Beginner's Luck

[JasonG]

We were friends and co-workers for about two years when I started to develop feelings for her and decided it'd be a good idea to tell her about it. That's when the key was put in the ignition and this car was moving down that long road. So now I had a crush on her but now here was the problem, she had a boyfriend. So I stayed her friend and did the silly thing of waiting around to see what she was going to do about it as her relationship with him was up and down. It got to the point where my feelings started to feel really deep for her as we hanged out more and I formed a special connection with her. About a year after I told her I had a crush on her I figured i'd be a good idea to drop the L word while she still had a boyfriend. What happened after that was a whopper of emotions that took everything I had to try and deal with. She said and did about everything she could to stop making me love her by playing the avoiding game but still continued to be my friend and invite me along to do things with her or her friends. I couldn't take working with her anymore at the store and decided to take steps to try and shut her out of my life and worked full time at another store. I couldn't avoid her... I missed her terribly and we continued to still hang out. Eventually it got the boiling point where she couldn't resist me anymore and indulged on exploring our relationship further... all while she was still with her boyfriend.

So she cheated on her boyfriend (and it wouldn't be the first time as about a year prior she cheated on him with another man whom she lost contact with over time) with me. The lying and deception with her boyfriend went on for about three months as she started to spend more time with me. Maybe that makes me a bad person and maybe in the end I got what I deserved but at the time I let my feelings for her ignore what I was doing was wrong. We did alot of things during this time... went to the movies, went out to places, had sex, sleep overs at my place, spending a whole day together. Anyway for me emotionally I was going through some pain as I knew they were still together and she was returning back to the apartment she was living in with him. She insisted they never had sex when she was seeing me and over time it got to the point where her boyfriend was pretty much demanding sex one day and they got into a big argument and out of revenge she gave it to him for the last time. She told me about it and she said it felt like she cheated on me in some way and at the time I should have knocked my head and said, "leave her"! But I let it slide and told her she really needs to do something about her relationship with him because she cannot see two guys at the same time. I think about two weeks later they broke up and that's when things just started to get worse over time for us.

So now she was seperated from him, dating me and living with her mom. I thought the war was over but at the back of my mind I knew a new war was beginning. She was going through the breakup process and very obviously on the rebound all while she was still seeing me. That's when she started going more into these dark moods and any attempt I made to try and show support was met with hostility. I could tell she was unfit for a new relationship as she just broke off a five year relationship but of course I ignored that instinct and feeling inside of me. Every month we started to argue about all kinds of things and almost every time it would be her to start them. Alot of the times it was her criticizing me, saying disrespectful things about me and even my family, wanting things her friends have (some of them being married, having kids, living together in a home or apartment), trying to change me to be more of what she wanted me to be, there was one night at a bar she danced rather flirty with a guy and even got the guys number which kind of ticked me off and I told her to delete the number which she did, her having the nerve to tell me she wanted to possibly date other men while she was dating me but it never ended up happening as she said she saw the pain I was going through knowing that she thinking about doing that and decided to date me exlusively, and just things like that which over time made me feel depressed and more emotionally but not physically distant from her. I really tried to care and love her the whole time but it seems like alot of times she pushed me away. We dated for 7 1/2 months and in January of this year we decided to become official as a couple (I ended up finding out in the end she did it to make me happy) I knew there was things I was doing too that was harming the relationship:
- I brought up our issues and was trying to work things out but the communication was kind of distant in this area. Perhaps I wasn't entirely in the wrong but when you talk about problems enough it starts to be a problem which is what happen.
- I never criticized her but tried to help her with her emotional issues which led her to believe I was picking out all of her faults and she didn't like that one bit.
- We got into a heated argument one day about the whole her thinking about dating other men and I got so fed up with her bitching that I told her straight up, "Your a bitch!" which she never ever ever forgot
- I never really talked about our future much as I felt it was still a new relationship and I was taking things slow with her while she was the exact opposite. She didn't respect my wishes to take things slow and started to get fed up over time.
- I made her very jealous when I told her I had a harmless crush on a cashier while we were officially a couple and she ended up meeting this cashier at a work party of mine where she saw me talk to her harmlessly for a brief moment. When we went back to my place that night she cried and was worried about losing me and asked me if I still loved her. I told her it wasn't going to go anywhere and that I loved her and to just forget about it. Did I emotionally cheat in some way?
- Our phone conversations went from being great to the point boring after we became official. We started to run out of things to talk about and I figured this was just a phase that alot of couples go through. I made the mistake of not trying to spice things up more and the boringness continued.

