not really sure how to go about things - advice?

[emmadee91]

i've made one other post on here (i'm a noob i know) which is pretty much irrelevant now, seeing as my (ex) bf broke up with me just over 2 weeks ago.

 

TL;DR for the intimidated: ex thinks i'm negative and that we're incompatible, doesn't realize the actual underlying cause of our issues, SAYS that he doesn't feel the same way about me anymore. how to help him see that i'm aware of my own mistakes and we can have a relationship without all the stress?

 

our communication isn't great, and we have pretty different ways of dealing with emotional stress/turmoil. we got into a cycle of sorts. he got less obviously affectionate because he settled down and got comfortable, and since we have broken up once before, this freaked me the hell out and i thought it was because he just didn't love me anymore. so i constantly nagged him about not giving me enough reassurance and showing enough affection (we were in an LDR so verbal affection is pretty important), which just put loads of pressure on him and stressed him out, on top of making him feel like nothing he does is good enough.

 

now, it's not like he never made an effort. he did sometimes. but almost every time he did, i would say something like "i don't believe you" or "nice to know" because i was so genuinely paranoid and insecure about his feelings for me and since i had to constantly nag him to get him to say that stuff, i figured it wasn't really as genuine as he meant for it to be. i'm a douchenozzle, i know. hindsight is 20/20.

 

so one night i nagged again over something pretty insignificant, and that was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back; the catalyst, if you will. he asked for space, i gave it to him. a few days later he broke up with me. at first he tried to seem sort of indifferent... saying some of what he said the first time we broke up: that he didn't feel the same way about me anymore since all the arguments, we're better off being friends, he feels dejected and not good enough and i stress him out too much by being so negative, we're just incompatible, and we can't ever fix any of our issues. said that he still cared about me sort of and that he wanted to remain friends and stay very close, just not as a couple.

 

now, i handled this breakup WAY better than i handled the first one. i begged and pleaded with him the first time, told him how much i loved him, tried to guilt-trip him into staying, all that fun stuff. this time i only sought to understand why he felt this way and what i did to make him feel like that, and after that i pretty much accepted it because i had become self-aware enough to know that he was pretty justified in leaving. i'd leave me too.

 

except, despite the fact i was really calm and good about things this time, he actually got angry. last time he didn't get angry at ALL, he was just sort of apologetically backing out of things. but this time i asked him why he felt that way and he was like "YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. IT'S OVER. I WILL NEVER FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT YOU EVER AGAIN, WE WILL NEVER EVER BE TOGETHER. WE'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FIX OUR PROBLEMS, WE'LL ALWAYS REPEAT THE SAME PATTERN. WE'RE DONE. ACCEPT IT AND MOVE ON." and i was so confused, because i HAD accepted it. at the very beginning of the conversation, i told him that i completely understood if he wanted to call it quits and i have no hard feelings about it whatsoever, i wasn't going to try and convince him to stay. he just got angrier and angrier and eventually stopped talking/responding completely, went on facebook, changed his relationship status to single, and "liked" it. i got a pretty good laugh out of that.

 

after that i left him alone completely aside from sending him an e-mail a few hours later saying that i think the breakup was the best thing for both of us and that we probably shouldn't speak for a few weeks. i honestly didn't think he was going to contact me anyway, but i felt the need to send the email regardless.

 

i've only become more and more enlightened since then about exactly what went wrong in the relationship and what i was doing on my side of things to screw it up. so i know what's causing our issues and i believe they can be fixed with a little effort. i can only fix/change ME, so that's what i'm doing. just in the past 2 weeks i've changed A LOT, my attitude/mindset is entirely different. problem is, he isn't ~enlightened~ like i am. he thinks that the underlying problem is me, and that i am simply a negative person... which isn't really true at all. my instinctual responses to emotional stress are pretty negative, yeah. i didn't know any other way (the healthy way, really) to deal with it. but i am not just an all-around negative person.... if i was, he would've never been attracted to me (TWICE, mind you) in the first place. he seems to forget the me that he fell in love with because of all the negative emotions surrounding both of us at the moment. and i get that.

