deep love, a broken heart, and now uncertainly. (extremely long)

Warning: This is long. I am wordy. It's a self-diagnosed problem. The first portion tells about how we met and the beginning stages of our relationship. The middle details problems we have experienced, and the end talks about a breakup we had last night and a potential makeup we had immediately after. Now I'm confused and need advice. If you don't have lots of time to read feel free to jump to the end, but know that it might be hard to understand without having the full story. Also, I'm available to answer any questions.

I’m new here and I’m seeking out advice from this forum, because I have only ever received any sort of advice from friends and family (and they’re always biased). I understand that you’ll only be hearing my side of the story here, but I will do my best to fill you in on his feelings as well, because I know that if I want honest and true feedback, I need to put everything out there. First and foremost, I’m going to provide you with a tiny bit of information about myself since I’m a newbie after all.

I’m 21 years old, but I’ll be 22 in less than one month. I graduate college with a Bachelor’s degree on my birthday. I currently live in a state that is about 9 or 10 hours away from where I was raised. I came here to “get away” from my family at the bright old age of 18. I had full intentions on staying here post graduation, but now I’m second guessing myself.

On to my love story…

Roughly 9 months after relocating to this new home I was contacted by a man who was 24 years old and supposedly my next door neighbor. He found me on Facebook of all places! At 18, I was a little skeptical about what this older man wanted from me, but I gave him half of my attention and carried on lighthearted conversations with him over the Internet for about two weeks. You see, I’m not a girl who has gotten a lot of attention from guys in the past, so when he began to fall for me, I was completely oblivious. After the two weeks were over and he finally convinced me to venture outside to meet him in person for the first time, I did so hesitantly. I still wasn’t sure what he expected from me, but I felt safe enough being only steps from my own front door.

We got along almost instantaneously. We sat outside and chatted on the lawn for several hours simply getting to know each other. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t flirt quite a bit. I tried to ignore the fact that my heart was telling me I might be interested in this guy. My head told me he was all wrong for me. We came from two different worlds (if you can ignore the shared geographical location). The first day we met in person was on his birthday which made him 25. He didn’t have a college degree -- I knew my whole life college was the place for me. I had big dreams of a future career -- he worked the night crew at the local grocery store. I never needed a boyfriend, I was always independent -- he’d made his rounds with all of the locals. I was a shy teenager -- he was halfway through his twenties. My friends and family told me he wasn’t where I belonged and that I deserved much more. But can you ever really control who you fall for?

After our first meeting in person (note: this was late April 2008), we began to see each other a couple times a week through mid-May. We went out on dates and sometimes we watched a baseball game on the couch with pizza (note: baseball and food might be our only common interests). In mid-May I wrapped up my freshman year at University and had prior arrangements to go home for the summer to spend time with friends. Even though I was falling for this guy at the time, it still wasn’t enough to hold me back. So when my departing flight arrived, I hopped on while telling him I was going to miss him and vice versa.

I was back home for less than a month before I desired to come back to him. You see, much of our conversation took place over the Internet. We’d spend hours chatting on AIM and Facebook every single day. We got to know each other really well. I think sometime during all of our chats is when we fell in love with each other.

I held out on rushing back to him in the interest of a part-time job I had picked up back home and at the request of my family. It wasn’t until the first of August that I gave in to the temptation and rushed back into his arms almost an entire month earlier than planned. Luckily my job also had a location next to my University and they were more than happy to transfer me.

Remember I said I came back on the first of August? By the 19th we were an official couple. You see, when I returned we bonded instantly. We saw each other every single day and couldn’t get enough. It was that new-love infatuation that feels so good. Come August 19th we were boyfriend and girlfriend and we never looked back. We had a blast with each other and we absolutely loved being around each other.

Fast forward to March 2009.

