“He Dumped Me, But I Don’t Want to Give Up on Us”
Anyway, Pete started taking a course in September that was to last nine weeks and take up nearly all of his time. Though we had a date every Sunday, it was frustrating not being able to spend more time with each other. I wanted more security, so I asked him to be my boyfriend and then he ended things. He said he felt like he wasn’t able to give me the attention I deserved, that he felt selfish for holding on to me so long, and that he wants to be friends. That night I sent him an email telling him I had been crazy about him, he made me feel sexy and beautiful, and that I had never been so mentally or physically attracted to someone. I told him that I had hoped I meant more to him but the way he broke up with me proved I must not have. I told him I didn’t want to be friends because being friends means you don’t mind seeing the other person dating other people. I also told him that I heard him very quietly tell me he loved me a few weeks back I pretended not to hear but I wanted him to know I heard it.
He replied, thanking me for my email and apologizing again. He also wrote:
I guess I was simply afraid of growing dependent on someone other than myself. Also, the thought of continuing our relationship, and increasing the risk of hurting you more, made me feel incredibly guilty and selfish. Lastly, I don’t exactly recall the moment that I dropped the ‘L’ word, though there are many things about you that I do love. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip ;). Take good care of yourself.
Then he texted me the next day, saying I deserved a better explanation and asked if he could buy me coffee over the weekend. So, I met with him and we had a heart-to-heart, talking for three hours straight. He said that after he read my email, he realized that no one has ever felt for him so deeply. He then told me that he didn’t see the relationship becoming long-term. And *then* he mentioned that he had wanted to take me to visit his friends and family in New Zealand, which confuses me because he said he didn’t see a future. Right before we parted he said, “I feel like things may have ended prematurely.”
I don’t want to give up on this. As sad as this may seem, this was the most real relationship I have ever been in. I don’t want to give up, but if you think it’s time to move on, I will try my hardest. — Not Feeling Special
I can understand the temptation to cling to a relationship that in many ways feels “real” or like the best thing you’ve had in your life in a long time, but you also have to look at the large picture and consider everything before you decide this is something worth fighting for or pursuing. First of all, and certainly not the least important factor, “Pete” told you he doesn’t see a future with you. That was a really honest and even kind thing to tell you. He feels like you DO see a future with him and, realizing how hard you’re falling, he wanted to spare you the hurt of investing so much energy and time into something he feels has an eventual end point.
Now, maybe, that end point is a long way off. Maybe Pete could happily date you for several years even before deciding he was at a stage in his life where he was ready to “settle down,” and that would mean finding the relationship that would be very long-term and not just temporary. And it’s even possible than in the next few years, if you two dated that long, he might have a change of heart. Maybe he would fall in love with you in a way you want him to — in a way that would have him wanting to commit to you forever. But considering that he already told you that he doesn’t see that happening, there’s a pretty good chance he would leave you eventually, and I think it would be much harder to be left later than to be left now.
So, yes, Pete thinks maybe he broke up with you prematurely, and yes, that does seem to indicate that he would enjoy spending more time with you. Maybe he’d take you to meet his family in New Zealand. Maybe you two could enjoy other trips together and holidays and weekends hanging out while he progressed in his career. Maybe for a while, you could be his companion — not quite a girlfriend, but certainly a step above a booty call. But that doesn’t mean you have the security you crave. In fact, knowing what you know now — that Pete sees your relationship ending eventually — would, I think, create the exact opposite of security. Wouldn’t you always be wondering when the end was coming? Wouldn’t you always be worried about him growing bored and finally being done with you? And isn’t that a pretty horrible way to feel? Especially in relation to someone you have such strong feelings for yourself? It throws the whole power dynamic off, and as someone who already has an emotionally abusive marriage under her belt, you don’t need to be in another relationship where your own power is so limited.
