I Am Devestated (warning pretty long)!

[Bruce's_Mom]

So why is it that men can affect one’s feelings so negatively…I haven’t been a regular poster for sometime so it may seem weird for me to be sharing something so personal, but I am at work and just trying to do something to avoid either vomiting or sobbing as this is a new job…Here is the story.

I have more or less been with this guy for about 4 years. It has been on an off because he has had this wonderful pattern of breaking up with me anytime something significant in my life happens particularly if it is good or if I do not conform perfectly to his ideas of how I should be as a girlfriend…Some history is needed:

We met in law school, and I was pretty much instantly smitten with him. Basically we start spending all our time together and things move pretty quickly. A month into the relationship he reveals to me that he has gone and slept with his exgirlfriend and he is sorry. I decide I can get past it because things were just developing at the time so it was not like he was really untrue to me…Never the less I have a difficult time trusting him and some issues develop…Then our first finals period comes up, he has a nervous break down and calls me at midnight the night before our contracts exam…I drop my own studies rush to him, get him through the night, after which things improved for a while…Then we are on break and he promises that he will come to my family home for Christmas Eve, he just never shows. I am hurt and cried things went down hill. By January he is skipping my birthday to have drinks with friends, and when I get upset about it he emails me a long letter detailing how I am too difficult to deal with and he just cannot handle me anymore…We still have to see each other everyday, so we sort of get back together…Then he dumps me again because we were going abroad separately for the summer and he needed to be free.

I go off to Paris, am enjoying myself and getting over the relationship he is in South America. My parents receive a call from a very drunk and hysterical Brian professing his love for me and begging for my phone number in France. My mom refuses it, but agrees to pass on the message. I get a call on my cell while I am fall down drunk (not the best time to get word of an emotional situation) at a club in Barcelona, it is my mom and she explains that she spoke with Brian and she believed him to be sincere and gives me his number in Argentina…I call explaining that I am doing well, he breaks down and gets me all emotional. He calls me in France everyday after that…I think wow this guy must really care for me if he is going to run up $3500 in phone bills to talk to me. We reunite at the airport in the United States, we are inseparable for 6 months…Then he starts withdrawing…He begins not showing up for significant events for me and uses excuses such as “I have to move a couch for my mom, she really insists” or the more frequent “why do you care so much” sometimes there is no attempt to make any excuse at all, like at my birthday that year…The next day after he skipped my birthday I take him out to dinner and as I am dropping him back off at his house again he just says I cannot do this anymore, goodbye…

In spring I get a job with a rather prestigious law firm and am very excited, the catch is I will have to spend 2 months doing work in Alaska. He hears I will be leaving for the summer and there he is soooo in love with me again…He talks the talk and walks the walk, and there I am right back there with him…The catch this time is he has assured me that he has not been dating nor been intimate with any other women, but when I go by his apartment the night before I leave to Alaska he has a large number of condom wrappers in his bathroom trash…I question him about it and he comes up with an outrageous excuse…I decide no way am I dealing with this again and leave to Alaska. There I meet a really nice guy who is going to be attending graduate school in Seattle the following year…We begin dating and sure enough I get the call…It is Brian he loves me, he confesses he lied about being with another woman (which to this day I do not think I got the whole story on) but it is me he loves, and he is insanely jealous that I could be dating someone else…He shows up in Alaska a week later…We get back together…

Our final year of law school passes, he again skips my birthday, refuses to go to any of my family functions, has a number of emotional crisis I have to get him through, skips a reception at which I am receiving an award, etc...Throughout this period he complains excessively that I am financially better off than him so what do I do buy him a new wardrobe and take out an extra credit card to purchase a trip for us to Argentina because he spent the entire year going on and on how nice it would be to go back there before our bar exam…