I came home from school one day to his house. I walked into his bedroom and noticed his laptop open to a pornography web site. Porn was always a healthy part of our relationship. We liked to watch it together and individually. But this porn web site required users to login. I didn’t know he had an account…and was communicating with the amateur self photographers about what he wanted to see. This caused rage in me. I don’t know exactly what sparked it, but the spark caught fire some how. I couldn’t really get past it even though I tried. So I confronted him. I expressed my feelings (in probably a tone of voice that was unnecessary) and told him that I wished he would stop looking at porn then and there. Looking back on this now I see a lot of problems, but it is crucial that you understand this part of our relationship or you’ll never understand what’s going on now. So back to our conversation. He agreed to stop looking at porn once I expressed how it made me feel that he had been talking to this other women. When he told me he was going to stop I felt relieved and had no reason to not believe what he was telling me -- I’d never caught him lying before. This conversation probably marks our first “fight,” and we got through it in a matter of a few minutes. Things were perfect again. The following week I got a tragic phone call that my great grandmother had passed away and it would be necessary for me to travel home again for her funeral. He made the decision to go with me. This probably took us to a new level in our relationship.

He loved my hometown so much so that I caught him picking up an apartment guide in the vestibule at one of our local convenience stores. He was considering moving to my hometown before I had even expressed interest in potentially going back home after my graduation. He said he could tell how much fun I had there and he wanted that for me and he wanted to go with me. Mind you, this was only a mere seven months into our relationship. He even told his parents of his desire! This relationship felt so perfect for me I was elated 24/7.

When we returned back to our houses a week later it was mid-March. We ran into no problems until April when I caught him looking at porn again. Of course, he vehemently denied it until I provided him with my evidence. I basically flipped out on him like a complete psycho. I told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore because I couldn’t trust him and I didn’t want to be with someone who would do something that made me feel so terrible about myself. I stormed out of his house in a rage and told myself I’d never see him again. I don’t think an hour passed before we were texting apologies.

That last paragraph? Put that on repeat for May, June, July, August, and September. Once a month, without fail, I caught him looking at porn, confronted him, we had a gargantuan blowup fight, and then made up within hours. In between our fights? We enjoyed trips to his original hometown to meet his family, another trip to my hometown that lasted almost two weeks, and other various exciting relationship builders. Those good times are what kept us going without a doubt.

In early September his mother was diagnosed with cancer and was given a month to live. We spent every single evening at the hospice with her.

In early October I was sitting in class and texting him simultaneously. He told me he was on the Internet and that a random girl he didn’t know had just added him on Facebook, but that he had denied her request. “Ok,” I said, “thanks for the information?” I wasn’t sure why he was telling me. Later that evening we were both on the computer and he was browsing his Facebook page when he decided to check his notifications. What did I see front and center? “_______ ______ has accepted your friend request.” Who was it? The girl he told me had added him earlier that day. So why did he lie to me about this information in the first place? After a lot of bickering, he finally admitted that since he wasn’t allowed to look at porn any more, he was adding these random girls on Facebook so that he could browse through their photographs. Clearly this man has an obsession with looking at women (what man doesn‘t?), but now clearly this man also has a problem with lying.

This instance is the straw that broke the camel’s back in our relationship. I went home that night and slept on my new information. I didn’t know how to handle it, but I did know I didn’t want to be with a man who did these things to me. We were roughly a year and two months into our relationship at this time and I felt like I had put up with his antics for enough time. I felt like he was cheating on me!

In late October his mother passed away from the cancer. She had lived almost a full month longer than expected. At roughly about the same time that his mother passed away, he made a new commitment to me. He told me that he was unable to control his instincts as soon as he sat in front of the computer and he hated hurting me that way. His solution? He was giving up the Internet, because he wanted to keep me in his life. “Fine,” I told him, “but what happens if you want to get on there again?” I asked. He told me that that’s when he will be OK with us breaking up. So that was that. October 2009 -- he decided that he didn’t want to lose me like he had just lost his mother. I never caught him on the computer again.

2009 came to a close and 2010 dawned upon us. We started the year on a good note. Really, 2010 flew by. We experienced a lot of good times, and sure we had our arguments here and there, but really we had a great time together. I think he was feeling the strain of not being able to use the Internet, but he never made it an issue. He always assumed he wanted to be with me more than he wanted to be on the computer. In mid-July 2010 he gave up smoking with his own will. Combined with the fact that his mom had passed away from lung cancer (due to smoking), one of his best friends had just quit, and our state was adding some hefty taxes to cigarettes again., he decided it was his time to stop. I couldn’t have been happier for him. I’m not a smoker, never have been, and neither was anyone in my family. I’d never been around smoking before, but it was something I made a decision to deal with at the beginning of our relationship.

