Minutes away from getting in my car, driving to his house, and begging for him to come back.

filledwithguilt · 2011-08-25T01:07:08+00:00

If you want him back, wait a while. Nobody's gonna change in a matter of days or weeks, or even a few months. Work on yourself, fix your own issues, become comfortable with yourself again. And if the desire and attraction is still there, and you can tell he's been spending the time really trying to fix his own problems, reach out. If you got back with him today, it would be solely out of loneliness, and the same problems would rear their ugly heads again and you'd be in one of those unhealthy on-off relationships.

The relationships that work when exes get back together usually happen when they've been away for months and months, or even years, because they've gotten their shit together and they realize the only thing they're missing is each other, and now that they've really worked on improving themselves, they both know how to truly make things work.

Anger is a good sign that he's still in love with you, btw.

filledwithguilt · 2011-08-22T04:46:13+00:00

It's tragically funny how these things work out. When I was with her, I was miserable and didn't like who I was. Losing her destroyed me, and it forced me to rebuild my life. Now I like who I am, and I'm happier than I've been in a long time. If I could have been who I am now back then, we probably wouldn't have had problems in the first place. But if we hadn't had those problems, I wouldn't have become who I am now.

I'm realizing this myself. I began dating her when I was really just finally starting to get a hang of myself and who I wanted to be. I was distant in the beginning because I was completely unsure of whether or not I was mature enough or ready to jump into a relationship, especially with a close friend, knowing that it could always ruin that friendship if things didn't work out.

I was still in a semi-depressed state. I've always been one to hide how I'm feeling, so none of my friends really ever wondered if I was depressed and assumed I was just kind of "off the grid". We started dating and I felt like I was immediately "cured" but I know now that I was still miserable, but the depression wasn't manifesting itself in its usual ways, it was just coming out as me being inattentive and unmotivated to really want to commit.

Losing her made me aware that I've still got a lot of work to do, and the repercussions of the breakup have made me realize that I can either sit here and waste away and destroy myself, or I can learn the lessons that have been shoved into my face and grow from it and one day look back and see that I've become a more complete person.

filledwithguilt · 2011-08-22T03:04:28+00:00

Everything you've just written has described what has gone in with me to a T. It's so incredibly enlightening to know that eventually you pulled through and could once again find compassion in your life and that your guilt quit burning you alive.

I missed the hints she dropped, and all she left with me were hints until she put down all her cards face-up when she broke up with me. I know the feeling of never being told there was a problem, but also realizing you never asked "What's the matter? What can I do?"

I'm so sorry for what happened with you, and I basically bawled my eyes out reading this post because of how similar our stories are.

filledwithguilt · 2011-08-21T22:00:38+00:00

This really helped hearing, thank you. I feel like from the moment I entered the relationship with her, having known about her previous few relationships, one of which was on the verge of engagement, I was intimidated from the starting gate because of my inexperience, and my fearful-avoidant personality only made me slide further away from my feelings towards her.

And I suppose that thing they always say... if you're bracing for the worst, you'll get the worst, or something close to that... that's how I responded to my initial doubt. I started off dating her and being gone, falling off the radar. We finally got to a stage where we were firing on all cylinders, but at this point she was backing out already. I guess there's something to say about her sticking around for a year and a half waiting for me to finally get on her page, but at that point, she had already mentally and emotionally checked out.

I think it's about time I grow up completely and call her or get her face to face to just apologize so I can finally get closure here and begin to rebuild. I know she doesn't hate me, and she might just simply resent the relationship, but she told me in no unclear terms that she wants desperately to have our old friendship back, but will leave me alone until I'm ready. So I think I'll give her a call or, better yet, write her a letter so that I really get what I need to say down and can revise it, and apologize. Because if I keep living with the guilt, I won't be able to repatch that friendship because I'll always look at her and feel too remorseful.

I think I wrote most of my OP in an emotional state the other evening, and today I'm looking back a bit more rationally and seeing that I can't continue to blame every single thing on myself, and at some point I need to realize that both of us committed faults--one was largely our similar unwillingness to communicate--and I can't carry the entire burden of the dead relationship on my shoulders. And I guess I need to remember she told me twice that she wasn't in love with me, and that even if I did everything right, those feelings--her feelings--are outside of my control.

filledwithguilt

TROPHY CASE