Heart blind and now regretful

[Eyre]

I am in the same situation as many. I admit it. And it is all my own fault.

 

I broke up with my ex (the first really serious guy in my life) and I miss him more than ever. I admit he drove me crazy. He was goofier than I can explain, he spent more time gaming than with me, and had (still has) no plans or goals for the future. At 19 that's fine but at 27 it is starting to get old.

 

I have always been goal oriented (you can always change your goal, but you'll seldom get anywhere if you aren't moving), and I was just starting professional school in another city 3 hours away. (It didn't help that my dad whose advice I value very much thought he was a complete slacker. After we broke up he said he couldn't understand why I was with him in the first place.)

 

I thought that I didn't love him...I have always been the one to run away from a relationship, but I never felt like this. Dispite his faults (not that I am flawless) he is a really nice guy, dedicated to his friends and family (I loved them too and the were so great to me). We have remained friends (chalk another one up to him).

 

Every day I miss him more. We never talked (major relationship flaw) and after I broke up with him I went home and cried for hours. School has been going well, but I miss seeing him. We talk on the phone and I have had to lie to him so many times about how I felt because I was unsure and couldn't stand the thought of hurting him again.

 

I remember the first time he mentioned moving on a few months ago when he asked me if I "thought he was ready to date again." I said I couldn't speak for him but that I knew that I wasn't. Recently he has started to see someone and I hate the thought of him with someone else. He said he loved me, and it terrified me...but now that it seems he doesn't anymore I hurt even more.

 

I don't know if I miss him or the thought of him. I never had a huge problem with being alone, but as I look at the people around me dating, engaged, married...I don't know if I miss him or miss not being single.

 

I suppose my main query is that I am doing the right thing by keeping my feelings to myself about this right? I should bite my tongue and let him move on. Right?

[perseverance_rules]

Not necessarily. But unless things change with him to your liking, or you are willing to deal with it head on, and speak more openly about what is bothering you...it wont work. I say you talk to him about your feelings, but also realize that nothing may come of it. Just a burden off your chest. I truly believe that in order for someone to grow from a relationship they have to realize what went wrong,..or even what to change if theyre willing to do so. Not change as in who they are, but rather how they address issues and how open they are to change in general to make others happy while they are happy.

 

See what happens and talk with him. If you dont, just plan on moving on when youre over it, and learn what went wrong and chalk it up as a life lesson.

[Eyre]

Sad to say.. this is the most serious relationship I've ever had. I made a huge leap for myself allowing myself to open up this much. I just don't trust easily. I know what went wrong. I was half of the relationship.

 

I was open at the beginning that I run. Every time. Never fail. And he didn't even argue with me when I said that I didn't think I was up to a long distance relationship. I didn't see (again) that I was running. But I was. And he didn't even try to stop me. He just looked at me with tears in his eyes and said he understood.

 

I feel like I'm not worth fighting for.

[antigravity]

And he didn't even try to stop me. He just looked at me with tears in his eyes and said he understood.

 

I feel like I'm not worth fighting for.

 

Oh I wouldn't think that at all.

 

I've been there before (in his situation). He may have been thinking the same thing as me at the time. Although you love a person more than anything, there really isn't any point fighting for someone who doesn't want you.

 

He sounds like a guy with a few faults, but then again, no one is perfect.

 

You need to think about those faults (not being driven, playing too much computer games), and think about whether they're are things you could really live with. They may not be acceptable for you. There is nothing wrong with that.

[patience]

I was open at the beginning that I run. Every time. Never fail. I was open at the beginning that I run. Every time. Never fail.

 

what do you mean by 'run'? are you commitment phobic?

[Eyre]

My relationships have consisted of "the guy who yelled at me." Hence the end of that relationship...

 

The guy that was insulted by my unsure response to serious dating (I hadn't realized that we were dating...So what, I was a clueless 18 year old)... and hence stopped speaking to me.

 

The guy that I saw right after my mother died and I was in a serious depression and our mutual friends (my roommates) decided I literally wasn't fun a month before the lease ran out and they decided that I had to find a new place to live. You can imagine my trust issues at the time.

