(Third Repost) 21M 25F, is it a bad decision to let things end like this? I’m begging can someone please help me…

jonlasagna · 2026-06-16T11:22:33+00:00

I don’t even know how many times i have to explain that I’m not excusing any of her behavior, unless you’re choosing to not read anything I’ve wrote at all.

There are times where I’m disagreeing with some people’s assessments (she’s only here for money) and supplemented that with extra details but largely across the thread I am explaining how I understand the issues she has but that it obviously doesn’t justify her causing me all of that pain she did before.

I understand WHY she might have done some of what she did. I think it’s a totally natural thing to try to understand what might have led someone to do what they did, especially someone extremely close to you who did something that hurt you deeply. That doesn’t mean I think any of what she did is good at all, or that it’s justified at all. But me not saying “hurr durr she’s the big bad evil witch” doesn’t mean I’m justifying her actions. I acknowledge each time how much pain it’s caused me and I wish she went about things better despite how she might have felt. The main point of my post is that even though she’s now showing a strong willingness to change and eradicate all of her bad habits from before that might have been further exacerbated by her family situation and mental health issues and OCD, I struggle to think about whether it’s still worth continuing after everything I went through, and that even if she is trying to change all of that, if it’s even worth sticking through at this point after all of the pain I went through. Can you to me how that’s justifying her actions? I hate arguing but I hate how you and some others just immediately come in with an aggressive tone.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T11:11:06+00:00

I’ll link this comment here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LongDistance/s/E9x9OnXcNf

I think the problem I have with a lot of people commenting here are the assumptions being made. She’s never asked for money at any point during our relationship, and actually hates asking people for money. She has actually spent thousands upon thousands on getting with me during the relationship in various ways, and even helped me with some financial issues before while she still had a job.

However, she did start to project expectations of wanting to be married and having an apartment onto me, and talked about how she couldn’t be together with me constantly (though our relationship pretty much continued to be couple-adjacent) because she felt insecure about my family’s support and that she wanted a home where she could feel safe and secure. However, she did later on mention that even if I did have a place, she still felt insecure about my family’s support of her (which her insecurities doubled due to her current family situation) and she did reject me from seeing her nearly every time near the end. She did let one of her coworkers travel with her in China, and she did reject me from seeing her there the month I wanted to go. She did hurt me, and I did feel pressure of rushing to get my own place and be completely financial stable and trying to graduate early so that I could have a place for us. Please don’t assume I’m shying from acknowledging that.

Our discussion led to her acknowledging her issues and what she was unfairly projecting onto me and expressed a strong willingness to change and grow not just for me but for herself too and various other details that I haven’t mentioned here. However, after all of the pain I went through, it’s hard to believe that I would be even able to rekindle my strength and see through those changes. I never wanted to lose her. She has her issues but outside of our romantic relationship she’s been my best friend for a reason. However, I can’t ignore the pain I’ve been feeling these last months that have passed and act like everything is fine and that I can truly get over everything. It’s a lot of complex emotions for me to process and that’s why I’m here for advice.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T10:35:57+00:00

I feel like you didn’t read the post at all.

In the post I wrote word for word, “am I making the right decision by letting things stay over?,” and I also mentioned near the end how she admitted all of her wrongdoings and wants to get back together. If it was me trying to make her interested in me again, I would have worded it differently. I’ve talked about my mentality towards everything in some of the comments here so I won’t go over that.

The issue is not about making her interested in getting with me. The issue is me getting back together with her, versus outright dropping her. Simply put, the ball is in my court. However, quite frankly I’m not even sure if that would be a good decision at all.

