Dear Dr. Holmes,

I never thought that I'd be writing you for your advice since I am a very private person.

My ex-girlfriend and I were steady for 5 years and 1 month. In October last year she decided to break up with me because according to her she has fallen out of love. She is 22 and I am 26. I could not accept that reason, because I don't believe that one falls out of love except if there is a third party involved. I asked her if there was somebody else involved and according to her there was none. A few weeks later she told me that she was seeing somebody, a guy 29 year of age, and Malaysian. Actually the brother of the owner of a new hotel here in Cebu where she is currently connected.

This guy is a very persistent guy. Even though he knew that my girlfriend and I were going steady he still persistently courted her for 2 years. In May last year my girlfriend confessed to me that she was confused between me and that guy. She loved me but liked the guy. I told her that we would work things out , but I guess it was only me who tried so hard to work things out.

I can not accept the fact that she broke up with me and exchanged me for some guy, so I told her that we cannot just end a 5 year relationship like that. I suggested we just cool off for a year and after a year we’ll talk and see how things will be. In the meantime she can do whatever she want to do. But we must keep our options and line open, specially our communication lines.

She agreed to this arrangement . For the first three months till early January , she would see me once a week sometimes more than once a week and we would talk every night. But after the second week of January she stopped seeing me but would still call. There was a time when I felt that she was tired of the arrangement (the one year thing) so I told her that my desire for her is for her to be truly happy and to be loved and feel love and to be cared and to feel care. If she can tell me right there and then face to face that she has found A NEW TRUE LOVE and READY TO GET RID OF ME for good then I'll stop holding to that dream that someday she will be mine again. She did not say a word nor did she reply.

Yesterday I saw her after two weeks and I gave her a note which goes like this: "The last few days I've realize that there are no magic answers , no perfect solutions to make me feel better. Yes, it is scary when you think that you might be alone. But now I know that when your alone its definitely you against the world. Friends and family slowly slip away. Let’s not slip away from each other.

I am scared to confess to people how I feel. I am frightened that she might slip away for good. I use the time that God has given me not to look for someone to replace her, not to be with someone else to fill the void space she left. But to use the time He has given me to find my own strength, my own dignity and perhaps later my own life of happiness. I have a feeling that she and that guy are now going steady and I know that she too is trying to find her own strength and trying to find and discover herself. I hope that by doing what we are doing right now we maybe able to find ourselves and know surely want we really want in the months to come. I ended by saying. You know how much I love you, I need not say anything more."

Am I doing the right thing in holding on? The one year period will end on October 1998. I will be out of Cebu for 6 months since I will be in Manila to review. I still love her despite the fact that my friends tells me that she may be intimately involved with him, Is this normal? Is this really TRUE LOVE? I need a professional's advice.

Thank You.

Confused Guy

Dear CF (Confused Guy):

Thank you very much for your letter. Is it normal to still love her despite the fact that she may be intimately involved with this new fellow? It is perfectly understandable and is, in fact, one of the signs of love. As Shakespeare once said (but far more poetically, of course): Love is not love if it alters when alteration finds. I hope, though, that should you and your girlfriend ever get back together (although I have to tell you, CG, that it-your getting back together--doesn’t look good) you won’t be “typically male” (and I apologize for such a sexist, albeit accurate phrase) and, once you’re sure you’ve got her, quit the nice-but-wimpy-guy role and start berating her having fallen for this guy in the first place.

Is this true love? I honestly don’t know. It could be more true fear. You haven’t been without a girlfriend for over five years. You have the mistaken impression that without a girlfriend, family and other friends slip away. No *wonder* you are frightened. But, CG, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Breaking up is always painful. ALWAYS. Especially when the break up is not your idea. But this is part of what life is all about.

And as for your questions about being smart...It is *not* smart to continue holding on when she definitely doesn’t want you to. It *is* smart not to look for a substitute to replace her. BUT-should another woman come into your life, first as a friend and then later perhaps as something else, it would also be smart ot consider the possibilities of taking that relationship a step (or two, or three) further. All the best!

MG Holmes

(BodyMind Vol. 2 No. 13 - First posted: 4-5-98)

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