Communication Breakdown

[gman]

The way I’m feeling just now is almost unbearable. I just want to go to sleep so tomorrow comes faster but I can’t sleep because all these thoughts are going through my head.

All I want to do is to talk to her. Just pick up the phone and talk to her. But she’s asked for a week to think things through. In just a few words of a text message she’s done more damage than she could have done if she said it was over and that’s it. Maybe damage isn’t the right word, she’s made the whole situation more unbearable is what I think I'm trying to say.

Gill and I went out for almost two years. When we first started going out, she was 28, I was 19. The age difference was never an issue, not once did it come up. I love her so much.

Our problem was we didn’t communicate. If we were annoyed at what someone else did, we would just hold it in, forget about it. Sometimes she would say something, but I never really brought anything up.

To be honest, I was a bit of a head. I got my priorities all wrong. For two years I was constantly late for anything we did. And it wasn’t because I took an age to get ready – it was because I was pre occupied with other things. Totally trivial, stupid things.

I’m a bit of a geek. I love playing computer games and I love doing stuff on my PC. Usually, I would come home from work, and go straight on the PC and do whatever. I’ll call Gill and say ‘I’ll be up in an hour’. An hour and a half later I would show up – after ‘just a few more minutes on the computer’.

To begin with, I would help clear stuff up from the nigh before or do the dishes. Then I would become your typical male slob. I wouldn’t help her. I would sit back and let her do all that stuff, by herself. It didn’t seem to bother her so that’s why it kept going.

Anyway, we often had discussions about marriage and kids. I’ve always wanted to have children and get married. Gill doesn’t want this. I didn’t really accept that fact and I always kind of thought that eventually she would change her mind. Now I know she really doesn’t want all that stuff. And although I do, I would give it all up to be with her again. I love her that much. What does a piece of marriage certificate mean anyway? And kids are a huge commitment.

A few months after we started going out, Gill got the job she really wanted – in an accountant. She was thrilled, and I was thrilled for her. She started studying for her accountancy exams and a lot of time was taken up by that. She passed her first exam with flying colours. But by this time I had noticed that she lived and talked her work. I again put this to the back of my mind. ‘It will be ok when she finishes them’.

I’m a pretty insecure guy deep down. Every time Gill went for a night out with her friends, I would sit an worry about what she was getting up to. Was she with another bloke? I trusted her, more than anything but these thoughts always tormented me. Sometimes I would almost be sick with worry. But I never ever told her this.

Anyway, all these things were lingering at the back of our heads. Just waiting for a spark to set them of.

Just after last Christmas, I went round to her house, late as usual. She was on the phone to her sister. I can’t recall the conversation they were having exactly, but it was wine-fuelled anyway. Gill went to have a cigarette in the kitchen and I was left in the living room. I knew Gill was talking about kids to her sister, and I heard my name mentioned a few times. I didn’t want to tap in on a private conversation, but I picked up one line she said. ‘If I found out I was pregnant, I would get rid of it, and not even tell him’.

I just saw red, I was quite hurt. I never said anything. I just got up and left, and drove away. I went and drove about town for a while, trying to cool off. Eventually I went back to the house.

I stormed in, Gill knew I was pissed off but I don’t think she knew the reason. We had a bit of an argument. I told her what I had heard, and that I wasn’t happy. It told Gill that I was pissed off that she said she wouldn’t tell be about getting rid of a baby. I’m pretty undecided on my views on abortion, or at least I was then.

It was at this point I first realised that we had fallen into a trap of not talking to each other properly. If only Gill knew my exact feelings. Even after the argument I don’t think I had told her exactly what I thought.

I love Gill. I love her more than anyone in the world. I would stand beside any decision she made. If she doesn’t want kids – that’s fine. I want her, and us to be happy. And I am happy if she is happy – even if that means not having something I want.

Anyway, the months after that argument is where it all started going down hill. Gill had started studying for her next lot of exams. I would go round most nights a week, late more or less all the time. I would drink her drinks, smoke her cigarettes, leave my dishes lying.

We would watch TV. I would quite often view an opinion about something, quite strongly, and we would have a discussion about it. I would relentlessly push my opinion, giving her no quarter. I never liked to agree to disagree. And the thing is I’m not entirely sure if a lot of the arguments I was putting across really reflected my opinions anyway – I just did it so I could express that feeling.

