this is what lj is for, right?
so i figure i should just LJ my brain out for a second because i've just been a mental mess for the past few weeks. and thankfully i dont think too many people still check this place so i can feel like i'm talking about it without really talking about it to all that many people.
so a few weeks ago me and sarah broke up, ending our 5.5 year relationship and an almost year-long engagement. i did the breaking and i know there are plenty of people who think i'm an asshole for it (ie. sarah and her friends.) i knew i had to do it though. over the past year i had just been gradually been falling out of love with her, which sounds lame and stupid and whatever but it's true. i thought it was just stress from other areas of my life making me unhappy, and that i had to soldier through because we'd-been-together-so-long-how-could-we-not-be-together-forever? was in full effect, mentally. a month or so ago, i realized however that it wasn't anything else stressing me out, i really just wasn't happy in my relationship with sarah. i had stopped feeling any sort of emotional connection, i felt like we were living completely separate lives, days punctuated by sharing a bed that for the past year had only been used for exactly that, unconsciousness. I felt stressed when we were together because i felt like i had to live up to something i was supposed to be. like i had to go through these motions because it had been this way for so long.
I began to realize that the main reason i was with her was because we had been together for so long. i had never been in a relationship that was longer than a few months before this, and after 5.5 years i thought this was just how things got, that i just needed to accept that i wouldn't be comfortable anymore. it's not that i am afraid of commitment or anything, as my friends can attest to, i am normally at my happiest when i am with someone.
i found out after the breakup that some of my friends were almost ready to sit me down and ask me if i was happy, because they didn't think i was. i like to pride myself on my ability to read people, but that only works from the outside. i was so buried in denial about my relationship that it built and built until it finally broke suddenly. i dont know what brought it on, but i found myself thinking about breaking up with sarah whenever i would be driving around in my car, and as guilty as i felt about thinking that, the only reasons i could find to not break up with her were the following: i didn't want to hurt her, it would be a huge mess because we live together, we've been together too long to break up, she doesn't have alot of friends here and i was worried that if i did it would screw up her life.
i got so stressed that day at work, just felt sick of everything and spent several trips to the bathroom just staring into the mirror or toilet struggling to breathe as i thought about what i was finally becoming sure i needed to do.
so i left work, she texted me casually, having no idea what'd i'd been thinking. and i couldn't think of anything to respond, i must have responded in a weird way because before i knew it she was calling me and then leaving work early to come home. so we talked, i told her i didn't know why or what i wanted, i said 'i dont know' alot, i really didn't know much at that point. she cried. we broke up. she took off her ring, which made me sob as it hit me as to what i was doing. she asked me to leave, i left. i felt like shit, like a horrible piece of shit that did something it had to do before it became a horrible piece of shit that ended a marriage. and so that was that.
i moved in with kevin and shope and alex. we have a 3bdrm now in his complex.
i really did ruin sarah's life, short-term. she left her job and moved back to south florida. i think long-term it's best of course, i'm not the person she needs.
i spent a couple of weeks projecting some serious left-over emotions onto a friend in california, making things weird i think. which sucks, she's a great friend, someone i've known for what feels like forever (8-9 yearsish i think.) and i hope my weirdness didn't mess that up.
i haven't been doing anything except working and sitting here on my computer and not sleeping very much. i'm tired all the time. but i feel a weird weight lifted, and it's not because i'm single, in fact i'm getting to the point where i'm already tired of spending so much time alone. i feel like i'm myself again, a person that sarah didn't see very often, just when i was around my friends. and i can't let that happen again. why should there be two versions of me? a boyfriend richie and a friend richie? only friend richie was happy, boyfriend richie just got to kiss someone. someday i'll find someone that i can act like 'me' around, and hopefully, it will be awesome.
i'm not too worried about that right now though, i'm ok sitting by myself all night staring into facebook for a while longer. i've got a lot of tv and movies to catch up on anyways.
