Help a gal get some perspective on a relationship that ended as quickly as it began. Things were going very well, I thought we'd spend V'day together, then was disappointed when he was very wishy-washy with plans. It ended up in a huge, unnecessary fight. I'm still having lots of trouble getting past the fallout. Where do I go from here? Wall of text inside.
31 y/o female here, on and off OkCupid for the last few years. I've had a couple of 3-6 month relationships and made a great friend on the site, but keep ending up back on after things don't work out. I met a man who I knew I had incredible chemistry with before we met in person. He first messaged me about two weeks before he was making a big move into a new house and simultaneously finishing up a huge project at work. We met in person about a week later and the chemistry was equally crazy in person. For the first time in my life, I had that feeling that I just "knew" things were right (hehe…clearly I need to hone this instinct a little more). We jumped into an exclusive relationship immediately. Despite the chaos going on in his life, we saw each other a LOT during the first couple weeks. Understandably, this was all due to me driving to his place (about an hour away) and in some cases, further so I could pick him up from work. I helped where I could; carrying boxes, unpacking, getting groceries, having his pets stay at my house during the move, and lugging stuff from multiple ikea trips. We stayed up ridiculously late talking and eating takeout on the floor of the freezing cold new house and generally having a great time together. I learned that he had been engaged up until late last year to a woman he had been with over 10 years. She ended things in a hurtful way and he had been to therapy and said he was ready to move on. Also, we admitted to each other that we were falling hard.
In what turned out to be an unfortunate twist of timing, Valentine's Day was the following week and since things had been going so swimmingly, I expected that we would spend it together. We mentioned it in passing and he said he'd been doing some research and thinking about a picnic/long drive we'd talked about. This thrilled me to pieces because in past relationships, I've felt like I'm the only one who put any effort into planning fun stuff to do together. We spent the (somewhat rough, chaotic) weekend together, made worse by the fact that we were spending it in a house with a broken heater, no furniture, towels, etc. In hindsight, I have no clue why either of us thought this was a good idea.
A couple days later, he asked me to go to a hockey game (he's the fan, not me) with him the day after Valentine's Day and had mentioned coming to my neck of the woods that weekend, but said he didn't want to do anything on Valentine's Day itself. I told him it would have meant a lot to me to spend a couple hours after work that day with the guy I was crazy about (and who was, by admission, crazy about me as well), but that I now felt like it was a one sided desire and I definitely didn't want that to be the case. Now, I am a fully grown, intelligent woman and understand that this day is technically no different from any other day, but I totally admit that I was disappointed. I felt like I had accepted it, but the following day it came up again (yes, I know…it was completely ridiculous) and we settled on trying to meet up for dinner after he was done with work on Valentine's Day night. The next day when we talked (two days before V-day), our conversation went something like this:
Him: "I'm going to leave work early on Thursday and go with my friend to pick up the rest of my stuff from a storage unit that night. I have to be out of it by the 26th."
Me: "Oh, that'll be good to get done…wait, what day did you say you're doing that?"
Him: "Thursday. Oh shit."
He then went on to say that he was not thinking clearly due to all of the stress but that he was going to go to the storage unit anyway. I told him that this upset me. I then felt that he got very mad at me and was insistent that he "couldn't win". I tried to explain that I had really just wanted to spend time with him and needed to know what was going on, but I felt like there wasn't really a concrete plan. In short, it was a horrible fight and I nearly just walked away right then, but wanted so badly to salvage what we had started. The next day he texted me and told me that his friend had cancelled the storage unit plans when he realized it was Valentine's Day and that maybe we could get together after all. By this time, I was just sad and disgusted by the whole thing but felt like I had unintentionally turned it into such a big deal that I better go.
I drove up to his work that night, waited over an hour in my car for him, drove all over the city looking for somewhere to eat, anded up not eating anything because we were so disgusted with each other, and then sat in the car talking about what had happened until 3AM. He told me he had seen a huge red flag in the fact that I had not been understanding about his chaotic situation that week. I told him that I was mildly horrified by this as I had been trying so hard to help him and I felt like I had been completely blown off. We agreed to spend the weekend apart and didn't see each other until the following Sunday, which happened to be his birthday. He nearly cancelled on me at the last minute, but made it to my house and I took him out for the day. We had a good time but things had definitely cooled off a lot. That night, I told him that I didn't feel like there was a place in his life for me right now and that he needed to concentrate on himself for awhile. We agreed to be friends and said that if we had met at a different time, things might be very different. We were both very sad but felt this was a mature decision. Over the following week, the constant texting slowed, then stopped completely. I understand that this is normal for the decision we made, but it is making me sad.
So, here's the problem. I miss him a ridiculous amount for someone I didn't know very long at all. Every time I think about it I get emotional. I feel terrible about the whole thing and have this insane urge to try to talk to him and salvage what we had in the beginning. Is this something I attempt to salvage, or how do I move on when I feel so beat down by this? Also, how do I keep my (apparently) sky high expectations from coming back to haunt me again in future relationships?
Thanks so much to anyone who made it all the way through that. I'm feeling really blue and it always helps me to read the reasonings of helpful mefites. You guys are the best.
posted by couchtater to human relations (25 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
[I] have this insane urge to try to talk to him and salvage what we had in the beginning
Maybe he'll want the same thing, maybe he won't. But there's only one way to find out. A lot of Mefites will tell you to drop this, but why not give it a shot and see what he says? You can always drop it later.
Also, when he said you were not understanding of his chaotic situation, and you replied that you were mildly horrified -- did he then apologize for his part of the fight? It seems you had a big expectation gap, and it would be a good sign if he apologized as well.
posted by 3491again at 11:26 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]