At the beginning of March nearing our two months of being together as a couple things started to go straight down hill. She reconnected with an old guy friend whom she had a crush on in high school on Facebook. They met up one day and hanged out until 2AM in the morning driving around where he lived. She told me about it and yeah of course I was beyond pissed, I mean, who the hell wouldn't be? Your girlfriend out until 2AM with some dude you never met and you KNEW she once had a crush on him because she told you about him in the past. She took this as a huge personal attack like I was not being happy for her reconnecting with an old friend. About a month later we broke up and said she in the end thought of me more as a friend but still had feelings for me as we kissed and cuddled one last time that night. She offered her friendship but of course I was insulted and didn't and still haven't given her a straight answer. A day after our breakup she is boyfriend/girlfriend with this guy. About a week after them being together they make plans about moving in together and are moving in June into a house with two of his kids. I mean, what the hell right?

Sorry for the long dramatic story and I hope it made sense but just thought I'd seek advice out there from you total strangers on what you would do in this situation? She had betrayed my trust to one of the most extreme levels by emotionally cheating on me for nearly a whole month, emotionally abused me (in my opinion) by alot of the things she said over the course of time, and expects me to put up with possibly more hardship of being there as a friend while she is seeing and will most likely talk about the guy she emotionally cheated on with me. It has been over a month since the breakup and I have not spoken with her on the phone in over two weeks now but we did chat on Facebook last week when she wished me a happy birthday but that's it and the conversation was irrelevant. Ever since then absolutely no contact. I am still deciding if it's even worth being her friend after all that has happened. This is the pain that is still haunting me after the breakup that she emotionally cheated and betrayed the trust. Just incase it's relevant I'm 25 years old and she is 28. It was my first intimate relationship but for her I was her third boyfriend.

[valhensing]

it's too long and i could only read the first half but my opinion on the first half is as much as your instinct she's a bad news. Sometimes it's like that, u think she only does bad stuff to her bf and not you but in the end, it isnt the situation pushing her cheated, it's her, herself is that kind of person

[JasonG]

Yeah, you're right. Just because things seem to be bad in a relationship doesn't mean it's okay to cheat to see what's out there so you have a back up plan when and if you break things off just so you're not lonely.

[Kyouhen]

Sorry to say dude but I have no pity for you, kharma is a bitch

[JasonG]

Sorry to say dude but I have no pity for you, kharma is a bitch

I suppose in a way I did get what I deserved.

[cmacattack1]

Everybody is different, every relationship is different, you honestly don't know what to expect out of certain situations. Some people can transition from boyfriend to boyfriend no problem (my ex was like that and she's currently happy with the guy she transitioned from me), others have a total meltdown. Logically, it makes sense that we need alot of space on our own after a break up to really get things in order, find out what we did wrong, what we were responsible for and what we allowed to happen and working on that. Your girl never had to do that. She went from guy to guy to you to "friend" (which I don't believe for a second with her behavior) with no lapse inbetween. She's always had somebody to catch her fall, why change, grow up, or learn from her behavior if there is just another guy around the corner waiting. I feel bad for her in a way. Reality is going to really hit her hard one day.

