Double Jeopardy; A; WTH is the matter with women. Q; What is Men, Alex?

[mudpuppy]

I think you're right, lighter.
She knew for those two years she was interested but didn't feel ready for a relationship that it wouldn't have worked.
I guess she thought maybe she had worked it out.
When we were praying and she was crying and asking God to remove the pain in her that she acknowledged was causing us to break up I just wanted to hold her  and let her know it was all right and I'd stay with her as long as it took for her to heal. I would have and I still would if she'd let me. But she won't or can't and so I'll do my stuff and wait. How long I don't know.

mud

[Twoapenny]

I think you're right, lighter.
She knew for those two years she was interested but didn't feel ready for a relationship that it wouldn't have worked.
I guess she thought maybe she had worked it out.
When we were praying and she was crying and asking God to remove the pain in her that she acknowledged was causing us to break up I just wanted to hold her  and let her know it was all right and I'd stay with her as long as it took for her to heal. I would have and I still would if she'd let me. But she won't or can't and so I'll do my stuff and wait. How long I don't know.

mud

I think it can be very difficult to love broken people (and by that I mean difficult for the person doing the loving!).  I think it's almost like loving an alcoholic or a drug addict - you can see what they're doing, you know if they were to do x, y and z it would help (or at least not be so destructive) and you'd be happy to help or stick around while they do the work - but they just can't.  It's just not the right time.  Very difficult and very frustrating as well, I think.  I look back now on some of the guys I've met over the years, good men, kind, honest men with regular jobs, sensible heads on their shoulders, little or no baggage - and I couldn't go out with them more than twice because they didn't treat me like dirt and I was so used to being treated badly that people being nice to me made me feel uncomfortable.  It sounds so silly now and sometimes I do wonder how my life would have been if I'd had relationships with men who treated me well and did things like go to work and pay bills.  But I just wasn't in the right head space at that time.  I hope your friend does feel she can come out of her shell again with you at some point in the future.

[Hopalong]

I don't think you should find any pretext, including fun landscaping or earnings, to go hang out in her yard, Mud.

I'm sorry it's so hard to let go. I know how that feels.

I do think you have endless justifications for why it's YOU who needs to heal her, help her, hang out near her.

It may not be. And it seems, from what's happened, that it isn't.

I'm sorry,
Hops

[mudpuppy]

Love doesn't conquer all. For instance, I learned it can't conquer cancer.
But it does find a way.
It, combined with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control finds a way when people say there is no way.
Both she and I believe that and that is why I have hope. And that is also why if there is no way to be found it will still be ok.
But my hope perseveres, because I know what perfect earthly love is like and I'm a romantic and always will be.
When people tell me there is no perfect love, I tell them they are dead wrong because I experienced it. So when they tell me it can't happen twice in one lifetime and that a door is closed, I will just tell them I told you it finds a way when the door opens and it does happen.
But even if it never happens, I'd rather believe that and wait for it to happen than surrender to the idea it's just a matter of permanent rifts, wounds that can't heal, hopeless psychological reactions and concentration on ourselves. I've found the secret to true happiness is concentrating on the other, and if she concentrates on you, you live a perfect life until one of you dies.
I've lived my life so far by passing up the passable to wait for the best and I've never regretted that, though tragedies engulfed most of the fruits of those waits.
And so I'll wait for her because the author, creator and giver of both love and faith is where my faith, and hers, rests. And He will reward our faithfulness as He sees fit.
Regardless of anything else I have said, that is my foundational, unshakable belief and will be until I die.

mud