High school sweetheart relationship of 4 years ended, having difficulty moving on...

[michelle23]

She wont grow up or change as long as you enable her behaviou by putting up with it. It sounds like she has no respect for you and no empathy for your feelings

[michelle23]

No matter when you break up OP its gonna hurt like hell whether its now or in 5years time. But you are jepordizing your chances of being with someone that makes you happy, respects you, makes you feel loved, appreciates you and puts just as much effort in as you do.

I think the relationship is destructive, it wont get any better and it will ultimately end in a heart breaking end whether its her cheating on you or something else.

Why pro-long the misery?

If your not ready to let go-that is your choice but i think you have done enough pussyfooting around her and put up with her bs for far too long. Your whipped like a dog on a leash. If you this want any chance of this working in your favour then stop saying how high when she says jump and let her chace you for awhile.

The person who cares less holds all the power which is why you should both care equally..

Right now she is draining your confidence, stripping away your self esteem and your giving her your self respect. Look after you and do whats right for you.

[smackie9]

Well, I managed to go about a couple weeks without contacting her. She messages me in the middle of the night, just a little bit ago, and says that she realizes she's made a mistake and gave me the "I really want to make it up to you, I realize we were meant to grow together" schtick. If you've been paying close attention to this thread, this isn't the first time this happened. She came back to me before a week after the breakup and we got back together, only for it to fall back apart shortly after an argument (started by me, I felt that she was acting really weird). And of course she came with me to the party and there was a lot of drama there.

I didn't think twice about it, accepted her apology, and said I still loved her and would make things work. Obviously I'm really conflicted about this. Part of me is telling me that this is wrong, and that I'm holding onto something that isn't worthwhile. Essentially I'm worried I'm going be facing a sense social estrangement again, especially after having so many negative things to say about her. But another part of me really wants to make it work, because I really do love this woman, even though she has caused me a great deal of pain in the past few weeks. Perhaps time apart is what the relationship called for. It definitely brought a lot of things into perspective for me. Perhaps I still even need more time myself. I really don't know what I'm doing anymore. I want to re-approach this situation with B with optimism, but I can't help but feel I care a lot more about her than she cares about me. She claims she cares about me deeply, but her actions in the last month hardly reflect it.

I'm at the point where I'm having a hard time coming to grips with things. If I were to re-approach the relationship, I feel like at this point it deserves much less of my concern and attachment than I've been giving it. I don't want to set myself up for getting hurt again. Yet, at the same time, for this to actually work, this is going to require greater investment from me than I've already been putting. But it simply doesn't seem like a good idea. I'm in emotional suspension - I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling right now. All I do know is that I feel the most depressed I've felt since the beginning of the break-up. Every one tells me to move on. But I still love her in a way that most people couldn't relate to, or understand. If I told her that I couldn't do it anymore, I don't think I'd be able to live with myself, because I promised to her that I'd always be there for her, and I feel for her enough that I feel obligated to honor that promise. She's never had anybody in her life that was always there for her, and I want to be that guy for her.

Am I bat**** crazy? Weak? Dumb? All the above? From all the advice I've been given, I can speculate that you all think that I'm not learning from my mistakes. I just feel like my relationship has certain circumstances that isn't easy to relate to. Being with her just makes sense to me. I feel like I understand her in a way that I feel absolutely nobody seems to, and that I care for her more than other people in her life claim to. In turn, she understands me in a way that nobody else seems to. Yet the danger of forgiving her mistakes creates an anxiety within me that I will be just as present when she's around as the hole in my heart that she'll leave when she's gone.

Maybe you should read an article on the main form page called "Description of the Shining Knight..."

Anyways you are never going to escape feeling pain. Even if you get back with her, and feel love again, that pain will still be there....like I said it's a death trap. You have been here before and the cycle will continue.

Reality check: she will not be the only one that can make you happy, she will not be the only one that understands you, she will not be the only one that you can fall in love with. Life can and will go on if you let it, and give it time for it to happen.

[lolerskates]

She wont grow up or change as long as you enable her behaviou by putting up with it. It sounds like she has no respect for you and no empathy for your feelings

That's exactly it. She doesn't have any respect for me or empathy of my feelings. There's nothing I can do at this point to put this relationship back to where it is, even if it was a delusional relationship at best.

