“Have I Lost Her Forever?”
Leaving her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and less than a month later, she tells me she’s pregnant, wants an abortion, and is going to break up with me. After a few frantic phone calls and us actually talking, she decided we’d stay together, and maybe she could keep the baby, and we’d accelerate our plan to be together. Fast forward a few weeks and she goes through with the abortion because she’s not ready to have a kid, and we don’t talk anymore because she doesn’t think we’ll ever actually be together.I don’t want to lose her as a friend. We’ve known each other so long, and she’s the only person I feel I can really trust. So, do I ignore her “we-shouldn’t-talk-anymore” things, and try to reconnect, do I wait for an undetermined amount of time to let her cope with all of this and THEN try to reconnect, or do I just let it go and deal with the heartbreak of losing the woman I loved — my closest friend. It already kills me that, because of my commitments here, I couldn’t be there for her during the abortion, or the aftermath thereof, but do I really have to lose this woman in my life? — Long-Distance Heartbreak
Your friend is freaking out, and understandably so. You’ve been this guy she’s known from afar for ten years and then suddenly, your friendship, which had only existed online takes a much more serious form in the real world. And as we all know, the real world is a lot harder than this one on the internet. Offline, you can’t close your browser when someone upsets you, or take your time thinking of a witty response to an email, or find security in distance or safety behind a computer screen. In the real world, we don’t have the luxury of time and distance to dilute our emotions. It’s all so concentrated. And raw.
Now take those emotions and put them through a food processor, which is basically how it must have felt for your friend to feel love for you offline (assuming she felt love), plan to leave her country to live with you, get pregnant and have an abortion all in the span of a few weeks. That’s a lot to deal with, and suddenly, this close friend whom she has known only in one realm of her reality (online) now exists in her other realm (offline) and she has to figure out how to navigate that new relationship. That’s a challenge for anyone. But add in all this other …stuff … and it overwhelmed her.
The best thing you can do for her right now is give her space but let her know you aren’t prepared to let her go so easily. I’d send one email for now: Tell her how much you care for her and how she is on your mind and you’d do anything to help her through what she’s dealing with, including giving her space if that’s what she wants. But let her know you’ll contact her again in one month and if, at any time between now and then she wants to talk to you, she can call you, text you or email you and you’ll make yourself available.
If, after a month you don’t hear from her, try again. If she’s still unresponsive, give it another month. If after three months she still isn’t ready, you need to MOA and accept she was never yours to let go of, and if she ever will be yours in the future it will only happen when she’s healed enough on her own to let love in.
What a beautiful and sensitive response to both of them. Obviously this a very sensitive guy who would make a great catch for the right girl. She may have needs and desires that he can’t fulfill. Military service restricts his life in many ways and wreaks havoc with romance and family life. I’d add to what Wendy said that it’s very different world offline with life isn’t fair. Peace be with you my friend.
Dude, my heart hurts for you, but I don’t think this “slowly peel the bandaid away” advice will do anything but give you more agony and false hope. It sounds like she doesn’t feel for you what you feel for her, and this is one of those relationships that just can’t make the transition to reality. It sucks and it’s going to hurt for a long time, but that’s how life is sometimes.
It may be that they don’t end up together but investing three months to make a final effort to see if they can isn’t too big of an investment at 22. I say follow Wendy’s advice, be respectful of the girl’s needs and at the very least you will be able to console yourself that you did all you could. And hopefully your three month investment will net you another chance at romance. And if that is the case – take things slowly and build a solid romantic foundation together for your future together. Good luck.
Great advice, Wendy. LW, do that.
Too much too fast. Send her another note that you are giving her space, will be there if she needs, and hope to hear from her again…but you should move on dude.
