howinvoluntary

I broke two months of no contact last night. I emailed the ex for her birthday. She is is still in India and I don't expect to get a response anytime soon. I feel strong and have mostly fond feelings toward everything. Strangely enough, my first prominent negative feelings in weeks came after I sent the note. It has set me back a little, but I think in the long run it will actually help me move on even further. I miss what we once had and I'm just frustrated that she strung me along. I assume it is over. Even if she actually wanted to reconcile after this period of reflection that she has taken, I wouldn't want her back unless she acted just so. I'm not sure how much healing I need anymore either, my instincts are strong. So this might be my last visit to the forum unless my situation changes for better or for worse.

Over 30 Days... 90 days with a couple conversations. It's now been over three months since we broke up. I find myself thinking about her quite often unless I'm really busy. I don't know what I want anymore. I just find myself being consistently frustrated with everything. It comes in waves. I constantly search for the state of mind I desire. I often find it, but it is always fleeting. I'm sick of no contact. I'm plenty healed and will be ready to send her a light email for her birthday at the end of the month. I will feel better regardless of the outcome, I did not like the way things were left when she last called me.

Over 30 Days... 90 days with a couple conversations. It's now been over three months since we broke up. I find myself thinking about her quite often unless I'm really busy. I don't know what I want anymore. I just find myself being consistently frustrated with everything. It comes in waves. I constantly search for the state of mind I desire. I often find it, but it is always fleeting. I'm sick of no contact. I'm plenty healed and will be ready to send her a light email for her birthday at the end of the month. I will feel better regardless of the outcome, I did not like the way things were left when she last called me.

Day... 20 something since last contact. Nearing three months since the break. I don't really want to pay close attention anymore. Had a really rough moment today. Things are slow right now. Working on grad school applications and finding new work. It's hard to be self motivated still, but I'm starting to feel the pressure of due dates coming up. I really can't picture what life is like for her over in India... I like it that way.

I'm surprised by how much I wanted to email her today. It's not a feeling I've often had at all since the break. I think I just have come to some realizations. I do truly think that she doesn't know what she wants right now and is still open to the possibility of trying again. After all, she is randomly traveling in India. She is lost. But it wasn't my fault things didn't exactly go well when she called me two and a half weeks ago. She handled the call as if I was still waiting like I was shortly after we broke up... but I'm not. I'm glad I made it clear that I'm not a doormat. I am pretty sure I will email her for her birthday a month from now. I told her I would, and then thought better of it, but now I have an idea of how I can handle the situation. I'm okay not addressing the past relationship. By that time, We'll have been apart for nearly four months, and I think I'll be ready for light contact.

I don't know if posting a story involving a couple over thirty years ago is valid or not. It is, however, what has always given me strength in relationships. The people that it involves are the sole reason for the great depth of love and compassion that I possess. It's about my parents. My dad knocked my mom up in college. He was a few years older than her. She was in her early twenties. I believe my dad was my mom's first serious relationship. My dad had one before her, but he recently told me that he never was in love prior to meeting my mom. Anyway, they were together for a couple years before she got pregnant. My dad was an extremely caring person, but at that stage in his life he was not ready to settle. My mom, on the other hand, never carried any doubt that my dad was the one for her. Once my mom got pregnant, my dad freaked out and left her. He was unable to commit, and my mom ended up dropping out of college to go live with her grandmother for support. During this time, my mom was very strong, and told my dad up front that her child would not have a part time father. Either he was fully committed, or he was out. My dad struggled for months to commit. To this day, he is one of the most adventurous people you can meet, and he simply was not ready for either a child or marriage. But after some months, he finally came through. I would imagine that it would have been easy to demonize him at that point in time. I'm not sure what kind of advice my mom was receiving, but she grew up in a highly religious household and she got knocked up by a closet atheist. None of this could have been easy. But my dad did eventually come through. They married a little over a month before my older brother's birth. And growing up, I must say that I took their love for granted. I thought every child's parents were as in love as mine. They were always absolutely obsessed with one another. They had their challenges of course, but all in all, I thought love was ridiculously easy. Every time I had a crush on a girl growing up, I could see how our lives would unfold together. Just like my parents, it would be so simple. Going on two years ago, my mom passed away due to complications from a rare form of cancer. She fought for twelve years before her passing. No one, including my mom's family and our family friends, has ever seen a person as dedicated to someone else's struggle than my dad was. He was there every step of the way. He knew more about her medical condition than her nurses did. Even on her worst days, my dad was confident that she would out live him. After all, it was her confidence in him that convinced him to go the route he did in life, and he never regretted it for a moment. I am now going through my first serious break up, but considering what my dad has had to go through, I really can’t complain. I actually see a lot of the same elements in my ex that my dad possesses. Her independent nature is part of the reason I love her so much, but that is probably wishful thinking. Regardless, I know that sometimes people do deserve second chances. They just have to prove it.

