Hey Playground, long time no see. I think it's two or more years since I last used the forums here.
I'm sorry in advance if this post becomes tediously long. Especially since I'm not sure what advice I'm looking for. Writing these things is a very emotional and spontaneous process for me, and what I think is gonna happen is that I will describe every detail of the situation. I just hope that some of you will take the time to read it through, and hopefully you have some advice.
I'm not sure when it all started, but I guess it must've been a year ago, or something like that. You see, what happened was that I fell in love. Not really as dramatic as it sounds, I developed a fancy for a girl that I went to boarding school with.
(It's probably not important, but keep in mind that I live in Denmark where boarding schools are rather different than most other countries. I guess the most important difference is that we only spend one or two years at boarding school.)
We were friends for some time and would often sleep together (which was not a big deal, because we lived down the corridor from eachother) and spend entire days doing nothing together. Basically, besides doing regular friend-stuff, we seemed to just enjoy each other's presence. It was like this for some time, until one evening when we were laying besides each other, I kissed her. It was very awkward, especially the part where she went "Uuh... what was that?"
We both cried a lot that night. She told me that she also thought our friendship was developing in that direction, but she was scared that something would come between us and that if we became lovers and later fell apart our friendship (which we both cherished) would be unsalvageable. Keep in mind, though, that she said she was scared of this happening, but definitely did not reject me - she needed time to think. The days went on and things became a bit less awkward between us. Thankfully, we are both openminded persons, so we could talk about all this without it getting awkward.
A week or two later, we had both been taking a few dancing lessons and the first snow had just fallen. We decided that if the sky was clear, we would waltz in the snow under the starry sky (listening to
this). It sounds like a very romantic setup, but it was actually really spontaneous. It was, however, also very romantic. That same night, when we were sleeping next to each other, we started kissing and holding each other very close.
I guess this is where it started. We were both reluctant to call each other lovers, and the relationship was sort of secret. Not for any reason other than privacy, really. We preferred people to think of us as "Peter" and "Puk", not "Peter and Puk".
A few weeks passed where my world was continously rocked by the feeling of being in deep, deep love. I could feel that it blossomed now that we were together. Then our relationship became more a part of our everyday life - not in a negative way, though. Our feelings just settled, I guess, and things got stable.
Well, of course we fighted from time to time. This is the only relationship I've been in, so I can't really say whether our fighting was serious or just felt like it because I loved her. But we always stopped fighting, and for me it felt like we understood each other a little better every time.
The school year was starting to come to an end. At this point, everybody knew we were together, but we still made as little a deal of it as possible. We lived in two completely seperate parts of the country, and we talked superficially about what we would do when the school ended, but we never really took a serious conversation.
Then, a month or so before the end of school, I was suddenly expelled for cannabis consumption.
From here on, the chronology may not be completely correct. See, a lot of things happened following this. I started getting very severe anxiety attacks and many things became very hard to overcome. For the next few weeks, she and I were together a few times and we talked about moving together (even though we were definitely much younger than people typically are when they do that). The plans never really became very serious, mostly because my family refused to help me because they thought it was stupid. But we kept seeing each other, and when spring break came, we were together a lot and for several weeks at a time.
I think this is when I really started loving her, a lot. We would borrow her sister's apartment and just go about our lives (together), doing everyday stuff together or coming up with crazy plans for fun things to do. Things were not all fine and dandy, though. My anxiety would sometimes cause situations between us, because I would be gripped by a sudden fear that she did not love me, or that if I said the wrong thing she would hate me. As a result, whenever the anxiety came over me, I would became vague, unimpressive and undecisive which could irritate her to no end, until we could clear up what had happened. At other times, she would be gripped by an inexplicable hate for me, and she would be completely devastated because she really wanted to be with me.
Each time, we worked it out and were happy together again. Spring break ended, and I was diagnosed with a depression and put on medication. It was the beginning of the school year, and neither of us had much time - remember, we lived far from each other, so we only really had opportunity to see each other in free weekends. We saw each other in one weekend after school started, and then we didn't spend time together for about a month.
Then, we finally were together in her sister's apartment. This was in September 2011, I think. Friday, things seemed okay. We met at the rail station, we kissed and went home. I thought something felt amiss, but she has always been a very omnious person and didn't make a great display of her feelings, good or bad. So I thought it was nothing. Then, Saturday, something happened. I don't remember why, but I got an anxiety attack while she wasn't nearby and I went to the balcony to cry, because I didn't think there was reason for her to worry.
Well, she came to me while I was sitting there, crying. We talked a little about the things that made me anxious, and then she broke it to me. She said that even though she loved me as much as she had ever done, she was no longer in love. At the time, I didn't really understand this. We cried together, and when I asked her what it would mean to us, she said that it does not have to mean anything. So I guess I just thought she meant that she wasn't as crazy about me as always, and to be fair we had been together for a few months, so I thought it made sense for her not to feel butterflies in her tummy whenver she saw me.
