6 years and 4 breakups

[NCLax85]

Soo sorry for a long post in advance.

 

Hello everyone, I’m having an extremely tough time in my situation right now. I figured it would be extremely therapeutic to create an account to help others, as well as myself, in the nasty situation I am in. I guess I’ll start off with a background of our relationship.

 

 

I am a male in my mid-twenties and I have been in an on and off relationship with my ex-girlfriend for nearly 6 years. In those 6 years I have literally broken up with her 3 or 4 times. I get to the point each time where I am so mentally drained and depressed that I simply lose all of the fight that I have in me and call it off. It takes us breaking up for it to sink into her head that she simply can’t act the way she does to me or any human being and lead a healthy relationship. She goes above and beyond every single time to convince me that she has changed, and I literally fall for it every time. The last time she got me back she literally fooled the heck out of me. She went to “Therapy”, “Church”, “Visited my family and gained their favor”, developed hobbies… the whole 9. She wanted to change so bad because she knew it was not healthy to be the way she was, and I even wound up paying for her therapy sessions on a weekly basis for 2 months. She simply just fell back into her old routine after a few weeks. It is devastating to know that I have hurt this person so many times; regardless of how justified I feel my actions may have been.

 

 

I’d love to start off with the good aspects of her. She is a completely loyal woman, that is honest, and would absolutely stand by me and have my back. I know she really does love me, but she honestly does not know how to show affection well or at all, so I sit around knowing it and never really experiencing it. She does share similar interests as I do, which has eroded over time unfortunately, but what woman would sit there and watch movies, pick up a controller and play some video games, go to the gym, and even sit through watching boxing with me. Unfortunately it got to the point where she began to lose interest in these things and I wound up cutting them out of my life as a result. She doesn’t make me go shopping my entire weekend like a couple of my exes did or anything of that nature. I can also say 100% that I know she would never betray me, or cheat, or anything along those lines. She is also a very attractive woman. She can be completely happy just sitting in, watching movies, and playing a few video games. She also isn’t the most materialistic either; she doesn’t expect expensive presents, a gigantic wedding, or a huge house either.

 

 

Unfortunately, my ex is an extremely insecure person and I have done everything in my power to make her feel like she is # 1 in my life. I was literally over her house every week night, all of Saturday, and half of Sunday at her house and half of Sunday at my house to spend time with her. She is also unfortunately a very negative and needy person, while I am a positive person that loves her company, but also has hobbies. Each time we break up, she takes such interest in everything I do and actually begins to participate in them with me. This slowly begins to fade and it soon once again becomes all about her life, her problems, her wanting more time with me, which slowly causes me to fade into a depression due to not having enough time for myself and her negativity sucking the life out of me. I felt like I was trying to successfully live two lives. All I have heard throughout our 6 years is how she “Can’t do something”, “How everything is always someone else’s fault”, “How bad her day was”, or “How she is not good enough to succeed at her job.” I have sacrificed all of my interests and joys that I have in life to help fix her life and to also be able to support myself as well…. I don’t know how I dealt with it for so long. By fix, I mean help her do her work for her own job on a nightly basis, be there for her to vent constantly, be there emotionally to show her that she can be whoever she wants to be in this life, take her wherever she wants to go, stupidly I even sacrificed time with my family to be with her…I have sacrificed to the point where I have given up all that makes me happy in order to be there for her, and it got to the point that I began drinking every day to numb my unhappiness and was prescribed anti-depressants soon after.

 

 

 

The main problem I have is I don’t mind giving everything I possibly can to the person I love; I just expect appreciation, love, and respect in return. I also don’t expect someone to be expectant of my help, just appreciative. She simply does not reciprocate. I can’t even get her to clean her living space and I have severe allergies to dust and her dog; this causes me to have allergic reactions nearly every time I went over her place. Her excuse to this is “Well if we had our own place I would clean it.”