And speaking of that emotionally abusive marriage: you say the divorce was finalized in May. And then you started dating Pete in June? You know, you could probably benefit from a stretch of time with NO relationship drama. You could probably benefit from being alone for a while and finding the security you crave from a life outside of a relationship — from yourself and your support system and a life that you are an active participant in. Fill your days with things that bring you joy and that’s where security comes from — knowing that YOU have control and power in creating a happy existence and that you don’t have to rely on a boyfriend to do that for you. That’s where you get power. And once you have it, you’ll never again settle for a relationship that so greatly diminishes that power.
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If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
If a relationship prompts you to write e-mails like this one – automatic MOA.
D:
^ <3
Yes on the May/June timeline – for the love of God, LW, give yourself sometime. It is possible Pete is THE ONE but it is also possible that he is a rebound who doesn’t treat you like shit and therefore you became too attached too quickly.
Oh geez, isn’t unrequited love the worst? I get LW, I do. Listen to people when they tell you who they are: Pete said he doesn’t see a future with you. Listen to him. Cut off contact since it will be hard for you to be in constant communication with him.
That was a lovely, compassionate answer Wendy. Listen to her LW!
This guy sounds like one of those people who wants to be the eternal good guy, so he is sending all these texts and responding to your emails in a nice way and trying to reassure you that you are a great girl etc and instead, is just giving false hope (I don’t think he is a bad guy at all, just people do this a lot when they are the breaker-upper to assuage their guilt and it backfires imo). Don’t read into all of the things he is saying or texting. The quicker you accept what he actually did (break-up with you) and what he said then (I don’t see a future with you) as the truth, the better it will be. I think that you guys need to cut off the communication and you need to take some time to be alone. Don’t be friends, don’t email him, don’t text him. If he has no intentions of getting back together with you, this is just hurting you more in the end. I am really sorry you are going through a sort of break-up so quickly after a divorce, but girl, take some time for you. Relationships are great but so is being alone and rediscovering things that you love and that make you a happy person. Here is a secret from a single girl- its so nice to not have to deal with the drama that relationships and especially dating in this day and age can bring. So please just slow down and focus on yourself for awhile.
This! LW, the worst thing you can do is analyze every word he says for deeper meaning. You are just going to feel worse and nothing is going to change. I’m sorry; I know it hurts.
LW, you just got out of an abusive marriage. I’m sure it’s left you with some baggage and scars, probably many you haven’t even realized yet. I think you would benefit from seeing a therapist. The key to finding a solid, happy relationship is not needing one. You should learn to be happy with yourself, because if you don’t have that foundation then no guy will be able to really make you happy. It’s not your partner’s job to make you a complete person, you have to be one all on your own. The pressure you put on someone by asking them to take on the task of making you a whole is too much for any relationship to withstand healthily.
So find a therapist to help you through your relationship baggage. Now that you’re single, focus on you. Take a class for something you’ve always wanted to learn, travel somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. Is there anything you’ve wanted to try that your husband held you back from doing? Do it now. Are there any friends you’ve neglected because of your bad marriage? Reach out to them. Make new friends; it’s harder as an adult, but it’s not impossible if you’re willing to put yourself out there. Work on becoming the very best version of yourself that you can, and the rest will fall into place.
And please try to remember that rejection is not always about you. Being rejected by someone (whether it’s a romantic partner of someone you hoped would be a new friend) is often just about a mismatch in personality or values. Most of the time, it isn’t about one person doing something wrong or not being good enough, it’s simply about two people not being a good match. Cake and cheese are both awesome on their own, but you would never put them together. People can be the same way-awesome individually, but just not a great pair. So try not to let this get you down about yourself.
You don’t get to negotiate a break up. If someone breaks up with you, that is their right and you don’t get to take it away no matter how much it hurts. You may be willing to put in the work but he isn’t. That means that he doesn’t think that your relationship is WORTH it. You don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who thinks that. Eat some Haagen daz, listen to some break up music and stand on your own two feet emotionally.
