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Oh my god, Kaila, I am so sorry. I cannot even begin to imagine having that conversation. You are in my thoughts and prayers right now. I’m not sure what advice I can offer or what exactly you want to know, but I will say that in the long run, if things don’t work out from here, not sleeping together and not saying I love you will probably have been for the best. Again, I am so sorry. I am completely here to listen. Just message back and let me know what’s going on or what you want to talk about or know.
Sorry to be creeping in here, but I’ve been following this silently, and I just want to applaud you both for how insanely strong and tough you’re both being. ellie96, I seriously wish I had the strength and courage and self-respect to do what you’re doing. Kudos.
That’s the part that I don’t get. Everyone tells me that if I keep talking to him or allowing him to stay in my life without us being in a relationship, he’s “having his cake and eating it too.” And the only thing I can’t help but think is, “No, having his cake and eating it too would be having a relationship with me AND getting more independence and opportunities to explore the world.” And those aren’t mutually exclusive things, which is why I don’t get it. He can have both and should have both and I want him to have THAT damn cake and eat it too.
I think anyone who says that aren’t at least partially doing NC to try and get their guy/gal/what have you back is lying, so it’s good that you can own up to that. What’s even better, on top of that, is that you are motivated to do it for yourself. As hard as it is, I think that’s why NC is such a good route to go by because it means we have to focus on ourselves and how to work things out in case they don’t come back. You’re already making steps if you have no urge to contact him and don’t care if he contacts you. I’m sure it won’t always be that easy, but you’re starting out great and it’s wonderful to see 🙂 I have this gut feeling that it WILL work, but it’ll just take time. I may be too optimistic, but that’s how I see it.
I don’t understand him either. Like I’ve said, I think he was caught off guard when I took him seriously this time and there were consequences. I think he expected this all to blow over. And since it really hasn’t, I think he hesitates a lot to be in contact or communicate with me unless I’m 100% enthusiastic or engaged. And if it’s not him being caught off guard, I just don’t think he even realized what a break up really entails, and has yet to get it through his thick skull that he can have me or he can be away from me, but in the long run he can’t have both. I don’t know. I feel like I’m totally delusional at this point to be talking to him or assuming he cares, but I don’t feel like shutting down and going NC really solves anything either. My brain is too biased to trust itself anymore hah! 😛
“But I guess within time he will realize that he actually lost me. Only a couple days of NC isn’t enough to make him realize that this time it is different, and this time he has lost me. Right?”
I think you’re completely on point here. At this point, I haven’t completely given up hope but I do think NC is the only thing that’s really going to potentially give you what you want. He’s not going to learn any lesson or realize he needs to grow up and make choices if you’re always there for him, and contacting him really does just seem to hurt you. I’m so glad you’re being incredibly strong and taking care of yourself, even though you’re afraid he could forget about you, like so many of us are. Don’t be afraid! Everything is going to work out, one way or another!
“I mean his improvements didn’t really hit again until he started seeing me again. His improvements (in his eyes) were just buying new expensive things and making more money. So that’s not much of an amazing change. You know? He was basically replacing me with things and people. He even admitted that he drank a lot in order to forget and take the pain away after we broke up. It just isn’t right, you know?”
THIS! This is the thing that’s currently killing me about my situation, and the reason why I completely understand where you’re at. My SO didn’t say anything wanting to try dating other people or needing to figure out on his own that I’m the one, but he did say he needed to try and figure his future out and he wanted to change his life and start over. So far, his starting over has been moving three blocks away, continuing to sit at home on his computer or playing his mandolin like he always did, working the same job, and occasionally playing tennis with the guy friend he stayed with once I kicked him out of the apartment. That’s it. That’s the change. Heck, my case worker says he actually appears to spend more time trying to contact me and make plans and go out of his way to do things for me now that he left me. Guys work in mysterious ways and it’s mind-blowing to me to try and comprehend how neither of our guys can see that breaking up with us doesn’t fix their issue.
I finally messaged him back, and of course got no response. I’m trying to say of course because after I tell him that works for me, there’s not much more to say at the moment. I know we’ll see each other for work this weekend and I know we’ll go on Monday, so I’m trying not to take it too personal or whatever. I’m just going to give him space like he asked. Haha it’s just hard when I’m so paranoid and when I want to talk.
