breakup after 4 1/2 years. Desperately need friendly ear

[dopeyjoe]

Hi all.

This is my story in brief. I lived with my girlfriend for 4 1/2 years. We were both really happy for a long time. we both used to enjoy a drink together but i felt that it was getting a bit much so i after 2 years i stopped drinking and took up smoking cannibis. This seemed to gradually change my drive for life and i became a bum. no job, no nothing. I had stopped seeing my friends and rarely did anthing. I knew that she wasn't going to put up with me in this state for long but i didn't ever dream it would come to this. She left me two days ago. I know that it is totally my fault and that regardless of what happens I need to sort my life out. I have given up smoking dope (only two days but i have to start somewhere) and I am already well on the way to securing a good job. I hoped that when she found out that i was sorting myself out she may reconsider. I was wrong.

 

She says that she no longer loves me.

 

Because i haven't kept in contact with my friends i have no one to talk to. My family are away on holiday and i am stuck at home alone feeling horifically bad. I have no insentive to do anything as the only thing in my life that i love has gone.

 

Today we met up at the pub to "clear the air" as she put it. She was in floods of tears like me but was still adament that it was definitely over.

 

I have read through other posts and understand what i need to do to cope with my loss but with no shoulder to cry on I have only the people on the other end of my phone line to confide in. I really need help. I can't function like this. I want her back so much, i would do anything but i don't think there is anything to be done. it only hit me today that my future with her that we had talked about for so long was never going to happen. Seeing her today, looking so upset, i just wanted to hold her and tell her it will be ok. I'm sure that a lot of you reading this understand how it feels but knowing that it could have been prevented if i had got off my lazy bum and done something is really tearing me apart.

 

I really don't feel ready to let it go and give up on her but what else can i do. please post a reply if you can find the time, even if it is just to tell me that you understand. I need to talk about it to someone.

 

Jo

[lunatic]

Hey man I can understand your pain.

 

I have a question for you?

 

Why dont you call your friends up and see what they are doing this weekend. Let them know that you screwed up and want to get back in touch.

 

If they are your true friends they will have no problem hanging out with you again.

[dopeyjoe]

Thanx for the response hubman, that was fast. I was thinking about doing just what you said, i don't really feel up to socialising but it is obviously better than sitting at home alone. even if they don't want to know anymore its got to be worth a try.

thanx again, I never used to understand why people went to forums like this but just having someone listen to my problems does make it a little more bearable.

[lunatic]

No problem bro.

 

I was where you are now like 2 years ago (except for the cannibis). I started to hang out with one of my friends that kept in touch with everyone else. We went out one night and it was like old times again. I had so much fun that I did not look back. I know how it feels to not want any human contact but, it just might be what the doctor ordered for you.

 

Get yourself going and put your life back together.

 

Be happy that there are places like this on the internet I know I am!

[aries]

Hey......give her a little time to miss you. Send her a nice card in the mail telling her that you understand things got sour.....but you are willing to make changes to make the both of you happy. Try and find one of those cards where it says everythign you are feeling right now. I hope it will warm her heart.

 

If you wanna talk..you can PM me anytime.

[heloladies21]

Well you need to go into No Contact ASAP. Get your things together for yourself, not for your ex. Keep busy as hell and bring some female competition into the picture. If she starts to come around, great, but don't make it easy for her. She can't just have you back so easy or else she will just end up dumping you again. Otherwise let her slip cause she didn't love you unconditionally.

[dopeyjoe]

I have a friend who only lives half an hour away by car who i have talked to each month or so. I tried to call him just now but it is no longer his phone.I think that my gf, sorry ex-gf, has his new number so i will ask her for it when she comes to pick up some of her belongings tomorrow. my other old friends are going to be a lot harder to find.

 

I like the idea of the card aries, and thinking positive like that would put an end to these spontanious phases of crying and dispair i am going through, but i am very scared of setting myself up for more pain if she starts getting annoyed with me for not letting her go. It would just be like postponing the grief.