Perio, She does... Actually, this girl got to know me during the throws of my break up during the summer, and asked me about my ex this last weekend. I'm not leading her on, but I do think she likes me quite a bit, and if the situation escalates I will have to put it down. But I'm confident that while she might be developing feelings, she is in a similar place. And just so you know, a couple weeks ago I thought I wanted nothing more than for my ex to reach out to me... You might be surprised, it felt pretty lame after it happened, and she was going out on a limb in ways.

Well, that's deceptive. I have had stretches of three and five weeks. We've been broken up for just over two months. Long story short, I have met someone else. She's a good friend, and I don't think it is a wise idea for me to get into something, but she clearly likes me and it feels pretty awesome. She's super cute and smart and has given me attention that I cannot imagine my ex ever giving me again. Maybe with some time it could progress into something, but I'm inclined to want the stability of the friendship instead. We went to a concert together last weekend. It was an amazing night. To my astonishment I got home and had a message from my ex. She is clearly unsure of what she wants. There was little point to her phone call, she will be traveling for the next few months. She was just unfairly keeping me in check. I'm not fully healed, and it hurt like hell. I have bounced back nicely. I now realize that I care less and less about what actually comes of all of this. If we do reconcile, it will be because she proves to me that she is as capable of providing for our relationship as I am. I would be astonished if that came to be the case, but then again I've been astonished before.

I must say that my pain has really been consistently low over the past week and a half. That being said, I have not been as busy as I should be, and I have been thinking about her too much. If I go fifteen minutes without thinking of her it is a success. I think a half hour is my record, and I haven't gone that span of time in weeks. My lows, while not as sharp, are equally as consuming as before. I have to get busy, as a relapse is probably right around the corner. I am enjoying my own company, and outside of wanting to get back together, I am happy being single. It will be over a hundred days of this until we talk next after the ex's travels. So very long until I get some kind of finalish closure... unless I happen to find it myself. I wonder how much I'll be thinking of her at the end of it. Don't feel bad Camo, no matter what happens to me between now and then, I will definitely not be able to go an entire day.

Hi Everyone! I'm brand new to the forum. After looking around a bunch, I've found an amalgamation of posts, some helpful, some not. That being said, I think posting on this thread is a good exercise. A brief background of my breakup... I was with my ex for two years. We were best friends, but we quickly fell madly in love over the course of some months. We were only together a very short time before she moved to work in europe, and we had been long distance ever since. We used to laugh together at how invincible we seemed. The distance was hard, but we always told one another that it would just make the time we would have with each other in the future that much better. How we would be so ready for it. Sure enough, just a few days after she moved to be with me, she freaked out and split, citing it wasn't even the circumstance, that she had not communicated some doubts that she had been having over the course of the past month or two. She no longer could be in a relationship, and it quickly became apparent to me. I was absolutely shocked. I had planned and dedicated to the moment that she used to dump me. Still, she desperately wanted to remain friends. I declined. So, my situation is this: we broke up almost two months ago. It's been 3 weeks of NC. I first initiated it, then broke it, then she initiated it. We ended on good terms. She will be traveling soon for up to 3 months and will get in touch when she gets back. Reconciliation is a possibility, it has been discussed. The full reasons for the breakup are still unclear, but there was no one else. She was still a confused mess three weeks ago. The possibility has made it very difficult to move on, but I do feel like I am making a lot of progress, especially over the past few days.... for whatever reason. Today's report: the days are going faster, but I know I have well over one hundred days to go. And that isn't the way I should be looking at it. I'm enjoying my own self more than I have since she left for europe two years ago. I miss her less. I'm more willing to accept that it might really be over. I wouldn't be devastated if that was the case when we do speak again. Things are pretty good. Thanks for listening.