Losing the one you love, and then picking up the pieces after

[rym33]

Hi all,

First post here.

This is more a vent than anything, but feel free to post opinions, advice if you want to. I’d be interested to see what people think.

I’m a female, in my mid-twenties, living in Canada, and am a practicing Catholic.

About 5 months ago, my boyfriend of seven months broke up with me. He is a practicing Catholic as well and we met through our prayer group (most of our friends are devout, practicing Catholics). We started off as friends, hanging out in groups, then started asking me do things one-on-one (shopping, playing sports), and shortly after, expressed his romantic interest in me. The feeling was mutual, and so we began dating. To be honest, while we had some differences and disagreements, it was a good, healthy relationship. In fact, just before we broke up, we were talking more about the future, and the possibility of marriage. We had met each other’s close friends (those outside the prayer group), as well as each others’ families. Neither of our friends or families had expressed wariness about the relationship or red flags, but had shown approval of the relationship.

A week before he broke up with me, my ex told me he “loved” me and definitely “saw a future” with me. His behaviour, from what I could tell (and I think I’m pretty astute), had not changed. A week later, he said we “needed to talk”, and then proceeded to tell me that he realized he no longer loved me romantically, and just saw me as a friend. He also said he had no drive to commit to me. I was stunned. I asked if there was something I did, but he said no – that I was the “best girl” he’d ever met - but that he just “had this feeling” that he couldn’t commit. He was crying and told me he cared for me as much as his own family, and he hated feeling the way he did. He said he had been feeling that way for a couple of weeks.

Naturally, I was heartbroken. We agreed to make a clean break and not have any contact, as we both knew it wouldn’t be possible to be friends. I haven’t seen him since our break-up, and have made every effort to avoid running into him and hearing about him from mutual friends. Since breaking up, I’ve done my best to move on. I started going to Mass and confession at a different parish to avoid running into him, I sought a listening ear from my spiritual advisor, I have the support of my family and friends. I am a health care professional working f/t, and looking to enter a graduate program in the Fall. My work is satisfying and uplifting. I take care of myself and hang out with friends, enjoy life, etc.

It’s been five months, and something inside me has changed. Before my relationship, I was a happy single person. I have not dated much previously because I was working on myself and just trusting God with waiting for the right guy and the right time. I thought I had found that. Obviously I haven’t yet. I am willing to accept the break-up and not hope for a reconciliation and am doing everything I can to get over this, but I still miss him. What can’t I get it together??? I don’t want to start dating anyone new until I’m fully over this…I don’t think it would be fair to someone else.

Truth be told, I certainly don’t think I need a man to be happy. My life is evidence of this: I’ve been mostly single my whole life, I worked hard to achieve my career, I’ve got a wonderful set of friends and family, I recently invested in buying my own home…

I just don’t get why I’d wait this long to meet someone I truly loved and cared for, only to have it be gone and left heartbroken. It’s not infatuation, or that I feel like I can’t live without him…or any of that romantical stuff. I really just miss him as an individual and what we brought to each others’ lives.

What else can I do to get over it?? I’m sick of being sad.

 

[ohioszo]

Question is, why did you go to a different Parish? It would seem that you would have no reason to change your Parish. You may have other people wondering where you are now. He might go to another Parish, but you should remain in that Parish, even if it is his childhood Parish, and not yours, I think.

 

[rym33]

Because I don’t think it would be healthy to run into him. Would make it that much harder to get over it.

 

[ohioszo]

In our Parish and the nearby Parishes, we are often distantly related. I wish that were the case with you. People can marry at 4th cousin. One time I told a fellow that we couldn’t date further because we both wore glasses. I just wonder if it isn’t something rather simple. My Mother waited 4 years for Dad, when he was in the service between 1941-45. She had known him less than a year before he left. Men like long engagements generally. Could be something related to vocation. People don’t often marry before they finish school. A lot of different simple reasons. He may need time for something like that, and, preventing yourself from running into him during Mass, etc., doesn’t seem reasonable. Obviously a problem in communication, anyway. Maybe you two could have decided mutually about Mass and Prayer group.