Firstly, great article !, as someone that has been in a long distance relationship i can appreciate how hard it can be at times but also how rewarding it can be at the same time! I always check out this site before buying any product giving long distance relationship tips – . Their E-Book reviews are great and give real opinions. Sometimes they give them away for free. Their top 10’s are pretty cool too
This girl basically jumped from the safest kind of relationship possible (one that only existed online where she could control when she interacted with you, the tone of the interaction, and could even read whatever she wanted into your messages because the written word doesn’t communicate tone or body language) into facing the most difficult consequences of a real-life physical relationship by getting pregnant. I wonder if your willingness to keep the baby and be together permanently scared her off. Maybe she realized that she wasn’t as invested in this relationship, which until very recently was completely virtual, as you clearly were. She’s experienced first-hand the hardest, scariest parts of being in a relationship but you two didn’t have enough time together to really experience the great parts, and just because there wasn’t anything you could have done to make the situation better doesn’t mean that she’s going to be emotionally up for staying with you.
One thing that jumped out in your letter was that you said “she’s the only person I feel I can really trust”. I’ve known a lot of people who, during their adolescence and early adulthood, pinned all their hopes on one particular person. I even had several girlfriends who truly believed they were fated to be with someone and it was only a matter of time before they would be with them forever. But it never happened, because it’s very rare that the most important person to you when you are young and changing and vulnerable will still be right for you once you’ve grown into an independent adult. It would be very sad for you to lose this girl as a friend. If she doesn’t want to hear from you again, you’ll probably be mourning the relationship for a while. But that doesn’t mean that this girl was the only person you could ever trust and love. It just means that those other people who will one day become the most important ones in your life and give you the support you need and deserve in the PHYSICAL as well as virtual world, are ones that you haven’t met yet. But you will. You’ll learn to live without her support for a while, and then you’ll meet new people and get support in other ways.
I disagree that there was nothing he could have done to make the situation better. They both could have practiced safe sex to avoid an unplanned pregnancy, especially since this was the first time they met in person. If they did use protection and it didn’t work (which definitely happens), LW, if she doesn’t come around, you should use this as a valuable learning experience for future relationships, whether they begin online or not.
Seconded! My first thought, heartless or not, was why pregnant? So very easy to avoid that.
I think “so very easy” is a bit of an overstatement.
It’s very easy to take steps to avoid pregnancy. It’s very difficult to make those steps 100% effective barring lack of any sexual intimacy.
I stand by my original statement. The chances of getting pregnant when using birth control properly (and even better, combining two methods) are slim enough that while they are not 100%, they’re close enough that if you assumed everyone who got pregnant was either not using birth control or not using it properly you’d be right most of the time. I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but c’mon. Even if the condom broke Plan B is widely available. And far cheaper financially and emotionally than an abortion.
We don’t know that they weren’t having safe sex. Accidents happen. The only 100% way to protect against pregnancy is to abstain.
Agreed, my first thought when reading this letter is that this guy is putting his future happiness in the hands of this one girl. Not only is that an awful lot to handle in a relationship (it’s never easy to be needed in a relationship more than you are wanted) but having to deal with a pregnancy and abortion on top of that I’m sure can feel quite traumatizing. It’s too much pressure. The best thing this guy can do is take a step back and find other sources of happiness in his own life before contacting her again. Then he won’t be a burden but can be the friend that would be best for her right now.
The letters recently are breaking my heart. Do what Wendy says, LW, and good luck!!
I don’t really know what to say about this letter because my immediate response was so different from everybody else’s. But all that aside, even though the LW is hurting, he has to realize that it needs to be put on the back burner to what this girl is going through right now. Just because you have an abortion doesn’t mean you don’t want a baby or that it doesn’t upset you to have the abortion, and that’s probably going to stick with her much longer than any sort of failed relationship would. So, yes, if she doesn’t want to be in contact anymore, then that’s something the LW is going to have to respect.
I don’t mean to be a debbie downer here when it may not be an issue anymore, but moving to the U.S. from Canada isn’t that easy. Unless you’re married, the other person needs a skilled job, specifically in which a company sponsors them, etc., in order to get a visa. My point is that when she says she doesn’t believe you’ll actually be together, unfortunately, she may be right and this may be a way for her to try to move on.
and moving is just stressful. Leaving all your friends and family? that is HARD. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t done it. I am home now for christmas and I miss my boyfriend and our city but man, I just want to stay here with my family and my bffs.
