and I guess I just hope someone can give me a sanity check. It just is a weird feeling, not quite grief, not quite shock, and not quite a mix of anger, happiness and fear. Maybe someone can help me understand, idk.
We had been together for over 8 years, and for 2 of them at this point I had given up on our relationship, just as they had given up on life. We had made a gamble that just didn’t work out: I went back to school in 2021 for my bachelors in comp sci, and had a 2 year plan to graduate, hoping to get one of those 6 figure entry level jobs. Instead I finished Summa Cum Laude in 2 ½ years, and got a $55,000/yr job 2000 miles away with $60,000 in student loan debt. Not that the distance mattered, we both hated where we lived and needed the change. But the dream job remained a dream; we had to deal with reality. And they were burnt out, which I get. But I was too, and that didn’t mean I could stop. For them, though, it meant not wanting to work, not wanting to do anything but smoke weed and play videogames. And that meant I had to work hard enough for the both of us, to make both our bills. And I hated it. I still have anxiety around work and bills from it, and will be on anxiety meds and bp meds for the rest of my life for it.
Eventually I had to put my foot down: They needed a job, or we were going to be homeless. I couldn’t hold it all down alone anymore. And at first it was stressful for them. I know that. I tried my best to be supportive. But then they got a job, and, if they weren’t at work, they were smoking weed and playing videogames or doomscrolling. Same as always. And if I needed anything else, it was a fight. I know the dream job never came, and I know that let them down. But it didn’t come, and we needed to deal with the reality of the situation. Dreams don’t mean shit when rent’s due.
To help with the bills we moved to a cheaper apartment. Turned out it was infested with roaches. We fought for months to solve the issue, but the property changed owners 3 times in as many months. Not that the dynamic changed: Work, home, separate rooms while they smoked and I just, idk. Found my own stuff to do. We bought new furniture hoping to reinvest in us; it didn’t work. At this point I was developing even worse anxiety, having to still manage our money. They ate out at work all week, still had hundreds of dollars a week for weed, while I was planning all our meals weeks out so I could cook for us affordably. God I hated them for it. Eventually family paid for us to go on vacation, and it was a welcome break. And then I got sick on the way home.
I guess I didn’t know that this would be the straw that broke my back, and the anniversary I have feelings about today. I had the flu, and then bronchitis, and then walking pneumonia. They came home on a Friday, and I was in retrospect passing out from lack of oxygen and forgot to water the cats. I stood up to go to the kitchen to do it, and I just froze. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. It felt like I stood there for minutes. They looked up from bed, still smoking weed, still doomscrolling since getting home from work, and asked me if I needed help. I couldn’t reply. They came up to me and grabbed me. I weakly got out I was going to fall and pass out. They got me a chair. And then I’ll never forget, they walked away. They grabbed the water dish, filled it, and left me there, going right back to just smoking and doomscrolling. No hospital, no looking back, nothing. And that just, it broke something in me. I finally got the strength to get their attention. To get them to at least get me to the bathroom to get some steam hoping to loosen my phlegm. To get them to grab my phone for me. I gathered my thoughts enough to text them asking them to take me to the hospital. Nothing. So I called, just wanting any attention. They answered and saw my text, and then finally came to help. They brought me some clothes and got me downstairs to the car, where I passed out. I came to with them lost on the way to the hospital, and managed to point them the right way before passing out again. Next thing I’m in a wheelchair getting into the ER. I got treated, got a bunch of meds and care, and then released after a few hours. And I just gave up on us.
I wish I could say I left then and there. I didn’t. We were too integrated, had been here too many times before. I thought I could work through it. I couldn’t. Our newest landlord agreed to let us out of our lease, and so we jumped at it and moved within a couple weeks of the hospitalization. And just like every move before, it was on me to figure out and do. I was still sick, still on antibiotics and steroids, and still had to work my fulltime job while also packing us up, moving us, and handling our bills and food. I remember I was so happy the one day they offered to help. I remember all the complaints. I remember just blurting out that i had had a good day until they came home. I remember taking them to work every morning, then packing boxes to move that afternoon, then going to work for the day, then picking them up, only needing help getting them downstairs and in the car, and every time it being a fight. All I wanted was help. All I needed was help. And I had to do it alone anyways. Out one house, into another, and unpacking by myself. And then when we were finally moved, it just kept up. Work, home, weed and doom scrolling until 8, then asking me where dinner was. I finally just went home to see my family by myself, and I realized it was done. I was done.
