[Blue Lagoon]

Hey,

I am having some trouble. I'm sorry for how long this is but I just needed to get it all out.

My girlfriend and I broke up about 2 months ago. We had been in a relationship for almost 3 years at that point and for a while things were becoming increasingly tense between us. I had become very emotionally needy and codependent. I expected a lot from everyone but myself and spent a lot of time waiting for things to happen to me. This mentality is something i struggle with when I'm not occupied with a lot of work/school but am really working on now. This summer had been particularly bad because I was home from university and did not find a job, an internship, or really anything to do with myself. I felt for a long time that "things would happen and get easier once I could go back to school" and therefore put little to no effort into the life that I had at the time. I really wasn't thinking about how I felt, and pushed things to the side and in all honesty, gave up on a lot of things I valued, including my relationship with my girlfriend.

She put up with this, she dealt with me and was really caring, but I could tell she was getting tired of my ****. I just really didn't understand it at the time, and I really don't feel now that I made any real effort to. School time came and we both went off to our separate universities and found ourselves very busy. This would begin our third year of Long distance dating. Each year, One or both of us would go off to University and have breaks and summers together. After a few weeks of little time for one another and conversations growing more shallow -Hey, how was your day? -Busy I had a lot to do, I did all these things -Oh wow, that sounds tough, I did this this and this...etc, the stress of the relationship and everything else at school including theatre work and classes just sort of broke me. We often found ourselves in the same fights about small things, we really just did not feel emotionally connected. One night I told her I couldn't handle our relationship and said "i don't know' a lot. I recognize now, that I use "I don't know" as a cop out when I either don't want to be honest with myself about something or don't want to think. Either way. We broke up.

For a week or so, we continued talking but neither of us were in strong emotional states to really do so. Conversations were only held over text message and made things really hard for both of us. Neither of us were eating or really sleeping. After a week or so we stopped texting. My birthday was about two weeks later; she called me. She wanted us to stay in contact because, for her, not talking after 3 years of talking every single day just didn't seem organic. I really agreed with her, but at that point, I was in no emotional state to have casual conversations with her, or really be friends at all. I needed time to myself to grow and to figure out exactly how I felt. I basically told her this while in tears over the phone. She told me that she wouldn't contact me again and if I wanted to communicate with her, I would have to contact her. This has remained true since that point.

This quarter at school has been emotionally, physically, and mentally taxing. That being said. I've learned a lot about myself. I've spent a significant amount of time learning to be alone again: learning to be OKAY being alone. I'm in a fundamental acting class and at the beginning of every class, we perform an independent meditative warm-up that fosters mindfulness and self-awareness. The class itself focuses on reacting to impulsive decisions and making choices quickly. All of these things have helped me become more emotionally and physically aware of myself, and have encouraged me to actually THINK; which is something, I really didn't do this summer. This class has served me more than I ever possibly thought it could and has helped me understand, acknowledge, and work with myself in a deeper way than I ever have before. Everything you're reading so far is filtered by my own hindsight and is my attempt to be self aware and honest with myself. It's still new to me, but practicing it has been unbelievably helpful in staving off anxiety and helping me realize how I feel from moment to moment. I think that it's also helped me be more honest with my friends here at school.

I'm accepting my co-dependent, selfish, and in my mind, abusive behaviors and chose to acknowledge and remove them from my life as often as I possibly can. This is a process, I'm still figuring it all out and I'm still not okay, but I'm really working on it.

Recently, I've been wanting to get in contact with her(I don't want to say her name on here and I hate to call her "my ex"). I want to call her and tell her how I feel and that I'm really working on myself and that I really care and am invested in being emotionally healthy. I want to know if she's okay and that even if she's not happy now, I want her to know that I care about her and would be there for her in a heartbeat if she ever needed somebody. I want her to know how guilty I feel for my behavior. I want to try and rebuild any kind of relationship with her because I love her and I miss being a part of her life. I want to believe that there was a time where I wasn't a selfish piece of ****, but maybe that time has yet to come.

I'll be flying home in a week. This will be my first opportunity to physically get in contact with her again. I don't know if I'm ready. But to some degree, I really want to see her.

Honestly, I'm scared to talk to her again. I'm scared that I'll call her and communicate all this with her and she'll resent me for not contacting her yet. I'm scared she'll resent me for not being able to remain friends with her during what is essentially a recovery period for me. I'm scared that I'm not emotionally okay enough to communicate with her yet. I feel selfish for wanting her back in my life.

I just need some advice because I'm hurting more than usual right now and I'm not sure how to turn this dilemma into a positive situation I might be able to grow from.

[CANDC]

BlueLagoon, welcome to Psych Central. Sorry to hear you are feeling unsettled about what to do in this relationship that hit some roadblocks.

It is difficult to reach out when the other person ended the relationship. Is it worth opening up those wounds again. Only you know. If you are working with a therapist on this, then this would be a topic for a session.

There is no easy advice. If this is your first major breakup, it has all the pain and disappointment that a divorce or a death has. But death is a cleaner break. A break up offers hope that things will get back again.

One thing to ask is what has changed since the breakup.

If nothing has changed hoping to get back together seems a vain hope. Does your girlfriend have your email and phone? Has she tried to contact you since the breakup? Maybe that is a message she is sending.

I know it is not the message you want to hear, and it isn't that easy just to say it is over. This is something that can heal over time. But the greater the pain, the longer it may take to heal.
Doing the healing alone is difficult. Finding a therapist might be a positive relationship to begin to understand what went wrong in the relationship you were in. Then starting a new relationship from a new point is possible.

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