Struggling to accept breakup and move on

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This topic has 19 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 3 months ago by Annie.

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August 2, 2015 at 4:32 am #81040
Bonni_mor
Participant
Hi everyone, I’m feeling very conflicted about moving on from my ex and need to iron it all out because I really need peace.

It’s been 2 months since I’ve broken up with my ex. We were together for 5 years and as you can imagine, had planned our lives around each other. He had just graduated, moved to a different city and found a job when he started withdrawing from the relationship and being distant. We still spoke everyday but it seemed like a tedious task on his part. Like something was missing. He just changed and stopped communicating effectively with me. I asked him over and over again what was bothering him to which he always said “I don’t know what’s wrong with me or how to fix it” and would then promise to work on it. The situation wasn’t improving so I asked him one more time if he wanted to relay anything to me that had been bothering him and he said no. I asked him to give me time to think because the state we were in was making me really unhappy and I could tell that he was too. After a couple of days I called him back explaining how he had been making me feel and that although he had not expressly said so, his actions had showed me that he no longer wants to be with me to which he admitted. He said he no longer wanted to be in any relationship and just wanted to be by himself. I asked if he had fallen out of love with me and he assured me that he still loves me even in that moment but that he just wanted to be on his own. This was hard to swallow but I told him I understood and that was that.

My problem now lies with moving on. Our friends and his family are convinced that he is just confused and will come back, and initially I was headstrong and refused to allow that kind of thinking to interrupt my healing process, but it has. I’ve succumbed to being the girl who wishes for her ex back and this really hurts me. We had never been on/off kind of couple and had always said that if we ever broke up, it would’ve been because it truly was over. So I feel like I’m holding myself hostage to him and that this will end badly for me. But my heart is refusing to accept that we are over. I just can’t believe that the same person who drove down for my birthday and made me feel so loved, and the one who had professed his undying love for me before all our friends and family at his graduation party just 2 weeks prior to our breakup has changed his mind. That we just aren’t what he wants anymore.

I know I shouldn’t want him back and my reasons for feeling that war are not because I don’t think I deserve better or that I don’t want better but purely because I want better from him. I don’t want to love anyone else. I miss us terribly and it hurts me every waking minute to know that it never worked out.

How do I move on from feeling like this? Your contributions are appreciated.
- This topic was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by Bonni_mor.
- This topic was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by Bonni_mor.
August 2, 2015 at 5:03 am #81043

Inky
Participant

Hi Taymor,

First of all, congratulations on spending five years together! For a student five years is like ten or twenty to an older adult. I’m not kidding!

I wish I could give you a magic bullet. Time, though, is the great healer.

You CAN train yourself to live in a Present where you believe anything is possible. Here’s the Thought: “In an unlimited Universe, anything can happen. “Harrison” (if his name is “Harrison”) could re-enter my life. I’m not attached to that happening, but I am also open to that happening.”

“I am not attached to that happening but I am also open to that happening” is very, very important. This should give you some measure of Peace.

Blessings,

Inky

August 2, 2015 at 5:32 am #81047

Bonni_mor
Participant

Inky,

I LOVE that. THANK YOU. I will affirm that to myself everyday until I honestly adopt it (in my heart)

Love & light to you

August 2, 2015 at 8:18 am #81056

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Taymor:

If I was you, in this particular situation with your now ex boyfriend, i would be very curious as to WHAT happened. You know it happened but what happened, I would be asking… him. He has that information. If you asked him what happened: what were his thoughts over the time he distanced himself from you, what were his feelings that evolved or devolved over time and get all the info I can get, then i will have a better understanding of what happenedf and then I will be in a better position to let go, if needed. I will have the knowledge of WHAT IT IS I am letting go of.

anita

August 2, 2015 at 10:28 am #81067

Bonni_mor
Participant

Dear Anita,

I am still very curious as to what went wrong and I have asked him all those questions before, when we broke up, and he failed to clarify things for me. He repeatedly said how he “just didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore” and that was the only overwhelming feeling he could express to me. He is also somewhat cowardly and does not come out to say the hard things that nevertheless need to be said. I mean he had felt like he wanted to be single for a really long time and never expressed that to me and left me to join the dots on my own so I do not expect him to respond any differently if I asked him again. The only closure I will receive is from within, and that is what I am grappling with.

