Girl wants space after four year relationship
Threads merged
Evening all,
My girlfriend of four years and I recently went on a 'break' but now I feel lost and am in need of some advice.
I was the initiator of the break after I discovered she had not gone to a work meeting (as she had told me) but instead had gone out with a male co worker who constantly sends her text messages calling her 'babe' and commenting on her physique. His name is Lorenzo. He is the exact opposite of me in every way.
I then found out that she and he constantly exchange text messages. She calls it 'funny' flirting, but I know that the messages got pretty suggestive with plenty of innuendo.
I confronted her with this last week and we both agreed that a break was in order. She said she needed the break in order to 'find out who she was'. We have both been together since we were 17-18 and after four years she said she didn't have an identity besides being 'my girlfriend'. I thought to myself, that she was right.
She assured me that she was not going on a date to meet other guys. She says just wants to find herself, have some time to herself and then try to get back together. She says she still loves me and sees us one day getting married, going so far as to call me her 'future husband'.
But since last week things have gotten awkward for me. I know she has been out for 5 times in just one fortnight with 'Lorenzo' albeit she says in a group situation. I found out last night he even drove her home several times.
It just seems to me that although she says she wants to get back with me, she is genuinely interested in this other guy. I have asked her and she assures me nothing is going on with him. But judging by the attitude she took towards the messages they exchanged, I'm not so sure. She recently deleted all mention of me from her Facebook bio and relationship status page.
I know she's hanging out with all Lorenzo's friends and she's steadily being introduced into his social circle. Part of me wants to just let go now, to stop the contact and make her realize her mistake.
But it's impossible to just ignore her, when she tells me she loves me, and then continues to go out for drinks with this guy and get chummy with him and his friends and lie to me about it. I feel like she is playing me along in case things don't work out with new boy.
Should cut off contact from her?
The difficult thing is that her mum is having an operation within the next two weeks. I had promised her, for over a year now, that I would help her in any way I could while her mum recovered from surgery. Understandably, I can't ignore her during this time, but how can I reconcile it with myself and how can I go about it?
It's been hard because I'm a novelist and I have a deadline for 100,000 words due to my publisher tomorrow. I have no motivation to write but have been stuck at home for the past week trying to churn out 3000 words a day. All I do is stress about writing and wallow in misery while she goes out and parties with this new guy. This 'break' has been trying, to say the least.
I just did the dumbest thing.
I’m such an idiot. For those of you willing to read through this long post, feel free to slander me at the end.
It’s been 3 months since my 4 year relationship abruptly ended and I haven’t dated anyone else since I met my ex in high school. As a result, I’m thick as brick.
Today I was spending hours in my local bookshop when I saw a bookstore girl shelving in the aisle I was in. She was gorgeous in a non-conventional, mary-jane wearing, black-rimmed glasses kind of way. I was pretty floored. So being the idiot that I am - I pretended not to notice her. She continued to shelve books and I absent-mindedly browsed some section I had no interest in.
She finishes shelving and is about to walk away. I’m mentally kicking myself for not trying to talk to her. Then she turned around and asks me-
‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ (Take note, this is quite a vast book store, and staff generally do not ask customers anything unless approached)
In a stroke of genius I say ‘- no thanks. I’m just browsing.’
So she shrugs and waltzes away.
So after my clumsy strike out (about 5 minutes later and in a different part of the store) I’m in the classics section looking for an Updike biography..
The same girl, appears in my aisle, shelving again. This time, I tell myself I’m not going to be stupid again, so I lean over and say, ‘Excuse me. I’m looking for Updike’s bio, is it in the biography section, or under his own name?’
She offers to help me find it. So we go through the various sections without luck and she goes to the information counter with the computer and searches it up for me.
We banter for awhile as she taps away. I find out that she goes to the same university as I, and we are both in our last semester. And that we are both interested in the same post-graduate course next year.
So we talk for quite awhile, how long I don’t know. Long enough for another customer to join the queue behind me at the info counter – which funnily enough – she sends him away with a ‘Sorry, if you have an inquiry please go to the other counter,’ before turning back and continuing her conversation with me. This happens twice.
At one point I actually have to gesture at her computer and say – ‘and how about the book?’
Anyway, the last portion of the conversation pretty much goes as follows:
Her: ‘I work here every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Every second week I alternate the Wednesdays in the Thursdays.’
Me: ‘You manage to fit that in with uni?’
Her: ‘Yeh. How many days are you there?’
Me: ‘Oh I managed to fit all my classes onto Monday.’
Her: ‘.. yeh I’m in on Mondays. I have an early class.’
Me: ‘Yeh I go in early too.’
Her: ‘Mmm. Early morning classes are most dreadful.’
Anyway, there ends up being about a million different Updike biographies so she suggests I go back to my English lit class and found of which Updike bio I want.
Me: ‘Thanks I’ll be back next Saturday then.’
‘Yeh I’ll be in Saturday. Or Friday,' she says.
Me: ‘Sure, so I’ll see you around here then.’
‘Yeh I’ll see you here... or uni,' she says (Yes I realize I should probably have said something here, but instead I just waved and sauntered away).
In retrospect, it seems I might have had the chance there…or not. But I can’t help feeling like a dullard for not even trying. That’s pretty much how the conversation ended verbatim. Now I’m debating whether I should go back next week. Urgh, such a jackass.
