sugarplum_pdx

Hi Lobster, I don't know if I really have an answer. I have been answering my ex when he contacts me online, but being short with him. I am not sure if it's the right approach or not. Tonight, I decided that it would be better to block him on my chat programs. It's sort of an experiment. First of all, it'll be good for me because it will mean I can't check to see whether he's online and use that to make any assumptions about what he's doing. (I don't know if your guy is anything like mine, but mine is always online if he's at home or at work, so if he's offline, I can assume he's gone, etc.) I don't need to keep thinking about what he's doing, so this will keep me in the dark. Second, it will prevent him from seeing whether I am online too. If he wants to contact me, there's always phone or email. I think he is less likely to contact me by either of those means unless it's important. When it's chat, he is more likely to contact me with some meaningless little thing. And I think that by blocking him, I'm forcing there to be more distance between us for now. That's what he said we needed ... he said he needed some time apart from me to know whether he wanted to be with me. So I don't know if that helps you, but that's the direction I'm going in right now. I feel like it hurts me more than it helps me for him to contact me now, because I know nothing's gonna change in such a short time, so what's the point? I'd rather wait and have him maybe contact me in a more meaningful way after some time has passed. Let me know what happens next!

Ha, I'm sure he didn't want to be there when your parents got there ... talk about awkward. My ex wanted to stay far away when my family was coming to help me move out of the house we shared ... he said he knew he had been a complete ass, and the last thing he wanted was to run into my mother. As it ended up, I moved out one day while he was at work, without even telling him ... I just wanted him to have to come home to an empty house unexpectedly. Anyway, I would say you should either send his mail to his parents house, or get together his stuff and leave it on the porch or something for him to pick up when you're not home. There's no reason you have to see him at this point. Who knows why he popped in like that ... he may have wanted to check up on you, or maybe he just feels he has the right to do that because he still thinks of it as his house ... Just try to ignore him for now. I know it's not easy. But I've found that I definitely feel better when I haven't had any contact with my ex for several days. I *think* I want to talk to him, but then when I do, he just makes me feel worse. So I'm trying to remember that when I get the urge to speak to him. Good luck!

That is exactly what I've told myself ... that I will just give it time, and hope that after some time passes, I won't want to be with him anymore. Right now I still have a lot of emotion for him because we were together over 3 years and just broke up a month ago. But rationally, I know that he's not a good person for me to be with anymore, because I don't think he'll ever change. Maybe your guy will ... you never know. And I also have told myself the same thing about not needing him ... I am fine without him. I can live on my own. I have a nice apartment, and friends and family. I still WANT someone in my life and have feelings for my ex, but don't NEED him. As for the no contact rule, I don't think it is meant to be a hard-and-fast rule that applies to everyone. All situations are different. I think the general idea is what's important: Don't keep contacting him, because you'll just make yourself feel worse when he doesn't respond the way you want him to, and you'll also make him pull away. I don't think the timeframe matters exactly. Some say 60 days, but then what? You can contact him after 60 days and everything will magically be okay? I don't think so. I have contacted my ex, but only in a casual way, and don't expect anything to change. If I didn't contact him specifically in hopes of changing his mind about things, that would probably backfire anyway so I'm not doing that. I'm just playing it by ear and keeping in mind that he's a jerk and I can't depend on him in any way right now.

You did nothing wrong by having a male friend sleep over. You didn't do anything sexual with him. Your husband is the one who dumped you, has been hanging out with someone new, etc. ... so how does HE have any right to get mad at YOU? You are blaming yourself for this but you shouldn't be. The guy staying over has nothing to do with why your husband is acting this way ... he probably feels guilty because he knows he hurt you by leaving you, so he's looking for some way to put the blame back on your for why you are not together right now. The truth is probably that he doesn't want to be in a committed relationship with you right now, and this thing about being mad about the guy staying over is just an excuse. He knows he has power over you and he's abusing that. I'm not saying there's no chance of him ever coming back to you. I think he probably will want to come back at some point. But I question whether you should even take him back. He left you, and has apparently been seeing someone else, and now he's trying to make you feel like YOU did something wrong. I think you deserve better. But I also know how it's easier to say that from the outside. My boyfriend dumped me in early March after I found out he'd started seeing someone else. He said he'd decided our relationship was over but hadn't had the guts to tell me yet. I've definitely wished more than anything that he'd change his mind and want me back, even though everyone has told me I'm better off without him. And I still think he might come back (when the novelty of this new girl wears off). But I don't think I'll take him back because he's a jerk. Nobody who loves you should treat you that way. Good luck, and try not to internalize everything so that you think it's all your fault. It's not. Remember that he's the one who screwed things up by leaving you.

tiger_lilies, I think you and I are twins ... our situations sound exactly the same. I saw one of your other posts where you said your BF told you he had "given up" - and that's what mine said too. He said he knew I was unhappy with him a lot of the time, and that he let me down all the time, and he was tired of feeling guilty. He didn't want to work on it ... it was "too late." Yet somehow I *still* was the one who wanted to try a little more ... and didn't want to break up. I'm probably going to be so glad in the long run that we broke up (although right now it's still hard). And what you said about the computer games is totally the same for me too ... except mine was more into chatting and downloading stuff, but he'd always go straight to the computer when he got home, and sit there for the rest of the night, instead of helping with anything. I'd bring him dinner ... and he'd eat, and then go back to what he was doing, without helping to clean up. Just unbelievable. And then he tried to tell me I needed more hobbies because that must be why I'm always ragging on him for being on the computer too much.

Hello - I had *exactly* the same situation you describe with my ex-boyfriend (we just broke up a few weeks ago, and lived together for 2.5 years). Just as you said, he would do things around the house if I asked, but would never think to do it on a regular basis. The whole time we lived together, he never once cleaned the bathroom. I was the only one who would clean the bathroom, clean the cat litter, sweep/mop the floors, and usually the only one who did the dishes and the grocery shopping. The only thing he would do is the trash (we alternated weeks, and sometimes it seemed like I would do it more often than him), occasionally vaccuum the living room, and tidy up HIS stuff. He also (like your guy) thought of mowing the lawn as his job, and would always make a BIG deal about how much of a chore it was. And if the lawnmower broke or something, that would be his excuse to not do it. I just always thought it was really immature. It's important to point out -- we both worked outside the home an equal amount (full time). So it's not like he was working and I was supposed to stay home and take care of the house. There was no reason why he shouldn't have been able to do as much as I did at the house. Oh, another thing is, if I got mad at him about it (instead of asking him nicely to do something), he would get defensive and angry, and he'd say "If you're going to be like that about it, I'm not going to do it." I would get furious at that, because it shouldn't be like he's doing ME a favor by doing things around the house ... it's HIS job as much as mine. Grr!