Checkpoint

Yes. Like I said about the other former boyfriend of hers, he could describe his own experience with her and what he has observed since and it was exactly what I felt I'd experienced as well. Once the passion wears off she tries to repair everything, but the awkward thing is that she only seems to do it for herself. You, on the other hand, is only manipulated into thinking you're doing something wrong because she just doesn't love you as much anymore. 99% of the time that you want to be close to her she pushes you away. And she uses lines like "I'm just not that into sex" when in fact she was very "into sex" less than a year ago. And that sort of stuff. Manipulation. You're doing something wrong or she's suddenly realised that she has this personality trait that makes you incompatible or somesuch. And eventually one of you breaks up. This time it was actually me more than her. Which I need to keep reminding myself.

Actually, if you want to put it crassly, I think you're right. But the thing is that she also can't have sex without the notion of love. She never even makes out with a stranger in a bar; she needs to have some sort of fuzzy feelings and familiarity there. So there's no surprise she knew this new guy from before. But that's also precisely it: she's madly in love with love. She's in love with passion. She was never in love with me, but with the idea of a beautiful fairytale romance. Once that prospect started looking uninteresting she had no problems moving on from me, because it wasn't me it was all about. It was about her. (Which was more or less her former boyfriend's take the other week as well.) And that is also why she immediately falls in love again. She doesn't mourn me, but our relationship, and why mourn old love when you can have it all again? Cue the next Mr. Perfect and start the carousel for another round of romance. What annoys me is that she's trying to sound so mature and know-it-all about it (almost to the point of being berating and degrading of me) when in fact all she does is contradict herself and even lie. And again I think she does these things more for her own sake than mine, as if she's just trying to tell herself she's not doing the exact same mistake all over again. It just sucks to still have feelings left for her deep inside, because me, I loved her. I'm her total opposite, because I have a really hard time falling in love with people and I am scared stiff of entering a relationship without feeling that she's totally right for me. For me everything between us evolved into something deeper - something she at least appears to be unable to feel - and all that feels very false now. That's what confuses me and keeps me from being able to move on. My brain has most of this stuff figured out, but my heart isn't so quick to catch on. If it makes you feel any better, IMO, she not "in love with being in love" and is instead terrified of being alone. Thats why she bounces from one relationship to the next without coming up for air. I think that's partially true, but I still do believe she's in love with love and passion. The female friend I talked about who also jumps from relationship to relationship as though they where ice floes, she appears to do it more out of fear of loneliness (because some of the blokes she's dug up, you know...).

CP, what are you talking about? You've enjoyed your time with her (your words not mine) and instead of being happy for having the memories you're gonna rest there and cry it all out? You've had a better chance at happiness than most people, just because she won't be a part of it doesn't mean life has ended. Just like she moved on, so should you and if she is as bad as you say, finding a better one won't be that hard. Life is a string of memories, memories of friends and family and loved ones and places, don't let one bad memory foreshadow the happiness within your time together. In my life I've had a few women, some I was madly in love with and some hurt me deeply. Usually for a few days after that I wasn't in the best of moods, but I can't say I would do things differently or that I hate them for what they were, I remember the good times and the things we did together and that's how I like to remember them and everyone else. Maybe I never had what you and her had, so I may not have been hurt as bad as you but will you let a breakup bring you down? Now if you'll excuse me, Oprah is starting No, the problem is that I'm sitting here feeling miserable while she starts dating someone else immediately, and that that in fact is what she always does (I mean, these things happen, but with her it's how she actually functions as a human being). That means that my feelings about our relationship are incredibly reduced, because I feel as though she was in love with love rather than with me. Why would she have started her relationship with me mere weeks after her previous one and done the same after our relationship, and apparently done that her whole life? It's as though once she's been in a relationship where she no longer feels the passion anymore for a few months she starts craving it again, and there is no remorse from the break-up. She just can't help herself but immediately falls in love with love again. It's like a recurring rebound thing only she has this semi-sociopathic ability not to do it out of comfort, but out of new passion. You know, I just feel as though she never truly loved me, and that is what makes those memories tarnished and painful. They weren't real somehow. That's all.

