Hello!

I would agree and one of his fears about attempting to rebuild our friendship was that the toxic aspects would somehow seep in to it, making it almost impossible to stay friends but he is willing to try as long as we don’t talk about our past relationship and why it didn’t work and keep things light.  Essentially he wants to go back to the very beginning when we may text here and there to see what the other is doing, have a short conversation and then go off and do whatever we individually are going to do. On the two Thursdays a month when I have the dog he will drop the dog off and I will take him to the dog park or wherever for about an hour and then bring him back.  I’ll stay for about 30 minutes or so and we’ll talk about our day and other light topics of conversation and then I leave.  This is something that we mutually agreed to this last Thursday.  We agreed that we cannot be together and need to take individual journeys to heal ourselves and find our happy again but that there’s no reason at this point we can’t start from scratch and take it day by day. We had a great short visit with smiles all around and honestly it was very relaxed.

As far as being blindsided, maybe that was not the proper word since you’re right.  I DID know it was coming.  I just either didn’t know when or didn’t think he’d do it or maybe both.  I had thought that maybe we could work through it and come out ok on the other side but I know now that this would not have been possible.  It was a punch in the gut either way.

As far as communication, deep emotional communication, and one of the many things that I need to overcome is insecurity.  I need an extra bit of someone telling me I’m beautiful, I’m loved, etc etc.  If I noticed that something seemed to be bothering him, and it could have been just a bad day at work or something really bad, I’d poke at him to try to get him to open up.  Eventually he would give in and start talking but he almost never told me the entire situation, just enough to get me to stop poking at him about it. I know people don’t like this and this is another thing to add to the list of things I need to overcome.  I have this horrible habit of wanting to fix it.. whatever IT is and sometimes I just need to leave it alone. When I felt like I wasn’t being told everything that would be when the overthinking would start and there I go.. spiraling again.  Eventually it lead to him being completely closed off from me because as he told me, “even when I told you everything you looked for something else…something that wasn’t ever there because your brain manufactured all these what if scenarios”.

I’m pretty broken and I am just as at fault in this relationship as he but I will say that this relationship has given me insight in to some of the ways that I am broken so that I can start to work toward overcoming it.  This week I’m going to start looking for a gym.  I have already started tracking food and trying out mindfulness (something I’d never done before) on the suggestion of the BH specialist I saw a few weeks back.

Hello,

Thank you for your reply.  It’s funny you mention that because he told me the other night that my emotional side needs to catch up with my rational side.  Our romantic relationship is over.  I have cried my tears about it.  I am still in love with him and that will take a long time to heal but he and I cannot function together in that kind of relationship.  It won’t work.  He can’t communicate directly what his thoughts and feelings are and because I can pick up on when he is not telling me the whole truth but bits and pieces, my mind will spin out of control on the “what ifs” and he can’t handle that.  He’s told me that he wishes he had the right words to say to understand where his mind and heart is but he simply can’t articulate it.  I can’t be in a romantic relationship with someone who struggles to communicate.  I feel cursed in a way because I have this need to have clear open communication with no wiggle room for misunderstanding.  It needs to be direct, even if it’s hurtful, because I HAVE to know.  My mind and heart know this which is why I feel like I am at peace with that part of it.

It’s the friendship.  I don’t have a lot of friends.  I have work friends and only a couple really good/best friends.  I am shy and can be difficult to get to know but if I’ve opened up to someone because they have felt I am worth knowing, I tend to cultivate those relationships and put a lot of time and effort in to making that flourish.  He and I were friends before we got romantically involved.  I can’t seem to let go of that piece.  I’ve been over this in my mind as to why this is so hard for me because everything in me wants to rebuild that and only that.  I have no illusions that he and I will somehow get back together and that isn’t what motivates me but I don’t know what does.  Yes, I’m still in love with him and maybe that does have something to do with it because I still want him close by.  It’s familiar.  I want to see him become happy again and celebrate his successes and be there if he falls and needs support.  It’s what friends do for each other but I also want to do it from a friendly distance.  I don’t want to go too fast with this and I know I am pushing a little too hard and I don’t want to keep falling in to the trap of why why why.  It’ s not doing me any good and quite honestly it’s pushing him farther away.

I want us to be friends, the kind of friends we used to be but brand new because the old friendship is gone.  I know it is going to take time.  Baby steps.  I just have to keep my emotions in control and stay level headed.  I need to work on ways to be friendly but a little bit distant.  Boundaries.  I just want off the spin cycle.