Has anyone else had feelings like it wasn't over, after a breakup?

Yep, but my pride was bigger, so I let it die :s

I would share with you and the others, but the memories are still too painful for me.

I have a story like that. I was a naive little girl from “the other side of the tracks” and he was a missionary kid whose parents ran a very prominent international Bible translation mission. I thought he was kind of nerdy at first, and he pursued me hard. When I finally fell for him it was head over heels! Eventually we were engaged. In hindsight, he rubbed my lower social status in my face a lot, and he had trouble forgiving me for relationships I had before we ever met. Even so, I was crazy about him and anxious to spend the rest of my life with him.
My memory is that I just wasn’t good enough for him and so he moved across the country back to where his parents lived and married a girl who worked with his father whose grandfather supposedly founded some Christian college. (better pedigree.) I always had some irrational hope that he would see the error of his ways and come running back to me.
Fast forward 30 years. I have been widowed once have 3 grown children and am now married to the most amazing man in the world. He treats me like a princess, takes me all over the world and brings me nothing but joy. Still there is a place in my heart that wonders, “what if?”
I’m sitting in my office and I get an email from, yes, the guy. Even though I probably shouldn’t have, I call him. he tells me history from his perspective, how he was young and pressured by his father to marry “the right” woman. He has been every bit as successful as I knew he would be. He asked me to leave my husband and pick up where we left off. Ironically, he tells me of a crisis in his marriage that happened shortly after my first husbands death. he said how he had come so close to finding me at that time.
I could not believe my tears. I didn’t realize how much of my self esteem had been bottled up in his rejection. I had an opportunity to look at my life and look at him now and imagine where my life would have been had we actually married.
The conclusion I came to was that I had an infinitely better life now, in spite of the heart ache and the pain than I ever would have had with him. Sure, I would have been cared for financially and never would have gone through the pain I suffered at my first husbands death, but I never would have experienced true love and adoration like I get from my husband. With him I always would have been a little “less than.” Now I am the queen of our home and there is so much mutual respect. I am married to the perfect man for me, and I think I am also the perfect compliment to him.
I don’t regret having had the relationship, and I am even happier that I got the real closure I needed even if it was 30 years late.

Why are you forced to continue to have her in your life? Most of the time it’s having to let go of all of the plans we had, or the idea we had of the relationship that makes it difficult.

Usually, if you look at the reasons why you broke up, and your real feelings, then time does the trick. Keeping a person in your life doesn’t help. I’ve made that mistake before. If deep inside of you, you know it’s not meant to happen with this person, then you really need to cut off all contact. Our feelings of attachment and guilt sometimes make us think we need to keep in contact with them, but if the reasons why you can’t be together are valid, then it tends to not help either party to keep seeing each other. You can’t move on, and neither can the other person.

I’ll say it’s happened. My ex, after living together for nearly 5 years, broke up with me… started dating a girl at his job within a week, and within a month, had her pregnant. Did I mention he hadn’t yet moved out of the apartment? I didn’t handle any of it well. When he was supposed to move out, he said that his boss asked him for another month, or he wouldn’t approve the transfer of employment for the move. I accused him of lying to stay here so he can stay with his pregnant girlfriend and drive a nice sporty car at my expense (we purchased a car together and he’d been running up the mileage on my gas money and barely contributed jack to the gas tank, rent, or bills he was soaking up, while dancing on my heart no less. He was sooooome multitasker). He eventually moved out, and now has a kid and a crappy job and a girlfriend that barely speaks English (and he ONLY speaks English), and he still lives in his mother’s house. So I give praise to whatever being there may be that it’s over with him.

Her and I have a working relationship that cannot just be cut-off quite yet. We also have a mutual group of friends and social scene. We didn’t break up on bad terms at all. We are both in our 30’s so we’ve had other relationship experiences and there is no doubt both love one another a great deal. She feels in so many ways I am all she has ever been looking for, but she is feeling that some kind of spark, passion or chemistry is missing between us and we have become best friends. We broke up because she is feeling like she needs to figure out what’s going with her, figure out what she wants and needs, but not drag me through it all, and I agree despite how hard it is for me.

Like I said, I really am doing all I can to move on right now, and better myself. I just have these undeniable feelings that we’re not done. But I am letting it go, it’s just not easy and I know it never is. I am not clinging to hope so to speak, but I guess I cannot really fully explain it. I do know that only time heal.

