Can someone tell me what happened?


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charmed4261 is offline charmed4261 Post #1  May 14,2009, 5:53pm
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We emailed each other for about a week, talked on the phone for two weeks...short conversations during the day...long conversations at night (some initiated by me some by him). He works out of state and lives an hour away. We agree to meet and it was instant chemistry (fireworks for me). He says he wants to see me the next day and invites me to his house. We spend another wonderful day together..he tells me that any free time we have, we should plan to see each other even if it's for a few hours. He continues the phone conversations during the week and comes to take me out to dinner the next weekend and we go to my house and watch movies till 2am(wonderful time). He invites me to go to his father's birthday party the next weekend (I tell him that I've got plans). Plans fall through and I end up available...he invites me to his house and asked me to come on Friday after work so we can spend the whole weekend together. Another wonderful weekend. He tells his friends that he can't do anything with them on Saturday's now because "they are for her". He tells everyone at work about me...even the deli lady at the grocery store. He tells me that he's found the one he's been looking for and he's not going to do anything to mess this up. He tells me that he wants this to be exclusive and even takes his profile off. Keeps telling me how beautiful I am, is attentive and just wonderful. He knows I'm crazy about him too. The following week, I notice the phone conversations are starting to get fewer and fewer and shorter and shorter ...I say nothing but I'm getting anxious inside. I miss talking to him like we use too. I'm excited about this relationship and miss him already. He calls and wants to meet my children so we plan a weekend for him to come to my house. He brings gifts for the children and me. We have another wonderful weekend. The week comes and the phone conversations are down to 5 minutes at night as he's falling asleep in the hotel room. He used to call me when he got off work on his way to the hotel, when he got to the hotel, before he took a shower...and now he's calling me after he's already had a shower, watched TV and is about to fall asleep. He does mention to me now that he has to talk on the phone 60-80 times a day and he just gets tired of talking on the phone. I feel cheated, like he doesn't care about this relationship, ect....but I try to be understanding, he has a tough job...still I can't understand why he did before and now he can't or won't. I don't nag...I don't say anything...but I can sense that the phone calls are more of a "chore" for him than something he "wants" to do. He asks me to come the next weekend on Thursday and stay until Sunday. Sometime during the week he calls to tell me that his brother is coming to visit from Wisconsin and I offer to come later Friday so they can spend time together, he tells me NO! come Thursday! We spend an absolute wonderful time together doing things with his brother, daughter, parents...Saturday night when we are finally alone, he asks me if I'm going to miss him. I say yes. Sunday we part and he kisses me and say's "I love you" then checks himself and says "I mean that in a good way" (this is the second time he has done this). Now mind you through all of this, he is constantly talking about us in terms of the future. I never do. I'm thinking he acts like he's going to propose to me any minute. I'm getting more and more into him too, I love the feeling when I'm with him and when I hear his voice on the phone. I send him an email telling him that I feel like I’m falling in love with him. He never mentions it and I don’t bring it up either. The week is so long when I only get to talk to him for less than 10 minutes and day. I don't call him all week and wait for my 10 minute call at the end of each day. Then on Thursday I had some exciting news and called him at work (he told me in the beginning this was fine and that if he was busy to not take it personally, he would call me back) he was busy and said I'll call you back in a minute...I waited 3 hours and no call. I got all emotional on him and sent him a text message saying "I was sorry, but I can't do this" He did not call back...two hours later I call him crying saying "I didn't mean it" he says it's okay, but "don't come this weekend...I have too much to do". I get all emotional again and tell him to just forget it. Well, of course after I calmed down I'm calling him and emailing him and texting him and get no response but "I'll call you this weekend" He calls and says he still wants to see me, but that "I" (meaning me) need to slow this down!!!! We just met and we are not married. I agree to everything he says but I do point out to him that I was just following his lead. He calls all week as usual, but the phone calls are later and later after he know's I've gone to bed. There's no more "baby" or "darlings" and I'm hoping he's just having a "bad" week and work and not that his feelings have changed. He makes plans for me to come see him for the weekend and I tell him I'm going to a baby shower Friday night and then out to dinner. I'll come on Saturday. Saturday morning I text him and tell him how excited I am to see him (haven't seen him for two weeks and had the emotional "meltdown" the weekend before.) I really wanted to see him. He calls me 15 minutes before I'm getting ready to leave and tells me that "maybe we should scratch this weekend because I’m really tired.” I calmly told him that I had apologized for getting all emotional on him last weekend, but that I was not needy or clingy and I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I also told him that I was worth more time and effort that this, "when you think so too, you can call me" and I hung up. He never called back...it's been two weeks and I've sent him one letter and one email and I've heard nothing from him...what happened? I asked him one time...please don't break my heart and he said "I'm not going anywhere". How did we go from "I want to see you even if it's for a few hours" to "let's scratch the whole weekend because I'm tired". "I'll do anything to make this work" to "you are not worth me calling back"?
 