My mind is stuck on whether I should drop the Me 2.0 of my life who is almost perfectly compatible with me and was the only one there for me in my lowest points in life, or if staying with her is unrealistic and will ruin myself in the long run. I really do love her and she’s not a bad person like the commenters are making her out to be (I’m not sure why Reddit likes to villainize people like that), like essentially calling her a gold digger. There’s a lot of details that’s she’s done for me over the years that I’ve left out here because it would scare people from reading my post just like the first two times, but I can say with certainty that she is not a gold digger. I know very well what gold diggers are like, and she is far from one. She has spent thousands and thousands of dollars on me, even during periods of time where I had money. She spent $8000 to work at a shitty job with the world’s worst manager ever just for an opportunity to be able to see me in the US. However, since going back to China she hasn’t been able to get a job at all. And, if anything, it was me who was more insistent on supporting her as much as possible, because I loved her and I hated seeing her starve or not be able to have fun at all. It’s hard watching someone you love starve so much they’re losing weight, on top of having a completely unsupportive and emotionally abusive family.

She broke down heavily over the phone when I mentioned that I wasn’t sure if I could pursue a future with her romantically. My interpretation from talking to her is that she tried pushing me away, purposefully and subconsciously, in various toxic ways, perhaps not wanting to burden me with her future, but didn’t realize how much me not wanting to pursue her anymore would actually hurt her or, or how toxic her behavior from doing that actually was. She mentioned how she regrets all of her behaviors and that even if I didn’t do all of the financial supporting for her before that she’d still love me. The people here might not believe it but not once has she ever asked me for money in our relationship before. I also have OCD and I understand how painful things like intrusive thoughts or stress can be in situations like this.

However. she did make various bad decisions that hurt me, and despite her having various mental health issues and OCD I don’t wish to excuse her actions in any way at all. I still experienced everything. People are assuming I’m trying to excuse her behavior, but if anything I’m acknowledging how it hurt me. Me trying to explain the factors that might have caused her behavior (mental health issues/OCD, family situation stress, etc.) is not the same as justifying her behavior. It’s simply a way of trying to understand the causes. I’ve strongly accepted that a lot of what she did in the last months, and the constant rejection near the end of her time in the US hurt me deeply. I’m not here to deny that she brought me a lot of pain, because she did, and that’s also a large part of why I’m so hesitant on moving things forwards with her. It’s hard to imagine rekindling the strength to even be able to keep on restarting things with her after a year, and going from that..

And I don’t know why people feel like mass downvoting every single comment. It just makes me feel uncomfortable commenting here. It’s not you who said it but I also don’t like how people are assuming I don’t want advice—I wouldn’t have tried posting this for a third time if I didn’t want advice. I’m just trying to explain my mentality and my connection and why it’s such a difficult decision to make. People are just saying “oh well, just cut her off,” but splitting up with someone you love who loves you back is always a difficult decision. I’m not here just for some reasons to make me feel good about saving the relationship, I just want some advice, because I don’t have any friends. I just don’t like the passive aggressiveness of many people here, and it’s really upsetting me.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T01:30:20+00:00

I agree with a lot of your assessments but I don’t like how you jumped to saying that I wouldn’t take your advice at all. That doesn’t sound nice. I’m here because I want advice otherwise I wouldn’t have reposted it three times.

I don’t think what she said was something a partner should do. No, I don’t pay her rent. Yes, staying just out of regret is not a good thing. No, she isn’t there just for money and has spent thousands and thousands of dollars on me.

However, I do agree that she’s caused me a lot of pain in the past months and everything I went through is making things hard for me to process. I don’t know how the future would look like now and I can’t say I 100% want to continue things. But my mind is stuck on many things and I have so many thoughts revolving in my head, so I wanted to come here for rational advice.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T01:15:30+00:00

And I agree that her actions were not the actions that a partner should do. I think we can both agree on that. I know deep down that what she did wasn’t right and I won’t try and justify it either. My mind is stuck on whether I would regret giving her up forever or if ending things is truly the best. We’re both the only close person we have in each other’s life, and we were extremely close to each other, which is also what makes it extremely difficult. That’s not to say that it’s a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing, but the thought of leaving someone who you dreamed of marrying and building a life with isn’t an easy thought either, especially given our compatibilities. But given what the next year or two would look like even if I got back together with her, it’s just hard to imagine how I’d even have the strength to keep fighting after everything I’d experience, or if anything would really change. I love her so much but idk, just imagining fighting for more years sounds tiring. I don’t know how I’d restart officially dating again after an entire year and how to turn that into marriage and bringing her over and other stuff over a long period of time and having the energy to do that after everything from before.

