I feel low and here's why (lame autobiographical post)

[freedom_to_read]

Ok, about 3 months ago I broke up with my girlfriend of about 2 years. It was very difficult, because she did not at all want to break up, and even though there were some obvious problems, she did not see them and so was taken by surprise by the whole thing. Needless to say, even though I know that in the long run breaking up was the right thing to do, I still feel a lot of residual guilt for hurting her feelings so, and of course I still care about her a lot.

Now, post-breakup life has a couple of wrinkles to it. One problem was that we both shared a very tight knit group of friends, so the last couple of months have been a lot of difficult maneuvering and uncomfortable scenes. To be clear, I don't want her to lose her friends because of this, but I don't want to give up my friends either. Since they're by and large the same friends, it's very tough.

Anyways, so yesterday the whole thing came to a head as follows. For the past 2 years, my whole group of friends has rented a vacation home for a week, somewhere outside of the city in a bucolic setting, where we can just chill out and relax for a weel. If you know anything about renting a vacation cottage in New England, you know that you really have to get on the ball in the spring, otherwise they're all taken up. So basically what happened was that 2 friends from my group went ahead and rented a cottage for us, but the whole time and for all the emails that went back and forth, they did not include my ex-girlfriend in the CC. I knew it of course, and even said I felt weird about excluding her, but the truth is I also feel a little weird about including her, because it might make the whole vacation just very uncomfortable for the both of us.

Long story short, I finally confronted one of the friends who is arranging this trip and said that I really have to tell my ex-gf about this, because she's going to find out anyways, and it needs to be dealt with. Now my friend said, "Don't worry, I'll talk to her about it." And so, even though I kind of knew that I should be the one to confront her about the situation, I let it go. Well my friend told her about it, and even went so far as to extend an invitation to her, but I think (I wasn't there for the conversation) he made it clear that it might be weird.

So last night I got a phone call from my ex, and she was distraught, because she feels like all of her friends were sneaking around behind her back (and honestly, I guess, we kind of were) and now she doesn't want to talk to any of these people ever again. And I tried and tried to convince her that no one has anything against her, it's just that it was an uncomfortable situation and we didn't live up to it very well. And after all, someone did talk to her about it, and even invited her to come along. But of course that doesn't really help, and she has a good point when she asks, Why should you be included but not me?

It's just all fucked up, and I now I feel really low about it. I know I didn't do the right thing when I should have, but that milk has been spilled. And though I'm worried that she'll never talk to me again, I'm kind of more worried that she feels totally alone and abandoned by everyone, not just me, but her friends too.

I guess the morale of the story is that relationships suck. Thanks for listening.

[chookie]

1. Be honest

No body really did anything bad. The situation simply was awkward -- at first, but now the ice is broken, and I think things will start to settle down. She needs to understand -- perhaps from you, that sometimes people just don't do the best thing they should because they are clumsy about such emotional issues. And ask her to forgive everyone's clumsiness, and HONESTLY tell her that she is still well-loved and welcomes in this old circle of friends.

Things will settle in. Everyone just needs to learn a new way to behave when roles people used to have change.

:hug:

[freedom_to_read]

2. thanks, chookie

...for the calming, sage advice and the :hug:. I hope you're right. Things seem tough right now.