| Hi Guys,
This is my first post on the forum and it's bound to be a long one. So I'll try to give all relevant information and not dribble on too much. I assume most of you will cringe at what you are about to read, but my heart is fairly set on my course of action, I'd just like a bit of advice on how to maximise my odds.
TLDR:
I went out with a girl (older than me by about 6 years) who has a (now) 8 year old daughter. Hard to lose not only partner but in some way also a "step daughter". Made a big concerted effort after our mutual breakup to save the relationship. Concluded with her saying "I don't want a relationship with anyone, I fell out of love with you, I love you as a friend and really want to keep hanging out when we can." To which I said "I am going to live my life and give you space right now, let me know if you want to catch up and when you're ready for a relationship, I'll be the first guy you think of. I'm going to be the guy you fell in love with until you do it again."
My plan is to get on with my life, go on dates, make myself more successful and hopefully either a) she will realise that I am actually what she wanted or b) meet someone who helps me move on from her
Onto the more detailed part if you care to read it.
Dating and Breakup
I am a personal trainer and we met when she was convinced by her work mates to come to one of my sessions. We quickly formed a bond and she began one on one training and apparently everyone knew we were into each other which culminated in my boss at the time issuing a warning to not get involved. Well, shortly after we ignored that warning and began dating in "secret", which most people knew about I guess. However that did begin a descent to a place that ultimately wound up my employment with that company and I wound up going out on my own and starting my own business, which has been great but pretty challenging. She and I continued to build our relationship and my bond with her daughter kept growing.
I will admit however, prior to this, I was really anti-children. I voiced this with her on more than one occassion constantly citing her daughter as the exception ("I don't like kids so if I'm still around, your daughter must be pretty special" etc.) I have mellowed since and actually want to start a family now. However I believe this weighed on her heavily and she constantly felt like she was having to appease both of us around the other, even though we got on really well.
She also had a couple of major injuries at this point, tearing her ACL and a couple of months later, ruining the joint in one of her knuckles (on her ring finger, meaning it was slightly disfigured and this really got to her because women). This cruelled her ability to exercise and rehab for both has taken over 12 months and she has lots most mobility in her finger and her knee has degenerated quite seriously to the point where she cannot really participate in conventional exercise. So she stopped training with me (I lost a lot of "alpha time" when that happened, becoming much more "beta" as I was constantly trying to navigate around her limitations and this would potentially have come across as a bit needy and unassertive). She loves exercise and loved running and could no longer do either so I think this played a big part in a mental shift for her.
My business was kind of getting to a point of dire financial straits as well and I ended up biting the bullet and leasing a gym, which really saved my business but since that point I have been really dedicated to keeping it going and it is stressful. I have hired a business coach and am following his advice. This seemed to affect her as well, as suddenly I went from a cool guy doing his own thing, to a stressed guy jumping whenever I was told by someone (albeit in an effort to use smarter minds to help me become more profitable to take away stress and give me hours back to my week).
Around this time, she had a major split of sorts with the father of her daughter and they ended up having to sell their jointly owned home, and go through courts and formalise custody and all of the things that they had tried to keep as a "gentlemans agreement" to that point. This was devastating for her as she lost her house (the father bought her share out) and a lot of time and control with her daughter. She lived with me (and bore witness to my sloppy night time routines when I got home tired from work) until she found her own place to get her life in order (my place was not big enough for her and her daughter to live). This was a seismic shift in her world and she changed priorities a lot because of it. Just as my priorities had changed to be more focused on my business and less on myself and my relationship (I was mentally very strung out).
With us both ignoring the relationship and having lots of mental burdens upon us, we decided it was best to go on a break. It was warm and mutual and we both felt we loved each other, didn't know if it was the right thing to do but our relationship wasn't working anymore. So we kissed goodbye and left.
Post Breakup
My coping mechanism was to fairly shortly return to online dating to try and "fill the hole". I went on a couple of terrible dates and realised I still loved my ex very much and resolved that I had to do anything I could to save the relationship. I put pen to paper on all my thoughts of why the relationship went south and what I and we could do to save it and create new glory days again. When I told her this she indicated she was not ready for a relationship. I insisted that I was going to fight for it and if there was even a chance it could be saved we should hang out again, and if she thought it was over, to just tell me and I'd stop demonstrating her my efforts to save our relationship. She agreed to meet up and we did a couple of times. I surprised her with coffee for work one morning. Another time I left a rose at her door for her to come home to and I also left her some photos of the three of us together at another time. Throughout all of this she was very push and pull, at times extremely open and welcoming and at other times going silent for days at a time. Eventually I was unable to deal with this rollercoaster any more and told her she needed to be a bit more open about where she was at.
