Well, if it makes you feel any better, your brain is totally normal. haha. I’ve thought about and wondered all of those things about my ex as well. That was part of the reason I wanted to talk to him for “closure” because we haven’t seen each other since March and “what if?” haha. But if we are meant to be together, I believe life will throw us back together at some point without effort on my part, because I’ve made it clear in the past where I’ve stood, and that’s about all I can do, and now it’s up to him. I think the same goes for you with your ex. She knows where you stand and that’s about all you could’ve done after the breakup. Plus, after a while, I think you just get to a point where you’re just tired of wondering and thinking about it and don’t see the point in it anymore. That’s a good place to be. There’s definitely a freedom that comes with giving up the need to worry about it. That doesn’t mean you have to give up all hope forever, you just have to stop being attached to the outcome. It really isn’t her that you want. It’s someone who makes you feel the way that she made you feel, only without all of the stuff that made you feel bad. And if she does come back, and you’ve both done some growing, it absolutely would have to be treated like a brand new relationship, because you don’t want to bring any of the baggage from the old relationship into the new one. That would just add tension to the new relationship… and that’s why it’s so important to completely let go of it all, no matter what.

I know EXACTLY what you mean when you talk about that special type of love/connection. Letting go of that has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to do as well, but at the same time, I’ve grown leaps and bounds, and now I feel like I’ve been able to get to a good place where I don’t feel helpless and I do feel hopeful about finding that kind of a connection again, even if it’s with someone completely different. We just never know what will happen, who we’ll meet, when, etc.

You will get to the place I am, but you can’t given into temptation like that if you’re having such trouble. I’m pretty sure that just showed you how it makes it harder. You have to do what you can to separate yourself from the thoughts of her, which includes staying away from anything like photos or things that remind you of her (that are possible to avoid), at least until you’re in a better place, and even then, try not to look at that stuff.

As for all of those things you are wondering…. I think it’s pretty safe to say that when people are in a place in their lives where they’re confused about what they want or they’re just not feeling themselves or they don’t know what they’re doing, they tend to do confusing things. I know I’ve definitely confused the heck out of people in the past with my actions, even though it wasn’t intentional on my part. I just didn’t have myself figured out back then. I do think that the things she said after she had been so sure she wanted to end things might’ve been her wanting an ego boost. She could’ve been confused then, too, and just didn’t want to admit it. There’s really no way to know for sure, and that’s the stuff that you have to become okay with not knowing. You just kind of have to accept that you don’t have all the answers and you probably never will and that has to be okay. Overanalyzing is keeping you stuck where you are, unable to move forward, so if you don’t want to be in this place forever, you just kind of have to accept that things happened that didn’t make sense and that people really just do things sometimes that don’t make sense, and you have to let that be okay and do your best to leave that in the past.

It’s okay to miss her. I miss my ex, too. He was a big part of my life and I think I miss his friendship most of all. We were best friends and I appreciated him for who he was at his core, but we just were not heading in a good direction then with all of his issues getting to him like they were. You would not believe the amount of confusing things HE was doing. haha. But I’ve just accepted that things happened the way they did for a reason and all of those confusing things he did were likely a result of the state of mind he was in when he did them, so I’ve just stopped letting myself wonder.  And I can tell you, that’s one thing that helped me a ton, too. You just have to get your mind away from those patterns of thinking… no matter how difficult that may be to do. You just have to do it.

That’s the thing I think you need to realize though…. you couldn’t have given her any of what she needed because she needed to work on herself and that’s something no one else can do for her. And giving her space would’ve ended up driving you even more nuts because that wasn’t what you wanted. It sounds like she just wasn’t ready to take the relationship as far as you were, and the same goes for probably any relationship since the one she got into afterward was long distance so that was really safe because long distance relationships are really limited in how close they can get. So that relationship probably feels “safe” for her in that way (which isn’t a good thing). Anyway, I’m not sure she knew what she needed and that’s probably why she couldn’t tell you either. Same for my ex and that’s why I think trying to get clarity from these people would only bring up more questions because THEY don’t even know why they did what they did. You know? You can’t really get closure or clarity from someone who isn’t clear themselves.

