I thought there are lessons to be learned re breakups. None here!

[fuddiduddy]

Our 9-month relationship was going so, so well. I asked him sometime in February how we were doing as a couple, not because I suspected anything was wrong (quite the contrary). I just didn't want to overlook anything and wanted his input to take "inventory" of our relationship. I asked him if the relationship was meeting his needs. If there was anything he felt I should work on. If there's anything we should think about doing differently as a couple. If he was happy. In a nutshell, he felt everything was perfect and he couldnt imagine being with anyone else. Kool.

 

Just four days later, he learns he must take precription medicines for a health issue. He has a real phobia of medication of any kind, so this sent him into a bizarre tailspin. He started acting cold and distant towards me. Eventually, he broke off the relationship because, as he put it, he's "now in a different place."

 

I go into NIC with him, and we (supposedly) were amicable and, in his mind, still "friends." After two wks of that, he resumes acting cold and annoyed with me without any discernible reason (I never hounded him or anything..--really just gave him a lot of space). He just starting acting like a real a** hole, just because.

 

Long story short, because of other details I'll omit here, it began to dawn on me that he never really "loved" me the way I thought and was always told. I accused him of this and told him he is an entirely different person than the person I had loved so much. He literally seemed to despise my loving kindness and concern for his health. He relished everyone else's support such as his best friend's, other friends' and family's. I was the ONLY casualty of his ordeal despite often assuring him I'd ALWAYS be there for him no matter what. And I meant it.

 

FINALLY, THE POINT:

 

After 3 months of being broken up from a great, healthy and exciting relationship (

 

I just feel that THERE WASN'T ANYTHING TO LEARN, other than people can change their heart at the blink of an eye despite your best intentions and no matter what you do. Given the above, am I right?

 

Feedback?

[Onegirl]

I'm totally asking myself the same question.. What is the lesson I was supposed to learn? people are selfish? People are untrustworthy?

 

Or I've heard people are put in your life for a reason or for a season..

 

I know why I was put in his life. to prepare to take the next step in his journey. Why the hell was he put in my life? What did he give me in the end? Sadness? Anger? Empathy?

 

So I guess I really don't have an answer for you except maybe its a journey to figure these answers out. Maybe we need to process these questions to move forward in our journey.

[ewr]

 

I just feel that THERE WASN'T ANYTHING TO LEARN, other than people can change their heart at the blink of an eye despite your best intentions and no matter what you do. Given the above, am I right?

 

Feedback?

 

The bolded part is all you need to know. This is why it is stressed SO much on this website, to live for yourself. You can put tons of effort and emotions into someone else or other people if you want, that's fine, and how a lot of great relationships happen. For the reason above though, which will always be true and lingering in the background until you die, no matter how much you put into someone else, never make it more than you put into YOU, because you are the only one you can count on not to leave you.

[fuddiduddy]

The bolded part is all you need to know. This is why it is stressed SO much on this website, to live for yourself. You can put tons of effort and emotions into someone else or other people if you want, that's fine, and how a lot of great relationships happen. For the reason above though, which will always be true and lingering in the background until you die, no matter how much you put into someone else, never make it more than you put into YOU, because you are the only one you can count on not to leave you.

 

Well, the problem with that ewr, is that after 40 years of living, this is an old lesson to me and one in which I kept in mind at the start of the relationship. I feel I certainly did not need to enter into a serious relationship to only have that fact of life reinforced to me. Seems rather extreme. If there ARE any real lessons, I still haven't discovered them. This after 3 painful months of wracking my brain and brooding over what happened and what I may have done wrong.

[Mustachio]

I think there are two lessons to learn here. Nothing in life is permanent, so you should cherish what you have because you never know what might be coming next... life doesnt follow plans and thats that. Secondly, I think its a lesson for you, that you can get through this and you will still come out the other end strong and a good person, better for the experiences you have had and the hardships you have gotten through.

[uncomfynumb]

Here is one... Don't ask a man if you make him happy, if you need to improve. Men don't respect women that are too accomodating. I know it doesn't seem right, seems the opposite of healthy but men think differently than we do.

 

Number two...

 

Men are likely to fall out of love with a woman when she sees him low, weak, vulnerable. A man doesn't feel safe like this nor does he feel manly. He will withdraw from his woman so she doesn't see him like this. And if she does? Again it makes her less appealing to him because she has seen him like this. What makes it worse is when a woman rushes to his aid, offer advice support, everything we want dro

girlfriends. That is why it is always good to give a man space and lots of it when he vets distant. But good, caring women pursue, we think we are supposed, we think it shows we care. No, no.

