Posted by Kevin on July 07, 1998 at 20:54:49:
I'm new to this group and felt it would be a wonderful place to gain some insight into the pain I'm feeling.
What happened to me was this: I dated a woman for over two years, and we had talked often of marriage. I am 28, and she is 22. Last July, she broke up with me because she said it seemed I was not happy around her. This was due mostly to my job, but I could not make her understand that it had nothing to do with her.
I tried calling and reconciling. (This had become a long-distance relationship after I graduated college in May of '96.) I pressed her for reasons why she would not take me back, and finally she admitted that she was seeing someone else. This broke my heart and led to severe depression, as I had lost the love of my life for reasons I did not understand.
In late September, she started calling me again. She said that she had been confused and had made up the affair, because she did not know how else to make me go away. We "sort of" reconciled, although we did not officially get back together. In fact, we never really talked about the breakup much, because we wanted to discuss it with each other in person.
Well, we did not get to see each other in person until the first weekend in December. We saw each other three consecutive weekends, the last right before Christmas. We never discussed the original breakup, and I was somewhat reluctant to because it was so close to Christmas. I was hoping to discuss it with her after the holidays.
Then, the weekend after New Year's (which we did not spend together), her attitude towards me changed on the phone, like she did not wish to talk at all. I still had leftover pain from the previous summer, and I took it upon myself to drive to her apartment, over three hours away. I knocked on the door and got no answer, although I heard someone look through the peephole. I slept in my car, and then confronted her the next morning.
Another man was there. A man she had known before she had even met me, but who had been somewhat of a loser. In fact, he held a very low rank in the Army and made about a third of my salary. I know that sounds judgemental, but I am still searching for reasons why she did this to me...twice.
I never really believed her excuses from the first breakup, but I wanted to. She admitted that she thought she loved this man and always had, which basically meant our relationship had been a lie. Later in the same conversation, though, she said she wasn't sure if he was the right man for her or not. She did not show any signs of this kind of confusion earlier in our relationship.
In fact, I had boxed up all the things she had given me over the years and brought them with me when I drove down there...just in case something bad happened, which it did. I left this box on her doorstep after slamming the door as I left.
Two weeks later, I sent her a long e-mail detailing how angry I was and what I had suspected. I never heard from her again. She graduated college in May, and I sent a letter to her parents (with whom I was very close) that told them what happened. I have heard no news of her whatsoever, and she has not tried to contact me to apologize. Funny thing is, this guy she is seeing now lives over a thousand miles away from her, but I have a suspicion they will get married when he gets out of the military in October.
I want to be able to accept what she did to me and get on with my life without expecting an apology, which I am obviously never going to get. But I'm having a very hard time forgiving her for what she did, and the fact that I let her to it to me twice.
I have rediscovered many of my latent religious beliefs since all of this has happened, but I am still trying to make a real personal connection with God. I would like to forgive and get on with my life, but I still wonder what she is up to...I guess because I never really fell out of love with her. I would never have done this to her, and I have a hard time understanding why she would considering she went to Church regularly and I did not.
Any advice/feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Kevin