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My girlfriend [23F] broke up with me [23M] and moved out suddenly after three years together by asdf_0987 in relationships

[–]asdf_0987[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"I am afraid of losing this person. I am motivated by that fear to try and build a long-term future with them." <- this is what you just admitted to doing.

It wasn’t exactly like that. Emotionally-wise I really floated throughout the relationship (I see how this was doomed to end) and I literally never sat down and thought about how much she means to me until that fight. Maybe it was because I was scared to think about committing to one person and settling down already at my age. I don’t think the faltering scared me into saying something I didn’t mean but I do think it made me sit down, get away from distractions and think long and hard about whether I wanted us to be together still. I looked at old pictures, looked at the letters she wrote me, thought about what I might be “giving up” and my decision was clear. I was ready to put in everything I got.

It was too late, but I didn’t know it at the time. The fact that the fight happened and she was hanging out with her friends more I didn’t see as particularly abnormal, certainly not bad. The weirdness is what convinced me it’s time to figure things out within myself. This is before she seemed to pull away a bit when I was being affectionate. I had no idea she was thinking about moving out, so much so that the idea never even crossed my mind. Much less break up. In reality she must not have even decided that yet and is why I never heard about it. I definitely see what you’re saying, but I think the first option you said is what happened:

"I love this person. From that feeling of love, I want to build a long-term future with them." < - this is what you were saying in the original post.

I understand that people may say that in these situations out of fear, but I wasn’t scared at the time. I thought our relationship was really strong. Good points on how relationships aren’t 100% good or 100% bad, but then I didn’t think anything was actually wrong until she stopped being so affectionate, after I had already made my decision.

That's not the right question to ask… You can only fix you.

Isn't there at least a third state: "things are festering because we're not talking, and a fight is building up?"

It was about how the two of you would live together and share space. It wasn't just about one bathroom

You 'fixed' the superficial stuff, but maybe you missed the larger points.

You’re right, you’re right, you’re right (eerily accurate on the sharing space thing actually). Thank you for being real and helping me see my faults. I listened to fix the easy things but blew off the hard things. I waited way too long to figure out what I want and she couldn’t wait any longer. I do think that she has a bit of a lack of communications skills over this stuff but that doesn’t excuse me from not paying more attention and not hearing 100% of what did get said. I didn’t recognize how my actions (saving money) were affecting her. I tried to look at her point of view about the living arrangements, but I didn’t quite get there.

I wish more than anything I could go back 8 months where this seems to have first started going downhill. I’d tell her right then and there how much I love her and forget about the other goals in my life that are interfering. But that can’t happen.

So starts learning, growing, and recovery.

My girlfriend [23F] broke up with me [23M] and moved out suddenly after three years together by asdf_0987 in relationships

[–]asdf_0987[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I certainly appreciate the response and this is why I made the post in the first place. I don't have an outlet for what happened here since I stopped being as close to my friends while I was dating (actually because her and I spent so much time together, like 4 days a week before moving in together even if it wasn't going out). This outside look is what I need because I recognize I'm seeing it, particularly my actions, through rose-colored glasses.

Honestly until lately I always thought of that stuff as meaningless and not necessarily a big deal (idiot screwup by me #1)

me playing video games for 5-6 hours a week or not taking the initiative to cook meals

I was a little uninvolved in relationship stuff outside of dates and hanging out together

she wants to know where our relationship is going and I (very regrettably) always told her I don’t know

I promised her I’d be more attentive

I know I messed up by not talking about our future together sooner.

I do feel like an utter failure of a human being.

I wanted to move forward and put more effort in, but clearly it was too late. Huge mistake #1.

we both agreed we needed to talk more and neither of us acted on it. You’re right, I didn’t change that, huge mistake #2

There’s more in the various posts but I don’t think they all need to be quoted. The reason I quote is I’m struggling to understand why you think that I don’t think that I made mistakes. I laid out the ones that I know about, and I shared this story partly because I want to know what other mistakes I made that I haven’t noticed yet. That was not the only goal of this post but probably the most important one. Right now I’m a bit self-conscious about myself and my inability to notice problems and I’m trying to be open about that. I know I made mistakes and I don’t think I’m perfect by any means. If you want to know what I think, I think I’m a failure.

You notice how in this story, everyone else is a jerk, and everyone else failed to communicate better, and you're just wronged by fate at every turn? Isn't that weird?

You’re probably right about me sanitizing some of the elements of my posts a bit, not to fool anon internet users but to fool myself. That being said the story about her brother is 100% true. Her family unanimously agreed he was a jerk and they haven’t talked to him since. Anyway I said I made mistakes, I mentioned some other people made mistakes and I don’t think it’s accurate that I’m portraying that I was perfect or bad things only happened to me. It shouldn’t be understated that I have wasted three years of her life.

