Bearski Posted October 29, 2015 Posted October 29, 2015 Hi everyone, this is my first post, and I think I should share my experience with you, hoping that you won't get fooled like I did. First of all, as I am French, my English may not be perfect through the whole text, sorry for that. So, I dated this girl for a year and a half, until we broke up two years ago. I am 19, so I was 15 when we got together and a little more than 16 when we ended our relationship, and I had a lot of trouble to cope with it until I finally achieved something valuable that gave me a little self-confidence a few months ago. I met her at a group piano course, we talked a bit and found out we were in the same high school, and that she was one year older than me. Very soon we started chatting on facebook, texting, and sometimes meeting at school, although we were both very shy. I was really not sure whether I should date this girl at the time, because a "friend" of mine kept telling me it wasn't good for me. I found out later that he was jealous of the fact that she liked me instead of him. Also, she had a boyfriend, and she dumped him for me, which was really awkward because this guy started to talk sh*t about me in my back at school, and I was very upset about it. Anyway, after six complicated months, I texted her a long message telling that I liked her, and we ended up together. During the first months, the both of us kept being shy. We tried to have sex but we weren't ready and it was a terrible experience. That's not really the point of this thread, but I think it played a role at some point in the deterioration of our relationship. I'm not sure though... In France, when you enter in the second year of high school (out of three), you choose your specialization, and I chose economics and social science. It's really a big deal, because it determines your diploma, your main subject in college, and in some cases your future job. And most of those who choose (S) sciences tend to despise those who chose litterature (L), economics and social science (ES) and others. So yeah, when we got back to school in september, she was in the last year of high school, preparing the "bac S", which is the diploma that pupils who chose to study maths, physics, chemistry, and biology as main topics aspire to get, in order to study medicine, engineering, and all that stuff. To sum up, she started to despise me because she wanted to study medicine and I wanted to study political science, law, economics, history, etc. (that's what I actually do today), and also because I was younger than her, she suddenly felt that I couldn't understand her anymore. Things got really weird at this point. I mean, I tried really hard to be nice to her friends, to adapt to her demanding schedule (the bac S is considered to the hardest to get, it's like a higher level SAT, so students work a lot more to get it). I was really shy and she couldn't understand that anymore. Even though we had a lot in common, like our love for music, piano, and art in general, we couldn't get along anymore. She started to make me feel bad, but not on purpose, at least not at this point. I really felt like I disappointed her, I was being a bad boyfriend, unable to thoroughly understand her complex thought from what she assumed was my low level of intelligence. She wouldn't talk to me for hours, even days, and made me feel really guilty for a lot of things that didn't even happen. For example, I once told her that I liked metal music, and that she should give it a try because I really wanted to show her to my universe. And out of nowhere, she thought that I was implying that she was close-minded, so she got really mad and stopped talking to me. There also was this time where I told her I would like to study in a specific college in France, and because she didn't understand why I could possibly have liked to study in another city than Paris, Lille or Amiens, she told me I was self-centered, that I didn't care about her, and all that BS... And at the time I really believed in what she said, so I felt truly guilty about my behaviour regarding my girlfriend, although I had never thought about it from my personal point of view. But wait, there's more. At some point, she started to talk to me about hurting herself, about depression, scarification, and eventually suicide. And at this point I already had started to love her, even though she had been giving me a real hard time. And of course, I thought it was my fault, because I got used to think as a guilty person. At this point of my story, you should be thinking that it was completely dumb from me to think this way. But I thought it was logical. I really got scared for her life, my parents got really worried about me, my friends kept telling me to dump her, but I didn't want to. I once called her mother on the house phone number on a tuesday at midnight because she was texting me about suicide and scarification and fell asleep during the conversation after sending me "I love you". When that happened, it didn't make sense that she could have fallen asleep, I immediately got more worried than I had ever been for someone's life. Our relationship went on for a year, though it was unstable (we broke up a couple times before getting back together), and caused me to suffer a lot from guilt and insults. I wouldn't understand why she had not broken up with me yet. So I talked to a lot of people about it : my friends, her friends, my family, people I didn't even know that much but who where in a relationship and who could give me some advices, people on the internet who had similar stories... But I never had the balls to definitely break up. I dumped her once and immediately regreted it, so we went back together the next day. I knew very well I couldn't keep on dating her, because it had a real impact on my life : I was losing friends, my grades at school were getting worse, I was terribly anxious and lost a lot of self-confidence, I felt bad about practicing my favorite hobbies and stopped doing it, etc. I was completely under her influence and knew I just had to dump her to feel better and live my life again, but I couldn't. When you are a teen, you act like you know everything in advance, and I couldn't imagine living without my terrible girlfriend that made me feel like crap all the time. When she obtained her diploma and got into medicine school, she moved to another city, and I didn't see her for months. She broke up with me, and maybe it was because I had not seen her for a long time or because I had to deal with getting my bac ES, but I didn't feel that bad. We talked a little bit again after breaking up, but she was being really sweet. I never saw her again, the last time I heard from her was a year ago. She had left me for some other guy, just as she had left her former boyfriend for me. She told me she wanted to feel like a woman, because she wanted to attract someone. So here is my advice : if you are in a situation in which your boyfriend/girlfriend/other is being a bully to you, if he/she makes you feel bad, guilty, insults you, smothers you, doesn't care about your feelings, tells you you're worthless, doesn't want to show people he or she likes you, then you have nothing to do with him or her. It sounds dumb when you hear that, and I know that you think he or she can change, that it's only a phase, that it can only be your fault and you just have to be a better person, but that's not true. It doesn't get better just like that. If you are in a relationship that makes you sad or makes you feel guilty all the time, maybe you should really consider breaking up. A break up is one of the sh*ttiest moments of your life, you will feel terrible, worthless, but at least you will stop living your life as if it depended on what the other thinks of you and tells you how to behave. I was really sad when I finally realized I would never date her anymore. It took me two damn years to eventually think it was not my fault. I dated some other girls, but it didn't work, because I used to think that a relationship worked in the way that this girl taught me through guilt and symbolic violence. If the other one talks to you about suicide, depression, scarification, it is never your fault. You cannot just dump them like that, but if they are not healthy to you, you can't help them. Be a friend to them, and if they refuse your help or your love and tell you it's your fault that they want to stop living, you have nothing to do with them. It is never your fault if your boyfriend or girlfriend talks about suicide or being depressed. Don't stay with people who hurt you. The longer you stay with them, the harder it will be to go back to normal and to eventually feel better about yourself. If one of your friends is in this situation, please tell him or her that he or she has nothing to do with the other person. Sorry for being so long and cheesy. If someone wants to talk about a similar experience I'd be very glad to try to help you make up your mind. Thanks for reading, Bearski
Downtown Posted October 29, 2015 Posted October 29, 2015 She started to despise me.... She started to talk to me about hurting herself, about depression, scarification, and eventually suicide.Bearski, welcome to the LoveShack forum. Are you saying that your exGF did self harming, e.g., arm or leg cutting or burning? I ask because cutting and other forms of self harm are strongly associated with a well known personality disorder that my exW suffers from.
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