I think my heart is broken...

[SpookyPistolero]

Hello all. I always seem to come here when I feel high and dry, but it's about the only 'support group' around for me. I have been really, really messed up since last night and don't really know what to do about it. I think this  might be a very long post, so sorry in advance.

Basically, I was dating a girl, Krista, until I broke it off with her during the summer last year. The relationship had lasted about a year prior to that. I broke it off grudgingly because there were a couple of parts of the relationship that I didn't like, feeling that I was doing a lot of the sacrficing and work, and that other parts of my life were suffering from the relationship being a time sink. But then she kept calling and eventually I broke down and saw her again. Since then, we have been seeing eachother every week or two she would come by, hang out, and spend the night (but we've never done much).  

About two weeks ago, I had my final exams and the sunday before them she dropped by and gave me a couple of cd's she made and a candle, just being friendly, we hung out and she left. Things were good. Then after I got out of school (a week after) she started giving me things I knew were excuses when I asked to see her. First she 'had to go to florida with her family for her bro's graduation', but then she didn't go. So then it was because 'she was sick', but she wouldnt let me come by to help her out and bring meds. I asked her what she had and she said 'all kinds of stuff'. Hmm... There were a couple of more things like this, and this week (two weeks after she last visited) I finally just texted her that I missed her and asked if I had done something to hurt her that made her not want to see me. But she replied just what I was hoping she wouldn't, that she was seeing someone else.

Now, I'm not at all an emotional person. Quite the opposite. I also really hate drama and this high school kind of stuff at that. I didn't do it even in high school.  But I have known this girl and been at least 'hanging out exclusively' with her for over 2 years.  When she told me that she was with seeing someone and made bad worries into reality, it felt like I had been ripped in two. These are relatively new feelings for me.  The pain is still absolutely crushing me and I really can't think of anything else. I just want her back.  Even after two years I was still always excited to see her, and now I might never see her again. Unless I were to ask her to get coffee just to chat, where I could only look at her from across a table like a goon.

One thing that does bother me, is how can she have started seeing another guy in less than a week's time after seeing me? Things were quite good that day. She has always been eager to see me and probably was as excited as me. Then she suddenly does a 180 into some other fellow.

I have no idea what to do. If I were reading my post from some other fellow, I'd tell him if it was 'meant to be' then sit tight and stop worrying about it. To go out and be with friends, to see other people. To go to the range.  But she was my friend. She's the one I always waited to see and be with. I don't want to see other people.  I can't move my feet out of the mud, I just keep feeling that hole in my chest.

I realize that heartbreak is not a unique experience, everyone gets it eventually. But I can do without the notions of 'everyone goes through it, move on'. Because I don't want to move on, I can't deal with my reality.

I think the pain gets worse with talking about it, so anyone got any thoughts? I don't know what to do. Maybe she'll quickly get over him and call me sometime. Maybe they'll fall madly in love and that will be that. I know how silly and juvenile this sounds and you can't make much of a comment when you don't know me or her, but does anyone have any thoughts other than token heart-break advice?  I am really, really hurting badly here (which is more rare than you know) and my blues cd's are getting hot to the touch.

Halved and hating it,

TooSadToCry

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Paul Simon said best how to deal with this stuff, and this is not belittling your pain:

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You dont need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You dont need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

And go out to the range and try for some dime-size groups or to break your current all-time high trap score or something. Just move on and get active with something else. Right away.

Before I met Mrs. Firethorn, I'd had a couple of involvements with a lot of drama and repeated breakups. After the last one ended, I swore never again. One chance to break up and that's it. It's a policy that's worked for me.

You're definitely better off as a free man, mein mensch. Hurts now, but the hurt will ease, and you'll be better off in the end. Trust me on this.

- NF

[Moondoggie]

I don't mean to be cruel, but from your description of your relationship you never "had her" to get back.  You didn't say anything about an understanding with her that your relationship was "mutually exclusive" or "monogomous".  In other words, you were friends but there was no agreed upon commitment.

You're feeling the loss of the relationship as if she was "THE ONE"...but was she?  You said that there were problems with the relationship, from what you wrote it seems as if she wasn't willing to put as much effort into it as you.

If she has "fallen" for someone else, it may be that she's not capable of balancing a SO plus a close male friend simultaneously.  Since there was no committment between you, she may not feel responsible to tell you that she's involved with someone else.  Possibly she may have had feelings for you that she was never able to express and doesn't know how to resolve the situation other than to disappear.  Could be that she was waiting for you to "make the move" and got tired of waiting.  I'm just trying to examine all of the possibilities here...sorry for rambling.

I think it might be productive to contact her (email?) and ask her WTFO.  Tell her how you feel.  Be prepared for bad news.  

A boil won't begin to heal until it's been lanced....ouch!

We all know how this feels...I hope you feel better soon!

