It’s been four days since she left, and we’re not in contact. I know the reasons. I can explain why the relationship couldn’t give me what I wanted. Somehow, she’s still at the center of my life, even now that she isn’t in it.
We started dating two weeks after she came out of an eight-year relationship. That timing is hard to overlook now. During the first three months, though, things felt great. She was very interested in me, we grew close, and we were behaving much like a boyfriend and girlfriend. I took what was happening between us seriously.
Things cooled as other people began seeing us as a couple and she realized how serious I was. I couldn’t tell where we were headed. That uncertainty made me anxious, and my need to know seems to have added to the pressure she was already feeling.
Eventually, she told me she couldn’t give me what I wanted. She needed time and wasn’t ready to enter another relationship so soon after her last one—not now, and not in the near future. I wanted a relationship with her. She wasn’t in a position to have one.
I don’t expect her to come back. Even if she did, I don’t intend to take her back while she’s unable to offer the relationship I’m looking for. I can say that clearly and still miss the first few months, when her interest felt certain and being together seemed easy.
That’s the part I’m struggling with four days into no contact. Knowing we weren’t right for each other hasn’t stopped me from organizing so much of my attention around her. There was a lot of pain and anxiety by the end, and I don’t want to return to it. I want my life to feel like mine again. How do I stop making her the center of it?
