rapunzel

I made a huge mistake by telling you how I felt. I know now that it is what made you lose attraction for me. It's a hard lesson in life and trying to form a relationship with a man that as a woman you have to hold back, be extremely wary, make the man work for it, be hard to get, mysterious, and all that BS. I am sorry that I blew it by not playing my role correctly and making myself available to you. Getting involved with you was the worst decision I have made as an adult and I've suffered greatly but I can only blame myself for being naive and stupid.

Bumpity bump bump!

I feel kind of "ruined" after being with you. I've gone on a handful of dates in the last 1.5 years, have been on an online dating site but no one has come close. I wish I did not care about the chemical, physical side of things but I have to feel this in order to be with someone and with you - that stuff was off the charts. I wish I could meet and fall in love with another man and hope springs eternal that this will happen so I can get over you completely. I just have to have faith that "everything will work out" - I remember you telling me that it always does. I wonder if you ever think of me "in that way" but of course, this does me no good. We do see each other regularly for work which is why I'm still on this board posting nonsense about you. When we were together I think we were well matched but I was 45 when we met and now I'm looking at 49. So now you're out of my league. Oh well. I lose attraction power with each passing year and you will still remain attractive. It's just the way it is, always has been this way and it's the way of the world. No one said life was fair. I'm still filled with regret about the way things turned out but I can't let the past mess up my present and my future so I continue to let you go, a little bit, with each passing day.

I still blame myself for what happened although I am well aware it takes two to tango. It was terrible timing and I know things went too fast and I, being the female who has to control the pace of the relationship and put the breaks on, failed at slowing things down. You even warned me and I did not heed your warning. I regret this very much. I was coming out of an LTR where sex was a chore and not joyful. I was not in love and I wanted out. When I met you I felt alive, excited and I thought you were "the one". I know that things got intense too quickly and you could not deal with it. It makes me very sad as I thought it was wonderful, rare and precious but you wanted to get away from it. I still wonder what you think of me but I'm trying to let those thoughts go, they serve no purpose and are futile. I know you have problems in your relationships (who doesn't), you have admitted them to me. I know you feel guilty for what happened, and perhaps you should. You were not over your ex and you should not have gotten involved with me. But we are human, and as they say "to err is human, to forgive, divine." I have forgiven you but I have not forgiven me. You came to me, I think, seeking forgiveness this past July....and I was not prepared. I misinterpreted the reason why you wanted to talk to me. You were looking for me to help you alleviate your guilt for what happened. I had no warning that you were going to ask me to go for a walk with you that night, and it was a beautiful moonlit summer night and I had had a couple of drinks. When you asked me how you could make amends to me, I could not think of anything. I mean, what could I say? "Come back to me? Wipe away the past so it didn't happen at all? Don't date anyone or bring women to our gigs? Tell me the real reason why you don't want to be with me?" What I said was I could not think of anything. I also told you that I did not think you needed to feel guilty, I was an adult and you did not hold a gun to my head (I regret using those words, but hindsight...) I confessed to you that it was a difficult situation since we've never had enough time away from each other. I said to you "I don't know what you want me to say to you". I told you that these things take time and you said "yeah, and we'll be dead before too long" or "before that happens" or something like that. That was hurtful. I am not on your time frame. I know you moved on long ago, in fact, you never had to "move on" as you never loved me to begin with. I was a distraction for your broken heart. You knew you were in no place to get involved with me, you know you led me on, you know you flirted with me and winked at me and kept me stringing along after the first time you broke up with me. You know that the second time around was a huge mistake and that is why you feel guilty. I think I have done amazingly well in this situation. I remained in the group and we have had a lot of great performances in the last two years. You and I had a great gig with one of the biggest rock icons of all time. I was able to keep it together through all of this. I never pursued you, asked you why you left, begged you to come back. You never saw me cry. You saw me living my life, staying in a group that I loved, being professional and cordial throughout. Ok, the second time around I did respond to your advances but you were just trying to be friends and I misinterpreted it. It was 9 months after our first break up and I never chased you. You contacted me, you asked me to spend time with you, you escorted me to our shows, you asked me to dinner, you asked me where my meditation class was and if you could come to it. I did not initiate any of this stuff. You allowed what happened the second time to happen. I kept you at bay for a few months. NINE months total before anything happened. And of course, I am just as responsible for my actions as you are. I take 100% responsibility for my actions. It's OK. I do forgive you. happens. Life is messy and chaotic. Maybe you will find true happiness with this new woman. If so, I will really try to be happy for you. I'm not sure what the future holds, if I can stay in the group or not. For now, I'm staying through the end of the year. I still maintain that you are a beautiful man, foibles and all, and I forgive you. You deserve happiness and I hope you find your way. Now I will continue to work on forgiving ME.

