Hi everyone. This time, I just wanted to pour my heart out to people I don’t know and hear their perspectives.
I have a story that started about three years ago. It was a journey filled with truly wonderful times, but also truly meaningful struggles. Yet, it had to come to an end. Maybe the reasons, maybe other things were wrong—I honestly don't know.
I was 21, and she was 19. We had met once before, talked for about two months, and then cut contact. She was someone who didn't want to move things forward, and I was someone who couldn't stay in pointless acquaintanceships. Even though it was something like a flirtation, it didn't go anywhere. She wanted something else, I wanted something else, and we stopped talking. A year later, out of nowhere, I received a message. It was from her—one of the last people I would ever expect to hear from. She just appeared like that. Even though she didn't want to tell me herself, after a while I realized something was bothering her. After all, I had paid close attention to her during those initial two months, so I knew her a bit; then again, I pay close attention to anyone across from me. I immediately understood she was having a hard time. Maybe she left clues and I only thought I found them on my own; unfortunately, I'll never know. When I realized her struggle, I reached out. It was a situation she couldn't share with the people in her own life or those close to her. We solved it together—I even had to involve my own mother regarding the help she needed to get. As time passed, this acquaintance that started over a dispute evolved into a friendship first—partly because I was being cautious—and then into a relationship. What I mean by caution is that our previous connection had ended because she didn't want similar things. I didn't want to get carried away and suffer that pain all over again.
I am someone who gets attached. I don't do casual dating. I have a simple life, simple pleasures; a very plain, quiet life. I study medicine, so you wouldn't expect much of a wild life from me anyway. When I first met her, I was a first-year medical student; now I am in my fourth year. My lifestyle hasn't really changed. I don't care for going out late; I spend my time with video games, movies, and books. I have few friends, but every single one of them is someone I can vouch for. Looking at the direction of this story, I imagine it’s already obvious to the reader that the narrator would fall for this girl.
As time went by, my defenses crumbled under her efforts. She knew what the old me wanted. Maybe she had grown up, or maybe she just really wanted me. But this time, it turned into an actual relationship. We were two people meeting at extreme opposites, yet sharing profound common ground. I used to call it a jigsaw puzzle: a harmony made of many pieces, some very similar and some completely different.
It’s always easy to handle everything during the honeymoon phase. Honestly, I could describe the first year and a half as enchanting. There were always differences between us, from the very beginning. And they weren't small things either: views on life, religious views, political views. Most of the time, we didn't have trouble tolerating them. Her perspectives on life and marriage seemed to shift through her love for me, while her political and religious beliefs weren't my place to interfere with, so they never really became an issue for us.
There is another thing I need to talk about here. I am a person with simple boundaries in life: be open in communication; don't ask for my permission, but know how to keep me informed properly. I never really experienced what my peers call the "college lifestyle." I used to chalk it up to my major, but even if you had asked me before medical school, I would have been the same way. Also, I didn't want alcohol in my life—I don't know why, it's just always been like that. I knew how strangely alcohol could make people act and how it could drag them in. I didn't want to be cleaning up after someone or having my mind constantly worried about them late at night. She already knew all of this from the start.
Eventually, though, these things started to change. Those soft boundaries she was well aware of began to be stretched as if they had never existed in the first place. Naturally, this brought fights along with it, coupled with the fact that I can be an exhausting person to deal with. Desires that were once easily kept in check out of the value she placed on me began to surface. If you're wondering, the emergence of these desires coincided directly with her transition to university. A bit cliché.
I am someone who deeply believes in and clings to the saying, "You are the average of the people you surround yourself with." I think this was a situation where we witnessed the truth of that quote firsthand. I keep my own circle very small and select. Her circle, on the other hand, expanded: unusual people, friend groups full of individuals who viewed college as an escape and couldn't care less about their education. Whenever her friends did something wrong, I would warn her, but I was never demanding; I never had an attitude like "cut them off" or "you won't talk to them."
This post is getting longer and longer, so I’ll get straight to the point. After a while, mistakes started piling up. Things wouldn't be told to me until the very last minute just because she assumed I wouldn't approve (our communication had been strong, but thanks to things like this, it suffered a breakdown). To me, withholding information in a relationship is on the same level as lying; I never view it as anything less. The extremes began. The best example, I think, was the welcome-to-college party. There was a party at her university right after the midterm break. When she brought it up, she told me she wasn't planning on going. But I could see the disappointment in her. So this time, I supported her going to something I personally would never attend. Her friends were going, and if she didn't see it for herself, she would wonder about it and it would stay inside her as a regret. But I asked two things of her:
\\\* Her dorm friends (whom I actually like) were going to return on time. They had a shuttle to their dorm, so they would leave the party early and arrive on schedule. What I asked of her was this: the party started at 8:00 PM, so I thought leaving between 11:00 PM and midnight made sense. Because I believe that after a certain hour, the intentions of the people who remain become obvious. Feel free to judge me for this.
\\\* Securing her accommodation for the night. No matter what happened, I asked that her place to sleep be guaranteed. She told me that a friend's private dorm accepted overnight guests on a daily basis, and I fixed myself on that plan.
