how badly did i screw up?

i'm 35, he's 39.

last month i got spooked. i realized how much i love this man, how important he had become to me and my happiness. i hadn't gotten any sleep, and i hadn't heard from him the night before, which was not normal for us. it turned out everything was okay, but i'd spent the night terrified that he'd fallen down the stairs or had heart attack. it was stupid, but i panicked.

we talked in the morning, and he was alright. i wasn't mad. i was relieved. but my nerves were raw, and i hadn't slept, and i started freaking out about what am i going to do if i ever lose him for real? what if he leaves me? what if we have kids, and i love him even more then than i do now?

i didn't talk to him until that evening when he sent me a message that was self-blaming for what happened. i tried to reassure him that i wasn't mad at him. i told him i needed to think. i told him i was trying not to poke at it, and i needed to sleep. he asked me if i was breaking up with him. i told him that wasn't what i wanted. he told me that wasn't an answer and i had 15 minutes to call him back with an answer.

long story short, we didn't break up. but he's held it against me since. he started to withdraw. finally, last weekend, he broke up with me. he says he can't understand loving someone so much that i'd consider breaking up with him to avoid the pain of losing him later.

is this truly an unforgivable sin? need i point out that i didn't break up with him? that i asked for time and for sleep, and i knew it'd all be okay once the shock wore off?

um, yes that level of anxiety would be alarming to a partner. Yes, it would be absolutely devastating to loose a partner, but we also need to know with confidence that we can and will survive and make a life without them if need be. The knowledge that the partner could not cope without us is a very large burden to place on a person.

I have to be honest and confess that I stayed in a marriage far too long for this exact reason - I knew he would not cope without me. I know now that it's a red flag....perhaps not an all-out dealbreaker, but certainly not a tick in favour of continuing with that person.

For what it's worth, I also get anxious when hubby is out drinking and doing heaven knows what. But I NEVER confess how I feel to him. Why? Because I'm being irrational and have no business putting my irrational behaviour on him. And I also know that while losing him would be a terrible, terrible thing...I could survive without him.

email i sent to him at the time:

Again, you didn't do anything wrong. I just want you to understand what the gnomes in my head were up to. All the while I knew there was a high likelihood (99.99999%) that I was overreacting and being ridiculous, but my ability to control it eroded until I just couldn't stop the insanity.

I know this comes from a fear of loss. I know I'd survive it if I did lose you so the panic is unwarranted. I know it's a burden on those I love to have me worry about them so. I know it's crazy. It drives K*** nuts and causes clashes between us sometimes, but she's learned to accept that it's the way I am. It's driven a wedge between me and everyone else I know, and the only way I know to deal with it is to keep everyone else at a safe distance. I don't know that I'll ever be "normal" in this respect. I don't have any expectation of the sort.

There's no excuse for my behavior. I did, in fact, intrude on F***, and for that I am sincerely apologetic. Even more so that I only needed to wait another 15 or so minutes before you'd turned your phone on. I am embarrassed, but I'll get over it. There's a fine line between being the crazy girlfriend and the loving girlfriend, and the only thing that defines which one I am is whether or not you were indeed okay. I mention this because I need time to think, and it's not because I'm worried about anyone else's opinion of the situation.

I came face-to-face with a piece of me that I really don't like. It's not the first time in our relationship, but it was worse this time. And it'll keep feeling worse the more opportunity I have to love you. I accept that as part of my relationship with K***. She's my daughter. That grants me a lot of forgiveness (from her and from myself), and neither one of us really has a choice in the matter. I don't know if I can accept that as part of my relationship with you. I don't want to go into a whole lot of detail. Like I said, you didn't do anything wrong so there isn't anything for you to fix. The emotional side is in time-out. I need to think. I've only been able to see one solution, and that's the reason I'm trying not to poke at it too much. The bear is grumpy, and my heart wants to let it go back to sleep.

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so, basil, you are quite correct. the fear of losing someone is unnecessary and irrational because, more often than not, it's not by our own control or choice that we lose someone we love. usually, there's not a darned thing we can do about it. i recognize this.

like i said, at the time, i hadn't slept. i needed to. badly. i asked for time because i know myself, and i knew i needed distance from the emotional roller coaster.

what i don't understand is how he can take this one situation and turn it into proof that he is disposable. in fact, rereading it now after more than a month's time, i see nothing but how much i truly cared for him and how angry i was with myself at the time.

Obviously he didn't love you, because if he did he would have fought for you. Or he has been hurt very badly before and didn't trust you, so he removed himself emotionally to breakup with you.

Everyone has fears when they fall in love, irrational ones too. It's normal. You trusted him to show how vulnerable you were feeling and all he did was bail on you.

