Hey Tim,

Your forum stuck a chord with me as I myself have dealt with a similar thing, but me being the girl in that situation – and I hope my response isn’t too harsh but it’s only my thoughts 🙂 there is nothing more soul destroying than someone who can’t decide what they want, or if they want to be with you, when you’ve given them no reason to think these things. Especially when you’ve described her as bright, ambitious, funny, gorgeous.. you get along well and you enjoy each others company…

I believe you might be putting too much pressure on yourself (and maybe Lou) to find this perfect relationship with ‘the one’ there is not one perfect person that’s going to fore fill all of your needs, that fore-fillment comes from within, from you. If there are doubts, listen to them, it’s a human quality that shouldn’t go unheard. If you feel like that, you feel like that for a reason. Brushing these doubts under the carpet when you think you want to be with her and she loves you for who you are, is not only a little selfish and not fair on Lou, but these doubts and issues from within will only resurface in time and you’ll feel exactly the same as you have previously.
You say you can’t see a future with her, which you’re questioning yourself for, why can’t I see a future with this incredible and amazing person, who loves me? Honestly, forget how you feel and ask yourself what you want, it is unfair to hold onto her when you can’t make a decision. It only holds her back from the path that was set for her.
Take some time to concentrate on you and really discover what you want and what you’re looking for.
I hope this helps in some way, and I hope you find what you’re looking for Tim.

I am so glad to have found this forum, reading your experiences and challenges reminds me I am not alone and wherever we are in the world there are people/women going through the same struggle.
Ino I’m a month late into this discussion but I hope you’ll read and find words to respond.
I am 3 weeks into a ‘mutual’ split from a challenging and difficult 5 year relationship – Throughout our time together it’s been tough, eventful, painful but love is the glue that held it all together. We’d gone through many rough patches, a few examples being trust issues, breaking up and getting back together, issues with differences, times when we’d broken up and he’d go and get the nearest girl he could find that showed an interest in him. This broke me in two and he knew it. But he was emotionless towards it and selfish. We would get back together and try to work on things – fast forward a year or two, after spending 9 months apart after a horrible break up, I had lost both my grandparents in the space of a month and, I believe, was staying with me out of pity, he broke up with me and three weeks later was sleeping with another cheap girl – this completely broke me, I wondered why someone who loved me completely and ‘saw noone after me’ would do this to me?
I was on anti depressants for a long time, I lost a lot of weight and my confidence (which I’ve never had much on) was completely shattered) But I started again at college, found my feet slowly but surely, and made some wonderful friends.
For some reason we ended up talking again, talking led to meeting up, meeting up led to getting back on an old path we’d both missed and were used to being on, and eventually we decided to give things another shot – this time round I honestly thought he had changed, he was living in another city, he was making more effort, we had grown without each other and time had moved on. A few months in I had found a job in the city he was now living in, I wanted to be closer to him and I wanted to make a life for us, for awhile it worked, I stayed with him when I had work, we regained our love and trust, we enjoyed being in each others company and were building new memories but we slipped back into old issues and habits, we are completely different people (I forgot to add) we come from different family backgrounds, we have different beliefs, different views, everything. But as they say, opposites attract. I began to feel like he didn’t want me around, he would only see me on his terms, he never answered his phone to me, he told me he didn’t want me to live with him it didn’t work, we never went on holiday together because he felt like if we’d spend a length of time together we’d just end up arguing and it would be shit, it felt to me as if he was calling all the shots in our relationship, he was controlling what I did, when I saw him, where I could live and he also put us on a break twice, without any explanation or reasoning.
After being put on a 3 week break, true enough, he ended it. I asked him why he’d carried it on for three weeks when he knew it wasn’t working and he knew he’d end it, he said ‘he didn’t want to make a mistake’ ‘i love you and i want to be with you but it’s not working, after years of trying there comes a time where you have to stop.’ ‘we bring out the worst in each other, it’s going to suck but you’ll be ok, i want you to be happy.’

I was, and still am, completely and utterly devastated and heart broken. For five years this man is all I’ve known, all i’ve wanted. I feel like I tried so hard and all the effort came from me, yet it wasn’t good enough and I’m left to pick up the pieces. I can’t bring myself to move on, I am crying every day, I have lost all motivation and drive for everything. I feel like I don’t know who I am without him and I can’t see myself loving anyone else the way I loved him and I also can’t see anyone loving me the way he loved me. I feel the relationship was very much controlled and he was very selfish.
I don’t know how to get out of this rut I am in and move forward.
I can’t stop thinking about him, I’m replaying everything over in my head, every conversation, every memory, everything that went wrong, I need help, I need advice. Please, I ask for words of wisdom and help.
I’m in a very dark place and can’t see a way out of it – how do I move on? how do I stop thinking about him? I am still in love with him, and can’t see a way out of this.