It’s been six months since we broke up, and I’m still trying to figure out what the hell happened. It was such a hot-and-cold relationship, with the highest highs and the lowest lows. I was 21, and she was 18 when we met in September 2020 at university. It was during COVID, and she was living in Spain with her mom and sister at the time, but she noticed me and messaged me on Instagram. We started talking and studying for hours at a time, doing long-distance until she finally came to Canada to stay at the university dorms. The lockdowns were still pretty on and off, so she would stay with me for long periods of time. We moved in together at the start of the next semester and began a semi-married-life relationship, living together for three years.Her family had some issues compared to mine. Her mother, a bombshell who looked like Michelle Pfeiffer, had been through three marriages, all ending in divorce, and would emotionally abuse my girlfriend—hot and cold. Her father, a rich oligarch, didn’t see them for most of their childhood and would just send money to provide for them while starting a new family. I wasn’t used to this, since my parents had been together for 30 years and seemed to have a pretty decent relationship—not perfect, but good. Despite her parents’ issues, my girlfriend was very diplomatic and would maintain her relationship with her mother, despite all the emotional abuse. She was the only girl who loved me, and I wanted to take care of her and protect her.The problem was that whenever she would leave to visit her family in Russia and Spain, she would always return cold and distant, which would make me feel insecure. It would take her a week or two to become the loving girl I knew. Her friends would marvel at us because we had this energy together like no other—one even said we would get married for sure. We would spend hours talking about everything, watching movies, planning our lives, and it got to a point where I think we became co-dependent. There were many moments where I felt like I wasn’t getting enough affection, and she thought I was giving too much. This became a frequent problem in our relationship. It seemed like she would give me such strong love and then pull it away, leaving me feeling like a crackhead wanting my fix.We had the privilege of traveling a lot together, but when I met her family, it was kind of weird. When I first met her father, I brought him a cigar, and he was at a hotel with two women—one his wife, and someone he knew from his hometown golf course. Pretty soon, my girlfriend pointed out that the other woman was actually his escort, and his wife had made a last-minute plan to come on the trip as well.In the summer of 2023, I graduated, and we went to Europe for a month. We started in Greece, traveling the islands, and then went to Spain, where we met her mother. The Greece portion was the best three weeks of my life. I loved this girl—together, we became children, playing around and going on adventures. A true soulmate connection. So happy-go-lucky.When we got to her mother’s place, she had arranged for us to stay at her ex-husband’s house that she was managing, and it had been vacant for some time (he’s rich af). We stayed there for 10 days, spending nights at her dad’s empty home and the days with her mother. I was a little nervous since I knew how her mother could be whenever I would console my girlfriend after enduring emotional abuse. She was a smothering woman who would shower you with affection and then flip the switch to become an angry tyrant. She ended up being very nice to me but very domineering and eccentric—a woman always on the move, getting money from here and there, like a scavenger funneling it out of her ex-husband through my ex-girlfriend. She was always trying to control the situation, but she was also very hospitable and gracious. She felt genuine.My parents were traveling in a nearby city, and she suggested they visit, so we made it happen. We had dinner, my parents brought a gift, and everything seemed to go well. The days passed, and on Monday, I realized I had mixed up my flight date, thinking it was Tuesday rather than Wednesday. When her mom heard the news, she freaked out at my ex, screaming in Russian, throwing a tantrum, and I could tell it was about me. I went up to her and asked her what she was worried about, to which she replied, “I’m worried about her,” insinuating I was a fucking idiot or something.When we left her house and had some privacy back at her dad’s place, I asked her what it was all about, and it turned out her mom had been talking shit about me and my family, angry that they didn’t pay her for dinner and saying that I was a burden and was fucking up all her plans. So I got pissed because she didn’t defend me and didn’t have my back. She said I didn’t know her mother and that she would be stuck with her for another month