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First-time break up

  
 
Triplets
04:30 / 27.11.06
Hey. If you've glanced at the Urgh! thread in a while you might have read that I've recently broken up with my girlfriend or, rather, she broke up with me.

We'd been going out for almost three months.

I am not taking this well.

S is my first girlfriend in 22 years* Only girlfriend. So this is the first time I've been dumped and I don't really know how to handle it.

I've cried, placed one crapply misplaced phone call to her, saw her in person and put my foot right in it and more.

A problem is that I tend to latch onto affection. All my recent crushes that didn't go anywhere either lasted a whole year (but she's now my best friend) or seemed to nearly get there (but ended up with both of us bitter). I can't seem to take the hint that my crush won't return my feelings. I hope that, eventually, I'll be able to win them over. Strike their hearts. This is a doomed course and, horribly, I can see that pattern of thought emerging with S. "What if I just call her tomorrow? What if I just say the right words?". Gah gah gah. Already I've probably put another two nails in the coffin by talking to her when I should've left well alone.

Still, in a way, I appreciate this happening. The last three months has been me learning how to be in a relationship from scratch and it's been [Ecclestone]fantastic[/E]. I've got a better idea of what I want from someone And now I get to learn how to be out of a relationship.

Probably better than having it six years from now, bitter, and having it check me into a rubber room at the Breakdown Hotel.

It's also brought out the best in some of my family. My brother C has been a fantastic "big sis" throughout. He's five years my juniour but knows more about relationships than I ever will. My dad is the biggest shock. Me, close to tears earlier tonight and my dad just sat me down, made me laugh, told me "you and her may have coked some things up, that's life, we all make mistakes, but it's been done now, you learn to live with it and move on". Relatives rule and I'm sure he loves handing out those golden advice nuggets.

Leaving S to clear her head for a few weeks before talking to her again. I need it. She needs it.

I guess I'd just like some advice, commiseration, maybe just someone to go "you'll be alright, have a Hunger Break". It's been good to think things out through my fingers tonight.

Still hurts.
 
 
Joggy Yoghurt
04:49 / 27.11.06
I broke up recently too. I feel that I take these things badly not because the relationship was the greatest thing ever but because I hold on so tightly in the end. It's like holding onto a rope. You dont wanna let go because you know when you do your knuckles are going to be all sore so you hold on tighter. And then when you do let go it's hard to straighten out your hands because they're used to the shape of the rope. But evenutally the pain does go away. (Then you find a new younger sexier rope lol). Good luck
 
 
*
05:12 / 27.11.06
Sorry to hear it, Trips. It is really rough; I'm pretty sure most people feel much the same way when they have breakups. At the same time, some time and philosophical distance will help. It's been good practice, and good relationships for many people require practice to build.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
12:03 / 27.11.06
Yeah, I think breaking up the first time is always maybe the worst. You do learn to deal with it better as you get older. Maybe. On the other hand, I'm not of the school that argues the first love is always the most intense or important. That's just romantic guff. In my experience, that is.

I used to find it difficult to let go of people when I was 22. Looking back, I hung on to people who were pretty bad for me and I for them. The reason we broke up was precisely that. So maybe it's just meant to be: your relationship is ending so that you have the emotional space to meet someone new! The only way it ever felt better for me during those early 20's breakups was a) trying to get out of the city/space for a time -- nothing like a seaside turn to bring you out of the desire to just, well, wander round to X's place, or call and talk, or loiter around the street waiting to see if ze goes out anywhere. If you can't do that, try to fill up your time with activities that will make you feel better and exorcise the pain: swimming, running, martial arts, dancing, hanging out with friends etc. If you must drink yourself into a stupor, do so.