We went to sleep that night, and it was very weird. I should mention, that sex was never really something we talked much about. We just slept together, started cuddling and eventually things would "heat up" if we were in the mood. Well, we cuddled, and started kissing passionately while she sat on me. And suddenly, she laid down next to me and did nothing. I started kissing her, and even though she returned my kisses, I could definitely feel her restricting me from, eh, "going down", as they say.
I didn't know what it meant. Something like that had never happened before. Something was very wrong, and I could definitely feel it. I almost had an anxiety attack, but convinced myself that she was probably just menstruating and went to sleep.
The next day went by, and the time came for me to head home. She was accompanying me to the rail station, and on our way down from her sister's apartment I kissed her in the elevator. Well, I tried to. I could feel her lips not moving and I saw her expression not changing. On the way to the rail station we walked through a park, and I said to her that sometimes, it is hard to believe that she loves me when I am the only one taking the incentive to kiss and to be together.
And, well, this is where the bomb was dropped. Take in mind, she didn't break up with me. She told me what she had told me the day before - she loved me, but was no longer in love. I really don't remember the conversation much, as I broke down completely. We sat on the grass for hours and talked. She said she wanted me to stay another night so she could be sure that I was okay, but I told her that I couldn't wake up next to her tomorrow.
She walked me to the rail station and I left. We were both in tears.
At this point, I dropped out of the gymnasium (American equivelant is High School, I think). We would talk a few times, though it was mostly me calling her during my anxiety attacks (that, at this point, were frequently actually panic attacks) when my rationality wasn't exactly on it's high. As I mentioned, she is an openminded person and she was ready to talk to me even though we were not together. This stopped, though, and for a long time we didn't talk. I started my education again, but kept getting sicker and sicker.
Now, I guess it must be a month ago or a bit more, when I first wrote to her again. I don't know why I wrote (and I wrote that, too), I just needed to tell her what was going on in my life and how I felt. As always, she was ready to listen. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was still in love with her.
What happened though, was that now that we were in contact again, I couldn't stop myself from writing her again, in a bout of irrationality during a panic attack. It's hard to explain, but I read the e-mail the next day and it looked like the ramblings of a madman - I don't know if you have ever had a panic attack, but when it happens, it doesn't feel as if you are feeling bad
right now, it feels as though everything is bad, always. And I had tried to get the point across to her.
What made this last e-mail different wasn't her response (she didn't respond, actually, but when I later wrote that I was sorry, she said that she just hadn't known what to write), but what it made me realise.
You see, for a long time I felt very tired when I was in school. It was strange, because in the morning I would feel fresh. Then, every day when I came home and I stood over my bed, about to take a nap, I suddenly realised that I wasn't tired. I was longing for my bed, yes, but I was longing to share it with her. To be with her, for us to touch each other and talk to each other - and if you will forgive the romantic babble, I was longing to feel whole again.
So I wrote to her. I wrote that I had realized that I was still in love with her. It's hard to describe what I wrote, really, but it was typical romantic stuff, and I finished off by asking her if she was willing to give us another chance.
She wrote that she was really sorry to have to do this again, but that it would ruin us both if we were together. This was two days ago.
Playground, I just don't know what to do. I am so ****ing devastated by all this. For the past (almost) half a year, I have been crying every night I didn't go to sleep intoxicated and everything has felt completely wrong. Like I'm in a reality where I definitely do not belong. I still love her very much, have always done so and I have no reason to do otherwise. Yet everything has changed around me and my life has grinded to a halt.
I'm not sure what I want. I mean, of course I want to be with her - that is the whole point. But I don't want to pressure her, and I don't want her to do anything out of guilt. Yet, it feels so wrong that things are like they are - I just can't ignore the feeling that something is out of place, that there is something I need to do or something I have done wrong that I must change. After that last exchange it feels as if the matter is more pressing than ever. I realized, that until that point I had been writing to her in the hopes that I would somehow come to utter the magic words that would set everything right for her, and I have realized that this means so much to me that I have nothing to lose.
Having written this and looked it through, I see that there's not much you guys can respond to. I think that I'm just hoping that one of you have the magic words handy. I realize that you don't know her, and you don't know me, but if you have any ideas about what I could do or say it would mean much to me. I know it sounds like I'm trying to manipulate her, and if you suspect it is what is happening, there are no hard feelings if you don't want to help me. I just can't stress enough that this feels wrong, that maybe she is misinterpreting her feelings - especially when she says that she loves me, but is not in love.
Of course, none of this takes into account that she may be flat out lying to me, but first of all I could never picture this person doing that, and second it'd make everything too hard for me to wrap my head around. I trust her.