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I met an amazing woman in my Master’s class. We are in the same cohort and our class meets once a week. We started dating and it didn’t take long for both of us to fall fast and hard. She started out saying how much she enjoyed my personality (I am very extroverted), how much she liked that I didn’t seem to worry about anything too much. She is a very quiet person, shy in large groups and she is very introverted.
After a couple of months, she started to get worried that I was going to leave her. She would cry and say that she didn’t know what I was thinking and that she wanted to be invited to live abroad with me. Each time I calmed her down and said that I didn’t know what the future held (as I didn’t at that time) but that I wasn’t going to leave her.Not enough info. How long have you been dating her? When and where are you going and why? Do you want to marry her? What do you mean by you’re not going to leave her? Are you thinking of staying where you two are now? You didn’t ask a question!
Oh boy, I accidentally submitted this before I was finished, then I wrote it again and submitted it, however, this was the one that was kept unfortunately, I will rewrite the ending.
My ex and I had a very good relationship, but we are both very different people as she is introverted and I am extroverted. We are in a Master’s class together and it is a cohort, so we see each other once a week in class, every other week is in person with the other classes being online. We were together for about 11 months.
At around the 10 month mark, she was upset that I was still talking about living and teaching abroad, she originally said she wanted to go with me, but had since changed her mind and wants to stay in the USA. She asked for a one week break and told me that I needed to think about what I really wanted. I was really upset, but thought about it and texted her the next day that I did not need a week to figure out that she meant more to me than living abroad. She called me about an hour later, crying, saying that she was an emotional wreck and that she did not want to lose me. She came over and we patched things up, or at least I thought we did.
Things were great for about two weeks, but then because we didn’t get to the bottom of what was really happening in our relationship, history repeated itself. She was still not confident that I wanted to be with her. We went on a weekend vacation together and she was starting to get upset at me for little things. On the ride home, she was saying that she was at the point in her life where she wanted to settle down. I don’t remember what I said, but I am sure it was less than satisfactory as I was still having trouble letting go of my dream of living and working abroad.
Another week or so later, our next class starts and the teacher asks what our dream job is, I stupidly, of course, mention living abroad, which really upset my lady. She voiced concern again after class. Then the next day, I was at her place and she was acting very distant and cold. Things ended up being better later that evening, but the next morning she sat up on her bed and started crying, saying that the past two months have been really difficult for her. She asked me if I really wanted to be with someone that didn’t like the same TV shows as her or music. I told her we indeed liked the same shows and music, I listed a few off and she said that I was lying because I had suffered through them (I was not lying btw).
She asks for another break and asks for a NC period of one week. I broke the no contact that she wanted and explained how I was feeling in an email, how things were not working and how I wanted to have a conversation on what we could do about that and that I loved her. She responded by saying that she was not taking time to figure out if she loved me because she knows she does, but rather if our relationship was working. We had class two days later and she ended our relationship on the phone and she said that I could email her with questions. I took some offense to this, but I still emailed her questions and of course begging and pleading and bargaining, not to just simply get back together, but to talk about what was wrong. All she would say is that our personalities do not work together and that she was enabling me, enabling the less-than favorable aspects of my personality.
The last text that she sent me ended with, “I know myself and I know this is the correct thing because of what I said last night [having to do with our personalities]. I know it’s the right thing.” A week later we had class together, face to face, and it was very difficult to endure. She got a new haircut and was looking fantastic. I shaved my beard and did up myself as well. I kept catching her looking at me, and she kept catching me looking at her. After class I asked if we could talk face to face and she said, “I would not be able to handle that right now. Maybe with some time.” That is the last thing that she said to me as I started NC after that text last Thursday.
There are other events happening in her life. She got on bad terms with her roommate and started comparing some of the things that I do to some of the things that her roommate did in a negative way. She decided to move out due to her roommate and is moving back in with her parents about 45 miles away from me. We are also partners for an assignment coming up that is due in nine days. This can be done online, but we will have a face to face class the next week, so 16 days from now.
I have been thinking about what caused our relationship to fracture and it seems it was both her being upset about me still wanting to travel as well as us not being open and honest about things that bothered us in our relationship and working on ways to make it better. Looking for advice on how to handle working together during NC period.I don’t understand what your plan is for this relationship. You want to live abroad and have her join you or you want to live abroad and have a long distance relationship with her? If so, for how long? Do you want to stay with her or do you want to break up with her when you go live abroad? Or are you thinking you’ll both date other people and then maybe join up later?
