Was this the wrong decision?

[Christinepaul]

Long story, I'm sorry. But I am heart broken so I hope someone will listen.

My boyfriend and I broke up last night. We had been having problems, he was saying that he felt like he didn't know me well enough (we were only together 2 months) and because of that, he said he liked me a lot, but he wasn't sure if he liked me enough to date me. It was understandable, I felt the same way. We had rushed into dating and skipped the awkward coffee dates and getting-to-know you stuff and just went straight to the hanging out at home stuff. We had met about 6 months ago, started dating, then a month in he broke it off because he needed to deal with family/friend issues and his depression. He wanted to get back together, and after 3 months of him being very consistent and proving to me that he was ready, I gave him another chance.
So this time, the thing that really stood out to me was that although we had talked about breaking up over the last few weeks, instead of running like before, he was the one to suggest things we could do to improve. He wanted me to meet his friends and vice versa, we agreed we should get out more and try new things together, etc. He seemed like he actually wanted this to work.

Then, because it was sort of awkward after that talk, we stopped communicating as much. Just less frequently, but otherwise same as usual. Then it was midterm week, and we were both busy and couldn't visit each other. Then it was spring break. He invited me over to his hometown, so I went and stayed a few hours. This was the first we had seen each other since we talked about whether we should break up or not. Things were awkward at first, but we talked a little about what to do. This stood out too, I said something like "so...I don't know what we should do then." And out of the corner of my eye I saw his face go flush, and he frowned a little, and really hesitantly said "what do you mean....what do you want to do?" It just seemed like he thought I was about to break up with him and was upset about it. It was surprising to me, because he had been the one to run the first time, and he was the one hardly ever talking to me, being moody, telling me how he is friends with his exes, commenting (on FB) how they're pretty and stuff. It was just all adding up for me, me thinking he was trying to let me go easily, and then he got visibly upset when I even hinted at a break up.

So at his house, things got better, when he started kissing me and things were getting a little too heavy, I reminded him that he had said we should stick to getting to know each other better, he broke out the video games because he saw I was getting uneasy. We played for a while, had fun, wasn't awkward at all by then, and I left. He kissed me goodbye, told me to have fun with my family, and said he'd see me after break.

All in all, went pretty well. We still needed to talk about stuff but it was a good way to ease into things again.

So that was last Monday. Today is Thursday and I heard not another word from him from Tuesday morning until yesterday. Not a word in a week. Which is exactly what he did the first time when he wanted to break up and I had to nudge it out of him. He frequently goes days without contacting me which I have told him bothers me a little, then has spells of talking to me all the time. However, his friend passed away in a car accident on Monday, so maybe I can excuse the last few days, but it was still a week of no talking before that happened.

Last night, I got super upset, I had been obsessing over the situation and was upset at him for not talking to me, but figured i would give him some space to work things out. Until I just missed him so much and broke. Just saying "hey" over FB chat. He saw it, and ignored me.

So it was the last straw, and I knew he had been avoiding me (or at least i assumed), and told him that I wish we had just broken up at his house rather than whatever was going on, but it is what it is, and that I was sorry to hear about his friend and mentioned that I sort of knew him. i was just trying to relate to him I guess, and was hoping he'd understand that I cared.

That opened the flood gates, and he started asking me why, and I said, and he got testy (i was trying to put it in the perspective that his friend had just died suddenly) and he ended up upset at me for bringing it up. I told him I was sorry and didn't mean to talk about it, I just wanted him to know I was sorry, but he just kept saying I shouldn't have told him. He also said that he had planned to visit me today actually, but now he didn't think he would. Part of me thinks that he was just saying that to upset me for being a jerk, but I don't know.

So from that conversation going the exact opposite of what I was expecting, I got that he WAS actually serious about trying to work it out and now I'm just the bitch that overreacted and ended it before we ever got a chance to....

What do I do? He's always said that he's friends with all his exes not long after breaking up, but I don't know if we can recover from this one...
I really care about him, and while we weren't together long enough to really be in love, I really do love him. I would love to be with him if we could work it out, I just don't know what I could possibly say or how long to give him or anything that could fix this....
I never really wanted to break up. I was just protecting myself and ending it because I thought he was ready to be done but wouldn't do it himself.

Someone tell me how to fix it...... :'(

[michelle23]

You need to accept its over, focus on healing and in time you will meet someone else. Just be glad this happened sooner rather than later. You should be over him within a month and getting on with your life. It wasn't meant to be

[Christinepaul]

I appreciate what you're trying to do but that really doesn't help. I don't believe in "meant to be". I wasn't over him in three months the first time anyway, what makes you say I will be now. I feel like he hates me for that conversation, and we had always said that if we broke up we could at least be friends, but it was just so emotionally charged I'm not sure we'll ever get to that. I'm not just upset because I lost a relationship, I'm upset because he's one of my favorite people in the entire world and one of my best friends. We connected like lifelong friends from the second we met.
The first time we broke up, he told me he regretted not having me in his life, and right now, that's exactly how I feel. I just want him around. As a boyfriend or not I'll settle.