Where we stand now, I think she has me right where she wants me, in a situation where she has the power. Ignoring her for a couple weeks caused her to come back to me, even if the last thing I said to her before ignoring her were very sad-and-mean-but-true things that were meant to put a permanent end to the relationship. She really gave me the impression that she wanted to make things work at that moment, and also gave me the same impression when I slept over at her house the following night. She was actually kissing me how she used to, and cuddled how we used to. But ever since that point, she hasn't attempted to communicate with me once and will only occasionally reply to me if I give her direct questions.

Is this about her having power over me? Seems that way. Or if I were to give her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was just a regretful act of convenient instant gratification (on both our parts). I've tried to talk to her about it (over text), and she's constantly short with me and gives me nothing but the most barebones response a person could possibly give about something. She says she's just "taking things day by day".

I just find it hard to believe that someone could be so kind on the surface but manipulative in their actions. Part of me refuses to believe it. I just wish I didn't take the relationship for granted the first time around, maybe if I tried harder at bettering myself, she would still respect me and love me enough to not do what she's doing. For some reason, I truly lack the motivation to move on, otherwise I would've begun to deal with this situation weeks ago. I should be trying to find another job, and try to distance myself from my work environment which ties in too much with B and her family.

I'm still more or less in free-fall right now. I know exactly what I need to do to better my situation in life, I just lack the will to even attempt to carry it out. I just don't care anymore. I never thought a point in my life would come where I could say that with honesty. I've found myself making decisions to hinder my progress in this situation, in school, in my career, and in life for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. More than anything, my actions are ruled by anxiety.


As for B, I'm just going to ignore her from here on out, as much as possible. I'm not ready to end things with her yet, but I'm going to see what happens. I'll be there for her, but I'm going to try to not worry about her being there for me anymore. I just need to let loose her influence.

[michelle23]

When you cheated on her she chose to forgive you remember? She didn't have to and many girls wouldn't. That was her choice and she cannot punish you forever for it. If she thinks that gives her a free pass to do what she likes when she likes, she is doing ten times worse than what you did. It sounds like you have learned from that experience and grown up a lot since then.

A clean break, time out to heal, a new job and a new love eventually might be the best thing you could ever do for yourself. Staying in limbo being miserable is not a way to live your life.

It is your choice and I wish you luck. Counselling will do you good but do it for yourself if you need motivation to help you leave.

[lolerskates]

When you cheated on her she chose to forgive you remember? She didn't have to and many girls wouldn't. That was her choice and she cannot punish you forever for it. If she thinks that gives her a free pass to do what she likes when she likes, she is doing ten times worse than what you did. It sounds like you have learned from that experience and grown up a lot since then.

A clean break, time out to heal, a new job and a new love eventually might be the best thing you could ever do for yourself. Staying in limbo being miserable is not a way to live your life.

It is your choice and I wish you luck. Counselling will do you good but do it for yourself if you need motivation to help you leave.

You're completely right. I'm done forgiving her actions. I wish I was done being sad about it, but that's something I'm still working on. Irregardless, I'm at a point where I haven't been before - I genuinely resent B for the pain she's put my through. And I've come to another realization - she simply isn't the person that fell in love with anymore. She'll keep me around as long as I'm willing to let her use me - and I'm 100% done with it. I'm not going to keep spending nights with her once a week, wondering what I'm doing with myself. What broke the last straw was her inviting me to her birthday in Canada, even though she knows I don't have my passport, nor do I have enough time to acquire it. Furthermore, I did very minor research (a bad idea...), and found her prostituting herself online on a 'sugar daddy' website, saying she'll fulfill anyone (of any age's) "most secretive fantasies". I'm honestly ashamed of even knowing person with such little self-respect. I've managed to block her on my cell phone, Facebook, etc. and I'm going to try my best to ignore her existence from here on out. It just makes me so sad, because when I met her I was under the impression she was a genuine and sweet girl. But she's simply not normal but any means. I mean...whoring herself out for money? I suppose it's the ultimate form of self gratification - having someone simply pay for you to spend time with them (under the pretenses of sex).

