I dated my girlfriend for 2 years and 5 months. I'm a 24-year old American and she's 22, Mexican. We had a wonderful relationship, but we did have our fights. She is in this country illegally. That has always bothered me, but it's never really been an issue. Now, this is the girl of my dreams. Seriously. I have dated lots of women and can honestly say that I've never felt this way before. She's sexy, smart, fun to hang with, and just an incredible person to talk to. Before going into detail about our breakups, I want to make some things clear about the kind of person I am.
I've been putting myself through college through our entire relationship, so finances have always been tight. She likes to go out and do things, but I have not been able to because of time and money. About 7 months into our relationship, I gained a lot of weight. I probably went from 180 to 220. This created a lot of problems in my life. I worked in a restaurant so it was difficult for me to lose the weight. The weight increase really hurt me as a person. I no longer looked at myself as a good looking person. I stopped taking care of myself. She was picky about me gaining the weight, but never mean. She always tried to point me in the right direction because she cared about me. I developed sleep apnea and became a tired, stressed out person. If we did get into an argument, I would tend to raise my voice at her, and she didn't like it all, often hanging up on me. I never hit her or called her names. I'm not a bad person; just someone who was going through a rough time. I think my stress got the best of me. I also think some depression sank in too. I kind of became this insecure person. I didn't want to go out as much; wanted to stay in whenever she wanted to hang out. Then, after graduating with no job hopes, things got worse. Let me describe her a little bit:
Since she's in this country illegally, she keeps to herself mostly. She's kind of quiet and shy, almost paranoid that if she does something wrong, she'll get sent back to Mexico. She lives with her mother, brother, sister, and her sister's husband. Her family has always loved me, especially her brother-in-law, because he's American and the two of us have always had stuff to talk about. She works two jobs, probably about 50-60 hours a week between the two of them. She keeps herself busy and when she had free time, she usually spent it with me. She's a very unique person; kind and caring. She's kind of an outcast in the family and I've often heard that she butts heads with everyone in the house because they think she is selfish. She usually does what she wants to do and it's hard to get her to see she's wrong sometimes. She's very stubborn. If she makes a decision she usually sticks with it.
So here's the problem:
In the beginning of our relationship my mom use to open her arms to my girlfriend, but over time, she found things she didn't like about her. Whenever my girlfriend and I would fight, I would talk to my mom about it. Whenever I would fight with my mom, I would talk to my girlfriend about it. I think this created a rift between the two of them. That is my fault. My mother always felt like my girlfriend didn't like her and then my girlfriend felt like my mother didn't like her as well.
About a year ago, my mom (she's a single mom), my brother, my girlfriend, and I all went on a trip to the beach. While at the beach, my mom and brother got into a huge fight with me and my girlfriend because they felt we were doing our own thing instead of involving them. When I say huge, I mean there was a lot of yelling and screaming in public. Ever since that trip, my girlfriend and my mom have only seen each other 2 times. My girlfriend has not wanted to be around her because she felt it wasn't very nice of my mom and brother to scream, yell, and say awful things around her, considering she still didn't know them that well. I can see how my family would have been upset with me, on the other hand, my girlfriend did not think we did anything wrong.
This only made my mom more angry. She thinks my girlfriend has been ignoring her. At a recent family get together, my girlfriend didn't make any conversation with my mom besides saying "Hello" and "Goodbye." However, my girlfriend did chat with my grandmother for several hours. In fact, in the past year, my girlfriend has contacted my grandmother several times; one time even stopping by her house to cook her dinner. Now this is kind of stupid and I don't know what to believe, but my girlfriend is friends with my grandmother on Facebook but not my mother. My mother seems to think that they were Facebook friends a year ago and that my girlfriend deleted her right after the beach trip. I asked my girlfriend about it and she said she never deleted her, but declined her friend request.
Fact of the matter is that I love my girlfriend. A lot. When we are together, all I wanna do is just hold her in my arms. She's very important to me and even though I've had my share of problems, I've always done special things for her.
Flash back a year ago, my girlfriend dumped me because she felt like we were wrong for each other. She said she was bored with me. We were having some communication problems and misunderstandings, probably due to our cultural differences. This was when I was at my highest weight too, so I think I became unattractive to her too (not just physically). I was pretty upset about it when she told me. I cried and told her that I still wanted to be friends with her. When I finally realized that I needed to get my act together, I stopped contacting her. A few weeks later, we hung out, got drunk, and she ended up professing her love for me. I ended up having to take care of her the next day because she was sick.
Flash back to March 2010. I felt like I was putting in 75% and she was only putting in 25%. I put some thought and love into a Valentines Day gift and she got me nothing. She said she wasn't sure what to get me, but that she would end up getting me something. I told her I needed a break. A couple of weeks went by and I went to her house to see her for our Anniversary. She said she was done with the relationship but wanted to remain friends. I flipped out on her, calling her selfish for not even trying to fix things. I told her that she only does what she wants to do and that I deserve someone better. I said I wanted nothing to do with her. In April I started seeing someone else. After the 2nd or 3rd date I realized I didn't like this new girl so I told her it wasn't working. My grandmother told me that my ex had contacted her to ask about how I was doing. I contacted my ex and said I still loved her, but she said she needed more time. My college graduation was in the beginning of May and she unexpectedly showed up. I was really happy about it. After that, we started to hang out more and ended up getting back together.
Things have been perfect all summer long...