I've never in my life been on bad terms with someone. I don't know how to handle this. I never meant to hurt him.

[bearz]

I don't think he hates you. He might be upset right now, but that will go away soon and he can be on good terms with you again. If I were in his position and wanted to make it work, I wouldn't ignore you for days, and I wouldn't ignore you especially when you send me a message - unless the decision was made to not have any contact at all for a while, but that clearly doesn't seem to be the case in your situation.

You should really try to let this go and move on. You haven't been together for that long so you should be able to get over this pretty quickly, and so should he. I don't see why you can't stay friends as long as you both realize that this wasn't really working out and that you both would be better off on your own or with someone else.

[Christinepaul]

It's just so hard. He sounded like he didn't want to break up. And the only reason I was doing it was because I thought that's what he wanted. So I didn't want to break up either. I just wish I could tell him I take it back. But I'm afraid he'll just get more upset and mad. I don't want to be intrusive. He just lost his friend, too, I can see if he's just lashing out at the world. But I'm scared if I wait a couple weeks to tell him I'm sorry he won't care anymore anyway...
I just wish he could see how upset I am.
I've had crushes before that didn't end well, but I've never hurt like this before.

[bearz]

I know this sucks for you right now, but it will get better. Maybe not tomorrow or next week, but you will look back at this in a month and feel a lot better about it than you do now. You both rushed into this, and he already broke up with you once before. He doesn't seem to be ready for a serious relationship. Even though he lost his friend, that doesn't mean that he should ignore you. He could have told you that he needs some alone time for a while. But apparently he didn't. A good relationship is dependent on good communication and that just doesn't seem to be there in your case. If he truly cared about you before all of this, he will still do after all the dust has settled. If he doesn't, then you know that going separate ways is the right choice.

[Christinepaul]

This was only a couple days ago, but it feels like an eternity. It's all I can think about pretty much.
For the people in the chatbox: the problem of not knowing me enough, I felt at the time that it was just because we hadn't known each other much before we started dating. we met online, talked for about a month, and then met up and he decided he wanted to be exclusive. I did too. But I know now that it was too fast.

But last night I was talking to someone online, a friend I'm just getting to know, and he said that he was frustrated with me because I'm so hard to get to know. He's very outspoken, so he really told it to me straight. He seemed to think that I hide behind words or something. It sort of made me realize that I try to understand other people without trying to let them get to know me. I'm not avoiding telling them about myself, in fact I'm very open about everything in my life, but it just seems now like it's some sort of facade to control the situation. I analyze other people and myself to a point that I can control the outcome. Know why everything happens, who would react how, what I should and shouldn't say. I hate confrontation.
It just made me finally understand what I was doing wrong in my relationship. Up until then, we both pretty much blamed it on him. We broke up once before, and it was his problem. Then we got back together, and although he was being a lot better, more invested, I was still having a hard time trusting him, so I guess i didn't see it until it was too late. The whole time, I think I had a wall up, just waiting for him to end it again and didn't want to get hurt, so i ended it at the very first sign that he might. I don't think he wanted to break up at all. If he had, he wouldn't have been the one to suggest how we could fix it.

I'm just afraid to talk to him at this point, because i'm terrified that I'll tell him how I feel and he'll be mad, or even worse, I'm wrong and he DID want to end it, and I end up looking like a clingy idiot.

[basilandthyme]

You say that you didn't want to break up. But I don't understand why you regret leaving someone who wasn't giving you the relationship you want.

You weren't happy with how things were. He wasn't there for you. You want a good relationship with him - one where he doesn't mess you about. But you have to remind yourself that this guy will never be the reliable kind of boyfriend you want.

My guess is you're missing an idealised view of what this relationship was. You surely can't be missing the reality of what it was like.

Time for a reality check. I find that reality checks go a long way towards getting over someone

[Kromat83]

I overthought the avoidance in my mind, and knew the breakup was coming with less and less contact and not wanting to use Skype as an excuse.
Mine only lasted 2 months as well, but it was easier to get over, because it was long-distance.
I think you did what was right in your gut, you saw he overreacted and wanted to end it because that is what he wanted.
Don't feel sorry for people treating you badly, you'll just confuse yourself and not get ahead, and find that person that will truly care about you.

[Christinepaul]

I think you did what was right in your gut, you saw he overreacted and wanted to end it because that is what he wanted.

I don't understand. What part was him overreacting?

[no-se-nada]

I think if you want to try to work it out, talk with him. If you can honestly look back and see that it wasn't working out and you guys weren't right for each other (like everyone else is suggesting) then maybe you're better off and can find someone who can get to know you better and is more compatible with you

[Christinepaul]

You say that you didn't want to break up. But I don't understand why you regret leaving someone who wasn't giving you the relationship you want.