I reckon the older you get, the more joy falling in love brings. You get better at finding out who's right for you and who will be able to love you, and who you can love. So you've got a whole vista beckoning of people to meet, get crushes on, fall in love with. A whole future of awkward stammering lust and days in bed. When it gets really bad, think about that.
 
 
jentacular dreams
12:18 / 27.11.06
Breaking up for the first time. Is it always like radiation sickness for the soul

Yes. Pretty much. But it's also something of a rite of passage. Happy endings aren't free, you earn them through shit like this.

I can agree with a lot of what disco says, though the big one for me was always (thus far) my first girlfriend. But in the years since I've seen two other lovely lasses (I'm still quite picky) and while each break-up has been painful, learning to let go is far harder the first time. Once you've done it it's far easier to build a friendship, assuming that's what you both want.

I've also found each relationship has enriched me, imparted me with a greater interest and understanding of issues which were important to the significant other. My first girlfriend gave/dramatically reinforced my idealism, and my faith in people. The second opened me up to philosphy and the vista of the mind. The third taught me about art and literature, and gave me the ability to appreciate cultural treasures on a whole new level.

Part of the pain of coming out of a relationship isn't learning how to live without the other person, it's learning who you are after the other person has made their mark.
 
 
Spaniel
12:22 / 27.11.06
Aw, Trips, that's really shit. I know how much it hurts and I know just how much worse it's all too easy to make it. So my only advice to you is to check yourself and try your very very hardest not to act on all those crazy impulses that seem so very very right and are so very very wrong. I know it sounds trite, but this too shall pass. It may take weeks, it may take months but I can assure you that it does get better.

In the meantime, try to sleep, try to eat (I'm not sure if Hunger Breaks are the right thing in this context), try not to take too many drugs or drink excessively, work those abs, and go and hang out with some people that really love you. None of that will make the pain go away, but at the very least it will stop it from getting any worse.

I don't do this, but... well... just this once.... BIG HUGGLES!

Oh, and if it's any consolation, my second major break-up, while much less humiliating than the first ('cause, you know, I'd learnt not to behave like a complete fule), was much more hurty.
 
 
Princess
12:41 / 27.11.06
The trick is to utterly destroy them before they get a chance to get too close. I prefer confidence tricks and bedroom humiliation. Failing that, arsenic.

Joking, obviously. But yeah, it's all pretty par for the course. If it makes you feel better, I'd gone out with like 5 guys (and slept with probably twice that) before the BIG romance kicked in. Right now, my advice to you is three fold:

1: Expensive chocolate ice-cream and girly movies. Even though they are bad, they will be cathartic.

2: Take her number off your phone. You can get it back off one of your friends if you need it, but right now you'll just ring her and say bad things and feel shit later.

3: Pamper yourself. That means warm baths, wasted money and oodles of narcissistic masturbation.

"Narcissistic" meaning,here,:

"Erotic pleasure derived from contemplation or admiration of one's own body or self, especially as a fixation on or a regression to an infantile stage of development."
-Dictionary.com (for those too poor for an OED)

Failing that, take a holiday.
 
 
Spaniel
12:45 / 27.11.06
1: Expensive chocolate ice-cream

During my last serious break-up I felt sick for weeks.
 
 
Princess
13:14 / 27.11.06
During my last serious break up I felt really good. That was, until, they got their scary friend to follow me and shout abuse. I was trying to buy socks, and she just started yelling. Ah, the hilarity of youth. Still, I don't think the friend he sent was prepared for me to go up and yell at her until she cried. Which I did, and a we got a crowd, and she realised I was so much better at public humiliation than she was.

The moral:
I will destroy you if you yell at me when I'm trying to shop.
 
 
Ticker
13:26 / 27.11.06
it is a rite of passage, a character building moment, and like getting your heart minced fine while it is still in your chest.

What you learn is that you will survive and given the right situation, love again.
Each relationship is unique and carries with it its own grieving process but the healing process is what reassures us we have done this, we have survived this.