WWS. Also, please see a therapist. You need to figure out why so much of your self-worth derives from other people.
I really get where you’re coming from. I’ve felt that way too. For a long time. And therapy really helped me. Also, getting to a place where I felt good about myself, whether or not a man was reassuring me, is I think the biggest thing that prepared me to have a stable, healthy relationship at last. In order to get there, you need to figure out who you are, on your own, for a while. If you’re already divorced at 25, with another serious relationship before that marriage too, it sounds like you haven’t spent a lot of your adult life being single. Try it. It’s not as terrifying as it seems.
Also, read Jane Eyre. It’s about a woman with a steely sense of self-respect who gets into the most “real” romance of her life…and then sticks to her guns when things get bad, even if it means losing her man.
When I was 17, I had a huge crush on this guy I worked with, who was…maybe 21. We flirted at work, and eventually started talking on the phone. I broke up with my boyfriend because this guy seemed interested (and that relationship had run its course too) and I hung out with the guy a couple of times, slept with him of course, and it was great. The first time I’d ever had a guy who I had a crush on like me back! And then he started dating another girl that we worked with…who was closer to his age, and also gorgeous. I made the mistake of trying to explain to him one night on the phone why this sucked so bad for me. To be sort of tossed aside for another girl. He told me I needed a psychiatrist, haha.
I think, LW, that your story reminded me of this, because sometimes being rejected makes us awfully pathetic. We start to wonder what is wrong with US, when really, a break-up is more about him, and what he wants/needs at the time. He has already told you he doesn’t see a future, you have to accept him at his word.
Also, why does it necessarily mean he’s “afraid of commitment” just because he hasn’t had a long relationship? A lot of times, that’s just circumstances.
It sucks when someone who breaks up with you is SO nice, so fucking nice about it all. And will respond to your crazy, crazy letters with grace. But none of that means there is any hope for you two. At all. I think it can be hard to get over someone when they don’t act like a complete jerk. But stop putting him on this pedestal because he’s not the perfect guy you have imagined. Allow yourself to hate him if that’s what it takes to get over him.
Such a perfectly written reply by Wendy. Wise and kind at the same time. I wish I had read this after numerous similar relationship/break-up woes in my 20s. I had a knack for finding JUST the kind o guy that LW describes here. I wasted so much time on them. I hope LW wises up much sooner and moves on to find Mr. Right.
LW, nooooooo! Do not pursue this. I have been there. The relationship was great — but it wasn’t really public. We acted like we were together, but he wouldn’t commit. He would tell me that he loved me, but maybe it was just like a really good friend or family member. It felt secure, but it was not. He was never going to put me first, help me out, or fight in the trenches with me. And at the end, the house of cards came crashing down on me because I *knew* and he *had told me* all along that this wasn’t a serious relationship. EJECT! You are better off using your time and energy focusing on you than a person who will happily string you along for their own benefit because you’re both “having fun” and he read you the disclaimer.
Take ME to New Zealand Pete!!
This guy told you what he wanted and it’s not what you want. Move on. Don’t be one of those desperate women who chase men who don’t want them. The whole meet the family thing? That happened to me and it’s a dick move. He’s trying to figure out how to let you down without the tears, or he’s just selfish. He shouldn’t have said it in the first place. In your state of mind,you could only interpret it as a sign he didn’t really want to let go. By the way, that email? Smacks of desperation. I know it felt good to tell him he was lousy in bed, but seriously, if he is, why do you want that? Especially after he dumped you. I know you’ve been through a lot. Please take time outside of a relationship to work on yourself so you can be a whole person. Then you can find a truly fulfilling relationship.
You know it’s gonna be good when they start in on their special snowflake kind of love.
And I agree with those above who say you should never be in a relationship that makes you send emails like that. Good lord, I haven’t written one of those since high school. When you get to your third PS…. that should be a wakeup call.
Do you want to be with someone you have to beg to like you? No.
