Annie (AKA Hey Terra!) has been around long enough to have experienced a lot of what Life can dish out. But, it hasn’t been so long that she's forgotten what it's like to be your age. Check out some of the thousands of email questions teens from around the world have sent to Terra. You may learn something useful from her answers:
Breaking up:
“I want him back!”
Hey Terra,
Me and my now ex-boyfriend were together for 2 years and 8 months, then he lost his job. After that he got really depressed and stopped paying attention to me, so I kissed another guy. When I told him, I told him that I had kissed that other guy twice. Well it didn't seem to make him that upset so I thought it was no big deal and he said that me and the other guy could still be friends since we worked together.Then a few weeks later I kissed the guy again!!! My ex-boyfriend got really mad, but we were still going out. Then the day before our 3 year anniversary I broke up with him, b/c I didn't think that the way I was treating him was fair and I wanted to go out and have fun with my friends and maybe experience new things. Well that went on for a month and we would still act as if we were together, and then one day he said that we couldn't hang all over each other anymore and he had feelings for someone else. Then the next day he told me he was dating someone else. That hurt b/c I really did want him back before he started dating the other girl, I just wasn't fast enough. He said that I really hurt him and that I broke his heart and now he has to find the pieces and he has to try to put it back together. He says he still loves me and cares about me, and I don't doubt it, but yet he won't be with me and won't break up with her. We still hang out, he says that we're "work in progress". I love him and I want him back so bad!!! Please help!!!!!!!!!!
Helpless
Dear Helpless,
It sounds like there's a big difference between what you say about your feelings for your ex and what you do. You say you "love him and want him back so bad" but there you were kissing that other guy. You broke up with him and say you wanted to "go out and have fun with your friend and ... experience new things" like you didn't care about him any more and yet when he started dating someone else, you felt "hurt". It sounds like you want him back because he's not available at the moment and you're feeling very jealous.
Your ex also seems to be saying one thing about his feelings for you and doing something else. He says he "still love you and cares about you" but he doesn't want to be with you or stop going out with his new girlfriend.
What's with all of this hurtful back and forth game-playing here!?
Maybe the two of you need a real break from each other, where you aren't hanging out together for a while. It might be a good opportunity for both of you to stop trying to get back at each other for past hurts. This relationship may be a "work in progress" like he says, but it doesn't sound like either of you are really making any progress. Progress comes with work. Work gets done when two people make a commitment to talk about what went wrong and make agreements to treat each other with more respect.
Does that make sense?
In friendship,
Terra
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