Where exactly are her emotions?.......and, is she being fair.

Trying this on a different forum.

My GF of 7 years broke up with me, asked me to leave. She was in her right to do so, we were under a lot of pressure because of me. We are not 19 anymore, we are 48 and 49. It's been 9 mo. and I took it very hard, and responded innitially with a lot of anger. Really I was angry at myself but expressed it to her, in the beginning the anger response is the easiest one, not productive or helpful, but the easiest. 4-5 weeks ago I decided to go after her, see what can be amended and repaired.
She told me upfront that she was not ready, that she hopes of being together with me again one day but she is not ready. She told me that she is dating some, but nothing serious, she lets noone get close. I told her to please not mind me persuing my girl as so many men are trying now, just want to have a chance like they do. She has been pleased and taken kind to my advances and the things that I have done for her but romantically she stays cold, there are no signs, the spark seems gone. Now I have found out that she is very close and serious with one other man. They are intimate, in short, they are an item. Thus I do what seems to be the respectful thing to do, not interfer, count my losses and take some distance, I tell her that we are friends, eventhough I don't believe in that crap. She is not OK with me staying away, it makes her furious and agry at me and she insists that the other man/men are not special.
I have sent her flowers, a bottle of wine, mowed her yard, fixed her broken window, fixed her broken ceiling fan, have had heart to heart talks with her, light talks with her, gone out with her for drinks (when I was not aware of the other man), support her when she calls me crying with emotional problems (not concerning us). Today she text'd me to have lunch with her, I replied that having lunch together is not such a great idea. Every time I call, e-mail or text, she responds very kindly is there is no romantic inclination. If I am in any way flirtatious, I get no response, it is calculated, she says that she is busy. She gives me hints of what she needs (not outright asking) and I offer my help. I believe that in all the above cases of me offering to do things for her, her reply should have been of thanking me but telling me that she thinks it would be inappropriate to accept my offers, to not want to give me a false impression of her intentions because her heart is now with a different man. I don't think that she is being fair to the man she is dating, to herself and certainly not to me. Am I wrong to have these thoughts? By walking away am I not doing for her what she should have done to me 4 weeks ago, and it hurts like hell but it seems proper. I can see that she still loves me, I can see the pain, the confussion, but her heart is not open to me. Isn't taking distance going to be better for her and me? I think that I know what is going on emotionally with her but it would help to get some female comments. I am still madly in love with her and need to be away for my sanity. I don't think that she deliberately wants to use me, it all emotions, but the facts are that I feel used and I feel like her little puppy dog.

On the flip side, I believe that if she really considers being with me, she should open her heart a little for me, allow us some fun dates, have those conversations with me, stop being intimate with the other fellow for now and see where it goes. If she is just keeping me on the back burner, which, again, I believe she is trapped in emotions, and does not clearly know what she is doing, she should put inteligence over emotions, realize what hurt she is doing to herself and people whom she cares about and do the right thing. I am going to make the choice for her and I am out, nothing hurts more.

I am sorry to hear about all this. I think, however, putting some distance between the two of you is probably the best course of action for you. She does sound confused - but she is already open to seeing new men. Is she moving on and sees you as some kind of friend? Is she trying to get over you and keeps you around to ease the pain of separaton (unitl something new comes her way)? Is she playing you? Or is she genuinely trying to put her thoughts together about the two of you? Can't tell you, of course, what is the answer to these questions - and most likely neither can anyone else here. But creating some distane will help you to find out much sooner than if you keep running behind her. If she appreciates you (romantically), that will force her to chase you up. If not, well you have your answer.

After all, if she is happy to start meeting new men, you should start thinking of your next step too. Not saying that you should start dating immediately, but pull yourself together so that you can be open to opportunities when they present themselves (if this is what you want, of course).

Thanks for your reply,
What I see is that she is in love with me, but it is as if she admits it, she would have to admit that it was wrong of her to break up. She is still angry and she is stuborn. Ofcourse I would not rub the past in at all, just work to be happy ahead. After the break-up she did all the things that you are suppost to do to get over a break-up, text book. She lost weight, she looks fantastic, surrounded herself with new activities, made sure she was always with friends, and on. But it is like she worked too hard, trying to proove a point, to deceive herself. When she talkes to me she sounds super happy, unnatural, it is imposed, she is so busy that she can't hear herself think, she is afraid to leave herself alone for a minute, but behind the front screen you can see the sadness, it is not working for her but she keeps her chin up. We have great talks and time spent together where she gets more honest, it brings her to tears, I respond and than she always tells me that I have the perfect words when she needs that support. She says of her male friend that he is fat, has no personality and that he is no comparisson to me, but that he gives her comfort. She is not serious, she dates several men, he is just the most consistent but she sleeps with him 3 nights a week and it is getting more intense. But if I say one thing that she does not like (her anger flares up with no effort) than all the men whom she dates are perfect, far better people than me and she takes back anything else that she has previously said about them. Next day is the reverse again. The men that she dates, including the one that is serious do not come to her house, she goes to his house, they are only allowed to know her by what they already know about her, she will not let them find out more about the real her, and these are her words. I love her the way that she is although it breaks my heart to see her in this state.

You mention she is 'still angry' and broke off with you. After 7 years you must have messed up bad. You either cheated, hurt her or did something illegal/morally unacceptable. What happened?

