Trip with an ex

[CharlieLost]

First time poster here.

I was wondering if anyone could offer me any advice regarding a difficult situation that I am facing. I will try and keep the story as simple as possible.

I was dating a girl for seven months. We were very close and I saw her nearly every day for that period of time. The relationship ended abruptly (but mutually) when it became apparent that we wanted different things in life (not very relevant to the story so I will skip over this).

Even though we have broken up, we continue to talk via messaging, Facebook and phone calls each day. I still even see her regularly (meant to be meeting tonight as a matter of a fact).

We were talking recently and she mentioned how she was disappointed that she was going to miss out on her annual trip to a theme park this year. I jumped in and said I had never been to the theme park in question before and before i knew it, she had booked up the hotel and tickets for this weekend.

Friends have told me this is a big mistake and we should really be ensuring we have time apart.

I just feel like they are probably right but i don’t want to lose a good friendship in the long term. Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[heidi_storage]

I don’t think we know your situation well enough to be able to advise you one way or another, but it does sound like you believe it would be more prudent to avoid the trip. (By the way, I assume that you would be staying in separate rooms at the hotel?) You’re under no obligation to go if you don’t want to do so.

Whatever you do, be honest and considerate. Don’t keep this woman on a string about your decision, and don’t waffle about your reasons for not wanting to go, if that’s what you decide. And do not let fear guide your decision; if you don’t go, and she wants to break off the friendship because of this, the friendship was not particularly stable anyway.

 

[angelic06]

First time poster here.

I was wondering if anyone could offer me any advice regarding a difficult situation that I am facing. I will try and keep the story as simple as possible.

I was dating a girl for seven months. We were very close and I saw her nearly every day for that period of time. The relationship ended abruptly (but mutually) when it became apparent that we wanted different things in life (not very relevant to the story so I will skip over this).

Even though we have broken up, we continue to talk via messaging, Facebook and phone calls each day. I still even see her regularly (meant to be meeting tonight as a matter of a fact).

We were talking recently and she mentioned how she was disappointed that she was going to miss out on her annual trip to a theme park this year. I jumped in and said I had never been to the theme park in question before and before i knew it, she had booked up the hotel and tickets for this weekend.

Friends have told me this is a big mistake and we should really be ensuring we have time apart.

I just feel like they are probably right but i don’t want to lose a good friendship in the long term. Any advice is much appreciated.

This to me does not sound like appropriate activities for those who are just friends (non-dating). I am with Heidi on this one----I think you should avoid the trip.

 

[EasterJoy]

Do either one of you have a new romantic interest? Your relationship with anyone who deserves to be called an “ex” needs to be OK with the one who is your current one-and-only.

I’m guessing there are no new one-and-onlies in the picture, because if there were they’d be blowing a gasket over your continuing relationship.

If you parted on good terms and by true mutual agreement and you are both free to decide to rethink that, I don’t see any reason this trip is not OK.

What you need to do while on this trip–or maybe tonight?–is to have a face-to-face talk about how impossible your current friendship is going to be if either one of you ever dates anyone else. If you didn’t date because you each checked off all the boxes and then quit dating because you finally admitted that neither one of you felt any chemistry whatsoever, leading you to become the brother-sister friends you can’t help but being for each other, you’ll not find a one-and-only who is OK with the closeness and constant contact of your current relationship. Even then, the chances that anyone will actually believe that are remote.

Talk about that. I very much suspect that neither of you are going to find someone else unless you force more emotional distance between you than you have. I don’t know the nature of not wanting the same things in life you are talking about, but if you are not talking about a totally non-negotiable difference I would prepare to find yourself re-thinking that.

I don’t know what “before I knew it” means, but if you can’t find someone to take your place and bear the cost of the arrangements you agreed to, you are kind of stuck either going on that trip or else being responsible for putting a very big strain on your relationship for flaking out on a trip you knew was important to her.

 

[EasterJoy]

This to me does not sound like appropriate activities for those who are just friends (non-dating). I am with Heidi on this one----I think you should avoid the trip.

If they are not seeing anyone else, it is not any worse than having these arrangements at any other time prior to marriage. I have this feeling, however, that the intellectual reasons for “breaking up” have not registered with their hearts. They need to get head and heart on the same page. If they don’t, they’ll be cementing themselves into the ultimate in dead-end relationships–a “brother/sister” friendship that essentially makes it impossible that anyone else will ever be willing to date either one of them.

Of course, if they broke up only because they have non-compatible private ambitions that preclude other relationships just as much as it precludes the one they “had,” then this is about what I would expect to happen.

 

[lax16]

First time poster here.

I was wondering if anyone could offer me any advice regarding a difficult situation that I am facing. I will try and keep the story as simple as possible.

I was dating a girl for seven months. We were very close and I saw her nearly every day for that period of time. The relationship ended abruptly (but mutually) when it became apparent that we wanted different things in life (not very relevant to the story so I will skip over this).

Even though we have broken up, we continue to talk via messaging, Facebook and phone calls each day. I still even see her regularly (meant to be meeting tonight as a matter of a fact).

We were talking recently and she mentioned how she was disappointed that she was going to miss out on her annual trip to a theme park this year. I jumped in and said I had never been to the theme park in question before and before i knew it, she had booked up the hotel and tickets for this weekend.

Friends have told me this is a big mistake and we should really be ensuring we have time apart.

I just feel like they are probably right but i don’t want to lose a good friendship in the long term. Any advice is much appreciated.