Parts of it will heal and new interactions will nourish you and you'll find new playmates to have new adventures with. Parts of it may always sting a bit and the sight of an ex across a pub has caused many of our hearts to skip a beat. There's a yearning wistful melancholy to losing intimacy with someone you held dear. Sometimes that pang of heartache eases once a friendship replaces the old pattern between you. Other times it's a sliver of cold iron touching the core of your soul.

Each breakup is different but each revisits the value of your own company upon you.

Besides Princess' list I'd add music. Nothing keeps you better company than the beautiful music people have created from the inspiration of heartbreak.

Welcome to the ranks of the Veterans of Love.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
14:27 / 27.11.06
I've been in that rubber room at the Breakdown Hotel of which you speak on several occasions and it is, indeed, no fun. I can't give you advice because I don't think I ever handled it well. But I survived it and it taught me lots of very useful things for the next attempt at Lurve. You seem to be looking at this whole mess with that positive cast of mind, so you'll do fine. You hurt but you heal, harder, in time.

Princess' advice about deleting her number from your phone is excellent, btw. Every time you phone, it will be a mistake. It will only torment you to see it there in your address book. Need to go cold turkey: short term pain for long term gain

What you need, you know, is an older, more experienced man who can kiss it better for you... Failing that, get a new hobby. Grow a beard. Drink absinthe. Go travelling. Try not to sit around and mope, at least no more than you can avoid.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
14:43 / 27.11.06
Sorry about this, Triplets, but I can only tell you to give it time. Unfortunately, there's no quick fix for heartbreak--though I find a few days of wallowing can do wonders--but one day, it's all over and you become a stronger person for it.
 
 
Corey Waits
22:44 / 27.11.06
Just do whatever you can to take your mind off it. I know from experience how easy it is just to lie in bed, staring at the walls and feeling sorry for yourself, but it really doesn't help at all.

Also, my first break-up was actually the easiest, it was pretty mutual and that relationship had run it's course, so it was pretty easy just to say goodbye.
I was the one that did the breaking the second-time around, but it was still hard - we'd been together for 2.5 years and had lived together for most of that time, so everything had to change, and that in itself is hard enough.

Right now, I might be going through my third, and it's easily the hardest. We're meant to be taking a break, but for the past two weeks I just been depressed and moping about. I had another talk to her yesterday and finally realised that I need to just move on.
According to her I need to move on and get to the point where I don't really care whether or not we get back together, and then things might work out. Which just seems like utter female-bullshit...

Anyway, I guess I said all that as a bit of a show of solidarity, sympathy and all that.

In an effort to try and change my headspace I'm going to go back and read all the books that I was reading two years ago, just prior to this relationship starting up - Valis, Dice Man, and some others. I was in a good place then - I was single and relatively happy, so I'm going to try and, I dunno, channel that I suppose.
I can't see myself easily moving forward, so I'm going to take a step back, a step to the left, and then see if I can't see some way ahead.
 
 
Blake Head
23:18 / 27.11.06
I think, JD, that despite possessing the capacity for creating bullshit concepts like everybody else, females of the species don’t have a particular monopoly on said bullshit, nor is there is a variety which uniquely belongs to them. Becoming entrenched in a defensive attitude towards “utter female-bullshit”, which I am not saying you are doing - just counselling you against – just complicates the already painful process of a relationship ending. So my advice would be: break-ups are surely messy enough without dropping into the mix bitter, regret filled musings about how relationships with women fall apart because they just don’t understand and they’re an eternal mystery and they’re from Venus anyway - however cool they might make that look on tv.

Regardless… sorry to hear both you and Triplets are having a hard time, and agree that after a period of tear-drenched-heart-rending-can’t-breathe-chest-hurts-agony there’s an opportunity here to re-visit a former idea of your self, incorporate what you’ve learned from the relationship and during it, and start moving forward again. It might take a while. Be resolute, and if not that, obdurate.
 
