[Anonymous]

So not quite sure what to do here, trying to move on but i can’t seem to do that. So here goes my story….

So, lets see here. So me and her were in a relationship for about 3 and a half years. Well let me tell you a little about me so you can kind of see what kind of person i am. For one i have trust issues, so it only take once for you to do somethin or rub me the wrong way before i cut people or forever look at them tainted. Also, when somethin happens i may not like, i often shut down on them instead of communicating and when it comes to relationships it takes me a WHILE to open up. So yeah, i kno my probs and im working on them. But anyway, on to the backstory for the most part of the 3 years it was a long distance relationship we were both in college. and i my parents lived where she grew up also where she went to school. So everything was pretty good until about 2years into the relationship. When she came to visit once and then I told her I didn’t want to live in her state. She had always lived in the same house city, state. etc… all her life so it was pretty big to her. Me, i come from a military family so its not much to me. But i just really didn’t want to live there. So I guess that made her unsure or whatever so she decided that she needed some space for a while, in which i gave her. So we didn’t speak for 2 to 3 months. Then we started talking again. and it seemed like she had made up her mind of what she wanted and we would work anything else if necessary. So i took her back. MInd you, by this time I had pretty much closed up. I slowly started to let her back in, but i know i wasn’t the same for while. For a while had in the back of my head that she may leave again and i wanted to be prepared.

Anyway, Fast forward. She has always been a busy person, i was too for the most part. But then it seemed like she just kept getting busier and busier. Like would call and then 5 or 10 minutes later have to go. That got on my nerves like seriously. I was always tellin her she was busy but I guess i didn’t communicate that effectively. and so as time went on i just kind of started to close up, which I know is my mistake. Then one day we kind of had a fight about it then i didn’t call her for 4 days. Then she pretty much broke it off. and that was pain/anger i have never felt. But my biggest regret was maybe she didn’t know entirely how i felt ( about her, how much i cared about her, and everything else ive ever kept in). So i put it all out there, wrote her a long letter about everything. Then we started talkin again, and anything she wanted i told her. Pretty much an open book. Then she said she had made a mistake and that she wanted to give another shot. I pretty much felt like there was no way i would be the same after that. I still loved her very much and wanted to be with her, but i know myself all too well. There was no way i was just going to be able to look past this and keep going. I felt like the only way i could be with her is for us to be close. By this time i had graduated, got a job and was pretty much ready to start my life so to speak. She was a year behind and about to graduate. So i pretty much told her either we are going have to be close or its over. and she tried just about everything to get me to reconsider, even proposed. I probably would have married her (BIG BIG THING FOR ME) but i told her there is no point in us bein engaged if we aren’t even going to be close. So we talked for about 2 months, then she said she was going to go to grad school. Which is another 2-3 years of us being apart, with no guarantee that she may change her mind again or even if we would still be together. I was not willing to take that chance. BTW, i was more than willing to compromise on the living situation, there are alot of places I would have moved so we could be together. So basically i just told her i loved her, and that if it was meant to be then it would be. But, for now she would have to go on without me for a while.

Fast forward. Its now been about a year since i have talked to her and i think about her almost everyday. I can’t get her out my mind. You’ll probably say i just need to keep busy and meet new people. But i work alot, and i work from my house so its hard for me to get out sometimes. In addition, the people i have met don’t compare to her at all and im not even talkin bout physically. Most people my age are just not on my level when it comes to maturity and what not. Anytime a slow song comes on or something on tv i find myself thinking. I’ve tried just blocking out the thoughts, not too much working. So yeah, i really don’t know what to do at this point. Any suggestions?

[Ask April Masini]

First of all, I’d like to see you go easier on yourself, not take yourself so seriously, and take some of your emotions out of your decision making. You seem to judge yourself really easily, and tell yourself you did something right or wrong. If you can accept who you are, and really know yourself, you’ll be able to make decisions in relationships without so much angst and pain.

From what you’ve written, (and with any luck re-read yourself! 😉 ) you’ve presented yourself to me as a guy who’s got some clear boundaries on what is okay and what is not okay in a relationship in terms of where you’re going to live and what kind of behavior you’re going to tolerate from a partner. Lots of people have standards and boundaries, but they’re usually [i]weighted[/i]. There are deal breakers and then there are things you don’t like in another person’s behavior or lifestyle, but their good outweighs their bad, so you make compromises consciously and cooperatively. No couple finds their partner perfect, but they realize that this person has so many good qualities, that they will accept the qualities that they don’t like so much for the sake of the whole person — not just her parts.

For instance, when your girlfriend kept putting you on hold on the phone or kept taking calls instead of yours every 5 or 10 minutes, that was a[i] big[/i] annoyance to you. But rather than tell her that this is something you don’t like, but you’re willing to accommodate her busy social life if she can make 2 thirty minute phone calls with you each week without interruptions — or some other “deal” that would give you the attention you want — then you wouldn’t need to close up on her. That closing up and cutting people off doesn’t serve you in the long run.

If you’re uncomfortable expressing your feelings with your ex-girlfriend — or any other girlfriend — then a compromise situation for you is to recognize your boundaries, and instead of blowing up in a fight where you don’t properly and completely express yourself, and then suffer a 4 day no-talking period to cool down or punish her, you can recognize your anger building BEFORE the fight, and say, look, let’s agree to disagree, but let’s make a compromise so we both get our needs taken care of. I don’t like when you do X and you don’t like when I do Y, so here’s my suggestion for a deal we can cut. Do you have any suggestions?