Perhaps your friends have insight that have led them to advise you to avoid the trip?

If so, listen to them. Otherwise, I don’t see a problem with it.

 

[E_7]

First time poster here.

I was wondering if anyone could offer me any advice regarding a difficult situation that I am facing. I will try and keep the story as simple as possible.

I was dating a girl for seven months. We were very close and I saw her nearly every day for that period of time. The relationship ended abruptly (but mutually) when it became apparent that we wanted different things in life (not very relevant to the story so I will skip over this).

Even though we have broken up, we continue to talk via messaging, Facebook and phone calls each day. I still even see her regularly (meant to be meeting tonight as a matter of a fact).

We were talking recently and she mentioned how she was disappointed that she was going to miss out on her annual trip to a theme park this year. I jumped in and said I had never been to the theme park in question before and before i knew it, she had booked up the hotel and tickets for this weekend.

Friends have told me this is a big mistake and we should really be ensuring we have time apart.

I just feel like they are probably right but i don’t want to lose a good friendship in the long term. Any advice is much appreciated.

I just hope that she didn’t do that on purpose so you will feel bad about the already-spent money and have no other way but to go.

If you decide to go, I hope she booked two different rooms.

Doing that without asking you first, in my opinion, makes her an easy-forward-desperate-fishy woman. I’m not judging her at all, but if you were my son, that’s how she would seem to me.

My vote is “Don’t go.”

 

[Dorothy]

I don’t think we know your situation well enough to be able to advise you one way or another, but it does sound like you believe it would be more prudent to avoid the trip. (By the way, I assume that you would be staying in separate rooms at the hotel?) You’re under no obligation to go if you don’t want to do so.

Whatever you do, be honest and considerate. Don’t keep this woman on a string about your decision, and don’t waffle about your reasons for not wanting to go, if that’s what you decide. And do not let fear guide your decision; if you don’t go, and she wants to break off the friendship because of this, the friendship was not particularly stable anyway.

Great post!

 

[EasterJoy]

Perhaps your friends have insight that have led them to advise you to avoid the trip?

If so, listen to them. Otherwise, I don’t see a problem with it.

This is a good point. The people who know you and have listened to you talking about this relationship for the better part of a year are worth listening to. They probably remember your beliefs, thoughts, opinions, and mood swings over all of this far better than you do, OP.

 

[CharlieLost]

Thanks for all of the replies.

To clarify a few things, it is currently just us going and we are sharing a room (although separate beds). That may change though as some friends may also be going and room arrangements could reorganised.

 

[Xantippe]

I just hope that she didn’t do that on purpose so you will feel bad about the already-spent money and have no other way but to go.

If you decide to go, I hope she booked two different rooms.

Doing that without asking you first, in my opinion, makes her an easy-forward-desperate-fishy woman. I’m not judging her at all, but if you were my son, that’s how she would seem to me.

My vote is “Don’t go.”

Right.

 

[pensmama87]

OP, reading your post it occurs to me that while you say you’ve broken up, it doesn’t sound like you actually have. She doesn’t seem to think so. Same room even with different beds is a bad, bad idea.

 

[EasterJoy]

Thanks for all of the replies.

To clarify a few things, it is currently just us going and we are sharing a room (although separate beds). That may change though as some friends may also be going and room arrangements could reorganised.

No, do not do that. Do not ever spend the night alone in the same room with a woman with whom you share a mutual attraction but do not see yourself with for a lifetime. Do we need to draw a picture of the foreseeable unwanted outcomes that could result from that near occasion of choices you have both decided you do not want? I will be blunt: People with the most permissive sexual mores in the world could see everything wrong with this plan!! This is emotional Russian roulette, the gun has only one empty chamber instead of only one that has a bullet in it, and you both have to see that.

You’re smart. Act smart, and don’t be so cheap you think you can’t afford to act smart. You can afford the financial cost of acting smart and you know it, or you wouldn’t be taking this trip in the first place. If your friend does not see this is smart, oh well. Stick with being smart.

No excuses. Book two rooms. Look for others to help defray the cost and enjoy the fun with you, if you like, but book separate rooms, period, and no guff.

 

[Polluted]

First time poster here.

I was wondering if anyone could offer me any advice regarding a difficult situation that I am facing. I will try and keep the story as simple as possible.

I was dating a girl for seven months. We were very close and I saw her nearly every day for that period of time. The relationship ended abruptly (but mutually) when it became apparent that we wanted different things in life (not very relevant to the story so I will skip over this).

Even though we have broken up, we continue to talk via messaging, Facebook and phone calls each day. I still even see her regularly (meant to be meeting tonight as a matter of a fact).

We were talking recently and she mentioned how she was disappointed that she was going to miss out on her annual trip to a theme park this year. I jumped in and said I had never been to the theme park in question before and before i knew it, she had booked up the hotel and tickets for this weekend.

Friends have told me this is a big mistake and we should really be ensuring we have time apart.

I just feel like they are probably right but i don’t want to lose a good friendship in the long term. Any advice is much appreciated.

Sorry but there is no “just friends” when a man and a woman are alone spending time together, especially when there was previous romance involved. Don’t kid yourself friend.

And don’t even book two rooms, you should NOT be going. You know darn well in your heart what you “hope” happens out of all this, and so does she. It’s the classic…“O no winter is here, it’s getting cold and I need someone to cuddle with”. If you guys wanna get back together then do so. But don’t act like this is some great adventure to “maintain a friendship”