 

I haven't been in a lot of relationships. That is because I have been busy, and choosy. Generally by the time I got to know someone well enough to want to go out with them I knew them too well to go out with them. I always see the things that I can't live with. And opening up and sharing my feelings (and thoughts) is very difficult. And I don't feel like I know how to recognize love as compared to say...lust or my desire to stop being single.

 

I want a committment. I want someone who I respect and love and can marry and have babies with...and now I am in the situation where I am stuck in school for 3 more years and then I have a committment to the military b/c they are paying for school and will I be able to find someone to follow me where I must go. But everyone I know has such high expectations for me but I am afraid that I will end up like friends who are with over-aggressive, demanding, or end up just plain crazy men after years of committment from them and they end up heart-broken.

[lady00]

Give yourself and your decision-making abilities a little more credit...you said being goal-oriented is important to you. You were with someone who didn't feel the same way. If that is a core value of yours, well then a relationship like that just isn't going to work. He spent more time playing video games than being with you? That wouldn't work for me either. I think that liking someone a lot (or even loving them) isn't enough to make a relationship work. You have to be compatible as well. If something in you told you to break it off then maybe you should trust your instincts that you did the right thing.

[Eyre]

And to rub salt in the wound...

 

He just got engaged. Guess I'm a really good liar, because he told me and seemed so excited and just kept telling me about how wonderful and kitmet it all was. And I couldn't think of anything to say but how "happy" I was for him, when I really just wanted to cry.

 

We broke up in May, he started seeing her not too long before Thanksgiving, it is now January and the wedding is set for July.

 

And I haven't been on a single date since I moved, because the only guy I think about is him.

[lady00]

It's probably not a good idea to keep talking to him. Hearing about his relationships is not good for you. You're probably thinking that he is somehow "better off" than you are or better at dating and relationships or he somehow realized the error of his ways because he's with someone and you aren't. But that isn't a good way to think. You need to trust yourself more and realize that you left for reasons which were compelling to you and that is all that matters. As for dating, you will go on dates when you're ready. Right now you are so focused on your ex that you can't see all of the other great (and goal-oriented!) single guys that are out there. And yes, they're there. I think cutting contact with the ex (or stopping others when they try to tell you about his life) will help you progress to the point where you will be enjoying the dating scene again. Being with someone isn't going to be fulfilling to you until you are more over your ex. Until then, treat yourself well and think about it this way: you should never have to settle for less than what you want. If someone isn't compatible with you, even though they're still nice and attractive then it's just not going to work and there is nothing wrong with ending that kind of relationship. If you were superhappy in the relationship, you would not have ended it. I realize that it's upsetting to see him moving on and getting married but in the long run, that is probably where you want to be as well. And if you look in your heart and think about the reasons for the breakup, you will probably find out that he's not the guy you want to be standing at the altar with.

[butterflycloud]

Maybe you need to sit down and really explore your thought of " do I miss him or just the thought of him'?

 

Your mind is a terrible thing sometimes- it makes you doubt your decisions and makes you feel all guilty about it! Assure yourself why it is that you broke up with him. Trust that you made the right decision- if you broke up with him it must have been for very valid reasons- trust that you did the right thing for yourself.

 

And also if he got engaged so quickly that sounds a bit odd. In my opinion no one in the right mind could cope with a break up so quickly and move on to the extreme of being engaged to another. Dont mean to sound nasty but hois engagement could be a bad case of the 'rebound blues'

[octopus]

I am going to sound selfish but I'm glad you posted. I was looking for cases when one realized he/she loved the other after wanting to separate. But of course the reasons and conditions may be different, so every case is different...

[friscodj]

Maybe you need to sit down and really explore your thought of " do I miss him or just the thought of him'?

 

Your mind is a terrible thing sometimes- it makes you doubt your decisions and makes you feel all guilty about it! Assure yourself why it is that you broke up with him. Trust that you made the right decision- if you broke up with him it must have been for very valid reasons- trust that you did the right thing for yourself.

 

And also if he got engaged so quickly that sounds a bit odd. In my opinion no one in the right mind could cope with a break up so quickly and move on to the extreme of being engaged to another. Dont mean to sound nasty but hois engagement could be a bad case of the 'rebound blues'

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.