 

[Eucharisted]

Romantic feelings isn’'t love. It is just feelings. Love is willing the good of others, even if it involves pain on one’s part. I believe God was calling this man away because he had feelings, but no love, for you. I’ve been there myself. Jesus, as well, has been there, when souls render Him lip-service (they say they love Him, but they really don’t). My advice is to go before Jesus and tell Him all your worries and cares and thoughts; then give Him everything and leave all the matters up to Him; then trust in Jesus and ask Him each day to give you more faith, more hope, and more love.

 

[chevalier]

Rym, I know the feeling.

Truth be told, it’s been two years and I still can’t fully get it together. I so completely don’t need to talk to her and don’t even really want to. I don’t think about her, I curtly dismiss any thoughts relating to her, I have no desire of being in a relationship with her… But sometimes I experience pain and I know where it is from.

However, she is not the only person able to give me a migraine, come memories. In September, I went to a wedding where I met five women I had a crush on in late teens or early twenties, in a church near a place where I met some other girl, passed a park where I went to with a long-time star-crossed crypto-flame, got to learn that my best buddy was with another one (his cousin) when I phoned him, plus it brought about yet another girl in some way. I think I was as good as drugged up when I came back home.

It’s attachments, you see. It’s paying a price for what you are. For example, I strongly oppose the no-attachment mentality. It’s probably only fitting I have my migraines from people who don’t care. In your case, it’s been what? Five months? They say it takes a half to full relationship’s length to get over it. It’s probably not going to finish that soon, but I think you’ll be “workable” in a couple of months.

 

[Trishie]

The loss of the dream for the future with someone you care about is a painful loss. However if he was going to break up suddenly like that, better before marriage than after…if that’s his nature. That doesn’t make it less of a loss. I’m sorry that it also meant the loss of your parish community…so you’ve had a lot to recover from.

If you meet the right person, even if you have residual feelings…for someone who actually didn’t love you as you have the right to be loved…then the new man may help to dispel any remaining thoughts and possible illusions about the other guy.

God bless you, and grant you peace and happiness

 

[rym33]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I need to trust God that this was for the best.
Really, I wouldn’t want to marry someone who didn’t also really want to marry me. I’m glad he told me sooner rather than later. When I look at my friends who are in devout, loving, faith-filled marriages, both people in the relationship had a strong desire to become one and spend a lifetime together. It hurts quite a lot knowing that I had come to that point with him, but he simultaneously came to the point where he realized I wasn’t the one for him.
Hopefully, in time, there will be someone else - and that that person and I have a mutual love and desire to marry each other.
Thanks again.

 

[LeonBloy]

I think that maybe you should go back to your old parish. You lost not only the boyfriend, but your whole support it seems, and that would leave one lonely and wanting friendship.

Can he take a break from the parish if you really can’t bear to see each other? Or can you see each other now, as you say you miss his friendship, and nothing more?

 

[ohioszo]

You didn’t say if you cried. You said that he cried. I think that he cannot tell you something. Just guessing. Crying is not a good sign. Personally, I hardly ever cry … my Father told me not to at about your age. I won’t tell you that my Uncle says that there are a lot of fish in the sea. Lately someone, perhaps here, or another Catholic discussion said that there were quite a number of possible spouses for one individual in this world. I remember my cousin’s daughter, absolutely heart broken … about to marry and but instead a heart rending breakup. Her ex-fiance’s best friend fell in love with her and married her. They have 2 children, with Irish names, and she is very happy. I had reassured her, and, I wish that I could reassure you too. You did everything right, you found God, before you found him. God has to be talking to you.

 

[rym33]

I think that maybe you should go back to your old parish. You lost not only the boyfriend, but your whole support it seems, and that would leave one lonely and wanting friendship.

Can he take a break from the parish if you really can’t bear to see each other? Or can you see each other now, as you say you miss his friendship, and nothing more?

