Emotionally shut down

I'll try to make this short andvto the point. This is KILLING ME! So I meet this amazing woman with whom we share the most passion driven first date and endless phone calls/FaceTime of both of our lives! My God I get chills just thinking about her! And she's said as much about me on many occasions. She warned me early on that she builds walls when she really likes someone and to please be patient as it's her process and she has so much to give. (Back story is she has lost or has been left by every man in her life. Father left at 2, wonderful step father died in front of her, marriage was passionless and wrong, boyfriends ditched her, etc)

So literally 2 weeks in we are FLYING into seriousness. Too fast looking back but we were in sync like either of us ever knew. I decided to be as open and honest as I possibly could with her. I wanted no secrets on my side and I felt it was important for her to know my insecurities. Like an idiot I blurted out my deep and powerful love I felt for her almost immediately and you could feel her change in that instant. She withdrew like she had been possessed! That next week was so difficult. She told me she's never just shut down like this before and she hated it. But she couldn't help it and she wanted space. I told her fine. I'm going to withdraw but will prey everyday I hear from her. The girl I met and fell for.

She told me while crying she feels like she's letting go of the best thing that ever happened to her but she can help this. She needs time to get back to "normal". She said she is afraid she'll regret it and by then it will be too late.



Okay, wtf do I do or even think!? I'm so lost and feel so helpless because my God I've never had a connection with anyone like this. I do care about her in a deep level. I'm going to give her space but it scares the hell out of me that this could be it.

I'm looking for anything here. I'm.. heartbroken.

Let me add something...

The first time we met was about 3 days into talking. We spent a lot of time texting, having phone conversations, and FaceTimeing over those 3 days. By our meeting, it "felt" like we've known each other for a month. Maybe more. We met very casually at a local bar to have a drink and just chat. We're both recently divorced with kids. Lots in common to chat about! Ha! Anyway, I walked up to her car to help her out. (Yeah I'm a classical gentleman) She stood up, looked at me, then literally jumped into my arms. She looked up at me while hugging and like some strong force, I held her face and passionately kissed her for maybe 30 seconds. Not making out kissing.. like Hollywood passionate kisses. It just happened. It's weird. We didn't say 3 words to each other since she got out of her car. It was the most intense chemistry I've ever experienced. She told me she never felt like this with anyone before. We were shaking.

I say this because I am trying to drive home the insane level of mutual attraction we shared. I made fun of this stuff all my life until this moment. It scared me even. But.. HOW THE HECK DOES ONE JUST SWITCH THAT OFF!? lol

I want to say something to help her make sense of all this. I know that's probably impossible though.

So that's more to my story.

Update.

It's been a week since my original post. She's withdrawn even more. She's hinted at her trying to clear her head and I can see in here eyes the few times we've FaceTimeed with each other that she definitely still has deep feelings for me. Her eyes don't lie. But this has been torture to me. Incredible torture. I slept on sending a message that just this morning actually did send her. Here it is:

Okay.. I slept on this before sending it. Look, other than that impromptu texting rendezvous yesterday thanks to Liam, I've been really trying to give you space. This isn't easy for me mainly because I'm holding onto the hopes that I'll get a text from you saying, "hey dweeb, let's try this again".. "and don't be so clingy this time".. in which my response would be a resounding; F*** YES LETS KILL THIS SH**!! However, as the days go by, this feels less and less of a possible reality. A day to me has been feeling like a week. In business, I'm killing it, as always. In my mind, my thoughts, when things are quite, they're torturing me. It's horrible. Like really bad. So this is what I've decided to do..

I'm obviously not over whatever it was we had for a brief moment. It was so special as short lived as it was. But I'm not going to lament on that as we've discussed it to death. And unless your mindset has radically changed to realign with mine again, this simply is not healthy for me anymore. Aside from my own dreams and future, I've never ever obsessed over anyone or anything before. I feel weak! It actually pisses me off, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to shake these strong feelings I have for you. So..

I need to erase you from my life. Every text, every picture, all of it. Like I said, I don't want to. I want to see where "us" could go. I've never known a stronger emotional foundation than what we had. What we started to establish. Outside of Hollywood, I've never even heard of one in fact. What we could build upon that foundation would truly be incredible! At least, the possibility of it could be. But, that's a pipe dream apparently. We need to both "want it" in order to make it happen. And here at 36, I've finally found myself as the desperate, needy, pussy male who is chasing the girl. Clinging to the hopes of what he thought could've been. No. Not me. Never has been. So I need to change sh**. And I am.

