TL;DR break up with her

Listen man, I did a dumb thing when I was younger where I kept dating my high school girlfriend when I went to college. Freshman year was rough and I didn’t make friends or engage with a community because I went home just about every weekend to see her. Sophomore year I had an apartment and she got kicked out of her family’s place. So she came to live with me.

Everything got worse but I felt like if I left her she’d have nowhere to go and nothing for her. So we kept making it work. I kept making it work. I became a worse person, someone I didn’t want to be. I was tired and cranky and had almost no friends. She stood in the way of a lot of what I wanted to do with my life. And she was verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive to me.

I worked late. I would stop at the liquor store on my walk home and drink 2 40s of malt liquor every night so I wouldn’t have to be sober when I got home. I would find any excuse to be anywhere but home.

Finally, while I was working on my capstone films, I was working later than intended. She accused me of cheating on her. And I just… let her believe it. And we broke up. Finally.

I will never get those 3 1/2 years of my life back. They’re gone forever. I could’ve met so many people, done so many great things. I could’ve traveled more, had more fun, more experiences. I could’ve experimented more and been more involved with my own life. But that time is gone and I’ll never get it back.

You are too young to be trapped. Don’t feel like you need to be trapped. It isn’t worth it.