Things just got weird after that. I came home and told them. I moved onto the couch. We tried couples therapy for a couple sessions, but after they tried to gaslight me that “they couldn’t trust me to stay around” and “felt like they were single” in the first session, it was over. I was just sticking with it out of obligation at that point. We agreed to be friends and navigate separating together. That kept up right until I got sent to the hospital for high blood pressure, well over 200/130. And I’ll never forget again, getting home by myself at 7 something at night from the hospital only for them to ask back to back “How are you feeling? What’s for dinner?” Now THAT was a fight. After that I told them I was done cooking for them. I think there was one time months later I fried some tortillas and gave them one; that’s the only time I made anything for them since. They eventually moved out, kept a spare key to visit our cat, and gave that back a month later. I asked for it, and they said they meant to leave it earlier. It was mutual.
Now I’m here, essentially a year later. 362 days and counting. This relationship, this stone I thought I could never change, is just gone. Its like an anniversary of a car accident - a year ago things were untenable but stable, and then one small accident changed everything. Things are still hard; I’ve been able to channel the effort it took to be their partner into a second job to make up for the lost extra income. I’m moving in 3 months finally out of this 2 bedroom apartment we got. I’m almost done refurnishing my apartment after giving them everything. I still feel some kind of way that they moved half way across the US for me, only for us to break up. I also feel like of they wanted to actually protect that investment they would have done so. I still genuinely want to be their friend. They still won’t talk to me. And I just have feelings. I’m still mad over everything. I still wish them well. I still would rather lick a transformer than rekindle anything. But I wish them well. And I’m still in shock that everything changed so quickly. It’s a lot. Kitty because I love them. Thank you if you made it this far.
Much love to you random internet stranger. Relationships are hard and it sounds like you tried your absolute best. The ending was not your fault.
Stay strong and keep working on yourself! You got this!
“Work, Weed, Videogames”
That was me on my way into a psychiatric crisis from which i still work to recover nearly 2 decades later - got diagnosed with a personality disorder (which caused me to become self-abusive, denying that i couldn’t keep up with my life long-term) and recurring major depression. But even in this state i was always looking out for my partner and taking care of my financial obligations - i would never have reacted that way if they were sick, i care too much for the people around me.
After about half a year of psychiatric treatment including a 3 month inpatient rehabilitation stay i was the one leaving because the relationship had suffered too much to recover and i knew i could never again be the person they knew me as before.
The way your partner behaved screams “mentally overloaded to the point of being unable to act” - I know i was. But that was neither your responsibility nor your fault. They should have tried to get help instead of self-medicating with weed. And nothing excuses their behavior when you fell sick. The way you describe it only leaves 2 options - either they lack empathy as a whole (Edit: i don’t think that is the answer or you wouldn’t have considered them as a partner after all) or they were so dissociated that they did not even really realize something was wrong (a lot more likely).
Just wanted to let you know that this whole situation wasn’t your fault from someone who was on the other side of a similar situation.
Edit: This might also be why they do not want to have contact - the overload wont just disappear, and there’s probably a mountain of shame on top of it.
I agree. I don’t think they meant it maliciously, just that they did not want to engage with it. But I was tired of being the person who picked up the stuff they didn’t want to engage with. Especially when I couldn’t but had to anyways. And it leaves me still angry on some level. To this day I look back on, idk. The times they did that before. After moving it became life, but, there were times before where they just, idk. Would, idk if I’d say dissociate, although I can see now that it may have been a part of it. Times where the consequences of their actions seemed nonexistent to them, or rather, that so long as they didn’t have to deal with the consequences of their actions then all would be OK. Like, not to put them on blast, but they used to drink. And I know they regretted the things they did while drunk. But their priority was always “get forgiveness first, because I can’t live with anyone being mad at me; after that I’ll change.” And that second step just rarely came, if ever.
