thread to get over a breakup

I was only questioning why guys who were clean shaven when in relationships grow beards after they break up.

probably just because they are bummed out and don't have the energy to bother shaving

Same reason you dye your hair pink when you feel you need a change. Only slower.

xposts There's no question that she had her nose and probably some other stuff done too, yeah.

I think the attitude that goes with random shaving patterns (or post-breakup beard growth) is more important than the actual beard. Then again, I decided to do a complete clean shave this morning, so what do I know?

My breakup official crossed into the MONEY ISSUES frontier yesterday. I keep thinking that I am being a jackass for one reason or another, but IM conversations with the shared friend that she always referred to as her "best friend" have made me feel particularly better.

o don't go there, unless it's expressly for revenge

Go where? Basically it's a matter of solving some "who takes what" issues (anything we bought for the place stays with the place, imo), a couple minor home/car repairs which I would gladly pay to have done (still) and when I'm able to remove her from my insurance. The ISSUE was that I feel that I'm owed money. Coming at me with "you need to pay for this" and then saying "oh, the money I said I'd pay you back, that's null and void because you broke up with me" isn't really kosher.

As for talking to the shared friend, I've basically just been bouncing "hey, this is what I'm being told, am I being unreasonable for asking about this?" type of questions. A little bit of crankiness too, but the friend has certainly witnessed enough to know where I'm coming from. Yeah, I should not drag a friend into it, if that's what you mean, but I'm not trying to kill their friendship or throw blame, just kind of trying to keep things straight.

oh, i thought there was a possibility of a 'thing' with shared friend, but my bad.

ps unless we're talking huge money that you can't afford, my advice is walk away from the money issues.

Yeah, agreed. I just feel there's enough crap hanging over that I should be able to walk away. If she thinks I really need to take care of these things monetarily, then fine, have an estimate done or get it repaired and send me the bill. At this point, I just kind of feel like I have been supportive financially and emotionally for a long time, so sweating the small shit just seems petty to me.

Most definitely not a thing with our friend, we actually stayed with her and her boyfriend at their place. I was friends with her before this thing, and I hope to be friends long after. Very grateful on that.

There's also this "who keeps the engagement ring" thing, which I should just probably write off.

We basically had two big discussions around the time we were working out long-term plans / getting engaged where I said exactly what I didn't want: to be responsible for her behavior when drunk when she expected me to be some kind of caretaker; that I did not feel comfortable with her making threats against her own well-being and would treat those seriously, even if she did not feel they were serious; and that she needed to be responsible for taking care of her own affairs, or responsible for asking for help if she was unable to. Basically she went off the rails, acted completely irresponsible, wanted instant forgiveness for her drunk behavior when I wasn't even there, neglected her own medication, and actually made an attempt on her life. I think that's the deal broken about four ways.

There's also this "who keeps the engagement ring" thing, which I should just probably write off.

I believe that generally speaking the engagement ring is seen as a contract of sorts and that she is really supposed to give it back.

OK here you go . . .

The majority of courts consider an engagement ring to be a "conditional gift." A conditional gift is one in which some future event must occur in order to finalize the gift. In most cases, courts consider the wedding itself to be the future event that must occur in order to finalize the gift of the engagement ring. If the wedding does not take place, if the engagement is broken, the gift does not get finalized, and thus the ring reverts back to the gift-giver. In other words, the ring must be returned.

Only if the woman breaks off the engagement. If the man breaks it off, the woman is traditionally entitled to keep the ring.

x-post

Not anymore!! See above. That is how it is often viewed legally regardless of who breaks the engagement these days.

As for one of the "repair" things -- it was the only time in my life I can remember that I ended up damaging something due to anger.

She has this point where she will be upset about something and throw a temper tantrum. She was working on sewing something that she had an actual deadline for, and her sewing machine broke. She basically started crying and raging, and I asked what I could do to help. She ended up yelling at me, and locking herself in the bathroom. She has a great habit of alternatively screaming "you don't even care" punctuated by "you're not helping!" So I was in the bedroom, outside the bathroom door, calling friends and family and leaving messages asking if I could borrow a sewing machine for her. Really. So finally, I ask if we can go somewhere and look at a new one, and the shouting about my unhelpfulness continued.

