* TL;DR warning \*
Me and my ex broke up for good two years and change ago. We remained friends until two months ago, when she said she was not speaking to me anymore because she was with someone else. I feared this would happen, was upset and broke contact with her.
One of the reasons I despise love and relationships is the emotional complexity/ambiguity they provoke, especially after the breakup – love turns to hate very easily, I’m afraid. And, even though I did not shut myself off completely from love and romance, I'm relieved I'm single every time a friend (or, until recently, a client) comes to me to complain and moan about their significant other's (or former SO) follies. Not that I don’t want to help, but some of it’s so shallow and preventable that I can’t believe how ruinous relationships can be, especially in this age of social media and a multitude of means to cheat on one’s partner.
There are too many elements and variables in a relationship, one must almost be like a circus owner and keep finding new things to add and do, otherwise it gets stale (according to my ex). Except texting with close friends, I’ve never been this personal online, ever. But I must get this off my back, as the last two months have been tough to handle emotionally.
Long story as short as possible: it was an on-and-off relationship between mid-2010 and late 2017. We met back in 2009, in college. I was 23 and she was 20. She slyly started showing her feelings later that year; I was a bit reluctant, but fell for her in 2010 and I loved her and she became a great friend. I told college to take a hike later that school year and we remained together for the first time until July 2011. From then onwards, it was a story of intense "on" periods, breakups and huge fights that led to "off" periods, me returning to school to finish the degree (my second undergraduate degree, hence the age gap), she wrapping hers and starting her career and her MSc, including her traineeship, and me following through later.
The two most important ruptures were in 2011 and in 2017; the first one was initiated by me, as I didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore – yeah, the old “it’s not you, it’s me” routine – because of that “circus owner” factor. She was very needy and I was afraid I could seriously hurt her emotionally when I didn’t want to go out and the like. The second one was of her initiative and was two-pronged: a near-breakup in the Summer and the real thing later that year. Basically, I was a pile of anxiety and screwing up with her, being absent and very negligent – including being very clumsy socially when she had a small surgery that year. We wanted different things a lot of those years, but it was a relationship built on gradual inclusion of small things and aspects, not the bluntness she started to impose in 2017.
I didn’t want to be with her family because they treated her like crap (basically, as their slave), drove her mad with their outrageous bull and yet she still highly regarded them – her brother-in-law being hugely obnoxious. I didn’t want to go out on weekends to the countryside, I’m an urbanite and not ashamed of it – I like relaxing by going out for dinner, going to shows, to the library, working out and writing. She gave no time to organize travelling abroad.
I know I made mistakes and I only have two possible counter-arguments: i) she was changing right before my eyes into a very different person, influenced by her pampered and entitled sister, who has a history of upstaging and undermining her, along with her boring friends, and I didn’t know how to properly deal with it; ii) I was undergoing the second college-to-workplace switch in my life, starting a new career in my early thirties, attempting to wrap the master’s degree up and finding a new job. Anxiety and doubt aplenty, lack of time as well as adrenaline to pull myself together – and a whole LOT of impatience on her behalf.
Our biggest fights took place in 2012, 2014 and 2017 - the 2012 one led to our biggest time off each other (she developed a very serious illness that ultimately brought us back together in 2013) up to that point, the 2014 fracas was the nastiest (pure class warfare and families being insulted, I tell you; led to a three month "break") and the 2017 was the knockout punch that, awkwardly, only landed on target three months later, like a ticking time bomb - I got called a slur on that one. Usually, during all those years, she sheepishly apologized and I forgot about the fights; this last one? She just threw a “hey, I was kinda composed this time, wasn’t I?”. I was hurt. Like hell.
I’m a big guy, I never wanted physical altercations for all the obvious reasons and I didn’t want to explode verbally or in text messages, because I can be REALLY hateful and spiteful when I’m riled up. Most of our arguments were through texting because we’re introverts and we’d fall for each other physically off the bat.
