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Help me make sense of a breakup?
Hello Mottizens, I come with a basket of questions and some baggage! As some users might be recall, finding a woman is something I used to complain about a whole lot. Well that has changed, now I complain about finding the right woman, and just some venting for those willing to lend me an ear.
Basically, I went on a few vacations and took a bunch of nice high quality pictures and dating apps started to work for me now. All the downsides applies, bad match rate, bad response rate, bad conversion to date rate, but the match volume is just enough for to me to work off of on.
I've been in cycling in and out of situationships the last 7 or so months. And god this is depressing.
The event that pushed me over the edge was my most recent bout. Matched with a girl on the apps. Immediately start talking for hours late into the night, goodmorning/goodnight texts all that. We have excellent chemistry, our dates are 7-12 hours each. Very strong mutual physical attraction (she initiated most of the "moves"). Very loveydoveysweetypookie kiss hands, forehead, etc in person and online all the time. I fell head over heels for her, and honestly the first time in my life, I unironically truly "fell in love". Didn't feel this many good brain chemicals in a loong time. This is over the span of
3 monthsAnd I thought it was mutual. Then one day, she blindsights me (and I mean SERIOUSLY blindsight, I DID NOT see this coming, I've gone as far as letting GPT and close friends read all our chats, no one sees anything). Says we should stop seeing each other because she'd be moving away for work for a few months and that it's too early to commit to an LDR (that is 2x longer than the duration we've dated). Long story short, we need to stop seeing each other. We decided to "stop" seeing each other on good terms though, to still keep in touch and what not.
Okay, I accept my losses (and the fact that maybe she found another guy and the NO LDR thing is bullshit, and I potentially just got tossed aside), delete all the pictures I took of her, and initiate the whole "breakup" recovery process, etc. 5 days after that, she comes back into my DMs. Short message about missing me, and having to let me know that. I respond a bit later anyways (knowing full well I might be strung along, but I fell head over heels, remember?, I really really really want it in my hearts of hearts to workout nevertheless!). We start talking again. Both of us are very guarded and casual, but we are talking, that's where I am right now.
And I hate being here! Odds are I'm going to be disappointed+hurt again, maybe she was just feeling lonely, missing talking to me and impulsively sent that message with no intent to reconcile. God I hate this. I want to just make her fess up, but that might ruin any chances of reconciliation (call me a bitch, a simp, a beta, idgaf, it's what I want deep down). I can't even get myself to fully committing to move on because I got drip fed some hopium and the thought of doing all of this all over again for it to end up like this is not appealing in the least. I'm also looking all over for women that are similar to her to replicate this, but I know that probably has nothing to do with what us two individuals had.
The only features that I think I need to replicate this are:
I'm so convinced of the above, I'm willing to go back to grad school because I rarely meet women in person, and the apps have just given me situationship after situationship and lame, boring women.
I saw a meme
And honestly that feels more than relateable right now. These small series of events have left me shook at a time when I need my time and energy and mental bandwidth more than ever.
Share anecdotes, advice, harsh truths, whatever. I've read reddit, I've talked to friends and GPT, but the motte delivers the most useful help.
I've never been in your position, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I think you should try to make it work. You're head-over-heels for her, and the way you describe it seems somewhat rare to me. Best case scenario, the LDR works out and you're with her. Worst case, the LDR doesn't work out, and a year from now you've broken up and are looking for someone new. Which is the exact same position you are in now. To me, the potential losses from trying to make it work seem much smaller than the potential gains.
I think you should give her the benefit of the doubt (fool me once, etc.). Assume she saw this was getting serious, but she would have to leave, so she tried to nip things in the bud before it went too far. But now she's reconsidering.
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So, a word of warning. I am an LDR vet. 5 years of LDR dating before I was 21.
My "big" breakup that fucked me good was a 3 month situationship where we knew we should break up, but she pushed to stay together after a month, we kept falling deeper in love, and then cheated on me a couple months later. I'm fairly confident if we hadn't done that it would have been a good relationship when I returned.
In short, just don't expose yourself to more risk of heartbreak than you need to. Keep moving forward while she's gone and make the call to rekindle or not when (if) she comes back.
This has been bugging me a lot. There is a good chance if I just let it stay, when she is back in a a couple of months, we would both be single and wouldn't have found anything better, and there is a real chance of rekindling.
My fear is that I don't end up moving forward, I just settle for someone else, and she sees that as the door closing.
If she finds someone else, IDC, at least I would know that the chapter is closed. But now there are possibilities of it working out in the future but they hang on everything falling into place at the right time and place.
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To steelman her, not committing to an LDR which is longer than the period of dating beforehand, after just three months is pretty reasonable.
Since she presumably told you how long she will be gone, she can't really string you along endlessly. So keep it casual for the time being, but also make your feelings clear, and that you intend to start again right where you left off once she's back. If she does as well, great, if she finds new excuses or breaks it off after a few dates again, don't fall for it again. You can also offer to visit once if it's not crazy far away and not too hard on your wallet and just see how she reacts. Especially if it's a place you plausibly might have wanted to visit independent of her.
Dunno though how much you should listen to my advice. I've only ever had one serious relationship, with my wife & mother of my kids, and intend to keep it that way. I also always hated casual dating, in particular never used any apps, and made it clear that I only date with the goal of an eventual, stable family in mind.
