I don't love you anymore . . .

[BlueistheColourIthink]

My other half of 2.5 years arrived this evening (long distance) and uttered the immortal words of "we need to talk".

All boils down to a kiss last week where he didn't feel the spark anymore. This added to the fact that he doesn't miss me anymore and doesn't love me anymore. We talked for hours, he's just left. I explained that I felt all relationships go up and down and that surely there must be something else, but no, apparently not. There is a girl at work who he quite likes but nothing else and he doesn't want to go out with her. I've said lots of stuff, some of it quite nasty and some of it quite pathetic.

Has anyone had any experience of a relationship ending this way? On either side?

Blue

xxx

[TDada]

o sorry to hear....best thing is to ignore him...give him ZERO POWER over you. Focus on yourself, take control. The weather is good, please dig deep and tell yourself that you are losing the burden of an immature, needy DP ?

Hope that I don't sound like I am trivialising but sounds as though your DP doesn't have any grit and is a bit self indulgent. Best if you focus on you and don't give him power over your emotions

[MigratingCoconuts]

TDada is right. He's taken your rights away from the relationship by unilaterally deciding it is over and you need to get back control. When you say 'left' what does that mean? Is he saying it is over or is he prepared to work at it?

Think about what you would most like to do now and just do it. Visiting a mate, staying with family, going for a short holiday?

There is nothing you can do about what he thinks he feels, you can only llook after yourself.

[textualhealing]

As the relationship is over for him and there would never be any easy way to tell you. Do you think he could have done a better job of telling you in a less hurtful way?

Better he has been straight than behaving badly so YOU end it which is what so many of them do. I don't mean this to sound harsh but I wouldn't want to be with someone who no longer loves me so I would appreciate his straight approach. I guess the bit I struggle with here is the bringing up of the girl at work. If it's over, it's over and there is no need to discuss anything else that will cause any further hurt, pain and confusion. I hope you take the advice of taking control of this from now on. You can't change how he feels about you but can take control of how you handle this and that includes not letting him back if and when he feels he may have made a mistake!

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

Sorry but you are dumped and you have to accept it. It doesn't mean that you did anything wrong or are unolvable or anything like this, it measn that as far as he is concerned, the relationship has run its course.
He did you the courtesy of telling you face to face and not trying to have one last shag with you - it may have been unnecessarily hurtful of him to bring up the possibility of this girl at work, but did he bring it up spontaneously or had you been demanding to know if there was someone else
For now, be kind to yourself. Asyou don't live together as least there isn't the hassle of sorting out who has to move. Do you have DC with him? If not, you can just erase him from your life.

[BlueistheColourIthink]

Thanks for your responses.

I totally agree, I don't want to be with someone who doesn't love me anymore. But on Wednesday night he rang me from a friends house "just to tell you I love you very much" and he arrives on Thursday at mine to tell me he doesn't. I've spoke to a good friend who told me the last she'd heard from him that he was planning a surprise trip away for me!

The zero power thing is exactly how I'm going to tackle this. There'll be no calls or texts from me.

He says it's over, he can't do it anymore and isn't able to discuss resolutions or ways to make it better because deep down he doesn't believe anything can or will change how he feels. He is even questioning whether he ever loved me, and the lack of a "spark". I just don't understand how it can all change so quickly.

Blue
xxx

[ohgawdherewegoagain]

Hi again Blue, as with all splits, you will spend an inordinate amount of your emotional energy trying to rationalise what has happened and questioning the past, his motives etc. This is all normal but please take it from one who knows, it won't change anything and the sooner you can leave this in the past, the better it will be for you. Don't torture yourself over something you can't change and the good advice here from the ladies is the right advice, be kind to yourself, and don't blame yourself. Not all relationships are for ever and usually, better awaits you round the corner.

[MigratingCoconuts]

There's no accounting for some blokes.! I can remember the hardest thing to get your head round is the way they change from being a person you thought you knew to a total stranger in what they say and do. Very suddenly.

There's no point in trying to second guess him. All you can do is deal with what he has done and look after yourself. my sympathies do go out to you..its a bummer to go through.

[juneau]

How horrible for you that it's all been so sudden and you had no idea it was coming.

The bottom line though is this: do you want to be with someone who doesn't love you? You can fight for this if you really want to, but from what you've said he's been pretty brutally honest and although it's going to be hard to just 'move on' after 2.5 years I think this what you have to try and do. And when the wounds aren't so fresh you should try to figure out what went wrong. We all waste time in our lives with people we shouldn't be with, but I suspect the warning signs were there, if only you'd known what to look for.

