No Contact violated – What to do now?

no-contact-rule
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I’ve been happy with a girl for 3 months, but then she suddenly broke up with me. It happened 2 months ago. Although she seemed very committed to our relationship and said she loves me when we were together, now she says her commitment wasn’t honest, and she never really loved me. After she initially declared she would like to break up, she wasn’t sure, thus we spent two weeks without any communication to let her consider. Then she sent me an e-mail and told me she decided to break up, but she’d like to be friends with me. Then we met to talk it over – at that point I hoped I can convince her to stay with me. Despite she came for an afternoon, she stayed at my home for 3 days. There were occasions when she recited some pleasant memories of our relationship, but she insisted to break up. Because her behavior was kind of mixed, I thought she’s unsure whether she really wants to break up, and I thought it’s a good sign. But some days later, she told she has no doubt that she wants to break up, and she attributed every positive sign she gave me during our meeting to her compulsion to conform, as she says I was pressuring her.

Some days later we met for a day and discussed our relationship thoroughly (as we didn’t really talk it over during our previous meeting). I accepted she really wants to end it, though I confessed I still hope she’ll return. We agreed to continue meeting as friends, though I said I’m unsure whether I’d like to stay friends with her (not because I wouldn’t value her as a friend, but because of my feelings). We kept in touch on chat for a while (though I had to initiate every chat session), but I felt she was rarely passionate about chatting with me, and she refused my proposal for our next meeting. At that point I realized, what I’m doing only pushes her farther from me, thus I thought to start No Contact.

Then something happened what ruined everything. We have a common friend whom I blamed for hurting our relationship by giving her wrong advice and being a proxy between us. I had a talk with this friend about my suspicion. This friend then told it to my ex. My ex then sent me an angry e-mail, which I impulsively replied with an angrier e-mail, which then she topped with an even angrier e-mail. Then I apologized, and now we’re having a peaceful e-mail conversation about our relationship. It turned out, she has grievances she hasn’t told me before. I offered to meet her to talk through her grievances, but now I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea, maybe I should cancel this meeting and start No Contact.

What should I do now? Shall I meet her again for another relationship talk (which would surely not lead to a reunion, but would probably help to understand her feelings better and give an opportunity to explain things)? Wouldn’t it be too much rude to cancel the meeting? Does hanging out with her as friends worsen my chances?

And anyway, do you think there is still hope she’ll return, despite her determination to break up, or is it a lost case? We broke up 2 months ago while our entire relationship lasted for 3 months. It was the first relationship for both of us.

Sorry for the long message. I wanted to keep it short, but I couldn’t make it shorter due to the complexity of our story.

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I think you should still go to the meeting with her. You don’t want to take back your words. But i don’t recommend anymore after that until you’ve completed no contact. I know the meetings are tough because you feel so strongly for her and you want it to work. But from my experience it does two things

  1. Give you an idea of where the person is emotionally and helps you feel reassured as to whether or not you have a chance. I know you’re looking for all of the hope you can get. Trust me i know!
  2. It is a stressful time because you’re not stable enough emotionally and neither is she. It can lead to disagreements that will make you feel horrible When you can’t talk to her bc you’re on no contact.

Give her the chance to miss you! While you work on you.
Hardest thing in the world i know. But it has to be done.
Praying for you!

3

Thanks a lot for replying my post Torma!

As a woman, I would like to tell you that before I met my doctor boyfriend, I never date any guy more than 3 months. I don’t know why too. I just lost the excitement I guess. It may be true that she may not feel for you that much. However, I feel differently when I met my doctor boyfriend. I hope he will consider stop a time off real soon.

It hurts a lot when we thought that the relationship seems fine. I think I’d been there as well. I feel like you were together not so long, so I would suggest you should try NC for another month then answer yourself again whether she’s worth to pursue again or not. I will also do the same for my situation (My Day 3 of NC). I wish you the best :slight_smile:

4

My ex has just contacted me to arrange that meeting… She sent an e-mail, I haven’t replied anything yet. Actually, my 30-day-NC is just about to expire, so I could just meet her. On the other hand, I really think I need a longer No Contact period, 45 or 60 days at minimum. Once, I think 30 days is not enough for her to start to really miss me. Second, I’ve just recently started to feel the benefits of NC. Although I shouldn’t wait too much either… I don’t know. After all, I think rejecting her first approach would do good to the cause. She should feel that she’s not the highest priority in my life anymore.

