[Anonymous]

Hello,
I am a 25 year old male currently residing in Honolulu, HI.
I went back to Korea back in 2007 and met my old grade school friend (who I never saw for more than 10 years) and we started dating a few months after. We had a great time during the 9 months that I was in Korea living together and owning a small online business together as well. In 2008 I had to return to Hawaii and she came to Hawaii about 7 months later with plans of marriage with both side families mutually agreeing.

After about 8 months of residing in Hawaii with me, things became harder for us because my parents who agreed on the marriage changed their mind due to frequent conflicts. When her parents found out they lost their interest in our marriage as well. Our love was strong but we got into many fights during this time possibly due to this stress. After numerous fights she decided to break up with me. After few days of breaking up she told me that she didn’t know what to do..she even mentioned running away with me but she couldn’t make up her mind. I told her that if she really wanted to break up with me for good then it will be hard for me to see her anymore even though it broke my heart I told her that it will be harder to see her in front of me. After a few days I missed her a lot so I called her to have a cup of coffee with me. This was our first encounter as just friends.

If I continued this friendship with her we could’ve worked things out definitely.
But the very next day after the coffee I got myself drunk and I went to her place and started cussing at her and said very hurtful things to her. (I know what I did was horrible and I still repent about my action..I still don’t know why I drank so much that night when I normally can’t drink a lot.)
That was the last straw..she told me that we can never work things out anymore and she doesn’t want to see me again because she was too shocked and disappointed in me.

Now, a little more than 2 months passed by after that incident..
Initially I apologized to her and tried to take her back…wrote her letters..and even met her in person to apologize to her but it didn’t work as I assumed. I knew that once a girl who is hurt decides to break up it is almost impossible to change her mind initially. But I initially tried to get her back because I believed that she deserved it..For me to beg her to come back to let her know that I really care. After few weeks of pre-assumed failed tries, I kept my distance from her and started to live my life better. She believed in me enough to move to Hawaii and I wanted to make sure that I’m still that great guy in order to justify her decision to come here.

Now, after a month and half of not contacting her and working myself, I am really lost as to what my next plan is going to be. I know what I did was unforgivable, but I sincerely apologized to her and lived in guilt for the past days and I feel that I shouldn’t continue to linger in guilt but to move forward to be the great guy that she deserves. The reason why the subject of this post is “ex-girlfriend across the street” is because she works for my uncle across the street from where I work. She is always close physically to where I am. I don’t know her phone number because she changed it soon after the breakup..I can always get a hold of it (my uncle being her boss) but I told myself that I shouldn’t do so because she has her reasons to keep it from me and I wanted to respect that.

I really want to befriend her once more but I don’t know how much more time she needs to cool off..
I really want to start over with her (instead of trying to go back to how we were, I want to start again with her..get her to fall in love with me..and treat her better..as if I am a new person in her life).
She deserves a lot better than the old me……..

[Ask April Masini]

Well, you can’t start over. That’s not how life works. And you talk about the old you and the new you, but most people don’t change that quickly or that drastically. There isn’t so much a “new” you, as there may be a you who has learned from his past mistakes, and decided to take a different path in life to try and avoid those pitfalls in the future. So don’t look for black and white changes to occur. Instead, embrace the process of what happened, why it happened, and how your life is changing now, in order to make sure those old problems won’t occur, or if they do, how you’ll handle them differently.

It’s not clear from your post what conflicts caused the stress between you and your ex-girlfriend that caused the break up in the first place. That’s probably where you want to start examining what happened, your part in it, and how you could do things differently in the future.

Your drunken outburst may have scared her beyond repair, and if that’s the case, there is nothing you can do to change her mind.

So my advice to you, since it has only been 2 months since the break up, is to start living your life as a person of character who wants to do the right thing, and in fact, does it. Work on yourself so that you are healthy — work out and exercise, eat well, sleep well, and work well. Keep your social life active — whether or not you are dating. Keep good friends who also have good character and values. Eventually by doing this you will be confident that you are the type of man who deserves a great girlfriend, if your ex-girlfriend sees this, and believes this change, then perhaps she will become interested in you again. But if she doesn’t, someone else will. I promise you that.

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