Fall 2010 rolled around and I began my senior year of college. I still wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do after graduation (I know my career field of choice) as far as living locations went. We had kind of decided we wanted to move back to my hometown together after I graduated. By this time we had made five or six trips back there and had a blast every single time. The fall 2010 semester came to a close. We had been together for more than two years at this point. At Christmas time we went back to his hometown to spend the holidays with his family. By this time I had come to know his family well and care about them as if they were my own. We had a great time together.

New Years passed and in early January we had plans to go back to my hometown to celebrate a late Christmas with my family. We loaded up our suitcases and for the first time I began to smell smoke on him again. I questioned him about it, and he blamed it on the guys at work who lit up on their break time when they were all chatting outside. Did I believe him? Not really. I’m not sure if I ever trusted him 100% again even after he gave up the Internet for me, because I felt like my trust had been betrayed too many times to count. But did I act like I believed him? Sure I did. I wanted to believe him after all. I didn’t ask him about his smoking habit again until I found a random cigarette box under his drivers seat as I was getting something of mine out of his car. He told me it must still be there from his old smoking days. OK, I said. I hadn’t been looking under his seat anyway, so I probably wouldn’t have seen it had it been there all along.

We got back home in late-January in time for me to start my last semester. But something was off. We were going through a funk. We couldn’t agree on anything and we argued about every little thing that happened. Somehow we pushed through. In mid-February we celebrated our two and a half year anniversary simultaneously with Valentine’s Day. We had a good time even though we continued to argue almost every other day. I can’t even remember what we argued about so many times…it was so insignificant. In mid-March both of our cars needed an oil change and so we took them to the shop together. On our way home I asked him if he wanted me to stop by his house and pick up some of his laundry (note: his washing machine had recently broken and I did a couple loads of his laundry at my house when he needed it). He said sure, and so I stopped at his house on my way home. He pulled into his driveway shortly behind me but he wasn’t expecting me to still be at his house. He came in drenched in cigarette smoke. He hadn’t been at work, so he couldn’t use that excuse this time. I asked him where his cigarettes were. He told me he didn’t have any. I asked him again. He still didn’t have any. I asked him again. He didn’t have any more. I asked him again. They were in his car. I felt betrayed again. Why did he lie to me about his smoking habit? In prior confrontations I told him that if he was honest about it I wouldn’t be mad. He hadn’t believed me. He felt like any time during our relationship when he tried to be honest with me about something, I overreacted. He didn’t want to face that again. So he lied. I felt crushed.

In another blowup fight we determined that we were “over for good,” amongst other painful things. I think this is when things changed forever.


I will post the rest in a comment.

We were texting again a couple hours later with apologies and sadness (mainly from my end. He was just angry). I told him I wanted to understand better WHY he was lying to me. What had I done? This is when I found out it was because I overreacted to every small detail of his life. What was the result of this? It was me feeling like it was all my fault and that I was in need of some adjustment.

Over the next few days I composed a letter detailing that I understood what he meant about me overreacting, that I felt like I needed to change, and that I was going to be working on that within myself. One thing we agreed on was that he could now go on the Internet (even though it was only his phone…he didn’t have a computer in his house anymore). Even though we agreed to stay together for the time being, things we still very awkward.

Another new development? There was a young girl at his work I discovered he had been private messaging over Facebook. There was nothing too suspicious being said, but he had told me prior to this discovery that he found her attractive. He sent about four messages to her that she never responded to…one of which was sent while he was back in his hometown visiting his family members and had told me he was too busy to talk. That burned me up a little inside, because apparently he had time to access Facebook on his phone and message her! The message read “wah” and that was it. He never did and still wont tell me what he meant by this. He gave me a different excuse every time I asked and I eventually stopped asking.

On March 27 I had a bad day at work because I couldn’t get his actions off of my mind. When I returned home from work with dinner he could tell something was up. He asked me about it, but I told him I’d rather not say because I didn’t want to get in a fight again. He persisted. I made him promise that if I told him he wouldn’t get mad at me. So I told him how I felt again about his messaging her.

