Making Sense of a Breakup

[tim30]

I would like to share my story in the hope of getting some insight into everything.

 

I am a 28 and my ex-girlfriend is 25. I am from New England and went to law school in the South. My ex-girlfriend is from the South and was from about an hour away from where we went to law school. We met our second year of school and dated for 2 years. After 1 year, we moved in together and lived together in the South for 10 months before deciding to move to New England because she got a great job here, and then I got a job there as well. Although I am from New England, we moved to a different state than where I am from because she got the job, and we would have stayed closer to her home but we were both impartial and the job was here. We moved up here in May and spent most of our time studying for the bar exam until it was over at the end of July, and we both started work in August. I must mention that neither of us had ever had a serious relationship before this.

Now my ex-girlfriend comes from a reasonable amount of money and she is adopted. She was adopted at a very young age and her adopted parents are older, in their 70’s. Her father never did much other than work all of the time and complain about everything in life to her. Neither parent ever told her that she was ever wrong, likely out of the fear of her becoming angry with them. Her mother is the type of person who feels like she is better than everyone else and that she is always entitled to something. She is also extremely sensitive and believes that her opinion is always correct. Unfortunately, her daughter, who is my ex, was the exact same way.

When we first met, everything was great. We took things slow and slowly got to know each other and didn’t say I love you until 6 months into the relationship. My ex’s biggest flaw was that she always wanted to be with me, which I didn’t mind because I was away from home and liked spending time with her too. She was very awkward in social situations, which made it difficult to be around other people and I was always worried that someone was going to upset her because she had a degree of sensitivity unlike anything I had ever seen before. Also, she had no problem being mean to people for very small reasons and was more likely to talk poorly of someone than good of them, especially girls. She had one friend, who was a girl, and this girl was not a great person and she cheated on her boyfriends constantly. All of her friends were guys, and most of them were guys who she had hooked up with back in college and remained friends with. I never saw this as a red flag at the time but I realize that the only friends she ever had were people who thought she was attractive, and she had one friend in law school who had a major crush on her but she didn’t like him, however, he was a dorky kid who I think stayed friends with her because he liked her. She would always say that girls didn’t like her and she rarely made any attempts to be friends with females.

She was a very attractive girl and when we first started dating, she told me that she believed she could attract any guy she wanted. Anyway, for two years we spent nearly all of our free time together and when we were apart we would always text each other or gchat each other in class. We weren’t overly unhealthy about it, and also, we did it because we both genuinely enjoyed sharing everything with each other. After a little less than a year into the relationship, things began getting worse. There would be times when she would yell and scream at me over very small things. Now keep in mind, I was not perfect, but I am an incredibly calm person and I never once yelled or told her that she was wrong, I always blamed myself because she always made me feel like everything was my fault. I would do all of the household chores and do everything I could to remind her of how attractive she was to me and I would schedule my days to make sure that we could do what she wanted to do.

She threatened to break up with me after a year of dating and kicked me out of the apartment. She would keep saying that she couldn’t trust me because I wasn’t the person who she wanted me to be. The trust had nothing to do with lies or deception. She wanted me to become something and I worked on changing things about my life, very minor things, but it was never enough. We would talk and then things would go back to normal for a little while but then something would throw her off and we’d be back to her yelling at me and threatening to kick me out and to stop dating. I know that money was always an issue in our relationship because neither of us had much. Anyway, the times from April-September were very stressful with graduating, finding jobs, moving to New England, studying for the bar, and starting work. We were going to go for a weekend trip for Labor Day and he computer crashed at work. I went over after work to help her recover her files and she had an attack. I didn’t do anything at all and she kicked me out of her office and told me that I needed to go home and pack my stuff, and that she had enough. We got home and she began packing up my stuff. I was in disbelief because things had been fine just hours before. Sure enough, we talked things over that night and things were ok for the weekend. For the following weeks, we agreed that we need a little space and I spent a few nights a week back in my hometown and she stayed in our apartment. We would still do things together and I would spend a night with her here and there until later that month. I came home from work one day in late September and she told me that she didn’t love me anymore and that I needed to leave her life and leave the apartment and she threatened to blackmail me if I did not give her the pet that I had just bought as well as sign over the apartment to her, which I agreed to do.

Like I said, she had no friends and the only friends she made moving to New England were my friends. When we broke up, all of those friends left her, even though I told them not to, apparently she was not very well liked by anyone and so many people told me that she was a bad person. She also tried to manipulate my best friend into thinking lies about me so that she could look like the victim. Essentially, she is a very intelligent person who can manipulate people with ease and who I’ve seen drop close friends for the pettiest of issues and show no remorse for doing so. So anyway, she found herself alone in a new area with no friends, although I was still there for her if she needed anything and continued to help her with things. I knew her and I knew that she could not make friends with girls and would need attention from somewhere else to get over the pain. I knew that this meant she would quickly find another guy, and sure enough, she was seeing a 31 year old guy, who has a mediocre job, not to disparage, but it’s important to know since she has a high powered job and is the type of person who resented people who did not have ambition to do the same.

Important to know about this new guy is that he is a 31 year old who lives in the same town he is from in this state and works a job where he makes enough to get by but will not ever advance nearly as far as my ex. He is a very dorky guy who seems to be very nice and hasn’t ever had a serious relationship before either. All of his friends are married or in serious relationships except him. Now I don’t know for sure, but I am pretty sure that my ex has mentioned very little about me or what happened to him. They were in a Facebook official relationship less than 3 weeks after we broke up.

 

Now during the time after breaking up until only a few weeks ago, my ex and I still occasionally talked and she would tell me that she still missed me as well as other things that I am better than her new boyfriend at, and I went along with it thinking that I could get her back. I had so much time for self-reflection in my time since we broke up and I told her everything that I believed I had done wrong and that I had legitimately made changes to the things that I had become bad about. I actually did make these changes and have learned so much about myself and I shared all of this with her to the point where she did believe that I made the changes that she had wanted to see beforehand. One of her reasons for leaving me was that she did not believe that I was as committed to her because she saw that I was not making much money, although I was trying and had just started work, and she didn’t think that I was serious about getting engaged to her, although I was. I told her after the fact that I had saved $3,000 for a ring for her and that I wanted to marry her. I basically poured my heart out to her over everything and never once said a bad thing about her new boyfriend but I expressed my concerns that it may not be the healthiest thing to do because she is just coming out of a 2 year relationship and what type of person can he, a 31 year old guy, would want to be Facebook official with a 25 year old coming out two year relationship only 2 and a half weeks after dating.

We finally cut all ties last week and I deleted everything of hers because she called me and asked me for a ride to the airport last week and I gave her one. We talked for an hour and she told me that she still cared about me and she wasn’t sure what to do. We hugged and she kissed me after we held hands for almost 30 minutes talking about everything. The next day, she acted like nothing had happened and that I was meaningless to her.

Anyway, I apologize for how long this is. I basically just want to know what anyone thinks of this and what people think her reasoning of dating this new guy is. Also, could her new relationship be serious or is it a rebound, or does she need attention and is afraid to be alone in a new place. Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Dontfindme]

While reading your post describing her, I kept thinking "sociopath" but I'm not medically trained to diagnose that. It sounds like she likes to create a lot of unnecessary drama.

 

In regards to her new relationship, I definitely think it is a rebound.

 

You sound like a genuine guy, don't let her hold you back - you're just setting your foot in the door, so try focusing on your career, and your future.