 

I make sure I show her physical affection and emotional affection to let her know I love her on a daily basis, offer her encouragement on a regular basis, always reassure her how beautiful she is and how much she means to me etc…. But she rarely reciprocates and simply has more negativity and more to complain about. You can imagine how much of a conversation killer it may be at family dinner or out with friends when someone is always being negative, or how hard it is when I am sitting in rush-hour traffic after a long day at work to hear an hour’s worth of negativity every single day, only to see her for the few hours I have to myself and then hear more negativity and being surrounded by her negative family and mentally ill family member, which I love very dearly; I just became completely drained. I honestly feel that the reason she has all of these problems is because her parent was mentally ill growing up and no one was there to enforce any rules or morals. I have literally guided her through the last 6 years of her life and helped her through the most difficult times she has had.

 

 

She has been going through a tough 3 months with her new job, but I have literally not gotten an ounce of affection, appreciation, or respect. It feels like I was working 2 full time jobs + all of the taxing negativity. I have held her, kissed her, and told her how beautiful she was, while she literally did or said nothing back. She has been in arguments with my direct family members, she is disrespectful to her own family, and sometimes disrespectful to me with her comments in front of her own family and my family. She literally refused to have a piece of my own birthday cake in front of my entire family for no apparent reason and sat there with a puss on her face…... (A silly example, but things like this happen on a regular basis…. Rude comments, rude actions, and just being plain disrespectful sometimes. It got to the point where my family was uncomfortable being around her and was walking on egg shells). Her and my sister have not gotten along in 2 years and she constantly vocalizes negative things to me about her, which really troubles me. I am close with my family and she gets jealous, upset, and winds up saying something nasty.

 

 

About 6 months ago she began complaining (Not talking) about marriage and getting a place after not even being steady again for a year straight without breaking up. She would nag and bring it up on the regular, which began to frustrate me and I told her to cut it out if she really wants these things. I got to the point where I was seriously considering asking her to marry me because the good qualities she has are very important to me and I care very much for her. I asked her father for permission and began looking for rings. Meanwhile all she did was complain about how our relationship was “sht” because it wasn’t going anywhere, how things were so terrible, how I don’t want a future w/ her etc… no matter how much I assured her, it didn’t make a difference. She began pushing to buy a house or get a place and nearly did, but unfortunately we live in the 25th most expensive county in the US and we both recently got entry level college grab jobs. $1,500 a month just on rent simply was not doable at that point so I had to put my foot down and tell her if she expects an engagement, a marriage, and a house, this all needs to be saved for. After that day she would make extremely nasty comments every single day about how I don’t want to take our relationship to the next level, how I don’t care, etc… All while I literally had the engagement ring, and was waiting for the right time, which unfortunately never came. She complained, nagged, and was just plain nasty to the point where I lost all desire to even propose. Things degraded so much and I became so depressed and mentally drained that I eventually just ended it.

 

 

It is now 3 weeks later and I have nightmares about losing her forever, even though I made a conscious decision to end things. I have nightmares about her meeting another guy, I think about her positive qualities, I also get angry and think about the negative. This really is an emotional time for me and I am having trouble dealing with it. It is also worth mentioning that I was forced to see her last week because she lost her beagle and I went out looking for it at 2am and wound up finding the little guy and brought him back to her. Perhaps I wasn’t able to follow the NC rule, which is making this tough. I’m just afraid that I won’t find someone as loyal as she is and as honest. Someone that will share my interests etc… Someone that will stand by me……Although I wasn't strong enough to stand her abuse.

 

 

 

My biggest regret is simply not being a man and putting my foot down often enough to set boundaries. I like to approach things rationally. I just became too drained to even put up a fight. It seemed like nothing I did could change her actions so all I did was briefly talk to her about the problems, raise my voice once in a while, make comments etc… I never really put my foot down and gave ultimatums. Before she knew it, it was pretty much over. She always knows what she does wrong after the fact and this time she says she was just so wound up in wanting a future with me and was so stressed with work and that’s why things happened the way they did. I truly believe that she is sorry but am unsure if she has the capacity to change.

 

 

I am just completely confused and do not know where to turn. One part of me wants to just get an engagement ring and be that knight in shining armor that comes back into her life, the one that will set the boundaries and put his foot down when he has to, go to therapy with her if I have to and magically things will be better… but I’m not sure how realistic that is. Then there’s a part of me that asks, “What the heck did I even get out of this relationship besides pretty much losing my soul? There were times when I was absolutely miserable and drained”

 

 

 

I just really don't know where to go from here.

 

 

Honestly, thank you so much if you made it this far down. It means a whole lot! Thanks!!!