and didn’t want to deal with it. I was pretty heartbroken and decided to get a hotel rather than endure any more disrespect from this lady. My girlfriend said she would visit but didn’t. This made me feel even more sad, like she didn’t care.I returned to Canada and became depressed, and again she started to become distant. My birthday came around, and I figured out she wrote her message with ChatGPT after checking with an AI checker, then logging into her account and finding the prompt. (I know it’s an invasion of privacy, and I don’t justify it, but we both knew all our passwords since we lived together.) I knew she was in this cold, distant place, and she stopped messaging me. This was crazy because one month we were “soulmates,” and the next, it was this.A few days passed, and my good friend invited me out to her birthday at a club. I reluctantly agreed. We got there, and for the first time in ages, I had fun after a very depressive period. I met one of her friends, and she had the warmest and most inviting gaze. It felt so refreshing. We danced and had fun. The next day, my friend invited me to breakfast, and bam—her friend was there. We started talking, and it was like we were the only ones at the table. The energy was very strong.Still, with my girlfriend being cold and distant, I started thinking about this other girl, and it became a kind of solace. When my girlfriend arrived back in Canada, I picked her up from the airport. I could tell the vibes were off, and again, here was this cold, distant girl. We started arguing, and needless to say, I felt like the relationship was ending. I went to my hometown, six hours away, to visit my family and started talking to this girl. She lived in between my hometown and my ex’s city. So I drove out, not having a plan—just wanting to feel affection and not hurt. We started talking at a picnic, and I could instantly tell she was attracted to me. But I was like, “Wtf am I doing here?” She was staring at me, waiting for me to make a move, and I thought, “Fuck it,” and I went in for a kiss.We started making out for a few minutes, and then she got up to use the restroom. I instantly started feeling guilt and shame. I realized, holy fuck, this does not feel right. Her lips didn’t feel right. I loved my girlfriend. When I kissed my ex-girlfriend, it felt like honey—it felt so right—but here, it felt terrible. I excused myself, drove back to my city where I lived with her, and didn’t say a word. She was nice and somewhat affectionate, but I felt terrible inside the entire time.Somehow, she confessed and apologized, saying she felt terrible for being so cold and distant and that I didn’t deserve it. I burst into tears and told her what I did. She was in shock and started laughing hysterically. I loved this girl so much. I went in, hugged her, and apologized. I was really so angry at myself. We agreed to do couples therapy, and I started therapy for myself. She forgave me but she said she would never forget.We decided to sign another lease and move in together for a third year, and this time her sister would move in, so we got a bigger place. We started doing the therapy, but our relationship started to become hell. She became even more distant, and I was fighting to make her happy—overcompensating, doing anything. We had fights, and I debated whether I should leave and go back to my hometown and break up. But time went on, and things became more stable.She said she wanted to live alone next year, and I agreed to it. She started taking antidepressants. We had separate rooms at this point. But as time went on, she started sleeping in my bed every night, and we were back in love. Intense love. Intense sex. We started talking about marriage and spending the rest of our lives together, seriously in love. I booked us a trip to Mexico in April. It was amazing, and at this point, we were both seriously in love.Right after we came back, she started saying she was having dreams about having my baby and was literally always in my bed when we were home from work. So, I had to travel for work, and she called me early in the morning after a few days and told me she was pregnant. She or I didn’t know what to do, but she said she had already booked an abortion but would 70% have the kid if I wanted it. I called my best friend and talked to his mom for advice because I didn’t want to tell my parents. The verdict was: I’m 24, she’s 21, and we’re too young. I can’t support a kid.I felt really bad inside, and my girlfriend said it was fine and that she thought it was a good idea. She got the abortion the next day. I wasn’t there, and she had to go through it alone. I came back lovey-dovey, and she gave me the sweetest birthday card, saying she couldn’t imagine getting married to anyone else, having anyone else’s kids, and how she had so much to say but many years to say it. She even kept a picture