TLDR; I start seeing someone for 3 months, she asks me to open up to her more, I do, she then sleeps with someone else (while we were still technically open). I don’t blame her for it, but I was hurt and I told her that. She says sorry, that she wants to be with me, then shuts down for a few days, then dumps me, tells me it’s because she needs to “work on herself”. Then she flies this guy into town to see her for a weekend, she says she’s gonna dump him after the weekend, goes back on that too, and blocks me.
Sorry, this got pretty long. I think my main goal here is just to make sure I’m not missing something huge, and I’m not crazy… For those familiar with attachment theory, she is for sure exhibiting avoidant tendencies, and that has activated my anxiousness, but it feels like it mostly just comes down to a huge lack of respect and consideration. The sequence of events goes like this:
1. We start seeing eachother, she’s moving in about 6 months but not too far away. Things are great, amazing connection, even better sex.
2. About a month in, things still amazing, we talk about our intentions. I say I’m ok keeping it the way it is for now, since we should really be sure if we are going to do something serious, and that she’s the first person I’ve dated that I see as a potential partner in a long time. She agrees, says that feels right to her, and we have 2 more months of great times.
3. She then opens up to me one night (after a really fun night out with her and her friends) that sometimes she feels like I’m just using her for sex. I immediately feel terrible that I’ve been more closed off than she has, and I sit her down and give her an explanation.
4. I tell her about a bit of trauma from my last relationship where I was made to feel very bad about myself sexually, and I have probably overemphasized that part of our relationship because of it. I told her I may have not been expressing as much emotional intimacy because I wasn’t sure what was appropriate, but I definitely feel that desire with her. I open up to her about some pretty vulnerable things, because I felt so bad that she was feeling not prioritized. I told her I really do care about her, and I am very much interested in her as a partner. She says ok, seems like things are better, but she still seemed off.
5. She goes to another city for a birthday trip to meet someone she met on IG (she’s an “influencer”, not uncommon for her to make friends online. I met a couple of them). I knew this was happening for a couple of weeks, and before our intimate conversation, I was fairly secure in our connection so I was ok if she slept with someone else, knowing we were technically still open. She is a photographer, and was going to meet him there to do a commercial shoot, but she also said they were friends and interested in hanging out with eachother.
6. But then, I start to feel uneasy about her being with someone else after opening up to her in such a significant way. I feel vulnerable now that I’ve told her that I have some insecurities around sex and told her how much I like her. I hope she doesn’t do it, but I accept that she might.
7. She tells me she’s going to bed one night, I go to send her a post on IG later in the night at like 1am, and she’s online. Ouch. She does it again the next night. Double ouch. I don’t say anything, it doesn’t feel like it would be fair to.
8. She gets back, I say I’d like to talk about some things. First, I told her it felt like we left things a little weird after our conversation, and I want to make sure she feels validated and secure about me. Turns out her main takeaway from our conversation was that I was in fact using her for sex, because I told her I was dealing with some insecurity there. She was angry at me. I explained everything again, made it very clear that I care about her very much, she felt much better, and told me she’s sorry and wants to continue to see me.
9. I tell her that’s great and I do too. Then, I tell her that I know that she hooked up with this person, and that she didn’t do anything wrong, but I’m feeling off about it and I’m hurting a bit. I make it very clear I don’t blame her for it, I just didn’t want to hide the way I was feeling.
10. She supports me as much as she can, gets defensive sometimes, tells me she’s sorry a lot, but doesn’t ever tell me that what we have is more meaningful or that she cares about it more, just says sorry and doesn’t offer much reassurance, even after telling her that those are the thoughts I’m having.
11. She then shuts me out for a few days. We talk, but it’s transactional at best. She doesn’t ask how I’m doing once, doesn’t tell me how she’s feeling, and gets irritated when I ask how she’s doing.
12. She then calls me and tries to break of it off, saying she doesn’t like the way she feels and she needs to end it. I tell her that this doesn’t seem fair, and that she’s breaking it off with me because she feels guilty, and that I have done everything I could to go about this in a healthy way and be kind. She agrees, tells me she got overwhelmed and apologizes and says she just feels bad for what she did and was running from it.
13. I give her some space, then we make plans for me to go to her house. I get there, things seem off, she says she doesn’t feel like we’re on the same page, and she gets her journal out. I already know that if she tries to break it off again, that I don’t want it with her, because I haven’t gotten any support from her in things I told her I’m struggling with yet and I don’t anticipate getting some anytime soon.