Graduation comes he ignores me and my family at our graduation ceremony. Then later becomes enraged when I am late to HIS graduation party. The next day, exactly one week before our nonrefundable trip to Argentina he calls me…The conversation goes like this “Allison I cannot go to Argentina”…I think something is wrong “Is everything okay we have been planning this trip for months?”…”Everything for me is okay but I just do not want to be with you anymore” Click…So needless to say I am crushed, I literally spend a week in bed crying and unable to eat…I have to pull it together to study for the bar though so I rely heavily on friends and begin to trudge through…During this period his family is sending me really nasty and hateful myspace messages for some reason…Sure enough 2 weeks before the bar he starts contacting all my friends saying he is worried about me, really cares about me, etc…As a result I call him and try to take a hard line and tell him I need him out of my life. This is where he turns the “I love you so much, I have been an immature fool” routine on real thick then he sucks me back in…

After the bar our relationship gets markedly better, and everything is going fairly well…Until my birthday rolls around again and he skips my party again. This time because his mother needed him to watch her dog…I got upset and I finally just came unglued on him…The next day he shows up at the house of my friend that I was house sitting, before we are supposed to join a group of friends to watch football playoffs mind you…He is running late so I try to rush out the door to go meet our friends…He just sort of blurts out “I am moving to Atlanta in a month, just so you know.” Again I am crushed, oh but here is the kicker…He tells me he still loves me, wants us to work something out, etc…So we decide that we will try to do a long distance thing a little while and see what happens, we jointly make plans for me to go down and visit on his birthday right after he arrives. A week before he calls me and tells me he has to be doing this on his own and I should not come, if I do he will not be seeing me while I am there…I go through the heart brake again…Then as sort of a rebound thing I began dating this other attorney I knew and we were getting along well…Sure enough there Brian is again with a tale of how wrong he was, how wonderful I am, etc sucking me back in.

I go down to visit him after a couple months of daily 4 hour telephone conversations. We pick up where we left off, we are in daily communication, talking seriously about the issues between us, or so I thought, and I purchase another ticket to go down and visit over labor day…Oh wait, suddenly he is too bush to talk to me for 5 minutes on the phone…His communications with me are very platonic in nature…He still gets jealous and yells it me if I have even professional contact with the other attorney I had been seeing…Yet he has been spending every single evening with his neighbors having dinner, going out till 1am to bars, etc…Now the neighbors are 1 gay man and 1 single gal…He would have me to believe everything is just platonic and he is mainly interested in being friends with the gay male…AM I A COMPLETE IDIOT?

I am afraid the answer to that question is YES! I have done everything I can for this man for 4 years, I have put up with horrible treatment, I have continually dropped whatever I am doing for him, I have let him ruin things that should have been happy times, and allowed him to make me feel bad about myself when I should have been proud. Still here I am completely devastated because the bottom line is I love him so much and I will never be good enough for him. I have devoted myself to something so completely and it is like I failed…I just feel horrible because my heart is broken, I feel like a fool, and no matter what the reality is he does not give a rats a$$ about me. Then I also realize hey I am not getting any younger and I sure pick winners, I may die alone and that adds a new feeling of weird desperation to it. I wasted my last years of not having crows feet on this guy. In sum, never be the fool ladies or you may end up devastated…uggh…

[LuvtheCooper]

I am sorry your going through this, you deserve better.
You are a smart, intelligent woman and there are plenty of men out there that WILL appreciate you, the operative word in this sentence is Men, not whiny, useless babies.
You didn't ask for advice, so I don't want to overstep and give you any, but I think you do need to step back and realize who you are and what you have accomplished so far in your life (even with loser whiny-butt trying to drag you down). Reread all that you wrote and put in place of yourself, your best friend...what would you think she should do?
I wish you all the best and I wish Loser, Whiny-Butt the fleas of a thousand camels

[jp4m2]

Wow!...Clearly your not a stupid woman, you've demonstrated that in following your dreams and going where you had to go to further your dreams, I'm so glad I reached your conclusion at the end of your saga and saw that you realize you have been had.... I thought, Wow, I think she's seeing the light, four years wasted....I hope for your sake it doesn't turn into 5.........
In reading that, I for the life of me was trying to find what was so appealing about this man.... was he honest, thoughtful, compassionate, open, committed, respectful, supportive, was he willing to sacrifice, does he has the same values, morals,dreams as you???
How do you get a man to respect you or treat you with respect? Never settle for or permit less.
When people take outrageous liberties, when they betray our trust, when they display ongoing total disregard for our welfare, when they use and abuse, when they refuse to accept responsibility, for any of the pain and devastation we suffer....don't sit there and take it, the reality is that they don't care and they can get away with it...
I hope you have the strength and courage to make the right decision for your sake and follow through with it....Good luck...

