First time doing the "breaking up" part
Well, it's been a few months since I have been on here, and its been almost a year since I have posted a question, rather than a response to someone else's concerns. However, as reliable as love is at deceiving us, I am back on here again, however, my question is now one that I thought I would never ask.
After suffering a horrible break up, that came out of the blue and knocked me on my butt, I spent the last year single. I learned the benefits of no contact, and I continued to build a life as a single person, and developed new responsible habits and continued to improve myself with every passing day. Then, in April of this year, a friend of mine set me up with a girl, that she thought would be good for me. She is 22 years old, four years younger than me. She lives at home with her parents still, however this didn't really bother me, as I was living with my father at his place for the past year, for the reason that I lost pretty much everything I had in the previous relationship, and he was gone at various times throughout the year, and he is getting older so he definitely has been needing a hand around the house.
So we went on a few dates, and we hit it off. Unfortunately, our schedules were opposite, and she worked 9-5 and I worked a shift 12-9. I made pretty good money, and she didn't make too much money (it is never about money with me, but you will see where this comes in). Prior to meeiting her, I had been working between 65-70 hrs a week, rebuilding my life from the crumbles it was in after my last break up. Well, I slowed down on that to spend time with her, and began giving up my overtime pay, and instead taking my overtime as leave hours, so that I could get off my shift early on some days to spend the time with her. So I made the sacrifice to give up my hours and money, so that we could spend time together. Things were going really well for about a month and half to two months, until I began to notice that she wasn't really making any effort. I had left the country for a week, and called her everyday, ran up a $500 phone bill in a week, I had gotten her gift cards so she would have something fun to do when I was gone, and I had taken her on trips, because after all, this is the honeymoon stage of the relationship I thought. I wasn't doing these things necessarily to spoil her, but I enjoy travelling and she said she did too, and so why wouldn't we escape from our everyday lives and see the world. We were falling in love. However, things began to change. She surprised me and met me at the airport when I returned from my overseas trip(which was with a guy friend of mine, and was planned before I met her) and she made a comment about what would have happened if I had gotten off the plane with another girl, instead of my friend. She began to not be very affectionate, she wasn't saying thank you for anything I did for her (bringing her lunch everyday, taking her to all of these places and always being there for her when she needed someone).
I was really beginning to wonder what had happened. She was making up excuses for not wanting to stay with me some nights, but then wanting me to stay with her whenver she said. You must keep in mind though, she had said that she always got what she wanted growing up, and she never cleaned her room, did her own laundry, cleaned her own bathroom, took care of her car... she had no responsibilities of her own,because her mom and dad would do them all for her. So I began to realize that she never had to really work for anything in her life so that woud make sense why she didn't want to have to contribute to this relationship, but expected everything in return. All of this added to the fact that I was giving up my hard earned time and money so that we would have time to spend together, she didn't appreciate that I was doing so. (this is why the money comes in to play, because I was giving up everything I had worked for, and was spending money on us, because she made very little, so that we could do nice things, and she was never grateful) She even told me one day that she was lazy. She hated having to work and she had no goals. I figured it was just a slump that she was in, and that she was just saying that, but now I realize, she just didn't want to do anything with her life. She would work an 8 hour day, and say how she was totally drained and how tough her life was. She didn't have to pay a dime for her living expenses, didn't have any other obligations, except for those that she wanted herself (her car payment, cell phone bill, credit card bill, and monthly payment for a jetski that she had bought with her last boyfriend, and her dog that she had gotten with her last boyfriend). Aside from that she had no other responsibilities, but her life was so rough because she had to work 8 hrs. I was always respectful, loving, and supportive in every possible way.
Anytime anything came up about her not making an effort, she would sit there and defend herself over and over, even though it was blatantly obvious that she really wasn't making an effort. She would say she didn't know why she did this, or that, or didn't do this or that. She would believe that she was doing these things, but didn't know why. She said four times that she was leaving, only to realize five minutes later, what she was giving up. I would talk to her and tell her that there is no reason for her to just run away from things, because they will never be solved... which I think is the reason that she would just leave in the middle of conversations when she didn't want to talk about things. She knew that I would come after her, and that was what she wanted. So here is a girl, who has all of her friends seeing how good she has it, (not to sound egotistical by saying that, but really, I knew she had a great man in me, because I poured my heart and soul in to the relationship) and they were actually sitting there telling me to leave her, because of how stupid, selfish, and ridiculous she was being.
