Fell in love with another man and told my boyfriend honestly, now he dumped me

[moonshadow1234]

Really. I do not listen to people who say that intentions do not matter. Intentions do matter. They can not undo any feelings and good intentions can never compensate bad actions. But they should matter to everyone, no matter what the subject is. Every single human being has his flaws and will eventually hurt other human beings. Everyone will make mistakes they regret. Hurt can not be undone. I do not expect that the fact that I did not intend and did not want to hurt my boyfriend makes anyone say ''you poor thing, what you have been through, he should come back''. Offcourse not. I am not always as stupid as I have been with my boyfriend. I just have a hard time letting it go and forgiving myself. And I most certainly have a hard time letting him go if he keeps calling me and telling me we could get back together in the future. I would not keep thinking about it if he would have said ''Í do not want you anymore''. If you can not bring up any understanding for that, then you are certainly as incompetent in being understanding as I have been.

[IndiReloaded]

Whatever Moon. I can see why you have the problems you do. You clearly have it all figured out. Good luck with everything. Oh and you are welcome for my time. :/

[moonshadow1234]

Oh no I was not pointing at you, but at someone who said a few pages before that ''intentions do not matter'' and a lot of people make me feel like I am a horrible person. And that is something I do not listen to. I listen to all the advice I get, but I am not a bad person, I want to learn and never hurt anyone else in my life again. If I were evil, I would not care about that.

Your posts helped me a lot, I am grateful. And I think you are right. We are not the right match. I still love him, but I am starting to see things in perspective. I made my mistakes, but he makes me suffer awfully hard. His best friend told me he thinks he will come back but that he is now being awfully stubborn. Perhaps that just is not a good idea. A relationship should make you grow, we ended up making each other feel down. That is not the way it is supposed to be. Probably too much has happened to make things allright again. Sorry, I really was not attacking you.

[moonshadow1234]

I am extremely grateful for your time. You have no idea. Do not know how to thank you actually. Helped me big time. I feel stronger to forgive myself and just letting him go.

[IndiReloaded]

My mistake then. Sorry.

Moon, all I can add is that you should consider being kinder to yourself. I get the sense that much of your problems in your relationship stem from not being able to ask for what you needed. Resentment is a terrible thing, and causes a lot of problems. Read about assertiveness, its a skill you can learn (are you asian, by chance? just curious).

Again, not to excuse what happened, but done is done. There is no point beating yourself up further (or letting him). Guilt is overrated, and mostly those who engage in it are only doing so b/c they are too lazy to spend the time acting on a *solution*. Spend some time thinking about how you might fix or prevent such a thing from happening again and the experience is not wasted. Its all any of us can do.

Saru mo ki kara ochiru.
(even monkeys fall from trees)

[moonshadow1234]

Not Asian, so thanks for the translation! Are you? Not American or British either [explains my bad language, lol].

It is not that I am not assertive, it is just that if my boyfriend was actually too giving, quite needy too and was only thinking about me. So in order to live up to his standards, I would do things I did not want to do and see him when I actually did not feel like seeing him, just because I could not say ''no'' to him and let him down. It is not so that I could not because I was scared that he would leave or anything psychological. It was just that he was so extremely good to me that I felt I had to do everything good too in order to deserve his love and I also did not want him to think I let him do everything for me and that I was just profiting. It feels like constantly getting gifts like you get on your birthday and then you feel so grateful and you just do not know how to behave and you want to give all this love back because you feel so grateful. Know that feeling? Well I felt that almost every day. Indeed it makes you feel like a princess and makes you fall in love more and more every day. But eventually, that being so sweet backfires too. You can not be yourself anymore and do what you want anymore. At a certain point I felt trapped and like I could not let him down if I needed to. Like I could not measure up to him or something like that.

But thanks, I will take some time for my own and I will not let it happen anymore. I now know my boundaries better and I will try to prevent it in my next relationship. You learn through experience and mistakes, right.

[moonshadow1234]

Like he said about himself ''as sweet as I can be, as angry I can get''. Saw both sides now, lol. His friends and family have suffered severely too. They loved him but unconsciously did things that he was very sensitive to, and did not show the respect he deserved. They made mistakes, and he got hurt, and sure, it is good for him that he let them know he was hurt and let them suffer a bit. But by ''standing up for himself'' he hurt them back a LOT more than they deserve because he does not want to let anyone do this to him. Maybe I deserve this treatment. But his friends and family did not. Actually it is not fair that everyone keeps putting up with his shit too...