[The Rabbi]

"My advice to you, is to start drinking heavily." -Brother Bluto

Well, I'm sorry about all that.  I just passed my 15th wedding anniversary so I am a little out of touch with what you are going through.
Women do things for reasons known only to themselves.  They make no sense at all. Dont even try.
Figure out what you want in a relationship and keep that in mind.  Keep an open mind and go out and meet people.

[Sean Smith]

Here is my take on it, as somebody who just broke up with someone myself (and has been out of college for 10 years).

First, this Im not usually emotional stuff is bull.  EVERYONE is emotional; just because you dont act like a drama queen in public doesnt mean you arent emotional internally.  If anything, being less outwardly emotional tends to mean that the internal effect of emotions is greater.  I ended a short relationship on good terms, and I still feel like somebody parked a dump truck on my balls.  You need to not over-react to the fact that you are having an emotional reaction, if that makes any sense.

Second, I think you need a realistic grasp of what probably happened to you, before you can deal with it.  You cant cope with things that you dont understand, and trying to cope with something on the basis of an irrational misunderstanding of events will make you even more nuts than you feel already, and thus will make you act even stupider than you probably already are.

YOU broke up with HER.  Her instinctive reaction when you dumped her was crisis management, i.e. bugging you to un-break-up with her.  But the truth is that once you break up with somebody, they will generally NOT trust you anymore.  They know that you fundamentally don't care about them that much, otherwise you wouldn't have broken up with them.  Thats their internal logic, and it is usually right, even if the dumper doesnt know it themselves.  And at some point they will get sick of the ever-present possibility of getting re-rejected, and start looking elsewhere at some point.

The "sudden 180" is something women SEEM to do a lot.  But that isn't what really happens.  You weren't subjected to a fickle decision.  She was thinking about this for a LONG time, and incrementally moving towards dumping you for someone else.  She just didn't tell you about it, and kept the relationship in a sort of holding pattern until she decided to act on what she'd had in her head for a long time.  The upshot of this is that your problem isnt her getting over the new guy; it is that she has already been over YOU for a while.

This is why apparent snap decisions are stuck to with such tenacity in relationships: they arent really snap decisions.  They just SEEM that way because YOU werent in on the thought process.

This is the usual pattern when one person ends a relationship, then lets it start over again: they themselves wind up getting dumped.  Sometimes it is vindictive, but usually it is just a matter of realizing that staying with a person who already rejected you out of hand is stupid.

This is something that you need to get into your head: her going out with another guy is a definitive statement that you are dead meat, relationship-wise.  There are no alternative explanations.  Think about it: would you go bang random whores while making up lame excuses if you really liked the woman you were dating?  Of course not; yet thats what shes done to you, and here you are wishing that shed come back to you?

Breakups are awful.  There is really no getting around it.  Trite post-breakup advice always feels worthless when youre the one who drank the emotional Drain-O.  But the truth is that you need to accept reality, and at least understand on an intellectual level that your relationship has been over for a long time, and you just missed it.  Otherwise you are going to sit around like a moron and wallow in self-pity, when in truth you were probably right to break up with her in the first place.

Think about that: you felt like you were doing all the work in the relationship, and wanted out.  Guess what?  You were probalby RIGHT.  The only tricky thing is that when relationships feel disfunctional, everything you do feels wrong on some level... including ending the damn things.

[Harold Tuttle]

she showed up with a candle
and you did not light it with her
and watch it consume itself until dawn

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Keep an open mind and go out and meet people.

I'd amend this to:

Keep an open mind and go out and do the things you like to do. And do a lot of them.

Meeting the person who's really right for you will happen in good time, most likely when you least expect it.

- NF

[Anna G.]

The others summed it up well: you can't blame the girl.

However I think that what is more important in this case are your feelings.  To be honest with you, this is going to suck big time. You might lose sleep, toss around crying your eyes out, wishing you were never born. You might lose appetite and taste for everything you used to enjoy. Same for the wish to do anything at all.

It IS going to pass, no matter how bad it seems, grit your teeth and wait. Just trust me on this, I've been there, as most people. Look at it as an illness: there are things you can do to improve the situation. My advice is to do something new, something you always wanted to. Start exercising, if you don't, clean up the house thoroughly, bake cookies. Pick things that have fast results, because you will feel satisfaction seeing the results of your actions.

Good luck and feel better!

[yesterdaysyouth]

One thing that does bother me, is how can she have started seeing another guy in less than a week's time after seeing me? Things were quite good that day. She has always been eager to see me and probably was as excited as me. Then she suddenly does a 180 into some other fellow.


that's the nature of women, get used to it...

in the mean time check your email....