5

I think I’m about halfway through the plan, and I thought to document the actual status.

As I wrote before, I decided to extend No Contact to 60 days. So our timeline so far goes like this:
relationship (3 months) -> asks for space, silence (2 weeks) -> breakup in e-mail -> post-relationship meetup (3 days) -> silence (1 week) -> thorough breakup talk, trying to convince -> staying close to her while hoping to get back together (2 weeks) -> going No Contact (2 weeks) -> ruining everything through a friend -> e-mail conversation (1 week) -> registering here and opening this thread -> No Contact (1 month) -> she asks for meetup, I refuse -> extending No Contact (1 month) -> NOW.

To sum it up: relationship (3 months) -> messing (2 months) -> No Contact (2 months) -> NOW.

On the one hand, one might wonder if a mess like this can ever be fixed at all, or is it FUBAR. On the other hand, seeing that some couples have recovered from situations even worse than this, even after one of them did much more severe mistakes (things I didn’t and wouldn’t do), gives a little hope that things can turn better.

Since I have no feedback from her, now I’m wondering, what might be HER state of mind at the moment. Does she miss me? If she does, why doesn’t she reach out? Maybe she’s not missing me enough yet? Or did she really forget about me and completely moved on?

From what I see/heard/assume:
She’s not looking for another relationship, and she seems to be overwhelmed by her daily routine at university. Her blog and Facebook are liveless (unless she hides her posts from me on Facebook, as I noticed I’m not in her closed friends circle anymore – although I really don’t think she would do so).
This is a really-really far suspicion, but I think she’s basically still lonely, despite her efforts to fill the void by hanging out on Internet forums and with one friend (the same person who helped to ruin our relationship). She said, this is what she wants, so probably she’s fine with that. Or maybe her perceived quietness is due to her seeing someone else and focusing most of her attention on him – but this seems very improbable. (I noticed, maybe I worry too much about her finding someone else while she said she really doesn’t want a relationship with anyone these times.)
Another thing I noticed that her communication (towards others on forums / mailing lists) seems to be kind of bossy and frustrated. She wasn’t acting like this while we were together. I wonder what is the source of her frustration. Maybe things don’t go so well in her life nowadays. Since she is a moderator on a forum we used to manage (I withdrawn after the breakup), maybe she’s just intoxicated by her newfound power – but I find it more probable that her behaviour is rooted in her insecurities.
But at the end of the day, I don’t know whether she misses me, whether she thinks of me with pleasant or unpleasant thoughts, with warmth in her heart or with complete indifference, and basically I don’t have any information which would help me to even guess.

One thing I find disturbing, though, is that her friend may still present me in bad light for her, maintaining her negative image about me. This may cause serious problems. I can’t do anything about it. I extended No Contact to this person too, so I haven’t talked to her for 2 months either.

It is also necessary to evaluate MY state of mind. During my 2 months of No Contact 'til now, my mental and emotional state has improved significantly, although it’s still not the best. I still have moments of insecurity, sadness and frustration, and although I have lots of fun these days, I am not happy. But I’ve had many great experiences, got closer to my friends, and even made new friends, and learned a lot about life and relationships. I highly value these experiences, and I think these are the things I won with the breakup. Moreover, these experiences would surely help me to manage a much better, more balanced relationship with my ex if we ever reconnect, or with another girl who I get close to in the future. Recently, I’ve also started to wonder whether I really want my ex back – she’s starting to show kind of unbearable personality traits, she’s bossy, puts others down unreasonably, and seems to be ungrateful for any good she receives. I don’t even know what happened to the sweet girl I used to know. This is anything but not attractive.

I’ve been thinking about breaking NC now or extending it for yet another month (90 days). Someone suggested to wait until she contacts me, because I’ll be in much better position if she initiates. He also said, there is no (or at least very minimal) risk in waiting more, while contacting her prematurely could cause much more significant damage. Recently, she’s been getting bad inputs about me, so probably it’s still better to wait a little more. But still, I worry if I wait much more, I lose her forever.