However, the only stipulation to this situation is I want a good hour with you, face to face, to give you my real side of things. Things I've never said. The blatant truth. It's important to me that wherever you go, you understand the real truth behind who I am and the decisions I made during our fiery, short lived relationship. I'll leave you be forever, but I need to get some things off my chest about all of this first and it MUST be in person. Not to sound a trifle passive aggressive, but you owe me at least this one request. Since I last saw you in person, I've been a sad, tortured soul over you. Such deep pain. So, I don't care what day or even time (within reason) but it's just got to be done before I can truly sever my ties to you. It's all I ask of you. It's all I'll ever ask of you again. Please let me know.

And for the record, no matter what happens, you will always have a very special place in my hear. And I will cherish my thoughts of you. Until my dying breath.

That's it guys. Any advice or feedback would be very much appreciated!

Well you've made such a big error in getting all serious so quickly, you should have played it cool, let her dictate the pace if you like her so much. Sounds like you scared her off if she wasn't sure how she felt about you.
I can understand your desperation and hurt, when you like someone so much and you feel you are losing them, it is a helpless feeling and the truth is if you are losing someone usually there is nothing you can do to get that person back.
Your message to her today, oh man what have you done? It actually started really well with that first sentence, sounded like putting the ball in her court and giving her space but letting her know you're there if she wants to get in contact with you, but the rest is just so bad, so serious, making a demand to see her for an hour, saying you'll cherish the thoughts of her until your last breath. Ohh man, can you imagine if some girl you were trying to pull away from did that? You'd run a mile. You have actually ruined any chance now, sorry to be blunt but you don't want some sympathetic advice.
I was going to say the only thing you can do is play your hand as best you can and see if it can win. By that I mean be patient, don't message first, don't smoother her, be easy going, but you've kind of blown that now by telling her you need to erase her from your life.
I hope you'll be able to move on from this as soon as you can and won't feel too hurt because at the end of the day, if you are not the right person for her, then she is not the right person for you.

Hey,
I don't agree with rainman
but has she answered yet?

Do you usually take things with so much passion?
With all she's been going through, has she thought of going to counselling? or therapy?

maybe if the situation is just that she's overreacting because of her past, and there's true love (not just chemistry) between you, she may think and come back.
but it demands humbleness, accepting to see one's flaws and errors. everybody's not ready for that. it's hard.

you can't do it for her unfortunately.

i can assure you: one can feel physically VERY good with people with whom the relationship is simply not possible (they yell and are agressive or fleeing...)
chemistry is very nice to feel, but for a relationship to be enjoyable you got to get at least common values and a kind of stability... it appears that since the start the last part was missing.

i really hope you can get to people who you can talk to and hopefully this forum can help you digesting that hard situation.

Well, she's withdrawn completely. And I've let her. I told her I won't try anymore. It feels very over. I'm really sad about it actually. I've never before felt chemistry like this. It was intoxicating! The strange thing is, she seems to have discredited what she told me and how she acted towards me before everything went to $#%^. Seriously it felt like she was more into me than I was into her. Once she "flipped the switch" as I'm affectionately calling it now, the roles radically reversed and she withdrew and became cold. Very very strange. I just don't get it. I've personally never been so emotionally available and real with anyone in my life ever. Sucks.

She never indicated therapy and any attempt of mine to recommend it would be very uncouth of me. lol
I am a passionate guy but she brought me to another level if I'm honest.

For her sake, for her happiness.. I hope she does. Something isn't wired right in that woman. I can't even say hi now.

Makes me wonder why I had to meet her in the first place. Thanks universe for showing me the drastic difference between happiness and anguish.

Stunnerable wrote:Well, she's withdrawn completely. And I've let her. I told her I won't try anymore. It feels very over. I'm really sad about it actually. I've never before felt chemistry like this. It was intoxicating! The strange thing is, she seems to have discredited what she told me and how she acted towards me before everything went to $#%^. Seriously it felt like she was more into me than I was into her. Once she "flipped the switch" as I'm affectionately calling it now, the roles radically reversed and she withdrew and became cold. Very very strange. I just don't get it. I've personally never been so emotionally available and real with anyone in my life ever. Sucks.

