I'm willing to take the time and space to make things right when I'm in a relationship

Life always lets us move forward with our choices. My friend also directs his life by following the same paths. I’ve never been one for breaking up the second things get hard. If we get into a fight, that doesn’t mean that we’re no longer together. I’m willing to take the time and the space to work things out while still being in a relationship. That’s why when my girlfriend broke up with me two weeks ago, I felt like my world was shattered.

We are long distance, and have been for a while, so our fight took place entirely over FaceTime. It started out with a subtle disagreement, and then spiraled into bigger issues of what we wanted in life and how we were eventually going to find our way together. After over an hour of discussion and crying and arguing, it seemed like we got to a place where we couldn’t possibly be together, and I asked if she was breaking up with me.

She said yes.

I was devastated. I spent the next four days curled up in bed sobbing, grateful that work from home meant that I only needed to pull it together for 30 minute increments when I had meetings. We didn’t speak for a full 50 hours — the longest by far we’ve ever gone without speaking to each other in our relationship. Finally, just when I’d almost given up hope that she’d text me again, she reached back out and said that she’d made a mistake.

The Aftermath

Now, in order for this article to make any sense, I need you to believe fully in your heart that my girlfriend and I are meant to be together. She did make a mistake. There are complicated issues at play which I won’t be getting into here, but in the end you must believe me when I say that we are good. Our relationship is good and we should have gotten back together.

I wholeheartedly believe that we are better together, and I couldn’t be happier that we are working through our issues as a couple instead of individually. I wrote down a list of the problems that I was having in our relationship, and the issues that had been brought up during our fight that I felt needed to be addressed, and I asked her to take her time in replying to them. I encouraged her to do the same if she had any questions for me. I hope that in answering these questions (and writing down our answers so that they are thoroughly processed by each of us) we can help to alleviate some of our relationship stresses and emerge stronger.

Now that we’re officially back together, I want to be able to mentally pretend like the breakup never happened. We were good until 2 hours before we broke up, and I want us to be good now that we’re back together. But something feels undeniably weird.

When we talk on FaceTime, I’m overly sensitive to her body language, like I’m looking for a sign that she didn’t truly want to get back together with me. I’m hyper-analyzing every word she says, just in case one of them is regret. I’ve always had an anxious attachment style, but now I need more reassurance than ever.

Besides that, I can’t quite bring myself to give everything to her sexually right now. I feel like she hasn’t proven herself yet. It feels like the early stages of the relationship, back before we had sex for the first time. I still love to flirt with her, but when it comes time to go any further I pull back into myself. I no longer feel like I know her as well as I did.

I know that this is probably a normal reaction to being hurt the way I was. Nobody wants to put themself out there when they could be crushed, and I would essentially be allowing myself to be hurt twice. My girlfriend is going to have to prove that she wants to be with me more than ever, because in the back of my mind I’m still wondering why she ever got back with me in the first place.

Questioning

Maybe when she said “you’re not the one” she meant it. And if she did mean it, then what am I doing now? Will I be regretting my decision when another four years go by and she once again doubts that she can be fully committed to me? If I give my whole self up to her, trusting her to protect my heart, and she shatters it (especially if she breaks up with me again for the same reason we broke up this time) then I would start to question myself.

I never wanted to be a hollaback girl. I never wanted to be the person that endured a relationship where her partner was less committed than she was. I deserve better than that.

In my heart, I believe fully that my girlfriend is just as committed to me as I am to her. I believe that we make each other happy, and I believe that she has meant every word of what she says when she claims to want to be with me. But if I believe it, why is every conversation just a little bit weird? Why am I so in my head around the one person I used to be able to be myself with?

It’s worth noting that due to circumstances, she hasn’t yet answered my list of 10 important questions. I told her that she needed to do it soon, but I do want thought to be put into the answers, and since I know that she is going through a personally tumultuous time, I want her to have the space to answer them in her own time. So maybe I’ll feel better once she has answered. Maybe, once the answers to all of my questions are in front of me, it will make sense. I’ll be able to love her like I once did.

Despite all the questions, I still can’t wait until I am able to hold her in my arms again. Maybe what I need isn’t answers to questions, but it’s a hug and a kiss to show me that it’s going to be alright. Once she’s in front of me, how will I be able to doubt the magnitude of her love? FaceTime makes it impossible to see people’s true emotions, it’s too easy to hide. So I just need to wait until the next time I can see her, and hope that will make it okay.

I’ve never been in this situation before. Nobody I love has convinced me that they are leaving my life and then come back into it. I am in completely uncharted territory, and I don’t do well with situations I’ve never been in before. I like to know what I should do, how I should act, what I should say.

I want to fully move on. I know that if I’m not going to look past this, then there’s no point in me staying in the relationship. I can’t look into someone’s eyes and tell them that I want to be with them forever when my heart is still worried that they want to break up with me.

I love this girl, and I will put in the work to move forward.

I just have one question: How long will it take until we’re back on track again?