Ghost and Confused Part 2

I know you are hurting and it is really difficult to control our emotions when it comes to love or heartbreak. I agree with the others who stated this was a virtual relationship and once you started seeing each other it got too much for him. The right thing to do would be to be honest with you but unfortunately he has chosen to stay quiet. IMO a man would rather ghost or not say how he really feels in order to spare the woman’s feelings. I had a conversation with a guy recently who admitted he didn’t want to hurt his ex girlfriends feelings by telling her he didn’t see a future with her. He was waiting for her to break things off since they hardly saw each other but eventually he did have to tell her because she just wasn’t getting it. So in your case maybe he didn’t feel a connection or maybe it was never his intention to get into something non virtual. So right now he leaves the responsibility on you to do what makes you feel right. You already texted him and he didn’t respond…so now take back control and say this is not how you deserve to be treated. I suggest you keep yourself busy and journal your feelings. I do anticipate this guy reaching out at one point and when that happens I hope you have the strength to tell him off.

I suggest getting a therapist and doing some online broken heart hypnosis … free on YouTube and a ton of them. You need a therapist for two reasons: getting over it and why you were so deep to begin with.

Given the current circumstances of the world and this pandemic, no, the situation wasn’t ideal that we couldn’t meet sooner. But why would I not think this guy was investing in me and how would I not get deep with him? That he had the best of intentions to keep this going?

Why would he be on a dating site if he wasn’t interested in a real life relationship? He told me within the first few mins of our first video chat he felt warmth from me and a connection. I’m the exact same person. I guess I don’t want to accept that there was something about me that didn’t jive with him IRL. It hurts. Hurts that he’s already over me and I’m still here, typing away about him. If all the evidence leads to him not liking me for whatever reason I have to figure out how to accept it.

I don’t know, I can’t think about this anymore but it’s all I think about.
Like everyone said, virtual ain’t real, but it sure felt real to me. So real.

I too am left wondering what happened to my relationship of 4 years. We lived together for the last 2 of them. Then on January 10th he told me that his 23 year old daughter and her boyfriend were coming to stay with him for 2-3 weeks and that he wanted his space while they were at his house. So that meant that I had to move out in 2 weeks! I have had to move back to my mom’s house due to the short notice. It’s been a week and I haven’t heard from him since! Yet I’ve seen his car parked at the bar twice which makes me think that there isn’t anyone staying at his house. I don’t know why he did this but it’s making me crazy because he lives only 3 minutes away! He was in tears when he left for work last Tuesday. He claims he’s not pushing me out of his life buts wants to try to re-establish an estranged relationship with his daughter. I just don’t know what to believe. Do I wait the 2-3 weeks when his daughter leaves or do I just move on?

Thank you ladies for your support and advice. I do not have much experience in the dating world which seems like it will be my downfall for a bit. I tend to believe the best of people and that their intentions and words are true. I honestly felt like this was a guy I could trust and had a future with, but as you mentioned, it apparently all talk. He invested time and money (xmas gifts) into us and I still can’t believe how his words didn’t match his actions. Why he would even agree to a second and third date if he wasn’t feeling it after the first date…so many questions.

For my own growth and knowledge, do you think me calling out that things felt off between us was a misstep? Should I have just gone along and see how things did or did not progress? Was his plan to just slowly fade and I wasn’t supposed to notice?

I was of the mind that in a relationship you should be able to communicate with your partner and they should want to have conversations that help the relationship progress but I also read that forcing a conversation about the status of a relationship is a no-no. That maybe there was no issue it was my fears/anxiety that he was pulling away when he was just “busy”.

I guess I feel if I can dissect it enough and reason everything out the hurt/pain/disappointment will go away.

Thank you all again for input. It really is helpful.

You just have to push through it and accept the lesson here. This is really, really hard for you I know, but you’ll be wiser moving forward. You can’t “believe the best of people and that their intentions and words are true” when you have not even met the person you are talking to.

Like I said earlier, be more cynical when dating online. By cynical I don’t mean bitter or suspicious, but look for red flags. The fact that this guy was laying it on so heavily with you when he had not even met you (I went back and read the details of your post)– that was a huge red flag. I understand about Covid restrictions, but until you meet and interact with someone in person, you don’t know them. And more importantly, you don’t know how you feel about being with them.

It wasn’t wrong to call things off. From your other post, he stopped communicating with you. There was nothing to call off, nothing to communicate about. It seems very clear from your other post that this guy was not looking for a real-life relationship. So you did nothing wrong and it’s a waste of your time to obsess over it.