 
Dutch
00:57 / 28.11.06
I found that my last relationship ended very poorly. To her, it felt like I had become some totally different person, perhaps I was, though I am now inclined to think there was a very dark essence that'd bound itself to me. It could have been the realisation of a very dark part of myself come out of hiding to destroy what once was good, and yet it has in some ways led to a better outlook on life again... Something I hadn't figured I 'd lost until I regained it.

Having moved to a different city together three weeks prior to the break-up, I was angry, full of resent and even outright hatred. While my rational mind kept me from doing things that were too outrageously evil or spiteful, inwardly I felt I was being consumed, literally.

The weirdest part was the changes from day to day, crying one day in despair, thinking everything was alright the next, to wanting to commit suicide the other. I lost ten pounds, looked like a ghost and felt like one too... I stopped myself (luckily) many a time before writing exactly the wrong letter, sending the wrong message via phone. Via messengerservice some things were said though that merely added to the decline of hope for any re-uniting.

The best thing I did was to let go of hope, to let go of the thought of regaining her love in that certain way. Although, it is still there in a small part (I still rejoice in her presence), we can now sit together like two people who are friends who've shared ages (although it was only a year). I now fully support her quest for a female companion (in an effort to maybe overcome some bad sexual experiences concerning men, including me), though it can not be said to be all altruistic.

BTW: in reply to the above post, I felt it was sometimes catharthic to downplay the special times we had and the great admiration I felt and still feel for her by simply deeming all women as "lying bitches". This is not a true conviction of mine, since there is a great part of me that actually desires to experience what it would be like to be a woman, but it helped to downplay certain memories that transcend mere words in their beauty, and plagued me day and night.

p.s. once again, this was not meant as deliberately offending, if I have done so, I hereby apologise
 
 
Corey Waits
01:34 / 28.11.06
Becoming entrenched in a defensive attitude towards “utter female-bullshit”, which I am not saying you are doing - just counselling you against – just complicates the already painful process of a relationship ending.

Yeah, I probably should've written "utter bullshit" or perhaps "utter relationship-bullshit" because I'm sure both genders come out with some pretty dumb things in the process of ending or mending a relationship.
 
 
matthew.
02:08 / 28.11.06
My first break-up was rather different. With most people and most things, I grow detached and ambivalent. I care less and less about things over time. I drift away from them steadily. So when it came to breaking up with her, I felt nothing. Sorry to say. But don't be mad at me, at least you felt something, Triplets. I'm just a cold robot incapable of caring for something for longer than a year or two.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
10:33 / 28.11.06
Hey, at least you got to see somebody and experience something good, if only fleetingly. A lot of people don't even have that.
 
 
The Natural Way
17:17 / 29.11.06
Bearing in mind the (rather small) time duration and the fact that it's yr first real relationship, I'd suggest that yr pain has less to do losing yr g/f but with the fact that it all ended so quickly. Look at it this way: it was all a little too melodramatic to be healthy (sleeping pills? Plastic bags? Babies? All crammed into 3 MONTHS?!?), she's probably not THE 1 (111!!!11TEH ROXOR1!) and, well, you think this stings, but wait until you break up with someone you've been seeing for x years........

Condolences, but it's not the end of the world. Friends. Beer. Good times.
 
 
The Natural Way
17:19 / 29.11.06
All of that to Triplets, BTW.
 
 
ibis the being
20:30 / 29.11.06
Having just reviewed the Urgh! post I must say the woman has done you a favor, Triplets. Still, breaking up hurts even when it's for the best - usually even when you're the break-er rather than the break-ee. Lean on friends & fam like crazy, that's the best way to pull through, I've found.
 
 
Slim
00:07 / 30.11.06
Ibis is right. It's best to lean on family and friends. When the shit hits the fan, your good friends will pull through. Secondly, know that though it might not feel like it, you'll meet someone you like as much or more. That's not me trying to cheer you up, I'm stating what I see as the truth. A part of you may love her for the rest of your life but that is due more to the fact that she was your first girlfriend than anything having to do with her personality. Lastly, mope for a bit and then convince yourself that you can do better. Do not, do not, DO NOT idolize her and make her out to be better than she was and your relationship better than it was. Your ego is your friend so lean on him too.
 