[Livin Lrge]

Soo sorry for a long post in advance.

 

Hello everyone, I’m having an extremely tough time in my situation right now. I figured it would be extremely therapeutic to create an account to help others, as well as myself, in the nasty situation I am in. I guess I’ll start off with a background of our relationship.

 

 

I am a male in my mid-twenties and I have been in an on and off relationship with my ex-girlfriend for nearly 6 years. In those 6 years I have literally broken up with her 3 or 4 times. I get to the point each time where I am so mentally drained and depressed that I simply lose all of the fight that I have in me and call it off. It takes us breaking up for it to sink into her head that she simply can’t act the way she does to me or any human being and lead a healthy relationship. She goes above and beyond every single time to convince me that she has changed, and I literally fall for it every time. The last time she got me back she literally fooled the heck out of me. She went to “Therapy”, “Church”, “Visited my family and gained their favor”, developed hobbies… the whole 9. She wanted to change so bad because she knew it was not healthy to be the way she was, and I even wound up paying for her therapy sessions on a weekly basis for 2 months. She simply just fell back into her old routine after a few weeks. It is devastating to know that I have hurt this person so many times; regardless of how justified I feel my actions may have been.

 

 

I’d love to start off with the good aspects of her. She is a completely loyal woman, that is honest, and would absolutely stand by me and have my back. I know she really does love me, but she honestly does not know how to show affection well or at all, so I sit around knowing it and never really experiencing it. She does share similar interests as I do, which has eroded over time unfortunately, but what woman would sit there and watch movies, pick up a controller and play some video games, go to the gym, and even sit through watching boxing with me. Unfortunately it got to the point where she began to lose interest in these things and I wound up cutting them out of my life as a result. She doesn’t make me go shopping my entire weekend like a couple of my exes did or anything of that nature. I can also say 100% that I know she would never betray me, or cheat, or anything along those lines. She is also a very attractive woman. She can be completely happy just sitting in, watching movies, and playing a few video games. She also isn’t the most materialistic either; she doesn’t expect expensive presents, a gigantic wedding, or a huge house either.

 

 

Unfortunately, my ex is an extremely insecure person and I have done everything in my power to make her feel like she is # 1 in my life. I was literally over her house every week night, all of Saturday, and half of Sunday at her house and half of Sunday at my house to spend time with her. She is also unfortunately a very negative and needy person, while I am a positive person that loves her company, but also has hobbies. Each time we break up, she takes such interest in everything I do and actually begins to participate in them with me. This slowly begins to fade and it soon once again becomes all about her life, her problems, her wanting more time with me, which slowly causes me to fade into a depression due to not having enough time for myself and her negativity sucking the life out of me. I felt like I was trying to successfully live two lives. All I have heard throughout our 6 years is how she “Can’t do something”, “How everything is always someone else’s fault”, “How bad her day was”, or “How she is not good enough to succeed at her job.” I have sacrificed all of my interests and joys that I have in life to help fix her life and to also be able to support myself as well…. I don’t know how I dealt with it for so long. By fix, I mean help her do her work for her own job on a nightly basis, be there for her to vent constantly, be there emotionally to show her that she can be whoever she wants to be in this life, take her wherever she wants to go, stupidly I even sacrificed time with my family to be with her…I have sacrificed to the point where I have given up all that makes me happy in order to be there for her, and it got to the point that I began drinking every day to numb my unhappiness and was prescribed anti-depressants soon after.

 

 

 

The main problem I have is I don’t mind giving everything I possibly can to the person I love; I just expect appreciation, love, and respect in return. I also don’t expect someone to be expectant of my help, just appreciative. She simply does not reciprocate. I can’t even get her to clean her living space and I have severe allergies to dust and her dog; this causes me to have allergic reactions nearly every time I went over her place. Her excuse to this is “Well if we had our own place I would clean it.”

 

I make sure I show her physical affection and emotional affection to let her know I love her on a daily basis, offer her encouragement on a regular basis, always reassure her how beautiful she is and how much she means to me etc…. But she rarely reciprocates and simply has more negativity and more to complain about. You can imagine how much of a conversation killer it may be at family dinner or out with friends when someone is always being negative, or how hard it is when I am sitting in rush-hour traffic after a long day at work to hear an hour’s worth of negativity every single day, only to see her for the few hours I have to myself and then hear more negativity and being surrounded by her negative family and mentally ill family member, which I love very dearly; I just became completely drained. I honestly feel that the reason she has all of these problems is because her parent was mentally ill growing up and no one was there to enforce any rules or morals. I have literally guided her through the last 6 years of her life and helped her through the most difficult times she has had.

