Breakups sure do suck.

*This turned out to be far longer than I intended it to be, so I'm going to split it up into two posts.*

Well, it finally happened to me. I'm 21 years old, and this is the first time I've really had my heart broken. Even though I only dated her for 5 months (With 4 months of being friends before that,) I was very serious about her. She was my first serious girlfriend...my first everything. I can really say I loved her, and I thought she felt the same about me. It was all so sudden...her reasons so stupid and immature. It's already been almost a week (it was Wednesday,) but I feel like it was last night...I guess that's what happens when you have one thing on your mind for so long...it all sort of merges into one horrible day. I'll elaborate if anybody is still interested at this point. It's going to be kind of long, so kudos if you get through it.

When I say that she was my first real girlfriend, I mean it. I was 20, and had almost zero experience with women. No, I'm not horribly disfigured or a complete social outcast. I'm not trying to sound conceited, but I had women hit on me all the time. I just wasn't interested...I really wanted someone special. At last, I'd found her. She worked at the same place as me, and had a class with me in college, and we immediately hit it off. After about a month, she wanted to start dating, but I didn't. Having no experience with women, I didn't believe myself to be romantically interested in her...it was for shallow reasons. A couple of months later, I realized that the feelings I had for her were far being that of a "friend," and realized how happy it makes me to just spend time with her. I asked her to be my girlfriend, she said yes, and we were both ecstatic. Those first three months must have been the happiest of my life. Just being in her presence made me feel so much better about everything, and it seemed to be the same for her. She would come over to my house and stay until she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, go home and sleep, and then come back the next day if we weren't working or going to school. In essence, we spent all of our free time together. This, as I learned, was a mistake.

About a month ago, I started to sense that things were a bit off. She seemed to be making excuses not to spend time with me, and although she was still very into me, I could just tell that something was wrong. At the time, I thought I was just being paranoid, but it turned out I was correct. She came to me a few days after I started sensing things were off, and fed me the dreaded line: "I'm starting to feel really smothered." She revealed to me that a few days earlier she thought that she was going to break up with me, but that she realized that would have been a huge mistake, and she would have only done so as a means of running away from her problems instead of confronting them. Luckily, I'm pretty intuitive, and she said almost exactly what I had expected her to say (Which really surprised me more than anything. I never saw myself as the intuitive type.) I knew what to say and how to make it better...We both agreed that maybe spending every waking second together wasn't the greatest thing for any of us, and that having a day here or there to ourselves was perfectly OK. After all, we were both busy transferring colleges and the likes. She told me it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, was so happy I was being so understanding, assured me that everything is fine now, and we went and got ice cream.

After the initial shock of hearing that she had almost broken up with me, everything was good again. She seemed into to me again, we had a trip planned for the summer...everything was just going peachy. Then I started to get that feeling in my gut again...something was off. I couldn't talk to her about it. We'd talked about it enough in the past, and even I was convinced that I had some sort of paranoia or something...my thoughts were completely unfounded. I assured myself that we're just out of the "honey moon" stage of our relationship, that she still loves me, and that we're just settling into a comfortable relationship as everybody does. But alas, I was right once again. She was over at my house on Wednesday, and the argument started. She started telling me (not for the first time) that she's concerned about my lack of enthusiasm for college (We're both transferring from a community college to a University.) The thing is, I want to be a police officer, but the police force doesn't require schooling, so I'm majoring in business as kind of a fall back. I am enthusiastic about the police force, but college just bores me. It shouldn't matter though, as I've committed to getting my degree and doing well in school. It still concerned her though, and she used this as a segue into telling me she wasn't sure about our future together. She doesn't think that we can be happy together and attain our goals without one of us compromising, and that it's not fair to either of us. I tried to tell her that this is something all couples go through, and that we can indeed both have what we want in life and remain together. She wasn't buying it. She started saying that she didn't believe me when I told her I was enthusiastic about succeeding as a police officer. Basically, she felt like she's going to take off in college and become something great, and that I'm waiting around for things to fall into my lap. This isn't true...I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn't listen. Essentially, she has a clear cut path which she believes she will follow and everything will workout just fine, and I'm a little more realistic. Sure, I don't know every class I need to take in order to attain my major, or every single pitfall that I could come across on my way, but I'm going to do my best in life, and I've accepted that sometimes things just don't workout the way you want them to. She called me an idealist, which is actually very hypocritical now that I think about it. This is when I knew for sure that it was coming.