I think what you are saying Cats, is that if the dumpee is overly cool and accepting of the break up, then the dumper thinks the dumpee wasn't that into them and just moves on with nary a thought. This I'm sure does happen but more often than not, if the dumpee does not seem devastated, then the dumper becomes more intrigued as this is NOT what the dumper expected. Yes, certainly it depends on the situation. In my situation, the second time around with my ex...(where we had a mini break up and then the final break up) he was honest that he was still not over his ex. I stupidly threw caution to the wind and decided to try with him again. So when he decided to cool things in early August, that is when I agreed with him and that is when I noticed him suddenly gazing at me in adoration. My mistake was not sticking with my guns and giving him much more time and space (like 3 to 6 months!) to work on his feelings about his ex. After about I think it was 13-14 days later we started up again, and then a few more weeks later, he put the brakes on again....this time I was not so cool about it. Whether or not my "coolness" would have affected this situation, I do not know...probably not. I do know however, that my coolness the first time he told me he thought we should stop being "intimate" and I gave him carte blanche to be free, I do feel strongly that my value increased dramatically in his eyes..I saw it and experienced it (if only for a short period... I tried to be who I was, I think I was successful at this. I guess no matter how you slice it, if it is meant to be, it will be. It appears I was not meant to be with this guy and much as it hurts, it's reality and I continue to accept it. I don't know, I spout opinions and I'm just as confused and beat up as the next person. All we can do is our best, right? And usually our best is what happened IN THE MOMENT. We may not always look back and think it was our best but it was the best we were capable of at the time GIVEN the information we have at the time I have a hard time forgiving myself and this is what I'm working on - I DID MY BEST. What's done is done and cannot be undone.

Just read the second link you posted....EXCELLENT. This is how we should all approach relationships and because we ARE human, we often make these typical mistakes he mentions. This is why when someone breaks up with you, the best thing to do is AGREE with them. When one is NOT expecting a break up this is exceedingly hard to do. Yet I think one should always be prepared for the unexpected. I know the first time my ex put the brakes on, I agreed with him, told him I hoped he worked it out with his ex (who he was still mooning over, once she decided she was done for good with him) if that was what was going to make him happy - and lo and behold, I suddenly became more intriguing to him - merely because I was GIVING him his freedom. The dumper does not expect the dumpee to agree with him/her and it's an effective disarming technique. It gives the dumpee a lot of power in a situation where it would appear the dumpee had none. Then to the last break up, I wasn't so good at it. After trying to collect my thoughts, which wasn't so easy after a couple drinks (and I'm still resentful that he did this after I had alcohol and did not have my wits about me) I tried to reason with him a bit (bad idea, always fails) then I showed with a couple sarcastic comments that I was hurt. Then I finally told him it was OK and gave him a few kisses on the cheek and while smiling and being calm, ushered him out the door. He then tried to kiss me on the lips, I gave him my cheek and that was that. In retrospect I wish I had AGAIN agreed with him. I wish I had said, you know XXX, you're right, it's the best thing for us to stop being intimate and I thank you for bringing it up because I felt we should talk about this. I wish you the best and i hope you find whatever it is that will make you happy, whether that is reconciliation with your ex or whatever your heart desires. Alas, I was not prepared and I had had two drinks, thus did not say the things I had hoped I would say. Oh well... We work together so it's an ongoing saga....I am still working on letting go and accepting and I try to make our interactions as positive, care-free as possible and not let on that I am emotionally affected. It's such a game but it's human nature. That said, I don't think I want him at this point, two tries is enough and he would have to come back with a huge mea culpa which I am NOT expecting. I suggest everyone read this very helpful article. Thanks for posting dreamguy!