I’d just like to say I really like that Wendy gave him a plan of how to proceed. Many other advice columnists would have just asked questions that are supposed to lead them to an answer. You can and should follow Wendy’s plan, although I would add, since you are in the military and your schedule is fairly inflexible, if you know when you will have some time that you COULD use to visit her, let her know when that COULD be in the first email. It may be a lot easier on her if she knows she can clear the air in person, but don’t surprise her, let it be her decision to see you, if she chooses to make it.
*sigh*
Back away. Send one email. One only. Why? Because if she talks to anyone else, they may have some grasp of the military, and tell her that if she feels that you are harassing her, she can complain to your CO. Do you really want to have your CO coming down on you, and then you have to explain to your CO this whole mess? Your CO won’t want to know because it’s “personal”. Personal matters should NOT interfere with military life. Period.
Let her know that you are concerned for her, that you care for her. Apologize to her for rushing things, and for everything that has happened. Apologize for not being able to be there to help her cope. Let her know that if she ever needs to talk, or wants to talk, that you will be there for her, but that you will abide by her wishes and not contact her. Right now, she needs to feel in control again (since everything has been turned upside down), and you need to give her some semblance of control. Let her know that if she wants to talk, you will be available, should she choose to avail herself of the option.
Do not say “I love you” (it probably scared her off in the first place if it wasn’t something you ever said online, but said it in person). Say that you care for her.
Young military guys rush things. A lot. Because of the fear of going off to combat; because of being far from home, they want to make a home of their own; hell, even for the extra money a wife/family would bring (yes, there are some that do that). When you are lonely, feelings intensify.
Please stop living your life online and start living your life in the real world. It would minimize the chances of this kind of thing happening again. Also, use protection. Multiple kinds of protection if possible.
I like this a lot.
Does anyone besides me think that the girl’s story sounds fishy? Maybe she made it up in order to break things off? Just a thought….
You took the words out of my mouth. Wouldn´t be the 1st time it happens.
Yep, thought the exact same thing.
Seriously? That just seems like so much…work. I mean, really. How hard is it to say “I’m sorry but this isn’t going to work” and then stop answering his emails and returning his calls? I think it’s really, REALLY unlikely she’d make all of this up just to break things off.
You can’t take the crazy out of crazy…or something….a lot of weird people out there that will go to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable situations.
Not that that doesn’t make it even MORE uncomfortable.
Lol, exactly. She has the benefit of being in a whole different country…is would be SO much easier to just ghost the poor guy than much up an elaborate lie like this.
I always thought you made up a pregnancy to HOOK a guy, not to dump him. Not that I’m condoning it or anything…
Ugh… Look, it really sucks for someone to question whether your hard times are actually real or not. When I had an abortion in a long-distance relationship, everyone in my then bf’s family tried to convince him I was lying to get him to give me money for the abortion. And even though he didn’t doubt me, it still messed with his head for someone to suggest that. And it broke my heart completely and made my situation about 40% more painful than it already was. There’s nothing strange about her story, because abortions complicate things. If she wants to get rid of him, she wouldn’t make up a story that would only make the two more connected.
I don’t know how to say this, in light of the sensitive responses everyone is giving, and of course I don’t know if these people are normally steady eddies or if more prone to drama. So I’ll just come out with it – LW, are you SURE your girl’s story is 100% true? Are you SURE that the fetus (sorry, cold clinical term) was yours? I’m guessing you do a lot of communication online rather than by voice (you say “once we actually talked”). LDR’s always have some element of mystery because it’s impossible to know what’s truly going on in someone’s life unless you’re around on a regular basis.
Just something to think about.
“After a few frantic phone calls and us actually talking, she decided we’d stay together, and maybe she could keep the baby”
Are you sure you didn’t pressure her into “deciding” that / pushed her to think of it as a child instead of a pregnancy / tried too hard to convince her that it was your choice too? I don’t know you, you might be a very respectful dude, but you sound very intense and, as AKchic said, in need of a home, and you seem to be idealizing this relationship a bit. And the fact that she told you she’d continue the pregnancy and then went and had an abortion makes me wonder if you didn’t make her uncomfortable pushing for things too serious to the point were it was easier to agree and then change her mind when you guys weren’t on the phone.