14. She starts down the track of breaking things off, I tell her that’s ok, she’s right it’s not gonna work if she can’t separate her negative emotions from my presence. I tell her I’m frustrated with how she handled things, that she literally asked for closeness, I gave to it her all the vulnerability I could, she f\*\*\*ked someone else, then dumped me. How’s that for fair (not to mention damaging to my security). She says she knows, she’s sorry, but she just has some things that she needs to heal that she didn’t realize, and she can’t do that with someone else. She needs time to work on them on her own. She says she actually originally just wanted to ask for a break and not a break up, but she was afraid that I would react badly. I’m feeling better, so I say ok, we actually have a really nice goodbye and wish each other luck, although I’m still pretty upset at her.
15. THIS… is where it gets really bad. A few days go by, and I go to check her IG (because I miss her), and she’s blocked me. I start thinking… what if something is happening with this other person. So I check his IG, because she posted him back on her original trip. He just flew into our city, and is obviously coming to see her.
16. I’m extremely hurt. And angry. She lied to me in that intimate conversation. I text her with a general “wtf” sentiment, she says that it’s important that we talk about it. She calls me, I lay into her, saying she’s selfish and lied to me etc etc. She says I’m absolutely right and she’s just running from what she needs to work on and she’s sorry. She says I’m the kind of person she wants to be with, and this person doesn’t measure up, and she was planning on breaking it off with him after this trip.
17. I’m still angry, but generally feel validated and bit less insecure because of those things.
18. I text her later saying that I don’t want her to feel terrible about herself, and that I just want her to make the best decision for her. And that also, it feels like it would be respectful of me and what we had for her to actually do what she said she was going to do, and break it off with this person. Honestly it was really hurting to sit at home knowing she was with someone else, when I feel like the only reason we aren’t together is because I opened up to her after she asked me to.
19. She replies with a totally different energy. She said she’s having fun, she doesn’t want to be shamed for it, she’s not using him, she’s “connecting” with him, and basically goes back on all the things she told me.
20. Now I’m fully emotionally activated, feeling extremely insecure and bad about myself, and very angry. I ask her to be straight up with me and tell me whether she’s going to keep seeing this person or not. She never gives me a straight answer. We yell at eachother on the phone (while this guy is at her house), she blocks me and that’s where it’s all ended.
I’m having a really, really hard time regaining my security and feeling stable after all of this, even though it was only 4 months. I’ve lost weight, haven’t been able to work much, etc (normal anxious attachment stuff, just pretty severe especially considering the length of relationship). She just hit on about every insecurity she could. Where do I go from here? Did I do something wrong? How should I be looking at this situation now? Part of me really wants her to come back and apologize so I can vent out all this frustration I feel towards her, but I’m not sure if that’s the right move. What would you do if you were me?
9 comments
This is all way too complicated when it really boils down to the fact that she dumped you. So that means move on and stop dwelling on it. It was 3 months of your life, you’ll be fine.
Talk to a therapist. The problem here really isn’t how she behaved. She behaved within normal for someone who just wasn’t feeling it after a few months. She was a single woman behaving like a single woman who very, *very* clearly did not want to offer you the kind of relationship you were looking for. Her actions were brutally clear even if her words weren’t. (And let’s be really honest with ourselves: her words often were rather clear, *until* you debated and argued her into agreeing to breaks/continuing.)
And you were not making it easy for her to dump you. You were *frequently* emotionally manipulative and combative with her and required her to speak to you so you could vent your negativity at her, instead of just agreeing it was over. You kept refusing to hear the fact she didn’t want to be with you and couldn’t offer you what you wanted, because you had decided that her rejection was “unfair” to you. That wasn’t kind, or at all reasonable.
When someone wants to break up with you, let them. Don’t debate them.
Talk to a therapist or counsellor. This was a rough experience, but your reaction to this experience is unhinged and harmful to yourself. You need and deserve support. Your healing is going to include some recognition for how you participated in this dynamic, and failed to make the best choices for yourself.
You have to make this your credo:
1. She was never that into you. That’s no reflection on you.
2. It’s very counterproductive to give someone so much power over your self esteem. Specially if she didn’t deserve such power to begin with.
All that kind of drama happened in 3 months? Call yourself lucky that she’s letting you go, since it sound like you would have stayed with her, if she did not.