Thanks Ellestar - Thanks for sharing your story. At this point I can't imagine it's going to get much better for me but I know time will help. This month we are going to see a LOT of each other due to the band schedule and other gigs. I'm trying to act nonchalant, friendly in a distant way and I think I'm succeeding for the most part. I also try not to look at him. I did notice him stealing a few glances at me the other night. I still have a glimmer of hope that he will want me back but each day I tell myself I have to heal for myself and not cling to that hope. I am also trying to get out of the self-blame game. This is probably the biggest cause of my pain...that I blame myself for the demise of the relationship. I blame myself that I didn't let things move slowly enough so that he could actually fall in love with me. There was huge mutual attraction and lust in the beginning and while we did know each other for a few months before we acted on it, and actually I guess about a month went by before anything other than kissing happened. I just feel that I didn't pay attention as I had JUST come out of a 4.5 year relationship when I started up things with this guy. I was really over my last boyfriend about a year before I ended it, yes I was the dumper...and then lo and behold, I got dumped. I didn't consider the new guy a rebound as I was emotionally out of my 4.5 year rel'ship for quite some time. I did feel some dumper guilt as I felt badly for the pain I caused the old guy, but I was so excited about new guy that it quickly faded. But I must remember that new guy chose to dump me without any discussion. The main reason was he felt "uncomfortable" and "something was missing". To me that means he just never fell in love with me, or if he had, he fell out of love with me. I think I had a golden opportunity to let him slowly fall in love with me and I blew it by letting him see my cards too soon. I never used the "L" word but I think he knew the power he had over me and it just made him lose interest. I dropped some stupid things about future that were just not the right things to say at those moments. I did not hold back physically and I may have felt him feel pressured in bed. I forgot how to date after 4.5 years with someone and I think I scared him off. So live and learn, but a very painful lesson. I'm 46 and while still attractive (although the thought of 50 looming around the corner is rough), I just feel that I blew something that held great promise. I know that it takes two to tango but how do I stop blaming myself and overanalyzing every little thing that I said or did? No, I'm not perfect and neither is he. I know, self-love. I'm doing all the things that SuperDave suggests and I think I'm doing well in that regard but I still cry daily and it's been almost 6 weeks since the break up. Thanks for reading my story, it is cathartic to get it out.

I am also interested in replies to this situation as it is quite similar to mine. My ex broke up with me about 5 weeks ago. I have made NO attempts to contact him, I did pick up the phone once as I felt I should hear what he had to say as we do work together about once a week, sometimes twice (in a musical situation). So I've been VERY good about No Contact but the fact that I have to see him weekly seems to set me back in my healing. I feel like I'm getting stronger each day, and then I see him and BOOM, the floodgates open. He has also expressed a desire for friendship but it's way too soon for that and I did tell him that "one can't force these things (being "friends"). He agreed and asked me if I'd be up for "grabbing a drink, to sit down and have a chat" as he "really wants to retain me as a friend". Well, I'm still in love with him so there's no way I'm ready to be friends. Despite that, I did somewhat halfheartedly say OK to the drink but that was two weeks ago, and guess what....he never followed up. I've seen him twice since then and not a word. We don't sit in close promixity at rehearsal and I do my very best to act "as if", friendly, normal, my usual self (the others don't know about us). We talk very little, I try to avoid looking at him too much but it is a challenge. He has complimented me a couple of times on my playing and singing. I do not want to quit this band as it is a really great and special project with wonderful people/musicians but I worry that it's going to take much longer to move past this with the weekly contact. Any thoughts/advice?