On the other hand, if i do nothing and there was a chance she may come back i would be kicking myself for years over it.

 

She said that she doesn't love me anymore, at least not in the way that a gf should love her bf. I have let her know how i feel, and that i am willing to do whatever it takes to get her back, but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference.

 

I feel really helpless. I am not the soppy type but nothing can prepare you for feeling like this.

She used to ask me to marry her fairly regularly, it almost became a joke although i knew she meant what she was saying. last time she did that was a month or so ago, even after being unemployed for so long she still wanted me to be her husband. I might have avoided all this with a simple yes but i was reluctant, mainly because people would think it was stupid to get married so young. I have so many regrets about what i have done.

 

As for unconditional love, i don't believe that it exists in that sense. She showed me so much love for a long time and i still didn't get a job or make any sign that i would ever change. there is only so long that a person can continue in a relationship where they are unhappy and i know that my actions made her unhappy. She warned me but i never took it in. I really screwed it up. Having said that, there isn't really anything that she could have done that would have made me leave her, so maybe unconditional love does exist. I think that no contact may be the next step. I will leave it for a few days, see if she comes around but i don't hold out much hope, however much i want to.

[Penny1041]

Hi dopeyjoe-

I am getting over a break up after four years too from my boyfriend (ex bf) who says he isnt in love with me anymore eiher. This just happened last week, so its all very new to me still. I think you have to fight for your gf even if you think she may get annoyed. Whats the worst that can happen? You find out that she wont take you back, in that case, you havent lost anything new. Trust me, you have to let her know your willing to fight for her. You gotta get a job and stay clean of course, but dont let her just end things. I really do understand what your going through, and I am sorry you are hurting so much. I am just an email away if you wanna chat sometime. Keep us posted ok?

 

 

Penny

[dopeyjoe]

Hello again.

 

I am not doing too good, I went to the pub yesterday with the friend i was telling you about, I didn't have his number but my ex-gf had called him already to make sure that i wasn't going to be on my own. Although having him come down to see me helped a lot, the kindness that she had shown by calling him for me just made me miss her even more. Our relationship wasn't perfect but she was just so loving and thoughtful that i don't know how to live without her.

Whilst i was out i felt a lot better, i was able to talk about her without getting too upset, as soon as i got back home and was alone again i felt as bad as before. I keep running through scenarios in my mind about what i want to happen and i don't think it's healthy but i can't help it. I can't stop thinking about her.

I know that she is going out to a party tonight and the thought of her enjoying herself and dancing with other men is destroying me. It's not so much jealousy but sadness that i can't be there with her to make her laugh and look after her.

 

I think that i may be getting ill, i feel sick constantly and my throat is raw.

 

I am now at home alone again, in a room full of her things and I don't know what to do. I haven't contacted her for about 36 hours now and i desperately want to, just in case she has realised that she has made a mistake, but i know that if she felt that way she would contact me so i would just be hurting myself more.

Thank you for the kind words Penny, i am sorry to hear about your loss. Before this happened to me i wouldn't have understood the pain but now i truly am sorry to hear about anyone who feels like this. Try and find some comfort in knowing that I am all the way over here in England praying that we can stay strong.

 

My friend who i went to the pub with yesterday had split up with his gf of 2 1/2 years about a month ago, quite a coincidence. He is still in a lot of pain and still can't sleep. I don't think that i can feel like this for another day let alone a month.

 

I need her back.

 

I don't claim to understand a lot about how women think, so if anyone could shed some light onto how she could throw away everything we had without even attempting a repair i would be grateful.

also, she sent me a text message yesterday saying "I am sorry". she knows how i am feeling and i can't understand what she was hoping to achieve by it. I didn't reply, I wanted to but what could i say to that. She is obviously still thinking of me but she still doesn't want me back.

 

i will keep posting here because it helps to have someone listen, my dog is a good listener but her advice is a bit lacking.

[CinnamonGirl]

sometimes not talking to one another in an instance like this can be a good thing, on the other hand it can make it all disappear. her, you and the relationship.

