This may be pretty long, but as a preface, I was dumped by my girlfriend of just over a year last week, she is now 19 and I am 23, I am seeking advice as to what may have been going on with her that I did not know, or where to go from here.
We met at uni, I had previously been in one relationship for 2.5 years and in what we had discussed as appeared to be a reaction to that I became very serious (emotionally and intellectually) very quickly, but stepped back to let things develop slowly, which was brilliant and helped us to enjoy time together and get to know each other. She is a chemistry major (very smart and wise for her age) and I finished engineering and have been working at a reasonably prestigious consulting firm for 6 months, while she has 2 years of study left.
We had defined the relationship pretty clearly throughout, and had studied through the book "Boundaries in Dating" over the course of 6 months, and had recently begun going slowly through "101 Questions before you get Engaged" (i think), the first was my idea, and brought to light the early issues we had worked with, mainly me pushing a serious relationship to quickly, and us spending to much time together. The second book was her idea (i think), but we agreed to go through slowly and do a bible study together at the same time, but that didn't happen. Meanwhile we had continued to keep dates casual romantic and fun.
She had pointed out about 6 months ago, that some of my mannerisms and attitudes were patronising to her and she didn't like that, and I had been working on treating her with dignity, which is how I thought of her, a lot of it came through in bad jokes and light hearted things things that I had been working to stop. I thought things between us were going really well. (I know it sounds a bit bad here, because I am listing what went wrong in the relationship, but it has been the best year of my life spending it with her, and we had such joy together these times brought us closer together and helped us grow.
Throughout this time we have both been involved in the communities of our respective churches and volunteer there, in bible studies and youth groups, and I also do the PA at my church, while she spends time at the uni christian group. During the relationship we have encouraged and challenged each other to grow as our own people before God.
Then I was a away for a week and came back and she stated she felt the following things:
-She was putting me before God in her life (we both knew this is unhealthy)
-She had found me quite patronising the last while (she hadn't mentioned this in at least 3 months)
-She was not independent in her own life
-She wanted some time alone
Many things there really hurt me, but my first response was "time alone" is a euphemism for break up, so we really had to end things because saying time alone was just trying to keep me on the hook. I understood the issues with her putting me before God and not being independent and I want her to be both of these things but I was saddened that she had been feeling this for a while and not spoken to me about it, as we should have taken steps to limit our time together or similar. The issue of me being patronising was probably the most painful, she had noticed that I had changed, but was just being the same in different ways and this hurt because I had put significant effort into not treating her like a child, and thought things were improving and we were getting a lot better. One thing I asked her was whether she had already made her mind up, which she had, another painful thing that she felt she should make this decision on her own without bringing it up with me first.
I have since become aware that I have failed to respect her in some areas of life. It is more subtle than simply that, because she is a smart, wise woman, yet I think the age gap made me think I was in charge or similar and failed to see her for who she was. Also we had both made effort (or so i believed) to bring difficult issues to each other so we can grow together and she has been withholding many hurtful feelings within herself until she could do nothing but end things with me.
What I am asking for is advice here, I am no perfect person, not close, but with our discussions we want similar things in life, and although we were a long way from marriage, we were able to comfortably discuss it and (i thought) honestly comment on issues that we would have, things we would want to do. I realise that it hasn't been long since the break up and my thoughts are about as biased as they could possibly be, but I need to make a decision very soon to either pursue reconciliation ( i don't want to go back to how things were, but wish to attempt to change ), or to move on.
Also I ask for insight into what she may be thinking at this time.
Thanks for reading even if you dont reply, although please do post thoughts you have.
tl;dr girfriend of 1 year wants time alone, it was a great, mature relationship (i thought), what?
We met at uni, I had previously been in one relationship for 2.5 years and in what we had discussed as appeared to be a reaction to that I became very serious (emotionally and intellectually) very quickly, but stepped back to let things develop slowly, which was brilliant and helped us to enjoy time together and get to know each other. She is a chemistry major (very smart and wise for her age) and I finished engineering and have been working at a reasonably prestigious consulting firm for 6 months, while she has 2 years of study left.
We had defined the relationship pretty clearly throughout, and had studied through the book "Boundaries in Dating" over the course of 6 months, and had recently begun going slowly through "101 Questions before you get Engaged" (i think), the first was my idea, and brought to light the early issues we had worked with, mainly me pushing a serious relationship to quickly, and us spending to much time together. The second book was her idea (i think), but we agreed to go through slowly and do a bible study together at the same time, but that didn't happen. Meanwhile we had continued to keep dates casual romantic and fun.
She had pointed out about 6 months ago, that some of my mannerisms and attitudes were patronising to her and she didn't like that, and I had been working on treating her with dignity, which is how I thought of her, a lot of it came through in bad jokes and light hearted things things that I had been working to stop. I thought things between us were going really well. (I know it sounds a bit bad here, because I am listing what went wrong in the relationship, but it has been the best year of my life spending it with her, and we had such joy together these times brought us closer together and helped us grow.
Throughout this time we have both been involved in the communities of our respective churches and volunteer there, in bible studies and youth groups, and I also do the PA at my church, while she spends time at the uni christian group. During the relationship we have encouraged and challenged each other to grow as our own people before God.
Then I was a away for a week and came back and she stated she felt the following things:
-She was putting me before God in her life (we both knew this is unhealthy)
-She had found me quite patronising the last while (she hadn't mentioned this in at least 3 months)
-She was not independent in her own life
-She wanted some time alone
Many things there really hurt me, but my first response was "time alone" is a euphemism for break up, so we really had to end things because saying time alone was just trying to keep me on the hook. I understood the issues with her putting me before God and not being independent and I want her to be both of these things but I was saddened that she had been feeling this for a while and not spoken to me about it, as we should have taken steps to limit our time together or similar. The issue of me being patronising was probably the most painful, she had noticed that I had changed, but was just being the same in different ways and this hurt because I had put significant effort into not treating her like a child, and thought things were improving and we were getting a lot better. One thing I asked her was whether she had already made her mind up, which she had, another painful thing that she felt she should make this decision on her own without bringing it up with me first.
I have since become aware that I have failed to respect her in some areas of life. It is more subtle than simply that, because she is a smart, wise woman, yet I think the age gap made me think I was in charge or similar and failed to see her for who she was. Also we had both made effort (or so i believed) to bring difficult issues to each other so we can grow together and she has been withholding many hurtful feelings within herself until she could do nothing but end things with me.
What I am asking for is advice here, I am no perfect person, not close, but with our discussions we want similar things in life, and although we were a long way from marriage, we were able to comfortably discuss it and (i thought) honestly comment on issues that we would have, things we would want to do. I realise that it hasn't been long since the break up and my thoughts are about as biased as they could possibly be, but I need to make a decision very soon to either pursue reconciliation ( i don't want to go back to how things were, but wish to attempt to change ), or to move on.
Also I ask for insight into what she may be thinking at this time.
Thanks for reading even if you dont reply, although please do post thoughts you have.
tl;dr girfriend of 1 year wants time alone, it was a great, mature relationship (i thought), what?