She never indicated therapy and any attempt of mine to recommend it would be very uncouth of me. lol
I am a passionate guy but she brought me to another level if I'm honest.

For her sake, for her happiness.. I hope she does. Something isn't wired right in that woman. I can't even say hi now.

Makes me wonder why I had to meet her in the first place. Thanks universe for showing me the drastic difference between happiness and anguish.

Maybe the reason you met her was for what you have learnt from this situation. I once had something fairly similar happen to me where I was very close to someone for many years and they really liked me so much too and then all of a sudden I could just feel I was losing her, it was heartbreaking and I tried my best to try and get things back but the truth is that when you can tell you are losing someone, there is nothing you can do to recover the situation.
I know you are feeling very sad about it all right now, but you'll move past it and it won't matter much in time.

Rainman19 wrote:

Stunnerable wrote:Well, she's withdrawn completely. And I've let her. I told her I won't try anymore. It feels very over. I'm really sad about it actually. I've never before felt chemistry like this. It was intoxicating! The strange thing is, she seems to have discredited what she told me and how she acted towards me before everything went to $#%^. Seriously it felt like she was more into me than I was into her. Once she "flipped the switch" as I'm affectionately calling it now, the roles radically reversed and she withdrew and became cold. Very very strange. I just don't get it. I've personally never been so emotionally available and real with anyone in my life ever. Sucks.

She never indicated therapy and any attempt of mine to recommend it would be very uncouth of me. lol
I am a passionate guy but she brought me to another level if I'm honest.

For her sake, for her happiness.. I hope she does. Something isn't wired right in that woman. I can't even say hi now.

Makes me wonder why I had to meet her in the first place. Thanks universe for showing me the drastic difference between happiness and anguish.

Maybe the reason you met her was for what you have learnt from this situation. I once had something fairly similar happen to me where I was very close to someone for many years and they really liked me so much too and then all of a sudden I could just feel I was losing her, it was heartbreaking and I tried my best to try and get things back but the truth is that when you can tell you are losing someone, there is nothing you can do to recover the situation.
I know you are feeling very sad about it all right now, but you'll move past it and it won't matter much in time.

I'm sure you're right. It just.. idk. It doesn't add up. Something is really strange in this situation. How does one go from one extreme to the other in an instant? That instant, coincidentally, is when I decided to open up and offer my vulnerability to her.

I think I'm more pissed as to how it went down than anything at this point. I just don't get it at all.

Idk.. freaking women. lol

Hey stunnerable,

Some ppl who have had troubled "back stories" have problems with intimacy and vulnerability coming from someone else and they're wired to shun it and cut it off. She saw in you what she herself doesn't have. They yearn for intimacy which explains the initial, intense love-bombing but cannot really give back on a sustained long-term basis due to abandonment or self-esteem fears. These insecurities drive behavior that sabotages the intimacy and stability they yearn for but never had as children. It takes a great deal of therapy to understand their actions and the repercussions of their behavior. Only she can do this for herself, it's not your job-- it's a job for a professional therapist. No matter how much love and concern you throw into that relationship, it ultimately has to be her choice.

"Makes me wonder why I had to meet her in the first place."

Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something about yourself and about what you really want in your life. She was very good for you in terms of learning about passionate and connected love, however briefly, but also taught a red flag. That love is not something that can be switched on and off, just like that.

Hey Stunnerable,

It's understandable a part of you wanted to skip the more typical 'dance' steps an intimate relationship goes through, and dive in deep and quickly, but...

I suspect you already have a clear understanding of what happened. You might have even had that small voice in the back of your head that knew what was going to happen as you took the step that led to what followed, but went ahead anyway.

There is, for better or worse, a lot of truth to attraction to apparent emotional strength, while also being attracted to a slower process (and I do mean slowly) of opening up and exposing 'weakness' (for lack of a better word).

People can be attracted to the 'puzzle' of another person, but also there is something to that, because when it takes time for two people to open up with each other, it forms a bond based on history, it communicates a deeper trust formed over time, and of course, it gives the other person time to process. Most people simply cannot assimilate too much darker truths about the other (or self) so quickly.

We all have various live and learn experiences. Some good may come out of this for you even if it's hard to feel that at this point in time.