Now recently, my mother and brother moved to another state, about 3 hours away from where I lived. I had been living by myself for 4 years. Back in April, I decided that I was going to move with them because I still hadn't found a job and wouldn't have been able to support myself. Plus, with the breakup, it felt like the best thing to do. I now live over 3 hours away from my girlfriend. I only had a chance to go and see her twice while we were still together. I just didn't have the money to go back and see her and she wouldn't make the trip to come and see me. While living with my mom, I've had to hear about how my girlfriend isn't the right one for me. How nobody in my family likes her for me. How she didn't talk with my mom, but made conversation with my grandmother. And so on.... After hearing all of this over and over and over again, I cracked. I told my girlfriend about it all and it hurt her a lot. I told her that she needs to try harder to get my mom to like her. That she needs to talk with her more. She got really upset about it all and said that this wasn't coming from me, but my mother. That I needed to grow up and start acting on my own.
A week or two later, I could feel she was disconnected from me; like something was wrong. She ended up texting me and broke up with me. She told me that "maybe in a year or so,when your lease with your mother is up, you can learn to be yourself and it could work again." I called and called... and texted and texted, trying to get her to change her mind, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't answer my calls. Just texted back saying it's over. About two weeks later, I made contact with her through a text and she said I need to move on with my life. She said she doesn't want to talk with me or see me. She said she's said all she has to say and that she will NEVER want to put up with this BS again. She said she's moving on and when she's ready, she will start looking for someone else. She made it clear that her love for me is gone.
Well, I drove all the way back home to visit her. Turns out that she went on vacation to the beach with one of her girlfriends. I left her a note at her house pretty much telling her that I accept the breakup and that I do love her.
A week later, when she arrived back home, I drove back into town to see her. Waited for her to get off work. She saw me and invited me in to talk with her. Her mother was even happy to see me. She told me I couldn't change her mind about things. We talked for about 2 hours and she made it clear that she never wants to be with me again, that she's tired of the BS. She wants nothing to do with my mom... at all. She's said she feels she can't make me happy. That I always wanted more outta her and at some point in the past month it clicked within her that we've had too many problems and it will never work. She said she did all she could but I always wanted her to do more than she was willing to. She said her family respects her decision. I cried and begged and begged, but she wouldn't budge. She really showed no emotion toward me besides resentment. She said everyone so often we can talk and catchup, but that's all she wants. I left in tears. About 15 minutes later she texted my grandmother telling her that things aren't right and that I just left her house angry and she was worried I would be driving 4 hours angrily and could wreck. My grandmother talked with her a bit and at some point my ex said "I know this is hard. It's hard for me too. But we need this. Please take care of my boy for me." I ended up staying in town for a few days and was fine with things for a few days. Logged onto Facebook and saw a status update of hers that set me off. Something about her going to surprise her BFF. I went crazy. Who is it? Why is she surprising them? Is it a guy? I drove to her house to go see her again. Knocked on her door and she didn't answer. 10 minutes later she walked out and got into her car. I walked up to her car and asked her why she didn't answer and she said she was asleep. I told her I loved her and that I want to be with her. She looked kinda scared of me. I wasn't acting mean or threatening, I was just really sad. She said she wants nothing to do with me. She took off in her car. I called her and she answered. I asked her if there was another guy in her life and she said no. She said it's over and I need to face it, move on with my life. She said she never wanted to hear from me again.
About a week or two later, I was back in town again. I took a lot of pictures of me hanging out with my friends. Nothing crazy; no pictures of me hanging all over other girls or anything like that. I uploaded these pictures to Facebook and within 15 minutes of uploading them, she deleted me as a Facebook friend. That really bothered me.
About 3-4 weeks went by and we hadn't talked at all. I wanted to speak with her about things to get some closure. I went to her house and knocked on her door. Nobody answered. Went back to my car and called her, still no answer. About 5 minutes later, her brother-in-law (The American) walked over to my car and said he had a heart to heart with her the night before and that she's completely freaked out by me. He said she's afraid of me. Her and her mom are paranoid that I'm going to get their family deported and sent back to Mexico. She said she's also afraid I my find her somewhere with one of her guy friends and punch one of them out.
He knows me pretty well and knows that I'm not that kind of person. I'm not a violent person. He knows I would never settle to that. We've always been close. Apparently, she told him a story about a fight the two of us had, though she left out her end of the fight, making it seem like I was the bad one. It's almost like she's creating reasons for why she shouldn't be with me and almost trying to get her family to dislike me too. He doesn't understand why their family is like that, but he tried to explain that things are different for them living in a new country and they are probably interpreting things differently than anyone else would. He said they are pretty paranoid about things. He told me to give it some more time, to leave her alone, and that I could call him every so often to check on them all. He said he believes that she wants to do what she wants to do right now and that someday she will realize that she made a huge mistake. By then, hopefully I will have moved on with my life. Really seems like he understands what I'm going through and that he's on my side. He knows how she is and he told me that I deserve better than her anyways. She's kind of an outcast from everyone else in the family.I have no idea where all of this is coming from. I never threatened her. Never gave her an ultimatum. Just told her how much I loved her and how things would change this time. I guess all of my desperation (the calling, texting, crying...) really pushed her away. We both think that one of her friends (or a new guy in her life) was seeing how much I was calling her after the breakup and that they planted that idea in her head; that something was wrong with me and she should be afraid.