lurking questions today...feedback appreciated

[cherriecheek]

hey everyone i have a few questions i have been pondering today in work and would really appreciate some feedback....

 

could it be possible to leave a relationship after a year and half due to the fact that its too perfect? like no fighting, no forseen problems etc..?

 

if a relationship is too good? and things are getting more serious, does that sometimes scare people away?

 

if these are the main reasons why you left a relationship, do couples in this situation reconcile more often than other reasons of breaking up??

[_Ramirez_]

could it be possible to leave a relationship after a year and half due to the fact that its too perfect? like no fighting, no forseen problems etc..?

Well if you believe your relationship is perfect why would you want to leave it? If there's not enought fighting or there's no problem why create them? If the relationship is completely boring then it's a different situation and it might not be "perfect" but really... why break a really good relationship? To many people are looking for it, if you're not happy because it's too good to be true then the problem is not in the relationship.

 

if a relationship is too good? and things are getting more serious, does that sometimes scare people away?

 

if these are the main reasons why you left a relationship, do couples in this situation reconcile more often than other reasons of breaking up??

I believe it sometime does. You are scared to let everything go and you don't enjoy the ride while you still can. Some people need problems to have the impression to live, they are scared of being hurt and they try to make things go bad so they can complain and say: "I knew it, it couldn't be soo good"!.

 

If you leave a relationship that's good because you're scared of getting more serious you will have the same problem with every relationship.

 

Look deep inside yourself, is there any reason why you are scared of being happy? Is there a reason why you believe such a thing is impossible? Do you have a hard time trusting people?

[Dako]

Please fess up and tell us what makes you ponder these astounding things.

 

I assumed you were theorizing, but the idea intrigues me.

[bulletproof]

What I have found out through my last relationship is that if you never fight, resentments build up like crazy. This sort of thing usually happens when two people get together who are both terrified of confrontation or arguing. Sometimes a couple works better because at least one person is not afraid of saying what's on his/her mind.

 

Are you thinking of breaking up with someone, or are you afraid that someone is about to break up with you?

[RayKay]

Every relationship has there things to overcome. I don't believe for one second that "no fighting" means no problems.

 

Sometimes there is no fighting/conflict as both partners avoid conflict and pretend everything is okay.

 

Sometimes there is none as one partner or both don't really care enough about it to work through things.

 

If you never fight, usually it's because at least one of you is avoiding conflict, trying to be "perfect" for the other. This leads to resentments, to issues that both ignore.....it's destructive.

 

Conflict is not unhealthy, healthy communication and conflict resolution are essential to a healthy relationship. You are not the same person, and you are going to have different opinions and ideas (I hope) and working through these things teaches you more about one another and strengthens you as a couple too.

 

And when it gets "more serious" yes, it can cause someone to leave. Mainly because they don't want it to go to another level. After about a year or so, generally you start wondering if this relationship is the one going to go long term....it's a "either make it or break it" time, and many end up "breaking it" because the honeymoon stage is over, they see all the issues, or incompatibilities and decide it's time to move on.

[cherriecheek]

haha i'll gladly share my story...

 

i tend to rationalize things out...sometimes to a fault. truth is, my boyfriend ended our 2 year relationship about 3 months ago, although i am well on my way toward a healthy recovery, i find myself left with questions not so much involving our relationship, but with relationships in general.

 

while breaking up he told me how great of a girlfriend i was and how our relationship was not the reason he was ending i., he said he was in a funk and just didnt know what he wanted and he didnt want to drag me down in the process. i mean, even his best friends didnt know he ended things until after the fact, so he clearly wasnt discussing or contemplating it for too long.

 

i ask these questions not for the hopes of getting back together, but for a piece of mind when looking toward new relationships. see, i wish i was able to walk away from this relationship thinking i need to "improve" parts of myself, or have the comfort of knowing there was bad chemistry and there will be someone more suited for me out there...i mean afterall since "im a great girlfriend" i feel like i am not taking away anything to work with, i have not learned anything about myself in a relationship aspect.

 

also, i ask these questions because i forsee me having a trust issue with future relationships...if a perfectly great relationship can end out of nowhere, how am i supposed to believe my next boyfriend isnt secretly thinking about ending things even if the relationship is going along wonderfully?

[RayKay]

Hmm, well, in my experience when someone says "you are a great girlfriend" they do mean it, they just don't mean you are the right girlfriend for THEM.

 

Sometimes...there just is no spark on their side. You can be perfect on paper, but in reality something does not mesh (this is the line I got....).

 

I also wonder...in this relationship, did you try to alter whom you were to fit the mold of whom you thought he wanted...i.e. tried to be that "great girlfriend" rather than being you?

 

I am just curious, since I have been in a similar place in a past relationship, and heard the same things. It hit me months later that yes, I was a great girlfriend...but I stopped being me. I was miserable as I never voiced my own concerns in order to remain "perfect", I sacrificed whom I was to be "perfect". And how could someone love me when I forgot to love myself, and BE myself.

 

I vowed to never do that again. I could be a GREAT partner to someone, without striving to be "perfect"...because no one is perfect. And it sure is amazing knowing you are loved and accepted for YOU 100%,

[bulletproof]

There had to be more going on. Was there anything you didn't like about the relationship? Were you totally honest in terms of where you wanted it to go? What was the level of intimacy like?

