… exactly an hour and 25 minutes ago.
My (now ex) girlfriend and I “kind of” broke up 5 days ago. We were only together 3 months, but it was very real and we do love each other. In the last 5 days things have mainly been pleasant and we’ve still spoken, sent texts, emails, etc., and things seemed fairly normal. I only say “kind of” broke up since this felt like more “taking a break” vs. breaking up completely.
There have been a lot of things to suggest we were going to work things out and were merely catching our breath the last few days. Here is an example: Yesterday morning she called me she’s about to go walk through an apartment with a realtor she’s considering renting. It’s a female-only Catholic place and she said “It’s not ideal for you and me” meaning I wouldn’t be able to stay overnight with her. As the call ended she said “I love you.” I said it back but she quickly countered with “but we’re still broken up.” This isn’t the first time in the last 5 days she and I have said “I love you” to each other, and as I said there were several other things that suggested we were more on a break than officially broken up.
After the call ended yesterday morning I sent her a text. It read “Thanks for your call and you sounded happy this morning. 
I’m excited to hear about the apartment. This doesn’t need to be discussed now but just something for you to think about please. I think we should either be 1. Catching our breath and on a pseudo break and not talking about really heavy/serious stuff but working on getting back to happy place (like the last few days), or 2. Dating other people, not talking again until we’re both well past this relationship and can have a platonic friends only type of relationship in time.” I didn’t hear back from her.
The ex-gf doesn’t want to lose me but is questioning things herself. She has a difficult time communicating and discussing more serious stuff. I believe she wants more of a break - she said this weekend when the break up occurred “maybe we need a break” and then a few days ago we need to quit talking altogether for 30 days. The Irony isn’t lost on me. We continued to talk though the last few days with her mainly reaching out to me. She is trying to hang onto me, wants some space, but also knows it would be very difficult for me to continue any sort of communication with her if she started dating others.
This morning she called me to discuss an email she received. I’m kind of a black and white guy who likes to bring things to a head quickly and hates to let things linger. I said to her “Are we broken up or are we just taking a break?” She said “I need to go.” I said “Let’s bring this to a head right now.” She then said “we’re broken up.” I then said “We don’t need to talk.” There was silence on the other end of the line, and we then hung up.
At this point you might begin to get a picture of an unstable woman or at minimum an unstable relationship. I don’t blame you, and it’s something I was questioning myself and will evaluate over the next 30 days. It may seem counter-intuitive to anyone reading this why I’d say “then we don’t have to talk” during this mornings phone conversation when we were still going back and forth with what we were doing, still saying “I love you”, etc. Why wouldn’t I just be patient and let things play out? It’s because:
- I need space too. I need to figure out if this is something I want to pursue and if it’s right for me in the long run.
- I don’t want her to have her cake and eat it too. If she wants to be broken up, then we’re broken up.
- I want her to hopefully realize some things when she doesn’t hear from me. It will be a complete 180 what she’s accustomed to. Does she really love me or is she in love with being in love.
I’ll be posting some thoughts each day as a journal of sorts. I feel good about this, and I highly doubt I won’t ever speak to her again.