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Dear Breakup Girl,
I recently ended a relationship with my girlfriend of four years. Things
were always pretty damned good and I was happy with us, and she told me she was
always happy with us. I mean I knew this girl inside and out, I always knew
what she was thinking. I thought, "Hey cool. She's the one for me. I found
her. I'm a lucky one." A couple of weeks ago we spent some time apart. She
went off to the beach with three of her friends. Before she left we kissed and
hugged and told each other how much we loved one another. When she got back, I
was oh so excited to see her, but instead I got, "Ummm... we gotta
talk."
Yada yada yada. She broke up with me, and she took it pretty damn well.
Didn't even shed a tear. I was crushed. I vomited for days. Couldn't eat a
thing. Couldn't sleep. My girl that went down to the beach was a complete 180
from the girl that came back. I still haven't gotten any closure to the whole
thing. Her reasons for the break-up were pretty vague. And this isn't one of
your "let's separate and in the future who knows." kind of break-ups.
It was a "We will never be together ever again but we can still be good
friends" kind of break-up.
I've been going through all the stages. The desperate "why oh why"
stage. Then the denial stage. Then the anger stage, and so on and so forth. Now
I'm just plainly at the "Huh?" stage. I have at least three friends
who have had a similar experience and they have friends with the same
experiences. To this day they are all still dumbfounded.
My questions are:
1) What is this "phenomonon" where the girl wakes up one day and
her mind is completely changed without any warning? You're a girl. Explain this
to me.
2) Just as an aside, FOUR YEARS! I know, I know, "Better four than
ten." But what if I get into another relationship like this and I waste
another four-plus years of my life?
-- Totally Bewildered
Dear Bewildered.
Ouchouchouchouchouch I am so sorry. Yes, indeedy, you
must have felt dumbfounded, blindsided, deafened by her silence.
Now. To take your questions backwards: Yes. Four years
is a wicked long time (and your math is correct; ten is even longer). But. Even
though they ended painfully, I dare say that you don't really feel like these
years were "wasted." Especially because, as you describe them, you
didn't spend the last, um, three and a half feeling like you were about to
break up. You had four full, non-pre-breakup years. The real waste would be if
you now decided to stay single only so as not to let that happen
again.
Also. There are many "girl things" in this
world: mourning Diana, "Dirty Dancing," ice hockey. "Waking up
and changing her mind," however, is not one of them. Not only because
changing one's mind suddenly is a gender-neutral phenom, but also because it's
not what happened here. I can practically guarantee you that's she's been
mulling this one over for a while. Yes, she was happy --- mostly. But there was
something bothering her, I don't know what, and evidently she felt that it
wasn't necessary or useful to rock the boat by sharing. Whatever was bugging
her was probably more of a one-way "feeling" than a two-way problem,
and hence, something -- she figured -- that she needed to consider on her own,
not discuss with you. (I am not endorsing this [lack of] approach; I'm just
taking an educated stab.)
Then, I'm thinking-- and this
is a girl thing -- she ran the deal by the
beach babe board, and the resolution was "bail." That's what happened
here, probably, and that's what happens on "women's weekends" in
general. You hang with your Ya-Yas, they sort out your life. Now don't you go blaming her galpals
for turning her against you or anything. Their job, as good friends, is to
listen carefully to what she really wants, and then tell her what she just
said. Had they heard it in her voice, they could just as easily have coached
her to stay.
I'm also assuming that, being good friends, they did
not tape-record their conversations. So -- galling as it is -- you may get a
satisfactory answer to "Huh?" You may need to search out another,
less her-dependent source of closure. Like going to the beach with the
guys.
Love,
Breakup Girl
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