Breakups

Lambman

Broke up with my fiance in march after over 8 years her decision and she blamed small things that I didn't think were even an issue with us. I know this past year some off her close friends had kids got married or both any maybe she thinks I should be leaning more towards that stuff? Anyways I started to believe I caused the breakup over the petty stuff she said caused it but the more time I take and look back and discect it the more I think maybe shes not happy with the direction her own life is going with work etc and I was the easy one to blame. I sto love her and we sto speak and I'm struggling to accept it all to be honest.. she was my best friend we were together since I was 20 she was 18. 8 years is alot off memories everything reminds me off her. I read about the no contact rule and som close female friends told me to cut all contact for a month or more but i cant bring myself to do it. Shes showing little emotion since the breakup. Any advice guys?

Extricate yourself completely and move on.

Lambman

I dont wanna move on I want her back. I feel like I need till make her realise what this actually means for both our futures. Dunno why I write in fairness..

Lambman

I was once like yous and just be blunt and say its ****ed move on but that was because it never happened me and now that it has I look at it very differently. I cant see how someone who was madly in love with me wanted to get married years ago can throw it all away so easily and show so little emotion. Maybe she was getting used to not being together in her head long before she ended things with me.

Realt Dearg Sec

Lambman wrote: »

I was once like yous and just be blunt and say its ****ed move on but that was because it never happened me and now that it has I look at it very differently. I cant see how someone who was madly in love with me wanted to get married years ago can throw it all away so easily and show so little emotion. Maybe she was getting used to not being together in her head long before she ended things with me.

Probably made a decision to be cold about it because that makes it easier to cut ties. It's not easy but still. I mean if she ended it and didn't explain to you what you had done wrong or leave any doors open to discuss your problems, then she's sending you the message that for whatever reason she had had enough and is moving on, and she woke really rather not bother going through the reasons precisely because she doesn't want a debate. I know it's hard to hear, but if it played out the way you said it did, then that's probably all she wrote.

One thing though: after hours is a bad place to be looking for advice.

Peregrinus

You do not accept her account of her reasons for breaking up with you. You think she broke up with you over different, unacknowledged issues and that, correctly viewed, a breakup was not the right response to those issues and won't fix them..

There are two possibilities here:

1. You're wrong.

2. You're right.

If you're wrong, then anything you do to try to get back together with her (a) is unlikely to succeed, and (b) if it succeeds, is unlikely to make either of you happy.

If you're right, this is a sad story. There is, however, not a great deal that you can do to make it happier. If she is in denial about the real issues that are making her unhappy, you are probably the last person who is well-positioned to point them out to her right now. In breaking up with you, she distances herself from you emotionally and psychologically; this is not the moment when she is going to trust your insight over her own into issues in her life. You can stay as close to her as you can and hope that she comes to see what you see (possibly with the help of friends and family members other than yourself) and in due course wants to resume your relationship; this is what would happen in a romantic comedy. In real life it's not likely to work and will leave you trapped in regret and unrealistic hope.

One other thing jumps out at me. You describe her as your fiancee and then wonder if "maybe she thinks I should be leaning more towards [marriage/kids]". It's a fairly obvious question; the term "fiancee" suggests that you do expect to marry, but the thing you are wondering about suggests that you don't, at least any time soon. Obviously, if there's a degree of ambiguity or uncertainty about this, that could be a source of problems between you, especially if you are not talking about the issue. But instead of following that thought, or even telling us that you have asked her about this, you spin off into speculation that the real problem is "the direction her own life is going with work etc". So I very cautiously ask if there is a possibility that you yourself might be making the mistake that you think she is making? I.e. could you be ascribing the breakup to her career, etc, issues rather than looking at what might be a slightly uncomfortable issue for you, but one over which you do have some control and for which you do have some responsibility?

If you think that she might be unhappy at not heading more definitely down the marriage/kids route, but you don't know for sure because you haven't asked her and she hasn't spoken to you about it, then maybe the two of you aren't communicating so well. And that could be your problem right there.

Lambman

Those are all fair points but there are reasons I dont want till go into on here about why we didn get married yet and have kids yet both medical reasons. I know what ur saying and to be honest with myself I think it's over for good but I dont wanna let go. When I had her I didn need anyone else she was my best friend the only person I had deep conversations with and now I'm on this thing because I dont know who to turn to

Dude, if you don't draw a line under it you might never get over it..it could still be haunting you when you're 40.. you're only 28.. you have time to meet someone else..

scudzilla

I broke up with my GF about 13yrs ago after being with her for 5yrs, was pretty hard, at first i was doing everything i could to win her back but it just wasnt working, driving her further away if anything.
After a month of trying i gave up, started seeing other girls and then a 4 months later just dropped her a text,asked how she was doing and that, met up for a coffee, we got married 10yrs ago, going as strong as ever and have a mini human.

Don't sweat it, move on, try and forget her then drop her a line in a month or 2 to see how she's doing, it's a risk but you've fcuk all to lose right now

893bet

It’s only been a few months. Time will heal.

screamer

OP it’s a tough break. 8 years is a long time and it’s hard to accept. You’re going through a stage of change and if you look it up it’s normal. That stage where we pine for what used to be, and look back at it with rose tinted glasses.
If you feel it’s worth reconciling with her and trying to go back to what was, that is entirely your decision. You need to find out if you don’t already know, what was wrong in the relationship. If she feels it was all you, then you’ll be expected to change and things may very well be on her terms going forward. I don’t really think people do change, so a certain element of it has to be, accept me as I am, and if she doesn’t, then walk away. Better that than be a hen pecked husband.
If she doesn’t want to reconcile remember as much as this hurts, move on. The world is full of people and staying with the wrong person will stop you meeting the right person. There’s someone out there for everyone, of that I’m convinced. Mind yourself, and ask mods to move this to the relationship issues forum.

rgace

This is very close to my relationship breakup at 28. It is a big change in your life and you have basically been growing up together.

