Another break up story.. (dating, boyfriend, girlfriend, love)

[DontCallMeLizzy]

I will try keep this as brief as possible, but i cannot make any promises! Also, i will refuse to put all the "positive" things in this as it will make it far longer than necessary and its better without them. Making it easier to focus on the problem in the end.


TLDR at bottom

My exboyfriend and i were friends for 9 years. In january, we became even closer during his vacation out of state. Naturally we had liked each other a lot for over 2 years. When he had came back, we made plans to just spend time together. We did.
Some days followed and he asked me out in a respectful manner and I had said I would think about it. Im sure he assumed I was rejecting him because 4 days later, I re-asked him out and it took him all day to think about it. From that day on, we were officially dating each other. We had made harmless jokes, and bonded really well. Extremely well. Of course we had our differences, but we kept those as our personal interests, not OUR interests. We would talk everyday and were happy. We were even happy outside of our relationship. We had hobbies and things we did to keep busy. We would only see each other for maybe the day, or two days once every two weeks.
In february, we carried this on and bought him food and coffee on Valentines day. He didnt have a job at this time, so I never expected anything just time with each other. The entire month carried on this way until the final week. This was also the first time I had stayed at his house for 1 whole week, because he offered. Still everything seemed fine. I was never around long enough to be negative or cause a problem.
In March, my birthday came around and I had asked to stay over for the night because we would go out and have a few drinks. I had brought my own and we went spent time with friends. We had gone to the bar, this was the incident where he asked me for a kiss. Im not into PDA, so I refused. He made a big deal about it, so I had given him a kiss. When we returned back home later that night, everything worked itself out and we were fine. We had never opened the drinks I brought and I insisted that next time I came over, we will have it then. A few days later, he took my drinks to a party with his friends. I didnt find out until five days after my birthday. This broke my trust a little since he failed to tell me he had done this.
In April, everything was fine. We argued over petty little things, but nothing major. Nothing really notable happened this month. We were happy and made time for each other apart from our own lives.

May, it was the month of us celebrating falling in love. We had walked 3 miles to go have Chinese food. He had never eaten chinese food so I thought it was a brilliant idea. This day is a favourite for us. This was our first "real" date. This month was also full of favourites. Our second date was to a beer festival. We walked two miles in the pouring rain and laughed and smiled the whole way. This is also the month where he refused to have PDA all together and said he hated it. So i had quit trying. This is also the first time I had met his exgirlfriend and felt jealous.
During june, it was warm so he invited me to stay more often. Which I did. We would ride bike into town and grocery shop. In the mornings he would wake up, gain an appetite, then cook food. All the times I would follow and ask if he needed help, in return he would tell me "no" or tell me to shower and he will bring it to me when I finished. This carried on every time I stayed there. When he would cook lunch and dinner, he would refuse my help these times too. Some occasions, he would come into the room and ask me what i wanted to eat. My natural response was "I don't know... What is there to eat?" He seemed fine and would give me options. Their house always had something different to offer, or sometimes nothing at all. Regardless, this month was a nice time too.
In July, this pattern carried on, his birthday was on the fourth. I didnt want to make all the decisions on his birthday so I asked him to make them. He argued that I was being difficult. It was his day, not mine. This is the month where he kept making plans for us so naturally I stayed for the majority of the month. It was all good fun and he seemed to enjoy himself, however he would complain that I wasnt helpful and that I needed to communicate with him more. He also said that I needed to have better self-esteem and stop being negative. We had argued quite a bit his month about this.
In August, I had spent some time at home and he would ask when I was coming over again. I came over twice in the month of August, both for different periods of time. The last time I had gone over was on the 16th after my return from a two day trip. I bought us a box of wine and wanted to kick back and make things better. I was already beginning my "positive turn-around". The days passed on normally and on tuesday the 19th was his friends birthday, so we made plans to party with them early in the morning. One of his friends and I do not get along well. He constantly makes fun of me and provokes me into fighting. I tried to play nicely and have fun. Naturally that friend started talking about me and provoking me again. So I asked my boyfriend to tell him to quit but he just laughed about it. I stood up for myself and though I was drinking, I made the mistake and had hit his friend. My boyfriend then broke up with me outside and told me to walk somewhere. I owned up to my mistake and said I was sorry. I apologized for disrespecting and wanted to talk it out with my now exboyfriend. I ended up walking 4 miles into town and expressed my feelings at a friends house. Naturally they are shocked. They give me advice.
The following day, I had gone back to his house to pick up some of my stuff. We had spent that day talking about his new job and even had a good time just being in each others company. Even with being heartbroken. I told him that he isnt giving me enough time to improve my behaviour. He never would tell me the things that bothered him until it was apparently too late.
I understand that these things were in my power to make a solution to. I could have just helped and tried to communicate better. I could have better decisions and go out and exercise or spend time with friends to give him time alone. There are many other things I could have done to reciprocate the things he was doing for me. Express feelings to one another no matter how vulnerable we may have felt.
Yesterday, the 21st, I had returned to his house to pick up the rest of my things. I had shared a cigarette with him and talked about our relationship and asked him if we could try to make our relationship better. I started crying while trying to express myself, he had hugged me and told me he loved me. Emotions were intense, he began crying but pretended he wasnt. I asked if we could try again and I will do everything in my power to make it how it used to be. He said "yes we can try again, but just please, give me some time alone. i will talk to you next week."
The reason it failed is in the beginning of our relationship, I was positive, communicated well, and extremely helpful. As the relationship passed, I became more closed off because I didnt think he needed my help. He had stated that he felt he was the only one putting in effort. Yet I feel hurt by it because he refused to tell me what was bothering him earlier. Why deny my help when I offer it?

My friends say that if I correct my behaviour from negative to positive the relationship will work better. We need better communication and trust in one another in order for it to flourish. They also believe there is great potential if it was given enough time for me to work on my behaviour.
I refused to put the positive things into this post because it was the things that were negative that ended up making it sour. As you have already probably observed, I havent done anything for the relationship since about June. The good things happened quite often and

What are your views on this? All input is appreciated.
I've kept a journal for the past month on the things I needed to perfect with myself. Bad habits take time to fix. You cant house train a dog in one day.
Please dont be too judgmental on his character as he really is smart, reasonable, and a really good person. We both had done wrong and was given no time to help the relationship.
I APOLOGIZE THAT THIS WAS EXTREMELY LONG.




TL;DR My 8 month relationship failed due to lack of communication. he denied my help when i offered, and even told me not to bother. In the past he asked for PDA, then not long later told me not to do it. Somewhere in the middle, I stopped trying to offer my help. Which was a bad idea as he said I was unhelpful. We both ended up with poor communication and the ability to express ourselves to one another. I had talked to him 2 days after breakup to ask if we can try. He said we can but he needs time alone and will talk to me another time. He had only told me at end of July that these things bothered him. Never gave me enough time to change my behaviour and negativity. Friends of ours think wee should make an attempt because we have a lot of potential.

[remoddahouse]

Do you think you could make that longer? Seriously? It pains me just looking at that post. I can't imagine why you might have broken up.

Any chance you could condense that 10x so those of us without an hour on our hands can read it?

[DontCallMeLizzy]

Yes im working on it