It might be she is upset because she feels this relationship is headed for an inevitable breakup. Is she right? Are you willing to commit to her long term? If not, it would be understandable that she would be upset because the root cause would be that she wants a long term commitment where she won’t get dumped and you aren’t willing to give that to her.
Is that the case or am I reading this wrong? What’s your plan here?
I believe that you are reading it correctly. I lived abroad for three years and always had a dream of doing it again. When we first met, she said that she wanted to live in another country as well, just for a year or two, but as our relationship progressed, she changed her mind, and no longer wanted that as a plan for her future. I had trouble letting go of that plan, as I had it for quite some time, but I was conflicted because I truly want to be with her. I do not want to have a long distance relationship, I want to stay and be with her. I believe that you are correct in that she was afraid that I would leave her later on, but I was too late in convincing her that I wanted to stay. My plan is to get her back, start a new relationship with a strong foundation where she knows that I will never leave her.
“..All she would say is that our personalities do not work together and that she was enabling me, enabling the less-than favorable aspects of my personality.”
Other than you being an extrovert and her being an introvert, what unfavorable aspects of your personality did she think she was enabling and how? Talking about things that bothered both of you in the relationship and then both of your coming up with solutions is a great idea, but as Mr Ex said, she was and probably still is, worried that you will at some point leave to live abroad.
If you can get back together and have a better relationship, think about asking her for an engagement leading to marriage. That will solidify in her mind your intentions and she wouldn’t be concerned you will leave her.
The way you handle working together is to be polite and not to talk about the relationship. Later after no contact, work out the issues.
I was thinking about asking her to get engaged, even as soon as 6 months into the relationship. But I thought that was too soon, so I waited. I only kept talking about living abroad because I was still trying to convince her to go with me, not that I wanted to go by myself. I would say the main thing that she enabled was me arguing for fun, not to hurt anyone or not even because I disagreed. It is something that my friends and I do all the time, basically arguing for sport, which usually ended up in laughter because the arguments got so ridiculous, but she hated that, and she didn’t tell me that until just a few days before she ended things. Which is something that I could have just stopped doing with her if only I had known how she felt. Our communication was not as great as I thought. Thank you for the advice, I will stick to our assignment when we are working together, be polite, and continue with NC outside of class.
OMG! Arguing “in fun” is NOT something you do with a woman you love!! I think you must be immature to not know that. Her going abroad with you without at least an engagement ring would not be wise on her part. Okay, follow your plan and in the future show her more respect and honor..
You sound like you are doing the right things. And it sounds like there are two issues. One is that she seems very insecure. The second is that there were communication issues in the relationship.
It doesn’t sound like the relationship is over for good but that it needs a little time for her to kind of calm down. If and when she contacts you to talk about it, you could ask her what she is feeling and what she was feeling and just listen. And then ask her what you can do to help her deal with her insecurities. She probably doesn’t want to feel like she is stopping you from traveling and maybe thinks you might be resentful if you can’t do it. Or that one day, you might just leave because that’s what you want to do.
That all requires honest talking through where each side listens to the other and also asks what they can do for the other person.
Here’s one little relationship thing I’ve found that can help in relationships. I’ve talked about it once before. It does two things. First it gives both of the people involved equal power. Secondly, it can help stop an argument or disagreement from blowing up into something larger.
You can have some kind of “safe word” where if you are having a disagreement and the other person just can’t take it any more, they can say the safe word and then tell the other person what they need to do. Sometimes for one person, an argument is over something small but for the other person it is really serious and they are about to blow up. They can at that point say the safe word and then tell the other person not to talk about the subject for the rest of the day. Both partners have to to respect the safe word.
Or if one person is pushing someone else to do something they can stop it with the safe word. Or if one person won’t do something the other needs them to do, they can use the safe word to make them do it. If either partner uses the safe word unfairly, it won’t work of course. And if someone doesn’t listen when the other partner uses it, it doesn’t work. And it is a sign of disrespect.
It is a little thing but can be very useful to prevent problems from becoming bigger problems and also allows each partner to feel they have some control because worst case, they can always pull the safe word if something is getting to bad. And for a partner with insecurity, it may help a little bit. If you are arguing with her and you think it is playful and she doesn’t, she can use the word to stop it. The word is a last ditch option. It sholdn’t be used for things like “(safe word) give me the remote control”.
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