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lizzywa is offline lizzywa Post #2  May 14,2009, 6:10pm
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So sad But it sounds to me like you should thank your lucky stars that this passionate affair ended so quickly! This man sounds fickle and sooner or later he would have moved on to someone else.
 
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Harvey7 is offline Harvey7 Post #3  May 14,2009, 8:30pm

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He set you up for a great big fall and that does not mean that he did not care for you, I think that he did.

Did you ever wonder why he had to tell everyone that he knew about his relationship with you. I suspect that the big love in his life dumped him just like he dumped you. He keeps replaying his personal tragedy. You were the perfect foil desperate for love that you blindly accepted everything that he told you. Now that you can look back in retrospect and see things as they really are verses the picture that he painted for you. His friends and family have been there before and done it all again, but no one wanted to blow the whistle on him.

I'm sure you'll hear from him again, but don't fall for his B.S. again! Your mistake was not sitting down and making ground rules for the relationship. I don't believe that you have to speak the love of your life every night. You became needy and your emotional needs that wanted shared with him became your demands for attention. (Ground Rules.)
He was talked out by the end of the day, but your needs scared him as did your temper tantrum.
I think that is an issue that you still have to deal with because you've been needy for awhile.

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Last edited by Harvey7; May 14,2009 at 8:39pm.
 
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Doctora2012 is offline Doctora2012 Post #4  May 14,2009, 9:13pm
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Sorry to learn that you're going through this situation. Have you read the book titled "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?" It's written by John Gray.

I am a huge bookworm (good thing given the career I've chosen ;-), and have found it very insightful. It covers the different ways that women and men communicate, and there's a section that may be particularly applicable in this situation -- it's titled "men are like rubber bands."

In essence, sometimes men need to get away and have time to themselves to "reestablish his personal boundaries and fulfill his need to feel autonomous (p. 104)." When men begin to pull away, it's important to simply allow them to do so. They'll return when they're ready. Any attempts to draw them back will be futile; they'll pull away even more.

The best one/you can do during this time is to carry on with your own life and not preoccupy yourself with getting him back or trying to figure him out. Cheer up, sweetie! You'll be fine

....Best wishes
 
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I8myPassword2 is offline I8myPassword2 Post #5  May 14,2009, 10:15pm
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Sorry to hear your story but as someone else posted, try to move on. I am in the same situation pretty much. The lady I fell madly in love with did to me after 4 months (the best time of my life) what he did to you. She actually had moved in right as we started dating in December. I took her to Europe (France, Germany, Denmark) to meet my family and everything. Two weeks after we came back she just did not come home on Monday. No phone call nothing. She called on Wednesday than showed up on Friday night, spent another incredible week-end with her. During the next week only 5-min phone calls/day. Next week-end no time/no calls. On Monday she called again w/excuses (I am assuming lies). Mothersday another great week-end with plans for the future. Since, no phone calls. Wow, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how one person who seemed to have cared and loved so much can do anything like it to another person. And it is SO EASY for outsiders to say to move on. Your head might tell you (it tells me to do so maybe 5 min out of an hour) while your heart just doesn't stop bleading and aching for this overpowering love for the other 55 minutes of every blody hour. Sorry Charmed4261, you are not alone and it's not only guys who do this...
 