August 2, 2015 at 12:03 pm #81069

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Taymor:

I think I didn’t “listen” attentively to your post. You probably spent a lot of time trying to figure it out and did everything you can to get the information from him. It’s been two months and he still won’t give it to you. I suppose you don’t want to wonder Why anymore, you just want to move on. So suggesting you still ask him in counter productive to what you want.

Keeping this in mind, I go on. You wrote: “…my reasons for feeling that war are not because I don’t think I deserve better or that I don’t want better but purely because I want better from him. I don’t want to love anyone else. I miss us terribly.”

You wrote “WAR,” not between: I deserve better and I don’t deserve better, but between: I want better FROM HIM/ I want better (from another man). You are attached to him and to wanting love from HIM.

The kind of love you need and want is a reliable, honest, open, flowing, trustworthy. Not what he has for you at this point. Attachment to the wrong people is a problem, has been mine for 54 years, thinking I can get my mother to love me. The more I BELIEVE she doesn’t have it in her to love me, the less attached I am to her. I am finally getting it (no contact with her for over two years and forever more), I am finally getting it that there is no love there for me to find, to create, to unearth. I am finally available to disengage from a losing battle (“looking for love in all the wrong places”).

anita

August 2, 2015 at 1:51 pm #81074
Bonni_mor
Participant
Dear Anita,

You’re spot on I won’t lie. I am attached to him. We invested a lot in us and he was the greatest portion of my life, unfortunately. So it’s tough to root him out. And although I made a typo by saying “war” (I’d meant to type way, ) I do agree that I am attached to him. Thank you for sharing your experience with your mom, I do relate to you in that context. And if you are trying to uproot someone I’m assuming you’ve known for 54 years, I can try too. I commend you on and wish you well with that.

The struggle for me has also been greatly motivated by the fact that for the first four and a half years of our relationship, he had been able to give me that love I feel I so richly deserve. So I know he is capable of giving it. Only now he doesn’t WANT to. Which makes it hurt all the more. And it makes it difficult to let go knowing that. But I will try to not live in the past and accept his will presently.
- This reply was modified 9 years, 3 months ago by Bonni_mor.
August 3, 2015 at 7:18 am #81113

Pinaky
Participant

Hi guys.. M sorryy i was not able to create a new topic, that is why i am posting it here..but u need your help and advise..thanks

about an year ago the girl i used to love got a job in the same country i work and she joined me. Before this we used to chat whole day..i loved her but was scared of telling her thinking i might lose her..but after coming here she fell in love with me and we were at the peak of our relationship. But due to family problems i had to marry another girl. This all happened in a very quick time and now i am not able to adjust with my wife. Also my wife is no where close to my nature or type. And now i am stuck thinking of divorce all the time. What am i supposed to do??

August 3, 2015 at 9:22 am #81122

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Taymor:

I am puzzled by the concept that he is able to love you but is unwilling: able but unwilling. I wonder what that means. I suppose he said certain things he is not willing to say anymore and he did certain things he is not willing to do anymore. If he is capable of loving you and does not WANT to love you— is it not always a matter of choice though? Isn’t the choice or the WILL in the loving itself?

I am not clear at the moment. Maybe you can help me understand this point?

anita

August 10, 2015 at 3:58 pm #81584

Bonni_mor
Participant

Dear Anita,

Apologies for the delayed response. Yes, I do suppose that the willingness resonates in the act of loving itself, and what I was trying to put across is that it had not been unrequited love from the word go. It ended up that way, but for the first 4.5 years, I had never doubted my place in his heart. It felt secure. We really took care of each other in many ways. The change came in our last months together I believe, when his priorities started changing and he wanted other things for himself. I started to feel him drift and his love wilt. And even as we broke up, I believe he did still love me and care for my well-being, just not to the extent that I had previously believed him to. So yes I believe he wasn’t willing to be committed to us the way he had been over the years.And this is what I mean by his lack of will to stay committed to the relationship, he had been able to do so (successfully I might add) previously, he just didn’t desire to do so anymore. I hope I have clarified this for you.

Tay

August 10, 2015 at 4:06 pm #81585

Bonni_mor
Participant

Dear Prasenjeet,

I’m sorry for the position you are in. I might not have any advice for you regarding your situation but I do empathize with you and I wish you a peaceful mind and light.

