3 Year Relationship over, Why is my ex a Stranger?

[gbear03]

Okay, this may sound similar to what a lot of you guys have gone through, its very weird to me but maybe you can relate. I got out of a 3 year relationship with my GF a few months ago, i'm 21 she's 19. We had our ups and downs over this time but I learned to trust and believe in her 100%, and open myself up completely to her. We were close, both thoughtful people who shared our innermost thoughts and secrets, but i'm a couple of years older than her and thereforeeeeee was kind of confronted wih the future before her. Not to get too detailed, I felt i needed to get away on my own after graduating college and see where i belonged, and not be involved in a relationship while doing this. I told her this last spring, and it was something she seemed to have handled ok.

The problem was i was really conflicted about all this, I truly did love this girl and i had thoughts about spending my future with her. It was very hard for me to make the choice that i did, but we wound up staying together knowing that it would end some time in the future ( i guess). For me though, my doubts only grew, call me a romantic, or just practical, I believed in the love we had as such a deep and wonderful thing, that staying together, or at least always knowing that we could get back together even if i left her for a while, felt really natural.

But during the course of a few months, leading up to january of this year, we just grew frustrated at each other, she was annoyed at me calling me clingy, while i focused on annoying aspects of her i'd not really cared about before. Finally in January we ended it, but she was the one who brought it up.

It was the aftermath that messed me up good, mabye you guys can relate. She didn't act like the same person anymore, overnight! And here's the big thing, she suddenly came out as a bisexual, not exactly a little thing i think. She'd never had an experience with a girl, she just said she'd realized over the past months. After a while all this stuff just built up, I was really confused by the fact that she could turn around after a breakup and suddenly be fine, and be my "buddy" all of a sudden, plus this whole sexuality thing. I took a break, said i didn't want to see her at all, and we didn't have any contact for about a month and a half.

Of course i was too weak to resist talking to her again, so i ran into her again about a month ago, and she was very excited to tell me about what she'd been doing, of course still wanting to be friends. She had a tattoo now ( a lame one), had found a bunch of supportive gay male friends who took her out to clubs, and took her on a trip to paris to go to yet more clubs. This just wasn't the kind of person she'd been together with me, we were very laid back, close, comfortable,etc. She acted, and seemed very happy, and completely over our multi-year relationship. This messed me up, we never did that kind of stuff during our relationship and she basically made me feel like I'd held her back, been too boring for her, and that we were only together because we we/her were dependant on me/each other. She also encouraged me to get a girlfriend, which probably hurt me most of all. Who wants to hear the person they loved so much encouraging them to get someone different? For me, the fact that she seemed so emotionally over the relationship, while i was sincerely going around hurting and thinking about the love I lost, was really heartbreaking.

How can a girl change so much? Is she really just reacting to the breakup, trying to change the person she is so she won't have to deal with the pain? Is this a sort of phase which dies out in a few months? I was very open with her about how I was hurting from the breakup, but she kept completely quiet about that, not willing to acknowledge the meaning of our relationship other than " i don't have an regrets", but mainly focusing on the problems she had come up with since the breakup. since seeing her the last time, i've resolved to have no contact, no friendship even though we were best friends before too. It just hurts too much. I feel like she'll have to confront the pain some time too, but i still feel the urge to go back and become friends sometimes. Knowing there's someone close by who loves you and wants to be friends and all that.. anyway I know this is isn't as bad as what some of you have gone through maybe, but i'd like to hear what people think of this, thanks.

[goetzie7]

Well there are many reasons that she could be acting this way. I do not know the girl. I can give you a few possible reasons why I would act that way in that situation. The two of you were happy at first, and than things had happened and you began to realize the future was closer to you than her. Regardless if you realized this or not but you had changed. You wanted to be with her because you loved her but you also wanted to experience certain things without her, and to grow into yourself. So I ask you why could you not do this with her? If you have love for her than why was it necessary to break it off for the two of you to be happy?

 

But she is acting the way she is because that is all she has. When my boyfriend and I broke up (we dated for three years too, and i was the younger one) I went nuts. He broke my heart but in the end i now realize it was the best thing to do. Neither of us could experience what we did if we had been together because we were NOT meant to be together at that point in time. Who knows for the future. Let her be. Try to move on, and DO NOT BE FRIENDS with her. IT makes it worse, trust me. You can never go back, one day you might be able to add on to what you had, but you can never go back. I heard this quote once "lovers who remain friends are still in love or never were", think about that. Do you want to be the ones that were never in love? Take what you have had with her and remember the good times and move on. Don't make it worse and lose the potential future you could have with her. I lost it with my ex by going psycho and ruining it.

[gbear03]

Thanks a lot, i agree with everything you said, very smart. I know that the best thing is to have no contact at all, its just difficult because she lives right down the street from me ( at college), so I'm always afraid of running into her (believe me, i don't even want to see her). I guess for me I just don't totally understand her motives for wanting to be friends with me still. Seems like she wants to have her cake and eat it too, break away from me but still receive all the support i gave her, but maybe there are other reasons, I don't know.

Its just weird because I realize now she was pretty dependant on me in the relationship, more than i'd thought, and a guy gets really used to that. I think at some point i started losing respect for her because of that, at the same time she was becoming more unhappy too. But its hard, i didn't expect such a self-esteem hit after the relationship, its like you get it in your mind that she didn't love you for you, but for the support and love you provided... Any thoughts?

[goetzie7]

Everyone wants the support and dependance of who they have been with for the last three years. ITs natural to hold onto something. Even something that was not good for you. I am going through the same thing now with my ex. Although I still love him, he is with someone new now. And I am still friends with people who are still friends with him, and I also live two seconds away. So I see his car at her place and vice versa. Its alot more complicated than what I have just told you because we have had contact, and no one else knows about it. But you began to learn that life does go on. I am now learning not to call him when I am drunk, and not to wish he was with me. So many people who are friends with the both of us, tell me that I am better off. So I am sure that you are better off. Just think about the fact that atleast it isn;t you that needs to deal with her anymore. I know you want to, but the next time she calls, just tell her that its not your problem anymore. I have been doing that with my ex when he calls to tell me his problems. I feel better about myself, and I don't end up crying.

 

She might want to keep contact with you because she still feels love towards you. I am sure she does. But neither of you need that now. Move on. She will either realize what she lost or not. Either way you will learn for yourself who she really is and whether or not you want to be with her.