(ex)-boyfriend problems, advice needed

[redhen]

Sweetie,.. i'm very sorry, but i think that hes just being a nice/kind person and trying to not hurt you. He wants to get away... but he doesnt want to hurt you either.
If he really wanted to be with you..a silly text would NOT push him away... he would have called you and done ANYTHING to make you happy.. he would have called you and made plans to see you..
But he didnt,.. he used the text as a way to break it off..
And i'm SO sorry to tell you that because i KNOW it hurts to hear.
When you get a bit older and meet a guy that REALLY loves/wants you... you WILL know the difference and understand what we all are talking about.
The fact that he said "Its just too much work".. is a telling point right there. If he REALLY cares and wants to be with you...its NEVER work...
Again.. i'm just telling you this so hopefully you can move on. I dont want to hurt you..
And PLEASE trust me when i say.. you WILL find the right guy for you someday.
And you never know.. it just might be him! Give him time to grow up and experience the world a bit... maybe someday you will meet again and he'll remember what a sweet girl you are and fall head over heels for you.
BUT please dont wait around for him... move on for now and meet other people and see what happens.
I also had a bad break-up... broke my heart. I was SO in love. We were together for 8 years. But you know what?.. If he hadnt dumped me.. i would not have met the love of my life,.. the man i REALLY cant live without. My best friend and soul mate.
Its really, really hard,..but you will be okay,..

 

[ChickenRMe]

Im 19 male, Christian, and i can tell you right now those kind of things do pop in his head. He wants to be with you, but he doesnt want to have to worry about you being jealous. He feels like hes stuck in a bubble, and cant do things he wants to do even though he knows he wont hurt you or do anythnig to upset you, he knows that you think he might, so he doesnt do them. And eventually he gets tired of not being able to do the things he wants because hes so worried about what you think. My advice: Dont text him him more then once or twice a day, and dont bring up ANYTHING about relationship, ask him how hes doing, ask him about his family, and how sports are going, DO NOT ask him what hes been doing, or what he did that today. He will take that as you trying to find out if he hung out with girls etc. fill in that blank. So ONLY bring up things that dont have to do with a relationship or anything that your jealous of. By jealous I think you know what I mean worried, etc. =) thats my advice. Friend of mine is going through the same thing I gave her this advice, and they got back together in 3 weeks. Because her a BF didnt feel pressured anymore. Since they talked about LIFE instead of relationship stuff 24/7 =) Hope it all works out! Will put a word in to the man upstairs =)

 

[RHRanch]

Sweetie,.. i'm very sorry, but i think that hes just being a nice/kind person and trying to not hurt you. He wants to get away... but he doesnt want to hurt you either.
If he really wanted to be with you..a silly text would NOT push him away... he would have called you and done ANYTHING to make you happy.. he would have called you and made plans to see you..

X2 The man I am with (and I had to wait a long time to find him) would move mountains just to make me smile. Before him, I didn't know what it was like to have a man love me like this. Someday you will meet that special man and you will see what redhen and I are talking about.

 

[jamesbwood]

"I know I messed up and it's going to haunt me forever"

No. Not forever. But it sure as heck feels like that right now for you. Give it time.

You are still holding on to a lot of false hope. Lots of us are telling you to let him go but you can't, at least not yet. . . just like we couldn't when we were in your shoes. The thing is, at this point, you don't really have a choice. You simply can't force love. You also can't go back in time.

As for the sex comments, yes us guys are all about sex and think about it a lot. However, I honestly don't think that sex is especially relevant in this case. And yes, I really am a dude and know that we, Christian, Jew or whatever, think about sex approximately every 4 milliseconds. Now that I'm 40, this has slowed down considerably - now it is only ever 6 milliseconds. . .

I think you took him for granted and pushed him away by being very difficult to be around. It is as simple as that. You realize this now. I don't think he will ever be able to trust you with his love again, not fully. He was burned bad by this, more than once. If being with you was to be hen pecked with a constant barrage of stupid negative stuff that self respect and self control that you respect in your ex also led him to wisely conclude that being with you was not healthy for either of you. I would have left too.

Relationships go both ways and take work from both sides. Just ask my poor wife! Ha!

On the plus side, you are able to directly face the music and look at your role in this mess and take some pretty blunt, but honest, criticism from us old folks. A lot of people, including many much older than you, are not able to do that and place the blame on everyone but themselves any time something goes wrong. I think you still have a lot to learn from this but the fact that you can think about your role in this mess means that you have more capacity to learn from your mistakes then many others.

Figure out what sort of woman you want to be and focus on being the best you that you can be. That is really all you can do now. Well, that and maybe go play with your chickens. Mine seem to almost always cheer me up.

James

By the way, us guys are really easy to figure out. We are not that sublte, you really don't need to read between the lines.

Step 1 is to stop reading the stupid advice in women's magazines that seem to be in every waiting room. Why can't they ever have magazines that a man might want to read? Or even a gender neutral mag like National Geographic? Anyway, I have no idea what sort of imaginary guys the women that write those articles dream up but usually their advice is awful with articles like "how to manipulate your guys into doing X (X usually being acting like a woman). Do YOU want to be manipulated? If you wanted to be with someone that acted like another woman, why not date another woman? Do you have any idea of the hell storm there would be if a men's magazine published a how to manipulate your woman article? LOL Moving on. . . Step 2. Just treat us with respect, celebrate our differences, and let us be who we are (casue we ain't gunna change much, if any, anyway). Trust us until proven otherwise. If one of us proves to be scum, dump his butt ASAP and don't ever look back. But please don't punish the next guy for the last guys sins. By the way, while we are on the topic of relationship craziness, please don't ever rip into us. for days, for something bad we did in YOUR dreams. We will think you are freaking nuts and wonder if we are the butt of some sort of cosmic joke. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. . . Step 3. When you are ready, older, married, all three (its your body so its your choice) please provide us with lots and lots of sex! Ha!

