Brilliant. snagging attributed
OP … sorry I have no idea on any advice.
First of all, let me say that I really, really feel your pain. I never thought I’d be “in love” again after my marriage fell apart, but then WHAM!, it just happened when I wasn’t looking for it. And all of a sudden, here was this person (my first true love) that was exactly on the same page I was about everything… he was a romantic at heart, I thought I’d give that all up. When he feels that way, he’s incredibly needy and constantly desires re-affirmation of how much someone cares for and loves him. Me too. We were always desperate to see each other, talk on the phone, you name it, we couldn’t live without for longer than a couple of hours at a time. So, I definitely know where you’re coming from.
Now it’s taken me almost 6 weeks and intensive therapy to get beyond that. Which is a record time for me, BTW. I still have really bad days where I cry non-stop and think suicide would be a much better solution (not just to this issue, but because of others as well, so it’s not only that – so you’ll know) than this agonizing pain, but then there’s other days, when I realize I haven’t thought of him all morning.
Here’s the thing though, I was SO caught up in being “in love” that I missed a lot of really important signs about what would be potentially wrong in our relationship if he had permanently left his wife. We weren’t the least bit compatible. He’s a staunch republican and I’m a liberal democrat. He’s a hunter and I’m a hippie. He believes in guns and I think they should be outlawed. He likes sappy movies and I’m strictly a indies kind of girl. He’s a TV-surfing couch potato, I wanna get stuff done around the house. I hate having much to do with people outside just a very small few (read that as about 3), he likes having his entire family stuck up his butt 24/7/365 and on, and on and on.
That took a year to find all that stuff out. Because my blinders were on, I wanted to believe we could overcome anything. However, if I’d simply remembered back to the start of my marriage, I’d thought the same thing and I ended up being wrong, as many people do. You can’t conquer insecurity and fear with more of the same and you can’t turn one thing into something else. You have to let it season, for lack of a better word. Give her that space to decide what she truly wants. That’s what my husband asked for in the beginning and I was so terrified of losing him and so immature that I rushed right past his needs and laid down an ultimatum. He didn’t want to give me up either, so he agreed and we forged ahead. That did NOT lay the foundation we needed for a life together. My previous relationship also started out on the wrong foot (obviously) and I didn’t think cognitively.
You have to do that. Live one day at a time, give yourself a chance to think about all that you really had, all that you want and what you need. And if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? Have had many serious relationships? I know in my situation, I had only had one big one before my soon-to-be-ex and I was still a little young emotionally for what I was setting myself up to happen (25, FWIW). Therefore, despite what everyone else thinks you need to listen to yourself and her. No matter if the rest of the world thinks you’re ideal for one another, they don’t know. Sometimes that’s said because they think we want to hear. Other times it’s because they don’t honestly care and it’s easier. Lastly, it can be because they can’t see things truly any better than you or she do, due to the fact that they’re as easily swayed by rose colored glasses too.
It’s all very heady and intoxicating. You just need a healthy dose of going much slower. You’ll be fine. Hell, if I’m still hanging on as a crazy mid-30s woman, you can do it as a graduate student. Especially since your friends (and her) all seem to vouch for your intelligence, good looks, wittiness and overall nice personality. Don’t sell yourself short over a situation that you may view differently even 3 months down the road.
Hang in there and remember, we’ve all been there or will be. That’s what makes us all empathetic, yet unique. It’s totally different, but the same.
{{{hugs}}}
Dangermom
This is a possibility of what is going on:
Ah, yes what needs to be said. This is never particularly heartening news. Sometimes a woman can really like someone but something makes being with that person a deal breaker. It could be something completely minor like the time you were seen picking your nose or something larger like you are the wrong religion, etc.
Now women won’t tell you what that is (not me, no.) For one, the reason will always sound bad to the person. It hurts them and usually there is nothing that can be done to change it and it can sound really stupid or mean. For instance, I broke up with a guy because he owns three books. I gave another excuse but I could never be in a LTR with someone with three books. (Yes, it sounds stupid, see.)
I will never admit that is the reason to him. Roast me over a spit and I would still stick by my excuse. I made the mistake of telling someone the Real reason once when he made me really angry and was insistent to know. It hurt him very badly and it wasn’t going to change anything.
It is a really difficult thing because the guy knows that something is not right with the reason that the relationship is over. I’d rather leave someone with that feeling than hurting them over something that won’t change and a relationship that is over.
I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before, but it is so obvious to me now. I don’t know how the hell I got to this point, but I didn’t even realize it was happening! Basically I am the one who had changed. I am certain that we felt the same whenever we were together, I had just remembered it wrong.
