did she throw away a good thing?
hi. i am still not over my girlfriend, who broke up with me six months ago. a little background.
we are both mature adults (in our 30s) and we had been dating since 2013. prior to that, we'd been friends for about a year. we had a lot of shared views and ideas on life. when we started dating, we were head over heels for each other. we couldn't get enough of each other. eventually, we moved in together. we even got a cat together. things were great. our friends always said how great we were for each other. we weren't without our rough patches, but otherwise we were in a healthy relationship.
cut to 2015. she says she wants to move across the country for a change of pace, and to be closer to her family. now, this is a huge deal. it would mean leaving a job, leaving a city we both knew very well, leaving our friends, figuring out the logistics of packing up our entire life and then starting it anew. but she was my partner, and of course i said yes. i couldn't imagine life without her. we packed up a uhaul, said goodbye to our friends, and drove out. the drive itself was a little problematic - we fought a little bit about stupid stuff, directions, where to eat, etc, but nothing over the top. nothing horrible. we made it in 4 days and i couldn't wait to start our new life together.
we moved over the summer, which is typically a slow time to find jobs, but we came armed with savings to live on while we figured it out. within 6 weeks of our move, she picked up a serving job, but it was only part-time. it took me longer than i thought to find a job, 3 months. but in the meantime, when i wasn't applying to dozens of jobs every day, i was active in the house and out: cooking, cleaning, gardening, playing with the cat, getting to know her family better, getting to know this new place. the money situation was kind of tight, but we weren't broke, and we were going to get through it together, because i thought our love was strong enough to survive some temporary setbacks.
towards the middle of the fall, she began to become a little distant. she wasn't as intimate as before. i questioned her about it, and she kind of brushed it off, more or less saying it was "female troubles." but we weren't really having sex at all. looking back at it, this was a red flag. but i was blinded by my love for her. i thought that the lack of intimacy was temporary, or if not, maybe we could see a professional and have them help us. we sat down and talked about our relationship, and we both agreed to keep going, because it was important, it was the most important thing either of us had ever done.
the day after thanksgiving, she announced it was over between us. in short order, she explained that she had been "unhappy" since we moved, and in the time that elapsed, she had "lost respect" for me (perhaps due to the fact that it took 3 months to find a new job in a new city?), and was unable to imagine a happy future with me. she said the future she imagined with me was one of disappointment and frustration. this hit me like a ton of bricks. naturally, i felt like i had to fight for it. this was what i considered the most meaningful relationship in my life, and she was going to pull the plug on it.
i spelled out a number of things we could do to fix our relationship: me getting more jobs, so we'd have more money; me suggesting we separate for a while, to clear our heads, and so on. but she nixed every one of them. she kept saying that she needed some time and space to herself. i could respect that. i can respect someone's request for that. but still, i figured what she was doing seemed hasty, irrational, and maybe after a certain time had passed, she would see the error she had made.
what complicated things was that we still lived together after she broke up with me, for what was probably way too long a time (2 months... i know). we weren't hostile towards each other. we were basically civil, if not friendly. i now had 3 jobs, acquired in what was probably a vain attempt to get her to realize how great i was at providing. but in the last month, i noticed that she wasn't around a lot. she would come home late at night, very late, like 3 am. i sort of figured she was messing around with a new guy. one night, i casually, jokingly brought it up, but she denied it. she just said she was with friends. i resolved to forget about it. we weren't in a relationship anymore, what was the point.
at the end of the 2 months (the end of this past january), i finally got out of the house. i flew across the country to be with my family during this difficult time. after all, the love of my life had just broken my heart. initially, we were in somewhat regular contact. a few texts during the week, maybe a photo of the cat doing something cute. we spoke on the phone 2 or 3 times. but the contact slowed down. i began writing her long emails, basically baring my soul. it was pathetic, i know. but i didn't feel ready to give up on the magic. i still don't.
she recently wrote a long email to me, confessing a few things: namely, that yes, she had been dating somebody while we were still under the same roof, some guy she just met, and had been seeing this guy since january, and it's "serious." she acknowledged that it was a rebound, but said that she was happier with him than she was with me. i felt deceived, because she said she wanted time to herself, and here she is in a relationship with some rando. she said "people and emotions change," but that seemed like a cliched cop-out. she also suggested that we not contact each other for a while, for both of ours sake, which is probably the healthy option. even though i feel like calling her every day, i don't.
i feel like she will eventually realize what i have realized: it's a rebound, it's worthless, it won't last. and then maybe she'll consider a reconciliation. she might be like, "oh yeah, that's right, I was in love with Jerome, apart from the temporary strife we went thru after uprooting our whole lives and moving across country."
am i crazy, is this just magical thinking? i don't know, that's why i'm here. i just really, truly believe in our love, and i want to be with her again, and with the cat we raised together, and be happy again. i also acknowledge that this could be impossible, and i just need to shut up and move on.
or is she the crazy one? did she throw away a good thing? that's where you come in. thanks for reading.
