How to deal with the guilt I feel for so long already?
May 12, 2017 2:40 AM   Subscribe

Was it all just my anxiety, not knowing how to communicate in LDR? Eight months later I am still lost. Grateful for your opinions.

Sorry for the length of this and I apologize for my English.

I am a gay guy from Bosnia and I’ve been devastated after I lost what I now consider the love of my life. Lot’s of experience behind me, but obviously not enough for what might have been the real stuff.

We first met about two years ago but he decided to end it over our atheist-believer difference after two weeks into seeing each other.

We ran into each in a club some 8 months later. He told me he planned to leave the country and try his luck with a job on a cruise ship again (after 6 years) because that was still his dream. The day after, I texted him that I was really happy to see him again, that I consider him a really nice guy despite our differences and wished him best wherever he decided to go next. To my surprise, he replied immediately. He started hitting on me immediately, saying we should meet again, talk and see what might happen. We met a couple of day later and gave it a try.

The following 5 months was something I never thought possible - a fairy-tale. I was worried about the faith thing in the beginning but soon enough I figured that he had changed. I asked him about it and he said that he got tired of having followed every single rule for 5 years, praying five times a day, and that he started losing friends for being too devoted to faith.
In the first month of our relationship I met his parents, grandparents, brother, the whole family and he met my mother. His family liked me and accepted me as his boyfriend, same as my mother did him. We weren’t living together but I spent at least 3 days a week at his place. Soon I found out that he had some problems at work, might lose his job, and first of all because it was still his dream, he wanted to go on a cruise ship for 6 months. I said ok but deep inside I already felt deeply sad. I wanted to support him in fulfilling his dream but at the same time I felt terrified that ship-life might become his choice for the future. I expressed my fears several times which got him angry, he blamed me for not being supportive, and yeah, I really felt bad about my feelings. The more I thought about the ship, the more I heard him talking with other people about it, the more nervous I got, but I did my best to hide it, to help him organize everything and I wanted to enjoy every moment we had. My greatest fear was that 5 months of a more or less weekend relationship was simply to short of a period for a 6 months separation, it was like running into a super serious problem straight from a fairy-tale – everything went too quickly and I felt lost. We survived till the departure day though and we even felt really strong about it. He did hint several times among other people that he didn’t know how long he would stay but I kept quiet.

Then he left. I was scared to death, analysed his behaviour during the previous five months and figured that there was no way he would quit after one contract only. The rollercoaster began the moment hi hit the sea. He posted all happy and smiley pics on FB and I felt numb. Just four days after he left we talked on the phone, I said what I felt and he got angry, told me I was not happy for him and insisted that he had never said he would stay only for one contract and that he belonged there (on the ship). He killed a part of me right there and after that I simply didn’t know how to react on his messages or FB posts. I felt more and more as a stepping stone, as an option. He insisted that I was crazy and that I was ruining everything with my negativity, and that I might get what I asked for. I blamed myself for seeing things or perceiving them the way I did. I tried my best to be supportive, but I would always fall back to overanalysing things. A month and a half after he left we managed to see each other and spend a couple of hours together. I asked him to stop playing games, to stop with ‘I love this life’ one day and ‘I hate it, I wanna come home’ the day after. I tried to explain to him that it was driving me crazy, tried to tell him how it was on this side of the story. But soon things got back to the same ups and downs: one day he would say, “This is not for me”, then a day after he would say “This is a good job for me”, then, “I am sitting on the shore, thinking about all of this – maybe this isn’t a good life for me after all..”. It was a dream on nice days and something “I do for us” on bad days – that’s how I saw it at least. About 2.5 months in, I asked him to stop telling me anything about his job and the ship. He saw that, and rightly so, as my not being supportive.