Oh I'm not afraid of confronting my pain. I've rather been adamant to feel the pain rather than try to soothe it, but opening a bottle of vodka and getting smashed while staring into space would just make me feel super pathetic. I've been out drinking with friends and so on lately, and I feel that it's both good and bad. Good because I get to do stuff and hang out, but also bad because the booze eventually makes me some sort of party pooper.

Nine Inch Nails - The Wretched Haha, I'm so emo.

Actually I'm kind of repulsed by the idea of drowning my sorrows in booze, because booze intensifies your emotions. If you sit there with a bunch of ****ed up emotions, why make them stronger?

That you are. But you, on the other hand, live at least on the other side of the Baltic Sea.

I'd do it if I didn't live on the other side of the world. Anyway, I'll try to hang out with someone tonight. I don't think sitting alone at home is all too helpful right now.

I feel kinda sorry for him. Sure, they might end up married and live happily ever after. It just doesn't seem so likely. What eats me up is that we have gone through so much together; I have a billion great memories from living in Barcelona with her so she's in virtually all of those memories, she has made me feel as though I was the one true love in her life and she wanted to build a family with me, she said when we broke up that there is so much that can exist only between the two of us and that it hurts so damn much that we have to give that up, she said that she wanted it to work out with between us so damn bad. And the week after our break-up she meets a friend at a party and she's all "well, this is a cute guy, let's see if he's the one!" And now they're happily in love, and this is how things have gone down with all of her boyfriends. It actually disgusts me a bit. Another thing that disgusts me is that her friends must have known that this would happen the whole time and I had no idea. They must have been like "oh well, who is she with now?" (and yes, that was approximately a couple of weeks after her previous break-up as well, surprise surprise) and wondered how long that would last, and then when we broke up they must have gone "oh well, that was expected I guess" and then they learn that she has someone new and the whole process starts over again. I know, because I have a female friend who is exactly like my ex, and I know what I'm thinking every time she breaks up with her boyfriend and has someone new within weeks. It hurts to feel so diminished, replaceable and fooled.

Oh well, she now officially has a new boyfriend. I guess with her track record nothing is new under the sun, but life still sucks for me right now. I just can't believe I fell for that kind of girl.

Why, crucify them!

I'm a vegetarian.

If we do get sucked into a black hole, will they be put to trial?

I can kind of identify with that, because that's exactly what I'm longing for. Only the story of my ex's life indicates some sort of incapability on her part to feel that kind of deeper romantic affection. I'd love to be proven wrong, but until that happens I need to forget about this whole powerful and deep emotion that irks me. Also, trying to figure someone else out is the most brain-racking thing you can do. I'm doing it constantly, and not being able to actually go to the source as it were doesn't exactly help my situation. But I have to keep rationalising in order to keep my angst in check. It is a bit tricky, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I still have that little project ahead of me. The walls in my new flat are baby blue and I have this strange urge gurgling in the darkest pits of my soul to rectify that. Only I don't particularly look forward to the actual project. Heh, it's only taken us 10 years to get this started. We moved here back in 1998 and the walls in all the bedrooms were pink, the bathroom had pink tile/tub/toilet, several rooms had pink carpets as well. You'd never have guessed that it was a little old lady that lived here before us. Fortunately I live in a one-room apartment, so it should be a one-day job.

R.E.M. - Man on the Moon

I still have that little project ahead of me. The walls in my new flat are baby blue and I have this strange urge gurgling in the darkest pits of my soul to rectify that. Only I don't particularly look forward to the actual project. Other than that I am working and drinking coffee.