I can however tell you how to start a new topic, I think you will reach more people who can adequately advise you on your situation that way. You can start a new topic in the text box at the bottom of the activity page.

All the best

Tay

August 10, 2015 at 4:35 pm #81587

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Taymor:

I think I get your point: you felt loved for the first 4.5 years. After that he withdrew, had a change of heart, a change of priorities. You felt secure with him, loved and then you lost his love. You believe he loved you the way you need to be loved, that he was capable, his loving you adequate, satisfactory. When he withdrew then, it was a matter of choice for him, not inability. yes, i get it.

In these eight days since you started the thread, did anything new happen? Any new communication with him? Are you more accepting of the breakup? Are you on your way of “moving on?” I am curious to know and if the answers are anything like a yes, how did you make it, or how are you thinking differently than you did before?

anita

August 10, 2015 at 5:21 pm #81589

Bonni_mor
Participant

Dear Anita,

No there hasn’t been any communication between us and really I doubt there will be. In the last week I tried to face the fact that he might not come back. It hurt intensely.But I allowed it. And I’m still dealing with accepting that currently. But I think what Inky said really stayed in my heart. If he comes back, okay. If he doesn’t, that’s okay too.
The only way I have been able to deflect from thinking about him and the pain I’m feeling is by working on myself. I’m testing for my driver’s permit tomorrow morning (long overdue) and I’ve been focussing on my studies a lot (4 months left of university, Thankfully!). I find improving myself helps and gets me excited about MY future and what it holds. So yes, I guess I’m on my path to accepting the breakup.

Tay

August 10, 2015 at 6:54 pm #81590

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Tay:

It is a pleasure to read a positive update, thank you for it. Working on your driver’s permit, studying at uni, 4 months to go and otherwise working on yourself and even being excited about your future WHILE feeling pain over this breakup and accepting it is a very positive, uplifting update to your post- keep up the good work, and hope you will post again.
anita

August 10, 2015 at 9:26 pm #81610

Annie
Participant

Hello Taymor,

I’m sorry you’re going through this difficult time. Since you are in university I am guessing your ex boyfriend is not much older than you, correct? I can relate to how you may be feeling, even though I am further a long in the healing process as much more time has passed since my last relationship ended. What I can tell you is that it’s okay to be upset and feel what you’re feeling. It will be really hard to stay focused and do well in school sometimes. When you need to get work done, then get work done. When you need a break to process feelings – process those feelings and don’t push them away otherwise they will only build up.

For now, as you have already said, the closure will have to come from you. My ex sounds very similar to yours as he didn’t want to initiate the break up, but started distancing himself and saying he didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore. Most men deal with things differently than women do. I’ve heard this before: “I don’t know what’s wrong with me or how to fix it” and would then promise to work on it. In these cases the individual already has one foot out of the door and thinks they can hold onto the relationship, when they really want to give up. They push their feelings aside and dive into their work and focus on other things. They only deal with one thing at a time and can easily distract themselves. Women/girls tend to ruminate more and are more likely to take longer to process their emotions. On the plus side, women have friends with whom they can talk to about their relationship and they are more willing to look outwards for help/ support. Let time go by and focus on your work, new activities and try to enjoy what is left of your university time. Luckily, I was able to process my feelings just a few weeks before the semester ended (I am in college as well). After time has gone by and you are feeling better then you can reach out and ask him whatever questions/grievances you might have had. Of course everyone processes feelings in their own way. What was really freeing for me was the tell my ex boyfriend about all of the times that he hurt me in the relationship when he was distancing himself. Whatever it is that keeps you tied to the relationship you can ask about. If he still doesn’t give you a clear answer, then the best thing would just be to let it go.

It’s important to note that most young people especially in their university years and much after do not have long term relationships for many reasons. Although some relationships last, the divorce rate is very high in young couples because there are so many changes occurring in those people’s lives. For example, there are things such as experience, life circumstances, familial circumstances, needs, priorities, desires, and feelings that change. What may help is to think of all the time you have to work on yourself now. Eventually you will meet the right person. Not all relationships are meant to last, some are just there for us to learn, but that doesn’t mean we can’t grieve them.
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