 

do you feel that speaking to each other and working things out on a normal basis will benefit both of you?

[dopeyjoe]

That is a hard question to answer. If there was even a remote chance that we could get back together then it would obviously benifit us both, but she tells me that it is over and that she no longer loves me.

 

When I met her the other day I found it much to hard to just talk normally. It took every effort to not get hysterical and all i ended up doing was upsetting the both of us. Whatever i said or suggested she seemed positive that it was over. She might miss me in time but she may also start to forget me.

I want to talk to her again but i don't want her to remember me as the unatractively desperate person i am at the moment.

I really don't know what to do.

[ggoman]

I just wanted to write you and say that I completely understand how you feel. One thing I want to impress upon you is that no matter what happens, you WILL get better. I know that it FEELS like your world has come crashing down on you. You probably don't even feel like a human being right now... you feel like if you don't get her back, you may as well die. I went through this before too. Let me give you a brief account of my experience (I'm only sharing this so you might make some identifications and feel a little less alone):

 

About 4 years ago I was dumped by my girlfriend of about 2 years. I too had some personal issues in my life at the time. I knew they were adversely affecting the relationship, but didn't do anything (or not enough at least) to take care of them. Eventually the inevitable happened and she left me. To make matters worse, she immediately started seeing someone else who I happened to know (not a best friend, but someone I knew pretty well). Anyways, I felt like my whole world collapsed. I could not function at all. I quit my job. I could only sleep for maybe 4 or 5 hours a night. I had dreams every night, and awoke from them literally wishing I was dead. I started drinking every day at around 6 in the morning (I DO NOT recommend this, by the way). I felt like I had screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me and I believed that I was going to be in total mental anguish for the rest of my life. Like you, I had very few friends at this point... I shut many of them out of my life during my relationship (also DO NOT recommend doing this either). I really felt so awful that I believed that if the feelings continued I would have no choice but to kill myself...

 

But this is ONLY TEMPORARY! I suffered greatly for 2 months. But after that, I did get better. I never got her back, and today I am completely over the relationship. I know it doesn't feel like this can happen to you. You might even think that you are different. You may think, "Great, he got over it. But my situation is way worse. I'm not going to get any better unless I get her back." This is NOT TRUE. If things work out between you and her and you end up living happily ever after, then that's great. I hope that does happen for you. But *if* that doesn't happen, you will recover. You are in the "withdrawal phase" right now. Remember, it is only a phase. I promise.

 

Take care my friend. We understand what you are going through.

[dopeyjoe]

Thanks mate.

 

You have hit the nail on the head about how I feel. I seem to be sleeping for only about half an hour at a time, then when I wake up again there is a few seconds when I think everything is fine before realising what has happened again. Everyone probably says that but it's different when it is happening to yourself.

I am sure that she isn't going to come back. I still keep imagining she will quite often but I know deep down that she won't.

I know I have to start moving on even though every part of me doesn't want to just give up and walk away.

Most of her stuff is still at my house and I need her to collect it ASAP. It is just making this whole thing a lot worse. There is so much stuff to sort out. Probably a good 2-3 days of work. Bags and bags of things in the attic that we are going to have to go through. I don't know how to do it, I refuse to do it myself because it will hurt so much, but i think that if I don't then it will just stay here for weeks.

I have to start the whole no contact thing. Each time I want to call her, I am going to write a post here. I will try and keep them short in the hope of a faster reply because I think I am going to need a lot of support in getting through this.

She has aked me to print out some photos for her that we took a few months back, they are beautiful photos of her, my dog and me out in the New Forest. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and there are a few of me and her kissing under a tree. I have no ink in my printer so I said I would upload them to her Yahoo account.

I can't and won't look at them for obvious reasons. Should I delete them completely after I upload them. I don't want to forget about her. You don't throw away holiday snaps even though you will never have that holiday again.

Can anyone give me some ideas about what to do with myself during the really hard times. If i try and watch tv, I end up staring blanky at the screen and thinking about things again. I need to keep my mind occupied. At the moment I come here and talk about how I feel but sometimes even that is too much. Any ideas would be welcome.

