You have made the first step. just keep going, you will get there and you will feel better. good luck

I know how hard it is to have feelings for someone and they just stop communicating. It sucks, it does. It leaves you confused and you find yourself making up all kinds of "innocent" reasons why she is not contacting you back. You convince yourself to hold out hope. It is only until enough time has gone by, where it becomes clear, she just doesn't care to contact you anymore.

But you "had to" call her because it was only fair to tell her the door was closed? I mean no disrespect, and maybe you convinced yourself that is why you are calling, but if you are honest with yourself, the real reason was not really that at all.

I am sorry you were left to fend for answers yourself, like most of us here, but I hope, you don't feel you "have to" call her anymore. Put a deadbolt on the door and don't give her another key.

hang

I'm new here and i must start off by saying that i admire your courage in taking the first step. Thank you for telling your story, it gave me hope. Keep up the good work, the road gets better ahead.

Keep that door closed... and double-deadbolted. Its not worth wasting energy wanting someone who doesn't want you. Heal yourself and move on.

Good luck on your journey.

I don't know why we hold on to hope like we do. I keep holding out that he will come aorund and o his sences...that this is just a bump in the road (well more like a huge pot hole). Good for you though to sticking with what you are saying. I on the other hand can never stick to it. Maybe one day I will be as strong as you and others here. Good luck to you :)

Bear, you are right. Probably the ego's last stand.

As for giving her another key, not in this lifetime.

The heart and mind have different ways to hold internal honest feelings. You have a passionate relationship with this lady who has been on and off the reason for passion, mad love, and you are thinking about her. Otherwise, the phone call would not have happened.

Obviously I am an outsider, I know little about your relatioship aside from what I have read in here, and I praise the fact that both of you had the burning relationship which is something to be remembered. When you decide to moan, work on the end, start dating again, throw away every photo, card, letter, memory, than I feel you will be ready to move forward and have a nice, new start. I wish you a happy, loving, smiling new fresh day - and with it - lots of nice moments that are yet to come.

It's odd how the feeling came on this morning. It was actual anger, finally. I've been working straight through since June 21st on the most horrible project ever. It's been 13, 14, 15 and more hours every day until this past weekend, when it settled down to 6 or 7 hours right through July 4th, and now pretty much back to the normal everyday chaos.

I think my frustration boiled over into my feelings about the breakup and how nasty it was on her part. How she didn't show the least bit of compassion or understanding to someone she shared her bed with for almost 5 months, talked about marriage and had asked me to move in just before the breakup. To someone who never strayed from her, raised his voice to her or abused her in any fashion, verbal or physical. To someone who always listened to all her fears (and there were many), gripes about her ex, doubts about herself, sometimes at ridiculous hours in the morning, alwayws being there to comfort her. To someone who helped her with more than a few projects around her house, kept her boys entertained when she cooked and cleaned house, kept her company when she took them to scouts, sledding, fun junction, etc. She also lost her insurance when she quit her job and one of her boys is ADHD. Her ex is now covering the boys' medical, but the copay on his ADHD meds was $5 and now it's $120. I offered to help her with that too.

And she dumped me in a very cruel way because she finally saw the last of my income properties which is now being renovated. She ripped me for being delusional and making poor financial decisions. The thing that frosts me about this is she knew about it. I told her in the very beginning, and when marriage came up I told her I had to deal with the house before we formalized the committment we had frequently talked about. She couldn't wait another 12 or so months before I asked her to tie the knot?

Yeah, I made poor decisions in my real estate venture, and so did my partner. I learned a HUGE lesson from that and I've made huge strides to correct them. I avoided bankruptcy and foreclosures, dealing with 8 tenants, two banks, a private paper-holder and a recalcitrant business partner. I paid off all my obligations. I've got my credit score back to the mid-700s. I'm paying rent and a mortgage and sinking over $1000 a month for the next 15 months into the renovation project. I've cleaned up the vast majority of the mess and am continuing to clean up the remaing fraction of the mess, and I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm extremely proud of how I overcame some pretty extreme adversity. I'll have the upstairs unit rentable by November and the downstairs by July or August of next year.

And what really gauls me is she is making poor financial decisions in the present. She quit her job twice in the past 2 years, without another lined up, and with triplet 10 year old boys depending on her. The first time because she was reprimanded for internet usage at work, the second time because it became too stressful. She also spent well over $3000 on furniture after the second quit, because she thought she deserved something nice. Hey, you don't have a job and in this economy, your ex sometimes jerks you around on child support. You quit so you don't get unemployment insurance. Shouldn't you save that for a rainy day? And she had the audacity to rip me for not being able to handle the stress of a regular 40 - 50 hour a week job, 8 tenants, two banks, one private mortgage holder, a partner that vanished, a dad that passed away and a mom that was diagnosed with alzhiemers shortly afterward, an alcoholic sister that had a double aneurysm shortly after mom passed, and after recovering lived in the parents house and I didn't have the heart to enforce the will to divide up the property.