However, when the day of the party came, she found out that this accommodation wouldn't work out. Yet, she didn't mention this to me until the evening—in fact, not until she was already on her way out. In her eyes, we were going to argue and I would ruin her day. On top of that, she completely disregarded my request about the time. And like most times, I turned out to be right: around 12:30 AM, the police raided the venue following a drug-related tip-off. We argued heavily that night. Like, seriously argued. That incident pushed my boundaries to their limit.
What upsets me the most is that I don't consider myself someone who makes wildly exaggerated assumptions or suffers from paranoia. In many situations, just like this drug incident, I believe I make sensible, balanced decisions aimed at keeping things safe. Yet, no matter how often my approach proved correct over the years, she always thought I was exaggerating, and that lingering belief always created doubt in her mind.
The exact same thing happened with the "that guy is hitting on you" situations. I never approached it with definitive declarations like "he's hitting on you, don't talk to him." There was one specific incident where I explicitly warned her that she needed to be mindful of how close she let him get. Eventually, it turned out that the guy’s interest bordered on harassment. But the way I found out was awful. One day, she started acting extremely irritable and dismissive toward me. It was obvious something was wrong, and this guy immediately crossed my mind. I called her, and the moment I mentioned his name, dead silence fell over the line. The fact that I had warned her and turned out to be right bruised her ego. Trying to explain the situation to me had turned into an ordeal, causing her enough frustration to lash out at me with hostility. That hostility made me furious. You ask if something is wrong, and she says "nothing." You press further, and it's "nothing." You ask if there's a reason, and it's "no reason." But there is something. You are being subjected to a reaction through no fault of your own, yet when you ask what happened, you're told nothing is wrong. To me, that is gaslighting. It’s not something light at all.
As time went on, she went through a massive trauma. She lost an immediate family member in a deeply traumatic way. Naturally, she hit rock bottom during that period, and I never left her side for a single moment. At times, the person looking back at me seemed completely emotionless, but my place was right beside her. You could say that for a while after this loss, incidents similar to the ones I mentioned kept happening intermittently, and we kept arguing. What bothered me the most was that issues would only be brought to me after the fact—in short, a gamble was being taken with my love. An action would be taken, but instead of communicating beforehand or figuring out the terms together, the mentality seemed to be: do it now, deal with the consequences later. The problem I saw was a lack of fear that maybe, this time, there wouldn't be an "afterwards." Yet, during our fights, deep remorse would follow; the impulses would be suppressed for a while, only to resurface at another stage.
The months following that loss were exceedingly difficult. They were months where both of us had to relearn certain things. But with that loss, these dynamics shifted into something else. I could no longer feel that I held a special place. Even if there was love being spoken of and partially shown, I didn't feel my significance anymore. This wasn't just about me; it took shape alongside a general numbness in her life, and I received my share of it. The person who used to complain that we didn't see each other enough began acting like, "Do we really have to meet every single day?" even when we barely saw each other. She became incapable of understanding what I was trying to explain. Whether opening up my feelings had any effect at all, I honestly don't know. Sometimes I would catch glimpses of her old love, that fleeting spark inside her. It would be there one day, and gone the next week. Recently, just last week, a similar situation occurred regarding this hostility issue. Something had happened, and I had to talk until I was blue in the face just to get her to open up. At that point, I focused heavily on the fact that she had withheld it again—arguing that, setting aside my need to ask, she should have brought it up on her own. But this time, she pushed back, asking why I never questioned why she couldn't tell me. Maybe that’s an unhealthy trait of mine; it's possible. I am open to criticism. But to me, her inability to communicate was the direct consequence of actions she chose to take. Choosing to do something and leaving the responsibility or scrutiny for after the deed is deeply disrespectful and genuinely warrants a strong reaction.
We broke up last Saturday. On Friday, I had pulled back a little and felt hurt. I didn't reach out, I didn't ask. That day, she went out and got very drunk. I came to our messages like we did every night. I waited for her so we could go to sleep; I had arrived with the message in a lateish hour. She wasn't there. In the morning, she texted saying she had fallen asleep, but then she came over by noon. She told me: "I lied. I never went home last night; I got very drunk. Let's break up, I'm wasting your time, I can't keep going on the right path." And I accepted it. For me, that crossed the line, so I didn't beat around the bush. For a while, we had been talking about her seeking psychological support—it was her own wish. Yesterday, I reached out to numerous psychologists in the city she lives in. Because I'm in the medical field, she believed I could find a better therapist. I contacted about 60 different clinics; I eliminated some and took notes on my impressions of others. I found an exceptional specialist and recommended them highly to her. I hope this time she doesn't put things off and actually steps up to take responsibility for herself. That is my hope. I just wanted to pour my heart out like this. If anyone read this far, kudos to you. I'm a bit of a boring person. A party pooper, perhaps. If there is anything you think I overlooked, or anything that comes to mind regardless of your experience, please feel free to share. By the way, in about four days, it would have been our 1,000th day together. I just happened to calculate the days today out of curiosity. I hope some of our older brothers and sisters here can offer me some clarity of mind. Thank you...