 

Chances are, it's not about whether you were a good or bad girlfriend. You can really only ever be yourself. If you want to take away a lesson, the only way to do that is to take a very hard look at what the relationship was. Sometimes people break up for something as vague as 'no spark' for one of the parties involved. If your ex-boyfriend were to sit down and list all the things that he didn't like about you, and thus the relationship, are they really things you would change about yourself anyway? They might be things you really like about yourself, but just weren't right for him. And that's a lot different from something being fundamentally wrong with you as a person.

 

As far as future relationships go, it's always a risk to give yourself over to someone emotionally. You can't be afraid of it just ending abruptly, because that is the risk we all take. It's the unfortunate downside to all the great feelings we get when we're in love. But most people would probably say it's worth the risk.

[cherriecheek]

"There had to be more going on. Was there anything you didn't like about the relationship? Were you totally honest in terms of where you wanted it to go? What was the level of intimacy like"

 

there was nothing about the relationship i didnt like but the distance during my last year of college. we connected on every level from communicating to interests to future aspirations. we never spoke of marriage because i told him months earlier i didnt agree with mixing college and a wedding. (he also never brought up the subject, this was just a light hearted convo). our intimacy was great, always kept things interesting to were it never got boring.

 

the "no spark" idea you brought up does make a lot of sense, i never even thought of that as a possiblity. its so hard to believe a spark could just be "lost"... maybe thats why divorces are so high? people just lose a "spark" and have no desire to find it or fight for it.

 

i do understand where your coming from raykay, with your thoughts on compromising aspects of myself in order to fit a cookiecutter image of what he thinks is a "great girlfriend" and i dont believe i did because even after breaking up, i feel like the same person... the feeling of "oh wow i finally have myself back" didnt happen because i fell in love without losing myself. i enjoy all the things i did prior to breaking up, and i figured perhaps that is the reason my healing process is going so well.

 

 

i also noticed both people on this forum and my closest friends say "are you SURE there was nothing else going on?" ....over and over again i examine this question from all aspects of the relationship when the question is brought to my attention and there definitely was not. the only change during this time was me graduating college and moving closer to him. so, in reality our relationship should of been on the upswing

[NJRon]

I have experienced something similar. I was going out with a great girl. In the technical aspects of the relationship, she was probably the "best girlfriend" a guy could have. She did treat me far better than anyone in the past, and that was a great balm for the soul.

 

However, in the end, I just never developed feelings for her. I had to break it off, otherwise I would just be dragging her along and, in a sense, using her.

 

Obviously this does not necessarily pertain to your situation but, to answer your question, I am with RayKay 100% on this. A perfect relationship is only perfect if it is perfect for the two people. However, that definition of perfect varies in every single relationship. The fact that being the best girlfriend he ever had more than likely made it incredibly difficult to do what he did. I know it was very hard for me but it certainly had no reflection on how terrific a person she is.

[bulletproof]

My guess is that the upcoming move that would bring you closer together geographically was a wake-up call for him. He may have felt that if he didn't see himself with you long-term, it wasn't fair to continue in the relationship. Why he didn't see himself with you long-term is another issue, one that you may never have an answer to.

 

Did you want to marry him? It sounds like you might have, even if it was later down the road. Often, the other person can sense that even without having had a conversation about it and if that person doesn't feel the same way, it's a problem. You were together 2.5 years. If nobody ever brought up marriage (except for the one instance you mentioned) even in a theoretical, what-if kind of way, then that's sort of skirting the issue of why you are even dating. Not to say that every relationship should culminate in a marriage or similar commitment, but usually that's where we think it should be heading while we're in it, or else we wouldn't bother.

[cherriecheek]

NJron....i found your post very interesting, exactly how long were you dating this girl before you realized you didnt have feelings for her? i understand why it would be hard to end things with someone who seemingly is great and your right, a relationship is only great if two people think so. i was also wondering since there was no hositle break up, did you guys remain friends or establish NC?

 

 

bulletproof, yes i did want to marry him, but i wanted to save any talk of marriage until after i was out of college. he did mention once that he wasnt sure if he wanted to settle in eastern PA since his entire fam lives 7 hours away in Pittsburgh. i was surprised he brought this up because im the type of person who would move anywhere and be fine. i figured he was making assumptions about what i wanted long term without approaching me about it, and in return, getting scared or developing a phobic based on these assumptions. thanks for your responces by the way, i appreciate your insight on this situation.

[NJRon]

I really don't like the sound of "didn't have feelings" for her... the truth be told, I did have feelings for her. They just were not the feelings that would lead to a long-lasting, romantic relationship. I had a caring feeling for her that would not provide the love she needed.

 

Our relationship was almost 6 months. The nagging feeling started at about 3-4 months. In the last month it started to grow stronger and stronger. However, it's not that I had feelings for her at one point and then they went away, they just actually never progressed to a really high level. When I realized that they wouldn't continue to grow (on my side at least), that's when things started really setting in for me. I decided to end it before conflict started to arise.

 

Though there was no conflict between us, when I broke up with her, she told me that I didn't know how many times she had cried herself to sleep at night due to my distance. That really hurt... because I didn't ever want to cause her pain. I could only say to her that healthy, loving relationships do not cause someone to cry themselves to sleep night after night.

 

She came back and said she wanted to be friends. I never offered it. I did what I did fully willing to accept the consequences. We chat every now and then. Went shopping together once for a few hours. I'm just trying to make sure that she wants to be friends because that's all she wants... and isn't hoping for something more. If it turns out to be that she wants more than friendship, then I will have to cut off contact.

 

Bah... I need to go get some ice cream or something...