I guess I’ll have to go into some personal details. My last relationship was a very emotional one, and what happened there was that we got overly emotional for no reason at all, and when I wrote her the first letter I said that we wouldn’t focus on the bad emotions to bring us together like had always happened in my previous relationships. I’ll give an example here.
One of the main ways we felt loved in my previous relationship was by getting sympathy. I am not sure how this happened, but one day I found myself just coming up with excuses to have sympathy. Okay in a healthy relationship there is some sympathy love, but love given because someone feels bad is a bad thing sometimes if you start asking for too much of it.
Well, I told her that we were only going to focus on the good emotions between us and not the bad, and that’s pretty much what we did. We both agree that “CLINGY” relationships are bad. What the fuck was I thinking? Why I didn’t remember that before is beyond me. Well, I obviously fell back on some old instinct and got a little clingy.
By the way I never said anything like, " I don’t know what I would do without you " But I got a little clingy. That is obviously something I don’t like. We mentioned how we don’t really like clingy couples. Actually though we did seem like a clingly couple, but it was only for positive reasons. You know. It wasn’t clingy like, “I only have two more weeks and I want to spend every second, because I can’t live without you.” It was more clingy like, “It feels so good to be with you that I like it.” We never really got annoyed at one another in this whole two weeks, either.
Well, anyway, she obviously didn’t like that, but she didn’t seem to notice that it was me that was changing. I just sort of feel back into old patterns when I went back to my old University because I basically have no life there.
Well, I basically figured this out all last night. So I wrote her a letter (actual post) and I basically explained this to her and how I can’t believe how I didn’t realize it and then I wrote some stuff to make her laugh, and basically tried to remind her of the me that didn’t actually make her feel too involved. See that is the way I was when I was around her and she really liked it and I really liked it too, but I hadn’t been doing that here. For some reason I switched into this commitment mode.
I would still go for a commitment now, but not for the same reasons. I would do it because she makes me feel so good, rather than not being able to function without her. I made this clear to her in the letter, that I don’t need her, but would like to have her, and would like to see her because its a really special thing we have together. I went over some of the things that we have talked about are really special.
So in conclusion, it was me who had changed. I got really clingly when I left, and I wouldn’t normally do that if I were there. That’s why she started turning cold, and that’s why it would work if I were there still. In the end I think it is a good thing, because our relationship was/is built on a lot of mutual respect. She knows that I could get another pretty girl, and that I am special, and I know that she can get basically any guy she wants. But that’s not the main reason we respect each other. Mainly I have a lot of respect for her considering how I know she has lived a lot in her life. She has been traveling through Asia for 6 months! That is crazy! She respects the fact that I have been through so many different groups of friends and know how to make friends so easily. Its a good thing. But if I had turned into this clingly loser and she had fallen into that we would have lost what we had that was so special, and that was the fact that we only focused on the positive things, for love.
I hope I am explaining myself clearly enough here, because what we have is really special but it is hard to explain. She thought that she felt differently than I did at the time that we were together, but when I think back I find that highly unlikely. I think that I had remembered wrong when I thought back about it and dramaticized it to the point where it was too much. Now I have my feet firmly on the ground, and I think that’s the best way to go forward.
faithfool. Thanks for your comment, but now I realize that I was being more like you, but when we were together we were both the complete opposite of being the needy type. We don’t like the type who need a constant reaffirmation of their love, so I was the one who started to turn that way. I guess I didn’t know how to deal with the situation, because its such a very strange situation. But now I realized that I was acting in a way that wasn’t the person that she fell in love with, nor the way I am now. I believe that a person can make progress in life, but it is also possible to fall back. Sure, for me to go back to the way I was, I have to be less attached, but that’s okay, because it was how I was when I met her and how I truely feel comfortable.
Also I explained why I don’t think I was being self-serving in my memories of her, but I will also put another something out there. I am a man who has fooled himself on a couple of occasions in really bad ways, but I have always learned from it. I don’t think I am fooling myself. I am pretty sure I am not. It makes much more sense the disparity between our feelings about what happened. I went back home and it changed me somewhat (although temporarily) and she stayed there and probably changed none (or at least less). But I started to make more of it than I would have normally if I had stayed, so she felt that I had felt that way the entire time maybe.
What does everyone think of this? It makes so much sense to me now, and I am glad I sent the letter express! I also put in a lot of pictures of us together having a good time and some good music too.
Also, for those of you who think that I am sort of