We agreed to meet up to chat about it. We met in a park where we were the only people and chatted for ages about nothing in particular, which was great, and then I raised the conversation I had been dreading but needed to have. I stated my case, how I felt things had been going well towards repair but was confused by the up and down nature of her engagement. We talked back and forth about what we both wanted and she was adamant on a number of points I raised:
First:
She did not want a relationship at all. With me or anyone. She was really happy with what she had now, with just her and her daughter and didn't know if she ever wanted a relationship again, but right now, she is really happy just living as independently as she wants.
Second:
She had "fallen out of love" with me. She couldn't point to anything specifically that made this happen but stated it had been a gradual change and she still loved me as a friend, could chat to me forever and still wanted to hang out but she was not "in love" with me anymore. I said "so one of the things we did as a couple was to drink wine and play cards, is that off the table now?" and she responded, "No! I want to be able to call you and say 'I have Sat night free, let's play cards and drink wine'", and I said "You know I get handsy when I'm drunk." She laughed and replied "Well keep your hands to yourself." So strong feelings, but no romantic feelings anymore, right now.
Third:
She definitely did love me and at one point did see a future together. We were intimate up until we broke up and I asked her if she enjoyed those times given she fell out of love with me over a longer period of time. She assured me that she did enjoy our time together even up til the end and still enjoyed being intimate while we were a couple.
This is about where we left it. I finished by stating that for me, our friendship and romantic relationship are intertwined and I am not at this stage capable of separating them, so I will still have those feelings and will give her the space to be independent. I'm going to go live my life, work on the issues that I told her about previously and get myself back into a good, or even better place. I told her that when she is ready for a relationship I want my face to be the first one she thinks of, that I am going to continue my life and be the guy that she fell in love with before and I will keep doing that until she is ready to do it again. I finished by saying "Because if it's meant to be, then it will happen, hey?" to which she responded "That's what they say!" and I said "Well, I'm choosing to believe them." She laughed, hugged me for a long time and then said "I'll see you soon."
She texted me a few hours later something about sunburn (I am very pale and she tans easily so she was apologising if I was hospitalised because she was fairly cooked herself). I responded I was a bit burnt. Later on she showed me a photo of how burned she was and I let her know that it was in fact a pretty bad burn and worse than mine.
Since then there has been no contact. I have resolved not to contact her unless she contacts me (the exception being to check on her daughter who has a surgical procedure later this week). I will hang out with her if she invites me but will make no efforts to organise this myself.
I do want to organise times to catch up with her daughter though (with or without my ex present, depends on her comfort level I suppose, but these would be myself and her daughter spending time together because I do love that little girl and there was stuff we promised to do but haven't yet and I don't intend on breaking my word).
I have already organised a date with another girl for tomorrow and I have a different girl I have to confirm with as well.
Question and Advice
So, I am fully aware that what I have is a powerful case of oneitis as you would refer to it in this world. I have acted quite needy and desperate at times throughout the breakup, but during the relationship, at least for the first 12 months or so I was the alpha male in her life, specifically when I was training her.
At the moment she feels no romantic interest for me, however I have the knowledge that she mostly really liked our love life, really enjoys being in my company and her daughter adores me and I adore her daughter. The ingredients would seem to be there for a return to a good situation if they were mixed right I believe.
My dream scenario is that she becomes lonely after a time, she sees that I am doing well and we do our wine and cards night that used to be a staple of our relationship (it was like date night). We first hooked up playing cards and drinking and it's been a fun experience to share ever since, so with the combination of a bit of lonliness, maybe jealousy, seeing the change in me and a bit of reminiscent feeling all accompanied by some flowing wine, we will fall back into a physical connection. From there I can treat it as I did when we first started sleeping together but do it better this time.
I am aware this is not happening soon or maybe at all, but right now it is the motivation for improving my own life. Any tips or suggestions on how to maximise the chances of her catching romantic feelings again would be really welcomed.
I am aware a lot of your advice will be "delete her number, move on." I am not ready to do that yet. I am doing it in body, working on doing it in mind and still hopeful that process will help to reignite the strong desires she once had for me.
Any advice on how to progress to maximise the chances of reigniting those desires is what I am after here!
Sorry, I told you it would be a long post. I congratulate any of you who read the whole thing and would welcome your wisdom.
Thanks in advance!
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CHAT