A couple of weeks later his grandma died and that left him devastated. For the following two months, he would often text that he was quitting that job after the first contract; that he had had enough, his dream was fulfilled and he couldn’t wait to get off. I tried not to comment on that because I had learned by then how quickly his opinion might change. Big mistake. As the day of seeing him got closer I started believing that it really was it and that he would not leave again. I was more than happy, couldn’t wait to see him. August finally came; I thought that was it, 20 days to go, and then one day in a response to a friend’s question on FB about his second contract he posted that he was leaving again in November. I really freaked out. I couldn’t believe that I would find out about something so important to me on Facebook. We had a terrible fight, he said he had had to write that because that was his boss who posted the question... – once again I felt guilty and I apologized. In the following days we went from being so happy to get together again, to my asking him if it was all over between us. As it happened, I had to go to China for 3 weeks so I was not going to be in the country when he got back home.

When we finally talked on the phone after I came back, he said that he would come to my place with his mother (he couldn’t find his driver’s license).. I felt angry, hurt, worried and lost at the same time. He did say „Love“ - something I've been killing myself about ever since because when they finally came I was still angry and sad and numb. He felt offended by the way I acted. The whole drama continued for a month. We saw each other twice, but mostly texted and he finally left me over an email.

I should have said that after that initial phone call when he first left, and after we saw each other in April, we never talked again on the phone or saw each other over Skype. I did ask him to call me several times, to send me a voice message at least, but he always insisted that the Wi-Fi on the ship was bad or that he was afraid we would argue.

Our ending was devastating. I pleaded, begged, called, texted, I told him I’ll wait for him again, just to talk about it and figure out how to make it better - did everything I shouldn't have done. From the beginning of our relationship he was the one saying that we would stay forever together, build our kingdom...he often said he would not be the one to leave me - all of which, I guess, triggered my paranoia in the end.
He blamed me for everything both times we met and in texting/emails. He said my negativity destroyed us and I now know he was right from the beginning. He was brutal. In the beginning that brutality helped me cope with pain, but the more I thought about everything the more I’m aware of my mistakes and how much I hurt him.
I feel that I betrayed both of us and what we had together - a hard pill to swallow.

I just never believed in a fairy tale he offered before meeting him; not in ‘gay world’, especially not in Bosnia. I guess that is why I find it so hard to get back to myself.

Thanks again
posted by Nnennoo to Human Relations (9 answers total)
 
Let me give you some perspective.

I'm a 50 year old gay man, and have had at least 5 or 6 MAJOR crushes / love stories / unrequited love episodes over the past thirty years. Each one making me think my life would be over. In fact, it is precisely one of these that made me find out about MeFi and join this forum, hoping to find some solace.

I don't mean to belittle your pain but guess what? These things pass. Life circumstances, your boyfriend's ambiguity and your own anxiety may all have scuppered this one relationship, but take a deep breath and get some comfort in knowing that there is joy and happiness ahead of you. What is it they say? Time heals all wounds.

It has nothing to do with being gay in Bosnia. Just give it time.
posted by Kwadeng at 4:50 AM on May 12, 2017 [14 favorites]


Breakups SUCK. Chalk it up to a learning experience instead of beating yourself up over it... it really sounds like you were incompatible, and most people don't behave perfectly when they're trying to maintain a relationship in difficult circumstances.

Be good to yourself, focus on healing your grief rather than the "whys" of it, and eventually you'll move past it.
posted by metasarah at 5:04 AM on May 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


It would be hard for anyone, straight or gay, young or old, experienced or not, to feel happy wanting commitment from a partner who is so ambivalent about everything. Who is to say that you wouldn't be feeling just as bad right now if you were still "together" but he was talking about maybe signing up for another year at sea? There is nothing to feel guilty about. You expressed what you needed and how everything was affecting you. If that made things crumble, it was really not meant to be at this point in time. No guilt is warranted.
posted by flourpot at 6:10 AM on May 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


This person has goals in life, or goals for now anyway, and that's okay. He's not doing it to hurt you. Caring about someone means letting them do the things they choose.

