The End of the Affair

[Isura]

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my grandma always says "the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."

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grandma should post more

[Aloysius]

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I just told an ex this morning that we have to stop speaking, because, well frankly, its tearing us both apart. I'm in the minority though, I actually feel relieved that I don't have to deal with it anymore. Its still hard blocking her on chat, deleting her number from my phone, and blocking her on facebook, especially when she deserves better.

I guess I'm too calculated.

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This is me. When a relationship ends for me I just close off all contact until I'm ready to see them again. That might be months depending on how I feel. It's the only way I can handle it.

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Same here. I really think this is best for everyone involved. Also, I think it's only really possible to be friends again until both parties have moved onto other relationships. I've had a 5-year and 8-year, so speaking from this experience. But I imagine what I said is true for any relationship of emotional significance.

-Al

[Aloysius]

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my grandma always says "the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."

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grandma should post more

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Random hookups right after breaking up I found to be very helpful. But I've always assiduously avoided getting into rebound things, I can't imagine that's a good idea ever.

-Al

[mmbt0ne]

Al,

What does it take for a 5 or 8 year relationship to not get to marriage? If you were married feel free to ignore, but given the context of the thread I took it that you weren't.

[Aloysius]

tOne - well the 1st relationship (the 5-year) was freshman year of high school through freshman year of college. We broke up cause we were young and also long distance (went to different colleges). I will take this opportunity to recommend not getting into something so serious when you're that young. We're currently still close and good friends.

2nd one is more relevant to your question. (I'm 31 btw.) We started dating middle of undergrad and stayed together through our 20s. This was the one on the verge of marriage. Our circle of friends were rather shocked when we broke up.

We both took marriage very seriously (her parents were divorced, I just take everything seriously haha), and so were very careful about not rushing into an engagement.

By the time she, in earnest, began the whole "where's my ring where's my ring" push, it became clear to me that 1) I wasn't ready for marriage; 2) issues I had ignored because she was so awesome in other ways, I started to factor more rationally into why or why not she would be a good wife. It was a very difficult decision to break things off with her.

So to your question: I actually think alot of people in our situation would've fallen prey to the standard momentum of long-term couples getting engaged than married in their mid to late 20s. I'm glad we didn't. I think I fortunately had the perspective (this is more true for a guy I think) that I had a long window to find my wife (no need to "settle"), but more critically, I had some growing up to do in the interim.

-Al

[Aloysius]

tOne - also, I think that the dynamics in play for a long-term relationship ending, and divorce, can be similar. Over time people just grow apart, or don't "grow together", whatever that means.

I think the difference is that if this happened while I was married (I'm assuming it likely will as it tends to happen in most relationships) I'd be hopefully mature enough to handle it with some aplomb, and more committed to making it work out for the long haul.

-Al

[King_S]

Edit: I am 21, she is 22. We will most likely stay distant from each other for the next 2-3 years.

I need some advice.

I met my girlfriend this summer at an internship. We spent just about everyday together for the first 4 weeks of our relationship. I grew to love her after 3 weeks, and she was deeply in love with me after a mere 2.

After a month, we were forced to separate geographically. Our schools are ~200 miles apart, and we've seen each other every 2-3 weeks. I love her very much, but I felt differently towards her in the past week. I became confused with my feelings towards her. My head was wracked constantly by a headache of her absence. I spoke to her when I visited this past weekend. When I told her about this different feeling, we both erupted in tears. I told her how I loved her, but my feelings were different than our perfect love when we spent everyday together. She stated that she gave her heart to me, saying that she thought I was the "one." As I was about to leave, I cried in long bursts because she said, "if I say good-bye, I don't know if I'll lose you," at which point she burst out into tears.

I thought about all of our happy memories together, then told her that I loved her and couldn't leave her. The thought of leaving her apartment and never visiting, seeing her again left my heart devoid of feeling. I called her on the phone as I drove home, telling her how much I loved her and how I wanted to see her in 2 weeks - the time of our next meeting.

I felt oddly today, similar to my feeling from the previous week. I don't know if it's caused by my desire to see her or my need to leave her...

[gumpzilla]

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Edit: I am 21, she is 22. We will most likely stay distant from each other for the next 2-3 years.

I need some advice.

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One way or another, something will change. Either you'll decide that what you're doing with the rest of your life is more important, and forget this girl, or you decide to go for it and be where she is. You're young enough that I'm guessing both roads are likely perfectly viable, so just pick one. But I think you should definitely choose to go one direction or another; trying to maintain any kind of long distance relationship under these circumstances will just be sucky.

[Aloysius]

King - agree 100% with gump.

Keikiwai - damn, this thread is geting super emo... haha but final point from me. Quoting from your OP:

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I remember way back in high school I was talking to this girl I really liked, and we were talking about what the most important thing in life is... she said "communication." I said something asinine like "being happy." Anyway, damn, she was so right. W/ my last gf we were very good together in many ways, but we just could not understand what the [censored] the other one was talking about. It could be about something trivial like asking for help doing some daily task, or it could be about our emotions. We'd say things several different ways, and in the end one of us was always left scratching their head... well usually more like throwing their hands up in despair. Of course it's not that simple. 7 years never is, but if I were to pin it on one thing, that would be it.

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I can really relate to this. I'm sure alot of people can. To qualify my above posts, it was definitely not a one-way street, and I was frustrating the hell out of my ex also. We just had terrible communication. I chalk this up to 1) our incompatibility on some level and 2) I don't think I was really mature enough to handle the situation well, with the patience and commitment necessary to work through it and solve our communication issues (if that were possible).

I think the end of any long term thing is usually a somewhat imperfect solution - I don't regret anything per se, but I don't want to make this sound as if it was a cut and dried decision and it was easy to walk away from. You just have to hope that eventually the pros out weigh the cons and everything works out for the best.

-Al

[jackflashdrive]

"The title of this thread is from one of my favorite Graham Greene books"

In addition to the movie, there is also an opera based on this book. I've never really enjoyed opera. I've gone because I thought that's what semi-cultured people did, and I THOUGHT I was enjoying opera as much as I could. But this show blew me away. I'd never been so moved by a performance.

(Interesting story about how I saw TOOTA opera: a beautiful young girl who I'd never met walked up to me in a Seattle coffeeshop and said "You wanna go to the opera, it starts in 10 minutes. I said, uh OK, and went there wearing jeans and sweatshirt. The tickets were front row center aisle -- $150 tickets -- and everyone but me was all dressed up. There's more to the story including the reason why I got the ticket but I've already gotten far enough off topic)