You weren't happy with how things were. He wasn't there for you. You want a good relationship with him - one where he doesn't mess you about. But you have to remind yourself that this guy will never be the reliable kind of boyfriend you want.

My guess is you're missing an idealised view of what this relationship was. You surely can't be missing the reality of what it was like.

Time for a reality check. I find that reality checks go a long way towards getting over someone

That's the thing... I think he was honestly trying to sort out his own issues in order to be better to me. If I piece it together, even taking into account the bad things, that's what I get. He's not perfect, he's got a couple problems, but so does anybody. There was an extreme difference in his maturity and investment in the relationship between the couple of months we were apart. But since it didn't work out the first time and he had called himself out on having problems, this time I was just looking for reasons to not be happy with the way he was acting. i saw the signs that he was being honest, I just discounted them instead of trusting him. i just feel like I didn't really give him a chance because I felt like I was more mature and ready for a relationship. Which obviously is not true.

I hate that i'm realizing this only after I did something like this.
I understand that I could be just idealizing everything about this, and maybe that would be better in the long run, but there has been something important there since the day we met. It's hard for me to believe that I've just been seeing that through rose colored glassed this whole time when I knew there were issues.

I think now, that all my problems in life come from being terrified of being wrong. I want to be in control of the situation so I don't do anything wrong and offend someone or make a bad decision. It's a wall around me. For some reason i'm scared people won't like me. I don't know why. I do the same with homework. I want it to be perfect because part of me wants my teachers to think I'm really smart. I have never disappointed my parents and never want to. I was never grounded either, lol. This is great to a certain point, but I just need to get past it and I don't know how.

[no-se-nada]

Obviously you are the only one who knows the ins and outs, everyone here only knows what you've posted.

I have the same exact problem as you. At work, I get unnecessarily mad if I make a mistake, even if it's as simple as a typo on an email or something. In my head, they see it and I come off as dumb. Irrational? Yep. Do I know how to stop that? Nope lol I've worked on it, and its been a long road with a lot more to go, but you just have to work it out

[Christinepaul]

in a fortuitous turn of events, he and I hung out last night. He messaged me about something I had told him, that he had passed along to his friend's family, and they wanted to thank me, so we got talking and he told me he was miserable and alone and asked if I would come keep him company. I'm trying to work on my issue of feeling like I always need to be in control, so it took a push for me to go, because I figured I would be unhappy with the ambiguity of spending a night with someone I just broke up with afterwards, and usually I would have told myself it was a bad idea and I would get hurt, but I just decided to take that risk this time.

I mean, the circumstances weren't good. He had just come home from his friend's funeral and he was in a terrible state, but he asked me to come over and be with him. Lots of crying and talking about his friend. But anyway, he and I got talking about me breaking up with him, and he let me know that he was serious about wanting it to work, and even with the mixed signals he does really like me. Which is the vibe I was getting, I just didn't trust it. It's just that we had never really sat down and talked about what we both wanted from this, and he felt like he didn't know how to make me happy.
I told him I had just bottled up things trying be the more mature person, and it had just gotten to be too much. He actually said that he likes me more now knowing that I have a little bit of crazy. haha. I don't remember if I had said, but the first time we broke up he mentioned that he felt like he was in over his head and I was "too emotionally stable", sigh. Like I said, I'm trying to work through this fear of loss of control thing, so I'm trying to let him see my "crazy" a little at a time. It seems like every time I do, we connect a little more. It's just hard. I was always the kid that saw petty emotions as a waste of time, but now I'm seeing that I can be mature and still get really upset sometimes. It's dumb that it took me 20 years to get to this point.

Right now, I'm not completely sure what's going on with us to be honest. He said he wanted to make it work. I said the same. We're kind of in a process of working out our issues finally. It was probably the first real talk we had in which we ended up saying more than "I don't know what to do" and actually voicing our wants and needs. We didn't officially say we were going to work through it or that we were "back together" or anything, so i'm keeping that in mind in case he changes his mind or something, but from the whole night, it just seemed like we were going to try and stick it out.

Also, after all the talk last night, we woke up the next morning, said good morning, and then (TMI, sorry but it's important) had sex for the first time. Completely unplanned, but felt right. I had been holding off the entire time we dated because I didn't know if he was going to stick around, and it was an issue for him that we weren't. He had wanted to have sex within a month the first time we started dating, and now we've been together/known each other for about 5 months now, so I figured it was time for me to give him a little more trust than I had been. Haha, all in all, I have to say, I'm proud of myself. There were a lot of things about this that if I thought about it too much, I would have determined to be a bad idea and never gotten this chance to work things out with him. We'll see how it turns out in the long run.

Sorry this post was so long. I didn't intend for it to be. I'm still processing