(no subject)
I just broke up with Nick. Despite myself, a couple of times, I felt a little choked up.
I planned it. I thought about it over a period of a couple weeks, until finally I came to a definite decision--I couldn't compromise on certain things in our relationship. I amped myself up to talk to him in the most sensitive, emotionally mature and receptive way, but also the most clear and direct.
And I did it.
I told him how I didn't feel an emotional or intellectual rapport with him. How -- though I liked how we laughed together, and how he was perhaps the person I'd laughed the most with in my entire life -- I didn't feel safe to be emotionally vulnerable and open around him, how he didn't show me any signs he understood me or even truly thought I was special, how I didn't know, really, what he even liked about me. I knew he liked me, but I had no idea the extent to which he did, until we had that break-up conversation. To his credit, he handled it very, very maturely and calmly. He sounded so sad, though, and when he told me that he truly did think I was a very special person and worth the effort of making it work... and that he did think I was especially bright and interesting... I almost got choked up. Then -- then -- when he told me that I was probably the person who had understood him the most in his entire life... god, that was so hard to hear. It just made it that much harder to feel right about my decision and to feel certain. Recounting all this -- how he said he cared and how he thought very highly of me -- on the phone with another friend of mine a few minutes ago, I was talking, and then, when I got to that part, I was near-crying.
I know I made the appropriate decision. I wasn't happy with him; I wasn't even close to satisfied. Whether or not he liked me -- well, that's not in question, so perhaps I should say no matter how much he may have liked me, I couldn't -- I can't -- do without an emotionally supportive, emotionally close relationship, a relationship in which I feel truly known, loved, understood. If he understood me, he never showed me any signs. It makes me sad that he may be stunted in that way, such that no matter how deeply he likes and feels understood by someone, he doesn't express it -- may see no real need to, or, should he feel a reason, a way. But I don't know. I don't know him and can't explain him.
Anyway, it went as well as I could have ever hoped. It hurts that I hurt him or saddened him, but this is better for both of us. I did a good job--as good a job as I was capable of at the time. That's all that counts. I do care about him, and I think I did a good job expressing that.