 

 

She has been going through a tough 3 months with her new job, but I have literally not gotten an ounce of affection, appreciation, or respect. It feels like I was working 2 full time jobs + all of the taxing negativity. I have held her, kissed her, and told her how beautiful she was, while she literally did or said nothing back. She has been in arguments with my direct family members, she is disrespectful to her own family, and sometimes disrespectful to me with her comments in front of her own family and my family. She literally refused to have a piece of my own birthday cake in front of my entire family for no apparent reason and sat there with a puss on her face…... (A silly example, but things like this happen on a regular basis…. Rude comments, rude actions, and just being plain disrespectful sometimes. It got to the point where my family was uncomfortable being around her and was walking on egg shells). Her and my sister have not gotten along in 2 years and she constantly vocalizes negative things to me about her, which really troubles me. I am close with my family and she gets jealous, upset, and winds up saying something nasty.

 

 

About 6 months ago she began complaining (Not talking) about marriage and getting a place after not even being steady again for a year straight without breaking up. She would nag and bring it up on the regular, which began to frustrate me and I told her to cut it out if she really wants these things. I got to the point where I was seriously considering asking her to marry me because the good qualities she has are very important to me and I care very much for her. I asked her father for permission and began looking for rings. Meanwhile all she did was complain about how our relationship was “sht” because it wasn’t going anywhere, how things were so terrible, how I don’t want a future w/ her etc… no matter how much I assured her, it didn’t make a difference. She began pushing to buy a house or get a place and nearly did, but unfortunately we live in the 25th most expensive county in the US and we both recently got entry level college grab jobs. $1,500 a month just on rent simply was not doable at that point so I had to put my foot down and tell her if she expects an engagement, a marriage, and a house, this all needs to be saved for. After that day she would make extremely nasty comments every single day about how I don’t want to take our relationship to the next level, how I don’t care, etc… All while I literally had the engagement ring, and was waiting for the right time, which unfortunately never came. She complained, nagged, and was just plain nasty to the point where I lost all desire to even propose. Things degraded so much and I became so depressed and mentally drained that I eventually just ended it.

 

 

It is now 3 weeks later and I have nightmares about losing her forever, even though I made a conscious decision to end things. I have nightmares about her meeting another guy, I think about her positive qualities, I also get angry and think about the negative. This really is an emotional time for me and I am having trouble dealing with it. It is also worth mentioning that I was forced to see her last week because she lost her beagle and I went out looking for it at 2am and wound up finding the little guy and brought him back to her. Perhaps I wasn’t able to follow the NC rule, which is making this tough. I’m just afraid that I won’t find someone as loyal as she is and as honest. Someone that will share my interests etc… Someone that will stand by me……Although I wasn't strong enough to stand her abuse.

 

 

 

My biggest regret is simply not being a man and putting my foot down often enough to set boundaries. I like to approach things rationally. I just became too drained to even put up a fight. It seemed like nothing I did could change her actions so all I did was briefly talk to her about the problems, raise my voice once in a while, make comments etc… I never really put my foot down and gave ultimatums. Before she knew it, it was pretty much over. She always knows what she does wrong after the fact and this time she says she was just so wound up in wanting a future with me and was so stressed with work and that’s why things happened the way they did. I truly believe that she is sorry but am unsure if she has the capacity to change.

 

 

I am just completely confused and do not know where to turn. One part of me wants to just get an engagement ring and be that knight in shining armor that comes back into her life, the one that will set the boundaries and put his foot down when he has to, go to therapy with her if I have to and magically things will be better… but I’m not sure how realistic that is. Then there’s a part of me that asks, “What the heck did I even get out of this relationship besides pretty much losing my soul? There were times when I was absolutely miserable and drained”

 

 

 

I just really don't know where to go from here.

 

 

Honestly, thank you so much if you made it this far down. It means a whole lot! Thanks!!!

