Some of you old-timers may recall a thread I started a month or two back, about my new relationship with an older woman (she’s 41, I’m 30). Most of you said something along the lines of “age ain’t nuthin’ but a number,” “follow your heart,” and other wildly original sayings. Well, here’s spit in your eye: She dumped me yesterday. Not just dumped me, but did it in an e-mail. I have no hard feelings against her (and I totally understand her reasons for the breakup, which were mainly logistical), but I have to admit that someone using e-mail to drop you like a bad habit is a little rough.
Comments? Suggestions? Similar anecdotes? Anyone who told me “the age thing will sort itself out” want to commit SDMB seppuku (because yes, that was definitely a factor)?
Age had nothing to do with it. Tact, honesty, and truthfulness can be lacking at any age. She should have done it face to face. Sorry that it happened the way it did.
That was cold. Anyone who uses e-mail to bail on a relationship has something really wrong upstairs. [voiceofexperience] I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you’re really better off without someone like that. [/voiceofexperience]
Met a gal once, we seemed just right for each other. Both of us were recently divorced. Her ex met someone else and moved to California. For 3 months, felt like I was in heaven. We even got an apartment together. 3 days later, I come home from work, everything she owns is gone. No note, no reason why. Tried calling her mother (“Haven’t seen her in a week”) and her sister (“Saw her at work today, she said nothing to me”). The ex had returned and cried his way back into her heart. A month later she calls me wanting another chance, her ex just beat the hell out of her. I told her no. It felt good.
Second, have I ever mentioned how my colleague broke up with his last girlfriend? By SMS. Yep, and to make the matter worse, her english wasn’t the best (good, but not great), so she didn’t understand the SMS. So he had to break up with her twice with SMS.
And yes, we still give him shit for it to this day.
I had an ex break up with me by “letting” me find evidence that his last business trip was not a business trip, but rather a trip to Mardi Gras to be with another girl. He also “let” me find a gun under his pillow so I’d think he was so depressed over what he’d done he was going to commit suicide.
The latter was a big act (although it worked at the time, I bent over BACKWARDS to be nice to him and cried a lot of tears over his poor mental state). He was thrilled with his new love; in fact they are married now.
It happens to the best of us. Minnie Driver got broken up with when Matt Damon said it on the Oprah Winfrey show. Others have been served divorce papers with no warning. Some people are just big fat wimps who refuse to take responsibility for doing the hard thing face-to-face. Amidst being hurt and mad, we should also make a little time to laugh at what pathetic people they are.
I’m almost 32. My husband is 44. We’ve been married for over nine years.
So no, I’m not going to throw myself on a sword because of the “age thing” not working out for you.
I’ll go with what others have said. In a nutshell: there are assholes of all ages, and I have met people who are at 22 more mature than people I know in their 50s.
Most of the women I dated dropped me over the phone. But that’s just because e-mail wasn’t around yet.
There was one who dropped me over the phone, then came over to see me and formally drop me in person. I always respected her for that. Hated her for dropping me, but respected her taste in doing the face-to-face. Especially considering how far apart we were living.
I got dumped by a guy when he was at sea. Bit of a switcheroo there - and his reasons, as I recall, had to do with our musical tastes. We did see each other a couple of times after he got out of the Navy and came back to the states, but by then, the magic was gone. And to think, I cried for days after…
No matter how it’s done, getting dumped stinks. But it’s survivable and someday it makes a great story. Hang in there!
I dumped a guy via a letter. We were in a fight, not talking for awhile, but not “officially” broken up. Nonetheless, I was open to fix ups from friends and met my (now) husband. The ex was so pathetic, calling me and whining, that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I had moved on. So I wrote him a little note. I didn’t know how to sign off, so I wrote “Good Luck”. That still makes me giggle.
Well, I was one of the posters to your original thread. I’m ten years older than Mr. Seawitch. And I’ve never broken up with anyone in any way other than face to face.
Sorry for what happened to you, but I’m gonna stick with two things:
Age ain’t nothin’ but a number
Jerks come in all ages, colors, shapes and sizes.
I’d hate to guess how many breakups are followed by an attempt to reconcile later, when the breaker-upper realizes that whatever ever ephemeral mate they were chasing comes back asking for another chance.
Draft that vindictive e-mail in preparation; you might even want to get a new Hotmail account just for the purpose.
Good call, Mooney252, you’ve given me something constructive to do. Actually I’m not feeling too bad about the whole thing for some reason. I’m disappointed and startled that it ended so abruptly, but oddly I don’t miss her much.
That’s probably because I never saw her much, as I work late nights (until 1:30 a.m. four nights a week, at least), which was her main complaint. She knew this up front, of course, but I guess she hadn’t realized that I couldn’t spend every free moment with her.
Anyway, yeah, bummer, two months or so gone, but heck, it was a fun two months. Since I seem to have missed the “wish she were here” post-relationship depression, I think I’ll go straight into the “Ohmigod, I’m going to die alone” depression and go ahead and get it out of the way. Efficiency, and all that.
Thanks very much for everyone’s helpful comments; I’d love to answer my detractors individually, but I realized at about age 3 that doing so would leave me no time for watching television.
And here, for Zyada who asked a while back, is a link to the original thread:
Age does figure into it, because the older they are the more experience they have with men. The more experience
they have with men, the better they are at deciding how they want to handle things.