Thank you for your comment and.....yes!, I messed up bad, but not any of the hings that you mentioned.
When we met I had a great job as a Chef in a prestigious (Famous, in fact) country club and a really respected reputation in town and in my industry. After only being together for 6-7 months (I had moved in with her) I lost my job. It wasn't my fault and it was the first time in my career and it is not the problem in our relationship. At that time I decided to not even look for a new position but to start a business which was an idea that had been developing in my head. The business was an idea of both of us, it combined work in her field and mine. It was a very nobel business idea, and she was very supportive of it and in the beginning she helped with it. But the business did not take off. It could have. I made my mistakes and had my battles but the point is that it did not work. Financially we were OK for about 3 years because of my savings. Where I should have been wise and stopped this business and go back to a job after 2-2.5 years, I didn't. I kept going, sinking further and further. When saving ran out out she payd all the living expenses and bills. She has a good income but that was hard. Emotionally I was failing to, I turned weak and uninspired and just was able to do less and less. I have never experienced this before. Eventually the pressure became to much for her, she had to let me go. I looked for a job and when I found a new Chef position, she asked me to leave when I received my first paycheck. I did mess up. It is not all me however, she also went through some major stuff during this time, a full histerectamy, big trouble with her adopted teenage child, and other things. I was actually a great support to her in those matters but she got resentful to the point where just everything was my fault. She loved me or loves me and it pained her to end it, she told me to get myself together and get stronger and than come back and date her, she wanted to try again. It took me 9 months for me to be emotionally in a good place and approach her with the intent on mending things. In ways she has taken to it well, but she is dating another man and she is emotionally not in the right place. In my opinion she is worse than when we parted, but I can't tell her that, I feel somewhat responsible, because I did harm her alot and I know her so through and through, I would be a help to her and I do and I am and she expresses that and thanks me for it, but deep down in her brain she denies it. There you have a long post and that was the short version. No major stuff left out though.

Hey Windmill, your story sounds a bit odd to me. Lots of successful business people fail in their first attempt. Its almost de rigeur, in fact, so you can learn the lessons you need to learn. Don't beat yourself up too much over it. Also, if you did this in the last couple years, the economy has been very harsh on new business. Sounds like you tried to do this w/o a partner--which makes the business statistically much more likely to fail, FYI. Get a solid business partner next time. And make sure you have a solid business plan.

But I'm still not sure why she has bailed. How have you 'harmed' her? There must be something else. Lots of people have had to support their partners when they lost their jobs. Is she seeing someone else? I'm sorry to suggest this but you should consider whether she has been seeing someone else. That's really the only thing that might explain her behaviour, unless something else happened to her she isn't telling you about.

Anyway, glad you are working again. Keep your chin up.

She's totally playing you. She gets you to come fix things, mow her lawn, she gets an emotional boost from you, and gets to bang other men while keeping you at arms length. I'm betting you'll never get anything from this relationship again. I'd cut off contact.

You sound like you are 19. You saw how badly you handle yourself but failed to correct it during those 7 years. You both are a mess. She is not the one for you if you behaved badly towards her and she doesn't deserve you because she is just using you. Get out of it for it won't get any better than this.

Let me respond to IndiReloaded, eartIsAching and Smakie9 in one response, and I thank you all for posting comments. Indi, you got a lot right about my business, I did not have a partner, which was not the biggest deal, I did have a solid business plan and it's a good one. Many do fail at their first attempts and I am not ruling out that I won't try it again, with a few different formats from lessons learned. A problem is that I let myself sink too far and have a lot of damage to recover from now and I am. Your question, why did she bail, is a question of mine as well. Our relationship was strained but there were clearly indentifyable reasons for it. As a man I figured that once you solve the problems, the love is still there, you can start repairing the relationship. Problems: the business, finances, stress over the first two. I stopped the business and gained a steady income. She was not seeing someone else, she is now. There is not something that I am not telling, I guess, that what I am telling got so stressful and deep to her that she could not muster up the will to rebuild. The problems were not all mine, she has big emotional problems of her own and she does not face them. It seems, as I see it, that blaming me is an outlet, that is easier than admitting to herself and tackeling her own problems. She blames me for things that happened in her life 20 years before she met me.
To HeartIsAching my response is that she is playing me. But I am convinced that it is not intentional. She is so confused, hurt and still angry, and I am a huge comfort and support to her. It is like she is begging me to be with her. I am quite sure that everyday she considers being back with me and cutting the other man off, in a bitterness she won't allow herself to do it. A week ago I have decided to almost stop the contact, few loose end to deal with, there is still a little of my mail coming to her house, I resolved that and I need to pick up 2 more carloads of my personal items that are at her house. I cannot forgo this, some of the items are things that belong to my family, items that were my mother's and grand mother's, things like that. I need to do this as soon as possible. In the first week however, she senses it and is contacting me everyday. I don't reply or reply with short one liners that are polite but include no soul.
To smackie9 I say, how do all three of you know so much about us when we have never met and I haven't written much about me here? My ex GF and I are both very big heart people, we are inteligent and can be pragmatic business people at work, etc, but we both guide our lives from our passions and often run on our hearts rather than our brains, and it does often appear that we behave like 19 year old instead of nearly 50 year olds that we are. Friends and family who know us better have made those comments but they believe that it is why we are such good people, many of our friends say they wished they could be that way. I am a Chef, not an accountant, I am creative, passionate, spirited and expressive. Great qualities, but I guess thare is a price to pay at times.

I believe that you believe that. I think you're being suckered, however.

Being a Chef doesn't mean you can't add and subtract. In fact, I'd wager that it means you have to multiply fractions with facility. What's 2/3 C. x 3? 3 C. right?