I haven’t lost any support because I see my Catholic friends at other things (e.g. the prayer group) all the time. I’m not lonely for friendship. I’m happy at my new parish.

I don’t think it would be a good idea to see him right now, and maybe not ever. Don’t really want to pour salt on my wounds.

 

[rym33]

You didn’t say if you cried. You said that he cried. I think that he cannot tell you something. Just guessing. Crying is not a good sign. Personally, I hardly ever cry … my Father told me not to at about your age. I won’t tell you that my Uncle says that there are a lot of fish in the sea. Lately someone, perhaps here, or another Catholic discussion said that there were quite a number of possible spouses for one individual in this world. I remember my cousin’s daughter, absolutely heart broken … about to marry and but instead a heart rending breakup. Her ex-fiance’s best friend fell in love with her and married her. They have 2 children, with Irish names, and she is very happy. I had reassured her, and, I wish that I could reassure you too. You did everything right, you found God, before you found him. God has to be talking to you.

I did cry, yes. I think he cried because he felt really bad about breaking up with me. He said it was really hard on him. Somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something else that propelled him to end the relationship – something else that he doesn’t want to admit to me. In any case, it doesn’t matter because it’s over now.

 

[Pioro]

I just don’t get why I’d wait this long to meet someone I truly loved and cared for, only to have it be gone and left heartbroken. It’s not infatuation, or that I feel like I can’t live without him…or any of that romantical stuff. I really just miss him as an individual and what we brought to each others’ lives.

What else can I do to get over it?? I’m sick of being sad.

I’m going to suggest something that may sound strange: Your difficulty in getting over it is a good sign. It means that you are sincere, that you don’t give your heart lightly, and that you had genuine respect for this man you were seeing. Imagine what kind of person you would be if this experience hardened your heart and you became bitter toward men, or if you went off and had a lot of meaningless flings to prove to him that you ‘didn’t care.’ The fact that you miss him as an individual, and miss the genuine good that you had with him says great things about you and your abitility to love maturely and truly. And I think it’s precisely because of the quality and truth of your feelings that you can’t ‘get over it.’

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. And you are living the ‘mystery’ of the deep pain one feels when one loves and the love is not returned.

You said you ‘don’t get’ why this happened to you - why you waited so long for such a relationship only for it to end. I’m about 20 years older than you, so looking with a longer perspective, and I’ve seen many relationships that have ended in pain (people whose marriages have turned out to be null, for example). I think no one understands ‘why’ this is happening to them AT THE TIME that it’s happening. It often takes the long view to be able to look back and see, ‘If I had not had that experience - albeit a painful one - I would not have the wisdom or strength to get through this; I would not appreciate how good and true this experience is now.’

God sees the long view. It’s very common for people who marry to have had a significant relationship already - including an engagement or ‘almost-engagement’ - in the past. Often those previous relationships teach us something, prepare us somehow, for the future.

Nothing is wasted in God’s eyes. That relationship was not wasted; your pain now is not wasted. At the very least, you are experiencing something with Christ, you are sharing in His cross. He, too, loved and was rejected by the very people He was closest to (family, Apostles - He wept over Jerusalem). You can’t see it yet, but you have been drawn closer to Christ in this pain, and He will use it somehow, for your good.

Something I’ve learned recently in life is that God does not forget a SINGLE tear we’ve cried. When I was three years old something happened that broke my heart; I lost someone who was my whole world at that tender age, and it changed me completely, left me sad and distrustful. And two years ago - more than 40 years later - God brought someone into my life who gave me the same acceptance and understanding and unconditional love of the person I lost as a tiny child. I couldn’t believe that God remembered and healed that wound from so long ago, and in such a beautiful way. God TRULY restored to me what I had lost - and even more, because as an adult I am in a position to appreciate the person God put in my life to give me that acceptance and unconditional love.

You don’t understand it now, but believe me, you will live through it, and there will be a time when God will make all things clear and heal all wounds.

