"If it's him, place him in front of me." (Just a 'Thank you.')

[GregJohnder]

The best thing for me in this process has been reading other people's stories, and so I'm just offering mine and some conclusions.

 

I'm three months out. So of course I miss him, and that's okay. Just his presence and the things we did that I never would have done before. It has come back recently as this strange ghost almost as strong as it was when fresh.

 

When we broke, he didn't want to do it, and I couldn't do it. I'd be breaking down and not willing to answer his, "Are you trying to break up with me?" I mustered the courage to actually state it twice, but when emotions ran high, I knew I cared and meant the first "I love you" I had ever uttered to someone like that, and I didn't understand what kept bringing me to that point. It got so bad that he said he couldn't allow it anymore, me essentially forcing him to do it himself.

 

I ran to my friends, family, and places like here wondering what went wrong. In a confusing combination of me needing to forward myself and know what I want, and even people insisting that he had been manipulative with me and a jerk (some probably would want to slap me for some of the things I'm saying), I realized the blessing in what I had learned because the whole thing existed.

 

"I had to ruin a relationship and decide to never make the same mistakes again." Directly from him.

 

I made a list of my mistakes. I lived in my head, I was irrationally jealous of nothing, I didn't communicate my burning desires well, I didn't set up my own boundaries or express my anger, I took his anger too personally, and I was self-destructive sometimes before I had even created anything to destroy. His life outside of me was threatening for some reason, as I was only an addition to it for him. It was my first love relationship and not even close to his first. Everything I ended up learning was something he told me at some point, and him seeing his past self in me knew that our end would most likely be what helped me.

 

"I can't see you keep destroying yourself. I'm just doing what I wish people had done for me."

 

He did no contact without hesitation, gave me all the things I had given him, and the last thing said or done was me kissing him and walking away. This was three months ago, one month less than the duration of the relationship. I've since starting working hard and saving to move out in October into my own studio, am very close to attaining a management position, have enrolled in classes for the Fall after a long break, have seen two doctors, have been regularly taking medication for my mental health, started the gym again, and have seen that I have control over how happy I can be and that my own dwelling and accepting of burdens is what drives me down.

 

"You don't want to be happy. I know I didn't want to be."

 

From time to time, I'm very excited about how much better I'll be able to do next time. Many have tried to make me see him as a stepping stone for finding someone that is fabulous for me.

 

Of all the guys in the world, why would I want him again? I guess I don't understand dating or don't quite like the concept. The whole idea of screening carefully seems a bit unfair at times. I just remember how he accepted things about me that he that he found strange or historically mocked and how despite everything that happened, he still didn't want to break up.

 

"I'm not looking for someone like me or someone to complete me."

 

As hesitant as I made him, he saw something in me he couldn't describe. We broke up for a day once on the basis of all the exploration I craved that might turn to resentments I had with him, but he came back saying he felt it wasn't over yet. What made him do that? I was what he wanted, and he knew that, exercised patience, and made a compromise that brought me back. When two people mutually reach a point like that, it leads to longevity, but I wasn't making the same decision he was, nor knew that I should be. I wasn't honest with him or myself about what I wanted. It simply became: "I have to save myself," and he understood.

 

My goal after a recent birthday has been to let me heal, because I wasn't. I'm still thinking about this. I'm still thinking that after I get an apartment, and I'm in a calmer place with a strong confidence in my life goals and friendships, that I'd run into him, allow him to see a bit different of a mentality and emotional maturity level, and ask him to be the addition to my life that I'm looking for accepting all the risk to my heart. Even if I were to do that, though, thinking about it now does nothing to help me and is counterproductive.

 

"What do you want from me?"

 

I made a list of things I'd want in a relationship; I know to make it clear up front. Also, I don't believe me to be complete relationship material quite yet, and need to allow time to experience joy and learn to create a path without depending on that other person. So what's the burden?

 

If I don't stay focused on that, my mind falls into a place where he occupies the majority of that list, and the parts he doesn't, his words replay in my mind and allude to a future in which he eventually would if I was so willing to accept certain things about him. We both showed a will to give an inch. If those mistakes were countered in another run with him one day, I have an uneasy amount of confidence in him still. They say if it works, it's through thick and thin, but I think I was fated to lose my first relationship no matter what because I was living in fantasy and didn't like me. He talked about how funny it'd be if we met somewhere down the line randomly and how much he believed in things happening at the wrong time.

 

I know there's no place for him right now in my life, and I've seen from time to time how much more there is to the world than a relationship.

 

"Do you think hope is worth holding on to here?" That's me everyday.

 

What I offer to you and myself is to make it more ambiguous and more of a private motivation to keep doing what you're doing in an effort to attain not them, but... something. Do you think once I've arrived in a place I want to be that he, who most likely is moving to another state in the next few years, is someone to reach out to, or it's a time for me to go try and meet new people upholding my own strong desires? The latter is a lot more organic, no doubt, and allows for the possibility that some lessons I "learned" wouldn't even have much of a function in a better relationship, that it was truly compatibility. Otherwise, how would I know? And I want to know.

 

...and so I think I answered my question after all this. Typing out my issue is very cathartic for me, and I hope it is slightly edifying for people stuck in a similar rut. This site has been such a great help in a variety of ways with experienced people logging on simply to help those asking for it. I've even tried to help people myself to avail and it's wonderful and a habit I want to develop even though it's often the same issue I'm dealing with. So thanks, enotalone.