Yup. But it was. she ended it. But wasn’t sure. And i got tired of waiting for her to figure it out.

I kind of know how you feel. I divorced my wasband after 22 years, and now 6 years later, I still feel connected to him. In the divorce settlement, we share the house. I own it, and gave him a life estate, so we talk about certain issues, such as property taxes, repairs, etc. from time to time.

I will always have some type of love for him, but now it is more like the love for a distant family member, not anything romantic, or like “couple love.” The first few years, I felt odd on those special days, ie: birthdays, aniversaries. etc. I didn’t know if I was supposed to call him or not. But as time goes by, we have gotten more used to the fact that we are no longer a couple, and have become good friends instead.

2 years ago, I left my current SO and wanted to move back to Florida, so I was ‘roomies” with my wasband for a couple of months. Others thought it seemed weird, but it felt perfectly natural to us.

Maybe something like this will happpen with you and your ex. If you see her every day at work, sooner or later, you may get used to the idea of only being co-workers, and it won’t feel so strange to you.

How old are you, my friend? I had feelings like that for two out of three ex girlfriends. The last ex girlfriend I continued to go “bang bang bang” with for awhile after the breakup… in fact, she had gone through two other relationships while I was still getting her on the side.

Horrible person, me? Probably not. I was acting like a horny man.

Anyway, there’s this cool concept about “the one”: If you break up with someone, if they cheat on you, if they want nothing to do with you, or if they’re nutball obsessive over you, then chances are they’re not the one. You shouldn’t tear yourself down over it or get hung up on it: You see, there IS such a thing as dating for fun. Sometimes it’s cool to just go out with a girl for the sake of going out, getting out of the house and all of that. At least, while you’re single: I really don’t advise this if you’re in a relationship or in the courtship phase of a relationship.

It’s also important to recognize the distinction between “Dating” and “Relationships”. Often when you see the two, they’re ALWAYS separated by “And”, indicating they are indeed two different things. It’s also important to recognize that hot “man on girl” or “girl on girl” or “man on girl on girl” action isn’t necessarily grounds for a “Relationship” either. Fear not, hot “man on man” action just doesn’t exist.

You could be a manwhore for awhile. It worked for Lovelocke. I met a lot of girls and had hot “man on girl” relations with them. As a result, I debunked a lot of the myths that “there could be someone better out there for you”... not saying that it’s not true, but rather, proving that it IS true and not so much a myth. The percentage rate of women you MEET compared to women you DATE is very low, and the percentage of women you could potentially DATE compared to women you can be in a RELATIONSHIP is even lower.

We’re talking “No single drop believes it’s responsible for the flood” low here.

That said, what’s important is that you always look out for yourself. In life, as with relationships, religion and so on, you shouldn’t put so much of yourself, your faith, your confidence, your heart and so on into “another”. You have to be able to “Trust yourself with yourself” before you can make the assumption that someone else can be trusted with yourself. As a matter of fact, in the right kind of relationship, it goes without asking… they will never ask you to prove yourself, and you will never have to do it either.

You have to prove THEORIES, not FACTS… facts are undisputed. And so will “the one” be when you finally meet her.

Or him. Whatever.

I broke up with a girlfriend for a week, but I knew right away that it was just an opportunity to win her back. We lasted another month and then it was done for good. (She would have taken me back a few months later when we tried to reconcile as friends.) Some chicks are like that, though. I think there can be a little bit of thrill in breaking up, going back to pursuing/pursued and getting back together.

@Lovelocke- I’m as perved out as anyone, but I assume you mean “man on woman” ;-)

(Looks up, Looks Back @ Kev)

Denial’s the first stage. Join us in 2008.

Yes. For the first two weeks or so I had those feelings, Until facebook informed me that he was already in another relationship.
This was after he and I being together for almost half a decade.

Yep, been there. It took many months to resolve it, but it really was over. Looking back 20 some years later, thank God it was!

@kev don’t feed it, maybe it will go away

Must… resist… sweet… man… on… girl… (on girl)... action.

Yes, I’m going through this right now. I was with Jen for 2 years, she moved to do an internship and I followed. The situation turned to complete shit for both of us, due to outside forces (her internship, my job, the city where we lived). To boil it down, living in a really crappy place caused us to diverge from each other and pretty much ruined our relationship. I was depressed up until a couple months before I was set to leave, barely hanging in there, just trying to do it day by day.