 

What you said about having no choice but to kill yourself, i hate to admit it but it has occurred to me on many occasions. It was that feeling that brought me here. I was looking on the Samaritans website site, planning on seeking advice from a profesional. I don't think I would ever go through with anything like that and decided to look for a forum for support rather than take up their time. I keep being told that this feeling will pass in time, but unfortunately that doesn't help a lot. I would imagine the healing time for this would vary depending on how big a hole is left when they have gone. As she was everything to me, I think I have months of this ahead of me. It is going to be so hard.

[dopeyjoe]

I have never been the person doing the leaving in relationship, so i don't know how it feels for my ex. I want to know that she is ok. I want to talk to her. Someone please give me some advice. I would like to hear from someone who has been in a situation similar to the one that she is in.

 

How quickly can feelings for someone change?

 

Should I still be fighting to get her back?

 

I am not one for playing games in a relationship but I don't want to let her just forget me and move on if I can help it. I can't change the way she feels, but what can I do to ensure that she definitely thinks about what she really wants and whether what she is doing for the best.

 

Should I leave it alone? should I call her?

[dopeyjoe]

I just received a text from her asking if she can come over on thursday to pick up some more stuff. I text back asking if she will have time to take all of it because it is just making things harder.

hearing from her again has instantly made me feel as bad as when she first left. I am still crying myself to sleep on a good day and this is definitely a bad one.

I need to start healing and i will now be just waiting for thursdays wave of pain to arrive.

I hate this. Someone please post back, I need support, I need to stop crying, and more than anything I need her to come back and she never will.

[ggoman]

Hi again.

 

 

I know you are hurting; believe me I understand. If you are willing, click "Profile" and then set "always show my e-mail adress" to yes. I have a lot of things I'd like to share, but would prefer not to post publicly. Hang in there my friend.

[dopeyjoe]

Thanks ggoman, I have made my email address public.

 

She still hasn't answered as to whether she an pick up all her stuff. I don't think she realises how much she has hurt me and how it makes me feel when I am waiting for her to reply.

 

She is at work and doesn't finish till late, about midnight. At the moment the time here is 23:30 so I am expecting her to answer shortly.

 

I will post what her answer is. It is bound to be an emotionless text so it won't sound nasty but it still hurts like hell to hear from her.

[dopeyjoe]

well, she never replied. I am trying my best not to wonder why, there is no way I can know what she is feeling. I could think of a million reasons so there isn't any point thinking about it. I nearly sent her a text this morning to try and find out, but then I would be waiting for a reply again and that really isn't fun or productive so I left it.

[kellbell]

Hey there,

 

I am so sorry you are going through this. Sounds like she is just playing around and not fully understanding how much this is hurting you. At this point what I would do is pack her stuff yourself. And leave it out where she can get it and text her to come get it. Or pack it up and text her and say, your stuff has been packed, come at this time or else I am throwing it away. Take some control and this is definitely a way for you to control the situation and show you are not playing around. Obviously, this stuff is not that great of importance to her or she would have made a better effort to get it. She is just doing this to have that last shredded power over you. Heck, packing her stuff maybe empowering to you because, one you are taking control of the situation and two, you are adding the closure to this. At that, my friend is what you need. Closure. I am not saying this is going to be easy. Look at my siggy. The right things are always the hard things. Take it one day at a time, the pain will get less and less. The beginning is always hard. PM me whenever you want, if you ever want to talk. You are definitely not alone.

[ArizonaGuy]

Hey DopeyJoe,

 

Hang in there mate. Even if its only for half an hour at a time find something or watch something that makes you laugh and happy.

 

I know it hurts man. My wife I have just found out has had a couple of affairs after telling me nothing happened , so I understand your pain. At least your ex gf has not betrayed you and as long as you are both alive there is hope.

 

Just set yourself short term goals. Enjoy your dog (they certainly listen well dont they) And focus as much as you can on whats good at present eg parents/friends well etc.

