Sorry to hear that. When my previous relationship ended, I sat back and thought about all of things I had put on hold during that time with him. He hated horror movies, so I had a horror movie marathon. He would be tired at 9pm, I organized large groups of friends to go out to the drive-in. He wasn’t outdoorsy, I did a lot more camping. I just did a lot of catching up on the little stuff that I compromised on during the relationship. I also found a couple new hobbies that I dove into.
It’s cheesy to say, but remember that you’re the author of your own story. You can choose to make the character boring to follow or a real page turner.
Your living situation is going to make this very hard on you through the coming months. Even if he stays with friends when you return from your off-shore work gigs (BTW, are you an oil rig worker?), you’ll still be in the same house surrounded by his things. Not a good situation. Are there no options at all for you with respect to having him pack his things and go?
Great advice. One of the things I’m looking forward to when I get home: cuddling and falling asleep with my cat, Rika. One of the compromises I made in our relationship was booting her out at nights because she bothered him at nights sleeping (a very understandable problem so I had no problem doing this). But I love it. Also, horror movies! BF didn’t like them at all so now I can watch them with my friends and not feel bad about asking to exclude him.
Yes we are on the lease together until June, and he has a right to live there as much as I do. He’s being nice enough to say he won’t be around much while I’m there, which will only be early March to Early April, and then early May to early June, so we won’t be in each other’s hair for long.
Everybody of course ALWAYS seems to say that they want to remain friends but I doubt seriously he actually wants to be my friend. One of the reasons he’s breaking up with me is because he doesn’t feel we connect or have much in common… so, what is there to base a friendship on? But, it’s what he says he wants and I’m willing to give it a try… after we move away from each other mostly. But we’ll be amicable until then.
Ugh, I’m so sorry to hear this. Breakups suck, and even when you know intellectually that it’ll get better with time, that doesn’t un-hurt your heart now. On the plus side, you seem like a great guy, and I seem to remember a picture of you that was very adorable (which either means you’re cute, or you have such a great message-board personality that you made a random person hallucinate cute pictures of you. Either way, golden!).
On the topic of remaining friends: Just be kind to yourself first. If you’re not feeling it, if it’s painful to hang out, if it hurts to try to pretend everything is cool - don’t. Take a couple of months off. No one will blame you (ok, douchbags might but I think you can safely discount their opinions), and you’ll be in a much better position to be actual friends down the road if you haven’t added a whole bunch of painful experiences to the end of your relationship. And I second the advice to avoid getting drunk, or even drinking, around your ex for a while. I have some really humiliating memories that could have been avoided had I heeded this advice.
Lots of good advice here and I concur that the hurt isn’t proportional to time spent together. It sucks all around. Be good to yourself because if you can’t love yourself (metaphorically, ya pervs.) you can’t expect others to.
I’m going to chime in and say that while I believe that it’s possible to remain friends after a breakup…I feel it is the exception not the rule. Separating oneself from an ex is usually the quickest way to recover. Reminders of the past are always triggers for pain. Having-non contact for a long while doesn’t mean you can’t be friends at some later point. The space does both sides good and sometimes even leads to reconciliation. For me the best solution was to change my environment and routines so that they became my own again and I wasn’t always reminded of the past.
Hey, I don’t think we’ve ever interacted, but you’re one of the good guys here, and I’m sorry to see this thread. I hope things stay amicable over the next few days (weeks?) that you’re in the same house.
you can’t expect others to.