Well, he didn’t get mad. He handled it very calmly. He calmly told me that he thought we probably shouldn’t be together anymore. He said he had been feeling that way for a while and he thought that was our breaking point. I became very emotional very quick. I cried, I begged, I pleaded. One more chance. Please. I will stop overreacting and overanalyzing and over thinking and overdoing every little thing. He very hesitantly obliged. One more chance. This was a Sunday night and I had a huge week coming up with three exams and two papers. We both had off work on Friday and so we agreed we’d take a short break during that week to process our feelings and that we’d talk again on Friday. The next day I was talking to my mom and shared with her everything that had happened. She said, “Do you think it would be good for you to get away for a while?” At the time I wanted nothing more. But I couldn’t just yet…I had a bunch of schoolwork calling my name. But Thursday afternoon? I decided I’d hit the road and head back home for the weekend.

Unfortunately on Wednesday morning on my way to school my brakes decided to give out on my car and I had to have it towed. I wished I had a boyfriend I could talk to at that time, but I wasn’t giving in. I called another ride and went on with my day. In the meantime, I had posted on Facebook status mentioning my horrible morning, to which he sent me a text message asking if I was OK. Well, not really, was all I could reply without telling a lie. I told him what happened and he offered to give me a ride home. I really did want a ride from him more than the other person, so I called them back and told them I no longer needed a ride. Problem solved. He showed up to give me a ride on time and we talked about how our jobs had been going and not much else. Neither of us dared to mention the status of our relationship.

When he dropped me off at my house he told me to tell him if I got any word on my car. I agreed.

The next day I got a different ride to school, but received a call in the middle of the day that my car was done in the shop. When I had a break between classes I sent him a message that I had received word on my car. He said good, and offered to give me a ride back home so I could get to the shop to pick it up. I again agreed because I enjoyed seeing him even if it was awkward. As he dropped me off at my house I mentioned that I was planning to go back home for the weekend. He seemed a bit surprised but told me to enjoy my trip nonetheless. We hugged when I got out of his car and we even shared a kiss. He gave me those butterflies again.

After I picked up my car I was texting him again and told him that I wanted to see him one more time before I left. He agreed to see me again. We spent about an hour with each other talking about how I felt like I had changed already and that I was excited for our time apart and was hoping we’d be able to start brand new when I got back to my house again. He was interested in my proposal and sent me off with well wishes.

I made the 9 hour drive back home that night. He was on my mind the whole time, but I was anxiously looking forward to spending time with my family and being able to come back to him with a refreshed outlook.

I stayed home for five days and we talked on every single one of those days for at least a few minutes sharing details about what we were up to. The day before I was to come back home he admitted that he had private messaged the girl from work again about possibly going out to look for a new car for her with her. I immediately objected. “No, I don’t think so….” I told him. He hadn’t even gone with me to look for a new car when I had to get one in mid-2009. He said OK and agreed not to go out with her, even though he informed me it was truly only going to be as friends, but he didn’t want to make me uncomfortable. I told him thanks and that I appreciated it.

The next evening I returned back to my house around 4:30 in the afternoon. After a long day of driving I was wiped out, but I still really wanted to see him. But he was sleeping. I didn’t care. I showered and walked to his house and crawled into bed with him. He woke up kind of clueless as to what was going on, but when he realized what it was, he held me in his arms and looked at me so longingly. It gave me butterflies again. Things carried on a bit further and I told him I didn’t want to give myself to him again until he would recommit to me. So he did. Maybe because he was horny? But at least I had another chance at his love.

We went out on a date that night and then walked around the store being silly together. We had a really fun time. On our drive home we got to talking about our relationship again. He told me that he wasn’t sure if we could ever be as strong as we once were because he felt like we were too damaged by each other to ever get past the past. He did say he was willing to try though. And I told him I was willing to try. And so we hugged and kissed and said good bye for the night.

We spent time together every day for the rest of the week, but only an hour or two here and there -- not all day every day like in the past. I was accomplishing my school work and he was getting lots of extra alone time to himself that he was very clearly enjoying. Whenever I saw him I acted as happy as possible so he would associate happy feelings with being around me. It seemed like we were slowly beginning to get back on track. Seemed is the key word.

