Breakup and then get married/meeting the right person at the wrong time

[brokenhearted88]

My BF and I broke up/ decided to a break for an unknown period of time, after dating for over a year. The decision for us to take a cooling off period was horrible for us to make and involved a lot of tears from us both. We are both going through a rather difficult time with some personal issues. He has just been sent to live abroad for a period of time for work and he is also dealing with some traumatising family issues that are going to take some time for him to emotionally deal with. I am in the middle of a career change and ended up needing to move home to my family for a bit to get myself back on my feet following my career change. We have really tried to make our relationship work. When we are together and in the same place we are amazing and full of love for each other. But it has become increasingly difficult to deal with our time apart (we are also just not ready to live together yet as our relationship is only a little over a year old) as we both feel like we don't have the mental capacity to deal with all the other issues in our lives whilst also focusing on our relationship. We are the case of meeting the right person at the wrong time. I think that is the hardest part, the fact that there is nothing wrong in our relationship but that we just can't focus on each other right now and must take time apart to sort ourselves out with the hope that when we are done we can come together again. Although I know this is the right choice for right now, I am completely devastated and having a hard time functioning. We decided that for the first couple of months we should go NC, because if we kept talking then we would fall back in the same pattern of being in a relationship. It is taking every ounce of my strength not to pick up the phone and call him, but I know that giving him space to sort out his issues whilst I sort out my life is the only possible way for us to ever be together in the future...whenever that time may come.

My fear right now is that I am terrified that we won't find a way back to each other. I know that if it is meant to be it will be, but picturing my future without him is painful and causes my grief to explode.

I guess I am looking for some positive stories here to help me get through the day. Has anyone experienced something similar where they took time apart and then found each other again and eventually married? If so, what caused the separation and how long where you apart from each other?

No negativity please. I am trying to be as positive as possible right now because hope is the only thing that is keeping me going.

Thanks!

Katy92. That is interesting. Maybe going NC isn't the right way for me to go. I think for us there is the fear that we will fall back on our old patterns of talking all the time instead of him having the time to get his mind right and I would follow the pattern of just following him around the world and not ever getting my career fully off the ground.

It is so hard because we are both just trying to do right by each other and do the best things for ourselves. We both feel that this is really the time that we should be selfish before marriage and kids takes centre stage in our lives.

When you were together did he travel as much as you and put as much effort in, to the detriment of his career?

How old are you both?

It sounds, then, like he is he one disrupting the balance of your relationship. And if the relationship is very unbalanced it makes it hard to be in, especially if you need to survive yourself as an individual and work, make money etc.

So yes in that case you are "waiting" for him to grow up and that mostly depends on him. You don't have much control over that. It's either accept a relationship on his terms now (ie him being highly needy) or hope for a time in the future when he is less needy.

Dozer, we are in our late 20s.

I would reflect on how equal your relationship was and what the indicators were that he was as keen on you as you are on him. If you were the one travelling, giving up time etc and he enjoyed seeing you but wouldn't change work plans etc for you it seems unlikely

You don't specify the nature of his family tragedy, but if he's away with work for 6 months he may well not address his feelings about that for some time. He may meet someone else. Etc etc.

A year really isn't very long to be hoping for marriage etc in the future. Perhaps he would be a good long term partner, perhaps not. But if you're looking for a long term relationship, DC in your early 30s etc then best not hang onto the hope of him unless he comes to you and wants a full relationship.

Lady that rings true. I was starting to feel like I was waiting for him to sort himself out, waiting for him to come back to our country and a permeant living situation and was instead living in this weird type of limbo which in the end neither one of us were comfortable with. I didn't want to give up my career or put it on hold any longer and he didn't want me to be resentful of him later on. The upside is that even if we don't get back together, I will have a strong career and will have spent this time whilst he is away focusing on making myself the very best I can be.

So I think that your decision now is the right decision, because you are going to spend your time doing something constructive while you wait for him to grow up.

What I think you are looking for on here is a reason not to feel down about it, or wanting some kind of hope or to be able to put a reconciliation in a bracket of "likelihood." While I don't think it's a terrible situation or beyond your control (you obviously are able to give him what he wants and could just start doing that again) to me it looks like he isn't good for you and the NC is a very necessary way to get "yourself" back.

Thank you Lady. Your post are really helpful. Yes, the NC is a way of me to get myself back and I guess a way for him to do the same. I don't know how long it will take for him to get himself in order. I hope it is sooner rather then later and I hope we can both make the effort to come together again. For right now, the NC is a way of pushing myself to get my career together, while leaving him to sort his issues. I just want to be proud of myself and to see what I can accomplish (and I want to show him too and for him to also be proud of me and see me a strong and independent person). All my heart wants is to be with him but I also know that If I don't have a solid career to stand on and if I don't put the effort in to building my career then I will always regret that. I don't want a relationship that is full of resentment and so it seemed that this was the only choice we could make for now.

I am a firm believer in "if things are meant to be they will be" and if not then he wasn't the right person for me. I just have a gut feeling that we will find each other again, and maybe that will change with time but right now I just don't feel as if it is over for good and from what he said neither does he.

I think your attitude is really good. All you need to do now is stay strong - which means distraction, distraction, distraction. Not trying to assess the likelihood that he'll evolve. I know that is so much easier said than done.

Also have a think about how the relationship was very much on his terms. It is unhealthy if two people try and be together and all that happens is one of them gets sucked into the other's life. I realise he has special circumstances and it could just be imbalanced for a small period of time, but you must be wary of relationships like that, otherwise you're in for a lifetime of having a marriage/relationship on someone else's terms. And believe me, that is not fun!

If a period of time apart to sort yourselves out doesn't result in you getting back together, then it wasn't meant to be. Personally, I think you have made the right decision and if love was all that was needed to guarantee a happy ever after, the divorce rate would be considerably less.

You're grieving and part of your grief is feeling like shit but it won't always feel this way but until it does, hang on in there.

P

The only way I'd say that you can come back to each other, is by making a decision not to have other relationships during the split.

Then once you have done your respective personal growing you come back. Otherwise if you date others, there's a good chance you'll get emotionally attached and not find your way back to each other.

Or you end up with others and rekindle via an affair causing devastation to the other parties, which does happen a bit, because you always had that special love.

Sometimes it's a case of right person, wrong time.