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Girlfriend broke up with me out of nowhere.


TheDevileliet

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I understand psychology, the very act of even talking is my attempt at shaping the situation into what I want. Every human manipulates, at every second of every interaction we have with anything, we're trying to manipulate the situation, I know you weren't using it in a negative sense. "We are all manipulating (the technical term is 'shaping') people's behavior all the time, whether it is intentional or not. If someone cracks a joke in poor taste, you refuse to laugh or your rebuke them. If someone nags you and you cooperate once they do, you are shaping their behavior to encourage nagging."

It's just human interaction, but as it stands right now, I want her to see my perspective of things too. If she decides that it's okay for us to talk tomorrow (or Thursday if something comes up) I want her to hear my story.


I draw a distinction. In one form you're dependent on the outcome and do all sorts of things to try to make the outcome occur, trying to bypass the other person's agency. In the other form you want the other person's agency a core part of the outcome and simply want to lay things at their doorstep and let them make whatever they want of it and decide their own actions. The latter is what I'm suggesting. It's the one where you just lay out what you want and what you're going through, and then let go of the situation and let it go however it does and basically accept it almost like it's what's fated to happen anyway (so you had no room to try to influence it any more). It's part of keeping the focus on oneself rather than constantly psycho-analyzing the other person (as some have suggested doing, trying to understand in a mechanistic way why she's acting the way she is). It may work for someone but it seems like taking on a huge burden almost as if you have to. It's why I consider it an evasion of sorts, of what's going on with oneself. Figure that out and what the other person is doing won't matter so darn much. It makes the second approach above much easier, of just laying your things out and finishing "your move" and letting the world/her make their move freely.

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TheDevileliet

Just a follow up, we ended up not getting back together. We're still friends. I asked her if we ever had any chance of getting back together, to which she replied with "I don't know if there's going to be another time. Probably not honestly. I don't want to date again ever."

Not just me, but she's done dating anyone. Period.

She explained that she's so introverted to the point where she could drop off the face of the planet for like 3 months without communicating with a single person and be fine with it, I've seen it before. She also was in a relationship with someone else who was aromantic and asexual and that one didn't work out either, so I guess that's the end of the road for her. She went on to explain that she just wants to have a roommate that's a close friend or someone she can trust.

After talking to her I feel much better and I'm going to take her "probably not" as a no so I don't string myself along.

We'll probably grow apart over time since I now realized how overwhelmingly introverted she is and probably just talked on Skype for me, since even that is draining for her. I think it's a shame that we ended it, but if she wasn't happy it's for the best and you don't have to ever find a partner to be happy. Good for her. Good for me. For the first time since the break up, I'm looking forward to the future.

I want to thank you all for the advice, it was appreciated.

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She explained that she's so introverted to the point where she could drop off the face of the planet for like 3 months without communicating with a single person and be fine with it, I've seen it before. She also was in a relationship with someone else who was aromantic and asexual and that one didn't work out either, so I guess that's the end of the road for her. She went on to explain that she just wants to have a roommate that's a close friend or someone she can trust.

Aww, sorry to hear that. :( The friendship thing might not be feasible, to be honest it kind of seems like she's not being very genuine with you. :/ It all sounds fishy to me, the kissing and subsequent breakup, her attitude now.. Sounds to me like she doesn't care to have you in her life. I guess if there's one thing to take away from this, it's how important it is for a relationship to be based off a strong friendship.

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TheDevileliet

@Tarfeather

After being able to get all those feeling out, I've actually felt a LOT better. I think I might actually even be over the relationship. She's not being fishy, but the thing is, she really is SUPER to herself, like interacting with other people just isn't her thing, doing it for a couple hours for a day tires her out for days and days, a relationship just isn't something she can take. I appreciate the effort that she put into it, but when I think about our entire relationship with my calm mind now, it's kind of funny, like all those times where she never put in an effort, all the times where I watched her favorite movies and shows and animes, i tried her favorite games and tried all of her hobbies. She enjoyed writing short stories so I sent her my favorite one, and even after 4 months, she just never read it even though I mentioned it to her multiple times, it's 5 pages long...