She started saying a million different things. Some of them I don't even remember. She said that she wasn't sure if she loved me or not, and she thinks she might just love the person she's trying to turn me into. About 10 minutes later, she told me she loves me now, and that she's not sure about the person I'm going to be someday...it was all so chaotic. First she wanted to make a clean break because it wouldn't be fair to jerk me around while she makes up her mind, then she wasn't sure, then she offered to just "slow things down" a lot, then she asked me what to do... She said she really wished she believed in "taking breaks," because it would be perfect right now. But again, she didn't want to drag me along while she made up her mind. She started naming off things that she hated about me - all of them very shallow (For example: I drive a manual transmission and she doesn't know how. I'm not as fancy a dresser as she is, etc.) It just didn't make sense. Less than a week ago she'd been telling me that she loved me, and now she had no idea what she wanted and therefore wanted to breakup. Then she started telling me that I'm a terrific person and an inspiration. She loves me, and she knows that someday I'll find a wonderful girl that will make me truly happy. She said I'll look back to her and realize how horrible she is. She didn't want to leave, but she didn't want to stay... She offered to stay and help me through it. Finally, after 2 hours of going in circles over these things, I made her leave. I grabbed the shoes that she left over at my house on her birthday and showed her the door. I was devastated.

I called a couple of hours later. Not to beg for her back, but just to talk about what had just happened. It had all happened so fast, and I needed to know where we stood. I asked her if she was really done. She told me that if I wanted, we could meet up in one week and talk about. I told her that I would only want to do that if there was a chance that she still wanted to be with me. I said "Are you really finished?" She paused for a while and simply said "yes." I told her that I'd had a really good time with her, wished her a happy life, she said the same to me, and we said goodbye.

And now, here I am. It's been pretty bad, but I realize that almost everybody goes through this at times in their life, and I realize that I'll eventually get over it. I haven't contacted her, and she hasn't contacted me. I know that calling her would only make matters worse. I miss her tremendously. I felt like we had so much together...such a connection, and now as the days go by it's slowly dying. Everything just seems so strange. I know I shouldn't be giving myself hope, but I can't stop hoping that she calls me. Every time my phone rings I think that it's her. It's as if my mind is refusing to let go of the fact that she's really gone. She said over and over that she didn't know what she wanted, and that she wanted to make a clean break so that it would easier for me. But now all I can do is wonder. Hope that she'll come back to me seeps into my mind unwelcome, and getting rid of it hurts. I've gone from shocked and devastated, to just extremely sad, to numb, back to extremely sad...it's quite the process really.

If you read the whole thing, I'd really appreciate some input...maybe advice, I don't know. I don't mean to sound so dramatic, but as I've mentioned in other posts, it really helps me to write it all down like this and talk about it with unbiased people. I guess venting is the appropriate term. Again, much thanks in advance if you got through that whole mess.

Awww Herman, first let me say how very sorry I am that you've had your heart broken *hugs*

There's not much that compares to how bad that feels but you seem to have a really good grasp on what it's all about - dating. love, relationships etc ...
but the way this happened, as you have told it, just really breaks MY heart to hear how ungrateful and just dismissive this particular woman was of you and your relationship.

The way in which she broke up with you just sucks hun, that was so cowardly She should have brought any issues she had to you to discuss, she didn't really give you a chance did she ? Just upped n ended it on her own terms.
Without even really being clear on why and what by the sound of how that conversation went. Seems to me she just didn't really believe in you or your relationship I'm afraid. True love and respects means you support your man/woman in whatever it is they want to do, it is selfless.
She sounds very selfish and focused on a future written down in point form, planing out her entire life

I know that you will go on to find someone who is truly worthy of you and all you have to offer, I don't need t tell you to take this, and future lessons in love, as a lesson learned on the way to the big one ... you know this already

You are a wonderfully intelligent and sensitive man and any woman lucky enough to find herself in your life, and recognizes you for just who and what you are, is truly blessed.

Chin up hun k ? k

Thank you, Jaded. I think I'm already starting to feel better about all of this. It's hard to tell, because it comes in waves, but I've actually felt somewhat good all day today.

To her credit, she did bring up the "feeling smothered" thing, but aside from that it seemed like she just avoided me when things weren't looking good. She started going in early on weekend nights, and making plans with her mom on days that we both had off. I figured she just wanted a little space, so I let her have it. She's got it now, that's for sure. The few times I asked if there was something wrong, she'd shoot me down. It's weird, because we talked about all of this in the beginning of the relationship. We agreed to always talk about problems, and not let them turn into big things. We agreed that our lives don't have to revolve around each other, etc. She always seemed so mature. People would usually think she was years older than she really is. In reality, she's just very smart. Smart enough to act mature, and I think that might be part of her problem. She's been acting like an adult since she was able to talk, and maybe that didn't allow her to experience some of the things he needed to in order to move on...I don't know, I could be wrong.

Anyway, thanks again for your insight and kind words. I really appreciate it.