He asked me, “So I do have the event tomorrow. Ultron on monday sound alright?” I have no idea how to respond correctly. I want to be enthusiastic but not desperate, and I’m hoping whatever I say will necessitate him wanting to talk more. Any ideas?
Your entire last post was spot on, except for the part about it being a massive self-worth blow. It shouldn’t be, although I know that’s easy for me to say. Ultimately, it just shows that you and your friends/family are really quality people, and he’s not deserving of you. At least not at this point in time. I know this is unbearably painful, and because of that, I hope you’ll take really good care of yourself and use any of us as a distraction as much as you need to. But I think taking a step back and showing him that he only gets you if he wants the full you is really going to do wonders for your pain and your relationship as a whole in the long run. Hugs, girl. I know this is super rough. I’m here if you want to talk.
I know I need to stop worrying, and I’m sorry if my worrying is annoying based on the fact that I know I am in a better position than a fair number of people. My brain is so messed up and silly that I keep thinking he maybe felt pressured to ask me about the movie, even though I never said anything!
The only thing about the physicality that’s confusing to me is that we’ve slept together three times since the break up, and not once did I make a big fuss about it. In fact, he’s the one who felt guilty and sad afterwards. While we were intimate, he’d kiss me and touch me and be really attentive. That’d last for a little while afterwards, and then he’d start to beat himself up and back off. It’s really the backing off that confuses me, considering I’ve made it clear I’m okay with physical contact. I just wonder if maybe I’m being delusional when I think that he could possibly just not be acting on his feelings because he’s afraid he won’t be able to stop if he starts.
I don’t know whether to bring up the date thing after the movie or not. I don’t know what is a good or bad idea at this point. He texted me like six hours ago and told me he does have his event and wants to know if I can go Monday. I haven’t said anything back because I don’t know what the right thing to say is, or if I should be making him wait to keep his interest peaked or what. I’m just lost as to what a good course of action to be trying to get him back is at this point, though I’m obviously happy he asked!
I have to agree with both KPowers1192 and Mr. A. They both nailed what I would’ve said. The only thing I guess I’d add is that the most important thing you can do is just keep taking care of yourself. As much as I do genuinely believe he’s just going through something he needs to sort out on his own and that he still cares for you, he’s also not treating you very fairly. And your first needs to be/should continue to be making sure that you’re getting and doing what you need. If NC makes you feel better, than honestly, don’t worry about how it might affect you. You have to do what’s best for you. And if you do that, you’ll only feel healthier and be more attractive to him or other guys. You are the special one and the priority here!
I’ve definitely seen it and lived it, I guess I just feel like I must have an insanely skewed, biased view on things because I want to believe so badly that he cares and that things could work out. I guess I just assumed part of the time that he was probably just being friendly or acting this way out of habit because two and a half years is a long time together and because he was nice to some of his exes while we were dating. He’d text one of them that still lives in our college town occasionally, go get frozen yogurt with her occasionally, etc. He never responded to her as quickly as he does to me, he never suggested plans, stuff like that but he kept her in his life and still communicated and would do nice things for her if she asked, so I guess I’m just terrified he’s just treating me like any other girl. Even though, in my humble opinion, even nice guys don’t treat every girl like this.
He’s never liked going to appointments or waiting, and he hasn’t used his computer in like two days, so I can understand wanting the opportunity to check things. He lingered for about a half hour to 40 minutes after I got back too, even if he wasn’t paying full attention to me the entire time. He told me all about these new kitchen pans he’s getting, showed them to me, played a song for me that his band is learning, and we talked a bit more about trying to find the phone and what not. Finally, he packed up his stuff and started heading out the door, but kind of lingered to ask me what my schedule was like tomorrow. He told me if his work event gets cancelled, we should go see the movie we talked about “if I wanted”, and told me he was going to text his boss to find out what the status of the event was. I told him I wanted to and I asked him what would happen if he had work and he said, “Monday! But wait, you have evening class, so maybe Tuesday?” After that, we talked for a brief minute more about my phone situation and he asked if he could come dig through this basket he thought it was in one more time. I let him, no luck, and he took a couple things with him that he’d left, including some avocados that he told me he wanted me to eat if I wanted them. Then he got in his car, lingered there for like 5 minutes on his laptop emailing himself something, I went outside and asked him a question about his mail forwarding, and he eventually took off. This was about a half hour ago, and he just sent me a text saying, “I can’t find that darn phone anywhere.”
