Accepting that you meant nothing

[meaningnothing]

I recently broke things off with a guy after 4 months of dating. We are in our mid 30s. Things had been good until the last few weeks when I began to expect my feelings were stronger than his and when I asked him a few times if he was where I am and if we'd be making things a relationship soon, he said that he was 'trying to get used to the idea because he hasn't had a relationship in a very long time'. I took this to mean he wasn't that in to me cos he wasn't jumping at the chance of having a relationship with me. We were exclusively seeing each other at this point btw.

We had a (in hindsight silly) argument, and all my feelings came to the surface and I said how I wasn't going to be waiting around for him to decide if I am good enough to be in a relationship with, and broke things off. He said he was shocked that I was breaking things off but understood and respected how I felt. I responded to this message saying I deserved better and more and that it was a massive shame as we'd really enjoyed each others company.

It has now been over two weeks and he never responded to the message. I'm just so hurt that after everything over that past 4 months, he can just stop communication and not care at all. I suppose it makes my assumption that he wasn't that into me true, he didn't want to try or fight for me and I feel so rubbish.

I'm really struggling with the feelings of rejection and my own judgement that before the last few weeks, things were going well.

I don’t see that you meant ‘nothing’, just that he doesn’t want what you want Ito a relationship atm. You might find it’s fruitful - esp if you want children so need to be proactive - to treat finding the right partner as a second job, arrange lots of brief coffee dates with men who are aware you’re looking for marriage and children (if you want those things).

If you don’t want kids you’ve time to be more organic/romantic about it, but either way you sound like you advocated for yourself: you do indeed deserve better. Well done.

I think he's behaved very decently. You told him it wasn't working for you. He told you he understood and respected your position. He has since declined to engage with you further which is fair enough.

Tbf you broke up with him. I understand why you did but you can’t dump him then expect him to beg you or reassure you of the feelings he had.

Did you post about this before, but more in terms of him owing you an explanation why he hadn’t been keener on the idea of a relationship? I thought you sounded way too hyperfocused on a relationship you ended on in that post, and I think the same now. Obviously you were completely right to break it off when it wasn’t working for you, but I think it’s a bit mad to think he should have responded to messages after you’d ditched him! Did you think he was going to do some kind of ‘Pick me!’ thing when you said you were breaking it off?

4 months isn't very long.
I certainly wouldn't be making a commitment after 4 months.
You can't force someone to have the same feelings as you.

Whoa, hold on! You ended it - unexpectedly it seems to him - and now you're hacked off that he's respecting that you ended things? Don't put people in a position of having to "fight" for you. I did this for years when I was younger and what I really needed was to be there for myself. Not meant harshly, just that younger me can relate to this.

Four months is very quick to expect to have that kind of conversation to go down well.

I suppose I'm trying to accept that he really didn't care or have feelings for me based on his silence since. I didn't really want it to come to this (breaking it off) I wanted things to work out of course! And now I guess my self esteem has taken a blow as it appears that I really didn't matter after all.

@meaningnothing - I agree with PP. You ended it, OP. Perhaps a bit hastily, perhaps not (only you can judge that). You’re right not to want your time wasted but why would he continue to be in touch when you’ve ended things? I’ve had a couple of few month relationships and we never stayed in touch. It’s not a measure of how into you he was.

It sounds like you were hoping he would reassure you and confirm that he was where you were and I can see it hurts that that didn’t happen but it doesn’t mean you meant nothing. Also, you seem to have had the discussion by text or something (you talk about exchanging messages but perhaps I have misunderstood). Text etc is a poor medium for sensitive discussions because you can’t convey nuance.

But yes, on a separate note - it does hurt when someone is more important to us than we are to them. It’s always worth remembering that there will be some people with whom you are more important to them than they are to you. But of course, in a long-term relationship, you need to be pretty much equally important to each other.

I don’t understand how you’ve come to that conclusion, though. If someone was the love of my life, and they’d ended the relationship because it wasn’t working for them, I wouldn’t be communicating with them afterwards! The other person has said ‘I’m out, bye’, so that’s the end as far as I’m concerned. I certainly wouldn’t be responding to texts about how the other person had ‘deserved more’.

I think what you really wanted was for him to say no, let's not break up. But he didn't, and you're taking that as a rejection but without seeing that by ending things, you rejected him first. It's a dangerous game (and as I said upthread, one younger me used to play and got burnt by). He took you at your word and moved on. I know it hurts (been there) but what else was he supposed to do? Try to learn from this, take responsibility for the ending and its outcome, and gain insight into why you did it instead of being vulnerable and telling him at the time how you really felt (e.g., "I'm scared that you're stringing me along / that I'm more into you than you are me", or whatever would be true).

I completely get what you are saying, but I made it clear in my texts to him when breaking up, that the reason I was breaking it off was because I wanted someone who made it clear they wanted to be with me and cared about me. And the fact that he didn't try to convince me otherwise, I guess tells me all I need to know. And it's rubbish, for me.

So in my eyes, I wasn't rejecting him at all, but saying I needed someone who was 'into' me and I felt he wasn't so therefore I was ending things

He had appropriate feelings for a 4 month 'relationship'.
He accepted your decision when you ended it.
He's really not at fault here.
I think you might need to challenge your own expectations.