Well, I hope the situation with your girlfriend gets better soon. It’s extra hard when their work schedule is an obsticle. That was one with my ex and I as well. We worked opposite schedules (me first, him second, he’d come here to stay and we’d go right to bed) during the week, so we didn’t get a whole lot of quality time there. That sounds like a good idea, though, to wait it out until the beginning of the year. Maybe she will have some time off during the holidays and you guys will be able to figure things out. It’s also TERRIBLE to break up right before the holidays. It basically ruins them and makes the breakup feel even worse. So I think it’s a good idea to just wait and see how you feel afterwards and go from there. Especially if you’re able to let go of your ex more, that will help give you some clarity about your current situation, too.

There’s also nothing wrong with being one of “those guys” who just can’t enjoy taking on someone else’s kids all the time. I’m the same way. As a mom, I adore my own kids and can obviously care for them all the time, but I do not feel the same about other people’s kids. haha. I definitely don’t mind people’s kids most of the time, but I just am not someone who could be a babysitter or run a daycare.

It sounds like you’re getting closer to taking your ex off the pedestal too, and that’s good. Your first paragraph shows it. Just know that there isn’t anything you could’ve done. I really don’t think it was your behavior that pushed her away…. she was already pushing YOU away and it was most likely that that you were reacting to by trying to cling, right? So you just have to accept that there really wasn’t anything at all that you could’ve done that would’ve changed anything. This really was all on her and her issues that are causing her to keep people at arm’s length. You were trying to progress the relationship in a normal fashion, right? Naturally trying to move it forward as relationships are supposed to progress… and that is when she started pushing you away. I really think she just was not ready to be in a relationship that moved past a certain superficial point (which is why super long distance is safe) and there wasn’t anything you could’ve done about that, and if you’d stayed together, you probably would’ve gotten sick of the relationship never progressing and it would’ve driven you crazy anyway. There truly wasn’t anything you could’ve done to change this… and that’s okay. It just is what it is.

You also can’t really be cheated out of happiness by someone else. Happiness comes from within and no external sources, so the only person cheating you out of happiness is you. She wasn’t able to help you because she couldn’t even help herself. She is obviously going through something that she very much needs to figure out and resolve, so that’s why it’s probably hard for her to see the picture outside of that. So I think it might also be your own expectations that you need to let go of, too, and that may help. You have all of these ideas of how things could have been or should have been (and I did that for a long time too), but that’s not how things ARE or even were. So when you start thinking of this stuff, just remind yourself that they are a fabrication of your own mind and not actually real or true and you can’t expect things like that from other people or it’s not coming from a place of love. Love should be without expectations, you know? And also without so much attachment.

You can also feel free to let yourself keep a part of that hope of reconciliation if you want. I think I probably always will too. Just don’t keep it at the forefront of your mind. Take her off the pedestal and put her memory on a storage shelf for now. If she comes back after she’s done some growing, then great, she’ll be there on that shelf for you to dust off, so to speak, but if not, you will know your happiness doesn’t depend on it and it will just be a memory to look back on and a good lesson learned. Easier said than done, believe me, I know, but you can do it because I did and I was where you are feelings-wise just like 1.5 months ago. Minus the current relationship. haha. You got this.

Does your girlfriend have NO ONE else that can watch the kids? What did she do before you came along? If the father is supporting the kids at all, she should be able to get help with child care costs.