We broke up in April, I mourned the loss of her and our relationship, and started to feel better. Actually, our break up was like a cosmic slap in the face to wake me up after over a year and a half of being kind of dead inside. All of a sudden, I was feeling tons of emotions and it was overwhelming. I started to work on myself again, did a lot of reading, various self-help, philosophy, eastern thought books.

My new self was able to read these things and ponder my relationship with Jen. Where I, she, and we went wrong. Different, healthier ways of looking at things and approaching problems. Doing all this reading made me realize I totally could do it a million times better now, and I started to fall in love with her again.

We started dating again casually, going slow, and testing the waters. Things were going really well. Unfortunately, she is not in the same place as I am.. I want to get back together, be monogamous, be serious, eventually get married, the whole thing. She wants her freedom, wants to try out other people, etc.

I suspect she’s dating a girl she’s been hanging out with. Anyway, she broke it off with me, romantically, a couple of weeks ago. It’s been wreaking havok on me since. I feel like she is the one, that she and I could be so good together knowing what I know now and being in a stronger place. I feel like I could do it a million times better, and all I want is one more chance to show her. It kills me that it’s too late and despite how much I want it, it’s not going to happen.

She says she wants to date and whatever.. that maybe some time down the line if we’re both single, she’s open to the idea. I just don’t think I can hang my hopes on her anymore.. it’s been painful enough the past few months and I don’t think I can maintain my feelings any longer, just for the sake of my own sanity.

@AlenaD, it definitely sounds like the two of you are in different places in life, just as I feel is the situation for me and my ex. I too have done a lot of reading, thinking and soul searching, and feel like if we had another chance it would be different…at least from my end. I definitely can relate to what you have said here, and I know how hard it must be. I am at that place where I to do not think I can hang my hopes on her either.

I have decided to cut her out of my life as best I can and do everything in my own power to help myself get over this and make myself me again. A few days ago I actually talked with her about how I feel towards her, how I feel towards us, How much hurt I am going through right now, where I need to go with myself, and how that may affect us. It felt good t get that out. I decided that all I could do was assume it’s over forever and make myself happy with myself and my life again. Shit, who knows, maybe down the road when I am at that point, she’s may have gotten her in a better place as well, and we may fall in love again. However, what I have decided this past week is that I can not live today with hopes for anything like that in the future. Today I need to do what’s best for me.

@AlenaD, thanks for sharing that! I wish you the best through this very difficult time!! All the input here so far has been very helpful and I thank you all!

Yeah, we totally could be misery twins. It sounds like you and I are experiencing very much the same thing. I did the same, I had to cut her out of my life for a while in order to heal. It sucks because she’s my best friend, so I feel like I lost my love and my best friend at the same time. She knows I need time, she’s respectful of it, but I think it’s going to take me longer than she anticipates.

You and I are dealing with this similarly. I decided to not be tortured anymore, to move on, to start my new life (I recently moved back to the place I moved from to be with her, to finish school), and do what’s best for me. I feel like a chump, anyway, for letting myself fall for her again when things were so up in the air. So, like you, I decided that I cannot continue to live today while holding onto some vain hopes that I might have a shot in the future.

I feel your pain. :( If you want to talk, let me know.. I don’t really have anyone I can talk about it with, having lost my best friend and I think everyone else in my life is tired of hearing about Jen.

I have felt like you, but I also am on the other side of a heartache. Here’s a response from the other side of the track. I broke up with my s/o of six years about five months ago, and I am just starting a relationship with someone else. I know he feels like I am the one, like you feel about your ex, and someday, maybe things may be different. He is letting me live my life for me, and I have so much respect for him for that. As the person who did the breaking up, I feel an unmistakable and completely unavoidable attachment to him though, much like yourself. I know that I will have a connection with him for the rest of my life, whether or not we are together ever again or even speak again. Sometimes, two people are just like that. What that means, I really don’t know. You have to be able to move on from that person and know that you can live your life without questioning or firmly believing someday you will be together. You can miss out on so much if you walk around with blinders on. I did this for years, and as much as I loved him, I missed out on a lot because i put all my eggs into one basket, so to speak. I think many of us feel the same way you do, and there isn’t anything right or wrong about it. Just don’t let it blind you to what else life may offer you…you never know. Good luck to you :)