how can i win him back?

[PDXGirl21]

almost 2 months ago i asked my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years to move out of our apartment. we were broke, depressed, not having sex, fighting a lot... etc. when he left he called me from his parents' that night telling me how much he missed me. i felt numb and cold from all the craziness and told him we couldn't talk on the phone for a while since we needed time apart. now the weeks have passed, we talk on the phone every day and send each other emails with links to funny stuff. i know he loves me and i love him so much i just feel like we made a huge mistake. we are both relocating to the same place sometime in the next month or two and i am trying desperately to convice him we should make the move together. he says he loves me and hopes we can get back together someday but that we already made the choice to split up for now and have to stick it out. i have gotten desperate enough to practically beg and i truly feel he is saying no out of pride and principle rather than because of how he really feels in his heart. i know he still loves me and wants to be with me.

everyone says "if it's meant to be it will..."

 

any ideas on what i can do to win his heart back?

i'm not a desperate girl who thinks she needs a man in her life to be happy. i just know this man is the one for me and i don't want to lose the best thing that's ever happened to me. help?

 

ps. i am driving to where he lives next monday to celebrate my birthday with some friends and his family...

[RandomAdvisor]

Are you really sure that you should even try to win him back? It sounds like you made the right decision to break up with him in the first place. No sex, fighting all the time - sounds pretty bad. What's changed? If you got back together with him, what makes you think things wouldn't end the same?

 

Sometimes people can get along ok as friends but not as lovers. I'm thinking maybe you and your ex fall into that category.

[loveydovey]

Well, i was recently in a similar situation with my ex. We broke up because of a rift that was forming in between us about a year ago. We looooved each other to pieces but a split was, at the time, the best possible decison in order to salvage the love, friendship, and respect for each other that was still there.

 

A year later, after me dating a few guys and all, I felt like I wanted to tell him that I wanted to try again, and well, much to my dismay....he told me he's with someone else now.

 

And I will tell you at first I just thought that I was going to try my hardest, begging and all, to get him back. But after having a long discussion with him, it made me realize that it is what it is. Maybe in a different time and place, we can try again and just maybe the next we'll get it right.

 

So my advice to you is to just take some time right now and use it either to embrace being single or to reflect on what didnt go so right in your last relationship. In the end, you'll feel a lot better than you do right now. Because I'm sure you're tearing yourself up and in constant pain thinking about nothing but the two of you getting back together.

 

It'll be okay, honey. But in the meantime, if you want to do what I suggested (doing some soul searching), it would make it a lot easier if you and your ex don't keep calling and talking and emailing each other as if you never broke up.

 

Thats my opinion Hope that helps

[PDXGirl21]

As far as whether or not we should get back together...

I really think that we just hit a rough spot in our relationship. We lived together the entire 2 1/2 years and when we decided to break up it was after having gone through months of major financial difficulties... the stress related to money was really the driving force behind most of the arguments. When things weren't so stressful we really got along wonderfully. We laughed together all the time and I believe we took really good care of eachother.

I have tried telling him that I can't be in contact with him so regularly since it makes it so hard for me to feel like moving on. He said he understood but then called me the next day. We're just so used to sharing our lives that I think it's hard for both of us to adjust. It makes me wonder why we're even broken up if both of us are so eager to share things...

Last night after I posted this I was laying in bed thinking about why it is that I feel so obsessed with getting back together. I feel as if we're such a good fit for eachother; everyone who knew us as a couple was shocked when we broke up- they all thought we were going to get married. I know the healthy and logical thing to do right now would be to just try and pick up the pieces of myself and focus on my own life. I just keep wishing that I could go back and stop myself from letting him go, I feel like it was such a big mistake.

I've finally at least gotten to the point of not crying everyday, not feeling so weak and depressed all the time. I know it will get better, but I just can't stop feeling that this is all wrong, that we really gave up when we shouldn't have. I mean, it takes a lot of work to make relationships work. Why can't we just keep working on it... I love him enough to want to work as hard as I can.

Grrr... I hate this!

[DN]

You don't have to necessarily be living together to work on the relationship. Why don't you ask him to date again for a while before making decisions about moving back in? You could have an exclusive relationship, have some fun together but also some time apart to breathe in between.

 

You also could use that time to work together on fixing the problems that caused you to split in the first place - how to communicate, negotiate and compromise. Those problems should certainly be fixed before you think about moving in together again. The immediate problems, such as money, may go away, but behind that is the more important question of how you both deal with the other problems that are sure to arise.

[PDXGirl21]

I really appreciate your advice, guys. We have talked about dating each other in a more casual way once we get settled into our new lives. We moved in together right away at the beginning of our relationship and it might give us a chance to experience some of those early-dating things we never really had before while also leaving us space to work out the kinks in our own lives. I think I'm getting better, starting to accept how things are now. It's honestly, though, one of the harder things I've ever had to go through. You really don't know how awful heartbreak is unless you've been there, eh?

For now I'm just happy that we can be friends and I am thankful for the things he's done for me and for what I've been able to do for him. We both have really gained so much from our relationship, and I think regardless of what happens we will always be grateful for that... (I still hope the future finds us together though!)