Meanwhile, live the mystery of this pain prayerfully. Offer up the pain of this loss for widows or those who have longed for marriage for decades and have never known love. God does not waste anything. Don’t waste the gift of this sharing in the Cross.

 

[TIGERLILLY_ROSE]

Dear Brokenhearted,

You have suffered a loss and I want to tell you to “]give yourself all the time you need” to heal from this relationship. It is very natural, and a gift from our Lord to grieve.

I call them ‘healing tears’.

I think the worst thing anyone can say, is to “get over it, move on”…etc. because the matter of fact is, you are, and in your own time, you will .

Take baby steps daughter…many baby steps!

Also, I am so proud of you that you lean on your faith. You are an inspiration to me! and I want to tell you, that our Father does have the best for you…keep trusting daughter…

Much blessings,
You are in my prayers,
love Tigerlilly

 

[richarde]

Sometimes the Holy Spirit causes us to react in completely contridictory fashion to our feelings and our desires.
When there is no physical or logical explanation for the behavior of Godly people, such as yourselves, there has to be a spiritual reason. Sometimes we have a hard time accepting that because of our secular and scientific nature.
Just feel fortunate that God has given you and him direction in your lives when you and he decided that you should go in another direction. Trust in Him, who loves us and wants only the best for us. Sometimes God intervenes in our lives in the most unexpected ways.
Just remember when the Angel, Gabriel, came to the Blessed Virgin Mary,“and the Holy Spirit came over her”.
There is an old saying that may prove helpful in your case, ‘Let go, and Let God.’ Its an old saying from Alcoholics Anonymous, for recovering addicts who have given control of their lives completely over to “The Higher Power”. But it has meaning for all of us christians who face uncontrollable and unexpected situations.
Clearly God has better things in store for both of you.

Humbly I don’t presume to know the mind of God, but it is only my opinion from having experience with just this same matter in my own life.
You can still love him without ever seeing him again. Pray for him.
Richard

 

[Liberanosamalo]

That’s a bizarre breakup. I think some of your pain is in not knowing if you did anything. You haven’t had proper resolution for why one day he seemed to love you and then the next week he was breaking up with you but not telling you exactly why.

Has he battled same sex attraction or something? Is he realizing that he can’t commit permanently to something? Does he have a hidden life, an addiction, a disease? Did he find someone new?

Doubt eats away at us and prevents us from healing. Our imaginations fill in all the blank spots. We can’t move on because we don’t know if there is something in us we need to fix.

I don’t get the feeling he was being completely honest with you.

But you don’t need his honesty to move on really. You know what is most important about him… that he at this point in his life is not capable of the kind of commitment you are capable of. And he is not capable of real honesty. And he can put on a facade until he can’t take it anymore and then he can walk.

None of that makes him a dependable reliable husband.

Be glad you did not have a house full of toddlers and infants before he came to this conclusion about things.

As hard as this is for you, believe me when I say it can be worse and more devastating.

You dodged a bullet.

Don’t miss the bullet. Thank God it didn’t hit you.

You learned from this relationship what YOU are willing to give, how deeply YOU can love, and what YOU need.

Now pray that if it’s God’s will, he will send someone into your life that isn’t 75% what you need. Pray he will send someone into your life who can love like you can. Only then will it work in the long run.

When you pray for the ex boyfriend, pray that God will bless him at least for calling things off instead of continuing to use you emotionally long after he knew it was over while you became more and more committed to him. Some men do that, you know.

The man did you a favor. Whatever he’s hiding, it sounds serious. Whether his tears were for himself or for you it doesn’t matter. He set you free to find someone who really deserved you.

 

[Morwenna]

I’m going to suggest something that may sound strange: Your difficulty in getting over it is a good sign. It means that you are sincere, that you don’t give your heart lightly, and that you had genuine respect for this man you were seeing. Imagine what kind of person you would be if this experience hardened your heart and you became bitter toward men, or if you went off and had a lot of meaningless flings to prove to him that you ‘didn’t care.’ The fact that you miss him as an individual, and miss the genuine good that you had with him says great things about you and your abitility to love maturely and truly. And I think it’s precisely because of the quality and truth of your feelings that you can’t ‘get over it.’