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I think honestly I’d consider the relationship over. She’s not looking for you because she misses you. If she did, she’d probably not have broken it off. She probably did move, and either hasn’t yet found someone nearby or she did and th3 relationship came apart. To my mind, that’s not her choosing you, but her choosing to contact you because she can’t find someone in her new environment. If she really thought you were someone she could see herself marrying or even long-term dating, she would have at least made that offer. For whatever reason she didn’t want to. There’s nothing long term here.
My go to of any relationship among people in any context is if they wanted to, they would. If they really want to have a long term relationship with you, they would be making moves to make that happen— either not moving or committing to a LTR or something like that. If they actually want to marry you, they’ll be making concrete moves n that direction. If someone wants to be your friend, they will be willing to make time for you and to actually invite you over on occasion. If your boss really sees you getting promoted, you’ll see concrete moves in that direction— more training, being invited to conferences, being asked for input on things, maybe asked to fill in n occasion. On it goes, but my point is pay closer attention to what people are doing over what they are saying. If there’s a mismatch between words and deeds, go with the deeds.
On the other hand, many relationships I've talked about more in-depth with people include some moment in which one partner, usually the women, has some doubts and breaks it off for a while only to come back (often almost immediately). LDRs are one of the most common causes. And she is kind of right, if you only dated a few months, not committing to an LDR of more months than that is a very reasonable decision. Doesn't mean she isn't open to a proper relationship afterwards, and the fact that she starts the messages again shows that she likely has at least some interest still.
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Can you confirm she's actually moving? That's the first suspicion I'd have.
Yes, I'm very sure of this, it's part of a common program that I knew of in advance, the logistics of this just didn't occur to me in the heat of the moment.
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My wife broke up with me for a few months when we were 1.5 months into our relationship. The reason for this was she though I wasn't serious about her.
I didn't realise this at all and thought I had gone to great lengths to be with her, I was just very busy, but she thought I didn't want to see her. I didn't make a big deal about the break up, continued to see her for other reasons and eventually she came back and we've been together for the past 20 years, with little to no drama.
I suppose it helped that we had some common friends helping us out but the point is that it isn't necessarily over or a sign of poor potential for the relationship that there is a "break-up" early on.
Whats signs should I look out for post "breakup" to know it's temporary vs otherwise.
I wouldn't know in your case specifically but her keeping in contact with you is obviously a good sign.
Perhaps you could set yourself a time limit after which you start dating again? Obviously you can't keep pining after this girl endlessly but is focusing on things other than dating for a few months unreasonable?
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Obviously I only know what you have presented, but I can imagine a scenario where it is still possible to resurrect the relationship. In this scenario she preemptively broke up with you, because she thought you would do it instead of a long distance relationship. Or that you'd cheat on her in the long distance relationship. If she has a past personal experience with it, or close friends it has happened to this is almost certainly on her mind. If you didn't fight her much in the moment on the no-LDR thing, you probably came across as agreeing.
If you think this is the case, then this might be the path to fixing things. You'd need to have a sit down talk with her, and you'd have to put yourself out there:
You will come across as desperate, and that is fine. It is ok to be desperate around a woman who knows and loves you, especially if that desperation is for her. You need to create the reassurance in her mind that you won't hurt her, and that the only one doing the hurting is her to you and herself.
If she does take you back, know that the relationship will start to feel different. This is not a bad thing. You were in a honeymoon phase of love. Its a time mother nature gives people to make sure they are fucking a bunch and having a kid to tie them together. But the next phase to make it work together is partnership. You need to be a team together. People do this by moving in together, getting a pet together, working on a project together. My wife and I sort of started at this phase because we met at work and already know how to work as a team together. But you two already have a project ahead of you that you can work on: keeping the love and affection alive during a long distance relationship.
I will again repeat that I don't know everything about your situation and my read on it may be totally off. I do think that your assumption that she found another guy is almost certainly wrong. If she is the cold-hearted bitch that would have strung you along like that and seemed so loving, then she wouldn't have broken up with you. She would have just proceeded to cheat on you and not have a bit of guilt about it. My experience and the experience's I've seen other people have with psycho types is that they tend to not try for true breakups with people. Because relationships are one-way streets with them. They are not held back by the terms of the relationship, only their non-psycho partners are held back. I do remember a case somewhat similar to yours where the psycho boyfriend moved away for a three month gig, and did not inform his girlfriend till the day he was leaving. And then immediately went on to cheat in the other city while claiming to do a faithful LDR.
Dig up your old feelings of love for this woman. There is a decent to good chance that she made a decision in fear and uncertainty and with a desire to avoid being hurt. It might be a decision that she regrets. If you still want to have a relationship with her there is probably a path to that working out. If you want things to be over and done with, commit to that path and fully block her.
Thanks for the detailed response. I think your judgment based on whatever limited information I gave probably tracks.
What kind of timeline do you propose for steps 1., 2. and 3. ? I have roughly 1.5-2months before she dips and meeting in person is not possible any more.
It can be done on the phone if a sit down is not possible. I'd push for the sit down if you can. It's going to be uncomfortable and one easy way to get out of an uncomfortable conversation on the phone is to end the conversation. But getting out of one in person is harder.
The sooner it happens the better. Especially if a week or two has already passed.
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