[Cherrybug]

Sorry to hear that but as others have rightly said, try not to rationalise it too much and focus on moving your life forward. He sounds confused and perhaps his earlier phone call was him trying to convince himself of feeling something he knows deep down is true.

I had a similar experience many years ago. My then BF of 3 1/2 years and I had just graduated and were celebrating in the pub happily talking about our future plans together. The very next day he turned up at my flat, bags packed and said he was leaving me and going back to his mums to live (in a different part of the country). To say I was shellshocked and totally crushed is an understatement and I truly thought I'd never meet anyone else I felt the same way about. 3 months after he left I got the typical drunken phone call saying he missed me and he didnt know what he wanted but he was scared to tell me how he really felt when we'd been making our plans. Bottom line, he was a coward, didnt love me and actually did me a favour. Decades later, I'm settled and very happy with my family and he's still single and searching for something, not knowing what he wants (we actually stayed in touch by ocassional email as we did have a good friendship though I've not actually seen him since the day he left).

It's very hard when someone rejects you but at the end of the day it really means someone more suitable is out there who can ultimatley make you happier. Dont be surprised if you get a confused phone call from him at some point in the future though. It sounds as though you are handling it exactly the right way but I know its tough. It does get better though and better you know now.

[MrsVidic]

Sorry to hear your going through this but as others have said he has ended it in the best way. Keep your dignity, think about who you are and what you want and prioritise you.

[Finallygotaroundtoit]

OK there is more to this. The 'girl at work' has much more than a bit part.

He is distancing himself from you to either start or continue an affair.

The plans for a surprise trip are all part of a script to set you up to fail some sort of test he has decided to give you - so that he can press on with the affair.

Hopefully Whenwillifeelnormal will be along soon to explain the 'script'

[BlueistheColourIthink]

Thanks again, I'm feeling surprisingly calm (or is it that I'm numb?). Everytime my phone beeps for a split second I expect it to be him then I remember . . . I've ordered some books (spot the English teacher) as that's what I do when things go wrong. I know though that I won't call him, I know I won't text him and due to the distance that I won't bump into him (oh except at my brother's wedding but that's another story post I suspect for nearer the time) so I just have to cut the losses.

Still can't quite bring myself to delete his number or facebook profile or his texts which I'm resisting re-reading and hoping my best friend (who is on his way over) will delete for me.

It just doesn't add up. Last night I even asked him if he had some terminal disease that he was trying to protect me from it all seemed so utterly unbelievable!

[WhenwillIfeelnormal]

Different take on this from me, as Finally suggested.

On the contrary, I'm really glad you know about the "girl at work" because I can virtually guarantee that since you last saw him or had any meaningful contact, something has happened with this girl and this completely explains the suddenness of his lost feelings. He sweetened the pill by saying he wasn't particularly interested in her, but I'm afraid that's a lie. Her existence is absolutely the key to this.

Once you realise that he's not depressed, suffering from some mysterious illness or undergone an overnight personality transplant - and is instead following the oldest script in the world, it makes this easier to rationalise.

At least he had the courage to end the relationship now rather than continuing to see you both and in doing so, he has given you your choices back. The best way of dealing with this is to retreat, lick your wounds in private and have no contact with him at all. Try not to over-analyse this either. I suspect he is someone who thinks that if he has feelings (or even just a crush) for someone else, his primary relationship must be flawed. He'll learn, but thankfully not on your time.

[BlueistheColourIthink]

The thought had crossed my mind. it sounds like him to think that even if he has a crush on someone else that is the be all and end all.

How do you know this though? Is there a book or a personal experience behind it?

It's over. I know it is and I don't particularly want to be with someone who is like this and I know, in the long run, it's for the best. That said I could barely hold myself together long enough to sign for the next delivery that just arrived.

[Dozer]

Get your friend to delete numbers etc. My friend wrote a message next to an ex's name "tosser! Don't call/answer or i'll break your legs!

It was v useful in dark moments, later it made me laugh.

He is giving you the standard lines as others say, and wants this OW.

[MigratingCoconuts]

There is a 'wanker' script and they all tend to follow it with depressing accuracy. I think we all know this from personal (bitter) experience.

[frazzle26]

A man I was going out with last year did pretty much the same thing to me. I was only with him for about three months but it was still very hurtful and very painful. I realised he was pulling away for a couple of weeks and then after running off in the middle of the night (long story) he uttered the immortal line "we need to talk. Bottom line is we split up.