Like, the blood pressure night. We fought for hours before they just hid in their room, crying, then smoking, and then they came out to apologize. I didn’t care. I couldn’t. But after I went to bed, they knocked on the door to the living room. They said they were scared that I was going to die. They said they knew they couldn’t touch me, but wanted to ask if they could just see me and know I was OK. I said no. They said “just for a week. I’m having panic attacks. Afterwards I’ll leave you be.” I was tired. I had been in the hospital all day. And I just didn’t want to fight anymore. So I said yes. Cue they would check on me in my sleep for a week. And I was so tired, I was tired of being woken up at night when I needed sleep because I still had work to go to. And I hated it.
Why I didn’t rescind my consent is my own issue to work through, but, their issue in my perspective? They just wanted me to say everything was OK. That I didn’t hate them. Because, in my mind, it was always more important to them that they got forgiveness than that someone actually gave it willingly. And it’s on me: For years I had forgiven this or that, not because I was over it but because I wanted peace. I believed they would change and so even if I was still mad about something I could let it go. And I was wrong. But also, like that view point I just don’t get. If I wrong you, I’m sorry, whether you forgive me or not. And if you do, then great. And if you can’t, or won’t, it’s my loss, but it’s a deserved one. I can live with that. But, to me, they couldn’t in the same position. And by the end it just made it all feel pointless, and it made me bitter.
Damn, that sounds so familiar with what happened in my last relationship (the one i left was the one before that - she was always partying, and i simply couldn’t do that anymore).
I absolutely understand your anger about always being the one picking up the slack. I was also guilty of this behavior - absolutely basic things like feeding the cats or doing the dishes were things that cost me more energy than i had available on some days, and bigger projects could take months to start or were never started to begin with. The only thing i can offer here is that it hurt a lot being unable to pull my own weight, but that is not much of a consolation for you (neither was it for her).
My partner also had a few health scares, but i was there for her in these times, caring for her to the best of my ability. But at that point i had been in psychiatric care and psychotherapy for years, and i had dropped the booze and the weed for nearly a decade. I don’t know how i would have reacted if i had been unmedicated, stoned or drunk, and without working on myself at that point.
I am someone who couldn’t live with anyone being mad at me (and often imagined or interpreted that people are mad at me even if they were not), it gnawed and gnashed at me for days, weeks, months, and it often lead to me retreating completely. I also sucked a lot at getting feedback if not prepared beforehand - everything was perceived as a personal attack, because i saw my errors not as something everyone has and can work on it, but an inherent flaw of my personality. (Telling me that i would get some feedback before i got it helped me a lot to step back mentally and accept it a lot better, but that is pretty cumbersome in a relationship)
It’s not that i didn’t have the drive to change (and i tried so often, and even succeeded sometimes, because she really meant so very much to me and i am stubborn - too little too late), but i simply lacked the ability to enact meaningful change at an acceptable pace, and i saw that she suffered for it. She left me, but i wholeheartedly agreed that it would be better for us both - I actually offered that years beforehand because i saw that i wasn’t good for her, but she loved me too much to accept that at the time. I should have left sooner, but the fear of being alone was overwhelming (I actually live alone now for the first time in my life - i always was either living with my family, roommates or my partners)
It took me about a decade of psychotherapy to get to a place where i was able to enact small changes, accept feedback when prepared and not tilt completely when someone was unhappy with me, and it prepared me well for living on my own. Funnily enough, the divorce was one of the most positive things that could have happened to me; living on my own terms and only having the amount of social contact and responsibilities that i myself define as ok finally got me out of the permanent mental overload i was experiencing, and the last few months are the first time in my life where i am actually able to start caring for myself and to change things i always wanted to change on my own.