[celstu1]

Girl,
I spent 10 years with a guy. From 19 until 28 years old. We broke up 2x in those 10 years for about 9 months each time. He heard I was doing something drastic, dating someone else, moving away maybe and he was right back up my A$$. I took him back. After the 2nd time we bought a house even though I didnt want to, I wanted to get MARRIED. He wouldnt even talk about marriage... stupid me (at 25) thought that marriage would follow the house so i went along and bought the house. Well almost 2 years later he DOES propose. We start planning the wedding... get the hall, DJ, photographer, my dress, bridesmaid dresses, decorations, etc.... and he decides he does not want to get married. So he breaks up with me, leave ME to meet with all the vendors and cancel the wedding... so I make him prepare the house for sale, all while not living there (kicked his sorry butt out) and we sell the house and I bought my own place. Its been 2 years since we broke up. (Oh the b*stard took the ring back too... it was worth $11,000 - would had made a nice downpayment for a new car!!!)
Anyways, I BARELY made it through the 2nd break up emotionally. In b/t when we were together he was always threatening to leave. Or hed get mad and leave for a night. He made me feel like it was all my fault and most of the time I felt like I was going crazy. In my head I barely knew my A$$ from my elbow.

Finally it clicked. The last breakup.... that was IT for me. The final straw. It was SOOOOOOOO HARD! I cried as I packed up the house, I cried as I signed the paperwork at the closing. I cried the next day as I signed the paperwork to my brand new (beautiful) townhouse. I cried unpacking the truck. I pretty much cried morning, noon and night! But no matter who asked me ... my answer was always "I AM FINALLY DONE!" no matter how sad I was. I would not EVER put myself through this again.

The years slide by soooooooo quickly. You have been with this guy off & on for 4 years. Imagine if you let him go 2 years ago?? You'd be over him by now. And trust me you WILL get over him!! Imagine that????

Its more painful to stay IN the situation than it is to finally set your resolve to be out of it. Yes initially getting out is HELL ... BUT you get over it. You do! However if you stay in it, you are always unsure, your selfesteem suffers, you suffer, your sense of self-worth suffers... you lose the ability to trust, to be honest to yourself and then you start to HIDE all the things that he does wrong that you know your family & friends would disapprove of, or that embarrass YOU cuz you are still with him and you know hes a D*CK! It becomes not worth it... and the years slide by as you are living them in shame of who you are and what you've become just to keep some sub-par relationship with some idiot of a guy.

don't let it happen! (((HUGS)))

[Yorkieluv]

If there are this many issues and you two aren't even married, chances are that they won't get any better...You sound like such an intelligent woman, and I hate to see you taken down by this guy...There's no excuse for his behavior. I pray that you realize that you don't need him at all. He is dragging you down, and that's not fair. Time heals ALL wounds, and you will get over him if that's what you want.

[nvnvgirl]

Wow....is this MY exbf Brian ? Maybe it's something about the name .

I say he's either gay or just a sociopath; there's lots of people out there like that, but most people they're involved with won't put up with it for as long as you have. Which is probably why he keeps coming back to YOU. I know you didnt' ask for advice, but I'm still going to tell you to DUMP HIS SORRY A$$!!!! Kick him to the curb NOW! He doesn't deserve you and just be happy that you didnt' move to where he is, or worse yet, MARRY the jerk! I wish I'd listened to my friends when I was with my Brian; it took me 2 yrs to get over him. Because they seem like they're just the PERFECT man for you is why you put up with it...you see the good things about him and the things you've got in common and the things that you are passionate about, and you dismiss the bad things. But the bad things are what make you feel bad and end up making you feel like YOU'RE the one with the problem. Your only problem is that he's WORKING it and USING you. Once you've been away from him for awhile, you'll be able to see much more clearly and objectively that he was treating you HORRIBLY and you don't deserve it. You're much better than he is. I feel so badly for you, b/c I've been there too....you just have to believe that you're wayyyy too good for him and you only deserve the very BEST...and he ain't it! Good luck, sweetie; I know it's not easy. So much easier to give advice....hope you get to the point that this is all a past error in judgment for you.