I have seen a number of posts on this site from women who had their hearts broken by guys they got really intense with online, before meeting, and then everything collapsed after they met. That happens in the majority of cases. There may be the occasional success story, but trust me, the vast majority of the time in situations like yours, things fall flat as soon as the two people meet. Because they had both built up a fantasy of the other person, that was not based in reality. You are crushed and hurt now because your fantasy has collapsed; you *did not know this person*. He presented a virtual persona to you, but that was not him. The sooner you can accept the fact that the person you had feelings for was in your head, and did not exist, the sooner you will be able to let this go.

Online/app dating provides a shield for a lot of people with personal problems to hide behind. You have to go into it with that mindset. Yes, there are good men online (I met my bf online 3 years ago and he is wonderful– but we also met immediately and spent no time texting/talking on the phone beforehand other than to set up our first date– you really need to meet a person to know if you connect!). But you usually have to sift through a lot of disappointments before you find a connection.

I really encourage you to work on yourself. Delve into some hobbies, do some kind of volunteering, connect with friends, start doing yoga or exercising. Start journaling if you think it will help. Do some things for yourself. Because if you feel strong in yourself and value yourself, you will not be so crushed by a guy who did not even know you, and that you did not really know. Lane is right about the “heartache train” and you just have to ride it awhile. But if you get strong in yourself, you’ll get over this quickly and look back and realize it was all a fantasy.

I’ve sat and reflected and tried to make sense of everything. Everyone asked how or why I let myself get so deep and I guess I was thrilled that this guy liked me, that I felt like we had a genuine connection, especially with all the b.s. he fed me. The terms of endearment, felt like he went out of his way to do nice things for me, he virtually cooked for me, always sending me pictures and videos, all the plans he had for us. It felt so nice after not being with someone for a long time. He seemed like such a nice guy, so genuine and normal. So willing to wait to meet me and be understanding about everything. He became such a source of happiness for me that I let it take over everything. He became the only thing to make me happy. Just to feel like I had my person out there, who only wanted to be with me, I felt so damn special. I got my worth from him I guess.

I’m struggling to find myself again and find things that make me happy. I tried to go back to hobbies that I liked, and exercise and all that but I can’t focus on anything. My thoughts keep drifting back to him and I hate it. He’s out there living his life, forgotten all about me and he fills my mind all day. It isn’t fair…he can just move on so unaffected by what he did and disregard anything we had. I know it was only three months, not really significant amount of time in anyone’s eyes but it was special to me.

Can anyone recommend a good book about self care or self love? I know I have low self esteem and need to be happy within myself and not look for outside happiness or validation from a guy. All you see everywhere is that you need to be in a relationship to be happy, Valentine’s Day and all that garbage. Being single and now “failing” at this relationship has really knocked me down several pegs. Hate myself that I can’t be present for the people that really care about me and that I’m still crying over him. I try to remember the things I didn’t like about him but overlooked and it just feels like the loss is bigger for me than him. That I could have done something different or been different when he met me etc…like I said, endless loop.

Here’s the part you seem to be right in the middle of – horrible mental self sabotage. I know because I also used to be deeply insecure. I had past traumas and legitimate bad experiences with men and therefore I had all the excuses in the book to be miserable. But here’s the thing –

I didn’t want to be miserable anymore.
I didn’t want to feel sad or anxious all the time.

So I adopted a radical self-love program a few years ago. My life is now completely different. Of course I still get lonely moments, down days – but I am peaceful MOST of the time. Even though I am not in a committed long term relationship right now – the men I do date literally treat me like a queen. My standards are so high I worry I’m gonna choose me, over any penis, to be my life long companion :) jk

Anyway you have to look at the negative thoughts in your head are like big, fat enticing donuts. Consuming so many, so often, bloats you out and leaves no space for the good. Loving yourself, TRULY LOVING yourself, is a mental exercise. Just like you wouldn’t eat dozens of donuts a day if you were trying to get your body fit and in shape – radical self love is an EXERCISE for the mind. Stop partaking of so many trash thoughts. Some things I (still) do to help me stop are:

Exercise
Journal
Therapy for past traumas
BUILD friend support system
Read about attachment
Meditate (even 5 min a day)
Music
Read Ask Polly articles online!!!
Listen to Ester Hicks on YouTube
Read male dating coaches advice for being confident women.
Practice. Practice. Practice. (Practicing self love in your mind is just like working out your body in the gym. Some days you’re going to feel strong and capable of lifting those weights. Some days you’re gonna feel weak and barely able to left things. Some days you’ll opt out all together. But you’ll start again the next day or week)

The two biggest things I learned as well are:
Feelings are not final.
Feelings are not facts.

Read those again. The feelings of pining and sadness you have for some dude, who is proving to you he is not investing in you and not treating you right – are actually NOT EVEN ABOUT HIM. You are seeking love when it’s inside you right now. Of course you want romantic love too – we all do. But you will NOT find it if you don’t find it in yourself first. Good luck to you. I promise you this can be done. But it will take time and work. Get started.