Since the start of the year, had gone from pretty good, to almost non-existent. I put it down to her studying and always being tired. But it obviously wasn’t. Either she was starting to dislike me or I just wasn’t satisfying her. Again we never talked about it. We rarely talked about at all. Alcohol is a wonderful thing, it gets rid of a lot of your inhibitions and that’s the only time we could really talk about . But that is never a good way to base communication in a relationship – through alcohol.

dwindled about once a week. I knew something was seriously wrong. I would try and get her interested but she wasn’t for it. After a few minutes of trying, I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere. I would just role over in a huff and stare into space, wondering what was going wrong. All I had to do was say ‘what’s the matter’. Three words. Three words and I didn’t have the confidence to do that. If I had just said those three words maybe we could have sorted it out months ago. But I never.

There would be times I would get very upset and get up and go watch TV. I knew the end would come soon – and it did.

Friday night came, we got a bag of crisps and some wine. I was working overtime the next day so I asked Gill to set the alarm for 7am. We had drinks and went to bed – no just straight to sleep.

The next day she nudged me at 7am to get me up. In my usual way, I flopped over and snoozed for an hour. At 8am she nudged me again. “Babe, are you going to get up?”. I had a bit of a hangover, and I was really tired. I replied with a ‘Awwww, I think I’ll just go in for a half day’ I opened my eyes to look at her. I could see she was furious. She shook her head and put the blanket over her.

A mixture of hangover and early morning grumpiness got to me. I jus said ‘Or not then’. I got up, got dressed and stomped off in the huff. I didn’t say goodbye or anything – I just left.

I got home after work and tried to call her – there was no answer on her home phone. I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought I’d go round and have a shower at hers, wait for her to come in. I got there at about 7pm. Watched some TV then went for a shower. By half past nine, Gill still wasn’t home. I had left my mobile at home so I couldn’t call her mobile. I was so worried, my usual insecure self. I thought I had pissed her right off in the morning and she’s went round to the place she used to work. Thing is, the place she used to work employs two guys she used to date, and another guy she’s quite friendly with.

At half nine, I decided to go home and get my mobile so I could call her. I passed her on the way home; she was driving the opposite direction. I quickly swung round and followed her home. She arrived a few minutes before me. I went up to the door and it was locked. I knocked the door and she answered. I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t happy. I told her I was on my way up to Tesco to get some food (when I was really on my way home to get my mobile because I was worried about her).

I eventually left for Tesco. I bought some food, some drinks and went back to her flat. All the way back I knew I had hurt her, and I just wanted to say sorry. I got home and said I was sorry for what I had done in the morning. I said I would make her breakfast the next again morning to make up for it. That didn’t make a difference. She was still upset.

[gman]

The atmosphere you could cut with a knife. I didn’t know what to say. Eventually I said ‘what time are you getting up tomorrow?’. She said ‘About 9am’. I grinned and said jokingly ‘Don’t worry, I’m not working tomorrow’. What was to follow was in some ways expected.

She just let it blurt out. She said I really shouldn’t have come round early and let myself in. Although I had a key, it wasn’t my flat and I really shouldn’t have done it.

I didn’t get it, but I just accepted what she was saying. The rest of the evening we were civil to each other, but it was still uneasy.

We went to bed. I didn’t even try and get her interested in . We both just fell asleep.

The next morning, I heard her in the shower. I got up and got dressed, ready to make the breakfast. She came out the shower and started getting ready to go out. I asked her where she was going. She said she was going up to her sisters; she’d be back in ten minutes. When asked if she wanted breakfast, she just said ‘no’.

I knew that was it. There would only be one reason for her to go round to her sisters, that early on a Sunday morning, and for only ten minutes. She was going to collect my DVDs back.

Ten minutes later, I saw her pull up, DVDs in hand. My heart crushed. She came in, sat down and said ‘Babe, I think it’s time we should call it a day’. I didn’t take it in. The next few minutes were a blurr. I quickly collected all my stuff together and she took her key off my bunch of keys. We hugged for a few moments. Then I left, not looking back.

I got home, it hadn’t really sunk in yet. I called one of my friends, Andrew. Told him I wanted to out for a drive. I went to collect him and we drove to Linlithgow. I told him that Gill and I had just broken up. He was pretty taken back. I explained what had happened and I think it was the first time any of my friends had actually seen me cry.

That afternoon, I started to think where it had all gone wrong. I realised quite quickly that the blame lied on both of us. We didn’t talk to each other. We hid our feelings. Even when we both knew things weren’t right, we still didn’t talk.

I wrote her a letter – something I’ve never done before. I basically said that I realise I had been a head, and our problem was with communication. I didn’t want to say to here ‘I want to get back together’ because I thought that would just aggravate the situation. There’s nothing worse than putting guilt on someone like that. But I so did just want to write ‘I want to be with you, I love you.

