Moving on...

[rubydissolution]

I know there have been a lot of break ups on this forum including mine. I'm doing OK with the break up but some things are bothering me. A week after the break up I asked my ex if he still loved me and he said he wasn't sure. While this brought me a good amount of closure, it bothered me that he could banish the love we felt so easily. I kind of makes me feel like he either didn't love me like he said he did or he had been thinking about breaking up long before it actually happened. I can't banish the love I felt for him as easily. I still love him, It doesn't go away overnight for me.

Secondly, its amazing how quickly he is able to move on with his life. While I still text him occasionally, and we chat on AIM from time to time he really doesn't make any effort to be friends like I am. If we had dated a few months maybe I wouldn't be so upset, but it was over a year.

I'm not trying to be selfish, if he needs space he can have it but its not something he's told me he needs. I feel like I am hurting more over the break up then him, but maybe that's bc I'm female. It kind of just hurts to be cut off from him and feel like I meant so little to him. I guess I shouldn't care bc we aren't together anymore...but its still painful to think about.

How is everyone else doing with their situations? Anyone else going through something similar to this?

[ChibiFelicia]

Im not in your situation but i have been in a similar situation some years ago. After a couple weeks of that i just couldnt deal with it anymore. We were together for less than a year though. I just had to cut all contact. I couldnt be friends. Thats when i started feeling better. I had a good old cry and i packed those memories away. Then moved on. I thought about the happy memories from time to time and chose to forget the not so good memories.

[Stubborn Hope]

I was with my previous SO (and previous LDR) for three years. The week after my ex and I broke up, we talked a lot. Then there was near radio silence for two months. It took another month to get friendly. Granted, sometime in there I started dating someone else.

We're at over six months post-breakup. We're both doing okay, but as we start to build a small friendship, we're having to relearn where boundaries are and be super careful not to question our decision to break up. We were friends for years before we dated, so of course feelings will come up now and again.

But, for some people, this is way too tricky/painful and it won't be possible to just be friends. That may still happen to my ex and I, but we're stubborn, so we're trying this first.

[Dziubka]

When I broke up with my last ex, he hurt a lot more than I did. I felt guilty and endlessly sorry for him and I cut all contact.
I know (or thought) that if we kept in contact then he might have hope for us to get back together, which was the absolute last thing in the world I wanted. If he had asked me if I still loved him I would have told him no. It's not that I banished the love. I still cared for him deeply and I still think he's a great person (although lately he has been hiding that under a painfully bad bad boy shell).
He didn't mean little to me, he was my world while we lasted and I really loved him. We had been together for more than 1,5 years, I wouldn't have stayed that long if he hadn't meant a lot to me.
But I'm for clear cuts. If it's over - it's over. I don't rule out a friendship somewhere down the road, but definitely not right after the break up. Especially if it wasn't mutual.

You getting upset about what he says or about him not making an effort to stay friends, means you're clearly not over this. Like always it's different for everyone, but I'd try to cut all contact for a while and see if it helps with the healing. Be nice to yourself, don't poke in your wounds. Healing wounds itch, but if you scratch them it only makes the healing go slower.

[chef.rae]

I know how you are feeling. Really all you can do is give him space, then if yall were meant to be friends you will talk more. It took a couple years before me and one of my exs started talking as friends. We both have a lot of love for one another, but we just can not be together.

However in my last breakup, with everything that was going on I was basically over him before I had ended it. I was so tired of fighting and so tired of talking about the same things. He has anxiety, I had to learn how to handle it for almost two years, but when we constantly had to discuss what was bothering him nine ways to sunday, I could not take it anymore.

A couple days after the break up we got on skype for about a half an hour and we both agreed that we will be friends that that there is no chance in hell that we will ever get back together. That was really the end of it. At first it sucked because I could not go to him for things, but overtime I've gotten used to being alone. Actually going out now and having fun.


Each break up is different, I still have feelings for some of my ex's, others i could care less if they were dead.

[squirrelz15]

I'm with you. Though I've managed to move past it some since it's been about 2 months. He was my best friend before we started dating, so the situation ended up with me not only losing my SO, but also my best friend, so I'm sure you're dealing with similar feelings. I don't really have any advice to offer. I've just been trying to stay busy. Just know you're not alone.

[Larvitar]

Im not in your situation but i have been in a similar situation some years ago. After a couple weeks of that i just couldnt deal with it anymore. We were together for less than a year though. I just had to cut all contact. I couldnt be friends. Thats when i started feeling better. I had a good old cry and i packed those memories away. Then moved on. I thought about the happy memories from time to time and chose to forget the not so good memories.

That's how I dealt with my previous boyfriends

[rubydissolution]

Thank you for all the wonderful advice. I think I'm doing a lot better now. Wes and I barely talk as it is but we did do a phone call tonight which went really well. Was a super friendly conversation, no complications. A lot of catching up and laughing, and that's definitely good. If we can keep that up everything will work out fine. =)

@Squirrel: The best friend situation is really hard. I dated my best male friend twice. Chad was a 5 year relationship, we never recovered from that break up. We don't exist to each other anymore. But when I dated Alex who became my new MBFF it took us months to recover from our splits. Happily though we have finally reached a point where we can be good friends again with no feelings or sexual tension.

[Kerry]

this was how I felt after I dated my ex-bf for just over a year!!!!

a lot of guys are resilient in this way. some women (myself included) aren't easily able to separate themselves emotionally quickly after a major breakup. 3 months after my ex and I broke up he was with another woman- and one that I HATED! I remember thinking- WTH??? here I was still crying over our break-up and he's already moved on.

one thing I've learned is some people (male or female) can't be out of a relationship for too long. I think that's what he's like, asides from being an unfeeling dumb a**h**e.

he married that woman and now she gets to have that a**h**e all for herself and I have the most loving man in the world as my fiance, so I'm GREAT with how things worked out!