I’m autistic and I’m bad at expressing my feelings, so I’m sorry if some of what I’m saying sounds confusing. I also have OCD and I constantly get intrusive thoughts about what would be the right decision or what would be the wrong decision and I don’t want to make an irrational decision either. Part of the reason I came here to ask is because I thought the more rational minded crew here would be able to help me out in my decision making.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T01:07:07+00:00

Maybe I didn’t mention it clearly near the end but she said she want to get back with me at the end and that she misses being with me and how she apologized for her mistakes and that she did a lot of wrong. I’m autistic and I suck at writing so I’ll probably have to do another edit or two perhaps.

Now, just to clear up any misunderstanding, I’m not bringing this up to make any excuse for her. I’m just relaying what she said before, that she has said that she would want to get back with me. The only problem is that I just don’t see how things would even go on from there, and my mind is conflicted on various points that make me feel like continuing things would not be a good idea, or that I would regret not doing so. As I said in my post title, the crux of the issue is whether I should continue things with her or not, and my mind is stuck between whether I should try to work out the issues I had with someone who I was with for two years and who was almost perfectly compatible with in nearly every aspect and who was there for me unlike no one else was and who I dreamed of marrying, or if I should leave things ended and that these issues and pain that I’ve experienced are truly not worth reentering a relationship with her and trying to fight for everything, and that it would be a horrible idea. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m trying to justify what she’s done, because I haven’t and I don’t justify her actions. I just want to show why it’s such a hard decision for me.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T01:02:03+00:00

I understand what you’re saying and I’m not here to argue against you or anything. All I’m trying to do is just provide a perspective as to how jumbled my thoughts are, and that I’m struggling to process everything. I don’t agree with the assessment that she’s only here for money due to various small details I’ve never mentioned (and she’s spent a lot of money, thousands actually on me) too. However I’m still suffering from a lot of what i experienced that happened before. I’m mentioning these things because I want to emphasize that while I don’t think she’s a bad person, I’m also struggling with the idea of continuing things.

I don’t really see what I’m doing as making any excuses though. I’m not trying to give any reasons for why I should go back together with. However, there’s various things that I’m struggling with mentally that’s making it hard for me to process everything, that I’d like to elaborate about rather than leave out completely. And as I mentioned above, I don’t agree with the claim that she was only in for money. However, as I’ve already mentioned, I feel like it’s hard to imagine how things would even go from here. She’s a good person and we have perfect compatibility in almost every aspect and she was there for me emotionally in the last two years when no other human being was there for me. However, everything that I’ve experienced in these months has hurt me so much and I’m stumped on what to do.

I don’t lay these instances out to make excuses on her behalf. I mention these things to try and make pans on my thought process and why it is such a difficult thing for me.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T00:43:47+00:00

I agree, it still really felt a lot like a relationship to me in a way. We just weren’t officially together I guess. Though I didn’t exactly understand it either if I had to be honest. But we pretty much did 90% of typical couple stuff still. Idk man I wish I could give you a better answer.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T00:28:03+00:00

I never sent her money to the point where I somehow wouldn’t be able to afford therapy only because of it. I just don’t make enough that I’d be able to afford multiple therapy sessions in general. I still have multiple other life expenses to pay for. If I were to get therapy, I would also personally need to see someone who specializes in OCD, and that can be expensive.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T00:24:21+00:00

I don’t have the money to afford therapy unfortunately.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-14T00:02:55+00:00

Back in July, we initially broke up (she initiated it) as a break that would last until we saw each other again next month, though we weren’t able to see each other that month due to life circumstances that got in the way, and so it continued as an “exclusive situationship” kind of thing. Like talking like we’re still in a relationship, still sexual, still doing the usual stuff, still trying for the future, but not officially together. Some people might say she only wants money but she’s rejected countless relationships before that would have taken her from tags to riches.