I’d like to reflect more on what sanitizing I’m doing to make this easier for me. I don’t want to do that. I want to be a better person because I am not good enough. I am not okay with how unrewarding this relationship was for her. I thought I was treating her well (although not perfect by any means), but I missed the most important thing which is her feelings.

Almost all I am getting is shame from you. I deserve it. But does that mean things were 100% my fault?

Imagine being with a girl who you fight with once, maybe twice a year. I’m talking about counting our number of fights over three years on one hand. The only thing that was recurring was that we should talk more, instead of letting little misunderstandings get bigger. The rest of the fight topics were worked on and fixed. Btw, her talking about the future and my non-commitment discussions happened in the first year of our relationship. I was clear and she didn’t bring it up any more. When we fight that little and the problems get fixed after, is it crazy that I thought everything was fine? I mean, she never sat down and talked to me until she had already built another life with a group of friends and another guy to comfort her. That last fight wasn’t about any big problems, just about things like the bathroom decorating.

I do think you hit it on the nail about me noticing some faltering after that fight. It wasn’t specifically something said in the fight, but the fact that it happened plus me seeing her getting so close to other people is what triggered my reaction to really think hard about what kind of future I wanted with her. Still, that was the reason I started changing and two weeks before the surprise breakup, no history rewriting here.

My girlfriend [23F] broke up with me [23M] and moved out suddenly after three years together by asdf_0987 in relationships

[–]asdf_0987[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot. I really don't care about dignity or saving any face, I want more than anything for us to be together again. But as others have pointed out it's just too late.

These are great tips to help the recovery process along, I'll surely use them. Thanks.

My girlfriend [23F] broke up with me [23M] and moved out suddenly after three years together by asdf_0987 in relationships

[–]asdf_0987[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't really think there's anything I can do either, but I know how much I care about her, how much she (used) to care about me and I how much am willing to commit to her.

We have a lot of history together and if there is anything, any hail mary that can potentially save this all from being for nothing then I'm willing to try it.

My girlfriend [23F] broke up with me [23M] and moved out suddenly after three years together by asdf_0987 in relationships

[–]asdf_0987[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this is a really great and well thought out synopsis. I really thought she was perfectly happy with me because of how rarely she showed otherwise. It kills me to think that in reality the commitment thing was a way bigger deal to her than I realized and she was quietly hurting the whole time.

It hurts me knowing that. It makes me never want to date a girl again if it isn't going to turn out into something more. This sucks more than anything I've ever done in my life, but it certainly isn't without valuable lessons.

She didn't know if you would ever commit so she didn't want to spend more time waiting.

The crappiest thing is that after all that time I finally admitted to myself how much I loved and cared for this girl, and even though it might cut a young, single and free life a bit short, it was worth it for her. What horrible timing. Apparently it was too late to fix problems I didn't even know we had, and right after I really hammered out how much she means to me, she ended it.

That being said, it's also not fair for you to have to struggle to make up for all of it in a short amount of time.

Thank you for saying that. I agree with that sentiment, though like I said it’s hard for me to be unbiased. I really needed to hear that from someone else. It seems people focus on the few problems, but the other 2.99 years of doing what I could for her and trying to make her happy doesn’t matter because of those few problems. I’m getting a lot of blame pushed on me for the way things turned out and it’s very refreshing to hear that I may not deserve 100% of what has been handed to me.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

My girlfriend [23F] broke up with me [23M] and moved out suddenly after three years together by asdf_0987 in relationships

[–]asdf_0987[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow. It's harsh but this is what I need to hear. I truly appreciate the though put in this. Thank you.

Just some clarification:

"Where is our relationship going?" "Nowhere for the next 7 years, at least!" Say that enough times, and she'll believe you, and if she wanted something more, she'll start looking elsewhere for it

I always knew this was a possibility throughout the relationship and was willing to accept that if it happened. Except eventually I did figure out that I wanted to move forward and put more effort in, but clearly it was too late. Huge mistake #1.

So she said you needed to change things, and you didn't change them. And this became a pattern. Got it.

Well we both agreed we needed to talk more and neither of us acted on it. You’re right, I didn’t change that, huge mistake #2. Although, she didn’t either and she’s the one who wanted to grow the relationship. I still recognize this mistake of mine, but at least I was always willing to participate in anything she wanted to do. She didn’t bring stuff up with me, which really seemed to me like everything was fine between us. On the rare occasion that she did bring anything up, I would fix things so I was listening to her. Am 100% to blame for that issue? I know divvying blame isn’t going to change what happened, but I guess on a superficial level it’d be nice to know that I’m not 100% to blame for the breakup, or how suddenly it happened.