It's easy to have a fairy tale for 6 months. That is no indicator of future success. If you convince yourself that this was your only chance at happiness, of course you will be devastated when it turns out not to be the case.

Your actions didn't "cause" the relationship to fail. The relationship was going to fail, something was going to turn on the lights and expose the fragile infrastructure eventually.

Getting your heart broken is hard and it hurts...and it heals and you learn. You will be okay. Practice wishing him future happiness in your head, practice letting him go, and spend some time looking for the lessons in this for yourself. Maybe do some very sad writing in a journal to let it all out, and then start to think about the kinds of things you want to have in common with someone you fall in love with in the future. Work on your anxiety. Practice clearer communication with your friends and family, to exercise those muscles. Doing that work will help you heal.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


99% of what you wrote about your time with this person is not what I could call "positive." There's 1% that tilts in that direction, but in unrealistic terms (like "fairy tale") or in a spirit of hope and optimism about what could be.

This is a weird thing about how we fall in love. We can very effectively blind ourselves to the negatives because the positives feel so dazzlingly, dizzyingly good.

Are you still following him on social media? If you are, do yourself a favor and stop. At least for a while, so you don't have quite so many opportunities to (for example) see someone's handsome face or other visual reminder of that overpowering 1% of attraction. When we let our grips loosen on what made a split so difficult, it's much easier to recognize that the 99% of bad times were the main story and not just an aside.

Be well.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 9:52 AM on May 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


I understand why you feel guilty. Sure, you could have been more positive and supportive, but that's hard when someone promises you a life together and then chooses a career path that will keep you two separated for extended periods of time. That might work for some couples, but it clearly isn't for you. It doesn't mean that he doesn't truly love and care about you, it's just what he thinks is the best way to make a life for himself. I can see how hard it would be for you to hold it together when your partner's moods are all over the map and there's not much you can do to help. And truthfully, the only thing you probably want to say is "Come home so we can be together."

Forgive yourself for not being perfect, forgive him for not being perfect, and try your best move on, day by day. Do at least one thing you love every day, something that you can focus on and lifts your spirit. Spend time with friends and family and not talking/thinking about your ex. As time goes by, the pain and the guilt will ease. From my perspective, breaking up was the best choice that could be made given the circumstances.
posted by blackzinfandel at 12:05 PM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thank you all, I really appreciate all the answers. I am not following him on social media, not after I saw that he fell deeply in love a month after he left again. It was too painful to see the songs and coded messages (so to say) he started posting for the new guy. That’s something I wished for while we were together.
All I ever wanted was to try to stay together for one more contract. I learned a lot from the first 6 months of being apart and really hoped for another shot, this time differently. I kind of felt that I deserved at least that one additional shot given the fact that we had spent so little time together and were just learning things about each other.
posted by Nnennoo at 2:02 PM on May 12, 2017


You will have another shot... with someone else. A clean slate will be much healthier place to try out what you've learned about communication and support in relationships. I know it is not obvious from where you sit, but from an outsider's perspective it is quite clear that the love of your life is still out there waiting for you to come find him (and it's not cruise boat guy).
posted by treehorn+bunny at 9:57 PM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: One thing I did not mention is the last communication we had in January. I knew he was at sea again and I wanted to wish him a happy New Year and good luck. What I got in reply was a kind of lecture about the so called Law of Attraction and Abraham Hicks.

When we first met he was already into Louise Hay stuff, which, as he said, helped him to recover after previous breakup. I tried to read one of her books, but I guess I either don't understand it right or am too sceptical for 'positive thinking' stuff.
After he left me, he got involved deeper into the subject, so in his last email he gave me a lesson about how I lost him because my negativity got my vibration down and the Universe took him away from me; I got out of his “Vortex”. I have been researching the subject since and, again, it’s just too much for me.

Right after I received that last email, it kind of helped - I got angry because I could not believe that he saw himself as some sort of gift from the Universe. Now, I don’t know.
posted by Nnennoo at 12:39 AM on June 2, 2017


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