New Zealand guy shout out!
…….oh no. Sorry. He’s slipping and sliding, but he is absolutely breaking up with you. Actually, you’ll notice he was never your boyfriend. They do that sometimes. They think its saving your feelings, but it still hurts and thats ok.
I second whoever said get some therapy. Your email reply is not normal and a really strange read.
LW, find your self respect and move on with your life. There are other men out there who aren’t wishy washy man children with a fear of commitment.
Also, you need therapy in a bad way.
In many stories, TV shows, and movies, the female protagonist aches and anx’es and perseveres with the wonderful guy who is so slow to recognize that she is THE ONE. Somewhere just before the closing credits, true love prevails and they have a storybook wedding and their fairy tale life together begins.
Sadly, real life is not a Disney production. If a guy dumps you, treat it as final and MOA.
Wendy’s point about living single for a while and letting yourself settle out emotionally, etc. is great advice.
when relationships work, they work. You communicate. The drama level is at <5%. You have fun, see each other, express mutual interest in each other. I hope you find that one day LW.
Oy vey…
This is the shit BGM always rants about women doing.
LW, why be with a man who is anything less than absolutely fucking ecstatic to be with you? You shouldn’t have to convince, and struggle with, a man to be in a happy, healthy relationship. Go do YOU AND ONLY YOU for a while, and let love find you when it’s the right time.
I think you need to be careful about getting so attached to someone when you haven’t even established that you both want to be together. I’ve done it, too, and what I realized is that the very top of your list for a partner is someone who is interested in you. You can find someone who is super amazing and fun, and those things are great, but isn’t it more important that it’s someone who wants to be in a relationship with you?
Aside from that, I want to address some things you said at the beginning of your letter. First, you assume he’s a commitment-phobe. That may be true, but nothing good comes of making assumptions about how someone else feels. You can’t know what someone else feels. You can try and try, but in the end, maybe it’s true and maybe not. And deciding that they have this presumably negative quality (and one that is supposedly “fixable”) to explain why they aren’t into you is very problematic. It ignores the fact that sometimes people just genuinely aren’t interested in you romantically and it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them or that they just have a problem that needs to be fixed.
Second, you say that because you felt love now, you realized you didn’t feel love before. Emotions are much stronger when we are feeling them, so you’re always going to feel like you love someone more now than you did someone previously. Maybe a relationship went south or maybe you honestly didn’t love someone as much, but I’d be wary of trying to discount feelings simply because you’re no longer feeling them.
Yikes, if a guy wrote this everybody would say he was CRAZY! And rightly so, I must say. Take a step back, LW. Clearly, you are more in LOVE with the idea of being in love than you with the person you claim to be in love with.
Seriously? Your email was pretty fucking bitchy.
If I got an email like that — I am not sure I’d have even bothered to respond. Your EX is just being nice here in the most misguided way. Give up the fantasy — and work on being single for a while… You are simply so NOT ready for a relationship. Solve your issues and then start dating. DATING! Not BOYFRIENDING! There is a big difference.
Is it too much to expect to be placed on a pedestal, especially after the marriage that just ended. I would take a breather and examine how you can be whole emotionally before spending time really investing in the dating aspect of life.
If you are only 25 and have been in two long-term relationships, including a marriage I am guessing that means your entire adult life, and you haven’t learned to just be yourself by yourself. I had a friend who had serial relationships like this, and with each one, she would tell me how they “just clicked” and she’d “never felt like this with anyone else” and every time, as soon as it ended, she’d be right out looking for the next perfect guy. Finally, in her late 20s she started therapy and spent two years not dating, just going out with friends, working on her hobbies, learning that she was actually able to live and do everything she needed to on her own, so when she did meet the right guy, she was ready to be the right woman. They have now been married 15 years and are still as crazy in love as they were when they started dating.
He told you he loved you, you ignored it, then demanded more time from him while he was on an intensive course, instead of waiting a couple of weeks.