It Hurts Really Bad

Question:

It’s been a while since I’ve written you but don’t worry, I’m still a huge fan of your books. I hope you still take these emails, and I hope this is still the right address. But anyways I feel bad to have to greet you with a problem I’m having. I’m 17 and just went through my first real break-up. It hurts really badly. I mean I’ve had other experiences before and some non-serious relationships that didn’t last more than a couple weeks, but the guy I’ve been going out with is named —— and we’ve been together for 6 months until this Monday. He’s the first guy I’ve really been in love with and was actually committed to for more than a few weeks. It was going really well, he lives about a half-hour away but we’re in the same county and we’d hang out on weekends, like meet in a city halfway or I’d go to his house and vice versa. It seemed like we were really in love. He would always hold me and tell me that he wanted to be with me for several years, and all that stuff. I guess the fact that we broke up was because of the distance, and his mom is also very protective of him and I have a feeling that she was a big part of the break up. It was sort of a mutual break up I guess, but I really didn’t want it to end. He was assuring me that he still loved me and that it really was just the distance and such that was the problem, it wasn’t me, but then as we talked on the phone for the last time on Monday night he started saying random stupid things like “Well I don’t really know you well enough to be doing stuff with you” and “there’s a whole other side of me you don’t know, and another side to you i don’t know” which I know is something he’d never say, and I have a big feeling it came from his mom. It just hurts so much. I’m not going to contact him for a while and just give it time, and maybe in a month or so just send him a friendly email. I don’t want to appear desperate, but I’m just really scared that I might never see him or talk to him again and I don’t want that to happen, I’d hate to have someone in my life for 6 months and then not ever see him again. I’m really trying right now just to focus on my schoolwork, my new job coming up, and am trying to spend more time with my girlfriends. But I still think of him. My dad says not to worry that it might not be over forever, maybe we just need a break. He also says that —— feels the same way and is gonna miss me too. I hope he’s right but it’s so hard to believe him. I guess I don’t really need advice but just someone to vent to. Thanks.

Phyllis replied:

Oh, I know it hurts. It does sound like the mom may be feeding him lines, and I think that your dad is correct–your guy is probably feeling pretty blue too, especially if those were more his mom’s feelings than his own. But parents do worry when they think their teenagers, even mature teenagers, are getting “too serious” with each other. And they have a lot of right reasons, though they may have not-so-right ones also. Mothers of boys worry about the possibility of pregnancy, and that their son might feel morally obligated to marry a girl because she’s carrying his child, when she either might not be the right one for him or that this is just not the right time in his life to be a father. And even if you’ve given no suggestion that you’re about to be intimate, we all know how urgent passion can be. Your plan to just let a month or so go by and then send a friendly email sounds good to me. He may be worrying about how you’re taking this. And I think it’s perfectly all right to tell him, at some point, that it’s hard to have someone in your life for 6 months and then face the possibility of never seeing him again. I think that might be reassuring to him also, that you cared that much.

Posted on: May 28, 2009