MY EX BROKE UP WITH ME BECAUSE OF WORK

Erin, I know you’re really riled up and emotional right now and just want to know what the antidote to all of this is, but please take a step back here.

When something external to the relationship goes wrong in a guy’s life, it’s not uncommon that he distances himself from a girl. But usually, it’s just a subtle distancing and if there is a break up it’s more because the girl makes clear that she is very unhappy about the distance (i.e. becomes emotional and lashes out) and the guy realises that he simply cannot keep her happy and solve his own problems at the same time. So here- it takes two to tango. A girl in this situation has the reassurance that if she learns how to understand her man and how he handles stress (i.e. becoming less chatty/ not being available to meet up as much/ becoming less affectionate and more moody), then she learns how to handle the situation.

Sometimes, when a guy’s problems become so horrible — he’s lost his job, has no financial plan, his kids are problematic — he breaks up with a girl because he feels he cannot keep her happy given how bad his life on the whole is. Men are historically providers by nature- if they cannot provide, they feel they cannot keep a girl happy and they end it because they don’t want to hurt the girl.

Look at your situation:

Last year he dumped you because he couldn’t get into the university of his choice. Do you know how many people do NOT get the uni of their choice?? That’s why people apply to many courses/ unis! Trust me, i’m someone who didn’t get my first choice uni and course and honestly it affected me pretty badly. But not enough to go cutting people out of my life or hurting my loved ones!

This year, he broke up with you because a) he failed his driving test, b) his work is 40 miles away from you, c) his work is stressful. I’m not really seeing the problem here… I know people who fail their driving test 7 times. It’s hardly a reason to get so stressed out that you dump your girlfriend! And work stress? Everyone has work stress! It’s a part of life!

You have to realise a few things here and I’m going to be really blunt with you because that’s what this forum is for.

a) He’s not just a negative person. He’s a very weak person if he cannot handle those setbacks in his life to the extent that he has to cut his relationship with you off. When I said above that guys sometimes feel they cannot provide and hence cut themselves off… I don’t think this applies here. Read some of the stories on this forum (Emma wrote in about how her boyfriend felt he couldn’t put food on the table for his children and thus distanced himself. Such a severe thing and he just distanced himself. Here he cut you out).

b) He takes you for granted. You say you love him to pieces but I’m not sure he feels the same way about you. if he did, he wouldn’t keep risking losing you like this. And he wouldn’t keep hurting you like this. I think he really just expects you to come back, and tbh it’s quite clear from your post that you not only will go back no matter how many times he dumps you, but he knows this too!

Now regarding No Contact- it’s not a magical antidote to make your boyfriend come back. It’s not a tool to make your boyfriend miss you and hence lure him back. He’s not going to stay if all that matters to you is that he comes back. No contact is something that is recommended for two reasons:

a) it helps you get some perspective. You should be taking the time off from him not to make him miss you but because YOU want to step back and have a clearer view of things. When you’re so caught up and emotions are running high you cannot see facts. What i’ve done above is to try and give you this objective perspective but you have to realise it for yourself and fill in all the blanks yourself. And in a lot of cases, when women take space and go no contact, they realise they don’t want the guy they had back. I’m not saying they don’t want THAT guy, but they don’t want the guy they had back the way he was. They sometimes figure that if he stepped up and did X, Y or Z they’d be happy to have him– the key is to know what terms you’re willing to take him back on. I mean do you really want your boyfriend to just come back and then next year when his dog dies or something to break up with you again??? No! you’re worth more than that. Maybe you want him back provided he cleans up his act/ gets some therapy/ talks about things…. i don’t know. You figure this out because you know him!

b) Yes, it makes the boy miss you and he’ll come back a lot of the time. But again, what he comes back with is another issue. If he comes back with the mentality that you’ll take him back no matter what he does, then you’re really just going to down a very dark hole here.

So yes, go no contact- by which NOT FRIENDS. No communication. If he reaches out to you, respectfully an calmly message him back and say “I’m sorry but I need my space. I hope it’s doing you some good too”. And don’t go telling him things like “let’s do 30 days NC”. If he decides he wants you back he won’t even have to worry that you won’t be there or have to clean up his act at all! He will literally kick back and go….”right 30 days to repair this? Not too bad. Where’s my beer.” The whole point of NC is that it makes the guy worry that he can’t have you back if he keeps behaving the way it does.

Please get some perspective Erin and value yourself a little more.

Hi Erin.

Honestly, something seems very off here. Let me get this right, he’s college educated and now teaching, yet can’t pass a simple driving test?!? How old is he?

Going NC shouldn’t be used to try to get someone back—it should be used to determine if you’re truly compatible in the ways and areas PARTNERS need to be in order to make it over the long haul. This includes knowing he isn’t going to run away or freak out when he hits a road bump along the path known as life; you can DEPEND upon him to work through it, solve and feels comfortable asking for your input; a man you feel completely SAFE with because he’s been steady, stable and secure in not only himself, but about you and the relationship.

The real questions is, do you really want this kind of relationship? You are at high risk of becoming a “co-dependent”, if you haven’t already become one, so I advise you do some research on this to see if you’re contributing to the problem. Like they say—it takes two to tango.

That said, when I failed I went to get ice-cream to perk myself up, whined to a friend and then went on with my day.