Single But Still Not Happy

I had a 4 1/2 year relationship end this past July with a GREAT woman inside and out. She left me because I had acted distant and moody with her for 6 months. I acted this way because pretty much throughout our entire relationship...I had a feeling of being trapped(especially when tempted by other women). I never cheated or even spent time alone with another woman...but whenever I had the chance to it affected how I acted towards my ex....and she finally got sick of it and left. I don't blame her one bit either. I constantly tried to ignore and bury my restless feelings but they only got worse with time.

Still...I think about her everyday and miss her greatly. But I KNOW that I cannot ask her to come back unless I am ready to put the feelings I had before behind me....and right now I do not 100% know that I can. Then another question I ask myself is if I felt trapped during the relationship...was it just that she is not "the one"? And that what I am really missing right now is the comfort of having a good woman take care of me?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

You can't have both. What is your age? If you are young, i would suggest you explore other women and relationships....this will help build experience and give you inner wisdom about what qualities "the one" will possess when the time comes. It is normal for you to be intrigued by other women when you are in a relationship especially if she is your first serious relationship. You are curious. Once you have the experience with an array of women, you won't be as curious anymore and you will be ready to "settle down". You are just not at that stage yet....nothing wrong with that.

I am 29....still young but not THAT young lol. She was my first serious relationship though(over 6 months). So you are right about the lack of experience in that regard. With my unhappiness before though I have never been able to be 100% sure if it came from something about her or just primitive male sexual intrigue. I keep telling myself that you don't choose whether you are happy with someone or not. And if I wasn't happy I made the right decision. But at the same time I miss her everyday...and worry I won't ever find someone else who loves me as unconditionally as she did. I really did try to ignore my feelings like I said...but all that did was make things worse.

If that was your first serious relationship, you are not experienced enough to know who "the one" even is. Which is why BCGirl said to get more experience dating other women. You need to clearly define, in your head, which qualities "the one" woman must have before you commit. Is sex important to you? Is it a dealbreaker if there is not enough sex? If so, then find a woman who also likes sex.

And getting married is not for everyone. But 99% of women want that, so you have to deal with that.

Also, the feelings of "being trapped" might relate to bad relationships of your past. These can leave emotional ripples, or come back to haunt you, like when you drop a rock in a pond, the waves go out from the center, hit the sides of the pond, and come back at you. You need to deal with any emotional baggage, and be comfortable with being yourself, before you can love someone else and commit to them. Skipping this part will only lead to disaster.

Feeling trapped could be a lot of things, it's impossible to say based off of a simple forum post. Some common reasons people feel trapped:

Didn't experience all they wanted to. If you want to do threesomes and have tons of one night stands or something (or even just date around more) and you meet a great girl and settle down, you will never be able to fully commit to her because you still have stuff to get out of your system.

Restrictive boundaries. If you're adventurous, outgoing, independent etc. and those traits are reigned in a bit because your S/O is uncomfortable with you talking to people, meeting new people, or going out with friends, it can cause you to feel trapped.

Committing too young. If you're 26 or something and you have a house and all that, it can be a wake up call about what you TRULY want. Once you're in that position you might realize you still want to experience a lot, but because you don't want to hurt your partner you try to bottle it (never works).

Again, lots of different possibilities. Hopefully these help and you can relate to them in some way.

Cheers

Thank you guys for the words of advice. I have said to myself too that I would have alot more clarity if I had another serious multi-year relationship to weigh me ex against but I don't. I am having fun dating...but of course I think about her and miss her most when I am sitting at home alone. That tells me though that I cannot ask her back because when I am out with other girls I am glad to be there and have fun. So she(my ex) doesn't deserve to have me asking her back out of my sheer lonliness and lack of comfort. I have too much respect for her to do that.

Quote:

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think about her and miss her most when I am sitting at home alone.

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this suggests that you have it in you to settle down one day and you want to care for a woman and have it reciprocated.

Ofcourse you will feel something emotional when you lose her....you two have been bf/gf for 6 months. You'll get over that feeling with time. Anyhow, i honestly think that you are at a point in your life where you don't want to settle down just yet.... Something inside of you is telling you that you have other things you need to accomplish like experience with other longer relationships and women and you can't settle down just yet.

^^^We were together for 4 1/2 years. I was saying she is the only girl I've dated for over 6 months.

I can completely relate to how you're feeling. At 24 I married the only guy I had ever been in a relationship with (7 years) and less than two years into the marriage I started feeling trapped. I felt like I hadn't experience being single and also we had differences in terms of what we wanted from life, him wanting to start a family and me wanting to put my career first. I left him and felt exactly like you, I still do at times. I live alone and there have been times where I've wondered if I did the right thing but then like you I started meeting other people and when I was with them I had so much fun.

My advice to you would be to move on. I think she is like a comfort blanket as she is the only serious gf you've ever had, and I think you miss being in a relationship rather than miss being in a relationship with her. The more you meet different people and go on different dates you will start to accept the flaws that were in your relationship and that whilst you still miss her, this is only natural given the length of time that you were in a relationship, and it doesn't mean that she is 'the one'. The fact that you can't be 100% sure that you can put your feelings behind you tells me that you know the relationship is not exactly what you're looking for, if it was you would not be on here posting this thread.

^^^^Thank you so much for this response. This is exactly what I keep telling myself to help feel better. I'm sorry you had to go through that too. It was so hard. But you don't really control whether or not you're happy with someone. It's something that your subconscious has to decide. If I wasn't happy I wasn't happy.