Expert: Dr. Dennis W. Neder - 10/8/2008

Question
Dear doctor, as you will probably say i am young, naive and there are plenty other girls in the sea, being of the young age of 16 i can understand why you'd say that, two years ago, me and my ex started dating, we hung out a fair amount( this was during the summer)  but when school came, she joined dance, and also a school musical. We were both busy with school and i was in the process of a move.  Her and i were always quiet towards each other, but just by looking in her eyes we knew we were perfect.  at around Christmas time, i thought it would be best if we broke up, i began losing interest, so i made the lame excuse of saying that since we couldn't see each other often, the fights we had would only get worse, and we would end up hating each other, and i would rather be friends other than the awkwardness of angry exs. This excuse was also on a side true, i began to lose interest, but i still cared about her. So we broke up..., about four months after we broke up i began swirling down into an insane regret.(between break up and this time, i dated other girls) I beat myself up all the time, and had the feeling of wanting to go back to the passed. I was a big mess. I told myself. i have to get over her, there are other girls, i tried and tried to get her out of my mind, and eventually it worked... for all of a week. I started thinking of her again , and felt the same feelings as before, I thought of the ultimate way of getting her back, because this girl was no easy person, and i knew i had to make it big. So that friday, i went to the nursery, bought a rose,  wrote a three page note, explaining that it wasn't that i wanted her back , but i needed her back. I rolled up the papers, tied them with material from dream catcher, and slid the rose through the middle,snuck out of my house and midnight, walked up her from doorstep and jammed the rose through a tile in her walk way and went back. The next  day she emailed me back ( i know emailed... but it was all a little too tense for actual contact) in the e-mail she told me how her mom saw it first and put it on her pillow, she cried when she read the note, and that she is sorry but she cant take me back, she told me how, it took her a long time to get over me, and that her mind has completely shut me out and that there was probably no chance of us ever getting back together, .. me being extremely optimistic, took that probably and stretched it as much as i could, i asked her to at least hang out one more time, (because by this time we hadn't  made any physical contact for almost 6 months, i was hoping maybe she just forgot what it felt like to be with me. She agreed, we didn't make an official time but said we would when there was time. this being out of my system, i subconsciously knew it would never happen, so postponed the hanging out,eventually i began to think of her less, and even started to crush on others, then all of a sudden i would fall right back into the hole for absolutely no reason, this happened a few times, and now i am getting completely depressed and i have been crazy for her for a while again, i know the only way of this ever going away is if i get her back. I read your self-help/miscellaneous/34c deprogramming miracle cure and i still cant get her out of my head, , We didn't break up over incompatible issues, it was over loss of interest and fear of losing any possible friendship, she is beautiful,she isn't a bitch on the inside, she is smart and quiet,(my dream girl),she has the physic and the persona, she is now out of the musical and we can both drive, i am completely moved to my parents new house and we would have time for each other. Do you have any tips on how i can finally get her back, i know the only other solution is to get her out of my mind but obviously it hasn't worked, i just need her back.. any miracle psychological advice on how to make her break then wall she put between her feeling to me and my feelings to her? or do you have any other solution?please help me out,  

Answer
Hello Jacob!

You may be young, but you're 100% of your age!

You have a number of lessons to learn from this event and I hope you learn them well. If you don't (and you don't seem to have learned any of them yet) you're going to repeat this process many, many times in your life. That would be tragic. To wit:

1) Relationships are fragile things - as are the people in them. You can do a lot of harm very easily and if you do, you often wind up harming yourself in the process.

2) You don't see yet that it's not so much her that you're looking for but the excitement and ego-boost of getting her back.

3) You haven't fixed any of the problems you broke up over. Sure, you have more time now, but this wasn't about time at all. It was that you weren't investing in the quality of your relationship. That hasn't changed at all.

4) Thus, if you were to get back together again, you'd eventually fall right back into the same pattern and would likely inflict the same damage on her (and yourself) you did with the break up.

5) You are confusing the phases of your relationship with the quality. Relationships all start off as exciting. It's all butterflies in the stomach at first, but eventually that fades and becomes something else - commitment. That's when the REAL relationship begins. That's when you threw away what you had.

6) What commitment really means is working though the issues together as a team. It's not about the time you have but how much you work to enjoy being together.

Ultimately Jacob, this is about your ego and your need to have her - not about anything being "right". Sure you think about her all the time, but you're not trying to get her back because she was the "...woman of your dreams..." at all. It's about satisfying your own ego about her saying "no" to getting back with you. How do I know? Simple: your strong need to have her back went away as soon as you both agreed to hang out sometime. That was enough to satisfy your need! If you got her back you'd be feeling just like you did before the original break up not 3 weeks later!

The issue isn't being 16 years old, it's about being mature enough to see these things and deal with them. You want to have adult relationships and that means you're going to have to make adult choices.

Commitment means working through the issues and the feelings as a team. You didn't do that. You made the decision all by yourself to end things because it wasn't convenient. Now, you're hurting because of your callousness. Frankly, I don't blame her for not wanting to be hurt again! She sees that this is all about you, not about her.

Giving her a gift isn't going to change that fact. If you really want her back, here's your key: show her how you realize the huge mistake you made and give her real, solid reasons why you've changed. Explain to her how you're going to deal with these things in the future and that you want to commit yourself to making things work.

You can't promise to never hurt her again - she'd never believe it. In fact, it's not realistic anyway; but it's a good goal and if you love someone (more than you love yourself) you'll work to make it happen.

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
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