Look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant_personality_disorder (this is not Avoidant attachment style). Your ex-partners behavior rings so many bells that i’d say there’s a good chance he has this or a similar issue in the same disorder cluster. This isn’t something anyone could ever completely fix - prognosis is absolutely abysmal, and that is for the ones like me that actually pursue treatment and don’t self-medicate with drugs. And there are many of my kind out there - but we are a very silent, invisible part of the population, rarely seeking treatment because of a utter lack of self-worth, and also aren’t a research priority - why invest into fixing someone who doesn’t make problems outside of his own personal relationships?
Just as my ex-wife you tried harder than you should have and stayed longer than was good for you, not because you shouldn’t have tried, but because the issue behind it wasn’t something that can be fixed by a loving partner. Any partner with a “normal” problem would have benefited from your dedication and help, and I hope you keep that part of you alive for future relationships, while protecting yourself better. Don’t be too bitter about the experience. You learned a lot about what you can and cannot accept in a relationship, and that letting things slide for the sake of peace isn’t a good thing if it becomes a regular occurrence.
You did the best you could and the best you knew how to do. You shouldn’t be mad at yourself, you tried. Maybe you can dissect your behavior and ask yourself if there would have been a better strategy, but it’s okay if you feel that’s a moot point. It might help with the anger. From your depiction, your ex-partner could seem depressed, was that an element of discussion?
In general, relationships can fail, and that’s not a moral judgement.
I know, all judgements of your relationship are made based on the last two ‘bad’ years, not the 6 good(?) years before that.
But this reads to me like you blame yourself for the loss of this relationship, the loss of those 6 good years and all the hurt that the last two caused to everyone involved.
And, I see where you’re coming from. If you hadn’t gone back to school to get that dream job that never materialized, they wouldn’t have needed to move across the US. If you weren’t hospitalized, you never would have been this betrayed (twice). If you hadn’t broken up, but gathered the strength to continue, it could have still worked out. If you had made more money, you wouldn’t have forced them to get a job and they could live their promised dream life. And if you saw the signs immediately, you could have saved both of you two years of your lives.
But, I think, even though there might lie some responsibility for this with you, you should blame your partner for their part in this. After all, doesn’t a relationship consist of two people? Don’t they, too, have agency in this relationship?
You wrote, that you both were burned out, but only you pulled through. What did your partner do? “Smoke weed, play videogames and doom scroll”
Is that the behaviour you should expect from a partner? What kept them from going to therapy? Why did you have to put your foot down? Shouldn’t they also have wanted what’s best for you?
“I remember I was so happy the one day they offered to help. I remember all the complaints. I remember just blurting out that i had had a good day until they came home.”
Does this sound like a healthy relationship with two partners supporting each other to you? Or more like a dysfunctional one? One where one partner has left the partner role and transformed the relationship into a parent-child relationship? Or maybe one, where one partner was already mentally checked out, but too much of a coward to end it?
And if you want to blame yourself for going back to school, sure. But, you wrote yourself: “We had made a gamble that just didn’t work out”. So it was as much their gamble for a better life as it was yours. Your partner (I assume) was onboard with the gamble, so they get to share some of the blame, too.
So, use those questions to reflect and potentially reassign the blame. Because blame that is assigned to no one, is assigned to yourself. And per Sigmund Freud “Depression is anger [blame] directed against the self”
So, be mad. Let the anger flow through you. Whish your partner to experience whatever your anger comes up with. Whish them to grow up and regret how they treated you. And, in your anger, you might find the answer, why you are “still mad over everything”, “don’t want to rekindle anything”, but still would’ve “wanted to be their friend”.
I mean it’s just, despite it all, through it all, our friendship never wavered. Sex? Gone for years. Romance? God, I’d hazard to say longer. Trust? The hospital thing really broke it in me. For months all I could think was “I’m old enough to advocate for myself and figure things out; what if it wasn’t me that was sick though? What if we had a kid?” But friendship? We’ve always had a rock-solid friendship. I left because I needed a relationship built on all four things and more, not because I wanted to throw that friendship away.