Then one day, about three weeks ago, she said that she had taken me for granted, and that she has just stopped making an effort and she was at fault for all of the things, that she had said she wasn't responsible for doing. She said she finally realized that she had a great, honest, loving person, and she was screwing it up. It took a lot for me to believe that after all the BS so far, but I thought that maybe she finally got it.
Well, just the other day, she came to my work and asked me why I was acting weird, and I had told her I wasn't. Then she asked me if I loved her and only her and would I ever cheat on her, and I told her I loved only her and would never cheat on her, and she shoud know this stuff. These questions were all coming from nowhere. I just kind of brushed it off and didn't think much of it, because honestly, this was the first sign of any caring on her part, that I had seen for some time. Well, the next day she take me out to dinner and in the middle of the meal says to me, "youre going to be mad at me for doing this, but I went in to your email account yesterday and saw that someone asked if you cared if her friend asked you to be her "friend" on myspace. I am 26 yoa, and I am well over the myspace craze, and the girl was a friend of a person I work with, that I had met before I even began dating my girlfriend, and I had only met her once, but I know my girlfriend uses her myspace everyday like toothpaste and that this would probably cause some drama, so out of respect, I said, no i dont think taht would be a good idea (now keep in mind that my girlfriend had told me from day 1, that she doesn't like girls/women, because they are bi$ches.) Nonetheles, my girlfriend checked my email account....without my permission. She proceeded to tell me that she was looking for a coupon that I had emailed to me, that i had told her about. (Now remember, she started this conversation with, "you're probably going to be mad at me") Then she tells me that she sent me a text message asking if it was okay for her to do so......somehow I never got that message, nor responded and said it was ok for her to do so. So, I said, "You obvsiously were aware that you shouldn't have checked my email account, after all you texted me and asked me if it was okay to do so, but got no response, and then you did it anyway?". Now even more crazy, is that I work in an office with a million phones and can be reached at all times....but she didnt even think to pick up the phone and call me? Well, I wonder how long she had been monitoring my email accounts now. Also, not only did she go behind my back, invade my private information, invade my personal space.....she had basically decided that she didn't trust me. After all the crap she had done, and the shadiness that she did ( I haven't even mentioned how she would clear her entire phone of messages and phone calls before each time she saw me, or that there were guys writing her saying they wanted to leave their wives and children to be with her.....).
So, I then realized here is a person that hasn't cared about anything I have done for them after the first month or so, has disrespected me, wont accept any responsibilty for their actions, has gone behind my back and distrusted me beyond belief, doesn't do anything that she doesn't have to do, and just leaves everything else for everyone else to do. So, I realized that if she can't do the simple things, even such as throw trash away from her car when she gets out, considering I clean it for her, or do her own laundry instead of saying, well why would i do it when my mom can just do it......then she would never be able to take care of herself anytime soon, or take care of her family. So i told her that I wasn't going to stick around if she was going to continue to not make any efforts on her own and in our relationship. Her response was well, I'm not going to do anything about it, and I'm not changing my ways. So I told her that I love her for who she is, but she is so stuck in her ways, that after all I had stuck through. Well, she then said that she needed to take one day, because she believed that she would then see what she was taking for granted and she would call me the next day. That would be today.
However, here is the issue. I still have an uneasy feeling in my stomach, which I guess is just perhaps the natural human reaction to seeing something that you invested your heart and soul in, crumble, even though I was the one that finally had enough. So, after a few discussions with people, I was told to not answer my phone when she calls and take this as a way out and be strong and not give in. This will have been the first time that I have ended a relationship, becasue I always like to communicate and work things out, so I have never ended a relationship. So, is it normal that I still feel uneasy about it? I mean I can now see how much she took advantage of me and just abused what she had, but I am still having a tough time convincing myself to stay strong. I guess I just dont know how to cope with being on the other side of the "break up fence".
Your input will be greatly appreciated!