[SpookyPistolero]

First off, I thank you all so much for your time and words. I know that this is something that everyone deals with eventually, so it is good of you to give me your thoughts. Of course on something as 2-dementional as the internet, you can't know the whole story, so some comments are a bit off. Most are spot on what I would have told someone else.

I really don't blame her for anything. I very much realize that we had no agreement not to see others. And I'm the one who broke up with her first. I am just having a hard time not being able, suddenly, to see someone that I loved for quite some time, over 2 years. It's just hard, it hurts. So I know you just deal with it like other pains, get white-knuckled and keep moving. It's a lot of pain for me to digest all at once. I know she was almost certainly planning on how to get me back 'into the relationship' for the last year. So this is probably my come-uppance. Unfortunately understanding the past, so far, hasn't helped me deal with the present. I feel I am now, and usually pride myself on being, well grounded in reality. It's just I feel my reality is kicking the crap out of me.

I also really understand that her seeing someone else is a rather clear 'we're done'. While I have issues with the methods to her madness and how she dealt with me, I'm not going to throw blame onto that. I'm just worried about how I'm dealing with this, not past events or things I can't control.

It's like many have said they felt, I feel like I just got cut in half, kicked while I was down, and now I everything I used to enjoy holds no pleasure for me. Everything leaves a bad-taste and I have a one-track mind for now. Working hard to climb out of this though. Very hard. Either way, I am going to floor it to Red River Gorge today to hike a bit, backpacking used to be my ultimate refuge, so I'm hoping God can help me a bit more easily out there.

Thanks so much to all, again, for helping me through a hard time. And it is a big help.

PS- Yesterdaysyouth - My email and internet are barely working right now, but I would love to take you up on your offer. I just started working construction for the summer for my stepdads contracting corp., and am trying very hard to get off for this weekend. I will email and let you know asap, and I really appreciate the invite.

[mnrivrat]

Hello,

Actualy it looks like you have already taken a good first step.  You are talking about it !

Grief can be a real hard emotion to overcome , but talking about it is a good first step .  When you loose someone that is important to you there realy is no immediate fix , no pill, no shot, and no words that can heal you instantly.  Give yourself some time , don't try to hurry the process.

As far as your relationship is concerned - if you feel strongly about her you can take the risk of letting her know exactly how you feel.  You may well get rejected again, but you will at least know that she has a clear understanding of what she means to you.  And from there you can deal with what happens. It takes two working together and communicating to make a good relationship.

[cordex]

Sean Smith nailed it.

[Standing Wolf]

Range time. It's the only answer.

[spacemanspiff]

First, this Im not usually emotional stuff is bull.  EVERYONE is emotional; just because you dont act like a drama queen in public doesnt mean you arent emotional internally.

pshaawwww!!! speak for yourself, romeo! i can pluck legs off a daddylongleg without dropping a tear. i'm like, all hollow inside and whatnot.

just kidding..... i'm the biggest softy you've ever met.



spooky, one of the biggest revelations i've ever had in aging (not gonna say i grew up cause i still play with legos) is that friends come and go. even the closest of them all, can be in your life one day, and 100% removed the next, with not even as much as a 'see ya on the other side' or a goodbye embrace.

i guarantee  you that something else will occupy your time that will make you forget about the friendship you have lost. but if you fight that something, you will wind up being lonely and depressed for no reason other than wallowing in self-pity.

i'm not sure if its a weakness or a blessing in human character to have that 'need' to be with someone.

[Waitone]

Swear off women for the time being.  Enjoy being an unaffiliated guy because when you do meet Ms. Write, your life will change.  So for now go out and shoot with the guys or play golf or whatever.  Just do something social.  Sitting in a dark room navel watching helps no one.

[Iain]

You've got to get out and about.

Hasty decisions at this point will cause much repenting at leisure.

I know.

[SpookyPistolero]

I actually mispoke during my firstpost about not being emotional, that's what happens when you don't type with a clear mind. I really just mean I rarely have emotions strong enough to control me. This week they have definitely controlled me.

I have also ended up with a weekend tailor made to a busted-up me. I found out I didn't have to work this weekend so last night I backpacked through some rough trail and through the rain. After going off-trail I was able to reach the top of the mountain, in the rain, and see what was probably the most beautiful view of my life. You could see the rain several mountains across, and steam was climbing up from the valleys. I just sat there in the rain smoking my pipe for hours. But I digress.... This afternoon I was invited to play golf with some family, which will be nice. And thanks to yesterdaysyouth, I will get to throw some lead downrange on Sunday, which I am thrilled about since I haven't fired a shot in over two months. Scary.

Anyway, hopefully lots of activity and being with others will calm my spirit down a bit and give me some good perspective. I miss being solidly independent.  

Oh, and thanks Iain, I have pretty much taken away my decision making privileges at this point so I don't do something stupid. It's hard enough to make good choices when I'm not an emotional train-wreck.

Thanks again all.