Feeling like the ex was not completely honest

[alguem]

Hello everyone,

 

I had been with this woman for the past 2 years. In my view we had a great relationship. Sex was great, there was attraction, she was a great company, interested in my life, we could talk for hours, she was supportive and all. I feel like I was the same to her.

 

At some point, things started to get strange. We were both living very stressful moments in our own lives with work and everything. We begun to fight a lot and get distant, even when were doing things that we loved doing together. I started to feel like breaking up, started to get interested in other women. But then I realized that I was not ok about letting work destroy everything, that I was still attracted and in love with her. I wanted to make the relationship work. So I told her we needed to talk and we had this great conversation. After that, I started putting a huge effort into not letting other things getting in the way of the relationship. Work was still incredibly stressful, I was not enjoying it and I guess she was somehow feeling the same. I started to feel happy and comfortable with her again for some time. The relationship did improve and my thoughts of breaking up started to go away. I was feeling good about not letting outside stuff get in the way.

 

Then, after some time, I realized that she was still somehow distant. And I think she had been all along, since we started fighting. I asked her what was going on, if she was happy, if she wanted to be with me. She said she was going through some personal crisis but wanted to be with me. I trusted her, as I believe no one or no relationship goes without a crisis period. So I gave her all the space she asked for, when she wanted to go out with her friends by themselves I would be ok with that, when she started to fill her evenings with new hobbies I was ok with that. In reality, it felt good to see her taking actions in her life. I felt happy when I went to see her participating in this live performance. And it is not like we started to see each other much less, we would still sleep together 5/6 days a week. But I still felt her distant, our sex life was not what it used to be, and I realized that she seemed to be looking forward to these other activities more than to being with me. I would suggest we go out to do something new and she would tell me she had scheduled with her sister the same day. And the day after she was going with her friend. So she was hanging out with other people to do exactly what I was suggesting we should do. I was getting frustrated and by the day we finally managed to schedule she ended up forgetting. So I confronted her, asking yet again what was going on. We sat down to talk and she told me she was not feeling so good with her life, she did not know what was happening, she was not enjoying anything she was doing and that she wanted to be alone. The break up was devastating to me. We ended up talking for hours, no fights though. She told me she was still attracted to me and still liked me, but could not manage to keep living that way. I felt the same towards her but I wanted to make it work.

 

For the next couple of days I was feeling down but I just could not stay home. I started hanging out with friends, doing some stuff I like the I had not been doing for a while. The kind of thing we should do after a break up. She would text me every couple of days to see how I was going, told me she started therapy. But then I eventually told her that I needed some space, talking to her was making me feel uncomfortable. I still need to get some stuff back from her place but asked for some time before picking it up, I wanted to understand my emotions before seeing her again.

 

So last week (about 1 month after the break up), I started to think a lot about her. I realized that I am still in love and miss her. But I also started to realize some things. When we talked about making the relationship work, I now feel like I was the only one making the effort and putting all the energy. I begun wondering if she ever wanted to make it work or if she just sat on her comfort zone. This started to make me angry. And yesterday I saw her with another guy. It is festivals time here and everybody is pretty much drunk and kissing everybody, I did that myself. But she was really hanging with the guy. And that really put me down. She pretended to no see me and I pretended not to see her. I knew that I was going to see her these days eventually although I definitely did not want to. But I just did not want to let her control my life and decided that I would go out anyway. Now we have 3 more days of it and I am definitely thinking about staying home.

 

Seeing her with someone else sort of escalated everything I was thinking about last week. I know it is wrong of me to put thoughts in her head but I feel like she was not completely honest when we broke up. Nor during the final weeks of our relationship. And since I have to see her again to get my stuff, I cannot help feeling like talking about this with her. She was extremely important to me and seeing her moving on after one month hurts me bad. I wonder if it the problem was really with her as she stated.

 

Anyway, sorry for the long post, I wanted to get it out. Any thoughts?

[nutbrownhare]

It sounds as though she'd started detaching from you for a while before you actually broke up. Sorry to see you're going through this, and I know it absolutely sucks. A guy did this to me years ago, and I recall thinking about his new girlfriend every day, when I first woke up. It sucks.

 

However, for your own sanity, just get your stuff when you've arranged to do so, don't mention anything about anything and walk away with your head held high. Asking her about her current relationship will cause you more pain and besides, it's not your business any more.

 

What IS your business, though, is living your own life in the best way you can, surrounding yourself with people who care about you, and doing things you really enjoy. One day all this will seem like nothing more than a bad dream.

 

(((HUGS)))

[Wiseman2]

Sorry to hear this. Agree it was a mistake to stay in touch after the breakup. People do date and move on after breakups. What do think she was lying about?

 

She was fading out for whatever the reasons and the relationship was falling apart since this 6761393]We begun to fight a lot and get distant, even when were doing things that we loved doing together. I started to feel like breaking up, started to get interested in other women.