[IndiReloaded]

Being able to tell someone no is a kind of assertiveness. You are probably good at some aspects and need work on others. Sounds like you are on your way tho, good luck Moon.

[Gigabitch]

Oh no I was not pointing at you, but at someone who said a few pages before that ''intentions do not matter''

That was Ygg, but for the record, I agree that intentions do not, ultimately, matter.

This was how I finally got through to my husband: He said, "I think there's a big difference between running over a cat by accident and trying to run it over on purpose" I said, "Not to the cat".

Do you understand? Your good intentions only make YOU feel better. To your ex, it just looks like you're trying to weasel out of taking responsibility for your hurtful, destructive acts.

[moonshadow1234]

Okay so he kissed me again in front of all his friends and held me again and he looked as if he loved me and he was rather sweet. The next day he acted the same, he walked with me on a festival and took me with him when he was talking with all these people he knew, including his neighbour...but he was acting quite...macho, you know. I mean, as if he could not show any weak sides, or he could not say to me how he had missed holding me with any feeling. He actually did not treat me right that day. Also told me he had good intentions, but that he was afraid to be in a relationship again, because the world was less hard on him now. When he was together with me, many guys looked at him and treated him like enemies because he was in a relationship with me. He did not feel good in my context. Plus, now he was looking at all those couples wondering: are they cheating each other? Because he read much about cheating and learned that 2 out of 5 people cheated.

But he thought we could work out the problems between us, but it would take time. He wanted to take things very very very slow. He told me his mother thought he had a fear of commitment. Indeed when he broke up with me he told me this was getting so serious and he could not be who he wanted to be anymore and did not know what made him happy anymore, although he knew this was not my fault, as I am really not a person who smothers her partner in the relationship. He felt trapped, and he knew it was his own fault. When I look back at our relationship I recognize some relationship patterns of that fear, he was also quite destructive when he broke up with me. During our relationship, at times he could get overwhelmed by feelings he was losing his options and could not do what he wanted to do anymore like working in a foreign country for a year (which I told him he should do if he really wanted to do that). He would then start sweating and having his heart beating fast and his hands were so very cold, I wondered what happened, and I tried to be understanding. Perhaps he was feeling such panic that his heart started beating fast. He would calm down if I told him I wanted to see him happy and that he should do whatever it takes that would make him happy. Then he felt he had options.

Now I know "fear of commitment" is usually very easy to use, also when there are just problems in your relationship. I really hope his mother is just thinking about fear of commitment too soon. Hopefully, he was just unhappy in our relationship because of what I told him. Perhaps, therefore, he ran away. We would then be able to work things out. Perhaps he is just trying to forgive me and he is having a hard time doing it, and therefore he can not be sweet to me. I will give it some time and be patient. But right now he is not quite treating me right. I can not explain it in an accurate way, but it is just that he could not be nice to me and acts as if my wellbeing is not that important to him. For example, well he was holding my hand in front of all these people and if a friend of his told him "waw your girlfriend is beautiful", he smiled and acted proud, and he did not say I was not his girlfriend, and someone asked him: hey is that your girlfriend? And he just said: yes. So we took a seat, I hugged him and I called him "sweetheart" in my sentence and he acted irritated: no don't call me sweetheart, this is going too fast, you should not hug me like that, we need to spend time apart now, I want to enjoy the festival and I want to be alone. Ok, so I acted as if I understood him and just gave him a kiss and I would just back off, although I could not find my friends and he knew I would be walking alone. It was so strange, he really NEEDED to be alone because he felt I was pressuring him by asking him if we were in a relationship. But I only asked if we would SLOWLY get back together, because I was not willing to do this if we were not in a relationship. I know I made mistakes, but if he kisses and holds me in public, don't I have just the right to know if we are in a relationship again or not? He would not answer my question, which made me feel so insecure... It is not like I was saying: hey, will you come and visit my family tomorrow? So I had to go, he was not angry or anything, but he let me go walk alone and he just asked: you will find someone, right? I answered: uh, yes, I hope I will. And I was a bit shocked because he acted so weird and just...how should I call it, emotionless, that's what it is. Numb and emotionless. Whereas I would expect it would have made him happy being with me. My evening was a bit ruined. I was scared he changed his mind or realized he just was not in love anymore and made a mistake or anything.