Time is a great healer and for me anyway, the only regret I have is that I wasted most of my twenties in a relationship.

I actually think that I didn't grow up properly until that relationship ended because we were just kids getting together and remained in an immature kind of relationship because we didn't know my better.

Yurt2

I think I read somewhere that 90% of romantic relationships / partnerships began before the age of 30 end in breakup / failure.

Had a painful breakup in my 20's and it seemed like the end of the world at the time. In the rear view mirror though, that pain looks very small indeed and it's obvious to me now that we simply weren't compatible. Spending days arguing about stupid sh*t, and two evolving personalities clashing is not fun (both men and women are still dopes and selfish in their 20s truth be told).

The relationship I have with my current partner is leagues more healthy, caring and fun than the previous partnership.

You're in mourning OP, and that's ok. But know that it will pass and that there is something better out there.

Necro

Mod:

Moving to Personal Issues, a reminder to read the charter before posting

rainbowtrout

You said that some of the reasons she gave for the break up were petty, but that's just coming from your perspective. Maybe they weren't petty to her. You are probably right though in that she had been thinking about it for a while so was well used to the idea by the time she initiated it, so she's a few weeks or months ahead of you in processing it, and because she instigated it, she wanted it to happen. You are probably best going cold turkey to allow yourself to move on.

cj maxx

The 18 yo you got engaged to has grown into a 26 yo woman who's priorities have changed.
Move on and rebuild your life

Tork

Lambman wrote: »

I know this past year some off her close friends had kids got married or both any maybe she thinks I should be leaning more towards that stuff?

Looks like you weren't on the same page. I get the impression that you got engaged years ago and then nothing much happened. No sign of a wedding or a house or any of the other steps that happen when a couple gets engaged.She might've got fed up of being engaged in name only. Mostly I think it's a classic case of a couple getting together very young, changing as they moved through their twenties and now want different things.

Lambman

Thanks for all the replies alot off insight there on different ways off looking at it. Alot a yous made good points there yes we were engaged after 4 years never set a date as she was in college and was going till be for a few years. I wanted kids then marriage again because off a private medical thing she didn want kids because off college then work which is fair enough so yea I agree our life just did kinda level out but as explained above wasnt all my fault. Anyways I feel a god bit better was having a bad day when I posted this and had some alcohol at the time.

LegacyUser

I had a very similar situation to yours OP over two years ago now, we were properly together since 18 (met when we were 16) and she left the relationship just after I had turned 26. Like yourself we were best friends, her family and siblings were like my own (had known them since I was 16), so it absolutely floored me when it happened.

The biggest mistake I made over the last 2 years since she left was going down that same path of looking for answers, looking for the specific reasons that led her to that decision even after she had gone cold with me and stopped talking to me completely. That alone led me to the darkest period of my life, lost my job and became a recluse, it took me until late last year to seek help for my depression and start feeling relatively ok again.

I haven’t dated at all since then as I still have a lot of issues of my own to work through but looking back I had tied all of my efforts, all of my self worth to her and the relationship and that’s really what destroyed me.If I could offer one piece of advice it would be to realise that any answers she could have potentially given you won’t ever suffice, it’s natural to seek them out but it does absolutely nothing to help you.

What will definitely help you through this is Time and Support. If your feeling overwhelmed right now please don’t wait to get the support you need, I can hand on heart say that I would be a much happier person today had I sought that help sooner but I’m on the right path now and I really hope you get there much sooner than I did.

Mind yourself OP, wishing you all the best.

Lambman

Last post really hit the nail on the head there I could have wrote it word for word. I'm still working I am down but I'm trying till improve myself probably because I wanted till show her I was changing but now it's just for me that I do it slowly accepting thing.. signed up till tinder haha some craic so it is I cant take it seriously though. Still feel like I'd be cheating if I did date someone else as really really sad an stupid as that sounds. Look I'm getting there I realise life goes on and I'm not a holy person but I have a mother in a different world that I know wont let anything bad happen till me.

Neon_Lights

Lambman wrote: »

Broke up with my fiance in march after over 8 years her decision and she blamed small things that I didn't think were even an issue with us. I know this past year some off her close friends had kids got married or both any maybe she thinks I should be leaning more towards that stuff? Anyways I started to believe I caused the breakup over the petty stuff she said caused it but the more time I take and look back and discect it the more I think maybe shes not happy with the direction her own life is going with work etc and I was the easy one to blame. I sto love her and we sto speak and I'm struggling to accept it all to be honest.. she was my best friend we were together since I was 20 she was 18. 8 years is alot off memories everything reminds me off her. I read about the no contact rule and som close female friends told me to cut all contact for a month or more but i cant bring myself to do it. Shes showing little emotion since the breakup. Any advice guys?

I had a similar experience only last week, and it turned out a partner of 5 years resorted to cheating on me 6 months ago and on a continuous basis, with it only coming to the fore now. Not saying it's like that. Of course upon some introspection there was issues in how I was communicating and the time and effort I was putting into work.

A friend of mine gave me a book about the languages of love and it gave real insight into how I didn't come to the table in certain ways.