6 months after breakup - 2.5 year relationship

[positiveone]

Male age 22 - she was Female age 20

 

I still can't come to terms with the breakup. I still feel like she didn't give it ANY effort to pick up the pieces and rebuild. She came from a broken home and she was the only one that actually was creating a future for herself.. I believe the troublesome challenges she went through as a child and through life with her family made her emotionally inept to actually apply coping skills and solutions to issues that would arise within our relationship. She put herself on lockdown whenever issues would arise in our romantic relationship... I was always the one to try and understand what we could do better and how we could try and fix it. I would also go to her when I was unhappy with a thing or two and try to see what we could do to make it better. She never really had the ability to try and fix anything at all. Sure there was a few thing I could have done better and I now relize that (of course I relize these things at the worst time * after she's gone*)...

 

To sum it up... breaking up was not an option for me even though at times I'd get frustrated and threaten breaking up. I never REALLY wanted that. I just didn't know how else to tap into her emotionally because she closed herself off completely.

 

And so here I am now.. 6 months after she left and I'm still fantasizing about her coming back. What I gather from all of this knowledge that I've accumulated over the months of being without her is that she will NEVER come back because she doesn't know how to.. she doesn't know how to repair and build. She only knows how to run away because that's how she dealt with her family issues as a child.

 

Let me know any advice that you have, this is my shpeal and I'd like to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading

[RedDress]

I'm sorry for your loss. Breakups are really hard, especially after a certain amount of time together.

 

In terms of advice for the next relationship - here is my advice (*note - you can take it or leave it, it's free advice )

 

People rarely change. They might change a little or they might change in degrees - but they rarely completely change. For example, you might get a really messy person to be slightly less messy - but if you are hoping they will suddenly become organized, this will never work. You will get frustrated trying to get them to change and they will always feel like it's not good enough and that they have to 'filter' themselves (thus not being able to be themselves). While there will always be disagreements and maybe a need to work on communication or something - you are better to try to find someone you can simply accept and who you don't have to change. You will never find someone perfect (and perfection in itself would likely be annoying) - but it's best to find someone with faults in the places that you don't care too much about and faults that you can just accept. This often requires patience and self-growth. This will bring more peace in your next relationship.

 

The other thing I would mention is that - while I understand your frustration in feeling like you needed to threaten to leave - I think it's important to understand that, while you might get a temporary reaction that you want, every time you do so, you shake the foundation of the relationship. You are telling the person that your love is not unconditional, it's conditional on them changing x,y or z. It forces them to consider the ultimatum, re-evaluate the relationship, figure out how happy they are, determine their other options, etc. If you do this too many times, most people will come to the conclusion that the relationship is simply not working and leave. Particularly if you are not married with children and other obligations tying you together (and even then...)

 

If you were arguing often and many changes were needed and you felt like you needed to resort to threatening to leave, it sounds like this was not the right relationship for the two of you. Don't get me wrong - your efforts were valiant and it shows that you hold your commitments dear to your heart which is great - but it sounds like this was simply not the right relationship.

[Careerchoice]

What I gather from all of this knowledge that I've accumulated over the months of being without her is that she will NEVER come back because she doesn't know how to.. she doesn't know how to repair and build. She only knows how to run away because that's how she dealt with her family issues as a child.

 

No. She's not with you and won't come back to you because she doesn't want to. It has nothing to do with any type of skill set. You don't need to look into it any further than that.