At first it won’t look like a good thing because you liked her and you miss her but when you find the next person and realize how little drama there could be in a relationship you will have a better understanding of why it’s so important to have let this person go
You screwed up trying to convince her it was “unfair” to break up with you, and again with everything after the breakup – checking that guy’s social media, texting her about it, demanding explanations of her behavior, etc. You don’t have any right to any of that information once you’ve broken up.
I’m sorry this is so painful, but you don’t get to keep talking to her about this. Your frustration and lack of closure is for you to deal with on your own. Get a therapist, take up a hobby or an exercise regimen, vent to a friend, whatever helps. But you both behaved questionably here and your energy would be better spent understanding why you acted the way you did, than worrying what she’s doing with whom.
At this point, it’s clearly over and even if she changed her mind about that and re-contacted you, I wouldn’t engage. Get space, work on your insecurities, let time heal
But as for evaluating what happened, I think you at least slightly mishandled transitioning from getting to know each other to building a relationship
1. A month in and things are “amazing.” You express that you “see her as a potential partner.” You suggest “keeping it the way it is for now” because you “should be really sure if [you] are going to do something serious.”
No issue so far, but this set undoubtedly set expectations about the direction you two were headed. You represented that you believed there was a very strong potential for a relationship, but also wanted some caution / deliberate pacing. Fair enough.
2. “[You] have 2 more months of great times.”
When were you going to re-address what was going on between you? Based on how the stage was set, she would have been reasonable to expect that you two were trending toward a relationship as you became sufficiently sure it was a good idea. You seemingly never told her you *were* sure enough or at least even more confident than you had been the first convo, despite months passing just as you hoped
3. “She then opens up to me one night that sometimes she feels like I’m just using her for sex.”
After 3 months passed where you did not express that you felt sure enough to pursue the relationship seriously, this is not a wild conclusion for her to draw.
For better or worse, on average, more women prefer men to make their intentions clear about the end he is pursuing with her, rather than have to request that information. On average, more women have past experiences where men over-exaggerated their romantic interest in order to have sex. You allowed the status quo to continue undefined and that came off as if you were content with a sexual-but-not-serious relationship with her
4. You tell her about trauma from a past relationship that led you to over-emphasize the sexual aspect of your current involvement. She interprets this as are in fact using her for sex, because you have sexual insecurities that you’re working through by your involvement with her. You told her you had been emotionally reserved because you weren’t sure it was appropriate, but you have feelings. You share other vulnerabilities “because [you] felt so bad that she wasn’t feeling prioritized.”
You didn’t completely bungle this or anything, but you didn’t do yourself any favors either. This was her attempting to check where you were at with her (against the backdrop where *months ago* you were optimistic about her as a serious partner and just wanted to play it safe and make sure before becoming serious). You then give an explanation about *why* sex has taken priority based on your trauma.
Do you see how the subtext supports her inference that it was primarily about sex for you? I understand you expressed your interest in her as a partner again at that point, but you already said that the first time *and then never further solidified that interest* by making your sure-ness about becoming serious known to her. The ideal would have been to be proactively address the status you desired before her expectations of you started to sour. The next best thing would have been doing that when she brought up her doubts. You mostly just *explained why you hadn’t* through a little trauma dumping
As an aside, “I wasn’t sure if expressing the emotions I was developing toward you was appropriate” evidences some extreme hesitancy given the first talk you had about where you saw things going. If you had expressed and she rebuffed, then keeping it to yourself going forward would be fair, but when you are optimistically exploring whether something serious will work you absolutely should express positive emotions you develop. AN ABSENCE OF DOING SO WILL OFTEN BE MISINTERPRETED AS A LACK OF THOSE FEELINGS. People read between the lines
Everything else after that is a mess, and I doubt it was salvageable. I second the other comments about a breakup not being up for debate. & resentfulness about someone hooking up with others while you’re still non-exclusive is a huge sign that you waited too long to suggest moving the relationship forward
I just want to say one thing about you as a person, which might have, or might not, have come into play.
STOP trying to analyze every damn thing you do, see, hear, or feel. Dating you would be like dating a damn robot. If you think this didn’t come out in the relationship in some shape or form, then you’re out of your damn mind.
All the comments telling you to get therapy are correct. You’re going to continue to strike out if you don’t do something to curtail this constant need for valudation.
Yea she didn’t like you like that, not much more too it.
If she’s avoidant, this is her way of sabotaging relationship that has potential. Relationship with the other guy? Not so much, but that’s why she chosed him