Most importantly, though… remember. This is NOT your fault. You did not do this. You could not have changed the result. I’ll guarantee she is keeping her current relationship from progressing, too, (unless she’s done some major inner work) and if he tries to push closer, he will get pushed away, too. These are her issues, not yours. So you have to give yourself permission to accept what is and what happened and forgive yourself for what you think you did.  I did plenty that put a strain on my relationship, too, and I lamented over those things for a long time, thinking I could’ve changed things if I’d only worked on them FASTER or talked to him sooner, but at the end of the day, if he was in even a decent place emotionally, we could have worked through it. He was unwilling because I truly believe he was incapable of that at that time (and he even told me after we broke up that I’ve been so accommodating of his issues and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t be the same with mine. I realized later that it was because he was in such a bad spot emotionally. He didn’t even know how to handle his own issues, let alone mine). The same is probably true for your ex.  Neither one of them talked to us about what was going on before they broke up with us… that truly does mean there was nothing we could have done. They made that decision without us, so it really is all on them. Our input wouldn’t have mattered and our actions or lack thereof didn’t matter either.  Give yourself permission to accept that. It’ll help a ton, trust me.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Valora.

I’m jumping in to second what Brandy wrote. Mindfulness is invaluable when it comes to recovering from a breakup. I love Kyle Cease, too. I tend to listen to him every time I get into my head about things and he pulls me back out of it. He has a bunch of great videos on YouTube.

Also, meditation (the simple kind, where you just sit there quietly for 20 minutes and focus on your breathing, letting any thoughts that come pass right through while you refocus on your breathing) helps a ton with mindfulness. It sort of exercises your brain when it comes to focus, and this helps you to be able to refocus on the present any time your mind tries to pull you into thinking about past pain/regret or future anxieties/worries. We are usually fine in the present, so that is the best place for our minds to be… focusing on all of the good things we have in our lives right now, even the little things like the birds chirping, the pleasant rise and fall of pets’ bellies as they sleep peacefully and comfortably, the click of the keyboard when you type, the warmth when the heater kicks on when it’s really cold outside., the feeling you get when you help someone (and if that feels good, then help MORE people. That’s an easy way to bring happiness to both you and someone else!). All of these little things that add even just a little happiness to our lives… focus on those things. Meditation and mindfulness helps you keep that focus and regain it quickly when something does interrupt.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Valora.

John, trust me. You don’t need closure. I felt the same way literally 3 weeks ago. I was talking to my counselor, crying in his office, wishing for closure. I went home from that appointment and thought why… what is closure really going to give me? If I tried to talk to my ex about things, it would likely just bring up more questions and more questions. I decided what I really wanted was clarity and I’m not sure he could really give that to me either. It’s just one of those things that you have to accept that you won’t know and let that be okay. You don’t NEED to know. It’s all in the past and can’t be changed no matter what you do… and sometimes I think we want closure just because there’s hope that if we get them talking about it, they’ll decide they want us back. But I know that’s not how I would want my ex to come back. If he came back, it would have to be his own decision without any influence from me, otherwise he would likely just leave again later and I’d have to start this whole process over. He CHOSE to leave me, so he has to be the one to make things right, if he decides he wants to do that. That day when I had that realization was the day I took him off of that pedestal I’d had him on, and that was the day I started healing much, much more rapidly. I think I’d still want to try to work things out if he did come back (if he’s done some growing up too) BUT I don’t feel like I need him to anymore and I really don’t care whether he does or not because I’m going to be fine either way… and quite frankly, his loss. lol

Your ex may have loved you, John, but from what you’ve said, I’m not sure it was as much as you loved her. You’ve said she kept blowing you off to even just stay home and do nothing, and I know when you are head over heels, you want to spend every minute you can together. So that might need to be something you might want to accept as a possibility as well. I really think you can do better than your ex and you may already HAVE better in your current relationship when you finally let your ex go and let your current girlfriend in emotionally.

So yes, focusing on your girlfriend this weekend is a GREAT idea. Any thoughts that come into your mind about your ex, just let them pass and refocus on all of the things you love about your current girlfriend and your life as it is now. You seem to be focusing A LOT on the past but what do you love about your life now?