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gr8galmv is offline gr8galmv Post #6  May 14,2009, 10:48pm
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This sounded like a disaster from the get go. Nothing about this relationship from the get go sounded healthy and I don't think either of you were being honest with each other when all these emotions were running insanely high. The desperation in your voice when you didn't hear from him for THREE hours is crazy. Then the crying. And then the begging and apologizing. Be grateful that he's backed away and just move on. You should consider a slower more steady approach in your dating and relationship life. You don't know anyone well enough that should warrant such extreme highs and lows of your emotional life after just three dates. And any guy that reacted and behaved like he did so early on after meeting to me is a big red warning flag to me that he is extremely unbalanced emotionally and probably other aspects of his life. I think you were fulfilling an immediately need in his life and perhaps he woke up and realized this was crazy. Like another poster said, you need to just get back to your normal life as you were before you met him. No guy should make you get some serious case of the blues when you haven't dated that long.
 
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lil_lamb is offline lil_lamb Post #7  May 14,2009, 11:16pm
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uh... got to be cold hard honest. you called him crying. that's pretty much the definition of needy and clingy.

in my experience, men pretty much do have these moments of withdrawal where they process what's going on in their lives emotionally. they don't narrate the processing like women do. i believe you pretty much have to get comfortable with these black-out periods to move forward - that is, you do if you want your chances to be better than random.

and as a woman, you'll also have your moments of "what the heck am i doing?" - however, they'll come at a different time and leave the guy wondering what's gone wrong.
 
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simplemind is offline simplemind Post #8  May 14,2009, 11:26pm
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There are some people who understand the rest of us and our needs the way a wolf understands which sheep in the herd is least likely to be able to run or defend itself. It is instinctive. They enjoy the emotional high they get when they are in a new relationship, when you respond as you did, and when they know they have you every time they call. Your error was in trusting that something that happened so fast and was so intense could be real.

Being in one of these is such an emotional rush, and as suggested by the excellent posts above, is fed by both parties in an unhealthy frenzy--that it cannot help but burn itself out quickly. In a way, the early rush is like a drug (and studies suggest that dopamine, a chemical that mediates pleasure responses in the brain, is at work here)--in your case he was the drug, you became the addict, and now you are in withdrawal.

Men or women who operate this way reflexively know which things to say or do to pump up your excitement, which feeds them. I call them "emotional vampires". Once fed, they're done--and you're not. They're ready to cull and groom the next victim, and you're buzzing around on the post drug let down, depressed and hurt.

If you persist, this will get much worse, and can become abusive--for at times when he/she is between victims, he/she will come back to you for another feeding. Look back only to learn what actions he used to play your own emotional needs against you, so that you aren't set up for the next one to do the same.

I wish I were telling you this from a dispassionate intellectual perspective, but unfortunately have been there and have seen no few number of friends be on the receiving end as well. Taught me to be better at setting limits (as Harvey said, above), and to be less sheepish.

Learn from these teachers. The lessons are hard, but will last you a lifetime.
Last edited by simplemind; May 14,2009 at 11:33pm.
 
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charmed4261 is offline charmed4261 Post #9  May 15,2009, 2:59am
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Thank you all for your comments...and good advice. All of this, I've come to realize now. The pulling away, thing I get...since I've been reading online trying to understand this in hindsight. But, wasn't it too early in the relationship to be "pulling away"? Shouldn't he have still been in that "honeymoon" stage of wanting to get to know me? I don't think it's a matter of him moving on to get that "rush" with another victim...we live in an area where it's difficult to find people to date and so when you find someone you are compatible with it is a rare find. I just hate this feeling that I'm the one who blew this. I know that I was partly to blame, but was I completely to blame? Could this ever be fixed? Or is it too late?
 
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simplemind is offline simplemind Post #10  May 15,2009, 5:48am
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It takes two for this to happen; is what I believe & what I think the others are saying as well. I could very well be wrong about his motivations, but the description of the events speak for themselves.

You did not "blow it" by yourself.

Take responsibility for what you did, but not what he did. Learn from it, so that you don't have to go through this hurt again.
 
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