We never cheated on each other, we never engaged in verbal or physical aggression (except on a few playful tussles, us being former martial arts students) outside arguments. In that regard, it was a very healthy relationship – better than most around us. I'm grateful for that.
My dating history is pretty tame: a few dates and girlfriends in high school and up until my (first) junior year in college – no skirt-chaser here. Hers is a bit more complicated, I’m afraid. She dated a much older guy (a bona fide coward) when she was a minor, who eventually threatened her and her mother when she wanted to break it off with him. The other guy was another much older manipulative S.O.B. who treated her like a piece of meat and who was a serial cheater. She still follows this guy on social media. I have no idea why and never asked.
The final nail on the coffin between us was in early 2018 when she confessed we were really through and it wasn’t going to change, but that she would always care for me (and me for her), even if things between us didn’t work out romantically. We kept supporting each other, joking about (never flirting) and exchanging some suggestions on movies and series. Music was pretty much dead to her and going to a gig was a huge hassle for her in the final years, even if I offered to pay for tickets when we were together. I could attend festivals, but then jealousy and that stupid post-modern crap named FOMO settled in – more arguments abound. Double-edged sword: she didn’t care about the music anymore, but got that FOMO bug anyhow when I attended live shows. I never, ever, fooled around with other women in these events; I do press coverage and spin records as a hobby and have my own group of people for this – old friendships who have given me plenty of relief and solace when she blew up because of, frankly, measly stuff.
She never understood that and, in the end, hated most of them and was deeply jealous – when she wasn’t slandering them. I took it in stride and kept both camps separated. I thought most of her friends were uninteresting people who might have been good, kind folks, but ultimately shot themselves in the foot by marrying/having kids way too young, and by being boring and by not having any worthwhile ambitions. I wanted no part of them, period. Sorry if I sound like a pretentious jerk, but my time was (is) way too limited to be wasted with uninteresting people. I bring zero to them and they to me.
I had my confidence issues, she had her weight (first three years) and self-esteem issues. We both loved the same books, movies/series and music, worked out, sometimes needed to be alone and it was wonderful when she asked me for new stuff to read, listen to and watch and we went out to shows and to the city's book fair. When she was younger, she, unlike me, had a terrible mouth (so to speak); these last few years she was also a gourmand - thus introducing a new way to keep us involved and interested in each other. Another thing to share and create happiness.
The romance evolved into something deeper in every "on" period. We both matured as people, even though I was always the level-headed one and she the romantic, besides some very turbulent episodes when I lost it because of school-related matters (work was fine, I went to night school). I hate failing and I’m terrible to deal with when something outside the relationship doesn’t go my way. Yeah, I know letting that intrude is quite ominous for a couple’s future. In my defense: I never made her the scapegoat to my failings.
But the friendship and the companionship also blossomed. I’d never had such a close female friend and I haven’t had one since. I had a very serious family affair in 2015 and she went to huge lengths to help me keep my sanity. No longer a practitioner of the strong, silent type of man, I relented and let her help me. Juggling work, a degree and to have a semblance of life was excruciating, to say the least.
In the end, we both wanted love, albeit with different degrees of intensity and commitment; I wanted to march to my own drumbeat, to have a career but also to keep being as active as possible in the music scene I’m involved with, whilst having a loving, fruitful relationship, but without all the usual B.S. and errors that many couples make. She ultimately saw that as nothing but immaturity and stubbornness to keep on “LiViNg LiKe A TeEn, much like our relationship”. I lost the war to her changing tastes, age-related anxiety (oh, to turn thirty and to panic about it) and to the damaging influence of her family and so-called friends.
Her social media feed was no longer telling her the latest Pitchfork Best New Music album, but bombarding her with photos of friends getting hitched and having babies. And I was getting the writing on the wall: "I’m changing into this kind of person – a normie – and you gotta deal with it, son". Her posts tell the story: from “artsy” pictures with plenty of humor in them to stuff that looks like it could have been taken by a soccer mom. Granted, we weren’t Diane and Allan Arbus and had no aspirations of being photographers, but we had a nice edge. And fun.
