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Doubting myself after a breakup
I am 22 years old and Pete is 23, we both are 4 months out of college. We met my junior year and have been dating ever since. We broke up a little over a week ago. Things had been going downhill for a year though. Our first year together he was everything you could ever want. I knew he had a history of treating girls poorly (womanizer) but he was immediately committed to me. His friends said they have never seen him like that since they've known him. We had an amazing connection. He talked to me about everything, his dreams, his secrets, his feelings, his fears… He was in ROTC so talking about the military and his feelings about deployment were common.
One night, about a year ago, we got into a fight and he told me he was terrified of his feelings for me. He was sure I would "destroy" him. I tried to talk him down but I didn't hear from him for two days. When he came back he said he was sorry and that he loves me and wants nothing more than to be with me. But things were never the same. It happened sooooo slowly. First he stopped getting me gifts or coffee or doing cute little things for me. I would try to be flirty or fun with him and I would get completely shot down. The next thing was the texting and calling. His responses got slower and slower and shorter and shorter and then all of the sudden he just "didn't like talking on the phone". Even over the summer that we were long distance.
My senior year (his fifth year) he was always in a bad mood because all of his friends had graduated and he was incredibly busy. He wouldn't want to hang out and would use the excuse that it was my senior year and I should be "enjoying that time with my friends" which I totally appreciated but every once in awhile I wanted him to want to hang out with me… I knew things weren't good but they had happened so slowly and gradually that it was never such a huge shock that would make me say it was time to end it. I made excuses for him. He was tired. He missed his friends. He's working three jobs… He also made me feel crazy anytime I questioned his feelings. He completely stopped being affectionate, never wanted to have sex, and I honestly can only thing of three compliments he's given me in the last 6 months… But if I asked him what was wrong he would act like I was making problems out of nowhere or "being dramatic". He made me feel so insecure that I convinced myself I didn't need any of those things. That I didn't need to be complimented. I was secure in myself. I constantly wanted sex from him because I felt like that was the only time he was ever truly paying attention to me but he rarely wanted to do that either. That emotional connection that had been so great was gone. He said he just "doesn't let people in" but I had seen him do it… We had been there before. I felt like I was losing my mind. Was I making it all up? Is this just what happens after you date someone for a while?
Looking for post grad jobs we didn't try to be in the same city because we knew he would be stationed and deployed anyway. I have in been in one city and he has been in another 16 hours away for the last three months. We are both working full time. Things have just gotten worse. I felt like our conversations were so terrible that I wanted to talk MORE and he felt like I was "constantly clawing at him" for attention. He gets stationed in 5 months so I KNOW it is on his mind and that he is scared but he wouldn't talk to me about it. I didn't mean to be overbearing but I felt like I was starving for affection and love and emotion that I would start fights because I just wanted to feel SOMETHING from him. It finally hit the fan and he said he can't be in a relationship where the other person is so invested and he just doesn't feel that anymore. And even though I KNOW deep down that I wasn't asking for too much, now that we are broken up I constantly feel like I am the one that caused this to end. I feel like if I had just not asked for so much, had given him more space… We could have made it work. I fight the urge everyday to text and him say I will give him what he wants because I just love him SO MUCH. Has he messed with my head or did I really cause this?
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You've heard it from a male, now you'll hear it from a female, you are not at fault in any way. The explanation Adviceman gave as a possible reason why he's become so distant is the guess I'd go with also. However there is another reason men will back out a relationship they were willing in and it was going great. I will as a female share my reason and why it is possible but due to timing, is likely the other reason or a combo of both.
There are a great many men who are very good men, making really great partners for a female. These men tend to want to be the gals protector not just physically but emotionally. Men hate to see a female hurting, so instead of lying to their lady, they may omit certain knowledge that could scare them. This can be in dating with an intensity of the relationship that grows to the point it spooks the guy.
When I was divorced, I went to stay with my sister and met a guy out there. We hit it off so quickly from our first coffee date when he asked me out to dinner 2 days later, to me stopping by evenings after work or going to hang out the whole weekend to do local hiking, watch some of his favorite movies i'd never seen, and art projects. He wasn't a young man but into his fifties. Yet one Monday he was asking me not to come by rest of week and the up coming weekend as he needed some time to himself. He asked that I not call him either. I said okay and didn't ask for explanation. I wasn't concerned because I knew that I remained calm, there was a better chance of getting an explanation. This happened on a Monday. So he heard nothing from me the remainder of the week. Now it takes differing amounts of time for a guy to feel the intensity of a relationship or how much each male needs to ruminate over the relationship and come to grips with the direction in which it's heading. It ended up he couldn't wait until the deadline he gave me, went through his mental processing faster than I'd expected and called to leave a message during day while I was at work. I called him back at break and the first thing he said was that he didn't think I'd call him back. He thanked me for calling back and I realized then that he'd expected me to be upset and angry with him. He told me he had needed to do some serious thinking but he was okay now and would I still like to come over after work (it was Friday) and for the weekend? I said sure. When I got there, he explained that the speed with which our relationship had grown in intensity too had just scared him and he needed time away from me to realize whether he was okay with it or not. The determining factor would be if he missed spending time with me, not just missing the sex. He thanked me for not demanding answers earlier when he did not yet have any answers to give as he was seeking them himself. He apologized for not telling me why he'd asked for the break. But I had to agree with him that the two of us had grown close in a much faster time than normal for couples so I understood perfectly. He relaxed when he saw I wasn't holding anything against him.