And for goodness sake, FORGIVE YOURSELF. For all of it. You CANNOT go back and change any of it so, I promise you, none of your guilt over any of this is helping you and all of those talks with her and any of those changes you wish you’d made likely would’ve had the same exact result anyway. This was a decision SHE made on her own… without you. It’s not one you could’ve prevented, no matter how much your mind would like to believe you could’ve if you’d done things differently. This was all her. Things happen for a reason, so find the lesson in it and then let everything else go and you will feel so much better.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Valora.

Hi RebirthandRestart2018… when you say your “intuition and anxiety were going off,” was it happening at the same time? If so, that wasn’t intuition. It was fear. You were afraid of him leaving you based on how you were reading the signals he was giving you (which was probably from the inner monologue that Anita was talking about). It’s possible that that fear caused you to close up more to protect yourself, which then made him lean towards NOT being with you because he sensed that you were closing off.

That might be something to be aware of when you get that feeling again…. if it doesn’t feel calm or good, it isn’t intuition. It’s more likely to be fear… and even if what you are afraid of comes true, it’s likely that that fear caused you to react and then behave in a way that made what you were afraid of happen or that belief then attracted that result to you. That was a hard lesson for me to learn, myself, so that’s why I wanted to specifically point that out.

I’m definitely not saying that’s what caused the breakup, but it’s just something to be aware of. It sounds like this guy just doesn’t know what he wants, really.

I can empathize with you on how you’re currently feeling about relationships as well. I have some abandonment issues from things that have happened to me over the years and it’s just one of those things where you have to remind yourself that not everyone is the same. Like I am the type that would not just up and leave someone I love without trying to give it my all and work on it and I am loyal to a fault, and since I am like that, I know that there must be others as well. The trick is to find someone who is the same way.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Valora.

Yep, the very best thing you can do right now is to just not contact her at all and try to let her go. IF you guys are meant to be together, she will come back (after you’ve both grown a bit and improve/resolve any issues, otherwise the same thing will just happen again) and if it’s meant to be, you will still have feelings, but if you aren’t meant to be, then you can just take this as a good learning experience. Get everything you can from it. Those things that you could’ve done better… make sure you do that better from now on. Learn to really pay attention. I did the same thing. My relationship with my ex was absolutely wonderful for the first year and a half we were together, but then a life event happened to him that made him sort of close off emotionally and then he started having physical pains on top of it, he’d yell at me more often (when we barely ever fought before) and about things that hadn’t bothered him in the past, so I emotionally shut down, too, and we stopped communicating effectively. So I learned how important it is to communicate even when you’re afraid of the result of that communication, because, in the end, if you’re going to break up either way, it’s better to know you got it all out there. I also learned that it’s so, so important to have those kinds of conversations in person and not through written text. I’ve grown leaps and bounds from this experience so even though I’m still feeling some pain from it all, I don’t think I’d change it. I think it was something I needed in order to truly grow and if we would’ve kept going the way we were, we would’ve just broken up anyway later on because we both needed to grow. I’m positive there is a lesson in your experience for you to glean, too.

Just be sure to recognize that you BOTH had a part in the breakup. You’ve acknowledged and have ruminated over what you could’ve done or should’ve possibly done, but there is plenty that she did wrong too, especially after the breakup by leading you on and giving you hope just to keep you on the backburner. That was not fair of her. These things happen for a reason. So find the reason, learn the lesson, and appreciate the whole of it but realize it’s in the past and can’t be changed and that’s okay.

I hadn’t realized when I wrote initially that you’d already taken a short break from your current girlfriend. If it was only a week, it might’ve been TOO short to actually do any good, but since a break isn’t feasible now, I’d really try to just work on getting fully over your ex, stop comparing relationships, focus more on all the great things you have with your girlfriend, and see if that improves things with your relationship. You never know. You might just be too blinded by the idealistic image you have in your head of your ex to see what you really have now OR it’s still possible that you aren’t truly a love match with your girlfriend. That’s what you have to figure out.