Again, maybe you’re a great dude. Maybe you just called her to offer your support whatever she decided. It just makes me a bit uncomfortable that in your very intense letter you only talk about YOUR feelings. How you love her, how you wanted her to continue with the pregnancy, how you don’t want to lose her. But you don’t seem to mention hers in any way, except where they keep you from getting what you want.
You’ve been through a lot lately, so there’s no shame in focusing on your pain. But maybe it would be useful to look back at your conversations about it and see if you weren’t too intense / demanding / pushy. Because if it happens that you were, then maybe that’s why she doesn’t want you anymore, and that would be harder to fix than her just needing a bit of space to cope.
Good luck.
I find myself surprised that you are lamenting the loss of her more than the loss of your child. I know some guys who would be furious if their SO had an abortion behind their backs. ALso, it sounds like you have much stronger feelings for this woman than she has for you. She said herself that she doesn’t see the two of you working out as a couple, obviously so much so that she couldn’t stand the thought of having a child with you (lifetime commitment.) I think that gives you your answer without waiting 3 months. As a woman, I can tell you that if I became pregnant with a guy I really liked and could see myself being with, abortion would be the furthest thing from my mind. While unplanned pregnancy is almost never a good thing, in the right relationship it doesn’t have to be a tragedy either. A strong couple who are right for each other can rise up to an unexpected monkeywrench like that…unfortunately it doesn’t sound like your relationship with her has what it takes. Good luck.
Um, what? Of course he’s lamenting her loss more than the loss of their two? month old fetus. He actually knows and loves her, and has for 10 years, and now she’s removed herself from his life.
For real.
I don’t think not wanting to have a child with someone RIGHT NOW when you’re both really young, unprepared, and newly in a relationship is an indicator that it isn’t going to work. It’s an indicator that at least one party is thinking big-picture. In fact, Painted Dude and I have seven years on this guy, we’ve been together nearly a year and a half (not forever by any stretch, but, you know, a bit), and a few months ago I had a pregnancy scare. We decided we were not going to be parents at that moment. Not because we don’t love each other enough or aren’t committed. Not because I couldn’t stand the thought of having a child with him or vice versa, but because he’s still in school, I just started teaching, and we don’t want children right now. We may not want children ever, and in fact we probably won’t have then, but last July was probably about the worst time in the world for us to deal with the possibility of being parents. I respect the heck out of your “roll with the punches” attitude, and it’s totally valid and admirable in a lot of respects, but don’t assume wanting an unplanned pregnancy=love and not wanting it=not really in love.
I guess I see it differently because if I found out I were pregnant, I would see the beautiful little thing inside me as a baby, a human life, and there’s no way I could ever make the decision to end my own child’s life for my own selfish reasons. In the same respect, if I had a miscarriage I would grieve for my lost child, not for a “fetus.” It seems kinda cold to think of it as a “zygote/fetus/unimportant ball of cells that it’s ok to kill” the way people seem to be programmed these days. I’m pretty moderate and believe in freedom to do whatever the hell you want as long as you can live with yourself…just don’t know how some people can live with themselves if they see even their own offspring with such disdain.
i think that you missed painted lady’s point…
but, there is something i have always wondered about the whole “selfish reasons” thing… because i generally agree with you, abortions are (or I feel they should be) terrible things that really are ending a life. they should be a last resort. but, i wonder what some children would say about that. i have always wondered what children who were the products of really bad parents, the type that should have had an abortion but couldnt/didnt because of whatever reason- i wonder what they would say. i know that every kid at some point screams “I wish i was never born!!” at their parents at some point, but i wonder if in some instances, it would actually be true. and i mean im talking about kids who had to suffer severe abuses- years and years of trauma. i hear stories all the time about these poor kids who are being sold into the sex trade by their parents, prostituted for money by their parents, beaten by their parents, starved, abandoned, ect… i mean its really sad. and i honestly wonder how many of them could honestly say, “i wish that my mother would have had an abortion. i would have spared her the hardships she encountered, and it would have spared me the terrible life I had”. I get that it is a human response to say that you would choose to live, thats just one of our basic instincts… but i just wonder what some of them would say. like the lady who wrote in last week with the letter to her mother of all the terrible things that she had to endure in her life. she was able to turn her life around and now had happiness in her own family, but if she didnt have that, or if you had asked her before she had her family…. i wonder what people like her would say. i guess i just wish that the baby had a voice in the matter sometimes…. because sometimes, maybe they would have chosen to stay wheverever we are before we become babies….
i am now very grateful for my life after writing that!