You were right though, much of this you did bring upon yourself. If she were to do this to other guys, logically she would do the same to you. She didn't deal with her problems and her unhappiness head on with her past boyfriends and naturally it would happen to you to. You made some mistakes and I think you realize that. Emotional cheating with the crush? Aaahh I don't know, that's a gray area. Only you really know how your interactions went. Telling your insecure girlfriend with a handful of issues this probably wasn't the most tactful move, even if it was being honest. Name calling your girlfriend? Yes, bad move.

I know you want to help her with her issues and you can try your best to help her realize things and analyze them, but ultimately it comes to her wanting to understand these things. I have many issues from my past, growing up and all that. I even went as far as acknowledging them and talking about why I was and acted like this. I never wanted to do anything about them though. I hid behind them and used them to blame for my actions, that I was consciously making and 100 percent in control of. This was what was growing up for me, accepting responsibility for my actions. It took my ex dumping me and me being on my own to realize it, but in a way it was the best thing to happen to me. You can try and help all you want to, but if she doesn't want to make any progress, your attempts are futile. She has her wall up taking everything personal and you are afraid to offend her. It's a way to pacify the situation so she is comfortable and nothing changes. Unfortunately, the relationship is sinking and it's going down. She was pulling you down with her.

I don't know what to tell you but no contact is a must right now. You both are very emotional and nothing good can come of it. It's hard to believe somebody that is 28 can act like this but stranger things have happened I guess. I think this experience was very beneficial and I hope you learned alot about relationships from it. Everybody is unique and different, but we are all more or less the same in our actions. I think from reading a few posts in this forum, you will see that your situation isn't totally unheard of. Picking apart what you did wrong and really understanding why you did it and that it was wrong can only help you. Also knowing when to not put up with behavior that she displayed is another helpful thing, as in a way you were kind of hurting you both when you did allow her temper tantrums and all that to go on this long.

[JasonG]

Thanks for the comments. I feel I've made alot of progress following the breakup and that I'm finding she isn't on my mind so much anymore. Like I still think about her everyday but I definitely notice the thinking is alot less and anytime I think of her it's nothing positive. I don't really miss her all that much because why would I miss feeling miserable and being mistreated? I miss the intimate stuff of course, like any person would being truly single but that's normal. I've found myself a nice distraction with eyeing my attention on another girl and even if it ends up as friendship or something more it doesn't matter because it does help getting your attention on someone else just to show yourself that there really is others out there and that you just have to make yourself see that.

Would it feel right someday to re-establish contact? I just don't want it to crush me to death seeing her new world she's creating for herself and knowing that it is probably working out perfectly fine for her.

[cmacattack1]

Let's not jump ahead of ourselves here. Reestablish contact requires you both to be ready for it. Right now you are your own number one and you should take care of what is good for you. Talking to her right now wouldn't be good, it would bring you back to the beginning. By the time you are okay with it, you will probably not really care about it anymore. Either way, that's a ways down the road. It might be difficult to "just be friends" or whatever. Not to mention thinking about what it could do to her, it could seriously mess up the progress she has been coming along with too (even if it seems so unlikely). If she's happy with her world, you should be glad that she is happy. It's a serious bubble, a fantasy world and it will pop eventually. It's not your concern and she will grow on her own without you.

[IndiReloaded]

These sorts of painful experiences really do make one stronger, I think. Sorry for your pain, but it will pass with time. Don't beat yourself up about what happened by thinking 'what ifs, or one days'. You learned something and hopefully, so did she. If you can find it in yourself to be happy for her as Colin says, great. If not, indifference is probably more than enough.

[JasonG]

Thanks for the comments, guys. Your right and that I need to focus on myself and just to try and be happy.

[JasonG]

Well my ex broke the no contact after just two weeks. The last contact we had was on my birthday on Facebook chat to just wish me a happy birthday and asked how I was. In her world she believes everything is just fine and that we can happily just be friends like old times. Anyway it was on Facebook chat again. I barely said anything and kept elusive on revealing much. I didn't feel any stabbing pain in my heart or didn't get all excited hearing from her, does that mean anything? Maybe because it was on chat as opposed to face to face.