He's not the one I ended up married to. It was about 2 yrs later I met the man who is now my husband. You would think a husband shares everything with his wife but no.....men even husbands will want to protect his wife from not having to worry over much and so he omitted information on a couple occasions. He neglected to tell me of the day he almost fell off a 2+ story roof in a construction job or the day someone almost hit him head on while he was driving delivery truck. He did not want my mental attention focused on the scary thoughts of losing him. So how did I find out? He told me, long after he was no longer working those jobs. I would have to agree that I would have worried about him all the time and that is why men don't usually come out and share all details or for some not sharing whats going on in their minds. It isn't something you can help him come to grips with, he just has to process through it himself and take a direction from there. You can't control his thoughts and it seems he made a decision along the way that didn't include you. Why? I tend it means a man has strong feelings for a woman, even if he doesn't call it love, but feelings like this will stop him from sharing things he believes will bring worry or anguish to the females heart. It may be that he no longer loved you. People can grow out of love. But in your guys situation, his growing slowly colder towards you comes right after admitting he's terrified of his feelings for you. Not all but a few womanizers are simply going on from girl to girl because subconsciously they are searching for the one and only they can be happy with forever and seem to know it pretty quickly and thus enjoy the females only for companionship and sex but if it gets intense on her part, he breaks it off with the gal. A womanizer would not last 3 years in a relationship with you but be gone much sooner. He stayed more likely because the two of you were a good fit. And here would be the explanation as to why he was working a year ago at slowly weaning himself off you hoping it was doing the same to you. What men forget is that even though in their minds they believe they are doing a favor to their lady friend not sharing something that could hurt her, what hurts worse is the female not being totally certain of why he is pulling back. Had that happen with a man who was separated from his wife a long time already but no divorce yet, we got real close, fell in love and one day she comes back saying she wanted to make the marriage work. Since they had kids together and he still had feelings for her too, he had planned to go back to her and started acting distant to me. It went on for about 2 weeks of daily finding him really distant and formal and not acting like himself, all fun and loving. So when I asked for him to tell me the truth as to what was happening, he finally did. He was stuck between loving me and loving his ex and since they had more years together and had children together, he wanted to give it a chance. And he was finally showing some emotion, crying with me because there was no easy way out and again, I understood the choice and probably would have done the same if I were in his shoes. Your guy is more likely to have started out terrified because of the intensity of HIS feelings for you. It would have been obvious to him the intensity of your feelings for him. I am sure he could feel your love. Then at some point he looked ahead to when he'd be going back into service and somehow got it in his head that he might die, as the final outcome and does not want you to have to go through losing and grieving him so his drawing away from you over a year was possibly his trying to make the eventual break up not as hard on you. He may not have shared what his thoughts were because he felt you would argue against it as you probably would have. He is likely not in the danger he seems to think as Adviceman agreed.
There are many men in jobs where they could die any particular day like firemen and police officers and it is a fact that it is much harder for a woman to want to date, possibly fall in love with and want to marry someone who could be dead by the end of the day.
So although theres a chance that he simply fell out of love with you and just wanted to let you down easy, there's just as great a chance that he loves you in return and is doing this as a way to protect your feelings from a future event that may never happen. If you love him and want a chance to have your say with him, you could always write him, (he likely won't answer a call but is more likely to read something and plan to not answer.)
If its worth a try to you to see if this is why he has distanced himself, then you could call his bluff so to speak and let him know you realize that he loves you and was afraid of something happening to him and leaving you alone. You realize there is a chance of that not just in military service but in every day life. He could die in a car accident, a mugging, just like husbands in fire and police service die every day leaving widows. You need to let him know that you would rather have any amount of time you'd be given by fate to be with him rather than not having had him as your love at all. Ask him to talk out his feelings with you and give the both of you a chance to come to some agreement together rather than him taking the choice out of your hands by doing what he's doing.
If the man still loves you, he just may get back in contact with you. If enough time has gone by and he finds he's falling out of love, he may not respond at all. If this is what you need to know it's final before you start searching for the other fish in the sea, then do so. Otherwise, just move on now.
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This is not your fault in any way shape or form. If you need someone or something to blame then the blame rest with the 17 year war on terrorists. This probably won't make a lot of sense to you but I will try to explain what I think his problem may be or what his thinking is and it all hinges on his possible deployment.
When I was his age the Vietnam War was raging or to be politically correct it was called a Police Action. Some of my friends ran off to Canada, some married the first girl who said yes and some like me enlisted in their chosen branch of the military. For those of us who enlisted we fell in to two categories'. There were those ones who wanted someone home waiting for their return or to morn them and those of us who wanted no one but family waiting for us.
After reading what you wrote I believe your ex falls into the first Category; he doesn't want anyone waiting for him at home or to morn him. He made a commitment to ROTC most likely to pay for college and now he must give them the agreed upon service time. For whatever his reasons he feels his chances of surviving a deployment are not in his favor when statistically they are.
My advice is there is nothing you can do or say to change his mind especially living as far apart as you do. Have yourself a pity party then take my mother’s advice; "rebate you hook and go fishing again." "There are plenty of fish in the sea and there is a man out there looking for you. This relationship was not meant to be."
I was one of those guys who didn't want anyone waiting for me. I wasn't in a relationship in my senior year I dated around nothing serious. I had plenty of friends’ girls and guys to write to me and that was just fine. I was in the Air Force and chances of actually getting in a fire fight with the enemy was less then a Marine or Soldier.
As it turned out I was never stationed in the war zone my last duty station was just outside the war zone. I had no way of knowing that in advance. Six months after I came home I met my wife of 46 years and still going strong. For me it was the right thing to do and it just may be what he is thinking.
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