I love this post and this thought!
I was a product of an extremely abusive relationship. When my (nineteen-year-old) mother escaped my biological father she debated having an abortion. I’m glad she didn’t – I really value my life – but I have always known that she chose to have me, chose to keep me, and I am so very, very glad that she had that choice. I would much rather have never been born than to have been viewed my my mother as some sort of parasitic growth that she was forced to keep on for nine months. I, as a child who adores my crazy, hippie mom, would never, ever want to be born if I wasn’t wanted.
thanks!
and i think you bring up a really good point- there are plenty of people out there who had an otherwise good life, but who KNOW that they were never wanted. now that you have brought that up, i wonder what those people would say as well…
i mean that really is the root of all those problems, right? a child who was wanted, whether they were a surprise or planned, who is wanted by the parent/s is going to have a better life then the child who is alive but who knows that they are an unwanted thing.
maybe thats what it is- the difference between being unplanned and being unwanted….
I LOVE your points (and yours, too, Katie). I was very much planned for and wanted, but even so, knowing I was a choice and not a condom-break baby that was forced is so good to know.
my boyfriend was the planned one out of him and his brother.. his older brother was the accident that got his parents married… and my boyfriend makes fun of him for it ALL THE TIME!! i couldnt believe it. i just think that is so mean to point out!
Oh, and that’s totally understandable. I mean, I don’t see it the same way, obviously, but that’s absolutely a point of view I can see. I was just pointing out that it’s not always indicative of the state of the relationship, and if you’ve got someone who sees it from a “my body, my choice” standpoint, then they’re not going to look at it the same way.
Look, LW, you’re probably an extremely nice guy, and you mean well, but having dated and almost married a military guy, many of them, whom I admire and respect, tend to be myopic in life choices. Not bad, necessarily, or cruel, but the nature of the beast is such that, because you basically choose a lifestyle more than you choose a career, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that non-military folk have lives and careers and goals that don’t always mesh with your agenda. Who is this girl? What does she want out of life? Is she in school? Does she have a job? Would any of these things be affected had she had a baby and come to live with you? I know you can’t help where your career sends you, but it’s not her fault if she doesn’t want that. Often times military spouses have to give up everything they ever dreamed of doing to follow their spouse from base to base, and here you two were, not just planning for her to leave her home to be with someone she’s only known in person for a week, but to have a baby and to potentially cede control of her entire life for several years at least to someone she barely knows. Was that her idea or yours? I don’t want to assume, but some gut instinct I have tells me that either it sounded good to her in the moment and she then thought it over and realized what a terrible idea it would be, or she didn’t have the energy and emotional reserves for an argument during all of these frantic phone calls and so just rolled with your planning till she got off the phone and did what she had to.
You have a very important job, LW, and I wouldn’t deny that for a second. Your career dictates so much of your life and therefore the life of anyone who would choose to spend it with you. In my experience with the Air Force boy I nearly married, that important job sometimes makes you forget that major life decisions do need to be shared with a partner. There are times when a transfer happens without your choice, but then that doesn’t give you free reign to make the decision alone when you do have a choice. And just because you think something is a good idea (move here and have a baby!) and she says she’s willing to talk about it, doesn’t mean that the decision is made. The most successful relationships work when both partners are involved in decision-making, which means that you have to listen to each other, and not just to the parts that reinforce what you want to do.
