He broke up with me eight months ago. We are still living together. Although he initiated the breakup, he isn't initiating anything else... like, say, moving out and moving on with his life.
We've been living together for the duration of our relationship; we met when he moved to my city and into my flatshare. We subsequently moved into our own place several months later. It's been two years in total.
The relationship always had its ups and downs. We are both late-20s, though he's a bit younger than me. During the time we've been together, my guy has always struggled with stress, uncertainty and unhappiness about his job. While fundamentally he likes what he does, he hates living in The Big City. He had never lived away from his teensy little hometown before he moved here, so it was quite an adjustment for him. Oh, and he also came straight out of university and this was his first "real job".
He met me straight away after moving to The Big City, and in some ways I think that was the worst thing that could have happened to him; we fell into together and I became his built-in best friend, social network, entertainment, sole source of emotional support, etc. He never really bothered to try and create his own independent life here, never really made any friends or ventured out on him own. It put a lot of pressure on me and the relationship to be "everything" to him, and of course I failed to live up to that standard time and time again. And because of his job, he must stay here for at least four more years.
I did my best to be supportive of my guy, but I also often got frustrated at what I saw as his lack of initiative, his tendency to "shut down", and his unwillingness to really engage with me or anyone (or anything) else. What probably in any other situation would have been easily surmountable differences ("what do you mean, you don't want to go to the museum with me?!") in our case started to seem like dealbreakers. Looking back on it now, I can see quite clearly that much of what I was frustrated about with him were possibly classic signs of depression. He has since sort of admitted to being depressed, but refuses to seek treatment.
Despite our arguments, I loved him and was fiercely committed to him. I believed he was committed to me, too, and he always talked about our long-term future together. But he also kept saying the fighting was taking a toll on him, emotionally and physically, and finally said he wanted "time off" from the relationship. Two weeks later, we got into another blazing row, and he finally threw in the towel altogether, saying he couldn't take the fighting anymore and didn't see any sort of long-term potential for us because we were “too incompatible”.
That was eight months ago. Because of various financial and professional reasons, we initially decided we'd continue living in the apartment for the short-term. Obviously, this has not been a particularly easy situation, but somehow we've made it work. In fact, it's worked so well that there's been almost no fighting since the breakup; we've had some conversations about the relationship, it’s been made clear there are still feelings there on both sides. We have had fun together. We’re close. BUT, he has held fast to the line that "we're just not meant for each other" and that he "just wants to be on his own".
But so here’s the thing. NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING has changed since we broke up. He still wants to share a bed, to cuddle, to do things together. But no, he doesn’t want to “be together”. I keep asking him when he’s going to move out; he keeps dragging his feet and making excuses.
I originally thought maybe he was keeping me on a short leash while he checked out his options, or that he even had somebody else waiting in the wings But he has said he’s not seeing anyone else and doesn’t want to see anyone else; I know for a fact that he is not seeing anyone. For awhile I kept him at arm’s length, not wanting to let him get the advantages of having me without being committed to me, but over the course of eight months that is exactly what I have allowed him to do. For somebody who “just wants to be alone”, he hasn’t taken any steps to actually BE ALONE.
He says he doesn’t want to be in a relationship, yet he IS STILL IN A RELATIONSHIP for all intents and purposes. He clearly still cares about me, or at least says he does, and doesn’t seem motivated to change anything about the situation.
I know I am an idiot for having let him get away with this for as long as I have, but I love him and I guess I just deluded myself into thinking that somehow we were going to get back together.
And I know what I need to do to stop the insanity: I have to move out and get on with my own life. I guess it would just be easier to leave what still appears to be a perfectly good relationship if I had some perspective on why this is happening.
Why would you say you wanted to get out of an “incompatible” relationship, then not do it? Fear of change? Fear of being alone? He says he wants to be alone but I’m not really certain that he knows what that actually means. And I think he’s too depressed and confused to know what he really wants anyway.
Is there any way to salvage what we have, or do I just need to do the needful already and DTMF who dumped me?
Email me: doidumpmydumper@googlemail.com
posted by anonymous to human relations (34 comments total)
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posted by amro at 6:53 AM on January 30 [4 favorites]