Uncertainty
(449 views)I’ve been considering breaking up with my boyfriend for a while now. I finally did it today. It ended as positively as it could I suppose (neither of us hating the other) but it still hurts way more than I expected it to. I’ve thought about it so much, but I think I forgot about thinking how I would feel afterwards. It just happened several hours ago, but it feels like it’s been a week already.
He has been driving me crazy for over a month straight. We just think completely differently and cannot understand one another. That ends up creating tons of problems of course, and a lot of anger and sadness. For some reason, I’m now blind to all of that anger and sadness that our relationship had created.
I’m just so confused about what I should be doing. I’m so afraid of making the wrong decision and regretting it.
I feel so silly being afraid constantly, and especially silly being blind now to all the negative things that happened and that I felt.
I’m house sitting right now and I’m sleeping on the couch tonight because I’m afraid of waking up in a big bed and seeing him not there.
(This vent has no vote question)
An anonymous user says:
Breaking up almost always hurts more than you expect it to. That’s just normal. It’s a big change to lose someone who was always there with you, and it takes some getting used to. Sadness, fear and anger is all part of the natural process of getting over someone like that.
As to whether or not you made the right move, it’s hard to say without knowing more details about your situation. Relationships take a lot of work. They never go on successfully just on their own. Even people you may have seen who appear to have easy happy relationships are working hard on them “behind the scenes.”
If you had a great relationship with this guy for a long time and then only over the past month had problems that led to you breaking up with him, I suspect you may have been able to salvage the relationship instead of having to end it. But again, that depends on what the actual facts of your specific situation are.
Lack of understanding comes from lack of communication. From what you wrote, it sounds like one or the other (or both) of you stopped communicating openly with each other somewhere along the way. Keeping the communication lines open between each other is where a lot of the work in a relationship comes from.
In relationships, people stop communicating with one another for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they just don’t realize the importance of it and so don’t do it. Other times they start having too many things to hide from one another and that causes them to stop communicating freely. And sometimes one or both people just don’t have enough courage to keep the communication going. Communication isn’t always easy, but it’s necessary for a healthy relationship.
Just talking at each other, by the way, is not the same thing as real communication. Communicating means sharing ideas with each other and understanding each others’ viewpoints. And each partner needs to feel safe communicating whatever is on their mind to the other person. Otherwise they hold it in for fear of “rocking the boat” and causing upset, and lack of communication sets in. It only gets worse from there.
Beaver says:
That’s exactly what happened with our relationship too. He was never good at communicating and when I did communicate with him, I never felt supported or like I was really being listened to. While we were living together for the past month, I felt like I got more comfortable around him, but didn’t get closer to him. I tried to many times to help him communicate with me more and just learn how to talk and open up (he doesn’t with anyone) but it didn’t work out.
Thank you for your response. I didn’t expect one, and especially didn’t expect one that took some thought.
An anonymous user says:
Yeah, you’ll be happier with someone who can communicate at the same level that you communicate. He may be a great guy, but if you and him are communicating at different levels you’ll be frustrated with him quite a bit and not as happy as you could be. So while it may be hard now, you’ll probably be happy with your decision down the road. There’s someone out there more right for you than he was.
Beaver says:
Thank you for your support. It really helps to feel like I’ve made the right decision. Running back to him out of loneliness will not help.