I agree with you here. Someone can be a wonderful, excellent person, but you can’t help it if you’re better suited as friends than lovers, or short term rather than long term. There’s nothing wrong with the other person, it’s just that the something needed to perpetuate the relationship, to have a future, to be together forever, what have you - it just isn’t there.
Mutual breakups happen all the time, as do short term relationships where both parties know it’s not forever - just enjoy it while it lasts. It’s so much better to leave off as friends who understand than as enemies who feel rejected/cheated/spurned.
The concept of working on a relationship isn’t foreign to me, as I have a husband and we “work” hard on our marriage. As he likes to say, we run a tight ship. But we both knew we were in it for the long term when we got married. That’s why we dated first to be sure we wanted the same things.
I agree with Quicksilver: Don’t settle. You’re selling yourself and your partner short when you do. There could be someone else out there who would love that person so much more (and vice versa). Settling only causes hurt in the long run.
If you’re asking why, I would say it’s because you don’t think you deserve better. If you stopped strangers on the street and asked them if they thought they deserved happiness, I think we would be shocked at how many don’t. But you do. Honestly. We all do.
That’s exactly how I feel. If anyone, be it my best friend, some stranger, a girl I hated in high school, whoever, were to describe the situation and say “But I want to be with him!”, I’d say “Hell no!” and tell them how much better they were than that. It seems so obvious, yet I’d steer my worst enemy away from it while wishing myself back in the situation.
I think it also says a lot about the person I became around him. I can’t blame that on him; I was the one constantly compromising because I thought we’d come out a better couple for it. I’ve been cheated on before; the second I found out I was on the phone with him, telling him I expected all my stuff neatly delivered in perfect condition the next morning and he’d find anything he’d left at my house dumped on the front lawn, and to not even think about contacting me again. I knew the first time I didn’t deserve that shit. But this time, I awas willing to be stepped on and let him back. Which is not like me at all - I cannot stand gossip and humiliation. What’s more embarassing than being the girl who was cheated on and took him back? Man, she must be really desperate! But I didn’t care.
I’m slowly getting better, and I’m returning to the strong kick-ass girl I was before I let myself become such a pushover, but some things are too hard. I almost never refer to him as “ex-fiance” or anything like that. I can’t look at pictures of us together. I can barely deal with people asking me about him, and I certainly can’t listen to people bash him. I still stand up for him! Not because I’m just the nicest little girl who can’t bear to hear bad things said about anyone, but because I feel like more of an idiot for getting engaged to a guy that everyone now says the they always knew was a complete tool.
Ah, sorry for the rant/tangent. It’s very unlikely I would have cheated in a relationship to begin with, but after going through this, I could never, ever do that to anyone. It’s so glamourized, too; television shows and movies where the beautiful heroine leaves her loveless marriage for the hot young pool boy, and we’re all supposed to cheer her on. Just get a divorce, for chrissakes!
I’ve thought about this as well. Be honest now… if there was nobody else in the picture for your S.O. and he/she simply said they wanted out; would that really make it any easier on the one being left?
We use cheating as a moral club with which to beat the offender. And as wrong as cheating is, truth is, it’s the leaving that hurts more/longer than the cheating. No?
I sometimes wonder how often people cheat just to have an escape route. They’re in a relationship going nowhere, but can’t justify breaking up for any reason. It’s not good, it’s not bad, you treat each other fine, there’s just nothing left. Maybe it’s just an easy way out? “Hey, I cheated, now it *has *to be over”?
A marriage/engagement ending is going to be hard, no matter what. As you said, it is the “end” that hurts more than the reason for the end. If he had said “I don’t love you and I can’t marry you and it should be over”, it would have broken my heart just as much. But, it wouldn’t leave me second-guessing every new relationship because I might not be “good” enough for the new person to resist temptation. Though I know I would have found other things to second guess myself on, I suppose. It shouldn’t be so damn complicated!
This is a great opportunity for you to learn about yourself here. Nobody does anything for no reason; there’s always a reason for what we do, and for you to find out the reason for your acting this way in this situation will probably give you the information you need to not do it again.
Also, I’ve learned that self-esteem is not a steady-state thing; sometimes in our lives we have more, sometimes less. You don’t need to kick yourself about making a mistake with this guy; there was a lesson you needed to learn here. Just make sure you learn the lesson this time, so you don’t have to do it over and over.
QuickSilver, that’s an interesting point you make about which hurts more, the cheating or the leaving. I think in some ways cheating does more damage, because the person doing the cheating has reduced themselves in your eyes, and now you get to look at yourself and wonder what you saw in someone who would do something like that.
Reading the OP gave me that oddly euphoric and yet paralyzing adrenaline rush that so often accompanies moments of fear and dread.
Like the prolonged one I experienced when I couldn’t make any more excuses for her and tailed her, right to her rendezvous. Throughout the entire drive, I could hear nothing but the forlorn beating of my heart.
It’s been a while since I revisited that time in my life, but you took me there QuickSilver. It’s certainly long overdue that I come to terms with the past within my own mind, so I thank you for taking this reluctant traveler.