At this point, I am specifically saying I would directly fix the issue. So when she screamed again, I kicked the door and my foot broke through the panel. Still ashamed to type this, feel like a jerk for reacting like that. What did we do after this? I drove her to a store where I paid for a brand new $400 sewing machine.

And so, the door is what I am apparently supposed to repair.

IMO, she broke off the engagement when she did all the things I said would end the relationship. But seriously, if she wants to walk around wearing a nice engagement ring and being creepy, right now I'd say she can go for it.

I'm feeling more and more like a moron for EVER caring at this point, because I just feel like I've been played by my emotions for the past year

I'd sell the ring and pay for the monetary stuff with the proceeds, or tell her she can either get $$$ or the ring but not both; I am certain that the ring is worth more than whatever you owe her.

x-post Oh wait - you may be right about the guy breaking engagement girl keeps ring thing. Anyway, Who cares? If it's that much of an issue and you can't agree then just sell the damn thing and split the money.

Uh MH - this lady sounds like um . . . a handful. I think not marrying her is probably going to turn out to be one of the best decisions you ever make tbh.

I'm feeling more and more like a moron for EVER caring at this point, because I just feel like I've been played by my emotions for the past year

― mh, Friday, August 28, 2009 11:16 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i have to say the scenaria you have laid out here sound very close to extortion.

I'd sell the ring and pay for the monetary stuff with the proceeds

Just a warning, trying to sell engagement rings these days will get you pretty much nothing.

Anybody who has to go to the courts to resolve enagement ring issues is a horrible vulgarian.

Good point.

when dealing with money issues and a bad ex situation, i have learned to ask, "how much would i pay to get out of this completely?" the answer is usually somewhere close to the amount i think i'm owed, tbh. but i've never given anybody a ring...

that's a little racist

Michael White is so completely on the mark. I just got a call from her mom, who said that she heard I wanted to talk to her. Actually, what I'd said was that if we needed to discuss financial issues or anything that needs a good objective grounding, I would like a third party there, and I'd find her parents acceptable. I think I'm being fair, or even giving her more than what's fair here because I want her to keep in therapy and not get knocked completely off her feet, so I don't mind if they'd be a little bit partial to her needs.

OK this whole thing sounds like a complete nightmare. Cut your loses and run. Seriously.

losses, oops

conan the vulgarian

my sister-in-law was engaged to some guy before my bro. somehow it fell through so she sold the ring and took a bunch of her friends on the already booked honeymoon.

i have known guys who have taken out a loan to buy a ridiculously expensve engagement ring. id probably feel inclined to give it back if he was still making payments unless he did something really shitty to break the engagement in which case id be happy for him to remember every month when the bill arrives.

unless you're talking about an arranged marriage i do not understand why people still go through an engagement step on the way to marriage. it just seems so antiquated and bizarre to me.

i don't either tbh but if he hadn't gone through that step they would be married already. broken engagement > divorce for sure

like 99 percent of the marriage process is stuff that is not necessary or or stuff that doesn't make sense anymore but it's done because of tradition. the whole deal is very traditional. those aspects aren't for everybody but sometimes doing something for the sake of tradition is nice.

I kind of felt the same way, but I also got a lot of pushback that serious examination of issues would only happen after engagement. GUESS WHAT!

There was this weird point that was probably miscommunicated where I was trying to get a relationship counseling-type of thing going back in January or February, but what her psychologist parents supposedly said (which I now think is probably not what they really said) was that that sort of thing isn't very common and pre-marriage counseling was the way to go.

I have mentioned many times here that I was a moron and really wanted to love this girl, right?

fatal error imo

emotional detachment is the only way to approach marriage :(

ur not a moron, stuff happens

x-post Agreed, and I think a part of me always knew something like this would happen, I just wanted to believe.

i was actually saying what harbl said, tbh

There was this weird point that was probably miscommunicated where I was trying to get a relationship counseling-type of thing going back in January or February, but what her psychologist parents supposedly said (which I now think is probably not what they really said) was that that sort of thing isn't very common and pre-marriage counseling was the way to go.