So I’m disliking myself a lot right now but let me give you an update. For the past two weeks I have been trying to get over this guy. I have however fallen into the trap of checking his Instagram and he’s been going out on the weekends with his two friends (one is a gay man and the other is a woman that he’s known for several years, purely platonic). While we were talking he very rarely saw these two friends, maybe once a month at the most. I didn’t contact him at all during this time. But since we stopped talking, he’s been posting something every Saturday.

I texted him this morning because his dog was having surgery today. He told me this before we stopped talking. Maybe it was wrong but I do genuinely care about the dogs and wished him luck and said I hope everything goes well. It would be nice to hear how she does.

He responded instantly which I honestly wasn’t expecting. Said thanks and told me his other
boy dog died last night. I said I’m so sorry, do you want to talk? He said it’s ok, and told me what happened. He said it was an exhausting night and he had to get up and moving with the girl dog to get her to the surgery appt. I asked how he was, I said stupid question right now I know. He said ok, crazy busy with work but decent. He sent me a picture of the girl dog sitting on the bed this morning. He said maybe the boy dog that died got upset that he moved the apt around. He rearranged his whole apt from the last time I saw it.
I said I see you’ve been busy and anything is possible but I think it was just his time.

He said thanks for reaching out about the surgery and he was sorry about the news of the other dog passing. I said I’m sorry too. I said let me know how the other dog does later if you don’t mind. He said ok. I left it at that.

He never asked me how I was or apologized for disappearing, acknowledging it at all. I know now is definitely not the time to be clearing the air or asking him for an explanation. So that bothers me but I understand the timing is wrong to delve into this conversation especially via text.

Is there any significance to him hanging out with these friends after he stopped talking to me? And him rearranging his apt? Distracting himself? Are these signs that he was upset about us nothing being together anymore or am I reading too much into this? Why would he send me a picture of the dog in the apt if I didn’t ask for it or inquire about it? Is anyone surprised that he answered me instantly or how he’s interacting with me? The rational and logical part of me says well if he was upset he would have reached out and he wouldn’t have gone dark for the last three weeks. But I guess I’m holding out hope that he isn’t a terrible person and misses me.

I had typed out a whole closure email for myself, but as I typed and retyped I said screw it, I’ll send it to him. I literally had nothing to lose. Just airing how I felt, not expecting a response, but if I’m being honest, hoping to coax a response out of him. I’ve been sitting on it a while, debating if I should send it or what I wanted to say. Trying to figure out what kind of reaction or response I was going to get, if any at all and how it would make me feel. I was going to send it tonight, but something this morning made me say text him just to honestly put out good wishes for the dog. In this email I had even told him to take the boy dog to the vet for a check up because I knew he wasn’t doing good and for some reason he just didn’t want to take him in.

I don’t know what to do now. I’m going to wait and see if he tells me how the dog is but I also want to push him for answers. I want more than anything to tell him I’m here for him and if he needs something, anything, to let me know. But I know he doesn’t deserve my support right now. I feel like I opened the door for him if he wants to make amends but I can’t shove him through it or keep tossing myself at his feet. I do have some self respect for myself although that may not appear to be the case with my recent behavior. I don’t want to let him go even though I know it isn’t my choice. I didn’t let go, he did.

How long do I wait to ask about what happened between us? How do I even start that conversation? If he doesn’t text me tonight do I do anything else? It felt so good to talk to him this morning. I miss that connection so much and I feel like such a fool at the same time. I’m hurt and disappointed by him but I just miss him so much.

Is there any hope here? Am I a fool for wanting hope?

I actually did talk to a new guy last night and he was pleasant enough and I really tried to be upbeat and my normal self but my heart is so far from being in this. He could be the love of my life but until I resolve all these feelings with the old guy, I don’t know how I’m going to move on. Hate myself = ( I even thought to mail him a condolence card…smh.

You’re getting good advice in this thread. I second watching Gibson’s videos. You’ve actually written what the real problem here is over and over in your own words: that you hate yourself. Which means, you’re looking to him (and only him) to give you value, when he’s no better than you or anyone else and has his own issues. Why does he get to define you? You’re going to continue to feel unhappy and lonely until you decide to take the responsibility to define and accept yourself. Don’t send him that letter looking for answers because nothing he says will change the situation or be satisfactory. Seeking a connection with someone emotionally unsafe for you will just make these feelings and the self-loathing you have worse. The only control you have is with how you view yourself, so start there. He’s a projection and band-aid distraction that will keep you absolutely stuck in this pit for as long as you decide to keep running and avoid processing what’s really going on inside you, which is older pain that was there before you met him.