Last Summer (2018), she asked if we could be together and have sex. I was finishing up my thesis and trying to get over her (but still somewhat attracted), so I didn't show up. Knowing what I know now, I should've done it. It hurts.
A year ago, I went abroad and stayed with some friends of mine. We attended a festival, everything went fine and dandy but, after a bunch of conversations, I started projecting my future and thinking about her and what I should do to improve myself. A few days after I returned, my so-called boss treated me like the biggest incompetent idiot in the world for two common rookie mistakes; I was appalled, felt dejected and like the biggest loser in the world. I turned to her for some solace and she acted exactly how we promised each other: supportive and watching after me, like I’d done with her during her final association exams. Never in person, but through texting. And I started to conclude: she’s one of the most important people in my entire life, she can’t be pushed out of it and I must treat her damn well.
Eventually, I left that horrendous firm and engaged in a competitive exam for public service – she was very supportive and, the day the written exam results came in (I passed), she was the first to tell me the score. I felt both happy and stupid: I’d passed, but something was amiss. Or someone. Maybe it was her.
Next came the oral examination phase. I was never good at oral exams, but I pressed on anyway; I noticed that, all of a sudden, she went from talking to me a few times a week or so to almost complete silence. This overlapped with the growing feeling that I might not have moved on from her. I failed those exams and the doubt about she being with another person started creeping up on my mind. Lack of her rooting for me did a bit of a number in me. There was still some attachment, then. Ten years of friendship and seven of love – even Stalin couldn’t erase that fact like that, believe me.
I made my feelings about her known around that time and all I got in exchange was feet-dragging and the accusation that I couldn’t be addressed because I was an “extremely negative person”. I tried to have a more positive outlook on my professional future – i.e., repeat the aforementioned exam. And I took as a sign that our friendship would, well, resume in those terms. A reset of sorts. Love again? Who knows? But that’s dodgy territory. I wanted to thank her for all the help and support and she plainly avoided a simple meeting, like me paying for lunch or something in appreciation, only mentioning vaguely doing something “as friends only”.
During the Summer, I wished her a happy birthday and she reciprocated, but come September I confronted her about all that radio silence and then she finally told me it was due to her being with someone else, hence “not being cool to keep talking to me”. This was cruel, childish and soul-crushing; throwing away ten years of friendship because of this isn’t typical of a mature person, period. Even if we didn’t love one another anymore, we were good friends – I would’ve accepted a limited friendship, not this awful beheading. I was heartbroken, felt numb and let her know how unfair this was. Anyway, I broke contact, Instagram being the only link between us for the past sixty days.
A month or so after that pseudo-fight, she started liking my IG posts out of the blue again. She doesn’t post much, so I don’t pay much attention to her, anyway. Strange occurrence: I have this music-related collective (we are residents at a somewhat famous club and all) as side gig (see how much music is important to me?); I received some notifications from our IG account and went to check them out (we get performance proposals via DM, for instance), then checked out our feed and the first post out of the bag was hers. Like I wrote, I ignored her stuff for a few weeks and decided to go back to my account and like that photo – not even half an hour later she liked my most recent post: pictures of a show of a band she never even knew about. This was quite strange but I didn’t want to dwell on it, frankly and I don’t know what it means – not speaking but still liking my stuff on a social network. Block her? It might alienate common friends. Anxiety avoidance and keeping my mind and body busy are paramount.
Do I still have feelings for her or is this nothing but inability to move on and/or pure jealousy? For the first item, I’d say yes, I do miss her company a lot – after all, she was one of my closest friends, one of those “friends-I’d-confess-a-murder-to” types and never had better sex than with her when we were an item. Physically and intellectually, even with all her faults, I do miss her, maybe not at full-blown love like yesteryear, but I do. Maybe the spark’s still there, but it’s for naught.
