I'd like to make a graveyard for my ex-girlfriends. Well, not them - but for the ghosts of their past selves that I dated - I guess my ghost could go there, too. I would like to visit their graves from time to time to properly mourn or absorb the impact of their passing from my life.
Maybe having a place to go to mourn them would help with my fear of the end of relationships. It seems to hurt more because no one died.
I'm digging a new grave. I am terrified of the end of another relationship and I haven't been able to end it for the past year and a half in which I've periodically been trying to end it. I still have so much pain from my last relationship termination. I can't stand that I'm about to hurt someone I love in a similar way that I was hurt by someone I loved. I am scared that I won't follow through yet again, which will only hurt both of us even more.
I was madly in love with my last girlfriend (the one before my current) and we barely argued until the last two months we were together. It was a joyous, loving, sweet and relatively fun relationship (I was writing my dissertation for three months of it, though, and it was only nine months long.) It was the first relationship where I truly believed it would last the rest of our lives - I thought we were pretty much perfect together and I thought she felt the same. She didn't seem like the type to break up with someone - she had dated the girlfriend before me for three years and only broke up with her because that girlfriend treated her badly or it was a bad relationship, anyhow. It still angers me that she broke up with me so easily when she put so much time and effort into making the bad relationship work. The only thing that I could think that really explained why she broke up with me was that I moved to San Francisco (and she said she'd love to move back to SF after she finished her doctorate in Pittsburgh) - but I told her if that was why I would move back to Pittsburgh for her. I wasn't lying. I was that in love with her. She told me she didn't want me to move back to be with her, that she probably would've broken up with me had I stayed, too.
It's been five years since that ex and I broke up. She's been dating her "new" girlfriend for 4+ years now and she's been trying to get pregnant for over a year. They've lived together since she started trying to get pregnant. It hurts because her girlfriend is luke-warm at best about starting a family while I dream of it - and dreamed of having one with my ex. Everytime we try to have a friendship I end up having feelings for her that are so strong that I almost believe we could get back together - that she would somehow realize what she's missing in me and break up with her girlfriend and ask me to move back to Pittsburgh to start a family with her. It's near delusional. (Once she meant to call me delusional but she said something about enjoying my "illusions"... I couldn't help laughing - if I was a magician (or illusionist) I would've made her magically fall back in love with me!)
When she broke up with me, I swear I was truly just broken. I couldn't trust any feelings of love in me or anyone else - certainly not anyone else. I don't know if I've even gotten over that since I haven't really believed in my current relationship since about a month after we started dating when I started to detect some abnormal behaviors. But for that month, I truly thought I could believe in love again.
When someone dies, it's already understood that no explanation will really suffice - even if you know what happened that made them lose their life - cancer, getting hit by a train, heart attack, etc. If it was unexpected, like an accident, you usually don't get the chance to say goodbye. But a break-up is never that clean of a cut. Or at least, not usually - especially for lesbians, I think. First, you do get to say goodbye. Second, even though no explanation will ever really suffice, you think you could figure it out if you dig deep enough...and maybe, even, you could then "fix" it (as in, reverse it.) At least, this is how I've experienced break-ups. Except for one time, I've always been the one to be broken-up with (with maybe a couple of neutral ones where we both felt it was right to end it.) Oh, I guess there was another time but that was an abusive situation and I still wanted it to work but I had to end it because I was being used so dramatically. So I don't think that counts.
In any case, just about all of my break-ups have been messy and painful. Usually, the relationship is damaged beyond repair - or at least just damaged such that there is always the lingering unease if/when we run into each other. It fades with time and if there was any friendship in it to begin with. But even then, I think there's still this slight burn to the relationship like someone got hurt more than the other and remembers it. Usually, it's me. Some of my exes just didn't like me as a person - not hated but we weren't really friends and aren't now. I guess I don't like them that much, either. But it still burns a little to be rejected, you know? I haven't even spoken to or heard from or of the one ex I broke up with because I wasn't in love with her. She might hate me. I definitely hurt her. That was 13 years ago now.
I don't want to end this relationship badly. I don't want it to hurt - but it will. It's been really hard to even talk to her about how the relationship doesn't work well, so we haven't been able to address the issues except when I accept full blame for anything. I'm afraid she won't let me break up with her in as loving a way as possible. I'm afraid she will just clam up and shut me out immediately. In some ways, I understand that. I don't think I could fully accept a break up if it were done in a loving way - maybe it's harder that way. Maybe it would be easier for her to just hate me (and maybe she will) but it wouldn't be easier for me that way. And I don't hate her - I love her, in fact. I just don't think we should be together for many reasons that I don't feel I need to explain here. I don't really want to have to explain them all to her, either, since some reasons might be hurtful to her.
I did it. Tonight, on the phone. I didn't mean to - I meant to wait to talk to her in person - like tomorrow afternoon. But I've been so anxious and sad about it that I started crying when she asked me how my week had been. I wouldn't tell her what is was about - just that I wanted to talk to her about it in person. Then she asked if I was breaking up with her and I said I just wanted to talk to her in person - then she knew.
Morning of January 29th: I broke up with my girlfriend last night. I'm hurting. I felt a little free for a little while and now I'm just hurting. I might feel free again but I always miss her in the morning.
I did it. Tonight, on the phone. I didn't mean to - I meant to wait to talk to her in person - like tomorrow afternoon. But I've been so anxious and sad about it that I started crying when she asked me how my week had been. I wouldn't tell her what is was about - just that I wanted to talk to her about it in person. Then she asked if I was breaking up with her and I said I just wanted to talk to her in person - then she knew.
Morning of January 29th: I broke up with my girlfriend last night. I'm hurting. I felt a little free for a little while and now I'm just hurting. I might feel free again but I always miss her in the morning.
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