We have broken up for half a year now. One minute I hope she realizes how much of an idiot she was for treating me the way she did, the next I wish to rewind the clock to the beginning, vibrant part of our relationship.
I hated the way she prioritized her friends over me. The entitlement from me paying all the bills to taking care of all the chores while sacrificing my time and energy for her baking business. Princess tantrums were something I didn’t know how to handle. It’s impossible to find the balance between hostility and not allowing her to step over me. Our fights were so violent that there was poured soda, doors with punched-in holes, broken car keys, thrown out belongings, to a point where Airbnb guests at our house complained about crying and banging noises.
Yet, there were so many irreplaceable memories. Something as simple as an insight joke or her cleaning my ear or her pretending to be a bear and climbing on me, the tree, are ordinary yet extraordinary moments of intimacy. Even if I find someone else in the future, the way we communicate won’t quite be the same. She had an unbelievable child-like nature that heals people the way pets do. As a Sagittarius, she always lit up a room. For a moody introvert, I badly missed the sunshine she brought into my life.
Then, there’s also the guilt of “what have I done to her.” As just a 19-year-old at the time, she moved to California from New York to be with me, leaving her family, friends, and school. I don’t know if there’s ever been a louder scream of love and sacrifice than someone giving up and changing their entire life just to have you in their life.
When I remind myself of this, all the negative feelings I had towards her quickly faded into self-blame, for I was the one that turned her into the self-centered monster she became. It was me who returned her affection with coldness and judgment. Every time she gave me her heart, my self-absorption prevented me from caring.
She stayed up for a few nights building a toy house for my birthday. Inside was a cute little couple, a dog, a pair of ducks, a cozy portrayal of what she saw in our future. But all I did after receiving it was let out a “wow” with minimum enthusiasm. When this is by far the best gift I’ve ever received in my life, a gift that came 100% from the heart.
In one of our fights, she threw the house into the trash barrel, a sign of the love she once had for me shattered. I can’t blame her. Despite all I had done for her, I wasn’t a qualified boyfriend overall. Too many times I criticized her when I should’ve been supportive, like her decision to return to college. I told her to quit because she wasn’t “school material,” and that she should pursue her own business. As an insensitive person, I never wasted a chance of making her feel bad about herself. The thing is, I was 7–8 years older, I should have stepped up my responsibility as a man and showed more patience and leniency to a little girl who just graduated high school.
The most painful part of her leaving was knowing that she had to go from living comfortably in her own home with a boyfriend to renting a room somewhere with strangers. She has no family here. I was the only one she knew when she first arrived; I promised to take care of this little girl. Now it’s also me who kicked her out. Every time I wonder how her current living situation is, a picture of her being stuck in some old, crowded LA homes flashes through my mind. She’s unemployed, how will she make rent?
That’s why I offered to help her whenever and for whatever. Somebody recently crashed into her car, and she reached out to me for help. This’s the type of horror I was concerned about — her not being able to survive on her own.
I still feel I owe her. Not by a ton, but enough to make me want to reverse time and be a bigger man for her.
One of our biggest problems was that I didn’t feel there was fairness in the relationship because she expected me to give 100% while she only gave 50%. Her friends were all coddled by their husbands and boyfriends, and that heavily influenced her belief of how a girl should be treated by their partners. I resented that. Thinking back now, her unreasonable level of expectation stemmed from her dissatisfaction with our relationship. I had been too inconsiderate for way too long.
Put it this way, she put in $10,000 investment in me every month to only receive a 2% return. After a while, she became tired of giving and headed in the opposite direction. This’s the other root of my guilt — most of the problems started with me.
Another sin of mine is destroying a young girl’s innocent view towards love and losing trust in future relationships. Yes, the asshole boyfriend that broke her heart and turned her unfiltered affection to stone? I’m that guy now. I’m ashamed for ruining such a cheerful soul and scratching markers all over this blanket sheet of paper. She wasn’t the same happy-go-lucky girl I met after settling down with me; my melancholy energy seeped into her over time, and it makes me cringe.
Today, we spoke about when she was coming over to pick up her copy of the divorce documents. Difficult to please as always. Her obnoxious attitude initially agitated me. However, I’ve learned to revisit the better parts of her and our relationship. She gave me some of the most valuable experiences I’ve ever had, and I’ll never forget that.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Vino Li on Unsplash