keeping in contact

LegacyUser

i know that this is an old topic all be it with a different variation. i met up with my ex when i was abroad travelling. We went out for about a year most of this while we were travelling. We broke up a couple of months after our travelling finished, she was from a different country and basically it was very difficult to keep it going. That was about a year and a half ago. Since then we have kept in very regular contact (pretty much daily) by email text phone etc. We have met up on average every 4-5 months on a platonic basis. However neither of us have had any relationships during this time. I think that i still have feelings for her and feel this may be harbouring me in dating again. Today i decided that it would be for the best if we cut contact. She is really upset about this but i don't know what way to explain it. Should i just try and get on with it and be her friend and try put my feelings to one side or am i better off breaking all ties? any advice would be appreciated.

No_Regrets

Hmmm, this is a tough one, but the one question that comes to my mind and confuses me is that you say that you think you still have feelings for her, but want to BREAK contact!!?? If you are so close and you haven't wanted to see anyone else, would you not consider that maybe that means that you still love her and maybe trying to have a relationship with her might actually make you happy!?... I know distance is very tough, but depending on where both of you are now in your lives, maybe one of you could consider moving now or sometime in the future. If she is not too far away, for now you could try to meet once a month at least. Flight prices are always coming down!! I understand why she must be devastated to hear this, out of the blue, when you have been in contact for so long. I think you need to think carefully about your feelings for her and how you will cope if you erase her totally from your life. Good luck, I know it's not easy.

LegacyUser

i was in a very similar situation myself. went out with a guy in australia and for all the time we were there things were great. came home and he went home to the uk. we did make an effort to keep the relationship going but we were just fighting the whole time and eventually decided to stay as friends, as the op says emailing and we talked on the phone maybe once a month or so.

After a while maybe 6 months i felt that although we were getting on fine etc & still friends we were holding each other back. I just kept cutting back communication, ringing much less, emailing much less and eventually we lost constant contact. i know that this was a bit of a sneeky way but nobody gets hurt and now we can still talk if we want. its not that often but you can never have too many friends

Tim06

samesituation wrote:

i was in a very similar situation myself. went out with a guy in australia and for all the time we were there things were great. came home and he went home to the uk. we did make an effort to keep the relationship going but we were just fighting the whole time and eventually decided to stay as friends, as the op says emailing and we talked on the phone maybe once a month or so.

After a while maybe 6 months i felt that although we were getting on fine etc & still friends we were holding each other back. I just kept cutting back communication, ringing much less, emailing much less and eventually we lost constant contact. i know that this was a bit of a sneeky way but nobody gets hurt and now we can still talk if we want. its not that often but you can never have too many friends

True although its vry hard i do think that he best thing to do is o break contact. as samesituation says no need for it to be a direct cut it will happen grradually over a period of time

Zombrex

rightdecison wrote:

Since then we have kept in very regular contact (pretty much daily) by email text phone etc. We have met up on average every 4-5 months on a platonic basis.

That was the mistake.

In her mind the relationship, even at some small level, was still going on, so she never faced what you called the "breakup" because really it wasn't a break up, just a change in status.

So this is really the break up, and I think if she is upset about this it shows that it is the right thing to do. She needs to get over you and you need to get passed her.

In future my advice would be to not maintain "friendships" straight after a relationship because they are rarely just friendships. I mean do you email text and phone your other friends living abroad on a daily basis? Probably not.

ST*

rightdecison wrote:

I think that i still have feelings for her and feel this may be harbouring me in dating again... .

If you both have feelings for one another, is there any solution here?

rightdecison wrote:

Today i decided that it would be for the best if we cut contact. She is really upset about this but i don't know what way to explain it. .

If cutting contact is what you want to do, then do it - if it helps you get on with things. Just explain to her that you needed to do something about the relationship - one way or the other. You need some closure, some clarity to help you move on.

rightdecison wrote:

Should i just try and get on with it and be her friend and try put my feelings to one side or am i better off breaking all ties?

This move is person dependant. like I said above, it if helps you move on - do it. You mentioned above that having feelings for her, if there is no solution in making the relationship work, it may be for the best - might set you back from meeting someone new.