So that’s my little update. I think it’s all good and was flattered he asked about the movie, so I didn’t have to. It showed me he kind of clearly wanted to go see it with me, which I’d already guessed. I know you’re right about the punctuation in texts, and he even knows I read into this tiny itty bitty things, so he’s probably using it to mess with me some more. Annoying, but I guess we all do it to some extent. The only thing really bugging me at this point is that we’ve had NO physical contact. He doesn’t even hug me when he leaves. He just says good bye, smiles, and tells me he’ll see me soon. Same friend says he’s probably not initiating anything because if he hugged me, he’d also want to kiss me and smell my hair and hold me and probably have sex with me, etc. and he’s trying to avoid setting himself up for hurt, especially when he doesn’t know if I’d be receptive to it. Which I obviously would, so that seems stupid to me. I don’t know. Maybe the friend is right.
I’m so glad I’m not bothering anyone. I really really value your input and love being able to help other people, like you, with their situations. Really takes my mind off things!
Just out of curiosity, what makes you say it’s clear he’s still in love with me? I’m just so stuck in this bubble and the fact that this is my own world that my thinking is really skewed and biased. I’d love to hear, from your perspective, what makes you think that.
I’m just so confused by our communication sometimes. I’m probably reading into his punctuation and stuff way too much, but it starts freaking me out and making me feel like I look desperate when he ceases using exclamation points and stuff like that. Probably WAY overthinking it. I’m just nervous. He’s letting me borrow his car in a couple of minutes while I take the cat to the vet, and he’s going to hang out here and use the internet while I’m gone because he doesn’t have any at his new place yet. I keep thinking that this totally makes sense and he never liked going to the vet even when we were dating, yet then I keep thinking that if he really cared or wanted to be around me, he’d be going. It’s so skewed. I know he cares to some extent, so why is a vet visit getting me all worked up?
I’m just afraid to bring up the slow dating idea. I REALLY think it could work, but I don’t want to come across as desperate or needy now. A friend told me I should ask him to go see the movie we’d talked about and then bring it up after that, once we’ve clearly kind of gone on a date and it’s been successful. But I’m terrified. I just wish my relationship were clear cut enough that Kevin’s rules worked so I could follow them instead of having to bug y’all to figure what to listen to and what not to…
Yeah, living together is really hard when you’re this young. Do I think we could live together successfully some day? Yes! Do I think right now/the time we did spend together was the right time? Nope. The fact that this is his first year out of college so he has no school work to keep him busy, the fact he doesn’t have a ton of friends, the fact we also work together, etc. all made it really hard for us to get any free time. We just spent so much time together that I think we stopped appreciating each other enough.
My only real struggle is with the no contact. Part of me sees that as a really good idea because I genuinely do think he’d be very confused and lonely if I simply stopped talking to him at all. Whenever we’ve talked recently, if I don’t respond immediately/quickly, he sends follow-up messages. He responds to any texting I initiate almost immediately (usually within two minutes), like he’s been dying to talk to me but just hasn’t wanted to be the one to start the conversation. Because of these things, it almost feels like he’s more desperate to talk than I am and that his self-control just maybe isn’t always as good as mine. I think it’d hit home really hard if I were not in contact, didn’t accept any of his favors, didn’t ask him to do things, etc.
All of this being said, there’s also a couple of reasons I think it’s not necessarily a good idea for me. The first is that he takes any hesitation on my part as rejection. If he offers to do me a favor and I don’t immediately say yes, he backs off or won’t respond to my follow-up texts because he thinks I rejected him. If I don’t immediately say a straight up “yes” to plans or physical contact, like even if I just ask him a brief question and then say yes, he assumes I don’t want to be around him and he’s burdening me. None of this is my issue, it’s something he needs to work on, but I don’t want him to get the impression that I’m trying to push him away. My counselor has stressed to me that while it’s obviously very important for me to take care of myself, if I want this to work out, I can’t be cold to him all of the time.
