Dear Readers - There was such a large response to my April 13 online chat about relationship breakups, that I'm responding with Part Two, to questions that I couldn't answer in time that day:
My boyfriend of six years ended our relationship, saying he no longer felt in love. Later he said he realized his son, 17, would never like me and we couldn't blend our two families. Now he wants to hang out as friends sometimes.
He wants "friendly benefits." Forget it. His son isn't going to like you any more (or respect you) if you're his dad's sleep buddy. Move on.
My husband of 30 years, and father of our two sons, dumped me for a woman 20 years younger with three children. This was a death to me. I still love him but have had no communication whatsoever with him.
You love who he was in the past. Today, he's a different man, with a different life. Find your own different life - time with friends, family, and doing new things - travel, interest groups, whatever it takes to move you forward.
I was in a three-month relationship with a guy 23, I'm 28. Things were going well. He recently ended our relationship on Blackberry Messenger. Is texting and BBM'ing the current way people end relationships?
Technology offers a cop-out for people who can't handle face-to-face communication. He's young, possibly inexperienced, but it's still a shabby way to dump someone.
My friend's heartbroken after an "out of the blue" dumping, when they were making plans to move in together. How does she get over this when she hasn't a clue what happened?
She should celebrate! The guy realized he didn't want to go through with what he'd agreed to do. So he cut and ran, rather than try to work it out with her, or get counselling together. More than cold feet, he has a weak spine. She's lucky to be out of it.
I was very hurt when the love of my life just stopped talking to me. He stopped returning my calls, wouldn't say why he wouldn't see me, though I was begging to know what was going on. I cried for weeks. I was only 20. I never found out what happened, and it made it very difficult to get over. I realize now he was a coward.
A tough lesson in learning to discern the cowards from people with strong character. Keep your senses alert in your future relationships, to make sure you learned well.
We were living together and engaged... and then he left and became an angry person blaming me for everything. I lost him, my home, and my job (I was working at his place of employment). He refused to talk about it, refused to work things out. I don't know what to do.
Take care of your immediate comforts - getting a home and a job. You also need to be around family and friends who aren't judgmental. Heal yourself, and if needed, find a counsellor through your community agencies.
Break-ups are typically one-sided, with so many of the actual reasons never revealed. To recover, make sure you grieve, and also engage in purposeful activities. I found photography as an outlet. My heart has still not mended two years later.
Hearts do mend, and they also expand to include more people. Keep looking forward, expand your circle of friendships, and be open to loving again.
I'm still hung up over my ex-boyfriend. School and his PhD were always the most important things for him. He would never make a definite date with me, only deciding in the afternoon if he could see me that night.
We've been broken up for a year, but I recently learned that he's attending a protest three weeks away... he couldn't even commit to coffee with me the day beforehand.
Since our breakup, he's apologized for being a bad boyfriend but he continues to do the same things. It still hurts that he left me for a PhD.
His ambitions and interests were paramount from the start, but that doesn't mean he didn't love you to the degree that he could. Some people don't attach emotionally as much as others. This is the kind of guy he is, and you either had to accept that, or recognize you weren't a good fit.
Tip of the day:
A break-up is a better choice than clinging to someone who doesn't love you anymore.