I feel stronger now that things are over. If she wanted me back, I wouldn't take her. Not unless she came to some miraculous realization that she wasn't aromantic and asexual. Her decision to end things were for the wrong reason in my opinion, I still think I could've made it work, but now that I take my rose tinted glasses off, she never made up for her lack of romantic or sexual interaction by showering me with affection in some other way. Things like reading my favorite short stories or getting into my hobbies or trying my favorite things of any sort. It's just not worth it. She's not worth it, not in her current state. My friends told me that constantly for the last half a year and I never agreed with them, but I see it now.

She's a sweet girl. She is. I wish her nothing but the best, but when I think about it, I don't even think she's worth being a friend. When I think about it, I always have to be the one who starts the conversation and do this or that. Her being a generally distant person is fine, but it's beyond that, I think she's inconsiderate, I think she doesn't realize how her actions effects those around her, I think she's naive and that's why she's inconsiderate. She's a good person at heart, but now that my eyes are open, I realized just how shitty our relationship was, how little effort she put into it. For most of our relationship she was able to use her parents as an excuse for us to not do things together, she didn't realize she was using them as an excuse, but I think subconsciously she was. Then when her parents gave her freedom, she used college as an excuse. When her classes ended, she didn't have anything left, and it was over, and she didn't even talk it through with me, she just dropped me. I was never worth anything important to her, and I see that now, it wasn't anxiety, it was a lack of importance.

I know it sounds like venting, but over the course of today all the emotions kind of came back, I realized all the stress that came with our relationship, I remembered how crappy she made me feel just by never putting in her fair share of effort, and I completely forgot about all that the second we broke up. A movie called Eternal Sunshine kind of reminded me that when things are over, you only remember the good, but once you're over it, you remember the rest.

Thank you so much for your help, and I'm happy she didn't take me back, I can finally move on. The only way that I'd ever be willing to take her back if within the next X amount of time before I got into another relationship would be if she somehow changed A LOT and became a caring person out of nowhere somehow. I learned a valuable lesson from all of this. Never give my heart to someone who doesn't want it.

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The father not acknowledging you and instead spending hours outside would have been a huge red flag for me. At the very least, he should have been somewhat curious as to who was sitting inside his house.

Live and learn, as they say ....

Lucinda

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This is a shame but I think it's another case of just knowing where things stand... or rather, where they can't, frees up a lot of stress and agony of wondering what things aren't working. I think now that you know, you can safely say that it really wasn't going to work out, and unfortunately, she wasn't quite as committed to relating to people at all, it seems.

I hope you move forward knowing that there wasn't really anything you could have changed in this situation. It seemed like it was set from the start. I still commend you for trying to give her the space she needed with interactions- a trait I hope you manage in the future as well- on the other hand, I can understand that giving her the benefit of the doubt in this case really backfired. You need someone who's going to work with you and be honest even when they're scared of something. ..I'm really not sure she did that.

I hope if you ever have any questions or thoughts in the future you'll come back and visit. We're happy to help. Good luck out there. :)

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TheDevileliet

@Flits

Thank! You guys really have been awesome. Yeah ahaha, I find it depressingly hilarious that the problems in our relationship had nothing to do with her asexuality or aromanticism, but I guess that makes me happier in some odd way.

She still wants to be friends, and if we stay friends our relationship will still be like 99% the same as when we were in the relationship, so I'm more than happy to do that, but the problem is I was willing to accept that our relationship was 95/5 (well closer to 100/0) but when it comes to friends, I only accept 50/50 (obviously there are times when someone is putting in more or less effort than the other, but I expect it to equal out overall) I told myself that it's okay that I'm exclusively putting in all the effort in our relationship, both the friendship and dating aspect, because she cared about me in a way that no other person could, and that meant enough to me for me to continue doing what I did. Now that I realize that wasn't the case at all, I mean I know she cared about me, maybe even a lot more than she portrayed, the fact that she tried to have a physical relationship with me even though it was against her nature was something amazing of her to try. I know she had her own ways of showing how much she cared about me, and I won't deny that, I mean she's a very to herself person and she's also not touchy feely, but she still did all that stuff with me because she knew I wanted it. It meant a lot to me and she truly is an amazing person, but I'm happier that we broke up, maybe one day in the short or distant future there will be a chance that we'll both be compatible and single at the same time and willing to try again. I decided that I'll let her control the flow of our friendship, she has to start the conversations, and in turn I'll start them back too on other days, I know she has issues initiating conversations and such so just showing some interest in her friendship with me, I'll put in a lot more effort and if she wants to hang out, she has to invite me and in turn I'll invite her a bunch more. I don't expect either of those to happen much if at all and that's why I think we'll drift apart. So be it, she was a precious part of my life and one I'd like to keep, but if she doesn't want me to be part of hers, then I see no reason in continuing.

