Who'd have thought. Apple and I combine to give great advice.

Good luck dude.

In 6 months time, if it does go south, you won't be bothered, you'll be somewhere else in your life. Just keep your dignity, don't beg or anything, and it will all be fine no matter what the outcome.

If you want to lose the belly you have the perfect excuse to spend time and effort on yourself too then. Do a bit of male-pampering. IE go to the gym a lot, and watch action films!

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Won't be long I'm sure! ;-)

Cheers mate, keeping my dignity is the key - it can be a fine line sometimes so I need to be careful not to cross it..

Already doing that, and I must say it's helping to focus on something; It'll soon be time for my first week's weigh in to see how I'm getting on!

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So... I've been doing a lot of thinking the last few days and tried to see what I really wanted, whether it be get back with her or to start moving on...

I had yoga on monday, and during the relaxation at the end the thought of leaving her to it just kept popping into my head. I had a couple more bits of quiet time to arrange my thoughts and decided not to bother, I've started to move on with things, the friendliness here has helped no end with that - taking my mind of things and it feels like I'm part of something again. A lot of my mates are still weed smokers so I don't have amount of friends that I want to be around like I did when I smoked!!

So it was all great until I had to sort out changing names on accounts and things today, it got me into he what-if? state of mind again. I had to go and get some post from hers today so I quickly wrote my letter up that I had drafted ready for when I popped round.

Everything was very erm.. polite, which is a clear sign of how she feels about me, hardly even a smile. I gave her the letter just as I was leaving, she looked like she wasn't expecting it (why would she?) but didn't look overly impressed at the same time. I don't expect to get back together with her off the back of it any more, but I think it's going to give me some closure on the whole situation. I actually don't feel too bad about things at all. If you'd have seen me after I'd been over there to collect some bits last week you wouldn't think I was the same person!

So in conclusion.. I don't think we'll get back together, I'm not even 100% sure that we should get back together but at least I know that I've tried everything I can to make things work between us and for me, that's darn near good enough.

So thank you people of mansized for all of you help and advice and just for being here in general, it's really appreciated and I hope I can do the same for you if you need it.

I'll give you any updates on the situation if they happen, but don't get your hopes up - I'm not ;-)

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Hi Luke
thanks for the update. I think you're the MS poster boy for how to handle a break up. You did everything right - thought about the situation, made changes to your own lifestyle, reflected on what you truly wanted, but were still brave enough to tell her how you felt as a means of closure.

Such situations can really drag on with loads of self analysis and anxiety and it's great to see someone taking charge. Most importantly it's fantastic to hear you say what everyone discovers in situations like this - which is when you do take control you feel a lot better - even if the thought of facing the situation is upsetting or scary.

Hopefully you'll stay here and get some more support, and outside of MS make some more mates so you're not having to hang about with your old weed smoking friends (another way to get back into that lifestyle).

Good on you! :-)

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Thanks Dr Petra - It really did help, it was really scary doing it but well worth it..

I've had a reply now, as expected she doesn't want to try things again saying we've grown apart, in part because of her job, and that one of her friends has died in the last week or so and thinks that life's too short to waste six months on something that's just going to go back to the way it was when we broke up.

The only thing that I'm a little miffed about is that she said a big reason was about me not wanting to have kids (Something I thought our relationship wasn't ready for) and that I hadn't even bothered to mention it in my letter. The only reason I didn't mention it was that I didn't want her to think that I was trying to tell her what I thought she wanted to hear - I thought me saying that I thought if we tried our relationship could be stronger than even would have implied that.

She also said that I didn't address all the problems we had, I thought that letting her know what I thought was the root problem and how it changed my behaviour would have been enough that i didn't need to list everything. I did that in a first draft but thought it would make far too long a letter!

I'm tempted to reply to set her straight and thank her for getting back to me (I wasn't expecting a reply at all to be honest) but I don't know if it's worth it - should I reply with a short and sweet email or just save some face and not bother?

Going to try and keep busy today now - I need to shop for my food this afternoon, I might pop to the gym and I'm having sundays as my weekly weigh in day so I've got to get some measurements for on here!

I'm not sure where to start looking for new friends really, but I'm sure as I start doing more things I'll start making friends without even trying. Being back at home out in the sticks isn't helping either!

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So I decided to go with a short and sweet email - just so she knew that I understood that children were such a big thing for her.

Not expecting to hear back - to be honest I don't want to, it'll mean I'll start thinking about things more than I already am! I don't need that now her position is clear and I need to start moving on!

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Well you've already done it now, but I would have advised not to. Draw a line under the situation and start looking forward to the beginning of the rest of your life.

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I know I shouldn't have but it really winds me up when people mis interpret what I'm trying to say, so I had to correct her from thinking that I didn't know what some of the factors were in us splitting up.

Quite a pointless exercise really...

Consider the line drawn
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I hope she's doesn't reply now!

I think you are better off without her anyway. Definitely.

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So do I! I think I am as well - I've started posting here since we split up so it can only be a good thing ;-)

I'm going to try and see it as something fun and new beginning rather than something ending!

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