 

Take care

[dopeyjoe]

Well, I sent her another text just now to try and find out what is going on on thursday and still no reply. I am getting a bit concerned. She is not the sort of person to just ignore me like this.

I hope she is ok.

I understand that she doesn't love me but i know that she still cares about me. I am thinking of calling her, just to make sure she is all right. I know that it will upset me to hear her voice but if something has happened to her, well, it just doesn't bare thinking about.

There are probably lots of people reading this thinking that it wouldn't be wise to call her, but i'm sure you can understand why as well.

 

I understand what you mean, kellbell, but although the breakup was painful, it wasn't done in a malicious way. I would rather not turn it into a situation like that. If it continues like this, then for my own sake I will have to become more pushy about it, but I will give it a few days yet.

 

I am sorry to hear about your situation ArizonaGuy, that is a dreadful thing to have happened. At least you have found your way here where there is plenty of support and wise words to help you through.

[ggoman]

I would strongly suggest not calling her. Think about this for a second:

 

unless you have a real reason to suspect that something might have happened to her (natural disaster, a known stalker, etc.) then it is OVERWHELMINGLY likely that she is simply choosing not to respond.

Keep in mind when you say that this is not like her, you really mean that this WAS not like her while you two were together. I would strongly recommend not calling. I really think this is best. I know it hurts even more to think something might have happened to her, but I can practically guarantee that it hasn't. Feel free to write me anytime you need anything. Take care of yourself.

[dopeyjoe]

I'm afraid that I called her, I regret it now and I wish I had listened. I did however keep it together and made out that I just wanted to know what was going on about her stuff. She sounded like she was having more trouble talking to me than I was.

 

I wish I hadn't called but it's too late now. She is coming over early tomorrow morning. I said that I will go out so as to avoid making things harder for us both. I don't think she liked to hear that, and she wanted to know how we would sort out all joint owned things if I wasn't there.

 

I told her to take what she wanted and that if I wanted any of it I would say so. I don't really want to keep any of it, it will be ages before I can bring myself to even look at it again and although I may regret it in the future it is better than being there. It's not our possesions that I will miss.

 

She seemed concerned that she won't have time to take all of her stuff. I am going camping with some old friends at the weekend and I said that she could come over and finish off then.

She asked if she could look after my dog whilst I was away and I agreed. I don't know if I should have done but I couldn't see the harm in it. I am hurting loads again after speaking with her. She told me she hadn't replied to the text the other day because she was asleep. Odd that she was awake to send me a text me in the first place and even more odd if she had slept for 36 hours.

 

I am not going to contact her again. You are right ggoman, It was out of character for what she used to be like with me, I have to accept that things are different now.

 

I am not really looking forward to going away this weekend but it will hopefully take my mind off things for a bit. I am hoping the change of scenery will help also. I am, on the other hand, afraid that it might make me feel worse. I am so used to doing things like this with her.

I really don't think I feel any better now than I did when she left. It is still so, so hard. I hate the thought that I have months of this ahead. I keep telling myself that I WILL be alright again, but I think I will always be sad about missing out on what could have been.

 

I have downloaded all of the popular IM's today, I am going to do some searches for some old friends and see if they fancy meeting up. It seems a bit unfair to drag them into this but I don't really care. Sounds harsh, but if they don't want to know then I have lost nothing and if they do, then I will have made the first steps to repairing the friendship.

Thanks for the support guys, in the future I will listen to the advice more, I am not capable of making decisions that are best for me when I am in this state so please keep the advice coming.

[kellbell]

Well, as someone else wrote, I would strongly advise you not to call her again. Look how bad you felt after you called her. I would stop worrying about her, worry about yourself. She is fine, she is a big girl and she take care of herself. I would go camping and go have some fun. I would stop doing little things to keep her around like watching over your dog and such. This is going to cause you more pain, everytime you talk to her or see her, you have to start all over again as far as the healing process goes.

She is not obligated to text you when you do text her. She is trying to move on with her life and you should try to do the same. I wish you all the best in this and come back in here to let us know how you are doing.