Needing help/advice in long-running drama...
So, I met my ex-girlfriend back in the fall of 2006. We met at work, and instantly there was a connection. Not just any connection, but an intense, never wanted to be apart from each other connection. I knew she was seeing someone, but I didn’t really know the full story and she never really talked about him. For about a month, we were always with each other. Lunch would always be together, at the end of the day, when we were home, we would video chat each other, and not think anything of it. Eventually, about a month and a half later, I made the move. She was done with the guy she was seeing and I could tell and all signs were pointing towards this working. For about 6 months, our relationship was golden. We were best friends and spent all of our time together, and always thought it was odd that we hadn’t met before. We felt like we had known each other our whole lives. BTW, let me just add here, she is about 7 years older than I am, however, our maturity and behavior actually made me the “older” one.
It was odd. I was never one for dating growing up. It just wasn’t part of my lifestyle, or whatever you want to call it. She on the other hand, had dated approx. 10 guys since high school. Some of them were long term. Regardless, when we were with each other, pasts didn’t matter. I loved being with someone who had a lot of experience, and she loved being with someone who didn’t. It was all golden, romantic, and wonderful.
About 7 months into our relationship, she started taking various things out on me. Things that were making her crazed, outside things, she would bring into the relationship in various ways. One major problem is that we are in the same line of work, and I had started to go further in my job very fast, while she wasn’t. She got very competitive and started to take that out on me. It only made it worse when I tried to fix things. I was always trying to fix it or make it better, when I probably should have just let it be. We were still having a great time, our relationship was solid, but these problems were taking a toll. About 4 months later, she moved for work. Not far at all, and we were always visiting each other. Most of the time it was great, but she often would take out life’s frustrations on me. I very rarely got angry with her, again, my major problem was that I was always just trying to make it better. Times were good, times were bad, but were madly in love with each other.
Cut to last year, in June. We broke up. It came as a bit of a surprise, though looking back on it, I should have seen it coming. She broke up with me, over the phone, which I felt was a little wrong, and I was devastated. It wasn’t that I blamed myself, or blamed her, I was just so confused what had gone wrong. We had gotten to point where we were at each other’s throats so much, and I never understood why. I’d be in a fight and not even know we got there. In the time after the break up, we had trouble letting go of each other. We were still in communication, she said that she loved me, but she just needed to be alone, and single. At one point, she told me that she was interested in getting back together, but that didn’t happen. I was at her house one night, just having dinner, when I saw an instant message between her and this guy on her computer. This guy had pursued her from about 7 months into our relationship. They were good friends, from the same home town, had a lot of the same connections and people in common, but when he started telling her how he felt about her, she would always tell him, “I’m not interested in that, I’m in love with my boyfriend.” She tried to make it work with him as friends, but it never did, and so they were not in each others life. We often joked about him. She would get frustrated at how much of an asshole he was, etc... The instant message had started with her contacting him, saying “I’ve thought about you every day, let’s try a date, just a date. When I confronted her on this, she denied it, and said I misunderstood. Friends we had in common started telling me that they knew about her and the new guy, and I kept confronting her on it, and she kept saying it wasn’t true. Eventually, she told me it was true.
When they started dating, we stopped communication. It was a very hard few months for me. I felt totally alone, left behind and sad. At the end of last year, around October, she initiated communication with me again. I could tell by what she was saying that she missed me, a lot, and that she was still in love with me, as I was with her. But, she was still with him. We eventually were talking on the phone almost every day, sometimes for hours. I would ask her why she was still with him if she wasn’t feeling it with him, and she would say “it’s complicated.” That would be her answer to almost everything. Eventually, in December, she broke up with him. I was the first one she told. Apparently she ran home after breaking up with him to tell me. I went to go visit her, and she stated she was interested in seeing if there was any possibility for us to date again. She said she wanted to start off slowly, to be friends at first, and let the dating thing happen organically. She said “if there is anyone I don’t want to ruin this with, it’s you.”
In January of this year, she came to visit me for 3 days. I asked her to come, and after much back and forth, she agreed. She came, stayed with me, and we an amazingly romantic 3 day weekend. She told me everything I had always wanted to hear...how in love with me she still was, how much she missed me, how much she wanted to make this work. She also proceeded to tell me all the horrible things about the ex. Everything from his large ego, to his relationship issues, to the way he treated her, all of it. She said many times, I’m not in love with him, and never could be. She said there were still feelings there, but I was ok with that. I know those things don’t go away over night, but she was very clear in how she felt about me and how she felt about him. When she left here and went back home, I think the pace at which we moved freaked her out a little, and we had to call it off again. She had wanted to take it slow and let everything happen organically. Well it happened organically, but certainly not slow, and it was too much for her. We were in a full on relationship again and that was not what she wanted.
Cut to a few a days ago. She moved here. She moved to the town I now live in, in a totally different state. She moved here for work, same industry, different employer. She is all of 10 minutes away. It had been only a month since we cut it off again, after her visit here, yet it had all reversed. I saw her the day she got here, and she revealed to me that she wasn’t interested in going down the relationship road with me, we were over, and were bad for each other. She still had feelings for the ex, and when I asked her if they were dating again, she said “I can’t promise that we are not.”
I wrote her e-mails about how I felt, and she responded at length, but the most telling was when she said, “you only see what you want to see. You knew my head was cloudy.” My feeling is that I saw what I was shown. She came here and spent 3 days with me and everything was golden. On top of that all, she said her herself over and over again it couldn’t work with him cause she wasn’t in love with him. To me, she has no accountability for her actions, and just manages to blame me for when I’m upset. When she apologizes, she says “I’m sorry you’re hurting,” as opposed to “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
So I don’t know what to think. I think about her 24/7. I know I don’t deserve to be treated like that, but I do miss her. I also know that if she gets back together with the ex, it wont work, because it can’t. Her feelings for him have nothing to do with love as much as they do with her inability to be alone. They “should” work, but they don’t. Those are her words. Not only that, but he doesn’t live here.
I also know that end of the day, she is still in love with me, she has just convinced herself that we don't work.
So I dunno...thoughts anyone?
