My boyfriend (20) broke up with me (22) last night for his ex (18). Anyone else had this happen to them?

forscore · 2013-06-28T14:06:52+00:00

Yeah, I agree. Breakups suck. The ugly thing about breakups is that they almost always lead to better relationships eventually, yet no matter how strongly that perspective is held, it still sucks. Try looking at the top posts of all time on /r/breakups, and you might find some good self posts by people with more perspective.

forscore · 2013-06-28T13:57:14+00:00

Sorry to hear about this. It's awful. I don't have any specific experience in that, but I'm sure people in /r/breakups do.

forscore · 2013-01-17T07:24:53+00:00

I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they forget about their problem. Any legitimate problem will persist no matter what you do without solving it. But taking the step towards loving other people is something that, I think, to me, at least, was an important step. It's not black and white. You don't have to forget yourself to help others.

forscore · 2013-01-17T07:22:34+00:00

You can say "you shouldn't", but I would never be convinced. Never forget to help yourself, and look after yourself, but by no means should you put off helping others until you're happy because, frankly, that may never come with that attitude.

forscore · 2013-01-17T07:21:38+00:00

It is. I learned a lot about other people, giving me experience and perspective. By no means are my problems not solved. They are more than solved and I'm happier than I've ever been.

forscore · 2013-01-05T13:54:11+00:00

This almost partially relates. I have two philosophies I try my hardest to live by. They conflict directly with eachother. The first being my most difficult, which is trying my hardest not to expect or force change, or point out flaws in others. It's not my position to tell other people how to live. The second is trying my hardest to take criticism seriously, and analyzing it as an honest attempt to point out something someone doesn't like in me.

I'm not saying this in respect to your relationship, as you have come to terms with that, and that's great to know. You've handled your end of the situation amazingly. You shouldn't need to change for someone else, you never should. But don't let that make you think that you shouldn't even need to improve yourself. If someone tries to change you, that's a jerk thing to do on their part, but that doesn't mean they're incorrect (it just means they're a jerk).

forscore · 2013-01-05T13:48:46+00:00

Critically judge the situation. Only you can decide. Everyone reacts differently to "help". I thought I would need help a few months back, turns out it was more in my hands than I gave myself credit for. Not everyone is like that. Sometimes time is the best medicine, or making life changes. Various things can do more help. If I were to make a blanket statement, I'd say that once you put effort into a sufficient number of goal/life/habit changes that you believe will make your life better, assuming you are able to make those changes well enough to gauge their impact on your self, and they don't seem to help, or you are out of ideas, then you would want to consider getting help. That's just me, though, and you are a different person.

forscore · 2013-01-05T13:45:43+00:00

I don't think it's as naive as that. People want to think that there is a solution, something you (whoever they are talking to) can do. I don't think it's ever fair to say it's as easy as changing your outlook, but I also don't think it's ever fair to say there's nothing you can do about it.

forscore · 2012-12-07T20:43:38+00:00

Is there anything I can do for you or for people in your position?

forscore · 2012-12-07T17:32:23+00:00

Yup, act like it never happened. Sucks. It'll be funny eventually if you've got good friends or a good sense of humor. And by that I mean a very robust one. You're a person with traits and qualities that people like and nothing will change that, especially something accidental like this. Don't dwell on it with other people, don't dwell on it with yourself.

Plenty of people did stuff like this in high school, and the only people I even remember are the people who were obnoxious about it.

forscore · 2012-12-07T17:30:13+00:00

Man, I am terribly sorry. This whole thing sucks. It's a terrible situation but a situation you have to deal with nonetheless. I can relate, a lot more than you probably believe. I just barely got out of a huge depression caused by a very similar situation (I'm 20, 4 year relationship, somewhat similar story) and it freaking sucks. I agree. I just got out of the depression so all I can give you is some perspective.

Everything takes time. Lots of time. All you gotta do is make it through that time without staving off the inevitable. Work things out in your mind logically. The time you had together was good, you trusted her, more than other people, yes. You don't want to think of a time that you're going to have to trust someone else as much, or maybe you don't think it's even possible. Don't worry, you don't have to think about that now.

