Self-doubt and Selfishness (long)
Hey guys... I am having a tough time with this breakup. I didn't expect it to be this difficult, since I don't think that it is a bad idea. But the pain that I am going through is throwing me for a loop, and I need to bounce questions off of you all here, if that's okay.
I fluctuate between feeling like this is a mutual need to grow and change, and a game of blame between my girlfriend and I. And when she says things, it is messing with my head about what I could've/should've done, if this was my fault that she was unhappy, if I could have worked on myself more and been less shut off from intimacy, if I had been less overbearing and more supportive of who she was as a person.
Was it wrong of me to ignore what she was saying regarding sex and the excitement in our relationship? Was it wrong to just hide behind my own fears of intimacy? Would this have happened regardless of if I had pushed through and had sex more often, been more attentive to her, etc.?
I know these are normal questions - was it my fault, could I have done something differently - after a breakup, but it's hard to know what the answers to these questions are. Is this a case of not knowing what you have until it's gone? Did I take her always being clingy and wanting to be with me as a reason to pull away from her and expect that she'd always be there?
I just don't know why relationships have to lose the excitement and passion - I just know they do. But is that me being stubborn and not willing to work on the relationship or on myself and issues with intimacy? Or is it that some people are willing to trade the original passion for that level of comfort and security? Is there anyway to reconcile that divide when one person wants the security and the other wants the new excitement?
I'm sorry to have to come running to you all with this... I'm just so sad and angry and confused today, and don't know what to do with all of these feelings. My g/f is still being reserved and barely showing any feeling of the loss. She continually gets defensive and argumentative and self-righteous about this being the right thing for her, that she can't focus on anything except moving out right now, etc. It feels like she is making up for all the time she spent backing down and being passive in the relationship now, by disputing every point I make when we talk, or by trying to prove that she can speak up for herself to me, or that what I'm thinking/feeling isn't any more right than what she is feeling.
I know that feeling is the only way to work through this for real and eventually move on. But I can't even think about that in this moment... I am missing what we had together, and she is in her new apartment, and I am angry and want to control what she is doing, who she is seeing, when she is feeling, etc. So I feel like I have been deluding myself. Unlike my last relationship, I never hit her, and I worked on communication with her all the time, and I tried to not be controlling in the relationship like I had been in the past, so I felt like I had made huge strides. But now, I am doubting that I did at all, and that it didn't matter anyhow, and was I just deluding myself, and once again someone got sick of being with me because of these controlling behaviors.
This just sucks.
-Sean
I fluctuate between feeling like this is a mutual need to grow and change, and a game of blame between my girlfriend and I. And when she says things, it is messing with my head about what I could've/should've done, if this was my fault that she was unhappy, if I could have worked on myself more and been less shut off from intimacy, if I had been less overbearing and more supportive of who she was as a person.
Was it wrong of me to ignore what she was saying regarding sex and the excitement in our relationship? Was it wrong to just hide behind my own fears of intimacy? Would this have happened regardless of if I had pushed through and had sex more often, been more attentive to her, etc.?
I know these are normal questions - was it my fault, could I have done something differently - after a breakup, but it's hard to know what the answers to these questions are. Is this a case of not knowing what you have until it's gone? Did I take her always being clingy and wanting to be with me as a reason to pull away from her and expect that she'd always be there?
I just don't know why relationships have to lose the excitement and passion - I just know they do. But is that me being stubborn and not willing to work on the relationship or on myself and issues with intimacy? Or is it that some people are willing to trade the original passion for that level of comfort and security? Is there anyway to reconcile that divide when one person wants the security and the other wants the new excitement?
I'm sorry to have to come running to you all with this... I'm just so sad and angry and confused today, and don't know what to do with all of these feelings. My g/f is still being reserved and barely showing any feeling of the loss. She continually gets defensive and argumentative and self-righteous about this being the right thing for her, that she can't focus on anything except moving out right now, etc. It feels like she is making up for all the time she spent backing down and being passive in the relationship now, by disputing every point I make when we talk, or by trying to prove that she can speak up for herself to me, or that what I'm thinking/feeling isn't any more right than what she is feeling.
I know that feeling is the only way to work through this for real and eventually move on. But I can't even think about that in this moment... I am missing what we had together, and she is in her new apartment, and I am angry and want to control what she is doing, who she is seeing, when she is feeling, etc. So I feel like I have been deluding myself. Unlike my last relationship, I never hit her, and I worked on communication with her all the time, and I tried to not be controlling in the relationship like I had been in the past, so I felt like I had made huge strides. But now, I am doubting that I did at all, and that it didn't matter anyhow, and was I just deluding myself, and once again someone got sick of being with me because of these controlling behaviors.
This just sucks.
-Sean