 
Spaniel
07:41 / 30.11.06
sleeping pills? Plastic bags? Babies? All crammed into 3 MONTHS?!?

3 months? Christ, I missed that bit.

Trips, I promise you relationships get a lot less fucking ridiculous as time goes on. At least, they do if you've got your head screwed on properly.
 
 
Olulabelle
12:34 / 30.11.06
BTW: in reply to the above post, I felt it was sometimes catharthic to downplay the special times we had and the great admiration I felt and still feel for her by simply deeming all women as "lying bitches". This is not a true conviction of mine, since there is a great part of me that actually desires to experience what it would be like to be a woman, but it helped to downplay certain memories that transcend mere words in their beauty, and plagued me day and night.

p.s. once again, this was not meant as deliberately offending, if I have done so, I hereby apologise

Ye Gods.

I think that if you tell yourself a thing enough then it becomes imbedded in your brain. It's like desensitizing yourself in a way, so even if you don't 'really mean it' (in which case it's a prety weird thing to think, I mean where did it initially come from?) if you tell yourself that all women are 'lying bitches' you will come to believe it yourself. And in so far as break-up advice I think it's horrifying. The way to get over the break-up with anyone is to focus on moving on, not to deem the whole group of people with whom your ex shares a sex as 'lying' and 'bitches'.

Triplets, definitely remove all the phone numbers and things, MSN, whatever. I also agree that taking up a sport or doing exercise always helps. Perhaps you could go to an Ashtanga yoga class - that's strenuous and will keep your mind off it. Also there are bound to be lots of lovely people at the class to meet.

Whenever you find youself thinking of her, just acknowledge the thought and then move on to thinking about something else. Don't fight with your brain, allow it to mull things over, but don't dwell on it. Either that or think of the worst thing about her and keep repeating that to yourself!

Another thing you could do is to keep occupied. Don't sit and mope or go to places where you might bump into her, even though it's tempting. Perhaps you could do something like make complicated christmas cards?
 
 
Whisky Priestess
14:52 / 01.12.06
And please believe your friends when they say she sounds like she was a total nutter and an energy vampire, and you've had a lucky escape. If that's what they say. Which I imagine they will.
 
 
Dutch
15:37 / 01.12.06
Priestess,

I do believe that if you tell yourself something too often, you start to believe it. But I also believe that venting anger in this (inappriopriately stereotyping) manner can serve as cathartic method. Now, I strenuously add that I do not hold the above stated conviction about women to be true, I admire and respect women greatly, dubious as this may sound in respect of the previously stated words.

The reason I took up that position sometimes was to relieve huge amounts of built-up energy that was going nowhere and dragging me down with it. It helped me to listen to very aggressive, sometimes really macho/mysoginistic hardcore punk (i.e. "Blood for Blood") because it reflected my inner turmoil and anger. Now I know it comes across very discriminatory and negative, but it was something that helped a lot.

In venting the anger inside me, turning it outwards by means of yelling, hitting walls, and by temporarily pretending to not be sad after losing the most precious thing I had, I got over the period I spent milling over memories and the cursed "what-ifs?".

Now I agree it is not a positive route to take, and I do agree that perhaps there could have been a better way.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:46 / 01.12.06
Priestess doubleteam!
 
 
Triplets
17:50 / 03.12.06
The advice has been great, guys.

I've not called her (apart from one mammoth call at 4am Wednesday night) and when we have spoken it's been her calling me. STAY STRONG OLD MAN.

The biggest help actually came from that 4am call where she told me bluntly (period pains, a throat infection and IT BEING 4AM will help this) that she never wanted to be with me again. Ever. So there went the last threads that could keep my brane tied to her for months.

Healing up.

Thank you all. Love you all.
 
  
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