I went out that evening to my friend’s house to get my mind off things. When I got home at 11pm, Gill had sent me a text message. I had to read it a few times. In the end I concluded that she wanted time to think about things. Not only with our relationship but with other things in her life like work and her exams.

This was the worst thing that could have happened. I’m not putting blame on her, but having that glimmer of hope that it wasn’t over yet made me rejoice. All I had to do was give her the time she wanted – a week or so then we could talk. I sent her a message back saying I had to think about a lot of stuff, get my own head sorted out. I slept pretty well that night actually.

The next day, I woke up with Gill in my head. I went to work. I told my two main team mates that Gill and I had split up and I might be moody. I really didn’t want to talk about it to them. I just wanted to get on with my work.

Later Matt came up to me and asked me what had happened. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it, he understood. He told me if I wanted to go home on a half day, that would be fine.

I was happy at work. It kept me busy and for a while kept my mind off things. Lunchtime came and that’s when things started going wrong. All I could think about was Gill. I just wanted to talk to her and be with her. I just wanted things to be the way they were. It got to the point when I had to go to the men’s room and just sit and breathe.

Eventually Matt asked me to go home. I agreed, but it only mad things worse.

I got home and watched a few movies to keep my mind off it. After dinner, I came back o my room, and just thought about things. I grew more and more angry. I’ve never felt that sort of raw emotion before. This feeling in your gut that you’ve lost the greatest thing you ever had. By about half past eight, I was a ball of emotional mush. I had lost the girl that I loved so much. And not knowing if it was definitely over was worse.

There would be times that I would think ‘almost time to call Gill’, but realise I couldn’t. I kept wondering what Gill and I were going to be watching on TV that night, but again, we weren’t going to be doing that.

I decided to text her to see if she got my message from the night before. It was quite late, about quarter to eleven but I just had to do it. The message wouldn’t send on my damn phone. It was then I realised that the messages from the night before must have failed too. I felt sick at the thought of her sitting there waiting for a reply then not getting one, thinking I had just brushed her off.

I frantically went for my Dad’s mobile phone, text here a message. She didn’t reply, which meant she was in bed. I sent her another back just saying not to reply to that number as it was my dad’s phone.

I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. The knots in my stomach and the tears just kept me awake. I wanted some way to get rid of the emotions – so I started writing this.

So what now? Well I might call her tomorrow night, see what she says. I’m so tempted just to phone and say ‘I want to be with you, I love you. But it doesn’t work like that. I need to give her space and time to think things through. The next week is going to be hell. Just today has felt like a week in itself.

I’m going to ask Gill if we can meet to talk. An actual, proper talk. I hope there is some chance of us getting back together. I realise now that I had my priorities all wrong. I want to let her know how we can work it out.

So how would it work?

For a start, we need to talk more. If I piss her off, or she pisses me off, we need to tell each other. If I feel insecure about something, I need to tell her. When we have a problem, we need to talk about it. That’s all it is, just talk.

From my side of things, I need to get other aspects of my life together as well as my relationship with Gill. Many of these aspects directly affect our relationships. I would ask Gill if it was a good idea to have set times for seeing each other. For example, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. And I would say we have a specific time I need to get there for, No lateness – I’ll arrive at half 8 every night without fail.

I would help her tidy up at night and I wouldn’t be so forceful with my opinions. I won’t rant as much.

But above all, I need to reassure Gill that I love her, and anything she decides to do, I will stick by her. Gill is the person I love. Nothing will take that away. I will support her in anything. If she wants to carry on doing here exams – I’ll stand by her.

Love is what keeps people together, nothing else. If we both love each other, we can make it work.

But all this will only work if Gill wants give it a go. I hope she does.

[eightball61]

Wow :eek: quite a story....lol :p

What I see here is the same thing you see. You both went 2 years of this relationship trying to make it the best you can but went about it the wrong way. With her giving the relationship space it gave you the reality to what went wrong. Now that you know what went wrong you need to fix it for either future relationships or this one if you both get back together.

Communication is big to any relationship. Communication will help you undersand your partner better and will also help you to understand them. Communication will also take things a long way. Communication will also get you both on the same level of things. When being in a fight though communication sometimes is not the best thing right off because the other partner may need time off to think about the situation.

You have a plan though and you should stick with it. You want to talk to her and you should mention that to her. As if now though she needs to have sometime off to herself so she can figure things out. My advice is to continue going through your thoughts and write them out if you have to. After sometime passes then give her a call to see if she like to go out for a coffee so you both can talk about your thoughts. You both may or may not get together after this talk but this may be the sense of closer for you both to move on. You will need to respect her space too and if she is not ready to talk then you just need to give her more time and move on.