[alguem]

She wanted to stay in touch for about a week or two and I asked for space. Ended up seeing her with someone else 2 weeks later. It is not about she dating other people. I would not ask her about that. When I look back I believe the relationship was falling apart since we started fighting but we told each other that we wanted to try and make it work. Again, I believe that every relationship might go through this and to me it sounded silly to let those outside things interfere. But I now feel like I was the only one trying. It kind of makes me wonder what it all meant to her as it meant the world to me. She told me in the end that she wasn't feeling good about herself but still loved me. Looking back I wonder whether this is real. I just want to know whatever happened there. We had an amazing 1 year and a half before things started to get weird (I guess that the crisis I described started about 4 months before we broke up). I know it is going to hurt even more if I hear "in reality I was not in love anymore" but at least I would know how she really felt all along. I mean, we were doing that together.

[Wiseman2]

She told you the reasons and she wasn't lying, she just wasn't blunt or mean about it. What were the fights about?

the relationship was falling apart since we started fighting. She told me in the end that she wasn't feeling good about herself but still loved me. the crisis I described started about 4 months before we broke up.

[alguem]

The whole fight period actually started when she decided to get her own place which consumed a lot of her time to get things the way she wanted to and she did it be herself, I was just there being supportive. At the same period I was working insanely. So at first we started fighting for things like "you are working these weekend again?". There were times in which I was simply exhausted and I just didn't feel like talking, I just wanted to be with her in silence. She would start complaining about this which would result in a fight. And when something was not working in my life I started to put the blame on her, which was wrong. After she finally moved to her new place, we started to spend a huge amount of time together there. Meanwhile she also started to work a lot and at days we only got to get home, eat something and sleep. We would`t really talk about each others day as much as we used to. And she wanted the house to be her way, which I understand. But sometimes I would get distracted and leave something "out of place" and we started fighting about these things. And it is not that I would do this a lot. At first most fights were because of that.

 

I was working a lot and feeling down before she got the apartment but instead of fighting she was supportive. She understood when I could not be around. It is frustrating but I believe that she conquering her own place did damage the relationship somehow. We actually discussed this when we break up.

[alguem]

So I ended up seeing her many times during this week, even though I wish I hadn't. Sometimes with the guy, sometimes with friends. Always had this anxiety/depression state. But when I saw her alone we would wave at each other and I would go talk to her. We ended in very good terms so it is only natural that I don't just ignore her all the time. We had a couple of nice conversations. Asking how each other was doing. Obviously it is sort of mandatory for me to say I am doing fine, specially in the middle of the festival. She asked a lot about my family and the projects I was working on when we broke up. Asked how was the festival going for me. Keeping it simple and casual. I asked questions that I also cared about her life. I felt so great afterwards, even though I know it was just polite conversation. But I obsessed after each of these moments. During the last time we talked we sort of hold hands while talking, she didn't pull it back. They just accidentally touched stayed there. Another reason for me to overthink everything. I looked at her and saw her beautiful, interesting. Just like I felt about her in our good times together. I sincerely started to really miss her, to want her back. It completely sucks that this feeling is coming up.

 

Now, I still don't know if she was completely honest with me. But I am taking this a lot easier. Many things came to my mind during the past few days. I realized so much about our relationship. How great it was and how bad it is that it turned to be the way it was in the end. How absurdly supportive we were with each other. I realized how afraid I was of letting myself in. I guess this might have gotten in the way as well. I started feeling guilty, I haven't been with many women and sometimes I feel like I am less of a man because of that. Sometimes I would obsess about sleeping with other women while I was in bad with her. Sort of searching for social validation of my masculinity I guess. Now I realize this was awful, this woman always told me she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, she wanted to have children with me, she was completely into my arms. Do I need any more validation than that? She totally accepted me as a man. And I started to not act like that man around her. I would get confused and wonder whether she was indeed good looking, I would feel happy when someone would look at her while we were walking on the street. So stupid of me, seeing her this past few days just made me realize she is incredibly beautiful. For some reason I wouldn't let her post many pictures of us on Facebook, I have always been so worried about my image that I had an issue with that. My thoughts were like "is my girlfriend really beautiful?". She was the kind of girl who posts a lot of pictures on Facebook, this would bother me sometimes, I would feel as if she was showing off. Now I guess she was only proud of the stuff in the pictures. And she wanted to show us doing stuff she felt great about. I have learned so much from her. Such a resilient woman about what is given, taking life so easily, I guess this why it is easy for her to move on so fast after the relationship is over. I know she is not perfect and I am only seeing through her qualities now but this was predominant to me when were in good terms.

 

I guess I must get used to the idea of seeing her around with other people. But I hate that, really wish we had one more shot. I am probably picking my stuff from her place this week. I have created so many scenarios in my head about what can happen, what can I say, what will she say. Writing this, I guess all I have to say is that everything was great and each moment was truly important to me and go on to get over her, which I think will probably be one of the hardest things I have ever done.

 

Thanks for the replies.