I’m also scared that if I flat out go no contact, I won’t get my chance to speak my piece about the dating. I’m not sure it’s even occurred to him that we could start over and take things slow without titles to begin with because we’ve ALWAYS been so serious and committed. He just doesn’t know any differently for the two of us, and I really want to give him something to think about. But we haven’t talked about it yet, so I’m scared that if I initiate no contact completely, I won’t get a chance to.
I want to “give him what he wants” and a taste of his own medicine. This is just so hard because our relationship isn’t necessarily a textbook case that makes it easy to follow all of Kevin’s rules. I’m just not sure which to bend and when…
Tell him that there’s absolutely no reason the girlfriend has to come, and that she can lend him her car if that’s really the only option. This is your home and space, you deserve to be comfortable, and there is NO reason you should have to accommodate his stupid request for her to come. If he whines about it, remain firm. Be polite but make sure he understands you’re not budging and this isn’t something you should even have to be dealing with.
If you can handle it, stay at the apartment while he takes things. Having just personally experienced this, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’d recommend packing up all of his things, putting them in one area, and telling him just to grab them and go. If he needs to make multiple trips, so be it. At least all he has to do is grab it. If you can’t handle it, have a friend over at the same time or ask one of your friends if they’ll monitor this process so you can be out but not worrying about your stuff.
Give him the thong back, but don’t make any comments. They’re both idiots and that was wrong of her, but it’s really passive aggressive to make a comment like that. Skip it. You’re a better person, so take the high road.
I can understand how his friends coming into town, especially those particular people, could freak you out a bit. I’m not denying that. It’s just my thought that if he’s at the point of “I got all this, I don’t need her” that he’s probably thinking and feeling that way anyways. And if he doesn’t feel like that, them being there won’t change his feelings. I hate to sound harsh or anything, but if he’s going to forget you, he’s going to forget you. And if he can do that when you’ve been with him for this long and supported him so much, like everyone will say, you deserve better and don’t want to be with him anyways!
I’m probably weird here, but I’m a full supporter of no contact or low contact for a designated time that works for you, not for a month minimum or any of the specifications Kevin has set. If you think NC is working for you, I suggest you keep at it. If your gut tells you to stop or that you genuinely need to contact him, do that too. I think it’s important for him to see what life if like without you, but it’s also important for you to take care of yourself and do what works for you. Making the decision to contact or not contact him is part of that.
From what you tell me, this honestly has nothing to do with you or him not wanting you. Please don’t take it personally because you’re a better human being than that. It sounds like he’s still young, in a really confused spot, and he’s not handling it like an adult. I do think he’ll come around, but it’s one of those issues that you really can’t force him to see. He has to get it on his own, and only time is really going to do that for him. Just focus on taking care of yourself and getting into a more positive frame of mind 🙂
I’ll go check your response now!
I think it’s possible he might want to go too. I don’t see any other logical explanation for his behavior otherwise. This probably sounds totally dense, but I’m wondering why you think that? I mostly like hearing other people’s thoughts behind things so I can see if they line up with my own thinking, or if I’m totally crazy.
Your explanation for why that might’ve upset him is probably spot on. That and the fact that like I said, when he freaks out, he has a tendency to go to drastic things, like needing to move out or what not. I think part of his response has to do with the fact that since we’d already agreed to move out, he can’t use that as a flight mechanism anymore. I also think that he expected me to just ignore this or let it blow over. I’ve never gotten mad before or taken him seriously when he’s said he wants to move because he never acts on it or seems like he wants to once he calms down. This time, I took him at his word and acted accordingly. I don’t think he ever expected it to come to that.
I agree with what you said about a time frame. I want to take things slow and give him time to breathe and think, but at a certain point, I’m not going to keep waiting. I’m obviously keeping busy and taking care of myself, but I refuse to just be left out to dry for a long period of time just because he can’t see that it clearly still seems like we’re dating.
I haven’t recommended the idea of going on dates without a title yet. Honestly, I’m kind of scared to, though I don’t really know why. Someone suggested talking to him about it after the movie, IF we end up going. But if we don’t, I don’t know where that leaves me in terms of talking to him. I’m just afraid that if I don’t bring it up soon, he’ll friend zone me. Maybe I’m totally crazy, but I felt kind of friend zoned today, which doesn’t make a ton of sense because he was so attentive and helpful and nice.