Maybe I just naïvely thought I could have my cake and eat it too. And I can see why I thought that: Even if I was the one who ended everything, I blame them for having to do it. I blame them, and I feel like, regardless of the issues I brought into the relationship, I didn’t get a choice. I said from day one, “I can’t forgive you for this, but I can forget. I’m leaving because it’s the only way I can move past this.” I still consider them family, and still have all the love and concern therein. I need to mourn that, I guess.
May I ask, because that concept is foreign to me: What do you consider a friendship, if trust is not part of that?
I, personally, would expect almost all people to handle the hospital situation(s) better. After all, simply doomscrolling in the same room would have been enough in the first situation.
And, shouldn’t good relationships feel like having your cake and eating it, too? Like forming a team, not having a very good roommate with benefits.
You know, I had to bring this up with my therapist today. Thank you for that insightful question. Like I want to hop to, like it’s normal to have friendships that are built on various levels of trust. I’ve got a friend at work, for example, that is married; I’m not interested in meeting their partner, I’ll probably never be interested in meeting their partner, it’s just good jokes for a few minutes at the water cooler and I’m happy. My best friend though, completely different relationship. I wouldn’t trust work-friend with this story, but bff has been there through everything. But I have to admit, the hospital thing, that’s a bitter pill to swallow, because that’s a level of trust I think you would expect from even a stranger. If I had any sour grapes at not having a friendship, it would be the loss of family? I miss their parents. My family misses them. And while I’ve always said to my loved ones “they’re (my partner is) family, even if we’re not together they were in your wedding party, they were there for the birth of so and so, the passing of so and so, etc.” But that’s not how things turned out. And I had no choice in that, and that makes me sour.
That makes sense, you might just have a lower bar for friendship. A sort of immediate jump to calling it a friendship, skipping or just having a narrow acquaintance stage.
It sounds like most of the pain doesn’t stem from the end of the relationship, but rather the end of seeing their parents. Maybe this is the real thing you’re trying to grief and a friendship with your ex-partner would, obviously, be the easier way to handle that loss, even if that friendship itself might hurt.
But your family is allowed to reach out and keep contact with their parents. And, even though you might not have been able to keep the finality of the “you are family” statement, you have ment it back then. But even (blood-related) family can be estranged and kept as a happy/nostalgic memory. And, you’re still allowed to reach out to the parents. If they reject you, then that is their choice, you did all you could.
Thanks for the tale. Shit happens, fate is funny. Nothing really bad happened, so that’s something to be grateful for, taking a risk on love is something that comes with many hazards, but becoming invulnerable has many different hazards. You both tried your best, they even got a job. In a sense, you laid in the bed you made, and now you have the knowledge of what you should accept wrt chores and finances. You can’t really resent a person for doing what you let them do (never cooking, not paying their share). I had a friend that broke up with 3 different wives because all of them refused to do… anything. Eventually they learned to stop letting their relationships develop like that, and that’s wisdom. Nothing I’m saying is new info or will help you feel better
Life has a way of driving stuff home well past after you think you’ve learned a lesson. I can acknowledge that I put up with it, but also, like they’re an adult. For all the ways I shouldn’t have let it get that far, they should have been grown enough to figure that out at this age. And I kind of just hold both those feelings in equal measure. Like on one hand, I should have called it. On the other, Jesus, take unconscious people to the hospital. I literally paid for the best insurance my job offers for other medical issues; we had a $500 deductible for the year, money was not going to be an issue. I think all told the er visit cost me $4 and change. Still, one of those feelings is something I have control over, and I’ll be able to carry that forward.
You sound very responsible and the one thing I remember from my much earlier doomed relationship of 5 years was to learn to love myself before moving on-- which I managed to do successfully, and so will you someday.
I mean, look at you! You got an education, you work hard and know how to take care of yourself. I read in another comment that you even had foresight to have decent insurance; that puts you well above most people I’ve met. (And PS on that note, I had that walking pneumonia I think around that same time and Jesus that was a doozy, I totally get how serious that was).
