just give her some space.She won't be able to think with you breathing down her neck.Believe me i know,i've been separated from my husband 9yrs and i still can't think straight

Try to keep yourself busy by going places with friends & doing things you like to do.Maybe,and this is just a suggestion you could talk to a close friend about how your feeling right now.Just try to stay positive.Iv'e been through depression & am just starting to come to terms with all i've been through

Dude, you need to stop over-thinking this. The lady is gone and more fool you for just dating one. Accept that these mood swings will continue until you're "over her" and be social and active ONLY when happy. This way, you will acquire the reputation of a joyous man. This is important since joy attracts others and attracting others is what you need to be doing right now.

I just reviewed your posting history and was reminded of your troubled past. In 1/09 you had what seemed like a major problem as well as some minor ones throughout. I want to touch on a couple, first.

Apologizing to a mate is really only valid when a person understands how the wrong affected his/her partner and/or the relationship. A blanket apology is not particularly effective. In the future if you say or do something that hurts your partner, affects them adversely, and damages the relationship in some way, it is important to understand how such action(s) came about and how a partner was affected.

Communication is key to having a successful relationship. From what you have stated more than once is that she did not do this well; she demanded a proposal, and, kept feelings bottled up.

Moving out after so long a time together is tough. Moving out is also a pretty good indicator that for her the relationship is over. She or anyone else can say "because I want to think things over", but in reality, she has long since disconnected emotionally, and now physically.

I talked about "relationship recovery" a couple of days ago. For all practical purposes your five plus years together is history. Recall and enjoy the good times; learn from troubled times. Use the two to build a better future with someone else. Other than learning what went wrong and why--stop fixating on your former girlfriend and work on (re)establishing friendships when you are feeling good.

Give yourself time to heal before attempting to begin a new relationship. Begin by building friendships with others and from one or more of these, build a more intimate relationship than that of just being friends. If romance is to be "in the air" then it will blossom from within one or more of the friendships previously established.

What I am leading up to here is this: Successful relationships have as their foundation a strong friendship. Spend the time between now and finding Mr./Ms. Right on improving you, and, creating lots of good friends.

If your former girlfriend will be candid with you, ask her how you might improve yourself. Whether you get an answer or not, in the future, when there is a problem, discuss and talk about it with the intent to learn and improve.

> I've sort have been an emotional wreck. Any coping advice?

"Breaking up is hard to do," as the ol' saying goes. We talked the other day about how to get the other person out of your head when s/he always seems to be in our thoughts. I agree, maintaining an active social life is important. If all a person does is hide behind four walls, then this opens the brain to runaway thoughts, the feelings of "oh woe is me", and other destructive thinking.

Understand that if you cannot fix your past relationship, you can prepare for the future. Work on this in a positive frame of mind and this will help keep you from being an emotional wreck. Work on developing new and better relationship tools. Work on increasing the number of friends and these friendships.

[QUOTE=calipirate;260917]Thanks everyone for the advice. Turns out that it is permanent (spoke today), and she said that the love just fizzled out... so now I guess I'm just trying to move on (so much easier said than done). :([/QUOTE]

I do sympathise as this happened to me when I was dumped by my then girlfriend. Three years of pure hell, no relationships but we got together again eventually, married and that was 46 years ago.

It will be tough but follow your instinct. If it is to be permanent, then move on. Good luck.:)

Let me say this: you dated her for years, lived together, and NEVER reached the point of asking her to marry you?

Dude!

There comes a point in every relationship when you have to seal the deal or call it quits.

You had reached your 'sell by date' and since nowhere was where you two were heading - she cut her losses.

I know what you are going through. I'm a college student and in a long distance relationship with my bf of 1 and half years. We miss each other dearly and rarely get to see each other since we live 100 miles from each other.

I would say find some friends to distract you, and when you do see her spend all your time with her. It's what kept my relationship good, and I'm separated from my bf for most of a year.