damn. now THATS a good ol' classic, old-school, whiny-ass motherfucker of an LJ entry.
so a few weeks ago me and sarah broke up, ending our 5.5 year relationship and an almost year-long engagement. i did the breaking and i know there are plenty of people who think i'm an asshole for it (ie. sarah and her friends.) i knew i had to do it though. over the past year i had just been gradually been falling out of love with her, which sounds lame and stupid and whatever but it's true. i thought it was just stress from other areas of my life making me unhappy, and that i had to soldier through because we'd-been-together-so-long-how-could-we-not-be-together-forever? was in full effect, mentally. a month or so ago, i realized however that it wasn't anything else stressing me out, i really just wasn't happy in my relationship with sarah. i had stopped feeling any sort of emotional connection, i felt like we were living completely separate lives, days punctuated by sharing a bed that for the past year had only been used for exactly that, unconsciousness. I felt stressed when we were together because i felt like i had to live up to something i was supposed to be. like i had to go through these motions because it had been this way for so long.
I began to realize that the main reason i was with her was because we had been together for so long. i had never been in a relationship that was longer than a few months before this, and after 5.5 years i thought this was just how things got, that i just needed to accept that i wouldn't be comfortable anymore. it's not that i am afraid of commitment or anything, as my friends can attest to, i am normally at my happiest when i am with someone.
i found out after the breakup that some of my friends were almost ready to sit me down and ask me if i was happy, because they didn't think i was. i like to pride myself on my ability to read people, but that only works from the outside. i was so buried in denial about my relationship that it built and built until it finally broke suddenly. i dont know what brought it on, but i found myself thinking about breaking up with sarah whenever i would be driving around in my car, and as guilty as i felt about thinking that, the only reasons i could find to not break up with her were the following: i didn't want to hurt her, it would be a huge mess because we live together, we've been together too long to break up, she doesn't have alot of friends here and i was worried that if i did it would screw up her life.
i got so stressed that day at work, just felt sick of everything and spent several trips to the bathroom just staring into the mirror or toilet struggling to breathe as i thought about what i was finally becoming sure i needed to do.
so i left work, she texted me casually, having no idea what'd i'd been thinking. and i couldn't think of anything to respond, i must have responded in a weird way because before i knew it she was calling me and then leaving work early to come home. so we talked, i told her i didn't know why or what i wanted, i said 'i dont know' alot, i really didn't know much at that point. she cried. we broke up. she took off her ring, which made me sob as it hit me as to what i was doing. she asked me to leave, i left. i felt like shit, like a horrible piece of shit that did something it had to do before it became a horrible piece of shit that ended a marriage. and so that was that.
i moved in with kevin and shope and alex. we have a 3bdrm now in his complex.
i really did ruin sarah's life, short-term. she left her job and moved back to south florida. i think long-term it's best of course, i'm not the person she needs.
i spent a couple of weeks projecting some serious left-over emotions onto a friend in california, making things weird i think. which sucks, she's a great friend, someone i've known for what feels like forever (8-9 yearsish i think.) and i hope my weirdness didn't mess that up.
i haven't been doing anything except working and sitting here on my computer and not sleeping very much. i'm tired all the time. but i feel a weird weight lifted, and it's not because i'm single, in fact i'm getting to the point where i'm already tired of spending so much time alone. i feel like i'm myself again, a person that sarah didn't see very often, just when i was around my friends. and i can't let that happen again. why should there be two versions of me? a boyfriend richie and a friend richie? only friend richie was happy, boyfriend richie just got to kiss someone. someday i'll find someone that i can act like 'me' around, and hopefully, it will be awesome.
i'm not too worried about that right now though, i'm ok sitting by myself all night staring into facebook for a while longer. i've got a lot of tv and movies to catch up on anyways.
damn. now THATS a good ol' classic, old-school, whiny-ass motherfucker of an LJ entry.