Like I said, I'm done looking further into this and I regret the time I've spent thinking about it in the past months. It's just hard for me to come to terms with this, because the worst of my suspicions are true - my ex-girlfriend of 4 years is literally a gold-digging whore. I just can't fathom it. It makes me completely sick. And the fact that she is trying to keep my interest on the side is completely bonkers. This woman is straight crazy. Her mere existence is going to haunt me for a long time. I'm just going to assume that B is an outlier in life in most women aren't this crazy. That's the only sort of hope I have left to drive me forward. Thank you all for the support and wishes, unless B tries to involve herself in my life again, I won't be posting here again, I need to put this all past me. I have a feeling once B sees that I've blocked her out of the blue, she'll get mad at me rather than further attempt to communicate with me, and hold a grudge against me. And that's just proof she just doesn't care.

[michelle23]

Well done. Your doing the right thing and its for the best.

B has extreme insecurity issues and low self esteem. She doesn't like herself and has issues with anyone who is confident or good looking. She needs attention to stroke her ego and will probably never change or never be trustworthy. People like that are like a disease in a relationship. They will drain you and strip all your confidence away but by bit.

Part of healing now is piling all your confidence back on and boosting your self esteem. Focus on you and take care of yourself. When you are done grieving the loss of the relationship and are in a better place emotionally-im sure you will meet an amazing woman.

Best of luck to you in the future. Stay strong and don't go back xx

[lolerskates]

Hello, I'm posting in this thread because I'm just feeling down. I've made a lot of progress getting over the relationship, but I'm facing great difficulty. First off, I want to mention that I've always been an introverted person. But I find being by myself lately to be really painful. Slowly I've been working on myself, but it's difficult because deep down I just feel depressed. I've been finding myself spending time with people that I normally wouldn't just to meet and get to know new people, and at the end of the day/night - I just feel like it doesn't do anything for me. But being by myself is even worse, after extended periods of time I begin have extremely negative (and suicidal) thoughts. Oddly enough - I dream about my ex being with other guys and being happy. What the **** is wrong with me? It feels like my subconscious is trying to bring out what I've been consciously trying to not think about.

It's hard to put this into words, but I feel like I've lost a lot of myself to other people. My guidelines, my morals, my standards - all I've sacrificed just to spend time with other people. Mentally, I feel like like a 75-year old man who has no family, relatives, or many friends. I feel disconnected and out of touch with the people around me. I'll spend time with other people not because I like them, but simply because I'm lonely. Hell, I'm eager to strike conversations with strangers. Being by myself just doesn't do anything for me at the moment. And nor does being around anyone else, except for maybe one close friend. Furthermore, I'm not consistent with myself. I don't interact the same with any one person. If I got all my friends and acquaintances into one "party", they would hate each other and all think I'm crazy for being friends with one-another.

Most importantly, I don't want to be this way. But it feels like my thoughts are torturing me, as if my sanity were diminishing on a daily basis. To speak on a truthful level, within the last month I've done more damage to myself than I have in my entire life preceding... I've been drinking large quantities of hard alcohol, smoking (tobacco and 'herb'), and have attempted numerous hard drugs which a few months ago I figured I would never attempt. Six months ago I didn't drink alcohol or smoke anything.

But it all makes sense to me. Perhaps B was just a distraction from a greater underlying depression. I wanted her to be the solution. And that was probably the exactly same case as her. Genuinely I feel like I can only associate with depressed people. I realize B and I, even after 4 years, shared very little personality traits on the surface. Deep down we shared an underlying depression, that's all. The key word is underlying - I'm not 'emo' nor do I ever demand any sort of attention in my daily life. I'm simply disenchanted with the world I live in, and I'm virtually directionless. Better yet - feeling left out. There's some "flow" to life that I'm not riding but every one else seems to successfully live on.

[michelle23]

You are experiencing withdrawal symptoms from B and trying to replace that addiction with other things. You need to stop this self destructive behavior. Come on man you are better than this and you know it.

Do something positive. Join the gym-exercise every day. Tire yourself out. Stay away from your loser friends who are a bad influence. You are vulnerable right now and easily drawn into all sorts of things that you would normally not do.

Stay away from alcohol for awhile-that will just make you more depressed and stop smoking.

Every time you have suicidal thoughts-you need to call someone for help. Is there a close friend who will calm you down when you feel this way? Or would you consider some counselling? This is just temporary all these horrible feelings and emotions. I promise you it will get better.