[shes2smart]

Well, maybe the lessons to be learned from this weren't yours. You can't be the student all the time....sometimes people come into your life and you are the teacher.

[Carus]

Men don't respect women that are too accomodating. I know it doesn't seem right, seems the opposite of healthy but men think differently than we do.

 

Men are likely to fall out of love with a woman when she sees him low, weak, vulnerable.

Just wanted to say that it goes both ways......

 

Also, maybe I'm from another planet but, any time my ex was accomodating, low, weak or vunerable, it certainly didn't make me love her any less

 

((uncomfynumb))

 

Regards

K2*

[fuddiduddy]

I think there are two lessons to learn here. Nothing in life is permanent, so you should cherish what you have because you never know what might be coming next... life doesnt follow plans and thats that. Secondly, I think its a lesson for you, that you can get through this and you will still come out the other end strong and a good person, better for the experiences you have had and the hardships you have gotten through.

 

Hmmm. I agree with this. And maybe, just MAYBE I can use this experience to help counsel someone else in the future. At least I try to look at it that way.

 

Well, maybe the lessons to be learned from this weren't yours. You can't be the student all the time....sometimes people come into your life and you are the teacher.

 

I really like this. I've honestly never looked at it this way, so thanks a bunch shes2smart! This theory, in some strange way, comforts me tremendously--I guess it allows me to finally have faith that all my investment wasn't for naught afterall. Up until now, I was miffed that the entire experience was a cruel fraud and the ultimate waste of time in my life. But somehow, I get the feeling he'll look back at our relationship and learn a lot from his own behavior post-breakup. (At least I hope so).

 

As always, brilliant minds and warm hearts abound on ENA.

[fuddiduddy]

You're certainly right. But I definitely didn't convey any of that.

 

The entire conversation was about what his objective feelings were regarding the relationship, i.e., what he felt BOTH of us could do differently to improve it. Not just me. Not just him. But if there were anything we could work on together. I provided my viewpoint as well. I felt it was a good time for us to "touch base" instead of either of us assuming that everything was hunky-dory. (Obviously, it ended anyway, hence my reasoning for this thread).

 

I'd never ask a man if *I* make him happy. NO one should convey subservience. However, I think asking if he's happy in the relationship would be more effective phrasing and that is what I asked him verbatim.

 

On all accounts, he claimed he couldn't think of anything.

[Cheetarah]

Just a thought.

 

Phobias like that are a real mind-trip. A long time ago, I actually used to have an incredible fear of doctors and hospitals. It threw me into such a tail-spin that I was acting like a maniac, flipping out for no reason because the anxiety inside was just brewing and brewing.

 

If you couple that with abandonment issues(which I had, too), I pushed away my then boyfriend. The more he told me he cared and would be here for me, the more it disgusted me and I wanted nothing more but to get away. I just didn't trust him to stick by his word. I saw myself as a very weak, anxious and pathetic person, and I felt like it was only a matter of time before he saw that and ran for the hills, and I would look like the idiot for believing him when I was at my most vulnerable.

 

My issue. My stuff. And pretty much figments of my imagination, products of my anxiety. And a very difficult concept to grasp for those who've not experienced those kinds of irrational, overwhelming fears.

 

Not to suggest this is what's going on. But issues such as that can REALLY wreak havoc on someone's mental and emotional stability. It's all-encompassing, total take-over, especially if this is a real serious fear of his. It changes people when they have to face something they go out of their way to avoid.

 

So his behavior doesn't seem all that surprising to me when I look at it from that angle. Just food for thought. I doubt he didn't care.

 

Lesson learned? People go nuts, and 99% of the time it has absolutely nothing to do with us and everything to do with them.

[fuddiduddy]

OMG.

 

You have no idea how much you've helped me with this post. Every word of it. You've truly solved the riddle of what may have been inside his head. I've been totally miffed these 3 post-breakup months because he never wanted to communicate with me about what the real deal was and how it has so dramatically affected everything in his life. He utterly refused to talk about it in detail. I've been left trying to figure out his issues on my own and could only surmise that he simply never loved me and used his "phobia" (real or not) as an excuse to bail. I accused him of this despite his telling me, "It has nothing to do with you nor the relationship." (just as you said in your last sentence).

 

I just could not wrap my head around the depth of his phobia of medications. But now I see. And I think you've hit the nail on the head without a doubt.

 

Thank you.

[hater13]

I learned a lot about myself during my relationship. Even though it was hard I did take some solid lessons out of it.

 

My ex said he learned that "relationships suck"