@meaningnothing - that is a lot of pressure to put on someone after 4 months. At that stage, you’re really still feeling your way in the relationship even if the feelings are powerful. The counter-risk is that you have a love-bomber who tells you what you want to hear but with no real substance to the message. You said he seemed surprised and it doesn’t sound like he particularly wanted to end things so it doesn’t sound like you meant nothing.

Tbh, 4 months in, I was still feeling somewhat equivocal about my now DH. We’ve been together over 25 years. But it was probably 6-9 months in when I started to feel more certain and start to think in forever terms.

But it is hard when you reach mid-30s if you want children. Time does feel very constricted so I get why you didn’t want to give him too much time if this was going nowhere but 4 months was perhaps a bit short.

Okay, I hear you, but again (sorry if I'm on repeat), younger me did this too, but to be honest, no matter how much reassurance I got, it was never enough. I just wasn't there for myself. He might have thought he was showing care for you in ways that don't resonate for you (again, guilty of this too). I don't know you, obviously, but it might be worth asking yourself why you needed this at such an early stage in the relationship. Is there an urgency to be in a relationship / feel loved / fill a void for example? For me, the answer to understanding myself was getting into therapy. I still get it wrong but less wrong than before. Some therapy / counselling could really help you unpick things.

But why would he try to convince you otherwise, when he clearly didn’t have the strong feelings for you that you wanted him to have? I mean, that’s why you dumped him! Because he wasn’t as into the relationship as you were.

Did you think that ending things would suddenly make him realise he was actually falling in love without having noticed? As a pp said, that’s a dangerous game, if you’re only doing it as a ruse to ‘shock’ him into a declaration. As you’ve found when he took you at your word.

In future, don’t use ending things as a shock tactic to try to strongarm someone into realising they have feelings for you.

I once dated a guy for a similar amount of time , was a complete whirlwind all driven by him, we went out , for weekends away, to the south of France , I met him mum etc etc then one day I dropped him at the station, said goodbye and I never saw him or heard from him again. His brother came to get his stuff from my house and that was that. He never contacted me and I never contacted him - I wanted to but was keeping cool as I was sure I’d hear from him again. I didn’t.

I will never understand why he couldn’t have been honest, this was pre Covid ( finished in December) and I came across his brothers insta during Covid and he had in fact moved a girl into his house. So that’s why he disappeared.. he could have just said but they all so often don’t!!

Didn’t you post this last week under a different username?

You got very honest and genuine comments on that thread which you don’t seem to have taken onboard at all.

After seeing this guy for a few months, he wasn’t ready to offer you more, you ended it and seem to have expected him to beg you to change your mind - he didn’t and he’s respected your decision.

You need to let it go - it’s done.

OP, I dunno if this relationship had legs or not but the way you went on about it was not great.

Unfortunately, real life isn't a romantic film. Seems that you wanted and perhaps expected him to run after you, to 'fight for' you in your own words, to realise that he was on the brink of losing you and to make declarations of his undying love and passion for you. Whereupon you walk off together into the sunset and the credits roll. You were trying to force him into saying and doing things he wasn't ready for, and why would he be, after only 4 months? Instead, he took you at your word and respected your decision. Plenty of women would be glad of that, and would feel creeped out and perhaps even scared if a man they'd ended things with kept trying to contact them and get them to change their minds.

Play silly games, win silly prizes.

But you had already broken it off. Another approach might have been to have told him you wanted all that without breaking it off. Your approach appears to me to be akin to resigning from a job because you want a pay rise, but then expecting the pay rise to be offered after your resignation has been accepted.

I don't read his lack of response as not caring at all, just accepting your decision. He may well be crying into his beer somewhere, but doesn't see the need has too much self respect to beg.

Yes, definitely posted recently about the same thing, but from what I remember the previous post was more about him owing her an explanation of why he’d not been as into the relationship as she was. It’s pretty clear from both that the OP intended breaking up as a ruse to push him into declaring a commitment to the relationship. He called her bluff by respectfully accepting her decision and no longer engaging. She’s left realising she has cut off her nose to spite her face, because she didn’t actually really want to break up, and he was supposed to come back k saying ‘I don’t want to lose you!’

It was four months, it sounds like you were wanting far too much too soon. A relationship of that time should be fun and light not all serious chats. You ended it and he accepted. I don't know what you're surprised about.

He's doing exactly what a man should do in his position.

@meaningnothing I wonder whether, at this early stage, you became anxious and panicked a little? You were in a "not knowing" stage of the relationship and struggled to manage your feelings. I'd be similar. I could be wrong, of course. Good luck.

I think you did the right thing, trust how he makes you feel, by not wanting a relationship, he’s means he doesn’t want one but happy to date for as long as you put up with it, plenty of time wasters out there, perhaps he would of eventually settled for you who knows but they make it clear if they’re into you enough.
I don’t understand some people saying 4 months isn’t enough, how long should you date, 12 months, 2years only to find he still doesn’t want to get serious then he dumps you for someone he likes better, personally I think 4-6 months you’ve put enough effort in to get to know him and if no real mutual feelings on both sides then it’s time to quit. I think he’s done you a favour not to chase back after you, you didn’t mean nothing that’s your self loathing talking, he clearly enjoyed your company, not head over heels in love, as wonderful as you are is wasn’t there for him but your making space for someone better for you.