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for 2 weeks...is this "break" simply a pre curser to break up? Been a week today and I am not handling it very well...could use some advice. She started a new job/career several months ago and it is very demanding with a lot of travel...and our together time has dropped to nearly nothing...then last Saturday she asked for the "break", said we had been getting on each others nerves lately and maybe this would help. Said she still loves me, and has contacted be a couple of times this week, but sense the beginning of the end...relationships need work, not abandonment...I am using an aternative form of no contact, in that I'm waiting for her to contact me...is this the right approach? If we were indeed breaking up, I know what to do, but in this case...I don't know.
It may well be. She might be under a lot of stress and can't objectively reason out reasons for staying or leaving. She might need time and space and no arguments to figure it out.
Sometimes relationships do need to end for whatever reasons. Other times they require work but both people must be committed to doing the work. She might think she loves you and would love to work on the relationship but she's just not in a place to do that. or she might think that she loves you and wants to work on it. She may need the two weeks to figure out which one it is.
Sometimes people don't want to be in relationships that require more work than they are able to put into it. That's not a bad thing...it means you are a good person, I am a good person, our relationship has had good times but in the long term, during the stressful times, this is not the one for me.
It is very hard but it sounds like she is trying to figure out if your relationship is salvage-able and if she is able to do what needs to be done to salvage it. I would give her the two weeks but not allow yourself to be strung along for ever.
It's been a week. Give it another week and see how things are going...and check back in with us!!!
Thanks Susan, afraid of that just didn't want to admit it. The signs have been there for a while, I must have been in denial to a degree. I'll give her another week, but should I try and contact her, it was agreed we could talk, or just wait...seems I don't have much to lose. You don't know us but we have been very happy...and this is a shock and deeply sad, I am sure for both of us...but then it is not over. Yet.
Never in my life, will I understand why, when someone wants a break from us, we just say okay, and wait for them to let us know if its okay to be back in a relationship. Who gave them total control of this thing anyway?? Oh, YOU DID, and she knows it. I'll bet she really misses you, and cries knowing your sitting just anxious for the all clear signal. I am being sarcastic, but the point is, its pathetic to sit and wait for permission from someone. No contact is great, if you use it to heal, not heel, as in dogs commanded to sit. Get some balls, and get a life, and leave her alone while you find some love for yourself, and a little dignity, that she does not control you. She wants space, instead of working on this thing, give her all she can handle.
Susan, you asked me to check back in after this week, well it hasn't been a week, but she wants to meet tomorrow nite. It has been a rough few days, since I was on here last. There has been very little contact between us thru this "break" we are taking. Just a couple of phone calls, but she wanted space and I am trying to give it to her. Not that I believe that will accomplish anything. Rough Sat/Sun wondering about her...stayed busy, tried not to think about her, but to little avail. But during all of this I have begun getting ready, as much as one can, for the inevitable...the "break" to become the "break up".
The fact she is just taking a break has made it tougher not to "hope", that "hope" is the hardest. When I know for sure we are breaking up and not just assuming, it will be easier, believe it or not, to move on.
Regardless, I have been trying to stop the denial...and start to accept what has really been going on and that is that she has left and just hasn't figured out how to tell me.
Susan, you asked me to give it another week. I couldn't do it...I had to try and begin to move on, not that she knows that, she doesn't.
Now she has set the date, tomorrow nite. All the preperation I've done the last 4/5 days was worthless. I was so excited to see her text my heart was racing. Then when what she had to say sunk in...the utter devestation, like the wind being knocked out of me.
I woke up this morning at 3am knowing I had moved on and this sadness swept over me at that realization. Then this emotional moment this morning. I am such a basket case. Thank goodness no one know that but me!
I am writing today, in case I don't make it thru tomorrow nite! lol...kidding
Dr. Watson, what you said about nobody knowing your a basket case is untrue. I now know you are a basket case as well as all others that read or will read your post
Kidding aside, you seem to be wallowing in self-misery at this point, over what I ahve no idea. One does not project what one has no clue about. You have no idea what tomorrow night will hold in store, you only think it will be the end. Sounds like your just fine with leaving it like that and retiring at night wraped up in you blanket of sadness, c'mon man!!! If you meanwhatyou say than show up tomorrow unshaven, unkept, shirt hanging out, who needs socks anyway appearence and let her know whats going on.
You know nothing of tomorrow, face it like a man, go, find out, deal with it as it comes.
BMI makes another good point. The truth is that you have no idea what is going to happen when you talk to her. It's good to be prepared for the worst but at the same time don't jump to conclusions.
You don't want to be a part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I had my meeting last nite and she did NOT break up with me. She had a meeting with a counselor and we talked about how that went. We talked about what we could do to make things work better in the future. Compromise, in other words, on some issues. And made plans to meet again this weekend and talk one more time. No one knows how this one will turn out and I won't make the mistake of jumping to conclusions as before. I must say I feel better today and stronger.
The 2 weeks is up on Saturday, Susan, you recommended I give it that much.
Thanks BMI...rough 2 weeks for me! geez...still not over, but I am better prepared for whatever happens. I feel clear minded and in more of an acceptance phase than anything...I found out last night (I haven't breathed a word to her how I have felt, only this board) that I do have power in this. My self esteem and confidence are up considerably right now. Not because of hope, but because I am beginning to take my life back. I had lost that and that is precisely why our relationship broke down. I had lost that...and it may have cost me a most special person. I won't make that mistake again, regardless of what happens now.