[CollegeCutieUSF]

Breaking up is hard whether it be after a few months or a few years. It never gets easier. At least you realized what you had to do and did it.

PS: celstu1, you should have kept the ring! lol. Isn't the rule of thumb that if he breaks it off you can keep the ring, but if you break it off you have to give it back?

[bren]

Originally Posted by celstu1

The years slide by soooooooo quickly. You have been with this guy off & on for 4 years. Imagine if you let him go 2 years ago?? You'd be over him by now. And trust me you WILL get over him!! Imagine that????

Its more painful to stay IN the situation than it is to finally set your resolve to be out of it. Yes initially getting out is HELL ... BUT you get over it. You do! However if you stay in it, you are always unsure, your selfesteem suffers, you suffer, your sense of self-worth suffers... you lose the ability to trust, to be honest to yourself and then you start to HIDE all the things that he does wrong that you know your family & friends would disapprove of, or that embarrass YOU cuz you are still with him and you know hes a D*CK! It becomes not worth it... and the years slide by as you are living them in shame of who you are and what you've become just to keep some sub-par relationship with some idiot of a guy.

don't let it happen! (((HUGS)))

I couldn't have said it better

[bren]

Originally Posted by CollegeCutieUSF

PS: celstu1, you should have kept the ring! lol. Isn't the rule of thumb that if he breaks it off you can keep the ring, but if you break it off you have to give it back?

Don't quote me on this but a friend of mine, who is also an attorney, said that you are required by law to give the ring back unless it was given on a holiday. If the ring is given on a holiday, it is viewed as a gift. If it is given on a non-holiday, it is viewed as a contract and if the contract is broken he gets the ring back. Some guys may not push the issue, but if he went to court over it, you would be required to return the ring.

[AngelWorks]

Change is hard----------- but without it you can not move on and clearly you are more than ready to move on.

I will not bore you with my long sad man tale------ but if I could start over at 39 with an eleven year old son and find happiness~~~~~~~~~~~~

anyone can!

My only word of advice:

Never discount someone because of age or distance.

Hubster is 9 1/2 years younger than I am and in London when we found each other.

[Ida]

Please don't think you did something and could not hold on to him - He sounds like a real @$$ - No kidding - Anytime something starts going good for you he shows up. As hard as it is - If he contacts you again - DO NOT give in - You're too good for him. You'll find someone who treats you the way you deserve to be treated. As my mom always said - There are plenty of fish in the sea.

[Yorkiekids]

Your an intelligent, sensitive person who has her whole life ahead of her. You met a nice guy in Alaska didn't you. Don't worry the right one will come along.

[celstu1]

Yes... I couldnt keep the ring, he didnt give it as a 'gift' on a holiday. Therefore it was still technically HIS ring until we got married, then it becomes mine forever. I was going to take him to court for it, but after speaking to an attorney about it... I found it he would have won hands down! Believe me, I did NOT want to give him the ring back! BA$TARD!!

[RowdysMom]

Hun,
You need a good therapist to help you figure out why you keep doing this to yourself. Seriously. You need to extricate yourself from this person. Oh and he needs a therapist too, but that is NOT your problem.

Do yourself a HUGE favor - STAY AWAY FROM HIM. Don't take his calls, don't answer the door, don't listen to him. He is pathological.

<<<<<HUGS>>>>>

[Angela]

Is he gay?? I have a good friend who went through the SAME things over a guy who was fighting being gay.

Angie