I also have to wonder if constantly posting in this thread isn’t setting you back a little bit by making you think about it. I thought about my ex more yesterday than I have in a while after reading through your thread a bit, just because there are so many similarities and I know exactly how you’re feeling and that reminded me of things. So many people never even get to experience a love like that because they settle before they find it, and it really is a different and amazing thing, and maybe that’s why you feel so dramatic about it. I’m sure I’ve been dramatic about my situation, too. But the more you talk about it, the more you’re going to think about it…. So another thing that might really help is meditation. Simple meditation is just the practice of refocusing your mind. You just breathe slowly in and out, letting thoughts come and letting them gently go while you keep counting and refocusing on your breathing. This trains your brain to just let those intrusive thoughts pass without ruminating over them. When I get in my cycles of feeling upset over missing my ex or thinking about what we could’ve done different or wondering about the future, meditation and refocusing on the present is probably what has helped me the most. It’s recommended to do it 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon (longer if you can).

About that story of the concert though…. I think that was absolutely reasonable of her to back out when she found out her son was leaving the same day, especially if she didn’t know that when she agreed to go. I’m a mother as well, and I would probably be crying the whole rest of the day or at least completely in my head and not up for being around other people for a while, even a few days. So to not want to go out in public that same night is understandable, unsupportive of someone else or not. That right there is how you protect your mental health. Sometimes you just want to be alone in cases like that, and although it was selfish, I do think it was something she really probably needed to do to take care of herself. Those are things I think men in general might have a hard time understanding though because women tend to be more empathetic and men tend to be more practical, and also if you generally handle things in a different way than she does, that’d make it hard for you to understand why she would want that too, but you have to remember that she isn’t you. On the plus side, you telling her that you understand was absolutely the right thing to do there and I’m sure that that alone helped her more than anything and definitely more than if you would’ve pushed her to go with you instead. Think back to the actual concert, was your daughter okay with her not being there? If she was fine, then that particular situation really did work out for the best and it was good that you at least tried to be understanding even though you didn’t really understand. Don’t beat yourself up over that one, for sure.

Anyway, it sounds like you’ve got a good plan and are doing somewhat better. I wouldn’t tell yourself all the things that your ex did that hurt you because that will just be you thinking about her more and centering your mind on her, which is what you don’t want. Just make peace with everything and when those thoughts of your ex pop up, just let them gently pass through your mind and go right back out of your mind and try not to overthink any of them. Eventually they will happen less and less frequently until, one day, you’ll surprise yourself when you realize you didn’t think about her at all the day before. It’ll happen. It just takes time and the ability to let the thoughts pass through… and definitely try to steer clear of any reminder triggers as much as you can for a bit.

Lastly… I just want you to know that what you’re feeling is normal. My ex and I broke up 2 days from now last year and I still think about him every single day and tons of things remind me of him, but I can also recognize that I’m actually doing better than ever because I thought I’d be a wreck this close to the anniversary of the breakup (and our 3-year anniversary would’ve been yesterday), and I’m really not. I’m more close to completely letting go now than I have been in the past year, and that is definitely progress. So just acknowledge all the ways that you’re actually doing better, and I bet that’ll help, too. It’ll at least allow you to take some of the pressure off of yourself.

Hi John. I’m new here and this is actually my first post, but I felt moved to comment because I had a relationship very similar to yours with your ex. My ex and I dated for 2 years and broke up a year ago (almost to the day). It was very, very similar to what you experienced, an amazing connection, the feeling of a true love, we were constantly texting when we were apart and were like magnets to each other when we were together, something neither of us had ever felt before and as close to a “soulmate” connection as I think you can get. Then our personal lives got in the way, we both had issues we needed to work on, stopped communicating effectively, and then I was blindsided with a breakup.  It’s been a tough year and I’m not completely over it either, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not be over it yet because it’s a process. I’m much, much less attached than I was even 2 months ago.