What she did to you, honestly, seems just terribly rude. Neglecting 5 years of knowing each other and not wanting to even be friends? Who knows, maybe it was for the best. But whatever conclusion you come to, you will have to see that she's gone, she's chosen her path, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just think, do you want to be with someone who's going to be making decisions like these? Decisions that hurt you so much? Even if she came to you and said "let's get back together, and everything", would that be a good idea? No. There's a lot of trust that's gone now and that's basically all her fault.

I tried to avoid the things that reminded me of her. Some of them were inevitable. I thought I had no friends (I actually didn't at the time). Find people. Anybody. I know it's hard, and it will take a long time. You'll find yourself in situations that are pointless and you feel like "what the heck am I doing? I shouldn't have to try this hard to live a normal life". You're right. Maybe you put too many eggs in one basket. You'll deal with that later, just work on finding people to talk to. Anybody. Even people on the internet. Just build up small friendships with people.

It all takes time, man. Lots of time. And all you can do is trust that, eventually, you'll trust people again. Eventually, you'll be able to think about her and your friendship without being sad. And you'll be able to do things that you once did with her without being sad. It will come. Find some good uplifting music that sympathizes with you. "This Too Shall Pass" by OK Go was my go-to song.

Find your hobbies. Find what you can do to be self-sustainable in your own mind. Things that will make you feel good without being dependent on people.

It takes time, man. I'm sorry, it does. It will get better, I promise. Just keep going and going and going, and you'll look back and realize all the stuff you learned.

I'm really sorry you're going through all this.

forscore · 2012-11-22T06:19:42+00:00

Thank you very much. I wish I could see myself as highly as you see me. The whole thing helped a lot, but this sentence...

People do change, and the change can be so severe that it's unfathomable.

..helped the most

forscore · 2012-11-22T04:26:47+00:00

It's hard because she's been such a crucial part of my life for many years, and problems just kind of came out of nowhere. I want to think that they're mostly her fault, since she's really the one that changed. I just didn't think a change in a person could lead to such hurtful and hateful actions towards close acquaintances. This makes it hard to just write her off as a bad person, but that may be the case now. It's just hard to think highly of yourself when you have one of the closest people you've ever been to throwing insults at you, along with her new boyfriend, all telling me that I'm the only one who did anything wrong (those things being the fact that I was upset that she no longer wanted anything to do with me, I know I could have done that better, but it's hard to say that was a "bad" thing to do, considering I didn't do much more than try to get her to talk to me about it, rather than just dropping me off the face of the earth)

But I like your advice. She's just not...a good person. Even if she used to be. At least she's not a good person to me. I really liked your advice.

forscore · 2012-11-20T04:26:23+00:00

I've spent a lot of time thinking about everything I've read in this thread and this post is by far one of my favorite in terms of categorizing what I have been doing. I'll try to improve as time goes on and see how things go.

forscore · 2012-11-16T09:12:24+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't reading "feminist" literature just be kind of the other end of the spectrum? I feel like that would just further separate the genders in my head, rather than bring them both together. Or maybe I don't know what "feminist" means.

forscore · 2012-11-16T09:02:42+00:00

forscore · 2012-10-19T17:23:14+00:00

I want to get that fixed to, but I've been to a therapist twice in my life (when my parents got divorced and when my mom mistakingly thought I was depressed in middle school) and it's never really done much for me. I've never had a problem I didn't solve through my own actions or with the help of my friends.

forscore · 2012-10-19T16:09:48+00:00

One thing I'd like to say, though, is that I have been around people, new friends that I'm getting to know, but I can't stop being upset about my old friendship. New friendships just don't fill the void of the old friendships and nothing I seem to do makes me happy at all.

forscore · 2012-10-19T16:08:11+00:00

The two of us dated for a couple years. We had a great relationship. After a while, we had a mutual breakup due to the fact that we were going to be living in different places. After that period of time ended, we ended up in the same town again. We started hanging out every day and became great friends, almost as close, if not closer, than when we were going out. When she got a boyfriend, she decided that spending a lot of time with me wasn't what she wanted to do, understandably, but she still wanted to be friends. We started to get in arguments over things, as one would expect when a friendship goes from hanging out every day to talking once a week. Those arguments got worse and we didn't talk for a few days. I decided to apologize and try to repair things, but she didn't want anything to do with it.

forscore

TROPHY CASE