It sounds like it’s very hard for you to express yourself in the moment your feelings are happening, and I’m not asking you to do that all at once because it’s a practice that will grow, but for now, if you can start making deals when something doesn’t feel right to you so that both people, you and your girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, feel like there’s a win-win situation, you won’t feel the need to close off and shut down emotionally.

If you can wrap your head around that change in your own behavior, you’re going to have a lot more peace and romance in your relationships.

As for moving on or trying to get back with your ex-girlfriend, I think that if you’re willing to work through your communication issues, and your ex-girlfriend is available, and willing to give it a try, then you may have a shot at a reunion.

I hope that helps. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hey April, thanks for responding.

Well, a lot people make me as this serious guy. But I don’t think so, i’m pretty calm cool collected type of guy. Pretty comfortable with myself. True enough i have a problem expressing my feelings and what not but i am more than willing to work on my problems. I just want to make sure its with the right person rather than wasting my time. I feel like i am a pretty good man aside from a couple issues i have. I mean no body is perfect right. Any who. The night of the fight, I wasn’t the one who blew up. She got mad because i used to always ask her if she was busy when she called and that bothered her just as much as her being busy bothered me. And she hung up on me, which she had never done. And i just didn’t call her back. We rarely had fights btw.

I don’t require a lot of attention, its just we were in a long distance relationship already. Its bad enough i don’t get to see you on a reg. basis, then on top of that you’re always busy. And she used to always say she wasn’t, when clearly that wasn’t the case. But she was taking care of things she needed to so I just kind let her do that. I’m not the type to interfere with anything or ask her to stop doing things because of me. Maybe that was another reason i didn’t really talk to her about it. I didn’t want her to feel like she had to drop things just for me.

As for giving it another shot. I don’t know. Till this day I don’t really regret my decision because i felt i made it with my mind instead of emotions. Emotionally i wanted to be with her. It takes a lot to be in a long distance for that long, and after she broke it off for the 2nd time, I just felt like i couldn’t do it anymore unless we were going to be close. I still feel that way. Funny thing is I won’t talk about this with anyone i actually know. Every body has me as the macho guy or whatever. If i told any of this to my friends they’d probably be like WHAT? lol, even my female friends. She was pretty much the only person who ever saw the other side of me.

I feel like I should just move on, but at the same time I know i won’t meet anyone like her again. But she has probably moved on, so I am trying to do the same. And i just don’t understand why i can’t put this behind me. I don’t get it, i’ve never had a problem letting go before. Its been a year already, what gives, any help for me doc?

[Ask April Masini]

You’re having trouble letting go because you haven’t resolved your feelings about the relationship. You’re still wondering if things could have worked out if certain circumstances were different.

Given what you’ve told me in your two posts below, your relationship suffered long distance challenges. Long distance relationships are very hard to maintain for the amount of time you maintained yours with your ex-girlfriend, and they’re even harder to move forward unless both people want EXACTLY the same thing at the same time.

I don’t see how, again, given what you’ve written, you could have made things work so that you had a better outcome because of the distance. While your ex-girlfriend may be unforgettable, she isn’t Ms. Right. There are people in all of our pasts who we still think about years and decades after we’ve seen them for the last time. That doesn’t mean that they are the ones we’re supposed to spend our lives with — in fact, they are usually people we SHOULDN’T spend our lives with, but nonetheless, they’re people who’ve made impressions on us, and have taught us or shown us things about ourselves.

While it’s a sophisticated concept, you can love someone while choosing not to see them and choosing to spend your life with someone else who is the love of your life, as opposed to one of your old loves.

You may be able to accept that idea and let yourself move on. If you have free time this weekend, rent an old movie called The Way We Were about a great love that wasn’t meant to be. But since everyone thinks you’re Mr. Steady and Stable — you might want to close the blinds when you watch this one, and not let any of your buddies know you’ve rented it! 😉

I hope that helps! Good luck. 🙂

[Anonymous]

lol, Haha. Well that movie happens to be on my netflix instant play, so i’ll definitely try to check it out…..Behind closed doors. I think you are on point with your advice. But one more quick question. You say she is not the one, how do you know exactly? Like how would i know? Say she attempts to contact me in the future, what am i supposed to do/say? Is that something I learn in the movie? lol

[Ask April Masini]

I suggested watching The Way We Were as an example of a couple who has a great love, but isn’t compatible for the long run. Many of us have those great loves in our lives, and I was suggesting, based on what you’ve written, that perhaps you were having trouble letting go of your feelings for your ex-girlfriend because she was one of those great loves who isn’t Ms. Right for you in the long run.

I, personally, don’t know if she’s the one for you — I can only go by what you write, but since you’ve broken up with her, I would imagine she isn’t the right one. Otherwise, why break up? The way you will know if someone is Ms. Right is to know yourself, and to know what you want in a relationship from a woman. When a woman comes along and you find that she fits the mold — or most of it — and you think your life will be better with her than without her, then you’ll know she’s the one.

If your ex-girlfriend does contact you in the future, you can say whatever you want — but what is most important is to know yourself and your own mind and heart. If she’s not the one, then there’s really no sense in being friends. If she is, then you’ve got another shot at things.

I hope that helps! 🙂

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I watched the movie and it was pretty clear they weren’t compatible. But I never felt like that, I always tell used to tell myself, if she isn’t the one then no one is. Maybe the timing was just a little off. My step dad and mom broke up sometime after high school for like 3 or so years and now have been married for like 17 yrs or something. But who knows, she may or may not be the one, I’ll just leave that in Gods hands. But no doubt my life was better with her then with out her. But thanks again April, you have helped. Even, just talking about it helped.

[Ask April Masini]

So glad to have helped you!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends! 🙂

[Author]

Posts