 

 

 

 

Hi Mate,

reading you story is near identical to mine,

I hear were you're coming from......

I've been broken up for the 6 times in three years, its been three weeks since I broke off the relationship as I too have had enough of not receiving her affection and the constant negative talk from her has just drained me...

 

We both shouldn't need to be the ones who feel we need to help these people because as you know they try to change but after a few weeks they change into what is really themselves again.

Two options

one: continue being in this relationship and continue the roller coaster ride of joy and heart break and what ever else comes with it...

Two: make the break now and take what you know now and avoid the same type of person in time to come..... this is a life lesson so your six years haven't been a waste.

 

I'm running with option two and I'm going to stick with it as much as it hurts cause this chick of mine was a smoking hot 10 and I can't stand the thought of her with another person.... but its call a break up for a reason so these are the things we are going to have to deal with....

 

stay strong and keep NC

 

Livin Lrge

[NCLax85]

Thanks a lot for reading through the monsterous post. It helps to know another person is enduring a similar situation. The toughest part is feeling like I could have done more to prevent it by standing my ground and maybe even gone to couples counseling.. I guess I may be stubborn... In troubles me not to be able to make this work... Hard to feel like I didn't tale the easy way out.

[ChelseaLS]

Thanks a lot for reading through the monsterous post. It helps to know another person is enduring a similar situation. The toughest part is feeling like I could have done more to prevent it by standing my ground and maybe even gone to couples counseling.. I guess I may be stubborn... In troubles me not to be able to make this work... Hard to feel like I didn't tale the easy way out.

 

Much like you ex (but not to that extent), I was and still am (but working on it) a very insecure person when it came to trusting my current ex. I was cheated on perviously and ever since then I have had no trust. My current ex (like yourself) would always try to reassure me that he would never treat me like that. It was just so incredibily hard to believe... I know that may not make sense to some.

 

I have been dealing with this and trying to fully trust again for years... it's not an easy thing to break. So in a very small way I understand how your ex is struggling with the insecurity aspect of it.

 

I understand your desire to swoop in as a knight and shinning armor and marry this girl because you love her, but nothing will change if you do.

Would she be open to continued councelling? If so I would ask her if perhaps you guys could stay apart for now, she continue councelling and then slowly get back into your relationship... but continue the councelling. It's not going to be remedied or even managable in 2 months time. It's going to take continued effort. There are places I know in my city where they offer free or low cost councelling. Plus many churches offer it as well. Could she be manic or bipolar?

 

This breaks my heart because you clearly love her.

[NCLax85]

Much like you ex (but not to that extent), I was and still am (but working on it) a very insecure person when it came to trusting my current ex. I was cheated on perviously and ever since then I have had no trust. My current ex (like yourself) would always try to reassure me that he would never treat me like that. It was just so incredibily hard to believe... I know that may not make sense to some.

 

I have been dealing with this and trying to fully trust again for years... it's not an easy thing to break. So in a very small way I understand how your ex is struggling with the insecurity aspect of it.

 

I understand your desire to swoop in as a knight and shinning armor and marry this girl because you love her, but nothing will change if you do.

Would she be open to continued councelling? If so I would ask her if perhaps you guys could stay apart for now, she continue councelling and then slowly get back into your relationship... but continue the councelling. It's not going to be remedied or even managable in 2 months time. It's going to take continued effort. There are places I know in my city where they offer free or low cost councelling. Plus many churches it as well. Could she be manic or bipolar?

 

This breaks my heart because you clearly love her.

 

Thank you so much for your response. Well I know one of her ill parents is manic and or bipolar, along with a couple other disorders. I don't believe she is though, since she doesn't really get those highs... I truly feel that she is the way she is because she was so damaged growing up and was not taught any other way with her parent being sick. I think she just has problems associated with her environment.. I guess she feels like the way things are at home are normal or healthy, but common sense things to me like respect, being sincere, appreciation, etc do not come naturally to her. After things get to this point she breaks down and tells me everything I mean to her etc... But not during the relationship... I know she sincerely feels this way for me, but it is never shown and I simply feel walked on and abused. PS, apologies for the grammar. Posting on my phone. Yes, at this point she would be willing to go to counselling, but I doubt she would stick to it.

Edited November 22, 2011 by NCLax85