I’m saying this because I’m reading what you’re writing about your current girlfriend and about trying so hard to make it work and I sort of think you’re doing both of you a disservice. Your heart is clearly in no position to be trying to love someone else. You are emotionally unavailable and no amount of trying is going to make your heart available until you are over your ex, and that is going to take time and some effort, too. This is the same reason I have stayed single for the past year. In that time, I’ve went to counseling, worked on improving all of the things that I felt I had issues with (insecurities and fears caused by past pain, etc., learning how to deal effectively with issues when they pop up rather than letting them shut me down), and worked through my feelings for my ex so that I could fully let him go and also won’t have the same problems in my next relationship.

So my advice to you is to think about taking a break from your current relationship. Your girlfriend shouldn’t have to feel second. You don’t have to break up fully, but you definitely need some time on your own to figure out your feelings and work on letting go of your ex, and that’s going to take a solid decision to do so on your part. You also have to let go of feeling like you should have done this different or that different, etc. You can’t change the past. You can’t go back. All you can do is make sure you don’t do that kind of thing again. Figure out what it is within you that caused you to feel that way (generally it’s a deep-rooted event that happened to you in the past, like your mom not giving you much attention), work through it in your mind until you change your own belief in a positive way (by realizing that situation is the past and not the present and things can be and are different now) and can let that pain go.

I also feel like you CAN have that feeling that you had with your ex again, even if it’s with someone else BUT you have to let go of your ex first. Even if you and your ex really are meant to be together later, you still have to let go of her first so that you can work on fixing whatever it is in you that is making you hold on so tight. What you’re experiencing is an attachment. Your ego is afraid that THIS IS IT, THIS IS YOUR ONLY SHOT, so it’s afraid to let you let it go. You have to push past it until you feel secure in your heart that you can and will find that kind of love again. It’s definitely possible. But our egos are designed to protect us at any cost, so they tend to make us afraid of things so that we hold on tighter when we really should just relax, go with the flow, and let time take it’s course. Work on being able to do that, and things will get easier for you. I’m sure a big part of you will always have love for your ex, just as I will for mine, but it does us no good to hold onto it. I think part of it may also be fear of letting go because maybe you think if she does come back you won’t want her anymore and what a shame that would be. But even if that were the case, by that point, if that’s how you felt, it’d be likely you’d found someone even better… and if you hadn’t yet, you’d fall right back into the feelings so there’s no need to really fear letting go. It’s the only thing that’s going to allow you to find the one you’re meant to be with (or for them to find you).

As for your current relationship, you’ve been dating for less than a year, right? I feel like if you’re struggling this much already with just general things, it doesn’t bode well for the long term. It’s possible you’re only struggling because of your feelings for your ex, but it’s also possible that your girlfriend just isn’t a romantic match for you… and that’s why you need the relationship break… so you can figure it out. You definitely need to work these feelings for your ex out (feel them and let them go) before you continue in any relationship or the current one is likely to snowball on you eventually too. A woman can come 2nd to another woman for only so long before she gets tired of it. If what I’m saying makes sense and you decide to do it, I would have a conversation with your girlfriend and just tell her you need some time… give it a set time, like you need 2 weeks or 3 weeks or whatever… don’t talk to your ex or your girlfriend during that time and just spend that time with yourself and your thoughts, work through everything, even go to counseling if you can (it really does help a ton)… and then after the time is up, make your decision. Your girlfriend may not be in love with that idea, but if it helps you move on from your ex and then you end up having a better relationship with your girlfriend afterwards it’d be a win for her… and if you decide she isn’t right for you either, then that frees her up to find the man who is HER match and you’d be free to find yours.

Either way, good luck. I personally know how hard this is and I totally understand what you’re going through. It’s one of the hardest things I have ever had to work through, too, but we all have more than one “soulmate” type of connection out there, so just remember that and, if you can get yourself to let go, that frees you up to find something even better.