 

so my dilemma is... how exactly is he supposed to see that i'm a healthier, better version of me now if we're long distance and he thinks we're incompatible? i am doing the whole NC thing for a while, because i am well aware that if i tried to talk to him right now, it would only make things worse. he needs time to distance himself from the negative emotions surrounding the breakup and the past couple months of our relationship, and possibly time to "miss me", if that were to happen. how much time, i am not exactly certain. in the meantime i'm just working on self-love and self-improvement.

 

don't get me wrong, i am not using NC as a way to get him back, nor am i dependent on us getting back together. i am doing my best to move on. i am making these changes for ME, not him. honestly, this is stuff i need to know and skills i need to have to be successful with ANY guy, not just him. so i am fine with whatever the outcome is, whether it be that we keep in touch as friends, get back together, or end up not talking at all.

 

however, i don't feel comfortable resigning myself to forgetting him completely and moving onto another guy until i know that there's nothing i personally can do to change the situation. even that right there sounds manipulative, but what i really mean is that until i either a. know that it was only my negative behavior that caused him to break up with me and perhaps i can show him we can have a relationship without the stress, or b. know that he simply doesn't want to make any sort of effort with me/us and i can just move on and forget about it, i don't feel okay with just sitting back and letting everything go.

 

so yeah. basically i'm asking, how do i approach this? should i just keep NC for a couple months and then randomly text him and sort of slowly build up a friendship again? being super direct right off the bat about emotional stuff is probably not a good idea with him, and it's kind of a moot point anyway if he doesn't even want to talk to me on a semi-regular basis. i was reading a post on here about how NC doesn't really work on someone who doesn't think you can change, because they won't be able to see the change, and i think i agree with that somewhat. i am still doing NC for a while simply because we both just need TIME to get over things, but after that i'm not sure what's best.

 

sorry for the novel.... i like details a little too much, i think they help.

[mouseno4]

Why do you want to prolong something he clearly and fully believes is impossible?

 

Though i applaud you for not taking the ENA approach and just ending it on the spot and walking away. You actually tried to fix what was wrong rather than simply running away from it.

[emmadee91]

because he doesn't have all the information. i think he believes it's impossible because he thinks that my own personality is the problem, and if that were true, then i would completely agree with him and chalk it up to us just being incompatible. but it's not ME, it's just my screwed-up response to things that i'm taking steps to fix. that's not ME because it's not like at the core of who i am. like i said, he just completely forgets the real me that he fell in love with and focuses on the psycho * * * * * , and i don't blame him for that, haha.

 

i'm not going out of my way to convince him. that would do more harm than good. this isn't about CONVINCING him, i just want to him to be able to REALIZE that things CAN be different and then decide for himself. i just don't know how to do that in the present situation with the distance and whatnot.

[mouseno4]

Fixing negative thoughts and a negative outlook does not happen over night. And it does not happen in just a couple weeks. It takes quite a while. I have been battling to fix my own negativity towards situations for 3 months. Negativity i have had since i was a child. It has taken me a long time to challenge my negative thoughts and i am only just starting to see positive results. And i am not even finished yet.

[mouseno4]

PM me if you want to know how i managed to achieve what i have against my negativity. It is a long and drawn out process.

[emmadee91]

i'm aware of that, it's not like i snapped my fingers and BOOM all my problems are solved. but i can tell a big difference in myself already just because i've actually REALIZED what my problems are and i've had a pretty big attitude change. it's a constant thing i'm gonna have to work at and i realize that and i don't mind. obviously i am never going to be perfect and i'll never be able to eliminate the negativity completely. i'm still gonna slip up sometimes, but i think after a couple months pass, by the time i try and talk to him again, he'll hopefully be "over it" and i'll have made significant enough improvements that it's noticeable. it's already noticeable to me, but... i'm me? lol.

 

pming you right meow, tbh.

[mouseno4]

Meow... loved that movie ROFL!