I sabotaged my relationship, and I want her back (long story)
It's a long story but I didn't leave out any details or paint a biased picture.
I'm 23 years old and it's sad to say that I finally met my first love. I just graduated from college this past summer after 5 years at a four year school. During my fifth year, I met a girl who was a junior and it felt like everything just clicked. We started hanging out alot starting last November, she wanted to take it slow, we waited about a month before having sex, and by New Years, I asked her to be my girlfriend.
We continued enjoying each other's prescence and I felt there was no end to what I could be giving her. By February, we were laying in bed together when she just told me she loved me. I was very surprised but told her I loved her back very excitedly. That's when it began going downhill.
A couple mistakes I made were that I pissed her bed a couple times, one being the night before Valentine's Day. I know it's ridiculously disgusting, I just drank myself into oblivion as I have done many times before: hanging with a fraternity and trying to "live it up." She's actually been with other guys that did it and actually didn't seem to mind too much surprisingly, but I thought I would mention it for the record.
Unfortunately, by the end of February I had to move back home to work because I wasn't making enough money to remain at school. Home is only an hour and a half away but it's distance enough to where we couldn't see each other whenever we wanted. I still came back three days a week for class, but I had to split up time between her, school, and other activities.
In March, we went on Spring Break together. She had no real plans so I invited her to come along to room with me, and 4 other fraternity guys. Great plan right? I spent that week getting bombed, and one incident where I tried to untie her bikini on the beach. Classy, right? I also didn't spend enough time with her because I was partying with my friends and I thought she would be spending it with her friends that went on the trip too, but she wanted that alone intimate time together that I so frivalously ignored.
As the end of the semester approached, she wanted to stay at school over the summer with a friend, but the friend backed out on her and I mentioned that maybe we should move in together because our school was in the middle of nowhere and would be boring during the summer. However, I didn't find a job (I could have tried harder) and as loans loomed in the future, I thought it would make more sense if I lived at home and saved some money. She was let down by this and was forced to move back to her home, which was three hours one way trip between us.
She wasn't friends with any of her high school friends as they were very rich and snobbish, and her best friend was away for the previous semester and most of the summer, so I felt like she kind of projected her feelings of lonliness on to me and was desparate and clingy. She would call me and text em all the time asking me why I wouldn't text her back or call her to tell her I loved her or send her stupid things in the mail to cheer her up. She would cry to me on the phone wondering what was going on to me and I wouldn't react back to her, I would shoot some things at her like I was having problems with my family and such. It was true, but what was really bothering me was if I really loved her or not but I felt like it was too late to tell her this. I needed space to sort out and figure out how I felt and where to go from here. I didn't want to hurt her feelings though, so I didn't which was worse in the end. Plus the fact that I have low self esteem, which if one of the two has, the relationship won't grow.
A tricky thing about the self esteem issue is that as sick as it sounds, I feel like I don't deserve it and do my best to self destruct it. While I didn't intentionally want it to end I did things I kind of just scratch my head at. She wanted me to go with her to her family's beach house, I said I couldn't because I needed to work. Her family wanted to buy me a ticket to a concert and I just never ended up going. Really ridiculous things. There was also a time when she wanted me to come see her early, and I ended up drinking with my friends the night before and didn't get to see her until late after she had a whole day planned for me.
You are probably wondering how we could date with this behavior, but there were plenty of good things too. I would celebrate month anniverseries as lame as it sounds and right through til the summer I would do things and send her stuff. I wrote her a freestyle, I made her a scavenger hunt that led to me, I went to a restaurant and set up a little picnic and then brought her to it with a sign saying it was reserved for us. And I wanted to do those things. Even during the summer I still took us on a romantic getaway to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. As she made a point though, a couple days of happiness can't compete with the days of lonliness.
When she stopped communicating to me these things, it should have prodded me to sit down and do some thinking. I remember over the summer she mentioned that an ex boyfriend was texting her and calling her all the time, and while he was a scumbag and cheated on her, she actually liked the fact that somebody wanted her. Something I should have picked up on because she wasn't getting that attention from me. He even showed up the day of her leaving for her beach house to beg her to bring him with her. I didn't find this out until a month later which kind of angered me but I let it go. Red flags everywhere and I was oblivious.
By the time she got back to school in the fall was the end. She had to work til 4 in the morning on the day I was going to visit so I asked her if if it would be alright if I brought a friend. She didn't tell me that she rather see just me, but like I said it should be something I just should know after months of telling me how much she wanted me in her life. So I brought the friend and stopped by to give her and her new roommate a welcome gift. Then I went and hung with the friend, while she texted me "I wish you were here hanging with me." After she went to work I drank with my friend and after the bars closed I came and visited her and brought her and her workers some beer (they drink on the job). She refused to talk to me all night and when her shift was over, left without a word to me. I got angry and proceded to shout names on the way home. She overheard me say these things when she was on her way back to work to apologize to me and that pissed her off. I didn't want to argue being drunk so I just stormed off to my friends place while she chased me. Then the next day I drove back home and just talked on the phone instead of in person. Real mature, I know.
