I like to think I'm a gentleman when it comes to relationships. I'm not perfect, hell I'm a man, but I respect the woman I'm in a relationship with at the time and don't do anything I would regret. Blah blah blah, I'm goodie two-shoes.

Anyways, my relationships go well but then end terribly. Literally. My last relationship, I just got an email saying "we don't need to be together. I don't know why just this feeling." and of course at the bottom "Oh, but I love you."

WTF.

Okay, so I switch to logic mode and just walk away from it. But two months later I still don't feel like I've gotten over it. Like I still care even if the women turned out to be a total "B" at the end of it. WHY? As of right now, I'm done with them for a while. I'm just sick of the same things.

Which leads to my question: How do I stop caring? Like my recent ex, I shouldn't give a damn what's going on in her life or whatever. I'm much better off. So much better off and I know it, but then I'll be drifting off in my head and the next thing you know, I'm thinking about it and trying to figure out what went wrong. Hell, maybe it's because I'm a programmer and debugging the human mind is impossible.

I'd just like to hear your opinion on the matter. Got any related stories?

I'd just like to hear your opinion on the matter.

It doesn't look like you were married or engaged to be married, so the commitment hadn't been so far along to be overly traumatic. From the two lines of text it looks like she still respects you as a person, just doesn't want to spend the rest of her life with you.

Women can generally get over it because they talk about it with other women in their social network. They can get things figured out and move on with life.


Two months and still this much broken up over it is too long.

If you cannot resolve the issue by talking with your friends and family and co-workers, and you are now at the point where you are asking complete strangers online for guidance, that's a good sign you need professional help. Go pay a few visits to a psychologist.

If you're willing to accept advice from perfect strangers who have no professional background, consider instead getting advice from someone who actually does understand relationships and can help you with very personal help by talking with you for hours at a time. You'll probably end up need four or six sessions to work out what's going on in your head, but it will likely be better than anything we can answer here. A few visits, you'll understand yourself better, you'll probably understand why she reacted the way she did to you, and assuming you put your effort into resolving your issues you'll be healed enough emotionally to get back into life.

Frob's reply is complete garbage. A psychologist would be a complete wast of money and 2 months is really not a long time to get over a break up. Look at things as they are. You were rejected and being rejected hurts far more than rejecting someone. Your ego was hurt and now you can't help but wonder if there is something wrong with you or something you did. This is completely normal and you will probably continue to feel this way for a few more months. While on the other hand she probably feels the same or maybe even better about herself.

I used to feel the same as you. I find that as I become more experienced with relationships and more mature in general, this kind of thinking and feelings go away.

I'm much better off. So much better off and I know it, but then I'll be drifting off in my head and the next thing you know, I'm thinking about it and trying to figure out what went wrong.

You are probably the worst person to figure out what you did wrong (if anything). Sometimes, especially so for those kind of things, one is just completely blind to what one is doing wrong. Keep in mind that it's quite possible that you didn't do anything wrong, sometimes relationships are just not meant to work because the other person is simply looking for something else. But given that you say this has been a recurring problem, there might very well be some things that you did (and always do) wrong.

You could ask a close friend that knows you well about what they think you might have done wrong. Even better if you can ask a female friend. You could also ask the next girl you are dating, once it's serious enough, what are the good things and the bad things about dating you.

Keep in mind also that you will get better and better at relationships as you get more experienced. However, I really think you shouldn't obsess about this issue. I certainly hope it isn't making you miserable thinking about your past girlfriend, and if it is I would second frob's idea of seeing a psychologist.

The way I see it the fact you are aware that you are drifting into the thoughts is a good step; at this point the trick (as I see it) is to learn to push the thougths to one side and dump them. Over time this becomes easier.

And it goes without saying that you aren't the only one who reacts this way; I tend to spend 6 months to a year going over things in my head... heck, a year and a bit after my last breakup I sometimes still drift back into the thoughts (mostly when tired these days) but my reaction these days is to mentally slap myself and get on with things.

As for trying to figure it out; well it's doable but it takes time as you have to get past the inital emotional reaction and then back off and look at the facts, for myself this can take upwards of 6 months after the final break-up event in order to let my brain stabilise out again.

In the short term I've also found that taking an angry FU mindset helps kick lasses out of your brain ;)

I'd second the notion that you're the last person who can self-identify why you have a problem and, following in that thought, it'd be pretty difficult for us to get a feel for it through you simply because you might not know what to look for. Everything you observe will be viewed through the lens of your own ideals.

However I have noticed a pattern of guys who self-identify as nice and respectful to women having a problem of painting themselves as pushovers and, at worst, desexualizing themselves.

Don't break that down into its parts. I didn't say "nice" or "respectful to women". Just that men thinking of themselves in such terms first tend to do X, which bores people. It usually ends the way you describe, if it starts at all. (Which it did, so you're not as bad as one can be.)

The term "friend-zoned" is about this.

That said...

2 months seems perfectly normal to me. After I split with my last girlfriend, which was a kind of embarrassing ordeal actually, I was upset for a long long time, even though I had another girlfriend almost immediately. It went away eventually as things got more serious and eventually one day, far longer than 2 months after, something reminded me of all that and I realized I hadn't thought about her since Eisenhower was president.

I would recommend, and this will seem silly and unserious, but just read all the basic dating advice articles on AskMen.com Player section (or wherever; it's all the same). It's extremely basic, generic advice that's going to cover some basic pitfalls that are very, very easy to slip into. Basics are probably sufficient and possibly necessary with the obvious caveat that I'm going on a fragment of a sentence you wrote. I've been in the same relationship for seven years and find it applicable in that context in spite of the "bang lots of girls!" sales pitch.

Good luck.

Bah. I find it extremly egocentric and immature to break up by email, anyone is worth more than that.

I think this all comes down to experience. You'll meet more women and there's no reason to waste time on someone that obviously didn't care about you.
There's nothing wrong with you, you just have to build up your ego a little and go find someone more worthy of your attention. Wasting time on people who don't care about you is the very definition of waste.

The best way to get over girls is the same way you get them. Even if its hard at times, you have to act the tough guy. Force yourself to accept your situation, perhaps think of the negative times. Whatever makes you feel 'mushy' or 'soft' is bad bad bad, stay away from it. Try to let yourself be ruled more by your rationality than your feelings. Its hard, but its the only way in my opinion. After awhile though this comes more and more naturally. But the sooner you do it, and the sooner you realize it the better. All in all, it comes down to acting like the stereotypical male, though you may not agree with this portrayal of the male gender role. Best of luck, hope you get over this soon, my best wishes ;)

It went away eventually as things got more serious and eventually one day, far longer than 2 months after, something reminded me of all that and I realized I hadn't thought about her since Eisenhower was president.

Yeah, that's a nice moment

In my experiance preceed by a period of only thinking about the lass in question once you realise you haven't been thinking about her for a while; it's like "hey, I haven't thougth about <insert name> today... oh sonofa..."

Usually when somebody can't get over their ex it's because at their core they're dissatisfied with their life as a whole. They want to Spackle in the hole in their life with a relationship and their ex is usually the closest within emotional reach.

Try to branch out into more things and get out and meet more people. You're bound to find something more fulfilling than a broken relationship.