Broke up with my girlfriend of 1.5 years...did I make the right decision?

[Red Shift]

So, as the title says, I broke up with my girlfriend of 1.5 years about two weeks ago. The whole reason I joined the forum was to just get an outside opinion on what happened and whether or not I made the right decision. I'm going to post a pretty long description of what happened, and any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully I posted this in the right section?

 

First off, this was my very first long term relationship. I am 20 years old, and up until this girl, I had very little luck with girls because I'm just not a "normal" guy, and I have a tendency to find girls who have issues (emotional, psycho ex-boyfriends, etc.). She was the first girl with whom I could just be myself, and have fun with. Over the course of our relationship, we had very few disputes, and overall I was very happy to be with her. For the first part of our relationship, everything went well because we were both in school and all we really wanted to do was just spend time at home with each other. Unfortunately, I am a very adventurous person, and I love the outdoors, which is something that she is not very well acquainted with. As our relationship progressed, I found out more and more about her as we started going out and doing things together. Basically, I found out that she is not very outgoing, she won’t step outside of her element, and she is not very self sufficient. The kicker here is that she expressed to me that she wants badly to go out and do things with me, she just hasn’t had much experience with the things that I like to do (out-doors stuff and just spontaneous adventures). I completely understood this and tried very hard to go out and do things with her, but it just seems like she wouldn’t throw herself into anything. And as far as being self sufficient, she called me when she even had ridiculously small problems. On top of this, she has a lot of irrational fears, one of the main ones being with food. It was fine for a while but I just got annoyed with not being able to just go out with her and have dinner or whatever. She LITERALLY only eats one thing. This is only one of the fears, and I hate pointing out specifics like that but I wanted to give an example. Because of her lack of being outgoing, she really never built a life outside of our relationship. I was basically the only friend and companion that she had, and she really didn’t seem to be doing anything for herself, but for me.

 

Honestly, this wasn’t the part that drove me to break up with her, because I loved spending time with her, and I could tell that she really appreciated having me in her life to introduce her to new things, which I was happy to do. The part that finally drove me to end it was a thing that happened with another guy a little while back. In May, she began to hang out with an old friend of mine, who I was actually pretty close with at one point. I was really busy with school wrapping up, and around this time I told her that she needed to go out and do things on her own because I can’t always be there for her and she took it pretty hard. So, after a while she began to hang out with this guy more than she was with me, and at that point she told me that he had expressed feelings for her. She then told me she would cease to hang out with him because of this. I said great and we moved on. About a week later, she told me they were going to hang out again and that he was going to put his feelings aside to keep the friendship. I reluctantly agreed because I knew that she really needed someone outside of our relationship. About a week later, I found a message between them where the guy had re-expressed his feeling to her, and she basically told him that she had some feelings for him too. So, I confronted her about it, and instead of being mad at her, I ran back to her and fought really hard to get her back. She promised me that nothing physical had happened between them, and that it was the only message. In the midst of this, she began to talk about our future and that she thought that I was the one she wanted to be with forever. I, being completely blinded by emotions, replied with the same feelings. I was pretty destroyed at that point, and it really didn’t feel like she was trying really hard to stay with me, because she even asked if she could hang with him again. I have no idea what I was thinking through all of this because looking back on it, she should have been the one fighting to get me back. So, over the course of the next several weeks, we talked and tried to move on from it, but I never really could get over what had happened.

 

So now 2 months later, I started looking at myself seriously and what I want, and I just felt like she doesn’t have the essential qualities that I want. The whole thing with the other guy just sent me over the edge and I just didn’t feel like she deserved me for all that I do for her.

 

The thing that sucks is that she was a great girlfriend. She loved me and supported me, was not overbearing about my time with friends, and she was a lot of fun to hang out with. She was happy to let me go and do things, and had a smile on her face the next time I came over. I loved her so much and it hurt me so bad to do this to her, because I had spent the last 1.5 years helping her and supporting her, and I really just wanted to go do things with her and experience life. Unfortunately it felt like she wasn’t completely willing to do that, and I just couldn’t get over what happened in May.

 

I feel like I left a lot out, but after that long description my question is, did I make the right decision? Should I have just talked to her about these problems or was I right in breaking up with her? I miss her badly, and I am honestly afraid of being able to find a girl that I get along with so well on a basic level. The girl I want just doesn’t come around too often, especially since everyone wants to be this cliché college girl that I can’t stand. Sorry for the long post but if you read it, I thank you, and hopefully you can shed some light on what happened.

[Jeff M Stevens]

You made the right decision. She was your serious girlfriend and yet she went behind your back to express feelings for the other guy.

 

You cannot build a long term partnership/relationship with someone that is dis-loyal and has no integrity and this girl displayed both disloyalty and no integrity when she went behind your back to work things with this guy on the side.

 

It is time for you to move on to a new adventure. Congratulations on being a tough guy and breaking up with her. Do not second guess yourself as you were 100% right

[Red Shift]

Thank you for the reply. That's kinda where I was at. I feel like I would never do anything like that to her, and no matter how much fun I had with her, I just couldn't get over the fact that she violated my trust.

 

Guess I just need time to get used to not having her in my life. I really appreciate the reassurance.

[Jeff M Stevens]

No problem. I wish you well man