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. And you are living the ‘mystery’ of the deep pain one feels when one loves and the love is not returned.

You said you ‘don’t get’ why this happened to you - why you waited so long for such a relationship only for it to end. I’m about 20 years older than you, so looking with a longer perspective, and I’ve seen many relationships that have ended in pain (people whose marriages have turned out to be null, for example). I think no one understands ‘why’ this is happening to them AT THE TIME that it’s happening. It often takes the long view to be able to look back and see, ‘If I had not had that experience - albeit a painful one - I would not have the wisdom or strength to get through this; I would not appreciate how good and true this experience is now.’

God sees the long view. It’s very common for people who marry to have had a significant relationship already - including an engagement or ‘almost-engagement’ - in the past. Often those previous relationships teach us something, prepare us somehow, for the future.

Nothing is wasted in God’s eyes. That relationship was not wasted; your pain now is not wasted. At the very least, you are experiencing something with Christ, you are sharing in His cross. He, too, loved and was rejected by the very people He was closest to (family, Apostles - He wept over Jerusalem). You can’t see it yet, but you have been drawn closer to Christ in this pain, and He will use it somehow, for your good.

Something I’ve learned recently in life is that God does not forget a SINGLE tear we’ve cried. When I was three years old something happened that broke my heart; I lost someone who was my whole world at that tender age, and it changed me completely, left me sad and distrustful. And two years ago - more than 40 years later - God brought someone into my life who gave me the same acceptance and understanding and unconditional love of the person I lost as a tiny child. I couldn’t believe that God remembered and healed that wound from so long ago, and in such a beautiful way. God TRULY restored to me what I had lost - and even more, because as an adult I am in a position to appreciate the person God put in my life to give me that acceptance and unconditional love.

You don’t understand it now, but believe me, you will live through it, and there will be a time when God will make all things clear and heal all wounds.

Meanwhile, live the mystery of this pain prayerfully. Offer up the pain of this loss for widows or those who have longed for marriage for decades and have never known love. God does not waste anything. Don’t waste the gift of this sharing in the Cross.

May I just step in for a moment to say, Pioro, what an incredibly powerful, wise, and beautiful post this is? I feel blessed merely to have read it, even though it wasn’t addressed to me.

Thank you, truly, thank you for sharing these insights with all of us.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

Fulton Sheen wrote:

“If you live your life for Christ, not the slightest moment of your life goes to waste. Does not a mother often set aside suitable gifts or even a dowry for her daughter’s wedding before love has ever come into her life? Our Lord is weaving your heavenly robes for the heavenly nuptials, though you know it not, in moments that seem so loveless.”

I love that man. He always said it best.

 

[rym33]

I’m going to suggest something that may sound strange: Your difficulty in getting over it is a good sign. It means that you are sincere, that you don’t give your heart lightly, and that you had genuine respect for this man you were seeing. Imagine what kind of person you would be if this experience hardened your heart and you became bitter toward men, or if you went off and had a lot of meaningless flings to prove to him that you ‘didn’t care.’ The fact that you miss him as an individual, and miss the genuine good that you had with him says great things about you and your abitility to love maturely and truly. And I think it’s precisely because of the quality and truth of your feelings that you can’t ‘get over it.’

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. And you are living the ‘mystery’ of the deep pain one feels when one loves and the love is not returned.

You said you ‘don’t get’ why this happened to you - why you waited so long for such a relationship only for it to end. I’m about 20 years older than you, so looking with a longer perspective, and I’ve seen many relationships that have ended in pain (people whose marriages have turned out to be null, for example). I think no one understands ‘why’ this is happening to them AT THE TIME that it’s happening. It often takes the long view to be able to look back and see, ‘If I had not had that experience - albeit a painful one - I would not have the wisdom or strength to get through this; I would not appreciate how good and true this experience is now.’