I HATE the fact that the guy who she’s with now (of whom I now squat about and I’m happy with it) is getting a more attractive, mentally stable and confident version of hers whereas I got, well, a difficult shake on the first years. But I loved her my way and soldiered on with a full heart, helping as much as I could in the midst of my own inner turmoil and still regretting not being around her when she was ill in 2012/2013. Alas, I lost her.
In that sort of fight two months ago, she told me of the numerous chances she gave me before she gave up. I, too, gave her a lot of chances – I just never told her about it, thinking of it as classless, typical couple powerplay and emotional blackmail. When I had something to say, I said it – even though somewhat toned down because, hey, I didn’t want her to suffer anymore because of her boyfriends. Too bad in those final months I was too scared of her blowing her top off and much of what I said went to deaf ears.
I haven’t seen her in two years. I miss talking to her, just talking like we did so many times, be it in a restaurant, a park bench or in bed – it was great therapy (I don’t believe in psychotherapy, even though I’m a staunch believer in science). I already lost a good (male) friendship of mine (all his fault) in 2016 and I’m still kind of reeling, so you can imagine how much worse this situation is. And yes, I told the guy to scram because he was also disrespectful to her. Physically, there is also some attachment still reeling on. None of my former SOs could beat the sweetness of her hug.
I don’t want to hate her, but I can’t be treated like this and I sure as hell can't undertake that exam again with this mental clutter, I can’t stand it. I’m a victim (ugly word, I know) of an emotional and very immature cop out, a ghosting of sorts. And I know that, in many ways, no one will ever love her like I did – and vice-versa. That’s intensity, all right.
Complicated, isn’t it?
Writing all this helped, even though the doubts about her and my utter contempt for romantic relationships linger on – I refuse to bow down to mediocre relationships, to alter my personality to appease people who don’t respect nor love me and to be henpecked. I’m not a control freak when it comes to love, I like to trust people and to be deemed trustworthy – heck, it’s one of the few things I got going for me. Nope, I’m not exactly lovable and I know it, but I have no reason to improve that aspect of my personality and life. A reset with her would have helped it? Beats me, but judgement might be clouded.
Don’t know if I should break the silence with her again, but I’d say the same stuff and she wouldn’t change her mind, I bet.
No illusions here. I’m not searching for love, the “market” is, well, bad, I despise Tinder and the like and I’m not hoping for some cheesy Hollywood RomCom happy ending for me with Ms. Right falling from the sky right into my arms, with Daniel Johnston’s (RIP) “True Love Will Find You In The End” as background music. To hell with that unrealistic drivel. If it happens, fine; if it doesn’t, tough luck. I prize my friendships, I don’t want a ticking time bomb named “romance” (not with the wrong people) in my life, but I don’t want the right people out of it, either. Earlier this year, I went on a couple of dates with a girl I met in a show, but there was no intimacy, for a variety of reasons. I was nice to her, albeit with my usual wry and sarcastic humour and I pretty much concluded that it wasn't going anywhere and I got ghosted/ignored her anyway. That's post-modern rapport (or lack thereof) for you in a nutshell.
It’s kind of eerie that my most heartbreaking episodes happened at the end of a decade: 1999/2000 (my great non-reciprocated teenage crush); 2009 (unrequited love at the beginning of that year, right before I met my ex) and now in late 2019.
Sorry for the huge text and to barge in. Hope you all keep on thriving and going strong, to hell with all those who don't understand you and don't like you for who you are.
Thank you for reading and for your input, please pardon my language (both the cussing and the non-succint text, English is not my native language) and stay sharp out there.
TL;DR - I still care for my ex, I miss being with her, it's extremely difficult to move on from a person who was in my life for ten years and I hate that she broke the promise we made that we would always care for each other, no matter what. Currently and after a brief hiatus, she only likes my Instagram posts, including pictures of yours truly - a phenomenon I read about online but still can't figure out. Should I continue to try to move on or should I try to talk to her again somewhere in the near future (among other questions)? Thank you.
Submitted November 27, 2019 at 09:47AM by Hendricks4Prez https://ift.tt/2KYPvLD
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