Break-up blues
Question
I've just split from my girlfriend of one year who is in another department at work. This was my first long term relationship. I know she's been with at least two other men during our relationship, but I never confronted her about it.
It was her decision to split. Her main reason was that she didn't want to hurt me because she didn't think she could stay faithful to me and the fact that she wouldn't want me to find out if she was seeing someone else.
She is talking to me, but it doesn't seem like she really cares, even though she says she still loves me. When I questioned her about our relationship and asked if we could work on it she said that she "couldn't be that selfish" and that I deserve better. It's been almost a week and I've told my friends how I feel; they've tried to cheer me up, but it hasn't really worked.
She has been through some difficult times recently, which affected her quite seriously, so I don't want to hate her or stop her from seeing other people. I still have to see her at work and it's driving me crazy - what can I do?
Answer
Dealing with the break-up of your first long term relationship is extremely painful. The feelings of shock, hurt, betrayal and confusion you're experiencing are perfectly natural.
Breaking up with someone you love is very much like coping with bereavement - it is the loss of the person closest to you. And, like grieving, it takes time to get over and to work through your feelings. A week is no time at all to start feeling better - nobody would expect you to get over this so quickly. Allow yourself to feel your emotions, whatever they are, and to work through them. Talk to your friends or family - anybody you trust to help you get over this. The worst thing you can do is to bottle it up. Try to go out as much as possible and take your mind off things by engaging in activities you enjoy. In time, you will start to feel better.
It sounds as if the difficult times your girlfriend went through may have caused her to reassess her relationship with you. She's realised that it's not fair to continue in the relationship with you when she intends to cheat on you. Now she's been able to be honest with herself and with you. Perhaps she realised that you wouldn't end the relationship, despite her cheating, and that the responsibility lay with her? But, if you knew she was cheating, you must have been aware - whether you admitted it to yourself or not - that things weren't right. It's very easy to bury our head in the sand when we're in love. Maybe in time, when you're feeling less raw about this, you'll be able to see that the relationship would not have worked. Loving someone deeply doesn't insure that the other person feels the same. Your girlfriend cheated on you - this doesn't make her a bad person, but it suggests she wasn't happy in the relationship.
If she says she still loves you, she probably does. She certainly seems to care about you and doesn't want to hurt you. But she knows she can't offer you what you want from her - her full-time devotion. That's probably why it seems like she doesn't care when you speak. She's trying to protect you and calm you down, while also needing to establish the fact that you've broken up and that she doesn't want to be in a relationship anymore.
If she cares about you and respects you, it's unlikely she'll flaunt her relationships with other men in front of you. But the likelihood is that she will have relationships with other men in the future. Hard as it must be to hear, you don't own her, and she's now free to see who she chooses.
It might be a good idea not to speak to each other for a while, at least until you're feeling a bit stronger. Would this be possible? If not, given the close quarters you work in, perhaps you could agree just to be on friendly terms but not to get into long, heavy conversations. It does make it difficult to move on when you are constantly reminded of her, so it will require a lot of strength and maturity on your part. But, as your pain eases, you will find it easier to be around her. You obviously get on well, so perhaps one day you can even have a friendship with her.
Updated: 30/06/2006
Question answered by Our Relationship Advisors