Why does she bother for? She said she was wondering how I was doing, long time no talk (2 weeks? Come on that isn't long). She appears to be happy with the person she is with and all that but I just get this feeling she really wants to have me fully part of her life again as a friend or whatever as she has made attempts within the no contact space to try and initiate contact such as checking my Facebook profile to look at picture as she commented on one picture I took of her in my photo album when we went on a trip together. She sent me a poke on Facebook (if you don't have Facebook it's kind of like poking someone without words to get their attention) and as well she's taken photos of herself that I took of her from my collection of photos for her own use in her profile. I'm not looking too deep thinking this is supposed to mean something but I honestly prefered being left alone and maintaining the no contact until I see fit to or ever contact her again. So yes she is on my Facebook and I have not deleted her from it because what if someday I end up changing my mind? I know it's stupid keeping her on it as she is just a click away to see how she is doing but then again it's just a click away for her too to see how I'm doing as well.

[cmacattack1]

Yeah, you don't know where you will be in the future and you don't want to burn any bridges. I deleted the ex off facebook and the crawl back to friend her again was embaressing. However, you should try and do your best to not look at her profile and keep tabs on her. It won't help you on the road to recovery. I had to hide her and her best friends stories in the minifeed to help myself recover. If talking to her in bothering you, please do not be afraid to tell her to give you some space. To be dating somebody else but still be fooling around and chatting, poking and whatever with you just seems like sketchy behavior. You wouldn't want your girlfriend doing that with her ex, would you?

[JasonG]

Well when we were together she would see her previous ex because he had some of her cats and so I didn't want to step in on that and tell her she couldn't as it would have caused a really big scene and I didn't have any problem with her visiting him to see the cats anyhow. But I did have a problem when she told me that she told him that she had a talk with him that she came out and told him there was still feelings for him and this and that about a month or two after the breakup. Since I was totally new to this stuff I didn't take it too seriously as one of the first warnings signs when we were dating. But I never expressed my concern to her for whatever reason. As to if she still does have those feelings, I don't truly know but I do know she still visits him as the cats are still with him.

Anyway yeah I did tell her about no contact until I felt ready before all of this but I guess maybe she didn't take my feelings on the matter into consideration all that much as she has not respected my wishes. I will not tell her again (unless it's getting to be a real pain) and just continue with the no contact on my end but if she isn't able to resist the urge to contact me then oh well. I have the option to acknowledge her messages or just totally ignore her until I feel ready. I just don't know why she is doing this. I just get this feeling she really wants me back into her life in some fashion but you can't always get what you want.

[cmacattack1]

The question is, what does she want you back in her life for..? A cushion? You've seen her behavior already, it wouldn't be a big stretch of the imagination.

[JasonG]

So she broke no contact again to ask how I was doing not even less than a week since our last small conversation. What's funny is that she contacted me on what would have been our four months together officially as a couple day, May 9th. I don't think she forgot about the 9ths of every month yet and I guess on this day she remembered and I was in her thoughts I guess. Anyway she contacted me through private message on Facebook, not through chat this time. Giving me the option to respond or not (which I have not yet). Basically she asked how I was doing, how was my recent birthday in April, and I can tell that she does miss talking to me as she said we did have interesting conversations. What's up with this?

I will honestly admit that part of me does maybe miss her alittle bit but why would I want to put myself in a position (right now anyway) where I could potentially be the cushion as you said cma and hear about all the gossip of her life which I honestly don't need right now. I am not over her yet and just today I was thinking about the thought of us one day back together but I know that's just my loneliness talking and not my common sense. Right now such a move would be extremely fatal and I'd just be jumping back into the same problems. Besides I gotta tell myself she apparently loves some other guy right now so it just isn't going to happen obviously. Not right now and maybe even never.