Thanks again though for the help!!

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but the problem is I was willing to accept that our relationship was 95/5 (well closer to 100/0) but when it comes to friends, I only accept 50/50

lol, oh wow.. I am in the same situation. Relationship: I somewhat could handle 90/10. But when I switch to friendship mode.. that for me means 50:50 or at least 60:40. Because you can have many friends and why bother with 90/10 friendship? I mean, what's the point. So as I adapt to friendship it's drifting more to acquaintance because of her level of engagement.

decided that I'll let her control the flow of our friendship, she has to start the conversations, and in turn I'll start them back too on other days, I know she has issues initiating conversations and such so just showing some interest in her friendship with me, I'll put in a lot more effort and if she wants to hang out, she has to invite me and in turn I'll invite her a bunch more. I don't expect either of those to happen much if at all and that's why I think we'll drift apart.

Yea, my point exactly, and my experience. I can't always start conversations. I don't want to. It's torture. It's pointless. And even when they are started, I have to lead them and do 80%+ of the talking. I mean, come on. How many friendships survive like that? I don't know of any like that.

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El-not-so-ace

I know this thread's pretty much closed now, but I'd like to thank you for sharing all of this with us. I feel like the situation with the parents is very very similar to my own family that really doesn't allow me much freedom. And my dad has already snubbed people in the past and seems like he'll throw a fit if I ever get a boyfriend.

Reading all of this was very therapeutic for me and gives me hope that, as long as I try my hardest, that I can overcome things as long as I don't give up and retreat to my comfort zone. :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
TheDevileliet

I know this thread's pretty much closed now, but I'd like to thank you for sharing all of this with us. I feel like the situation with the parents is very very similar to my own family that really doesn't allow me much freedom. And my dad has already snubbed people in the past and seems like he'll throw a fit if I ever get a boyfriend.

Reading all of this was very therapeutic for me and gives me hope that, as long as I try my hardest, that I can overcome things as long as I don't give up and retreat to my comfort zone. :)

Ahaha, I'm glad to hear this thread helped out someone else besides me! It's nice to ease out of your comfort zone! For those who are willing to give it a try, it almost always yields great results, so long as you aren't forcing yourself to do things that you don't want to. ^^

I curiously happened to check out this thread right now to see if there was anyone else who commented.

As for an update on my current situation if anybody happens to come across this thread again, I've come to realize now that my ex and I had very little in common to begin with other than maybe ideologies and some interests here and there, nothing major that we could actually experience together. I think what I liked the most about her was the idea of her, it was my first relationship after all. I enjoyed the time we had together, but I remain fairly bitter about how badly she broke up with me and how one-sided all of this was. I also am fairly bothered by the fact that she told me the major concerns of her being asexual and aromantic well after we were already dating, even though we knew each other for maybe 7-8 months at that point, but in the end, while not for the same reasons, we're both better off broken up. My quality of life didn't go up at all because of her as a person, but rather because I had a girlfriend, and now that she's out of my life, a lot of the stress that I had from being with her has completely vanished. I'm happier without her. In time this would've probably meant once the "oh my god I have a girlfriend!" feeling wore off, I'd be left with a fairly incompatible relationship. She's a good person, even though she's EXTREMELY inconsiderate, but in the end, she doesn't realize how she's inconsiderate, she doesn't mean to be. I hope we still stay friends, but we only talk once every other day, and maybe for a half an hour or so when we do. Once I started looking at her as a normal person, I realized that all we really do is banter and talk a little here and there through typing on skype, I went from finding everything she said to be hilarious, to just kinda funny at best every now and then. (Though we don't talk like we used to) Since she never wants to hang out or do anything online together like play video games, I realized that we're not really even friends, even though I thought of her as highly as my best friends that I've known for 3 to 8 years when we were together. I guess I really had those rose tinted glasses on ahaha.

The first relationship is out of the way! The tutorial phase is done with, I learned a lot about myself and won't chalk up red flags as a coincidence anymore!

Just a disclaimer, everything I said was from my perspective, for all I know I could've been an awful boyfriend, I don't think I was and I tried to be very lenient, open, and accepting, but what do I know.

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