Hi Jade Green

Actually, I would have expected exactly the same as you. Even though we broke up mutually, deep down it wasn’t something that I really wanted and that’s why I’m struggling to let go. In my head I just wanted to let her know that I cared and that I still love her but to also say that I know that it’s too late to go back and to ultimately say goodbye. The letter that I composed in my head even had a sentence that said “please don’t feel obliged to reply”. But I would have wanted a reply and that’s why I won’t write. Your friend is very wise.

Andy

Hi Bluesses

Thank you for sharing your story, it hit home for me in so many ways. I hope you don’t mind but I will share my story with you, I’ll keep it short.

Just over a year ago I split up with my partner of 5 years. We had a long distance relationship and only saw each other at weekends and during holidays. While we both accepted that as the situation we talked about the future and eventually moving in with each other. The real problem though was that there were many things wrong in our relationship. There were things about her that I didn’t like, I’m sure that were things that she didn’t like about me too. As you say, there are two sides to every story. She was quite brash, very matter of fact. Maybe practical as you have described your boyfriend. For a lot of the time it felt like there was a wall between us that was difficult to break down and she wasn’t very generous with her feelings. This is the complete opposite to how I am as a person. We didn’t really communicate our feelings to each other unless things were going wrong. So we effectively grew apart. I should point out that we also had some amazing times together and there were also a lot of things I liked about her, it wasn’t all bad.

A few months after breaking up we got back together because we both missed each other terribly. That was March 2014. We vowed to communicate our feelings more. Up until a month before Christmas things we were going really well but then we slipped back into the way we were before. The wall was still there and it was difficult for me to penetrate. I started having negative feelings about the relationship again and I suspect she did too. But again, we never communicated how we felt to each other. For the most part, I didn’t feel comfortable about telling her how I felt as she did get quite defensive and I just felt like I was walking on egg shells most of the time.

At the beginning of this year we split up again and on reflection it was inevitable. Neither of us really wanted to break up but both felt that it was probably the best thing for both of us. During that last month before Christmas I actually felt quite unhappy being in the relationship. Despite all this, I still miss her but I do know deep down that it is the right decision for us.

I am not going to tell you not marry your boyfriend, that is your decision. My question though is, if you do marry him what do you think will change? If you’re tired of it now how will you feel once you have made the commitment of marriage?

If there is something fundamentally wrong with a relationship, like there was in mine, then it’s unlikely to last in my opinion. If it does last, you could end up being unhappy and unfulfilled by it and life is too short for that.

I hope that helps and I’m sure others will come along with more advice.

Good luck

Andy

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Andy.

Hi Papioman

Thank you for sharing your experiences, I’m sure it wasn’t easy. I am not going to pretend to understand how you feel but I would like to share an experience I had around 15 years ago which may or may not help. I was at a point in my life when everything seemed to be going wrong, my relationship, my job and generally feeling like I had no direction. I felt like I needed to change something in my life, a major change. I decided that I was going to move to Australia and start a new life on my own. I live in the UK by the way. I had looked into the skills that Australia required for entry and registered with the embassy which was the first step. I then started looking for jobs and there were lots that I could apply for. I should have felt encouraged and excited. The problem was, even after taking this small step I felt no better. I didn’t feel excited, in fact I felt worse. I thought my decision would change everything. It didn’t. I am fortuanate to have some good friends and when I told one close friend what I had done and how I intended to change my life their response intially shocked me. They knew what I had been going through and simply said “so where do you think your current problems will go?”. They followed this up with “your problems will go with you”. It was so true, moving to the other side of the world wouldn’t have changed anything because the problems I had would still be there, just in a different country.

I think the fact that you have taken a course with the intention of teaching English abroad is a really positive step. But as you have found it hasn’t changed the way you feel. I wonder, and I am sorry if I am wrong, whether you need to concentrate on getting help for the way you feel before making big changes in your life? I am not qualified to help you but I hope my experience may help in a small way.

Take care

Andy

Hi Steve

This is my first post on here. I’ve been searching for some advice on how to recover from a break-up and came across this site. I’ve read quite a few of your posts today and although our situations differ, our goal (I think) is similar. So a little background which I appreciate is off-topic but I will get back to that. I broke-up with my girlfriend last weekend after a 6 year relationship. We split up mainly because of the pressures of having a long distance relationship. There is more to it than that but this is about rediscovering yourself so I won’t go into details here. I think it is important to say that this is the second time we have split up. That was about a year ago and then we got back together, but it didn’t work out and here I am again.

I thought it was important to mention that because a year ago I was in a position where I needed to rediscover myself. I never actually got there because when we got back together again I forgot all about doing that and concentrated on the relationship again. Now I find myself in the same situation and there will be no going back this time. I now need to concentrate on rediscovering myself and most importantly being happy with myself. Before I met my ex (online by the way) I was in a really good place emotionally and loved my life. I was happily single and in a great frame of mind. Although I didn’t realize it at the time it gave me a huge amount of confidence and that made meeting new people easier. Simply because of my positive state of mind.

My main goal now is to redisover that same person. He’s in there somewhere! I do have some smaller goals though surrounding things that interest me. I bought a keyboard a year ago but have never really bothered with it but I am going to start taking lessons soon and hopefully become a rock god! Actually I think it’s probably too late for that. I am also into photography and have been sharing photos on Instagram with other like minded people. Last week I was ready to delete my account because so many of the photos remind me of my ex. A friend told me not to as I would probably end up regretting it and she was right. I have set myself a goal to learn more about photography and continue to share my experiences through photos. I appreciate that none of this may be relevant to you but I just wanted to share a couple of examples of my small goals in my pursuit of finding the old me again. Something else that hit home that I read elsewhere on this forum was that it is ok to be a bit selfish, to do the things you want to do. I intend to do quite a bit of that.

A very close of friend of mine gave me some really good advice the other day and I intend to try and follow it. The advice was simply this; don’t try and look too far into the future, just concentrate on the next 24 hours. That’s exactly what I intend to do, to just try and achieve small things as I go along and hopefully rediscover myself and be happy on my own again. When I do I may try online dating again.

Thank you for being so open and sharing your experiences, a lot of what you have said I can relate to and just reading through them and other posts have helped me turn my thoughts into positive ones. Even though I know negatives thoughts will come back. If I come across as sounding quite positive I really don’t right now. Waves of sadness come over me without warning and I know I have long way to go. But I do believe I will get there and I hope you do too.