 

[redhen]

I dont think she " took him for granted" at all... (what exactly did she take for granted anyways?..lol )
I think shes a normal young adult that was in love and, yes, she did expect certain things from him. So what? Doesnt everyone from their partners? Yes, yes you do...
She was right,.. her female, gut instinct was telling her that something was wrong.... and THATS why she was insecure..
She was right..
Remember that ,77horses,... always listen to your womans gut instinct...
Noone is SOOOOO busy in their life that they cant make time for someone they love/want to be with... noone. And she was smart enough to know that...

 

[EweSheep]

Sweetie,.. i'm very sorry, but i think that hes just being a nice/kind person and trying to not hurt you. He wants to get away... but he doesnt want to hurt you either.
If he really wanted to be with you..a silly text would NOT push him away... he would have called you and done ANYTHING to make you happy.. he would have called you and made plans to see you..
But he didnt,.. he used the text as a way to break it off..
And i'm SO sorry to tell you that because i KNOW it hurts to hear.

When you get a bit older and meet a guy that REALLY loves/wants you... you WILL know the difference and understand what we all are talking about.
The fact that he said "Its just too much work".. is a telling point right there. If he REALLY cares and wants to be with you...its NEVER work...
Again.. i'm just telling you this so hopefully you can move on. I dont want to hurt you..

And PLEASE trust me when i say.. you WILL find the right guy for you someday.
And you never know.. it just might be him! Give him time to grow up and experience the world a bit... maybe someday you will meet again and he'll remember what a sweet girl you are and fall head over heels for you.
BUT please dont wait around for him... move on for now and meet other people and see what happens.
I also had a bad break-up... broke my heart. I was SO in love. We were together for 8 years. But you know what?.. If he hadnt dumped me.. i would not have met the love of my life,.. the man i REALLY cant live without. My best friend and soul mate.
Its really, really hard,..but you will be okay,..

I agree and as hard it is (been there and done it) time to move on! You are young and there will be plenty of guys later! Focus on your education, it will pay off later! Guys LOVE smart women!

 

[jamesbwood]

Respectfully, I partially dissagree redhen. If one person is constantly hen pecking at the other then it is not a healthy relationship and most normal people, men or women, will leave. If the prior guy was scum but this guy was punished for it, repeadildly and increasinly, he will leave. Love doen't mean you can frequently make your partner miserable and expect them to stay. Love isn't trying to control your partner or change them; it is accepting them as they are "warts and all".

I personally don't hold "female intuition" to be this infallable perfect thing. Miss placed emotions can get you into hot water fast. Getting blasted for someone's dream once is funny in retrospect. Or getting blasted for what the prior guy did a few times also sucks but is OK if we can work past it; we are all human. But if the realationship deteriorates to one person almost always hen pecking the other, not getting past it, then it needs to end ASAP. I don't cheat and almost all of my relationships have been longer ones. My best friend back in High School was the opposite and went though many many woman, cheated on most of them, etc so I've seen that perspective too.

Yes we all expect certain things from our partners but that is a two way street. Our partners also expect certain things from us. One of them, for both boys and girls, is to be treated with respect and decency. If that goes, love will soon follow or things will get real ugly.

I agree that she is a normal young adult in love. I think her ability to face the music is better than most, full adults included.

EweSheep's advice may not seem good when you are in high school but trust me, it is solid and will become increasingly important as you get older. This guy likes smart women and married one.

James

 

[redhen]

I agree, James..you can push away people by being too needy and clingy.
But I just don't think that is really the case here...she already stated that they hadn't seen each other in a while..and didn't talk much..
Anyone ..would question that relationship.. and she was smart to do that. Like I said..her gut instinct was telling her something.

 

[jamesbwood]

That is true Redhen. I understand where you are coming from much better now.

I think it wasn't working (perhaps to needy, clingy or demanding) for him and that is why he initially backed off. Initially, it may be he simply needed some distance to sort his feelings out since he cared but was not at all happy in where the relationship was going and was getting hurt. It may also be that he wanted to end it at that point but didn't say anything then as he didn't want to hurt her; he clearly has been hurt by this and still doesn't want to hurt her. I think this dude is a true gentleman and I think she has **** good taste in dudes; he has been a star in all this from what I've read here. Anyway, at that point her instinct was telling her something but her reaction to that message may have been more of the exact same behavior that made him question the relationship in the first place. I agree that her instinct was spot on at this point, he really was not "to busy" to be with her. However, her reaction was not the change/understanding of his side/giving him space/apology it needed to be for him to consider spending more time with her. It was a heap more of the very problems that he had already had enough of. Her reaction reminded him of exactly why he didn't want to spend more time with her. It could also be that he had already made up his mind and her ultimatum simply gave him an easy way out. Either way, the result is the same. Either way two people have to be happy in a relationship for it to go forward. Either way, she is hurting a lot right now but will have to move on. He has had enough.

All this drama reminds me of some of the stuff I've been though, some my fault, some not. And it makes me appreciate my wife all the more.

James

 

[jamesbwood]

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a ****."

Wow, strong language filters here.