The Crickets - Lonesome Tears

We knew that. My approach is that if it's painful just stay away, at least until you feel okay about the whole deal. I'm cutting all contact with my ex, and I don't plan on picking it up in the future. Sure, you never know, but the friend/ex of hers I talked to the other day just advised me to delete her number and forget all about her instead of making the mistake he made, which was keeping in touch with her over the years. The new relation can always be very awkward and the way my ex seems to be is that it doesn't make any difference that you're no longer together; she'll still push you around. And yes, I'd cry with you anytime, Lou.

Theres a saying i really like, may not be wholly true: A single man will be happy spending his whole life trying to achieve his goals. A married man will spend his entire life trying to achieve his wife

In all honesty I've been at least a lite-version of your friend's husband. I mean, I think I've painted a picture of my ex as some sort of monster when in all honesty I was far from the perfect boyfriend either. The thing is that I was very insecure during the actual relationship because it all got so intense so fast and I could never really just stop and breathe and evaluate the situation. Then she quickly got really serious about the future when I still hadn't figured out whether I was comfortable in the relationship or not. It took a breakup for me to release that pressure and then, without having to know what I felt, I realised that I did love her above everything. And again, her problem is that she doesn't take the time to allow herself to digest and make any reflections of the sort. It's just head-on into the next project, so while I've realised a great many things during the time since we broke up, it feels like her head remains firmly stuck in the sand.

She sounds young and unsure of what she wants in a relationship. There's also always the possibility of undiscovered mood disorder issues that complicate her decisions/actions. She could simply be addicted to the "grass is greener" syndrome. Or she may be the devil incarnate. Some people are a lot slower than others to "grow up" re: relationships or even know if they really want one, and this can and does affect their earlier relationships like gangbusters, including immature or inexplicable (to "us", and maybe even to them) behavior, leaving confusion all over the place. This applies to men as well as women. That doesn't make it feel any better, tho, when you're in the middle of it. My sympathies. @ theslug - Neither men or women have some kind of monopoly on being able to "figure themselves out." Yes. It's just that she has this attitude that she's on top of everything and completely mature and I'm the insecure guy who can't make my mind up. The difference is that I've come to realise what I did wrong, but since she categorically refuses to think back on things in the past she can't understand what she is doing wrong. Instead it's all about winning an argument and countering every single thing I say. And that leads to the kind of contradictions I describe above.

I actually tried to show my sincere feelings for her after breaking up and realising I didn't want to and everything, by making a neat flower arrangement of twenty red roses and a cute note. She killed that one with complete silence (I'd left it as a surprise and wasn't there when she found it). She called me the same day but didn't say one word about the flowers until I finally asked if she'd even seen them. She was like "Er, I don't know what to say. Thanks?" I think my ex is pretty much like that. She has that dream of children and stuff, but tragically enough she's only built for short passionate relationships. I think she has that "now we're falling apart because I want kids and it feels like you don't" attitude just in order to justify her own passion trip for me. When she's no longer passionate she simply has to tell herself that it wasn't only passion AGAIN. When we break up she's all "this hurts so damn much and I wanted it wo work out soooo bad" and the next week she starts dating someone else (and this is a guy she's known all the time and she's telling me that as if that's supposed to make me feel better!). Then she says that she normally has a longer period of being single between relationships (safe sources say that's all LIES, and besides, she's 23 years old and has had at least 5 different relationships already, so just do the math). She also claims she wasn't even in love with me when we broke up (so why the hell did you still want to be together?) and it only felt good to break up. She also said that she had her mind set on being single, but this new guy is so great that she doesn't see why she shouldn't see him out of principle. Is it only me who thinks that sounds just like someone who puts her head in the sand trying to justify her own actions? If she tells herself she shouldn't stop seeing someone out of principle, doesn't that sound as though she actually has a principle in there that she has to override? She's doing the same thing all over again, and she just has to justify it to herself, never mind contradicting her own words and actions. So yes, in short, she is chasing that objective of children and family, but she's built for passion and she'll do anything to achieve it. Including lying to herself and at least indirectly to the man she's seeing.