Closure

[chronarchy]

Tina has informed me that she's looking for closure on our relationship.

She's asked me to write about it, for her, to give her an idea of what I was thinking, what I am thinking, and how I feel about it all.

I'm not sure how to do that. It's been over a year.

Comments

closing coasters

[rfunk]

I can identify with a lot of this.

I suspect it'll be hard to get closure while you're still living together.

The rollercoaster line puzzles me; seems to me that a stable and healthy relationship wouldn't involve huge emotion highs and lows; that's a characteristic of an unstable relationship situation, which you've certainly been in since the breakup.

It sounds like both of you avoided dealing with some aspects of the breakup in an attempt to makes things easier, and instead you really just put off some hard stuff until later (nowish).

Re: closing coasters

[chronarchy]

The rollercoaster emotions aren't between me and her. It's between myself and others.

Re: closing coasters

[rfunk]

I know. You said, "I wonder if she thinks that I didn't feel these things when I was with her, if she is hurt or angry because I have been so emotionally high and low." Given what you've been going through lately, why would she want you to have gone through that when you were in a supposedly stable relationship with her?

Re: closing coasters

[chronarchy]

Dunno. It's just a weird, irrational worry. They happen. When I wrote this, I was thinking about worst-case things, really, not best-case ones.

feel free to tell me to bugger off.

[bloodlikerain]

you should show her this.

but there really is no right or wrong way to get out of a relationship, esp one so deep. it'll hurt to struggle in any direction. just be, if possible, disconnect from the situation. disconnecting is not saying "i don't care". it's getting it a little further away away from your pysche so you can breath. living with your ex is a lot of things, but it is not disconnecting.

more thoughts, mebbe helpful, or not

[singingwren]

A line from a song made me think of you (and this

I'll just throw this in with the others...

[weavingfire]

You should show her what you've written.

Whatever comes of you and Tina (good friends, distant friends, no friends), your romantic relationship is over (unless it isn't, life is weird like that sometimes) and damn, it's really hard to move on when you are both still living with each other.

I think what Tina is seeing with you is what often happens when a relationship ends, both parties kind of swing about wildly attempting to get some bearing on who they are and what they want. Usually, though, the other party doesn't have to witness this and they can focus more on their own healing than who the other party is or is not dating. The fact that you are behaving so differently from "normal Mike" kind of plays on that, and probably freaks her out a bit and makes her wonder if the "normal Mike" wasn't the "real Mike." Probably. Not that I know the girl.

Re: I'll just throw this in with the others...

[chronarchy]

Are you also suggesting that I should tell her to move out?

I'll work it out, I'm not worried about that.

Re: I'll just throw this in with the others...

[weavingfire]

Nope.

What I'm saying is "it's hard to move on when you are still living with the former partner."

I'm just saying that most people don't have to watch their former partner date other people, and I think it can delay the whole 'moving on' process. I do suspect though, that if you got a serious girlfriend, she probably would want to move out, personally, I would.

On a slightly different track, have you two considered going to counseling for a few sessions, just to hash stuff out?

[romandruid]

Y'know, for as smart a guy as I think you are, sometimes you miss the most basic points. Worry all you want, for all the good it will do you. You don't have any control over what anyone else thinks or feels -- only yourself