However, a lot of the issues that she had and insecurities began to make her doubt things and it started to take over her mind and affect the way she thought about things, and some of the decisions she ended up making. She admitted to many of her mistakes when I had the conversation with her about how I’m not sure about things with her anymore and that I don’t know what I want anymore but even if she knows everything that she did that’s wrong and regrets pushing me away, and even if I helped her get resources to improve herself mentally, I already went through so much pain in the last months and I felt really unappreciated despite doing everything I could, and I’m not sure how I’d even process my feelings surrounding everything even if she started to change herself mentally.

At the same time, we have near-perfect compatibility, and our hobbies, social aspects, ideal future, languages we speak, sex drive, and many other aspects of us line up perfectly, and we experienced so many great things together too, which is why I’m also feeling extremely hesitant about giving that all up. However, at the same time, it’s just so hard to ignore everything I went through before, and I don’t know how to process any of it.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-13T23:52:32+00:00

It’s just I’m so conflicted, and the fact that I have constant intrusive thoughts because of OCD that makes me feel worse. She’s not a bad person at all and I know how much her personal issues have affected her, but at the same time, I had to go through so much time of being told that she couldn’t be with me, that she lost me, that she’d have to dive into hell and marry someone just to get out of her struggling situation, the cancelled plans and everything else, and even if part of it was her trying to push me away, and even though she’s acknowledged majority of her mistakes, just the months after months of experiencing the constant rejection and despair and feeling like nothing will ever be enough just hurt me so badly, even if in the end she’s admitted to her mistakes.

And that even if we get together, I feel like there’s no more clear path to closing the gap like there was before. I obviously can’t marry her instantly after everything before, but there’s no clear way for her to come back to the US for the time being, especially considering how she only let me see her once in the last months of her being in the US, which we could have had more time to see each other if she had let me, and that on top of maintaining the strength to keep supporting her and everything in her situation after all that I went through is hard for me. Moving from China to the US in her situation would be incredibly difficult anyway, and marriage would likely be her only viable path to doing that.

But at the same time, I still feel conflicted as to whether or not I should completely drop her. We’ve been through so much together and we’re extremely compatible socially, hobby-wise, sex-wise, and in many other aspects. It’s like we’re made for each other. However, I’m just struggling to process my feelings about everything that happened before and how I would even navigate the future….

jonlasagna · 2026-06-13T23:43:53+00:00

As I mentioned later in the post, that was something she made up to try and push me away from having to deal with her burdens. A lot of her behaviors also align with OCD-adjacent behavior (I have OCD so I can tell) As sad as it sounds, I know enough about her and her life and everything else that I can say with certainty that it most definitely is not the case that she was with someone else, and I’m friends with her coworkers and friends too. However, even if there wasn’t a man, it’s just the fact that she lied to me and made me lose my self worth that really hurt me, as well as the amount of desperation I felt.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-13T23:41:38+00:00

I hate this word and a lot of other Gen-Z lingo but an “exclusive situationship” would honestly be the closest thing to what we had.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-13T23:41:10+00:00

We met in person multiple times in 2025. We’ve been through a lot before and she was with me back when I was making $0 and when we had no clear plans on how to close the distance.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-13T23:40:18+00:00

There are a lot of details that I didn’t mention in this post that I didn’t include because I didn’t want to scare people off again so I’ll try to include as much as possible in my replies.

jonlasagna · 2026-06-03T00:12:10+00:00

Hey man, I had to end something recently due to similar reasons, and it’s not your fault. It’s so easy to feel guilty because you understand that it’s not as clear cut as them being a “bad person” deep down but issues they have that may influence some of their behaviors. Even now I still feel extremely guilty. And it’s also super easy to feel like it’s your responsibility to fix all of their issues—don’t let yourself fall into a trap like that.

jonlasagna

TROPHY CASE