of the ultrasound of the baby in the card. I was so in love with this girl. I truly loved her. I would take a bullet for her. I really felt, at this point, that we were a strong couple.But she had to go back to Europe to visit her mom. She left. On FaceTime, she was constantly saying her mom thought I was going to propose and get engaged when she got back. I was like, “Sure, we’ll see, come back first,” because I had gotten used to the cold, distant girl she would become. Then she replied with something like, “Well, you better do it before you lose your chance.” I didn’t think much of it.But then they traveled and met her mom’s friends: some guy who worked for a porn company in his 40s, single, and a 25-year-old crypto influencer. They were hanging out with my girl, her mom, and her sister, and I was a little bit like, “Wtf is going on?” She became cold and distant again. Then she told me she was getting weird thoughts again.Then she told me she was getting weird thoughts again. All the while, I was looking for a new apartment for her and taking care of her car. I asked her what was going on, and she basically said, “I’m young, I want to party and explore.” I was like, “Well, listen, am I your option or your choice?” To which she replied, “Choice.” She apologized the next day, saying she was acting crazy.I ended up finding her an apartment after searching for a month, dealing with a long, tedious process with the landlord, who wanted specific checks from her bank and only gave us 24 hours to sign. It was all this stressful stuff. I couldn’t help but feel angry doing all this for her while she was out in Europe, seemingly having fun and not being serious. I expressed my frustration, and she was like, “I’m going to fuck your brains out when I’m back,” and kept saying how thankful she was.A few weeks later, though, she was still cold and distant. Then she told me she had been talking to her therapist and doing tarot readings with her friend, who does OnlyFans. At this point, I was super insecure in the relationship and started questioning her. We got on the topic of marriage and family, and she was like, “No, I don’t really think about that anymore. I don’t think I want it.” The way she said it—I knew she wasn’t in love. I straight up asked her what they talked about, and she was like, “I don’t want to say it now. Let’s just wait until I’m back.”I got angry and super confrontational and asked, “Do you want to break up?” She said yes. She told me she wanted to explore herself and all this other shit. I started menacingly accusing her of wanting a hoe phase, and she was like, “Maybe.”When she came back to Canada, we started the moving-out process. We were still fucking and acting like a couple, and I tried to save the relationship with a therapy session, but she stormed out crying, not wanting to do it. She kept saying things like, “Maybe we’ll be together in a few years, like Aidan and Carrie in Sex and the City. Maybe in January, maybe in two years, ten years. As new people. Maybe we’ll become better people because of this. I love you. You deserve better.” This was after handing her the keys to her new apartment.We went back to my hometown so she could pick up her car. On our last night, she was so happy but still crying and saying, “I’m losing someone who loves me so much.” And I was like, “You don’t have to.” Finally, the last time we saw each other, I said, “Bye forever,” and she said, “Bye for now.”Afterward, I called her a few times, asking for explanations—the birthday card, all the marriage talk, what it all meant. She told me, “I meant it in the moment.” She said she was happy being single. I asked if there was ever a future, and she said, “You fucked it up by calling.” She told me she had been going on dates with multiple people and was “feeling herself” and enjoying the dates because she was a “good girl.” She was rude and kept pushing me away on the phone.That was in September. The next night, I slept with a 35-year-old woman I met at a bar, and that’s when the emptiness of my life began. I had lost the person I loved the most. How fast she switched.I know I’m not an angel, and I made mistakes, but I don’t know if I’ll ever find someone like her again. It was hard at first, but now I feel like I’m just droning through life. I don’t know what to think—I just really want strangers’ thoughts on whether this was toxic and whether I should miss something like this, because there’s a void.I think she’s enjoying her life, living in the big city alone, while I’m back home with my parents. I did a lot of therapy, but I honestly don’t want to pay for it anymore—I feel like it doesn’t help. I lost my sense of purpose a bit but have been trying to regain it through other things that I don’t love as much, but they keep me going—mainly just work. via /r/relationship_advice https://ift.tt/12ESPrj
No comments:
Post a Comment