As far as what to do now, I would do what Wendy said. But be very careful in your language and make clear distinctions between your feelings and hers, and do not assume that she feels what you feel. Also be very careful in distinguishing between knowing what she wants because she has told you as much or thinking you know because she didn’t out-and-out tell you “No, I don’t want that.” Many younger women haven’t yet learned the art of voicing their opinions, and there’s not much that makes you feel more out of control than some dude prattling on about what you both want and thinking, “When did I ever say I wanted that? And now how am I going to tell him that’s not what I want?” And this girl doesn’t need to feel any less out of control of her life than she already feels.
Excellent perspective!
Thanks – my ex actually took two transfers and volunteered for a deployment while at the same time not telling me that he’d decided to go career (up till that point he was just fulfilling his ROTC contract) and THEN told me. I don’t think he was being malicious, but “I’m doing really important work” doesn’t matter one bit when it was never a life I agreed to. Ultimately it was what killed the relationship because he couldn’t fathom the mindset that no matter how important his *work* was, that didn’t make *him* more important than *me* and I couldn’t live with that.
That’s a good/interesting point of view that hasn’t been addressed. Painted_lady makes some good points.
yea, LW, you just need to back up…
online romances are not enough to translate into the real world, as is. not that you couldnt successfully make an online romance into a real world one, but you cant just “copy and paste” and live happily. you have to have that phase in the middle where you get to know each other all over again. knowing someone online and knowing someone in the real world are drastically different. then you add in a whirlwind week and an unplanned pregnancy, well now your really in a mess… and i totally agree with Painted lady about the military boy attitude- my friend right now is marrying his girlfriend of like, 6 months, so that he can be married when he goes back to afghanistan. he is scared about dying and so he wants her to have all his insurance money if he dies (something along those lines)…. and thats not all he even wanted! he wanted to have a kid with her before he went because he is also scared of having his junk blown off when is over there too!! i think to people not in the military, that sounds ridiculous (it sounds ridiculous to me!!). but i get the thought process…. i understand the want/need to plan for the future and do things now instead of later because of those dangerous parts. you have to understand that she didnt get that. that was too much for her. moving to a different country and having a baby with someone you have only known in the computer?? come on, no matter what your job was, that is a very very over the top thing to ask of someone.
so just back up…. give her the space she needs. and work on your own life so that she is no longer that only person for you. thats not healthy- you gotta get out of that.
This is one of those situations where I really want to hear the other party’s perspective. For all the people who recommended The Gift of Fear, I read it, and thank you. But two major points the book made pinged in my brain when I was reading the letter. The first one was how intense connections can be very one-sided based on limited interaction; the LW’s story in many ways fits the bill. He loved this woman before ever meeting her face-to-face, the girl seems to be far less invested, she has told him she doesn’t want to hear from him again, and he’s wondering what he should do. And he seems to have taken a “maybe” regarding the pregnancy and the move as a betrayal when she didn’t hop to ASAP. it could be the way it’s written, and the story may have happened exactly as he perceived it, but I wonder if she wasn’t freaked out by his intensity and was trying to de-escalate by giving him a maybe that he saw as a broken promise. Related, is the point that there is a pervading mentality that women may not chose the people they let into their lives. She’s asked him to leave her alone. Maybe it’s 100% due to stress and trying to slow down a relationship that moved way too fast, albeit with her consent, and maybe she’ll realize she made a mistake six months from now, but why is it she doesn’t have the right to make that mistake? She’s not going to forget he exists. She’s not going to lose his contact info. She should absolutely be able to say, “I don’t want you in my life” and have that wish respected and to be believed to know what she wants.
The fact that you were 12 when you two met really stands out right now. For 10 years you spoke online, and for only a week have you both met the physical one another. For the amount of time you have known each other, it seems it took her a minor moment to make the decision that she doesn’t want you in her life. With what happened, it doesn’t seem you are everything she needs (emotionally) – sad to say. I agree with Wendy, email her and give her space. I think you should hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It seems that she has made her decision also. And unfortunately it sounds like she does not hold you in the same regards. Stay strong, get yourself some answers, make an attempt, try to hear her out, remember to respect yourself too. Give her the space she needs, and with time you too shall get resolution