Now we’re up to last night. We had plans to watch the Yankee game on TV and get takeout for dinner. Around 7:00 when the game was schedule to start I showed up at his house and we began eating. About halfway through dinner we discussed plans for his birthday next week. Somehow the conversation went from good to bad pretty shortly. Somehow we went from talking about potentially going to the Baseball Hall of Fame to enjoy to the day together to him telling me that though he loved me with all of his heart, it just wasn’t romantic love anymore. He felt like he was leading me on and he didn’t think it was fair to me. I just got completely blindsided. I thought we were well on our way to repairing things, but he had been slowly falling out of love with me since our fight about him smoking. He told me that everything compiled throughout our entire relationship added up at once and he didn’t think he wanted to be in a relationship in general anymore.

I wasn’t happy about it, but I didn’t get angry at him. I did start crying. I told him it obviously isn’t what I wanted, and I wondered if there was anything I could do it change his mind. He said he didn’t think so… the feelings were just gone. Forever? I asked. He said he thought so. I was crushed, but while we were having this conversation we were sitting on his couch holding each other the entire time. We continued to hug and I told him that talking to him more felt like good therapy for me so he let me stay and keep talking to him. One of the things that came out was that he was going to change his relationship status on Facebook to single and that’s when my heart completely fell out of my body. It seemed so real and so unreal at the same time. He was the love of my love telling me that he was falling out of love with me. Even though he was saying these things to me, he was still trying to kiss me. Why are you trying to kiss me? I asked him. He said he didn’t know. I told him I didn’t want him to kiss me. Hugging was fine, but kissing was too emotional. He said OK and that he would stop. But he didn’t. He tried to resist, but he kept putting his lips on mine. I told him that he wasn’t allowed and that the next time he was allowed was if he wanted me back again. He continued to rest his lips on mine without doing too much else. “You want to kiss me, don’t you?” I asked. He admitted yes, kind of. I asked him why and he told me that he wasn’t sure he was ready to quit me just yet. Really? He said yes, really. So I gave him and I let him kiss me and it was very passionate. He proceeded to make love to me last night and I asked him if this means that we aren’t done yet. He said, “You better believe it.” But at the end he crawled to the end of the bed. I started rubbing his back and he told me he hopes he hadn’t just made a mistake. So I asked him if he meant what he said about not wanting to quit me yet and he said yes. I told him to tell me again and he did. We hugged and kissed again before I went home for the night. About 20 minutes after I got home I sent him this message:

“Thank you for giving me this new chance if that’s what this is. And I’m sorry if you feel like it’s the wrong decision…it’s my goal to prove to you this is what’s right. I want you to be yourself because I love you for everything you are (flaws included). You are and always have been the most special thing in the world to me and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. I’ll do anything to make us work. I love you forever.”

To that he replied “thank you.” I told him to have a good night and he told me to as well.

That’s the last I hear from him…it was about 15 hours ago now. This morning I went out to run errands and texted him while I was out to see if he needed me to bring anything home. He didn’t answer me then and hasn’t answered me since. I don’t know if he’s still sleeping or not, but it’s going on 3:30 pm. He does have a sleeping obsession so it wouldn’t surprise me, however something is telling me he’s avoiding me. I know he is at home, because I can see his car in his driveway from my bedroom window. Tomorrow morning I have to work and I’m considering going back home to visit my family for the week because I’m on spring break from school. He told me to go, but I feel kind of bad because I will be missing his birthday. He said that’s OK and he understands because I don’t see my family often. I really have a decision to make on that one.

I want people’s opinions. Thoughts. Will he come back to me? I really want to go talk to him right now before he has to be at work in a couple hours, because if not now, I might not get to see him again for another week if I decided to go back home. What do I do! I love him with all my heart, but if he doesn’t love me anymore, why am I staying? My heart and my head are telling me two different things.

I read through portions and found lots of situationally specific paragraphs that don't amount to really anything. . .

As someone who enjoys a good read, this one was simply too long for me. You'll need to write a short version of it please.