn't and asked me to read it to her and I did. She sounded touched but maintained that we would never work out. She will be back in town for Thanksgiving and Christmas but says that she doesn't think it would be a good idea to see each other, but I'm pretty sure she still has strong feelings for me. I also suspect that she wants to try getting into a relationship with the guy she has a crush on at work (though he is out of the country for another month). It seems like she is waiting to find out if the grass is greener with him and doesn't want to bring up her old feelings by seeing me. I have since started NC and will not respond (at least for awhile) if she attempts to contact me again. We always had a great time whenever we were together up until we broke up, aside from her worrying about our future and me being able to support a family one day based on my current situation. I am now focusing on myself and trying to find a better paying job so that I don't have to be such a starving artist. I guess my question then is, based on our situation, does it seem like there is a chance of us getting back together? If she ends up wanting to meet up over the holidays, should I go or maintain NC?