I can believe that her parents said that but, if they knew the problems their daughter was having, I can also believe that the part where they said "but you really need some heavy-duty counseling" was left out when the story was retold to you.

darraghmac i'm trying to figure out if you were kidding

Dan, I don't think they really had a clue of the full picture. I was probably the only one who saw her in every state she'd go through, and that world is one I no longer want to live in.

Did I also mention several times she mentioned things to me where she made it clear she had never told anyone else in the world outside of one friend? Like, traumatic things that happened in early college that she never sought therapy for and did a lot of self-blaming for years.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, this is a load off of my mind

i was half kidding, half wistful, i think,

you're right though, part of it is "how much do I love this person, and do I want to be with them?" and then rationally you have to think "will I be alive in ten years if I go with this course of action?"

well, maybe not that dire, but you get the drift

MH, you seem like a decent guy who's been through a really difficult and heartbreaking situation, and more than anything, your emotional pain at this breakup comes through. You are obviously really hurting and my heart goes out to you.

It's just really difficult for me to read this, being that I am a woman who has suffered from mental illness my entire life - and has been through utterly gutting breakups where my mental illness has been cited as a "cause" for the breakup. (in cases that completely ignored other glaring issues in the relationship which caused it to fracture.)

So it's really difficult for me to read about your breakup and not see it through the lens of mine own.

I'm not trying to excuse someone who is acting in a way that seems abhorrent or inexcusable to you. I'm just saying that it's a little more complicated than someone "playing you". Unless you've actually experienced mental illness firsthand, it's quite difficult to understand how it can make people that you love behave the way that they do. It's not always a question of being willfully awful (*especially* in the case of someone who has come off medication - you're not just dealing with someone facing the recurrence of mental illness, but withdrawal symptoms that can often be more bizarre and extreme than the illness itself.)

However, as someone who's been on the other side, as well - and attempted to have a relationship with another person whose mental problems made it impossible to have any kind of meaningful relationship with them - there is a point where you have to decide if you can take this person, warts and all, or if you can not.

There's only one person who can answer that question.

(My own personal take on that is that I am willing to go there for someone who on the whole is willing to work with their illness, and attempt (doesn't always have to be successful, but the trying is the main part) to keep their head above the waters. I am not willing to go there for someone who denies their illness, or insists they don't have a problem, or, the very worst, those who use their illness as some kind of "get out of trouble free" card.)

I apologise in advance for the ways in which this post will be misinterpreted, but I didn't just want to not say anything.

No, you are completely in the right, Kate. I'm sorry I phrased it that I felt "played," but I mean that not necessarily that I was being played by her as much as I was by the illness. And for what it's worth, we had a lot of differences that I think would have made things fall apart in a number of years, from kids to employment to religion. To be honest, I think the illness made me stick in for things longer, because I kept being told that if we did one more thing, then the situation would be better. Which it never was, no matter what the thing was.

The illness itself was never a reason to leave, but her lack of managing it was what finally opened my eyes.

I've had a pretty traumatic weekend, in that I made some poor decisions on Friday night that I will have to deal with for some time, but none of them were relationship-oriented, luckily. But I ran into our friend A. who is getting married in about a month and what she said will stick with me for some time. She told me that she's supposed to hate me, blame me, etc. as a friend of my ex, but she doesn't. She thinks I made the right decision and she wishes the best. It's one of those things where I might be losing something, but possibly a lot less than I thought.

We re-broke up, this time permanently, and certainly for the best for both of us. We had a good run and I have no regrets. He is very upset but I hope that in time I will be at least an 85% positive memory.

Saw him last night for the first time since breakup (a week ago). Seeing as how he was standing alone and had gotten some kinda haircut, I talked to him and at one point made a comment about the cut and kinda patted/noogied his head.

A few minutes later he sent me this text: "I don't mind talking and hanging, but could you not scruff my hair. That burns tbh."

Wow

lol baby

"lol baby" is amazingly otm, and a tangy phrase to boot. "lol baby" could be a nickname. if I were to write a book about our relationship it would be titled "lol baby."

relationships are hard