You shouldn't place all the blame on yourself. It's him who has the problem, so don't feel so much regret. I know you love him, and feel bad what happened, BUT I think you dodged a bullet. If he isn't willing to stand by you through thick and thin, he has no business being in a relationship. He is too weak.

okay. it's been almost 4 weeks since we broke up. that's given me a lot of time to reflect.

i think he was using my freak out moment in april as an handy excuse. honestly, everything had been going well up for the most part. in the weeks leading up to the break up i'd started training 2 new employees and brought home a new puppy. i was emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted so i may not have been 100% on my game, but we'd still had some really romantic evenings sprinkled in there.

on the 9th i mentioned that it had been 9 months. he'd said it felt longer, in a good way. we'd always had this feeling that we'd just kinda known each other our whole lives. things just fit that well. on the 10th we went to a party with my friends. he was engaged, we had a really great time, and he couldn't get me home fast enough. that morning i'd said to him, "you know, you're pretty great." he stopped, paused, looked at me very seriously and said, "you're absolutely ****ing amazing."

he had me meet his mom the weekend beforehand. she and i got along great, but there had been a bit of drama between the two of them surrounding a puppy she'd adopted. in the morning, she started packing to leave. when we were alone, i asked him if he was happy that she came to visit him. he said he was, and i told him that i think she needed to hear that from him right now. he found her, talked to her, they hugged, had a heart-to-heart, and she ended up staying a few more days. the drama was resolved, and a couple of days later he told me he was really impressed with me and how i supported him.

i'm not, in any way, perfect. but i really can't imagine two people getting along better than we did. if forever is possible, i can't think of how you'd have a better foundation than what we had.

however, after his ex-wife, he dated a woman who was so batshit crazy that she faked a pregnancy to try to keep him and another woman who up and left without saying anything for 3 months to go have plastic surgery done. he was the stable to their unstable. and i get that there's a certain security in dating people that you can't love enough to care about losing. and i'm not so sure he was actually ready to meet someone he truly could (and did) love. i think he wanted it, but i don't think he was actually ready for it.

He said always wanted a family of his own, but he’d never considered it to be an option for him until he’d met me. He’d told his last 2 girlfriends that they’d just have to deal with the fact that he’s still intricately tied up with his ex-wife in a financial sense. 2 months ago he decides to make himself go broke so he can pay off the house and start unraveling himself from his ex-wife nearly 6 years after their divorce. He talked about finishing the basement so his mom could stay with us if we had children. Finishing the basement was something he’d talked about doing when he lived in the house 10 years ago, but he wasn’t motivated to actually do it until now. It was his idea that I meet his mom.

I think it was too much too soon, and he freaked himself out. He wanted someone like me, but he wasn’t actually ready to find someone like me.

For the first 3 weeks after the break up, I sent emails and texts every few days. I know that's a no-no. I haven't said anything in a week. I know he needs his time and space to work on all of this "stuff" going on in his head. In fact, the reason he gave for breaking up with me was that he couldn't handle seeing me hurting. He couldn't deal with his stuff and with my stuff at the same time.

So, the question is... what's going to happen next? There's no guarantee, but do you think he'll see what we were and get over whatever it is that's holding him back?

No....the reason he broke up with you is because you are bat shit looney!

Have you seen a doctor about your anxiety issues?

Your anxiety might have been alarming but not something that should cause a break up. You two had a wonderful relationship and you proved that you can actually balance his life and not the opposite. All you needed when you had that panic attack was a bit of time, patience and reassurance that he loved you, he was fine and there was nothing for you to worry about. If that was too much to ask than I'd worry more about his low tolerance limits and his unsupportive nature than your fears.

Some people seem to want a ''perfect relationship'' nowadays, where everything should work perfectly all the time, no baggage, no conflictive past, awesome sex, no family problems, no economical problems, and god forbid some emotional drama. Truth is we've all got a bit of struggle in our lives and expecting anything different is unrealistic and unfair for our partner.

That morning when he would have left his mother who was a guest and had just met you, leave upset over adopting a puppy, unless you had supported him and advised him to make peace with her, I think he proved to you that his way of dealing with any kind of misunderstanding is by cutting ties, instead of looking for reconciliation. This guy isn't the right person for you and for anyone. You didn't screw up, he did, and you should move on with no regrets.

i hadn't thought of it that way, valixy. thank you for your insight. given other stories he's told me about his family, you're absolutely right about him cutting ties instead of reconciling. how sad and lonely that must be... :(

Well I'll only comment on the original post at the start of the thread as I found the rest a little dramatic and confusing to follow. In my opinion the "i need to think" and "that's not what I want" comments, feel passive aggressive in the context in which they were said so I'm not surprised he started to withdraw. Nonetheless I hope you heal and find love again soon.

You did say that 2 of his previous girlfriends were somewhat of a basket case so when u had your (for lack of better terms) mini-melt down, it just reminded him of a place where he didn't want to be again. Not saying it was your fault because as you stated it wasn't your normal you and I suppose he knew that but again it doesn't change the possibility that maybe it just brought out certain feelings in him that he just doesn't nor can't deal with anymore.