God sees the long view. It’s very common for people who marry to have had a significant relationship already - including an engagement or ‘almost-engagement’ - in the past. Often those previous relationships teach us something, prepare us somehow, for the future.

Nothing is wasted in God’s eyes. That relationship was not wasted; your pain now is not wasted. At the very least, you are experiencing something with Christ, you are sharing in His cross. He, too, loved and was rejected by the very people He was closest to (family, Apostles - He wept over Jerusalem). You can’t see it yet, but you have been drawn closer to Christ in this pain, and He will use it somehow, for your good.

Something I’ve learned recently in life is that God does not forget a SINGLE tear we’ve cried. When I was three years old something happened that broke my heart; I lost someone who was my whole world at that tender age, and it changed me completely, left me sad and distrustful. And two years ago - more than 40 years later - God brought someone into my life who gave me the same acceptance and understanding and unconditional love of the person I lost as a tiny child. I couldn’t believe that God remembered and healed that wound from so long ago, and in such a beautiful way. God TRULY restored to me what I had lost - and even more, because as an adult I am in a position to appreciate the person God put in my life to give me that acceptance and unconditional love.

You don’t understand it now, but believe me, you will live through it, and there will be a time when God will make all things clear and heal all wounds.

Meanwhile, live the mystery of this pain prayerfully. Offer up the pain of this loss for widows or those who have longed for marriage for decades and have never known love. God does not waste anything. Don’t waste the gift of this sharing in the Cross.

Thank you
I also do know that there are some things in this life that we’ll never truly understand while on earth – that sometimes it won’t be until we’re (hopefully) in heaven that we’ll truly understand.

 

[rym33]

That’s a bizarre breakup. I think some of your pain is in not knowing if you did anything. You haven’t had proper resolution for why one day he seemed to love you and then the next week he was breaking up with you but not telling you exactly why.

Has he battled same sex attraction or something? Is he realizing that he can’t commit permanently to something? Does he have a hidden life, an addiction, a disease? Did he find someone new?

Doubt eats away at us and prevents us from healing. Our imaginations fill in all the blank spots. We can’t move on because we don’t know if there is something in us we need to fix.

I don’t get the feeling he was being completely honest with you.

But you don’t need his honesty to move on really. You know what is most important about him… that he at this point in his life is not capable of the kind of commitment you are capable of. And he is not capable of real honesty. And he can put on a facade until he can’t take it anymore and then he can walk.

None of that makes him a dependable reliable husband.

Be glad you did not have a house full of toddlers and infants before he came to this conclusion about things.

As hard as this is for you, believe me when I say it can be worse and more devastating.

You dodged a bullet.

Don’t miss the bullet. Thank God it didn’t hit you.

You learned from this relationship what YOU are willing to give, how deeply YOU can love, and what YOU need.

Now pray that if it’s God’s will, he will send someone into your life that isn’t 75% what you need. Pray he will send someone into your life who can love like you can. Only then will it work in the long run.

When you pray for the ex boyfriend, pray that God will bless him at least for calling things off instead of continuing to use you emotionally long after he knew it was over while you became more and more committed to him. Some men do that, you know.

The man did you a favor. Whatever he’s hiding, it sounds serious. Whether his tears were for himself or for you it doesn’t matter. He set you free to find someone who really deserved you.

You know, in a large sense I’ve more or less made my peace with not understanding exactly what happened. For the first little while, I struggled with trying to make sense of it all. I also did ask him (while he was breaking up with me) if I did anything wrong - he denied this vehemently, saying there was nothing either of us did to cause this. I also asked if there was someone else - he denied this also. I asked him if he could tell me why he felt he couldn’t commit (just so I would at least have some reasons and some closure) and he said he couldn’t, that it was “just a feeling” he got, something he couldn’t give reasons for, and couldn’t explain.

Months later, I’ve stopped asking “why”, and have instead just accepted this for what it is. There is a point when asking why really does not bear any fruit. Instead I’ve tried to focus on improving myself and just trusting.

I do believe him to be a good and trustworthy man, nontheless.