So I just do not know if his behaviour is normal. Perhaps it is... I did not show it but I was hurt because I lost him for like three months and now I could finally hold him and I was hoping he would be a little bit more enthusiastic himself. But hey, maybe I am just expecting too much. I was just thinking: oh okay, I am really sorry, I have just lost you for like three months, I thought about you every minute of every day, I have longed for you so much, and this is so hard because he is not even being nice with me. I am having a hard time between thinking "I deserve this because I fell in love with someone else 8 months ago", but I am not so sure if that really is the cause of his behaviour. He never told me it was in the first place. Not when we broke up, not when we were "friends" and not now. I am really confused. Sure, I will be patient and give it some time. But I do not know if I should be sweet to him, although he does not treat me right sometimes (I can not explain it, but he really does not at times). I still want to gain his respect, and I do not think I will do that while letting him walk all over me.

[SouthwestGuy]

If the roles were reversed, how would you feel?

Your (ex)boyfriend probably feels like crap, and with good reason. His heart was just smashed and handed to him on a platter.

Even though you decided you want to be with him, the hurt is still there. I don't know anything about him, but he probably will have trouble trusting you for a long time.. if he EVER is able to gain trust in you again.

You called him "stubborn" What?!?!?!? He is not stubborn, he is hurt! Do you blame him for not wanting to move forward with you?

I don't care what anyone has to say about my statement I am about to make. I don't believe that ANYONE can honestly say if they were hurt like this that they would be able to just bounce back like nothing happened or be over it all in the snap of fingers. How would you feel if he told you he was in love with someone else, then came back and said he was wrong and wanted to be with you?? Do you understand how that would hurt someone. He is not stubborn at all! Walk in HIS shoes for a moment.

It sounds to me like you are being a bit selfish and self-centered. You broke the guys heart and hurt him in the one of the worst ways possible! The sooner you can accept that, the sooner he MAY be able to make things work with you. Until then, you are just going to continue to hurt him.

If you can't accept that, have the common human decency to walk away and leave him alone so he can fix his heart and move on with his life without you.

[moonshadow1234]

Do I expect it to be over with a snap of my fingers? It has been 8 months now. The last months of our relationship I haven't done anything but feeling guilt, trying to explain why it happened and that it will never happen again, giving love and not really receiving this back, which I really did understand. I never complained, because I felt I had to make it up to him and eventually I hoped these feelings would wither. Then he dumped me in an awful way, months after what happened, but OK I assumed I'd deserve it, right? So I have not been angry because I hurt him too and I have been heartbroken. Really, I may have broken his heart, but he broke mine too. I even have been sick physically for a long long time.

Did I blame him for not wanting to move forward with me? No, not at all! I may have hurt him, and it is his choice if he walks away. I never stopped him, just told him I still love him and that I was sorry. I was not angry, although he (believe me) hurt me so much because our ending was really harsh. We broke up for three months, and now he is coming back himself, on his own terms, not on mine. It is not because I broke his heart that he hasn't broke mine too. I can not take away his hurt, he can not take away mine.... But I am willing to work through these problems. He decided he wanted to kiss me and try again, right? Well I think about his wellbeing everyday and I want to do whatever it takes to rebuild the trust, but he has to start to open up to me too and treat me with respect too...

I really wonder about that. Shouldn't it be possible to try and let it go after eight months? Am I being so selfish asking myself that question?

[SouthwestGuy]

I really wonder about that. Shouldn't it be possible to try and let it go after eight months? Am I being so selfish asking myself that question?

You can't put a time limit on it. Honestly, it may never be the way things were before it happened. You may have to accept that.

You two may be better off going your own ways. He may not be able to forget. If he is not willing, or able, to forgive and forget, it will be a stale mate and become a circle of hurt and distrust.

Have you two tried to go see someone about this? A counselor? If you are religious, a pastor or priest?

[moonshadow1234]

No, I am willing to do that, really, but how can I if he does not (always) even gives this is as the reason we broke up in the first place? He acts so confused and emotionless and he keeps saying really strange things.

It would be far more easy if he would just say: I can not forgive you (yet), that's why we broke up. That would be a real nice start.

[SouthwestGuy]

No, I am willing to do that, really, but how can I if he does not (always) even gives this is as the reason we broke up in the first place? He acts so confused and emotionless and he keeps saying really strange things.

It would be far more easy if he would just say: I can not forgive you (yet), that's why we broke up. That would be a real nice start.

Maybe you should say all this to him. Make sure you tell him how important the conversation is to you.

The hard part is, you may have to be the one to end it. Yes, you will be the bad person, but at some point forgiveness needs to come into the picture or it is just going to be emotionally draining on all parties involved.