I feel like a Class-A idiot for being so gracious and still holding out hope.

She doesn't deserve a third chance, and I just wanted to let her know, not that I think it matters much to her, but it does to me and my self-respect. Guess it was something I just had to get off my chest for my own reasons.

I also work in a very stressful environment and understand all too well what long hours day after day really means.

Getting all this out of your chest is important. Regardless of the outcome of the story, just putting out there how you feel, how she makes you feel, how life issues you constantly have to deal with are pressing you, can make you "throw the clutter out of the table and turn it over".

For the record: in such economy I, for one, am proud of you for getting so many ducks in a row and your financial life together.

One big point came across my thoughts after reading your last post today for the 5th time: how would you feel if she would actually return to you, wanting to get back with you and your relationship after you were able to stand financially back on your feet?

If she really broke up with you because you made some unfortunate bad financial decisions (and again, the property is/was yours, so it is really up to you to decide what to do, when, how and where), something would always be pairing over your head.

We all are able to make decisions within our own realm. The good ones are celebrated, the bad ones are lessons learned and the unexpected are the reason we continue to move forward because they belong to a much higher power.

Embrace your today because tomorrow will be much better. It is ok to be angry. It is ok to feel sad, it is ok to be extremely tired and want to sleep. It is ok to wish for a passionate love - that will last a lot more than 5 months.

Hold on tight because life is just beginning... tomorrow will be better than today, and the day after, better than tomorrow.

Thanks for the kind words C.

I know the anger will subside rather quickly, but it feels pretty darned good right now! I also know I'll forgive her eventually. I'm certain of this too. It's just my nature. Another thing I now know in my heart of hearts is it's truly over for me.

In truth I'm also angry at myself. I should have seen this coming from Day-1. There were red flags but I ignored them. As time went on, more and more red flags popped up and I had two chances to let go during the other breakups. I guess my ego distorted my perception. I fooled myself into believing the nasty episodes were aberrations.

Lesson learned. When someone tells you something less than flattering about their nature, believe it. That is who they are. No matter how perfect it seems at first, those aspects of their personality will most likely be turned on you sooner or later.

Thank God it was sooner.

"how would you feel if she would actually return to you, wanting to get back with you and your relationship after you were able to stand financially back on your feet?"

No dice. I'm beginning to see things more clearly now. She lives her life in fear. She hasn't let go of her past, and almost obsessively worries about the future. She can't just live in the moment.

Her comfort zone is her and her three boys against the world. She does not react well outside of that zone, to external influences she feels she has little or no control over.

I don't believe she ever truly trusted me and I just can't understand why. She often asked me why I was so nice to her and equally often she told me I had no idea what I did to her sexual desires. She also often reminded me she didn't have any money socked away.

The gist of it was she didn't think she was in my league and couldn't fathom why I was with her. I think she always suspected I had some ulterior motive.

My only motive was love. I never asked for anything in return, and especially not financial help, either implicitly or explicitly. I've got enough headroom in my budget to do everything I need to do, except lay down the many thousands of dollors for a ring and wedding. In about 12 or 13 months I will and would have, but just not now.

She does have many qualities I admire and respect and I absolutely love the more pleasant side of her nature. I find it sad she just couldn't accept my love for what it was, and that she couldn't believe in me and understand I would have done anything for us and a possible future together.

Such is life.

Hmm... After rereading my previous two posts I see I was just not accepting her for who she is in total. There are two sides of her, one I absolutely adore and another that I don't much like.

I want to have the side of her I adore without the unpleasant side. That's just not who she is at this point in time. Maybe it never was and never will be. I don't really know and never will.

I am adding this post to the memory of all others.

The future is a path that is yet to be discovered. We have no control. We also have no control on what goes on someone else's minds - and many times on our own minds.

We want this, than something happens, we want that and then there is another turn. I am sure she has many issues (and who doesn't?) while handling them poorly when she has no idea of how blessed she really is.

She has 3 sons, she has a roof over her head, she had your full attention and love. Obviously she struggles with many more ghosts that are leading her to grasp her children and want too much. This "many thousands of dollars for a ring and a wedding" when there is a bad economy and she is well aware of it tells me quite a bit - and not a good, loving message.

I am sure she is passionate, caring, loving, and every dream your deepest thoughts could carry. The other side could make you feel like you feel right now: angry, disappointed, sad with the end result. If money was the drop for you, look around... she quit her jobs (and she was lucky to get some in a bad economy), she complains about her ex not giving her child support as he should, his children are watching and they are grasping her reaction to life.

There is always a pleasant and not so pleasant side. I thnk people just look for the pleasant side and when the other shows up, which it will when you get close to someone, they don't like what they see and think there is something wrong. Maybe that is why a lot of people don't really show "everything" until they get comfortable and feel that they can.