Two days later I felt terrible and came to see her. She was out drinking with her friends and when I picked her up she gave me a letter and went to sleep. She told me to read it. She gave me a bunch of letters over our tenure together and I read them, saved them, but didn't think too much about the message. I didn't read it. The next day we spent a wonderful day at the beach. Everything seemed normal. She told me to read the letter again, but I told her I would when I was back home. Over the next week she would ask me if I read it and I said I didn't yet. After a week I did, and it was about how this was it, now or never, we need to see each other this many times a month, go on dates, everything. I told her we could do it. After another week however, she stopped calling. After a couple of days, I noticed and I began to see what was wrong. I finally came to see her and we spent the day watching TV and her napping. She had to go to class but I noticed as she was changing, she left the room and kicked me out when she went to class, treating me like an intruder. After her class she told me we needed to talk. This was happening.
I got emotional and pretty much cried, telling her I know what I was doing wrong and that I wanted to fix things. Leave it to the break up for a guy to want to fix things after mentioning it for months what needed to be done. Nothing I could say changed her mind. She wanted to believe me, I just came off as desparate. She said I was still the one, but she needed space. I should concentrate on myself.
I wrote her an angry letter that night and didn't sleep or eat caught up in illogical emotional tirade. Before she dumped me I wrote her a nice letter, which was instantly erased by this one that I mailed the minute the post office opened. She got the nice letter first, sounded very happy, but as soon as the angry letter was received I got a nice "you have some nerve" voicemail. Yikes.
So she needed space. What did I do? Call her, text her, IM her constantly over the next week. I just made her more angry and got alot of "it's always about what you want." Of course, I wasn't thinking clearly and just made things alot worse. The following weekend she agreed to see me for lunch surprisingly. I apologized for the angry letter, told her the things I was doing wrong and what I could do right. I changed. All the stupidest cliche lines you could think of. Of course I was pretty much at tears doing this, and she wasn't too thrilled and not buying it. I was still looking desparate. After I insisted on paying for lunch, she brought me back to her apartment where she gathered all my things and gave it back to me. It's over.
After that I wrote her one last letter. I wrote that I needed space to to work on myself too and that I know what we felt was genuine and that everything was going to work out down the line. I would give her all the space she wanted. All that did was provoke another angry phone call saying "You think you are getting another chance?!" I ended the conversation saying I'm willing to work on this when you are ready but I'm not waiting around.
Two weeks later without talking, I receive a call from her. She called just to tell me her little brother wanted a video game I borrowed back. But she called me. And she sounded upset. I read into this and texted her a week later saying I hope you are doing okay, you sounded upset I would love to talk if you aren't angry. She calls me an hour later saying "I didn't expect that at all". I proceded to go into a tirade about how much I loved her, what love was, and when I got to the point where I said "love to me is about understanding and forgiveness, and it hurt when you were angry to me but I forgive you", it just made her more angry. While it's how I felt and was genuine, what I did to her was "unforgiveable" as I was the reason she missed out on friends, her grades dropped, she gained weight, everything. While I might affect those parts of her life to not hold responsibility to your actions and blame it on me was kind of a cop out. But the point is there was nothing I could do or say right now that could change her mind. I broke her trust and me and was just digging a grave from the time I didn't respect her space. And I still wasn't respecting it.
To top it all off, it gave her an opportunity to tell me about her new boyfriend. Her best friend, the one that went away for the semester and the summer met a new guy the first week of school and it was one of his friends. I knew who it was right away. She taunted me with "Oh I thought you saw it on facebook? Something we were never official on." I really had no idea and began feeling like I was the stupidest person in the world. She proceded to tell me "he's nice, he treats me right, and we are taking it slow. I didn't want to hurt you like you hurt me." I blurted out "I don't think we can be friends." The conversation ended with her saying "if you need something call, otherwise good luck. I've moved on, you are the only one stuck" In just under a month, it went from "you are the one" to "I have a new boyfriend, I have moved on". And I couldn't help but feel guilty, as if I drove her to this point. It was back to not eating or sleeping again after I was just getting better at it.
This was a few days before Halloween. On Halloween, I was at school visiting my fraternity and showing off the costumes. I ran into her roommate and she instantly alerted my ex girlfriend to my prescence. She proceded to text me "come see me at the bar" to which I was like "why" and she responded with "well I thought it would be nice to say hi but nevermind." I never actually ended up seeing her anyway because I lost my wallet with my ID in it so I couldn't go to the bar anyway. She continued to drunk text me but I didn't respond.
The following weekend I was at the school, again, because some buddies I graduated with were there. It's a small school and I knew I would run into her, but when I did I just froze. Her friend saw me and told me I was there. I thought I was ready to go over and say hi and pretend like it was okay, but I wasn't and just proceded to ignore her all night. Her and her boyfriend had drinks and danced and enjoyed themselves and I caught myself looking a couple times but didn't say a word to them. As if I couldn't do anything worse, I look scared or disrespectful by not talking to them.
At this point, I'm scared but ready to let go. They always say if you love something let it go, and it really couldn't be more true. I proceded to try and fix things when she wanted to end things and I couldn't have made myself a worse situation unless I started a fight with her boyfriend. And the letting go kind of just happened. I talked about it to anybody that would listen to me and it helped me figure out what happened, but it didn't get me anywhere on the road to healing.
I guess my question is to anybody that read this: Do you think I still have a chance? When should I try and contact her again? When she has or hasn't got a boyfriend? Any questions or comments, no matter how brutal they may be, I am welcome to. I hope this could be a lesson for some because no matter what people told me when I asked them what to do during this break up I just went along with my emotional, illogical instincts. And it shattered all hope I have for a future with her.