However, I have since realised that although it was awful he obviously didn't feel as strongly about me as I did about him. Whilst this was horrible to swallow at the time I can now look back and think no person can help their feelings and this was obviously how it was meant to be. I saw him in town yesterday and felt a horrible pang but managed to hold my head up high and walk on by.

I hope that one day you find someone who feels just as strongly about you as you do about them (that's what I'm hoping for anyway!) Good luck x

[WhenwillIfeelnormal]

Yes there are lots of books referencing this situation (about infidelity) but I must have posted on about 200 threads on here over the years that chronicle this situation and there has always been an OW lurking in the background. Add that to having witnessed numerous similar situations in a fairly long RL and you might see where I'm coming from. Lots of people in your situation will tell you that it actually helps to know about an OW, because it stops the endless analysis, especially if you operate from the perspective that there wasn't a thing you could have done about this.

For the type of person I've coined on here as a romantic idiot, who cannot tell the difference between a crush and deep feelings, there will be lots more relationships like this. This isn't a phenomonon practised by men only - lots of women confuse crush feelings with real love and delude themselves that there must be something amiss in their marriages or relationships for them to have overpowering feelings (very often lust) for an OM. Consequently, a huge number of relationships are sacrificed for something that will pass, given time and lack of fuel.

At least in your case, you weren't married and I'm assuming there are no children involved. It really is better to know this now, hard and horrible as it is when you're going through it.

[BlueistheColourIthink]

Absolutely better to know this now. Thank you everyone for the kind words. It's keeping me going on what seems like a very long wait for my friend to get here. For various reasons I haven't quite crumbled yet but feel like I have to hit the bottom of this feeling (whatever it is a mongrel of emotions) before I can push up and reach the surface again. I actually do feeling like I'm drowning and I'm surprised at how physical the pain is. I'm 30 and had two serious relationships in my adult life. One of them 8 years and that ended due to his emotional abuse so it was only relief I felt when I finally did leave (8 months after I decided it had to be done) so I've not really experienced this before.

There is a child, a 5 year old girl from my previous relationship. Thankfully his access to her was limited heavily until v recently (on my part as no commitment to family life means no meeting my daughter and in Feb we'd agreed to move in together and set the ball rolling, the first step of which was meeting her on a more regular basis) and he was still introduced as a 'good friend of Mummy's' and I'm in the fortunate position of having a couple of good friends so hopefully she won't miss him. I wondered if it was this element of the relationship that scared him - he said in part yes. That in itself would have meant me firmly applying the brakes - if only he'd talked to me about it.

In that short time she had become quite attached, as 5 year olds can and had asked him to come for a sleep over (clearly potential best friend in her eyes *wry smile) but I'm hopeful she won't really notice that he doesn't come round anymore.

Coming back here to re-read and see new words of encouragement is amazingly helpful. Thank you.

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

Sorry but this man is not a cheating shit, he is someone who has decided that the relationship is not what he wants any more and therefore has ended it. Which is something anyone is entitled to do. Yes it hurts, but shit happens and it's far better for someone to sit you down, say,. 'Sorry but I don't want to continue the relationship' and politely but firmly walk out, than it is for the person to fanny around saying s/he is not sure indefinitely. Two and a half years is quite often the point at which peole look at a relationship (particularly a long distance one) and think 'Time to commit' or 'Can;t be arsed any more, this isn't for me'.

[WhenwillIfeelnormal]

No-one (I think) said he was a shit, but you have no more evidence than the rest of us that he hasn't been unfaithful already. The sudden change of heart and the reference to a woman at work suggests that this is what has happened, but only he knows the truth. It is to his credit that he ended this relationship and didn't string our OP along and of course he's perfectly entitled to do this.

[BlueistheColourIthink]

Thanks SpringChicken. I don't recall that I called him a cheating shit and I didn't say he wasn't entitled to do it. I am grateful he told me face to face but am struggling to comprehend the difference in 24 hours.

[kp71]

But a few people on this thread have said he definitely is seeing another woman. No one knows for sure and I don't think it's that helpful to assert something that you don't know.

[BlueistheColourIthink]

Of course, I see have re-read thread again! I don't think that though, he's not a shit. I still love him - but know that will fade with time.

[BlueistheColourIthink]

So, a little update for you all. Friend arrived, an afternoon of talking, crying and sleeping. I've looked up the seven stages of break up and I shall tick 'em off as I go! No call or text to him, no contact and I've only checked his facebook page 1! That's the next step I realize, getting rid of facebook.

What on earth do I do if he calls? I so badly want to hear his voice but really, I shouldn't answer should I?