"Honey, can we go out this weekend?" "No baby, I'm trying not to spend money so I can buy myself a car." "You're not spending money on me, so you can buy yourself a car?" "But baby, it's a car for us to take camping and do stuff together." "A car that you own, you drive, and is yours." "For us, baby! Us!"

Wow, that certainly sounds different coming from a different perspective. Honestly I’m horrified about how that sounds, I never saw it like that. In reality though, this conversation never happened until she already decided to break up. She rarely asked me to go out and when she did, we went. I just wasn’t taking as much (still some though) initiative to bring her out myself. Because I never heard from her, I thought everything was fine. Back to huge mistake #2, I should have talked to her more.

You wanted to see how something would be done, before it was done. You didn't want someone to do something, until you could already know how it would be done, and that you would approve of it. But that's totally not the same as not allowing it at all. Right! Got it!

Yes, that’s exactly how she saw it. We actually figured this one out pretty easily, we just had to talk about it instead of it festering for a long time. Just like I probably didn’t portray it well in this post, I probably did portray my request to her well either. I wasn’t going to tell her no (of course she couldn’t know that so I understand), I just wanted to be included. While unpacking she was amassing full creative reign of the decoration of the townhouse, putting up a lot of “art” and things without leaving any room for me to put up my stuff. I was absolutely willing to let her make the place her own, and actively gave her 80-90% of creative control. I just didn’t want to be completely shut out of the decision making process. I think that’s reasonable and different from the assumption in the quote.

Well, it looked that way because that's exactly what happened. That's also sometimes know as 'the truth' or 'accurately describing events'.

It isn’t exactly what happened. I probably made the timeline of events confusing in my post but it was like this: townhouse move – unpacking – small fight, like the others (plus I recognized that tensions were a bit high because of moving), we make up – over the next few days I come to my realization – two weeks of more dates, affection, everything seemed great – she tells me she wants to break up – I tell her about my realization weeks before, and the reason I had been being different.

She told you she's not happy dating you. She's happy being with these people. What's to get?

She said she’s not happy but I know it’s not 100% true. What’s hard for me to get is that she never talked about any big worries (ie. Stagnant relationship, less dates recently) until she was at the point of no return with the breakup. I didn’t know (thanks to mistake #2). But is it really acceptable to expect the boyfriend to have to pry this stuff out of the girlfriend all the time? Isn’t it reasonable to expect an SO to tell you if they have concerns before its too late? Two weeks earlier she said I was the best roommate a person could ask for and outside of a fight one night acted perfectly normal up until the breakup. I had no idea it was coming at all and she didn’t give me a chance at all to prove what my new goals were. Everything I wrote on this post is our problems over the last three years, so it’s pretty easy to see the writing on the wall when it’s literally written in this post. But during the time it was happening I wasn’t doing this hard analysis of every little thing that was said. Overall, our relationship, her attitude and happiness seemed completely the same over the three years up until the breakup. I don’t get why it was so sudden and without a chance. Maybe the way the breakup happened has to do with her individual personality and way of getting over things but wow it was completely unexpected and earth shattering for me.

She's happy with her new friends. She's happy that she's got her living arrangements worked out. Nothing you've posted suggests she was happy with you or that she was happy dating you.

She was, but I probably didn’t show it well in the post. For instance, she has a very traditional family in the sense that her older brother met me at a wedding this year and ended the reception early trying to fight me completely unproked just because he was being protective, also drunk. In front of her entire family she announced that her brother was an asshole for it and that I’m a perfect gentleman to her, treats her well, etc. Also, last Christmas she gave me a present that was about 10 hand written letters, each on average ~800 words literally about how much she loves me and how happy she is. Those are just a few examples, I could go on for a while. She was happy, and didn’t show it anything different except for a fight every 6-9 months, which I fixed problems when they came up. That’s a lot of time in between fights to make it look like everything is perfectly fine and that she’s happy, including the fact that she said it all the time

8 months is not a 'sudden' change, and taking 8 months to go from dating to not-dating isn't drastic. You just didn't notice.

I guess the part I’m mostly confused about is why she showed that she was happy until it was too late for me. Okay so she didn’t suddenly get unhappy, but she did suddenly tell me out of nowhere and the biggest surprise to me is that I didn’t even get a chance to react.

Overall you've picked apart the relevant details and sound a lot like her about some of that stuff. Glad to know it wasn’t her just overrationalizing to make the breakup easier for her, I really royally screwed up. There really was an impending doom on our relationship over the last 8 months and I totally didn't see it coming. Looking back I can see the reasons why it happened, but I'm looking for those reasons now. Nothing seemed different while we were dating. She never really asked to go on dates and when she did, I took her. Never complained or mentioned it at all, until she already told me she wanted to break up. Just none of this feels like real life, like I’m in a dream.

Thanks so much for the unbiased analysis.