Suffice it to say, you have lots to be proud of and moving on will require learning that self love. Honestly I think you’re already on your way, though. It just takes time.
I think I did it backwards. I didn’t leave and then learn to love myself. I learned to love myself, and loving myself meant leaving. Like, so I grew up in a very abusive home, and stayed in my parents’ life until I was in my early 30s. My ex loved me through that. They loved me through finally cutting ties with my parents, and they loved me through connecting with all the family my parents had ostracised over my life. And there was a time where, idk. Where that was enough. There was a time where life was stagnant, where I was satisfied just making it day to day, where we didn’t have dreams or goals, or challenge the life we had fallen into for something we wanted. But life didn’t stay there, and I didn’t stay there. I’m older now; I need someone that’ll take me to the hospital instead of think that I’ll get through it alone. Which, in my 20s and 30s, I was down right invincible, or at least I felt like I was. I need someone that wants to go out and make friends, not just sit with the ones that stuck around. I need someone who wants kids. Someone who isn’t spending all our money on weed instead of saving. I hate to say it, but love isn’t enough; you need to live.
When a working (yes, stay at home parent is work) partner is asked “what’s for dinner?” in a “what did you make me for dinner?” way on the regular, it’s over. That is not partnership
You just have to let it all go.
I know - that’s not easy - but it really is all we can do.
It’s in the past. Recognize your part, learn your lessons from those things, and move on.
And probably most important, forgive your past self for those mistakes. That’s really what “letting go” means - to stop judging the actions of both of you. That judgement today doesn’t serve us, it keeps us emotionally attached/invested in something we can’t change.
It makes sense that you are still affected by the relationship and grieving its loss. You slowly went from a loving partnership in which you worked together and supported each other to one in which you were carrying all the weight and asking for help while you watched the relationship crumble. It’s confusing as hell and makes you doubt yourself in so many ways.
You know the relationship needed to end. At the same time you probably feel like you gave up because you weren’t strong enough to fix it, and like you abandoned them when they needed you to keep them going… and also wonder if they ever really loved you and were using you this whole time.
It would be easier to accept and move on if there was a clear reason the relationship failed. Instead, the relationship failed for a bunch of reasons, none of which are big enough to have killed the relationship on their own, but together were more than enough.
You did the right thing. You weren’t too weak. You didn’t just give up. You tried your hardest. It is impossible to fix a relationship alone and they were unable to put in the effort… which really sucks because it makes you feel like they just didn’t care about you.
It seems clear to me that they did (and I assume do) care about you. They were servely depressed for a long time, using unhealthy coping mechanisms, and unable to participate in the relationship. It sucks to leave someone who is depressed, but at a certain point you had to (and did) realize that you were unable to make them better and that you were going to drown trying to keep them floating.
It sucks to be where you are now, but it would suck even worse if you were still together. Even though it feels like it has taken too long to rebuild your life (it hasn’t) and like you aren’t getting anywhere (you are), you will get there.
The trick I’ve found is to experience new things…might be shit you’ve done before, (not couples shit, reinvest in yourself) and you will slowly grow past the ex…I remember waiting for the benchmarks for a past relationships…first week, month, year, expecting at some point it wouldn’t feel odd…
The moment that relationahip wasn’t a thing anymore was when one benchmarks passed by and I had not even noticed or though about the ex (good or bad) for a while.
That’s too much to read, but these are always the same. Maybe it helped to write it all out. My rule was always one month of grieving for every year together. Worked for me.
You’ll hate this answer:
Time to move on to the next one. Chop-chop, clocks ticking.
Funny how many downvote you get for some fundamental truth.
Bottom line is we have to let this stuff go - no one else can do it for us, and we’re the person keeping the frustration, anger, pain alive in our minds.
The only way to change that is to choose to change it - this is foundational Cognitive Behaviour Theory at work.
I think the downvotes are for the commenter kind of dismissing OP who poured their heart out, that’s just cruel.