Breaking up with B was the best thing you ever did and you need to feel proud of yourself. Look up the five stages of grief after a breakup. It will help you understand what you are going through.

Find some positive hobbies and spend time with positive people. Stay away from women for awhile and focus on healing. You will get through this. Its hard but every failed relationship brings you one step closer to finding a good thing. The next girl will be like a breath of fresh air compared to B. You will be blown away. But first you need to heal and be in a good place emotionally/mentally before meeting someone else.

Stay away from depressed people, people with issues etc. They will drag you down. And your relationship with B was built on co-dependency. That is never healthy and you need to avoid that in the future.

[michelle23]

You have three choices here:

1/. go back to B and have an unhealthy relationship with a woman who is not capable of loving anyone as she does not love herself.

2/. Get drunk, take drugs, party to block out the pain, **** up your whole life and enforce these negative thoughts and end up in another unhealthy messed up relationship with another messed up girl.

3/. Stop drinking, stop taking drugs, join the gym, start counselling, ditch your loser friends, focus on your career or study and make a better life for yourself.

It is your choice.

[michelle23]

You could also start writing down how you are feeling. Get everything out on a piece of paper when you feel like crap and then burn it. It helps apparently. Or you could get a puppy. Something to love and cuddle and take your mind off everything. It helped me when a close relative died.

Don't be afraid to just have a good cry. Sometimes you need to do that or scream into a pillow or buy a punching bag.

[smackie9]

Dude you are doing what most do after being dumped....you throw yourself into things just to feel "different". It's all good to experience it, even though you feel it has gotten you nowhere. You are out of your comfort zone by doing all these new things, that is why you are still feeling uneasy. It's giving you more anxiety, but hold on, look at this experience as a gift. You are learning things about yourself you wouldn't have before because you have always played it safe all your life. So relax, and just reassess then make changes. It's just that easy. You weren't afraid to go out and meet different people, etc, so why would making changes in your life be any different. First thing to do is stop feeling like you failed. Relationships end for all kinds of reasons, it's just part of life, and you are not alone, it happens to everyone. Stop beating yourself up.....what's done is done....move onto the next thing. Pick out the best of your friends and leave the rest behind...but don't let this stop you from meeting more new people. You can't expect find good friends right off the bat. Sometimes it can take years to settle on a few. Also friends, like GFs, will come and go in your life. Again you haven't failed because good relationships don't develop out of these people you have met. It's a no brainer you have to weed out the good from that bad. This is all normal things that happen in life. So you can't feel down on yourself every time when something doesn't work out. Shit happens because life happens. The way to get through this is to change your point of view, by stop sweating the small stuff that happens. Let it roll off your back, and think of things like making new goals for yourself. So stop being a cry baby, and get back to living life.

[lolerskates]

Michelle, this thread is basically the piece of paper where I write down how I feel to make myself feel better . Please don't get the impression that I'm not attempting to heed all of your advice - I couldn't ask for better advice from better people. Still...changing my point of view is easier said than done. Do you think I want to be fixated on a woman that is literally a walking, breathing conflict in my life? Everyone recognizes that our relationship was rocky and having a negative impact on other aspects of my life, and I feel like people have been trying to separate us since we got serious. Having said that, I never asked for anyone's input on B before I started taking our relationship seriously. In fact, I kept my relationship with B under wraps until it became serious. That's pretty insane on my behalf.

After having ignored B for the past weeks, I found pictures of her in my phone that she took last time I spent the night with her (didn't discover 'til now). And it hit me, hard...I'm still weak in the knees for this woman. I wished her a happy birthday indirectly and went through the effort of actually contacting me despite being blocked. We went to dinner, went for a drive, and had a really nice night. And now she's asleep on my futon behind me. I just don't know anymore. We are young and I wouldn't want B to feel like I was holding her back from better things. I had that feeling once and instead of breaking it off like she did, I cheated on her (long time ago). I learned a lot about myself from that experience though, and perhaps from this time apart she will have learned some important things. But yea, more or less.

[smackie9]

I don't think you need to hear what we have to say anymore.....carry on and live with the consequences.

[michelle23]

Your obviously not ready to let go yet. All i can say is best of luck to you-your really gonna need it.