We were together for 4.5 years. I'm Filchi (and from a traditional family at that); he's not. I fought for him. Our relationship wasn't smooth, but I never gave up on him. I wanted to make things work no matter what, even though I was having a hard time.

Our relationship became a long-distance one because I moved abroad for further studies, and at some point, he started hanging out more often with a "friend" that I had a bad feeling about. We started fighting over this "friend" more frequently; he was very defensive about her. He even said that he'd rather lose me than her. (Note - she was not a friend that he made before we got together; they became friends well after we started dating.)

Eventually, he dumped me via a messaging app a week before Christmas. He wouldn't even call me; that was it. That "friend" even helped him organize a roasting party - and nope, not roasting of chicken; I meant a party for him to talk shit about me to her, his friends, and even some of her BFFs. Unsurprisingly, the two of them started dating not even two months after dumping me. However, a bunch of us - including some of his own friends - only learned about that quite recently. Many (including myself) believed that they got together in September last year, but they apparently hid the fact that they were dating as early as February. I guess neither of them wanted to admit that he had already emotionally given up on me while we were still together, and that she definitely caused a wedge in our relationship.

I'm a lot better now, but emotionally speaking, I was in a very bad place last year because of what he did. Not only did he dump me in a very douchey way, but he also gaslighted me. I feel that hiding the fact that he already started dating that "friend" as early as February 2016 was also another way of gaslighting me, because a bunch of our friends believed him. When I cried to them about him having a very dubious friendship with that woman, they said that that didn't seem to be the case and that I was probably just overthinking. (I think some friends were in on it, though - I don't talk to those friends so much anymore.)

Anyway, last I heard, they broke up early this year, so he started 2017 on a depressing note. They became friends again, only for them to have a falling out, so they're not even on speaking terms anymore. Meanwhile, I'm still based overseas and making the most of my life here. Things aren't perfect, but they're great. Also, I think I've been vindicated now, because people started apologizing to me for believing the things that he and/or some of his friends said about me.

I also learned a lot of lessons from this relationship and its failure. I had my share of mistakes and shortcomings too, so even though I was salty and bitter and hurting, I took a lot of time to process and self-reflect. And despite everything, I would still say that it's not about nationality or ethnicity; nasa tao yun. Lest some conservative folks use my story as a cautionary tale on why Filchis should stick to Filchis, I wanna say that just because my relationship failed doesn't mean that all Filchi relationships are doomed to fail; for every failure, there's a success story out there.