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 5 years, 6 months 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.