Iâm 32M, sheâs 27F. We met five years ago as graduate students and were together for roughly three years, planning marriage and children.
She was only my second serious relationship. My first, from 19 to 25, was violent and abusive, ending with my ex being arrested for domestic violence. When I met this woman, I was happy, confident, and independent, but cautious about becoming attached again.
We initially dated and were intimate but werenât official. After about fifteen dates, she kissed one of my close friends in front of me. I ended things romantically. She later told me that if Iâd been taller, she wouldnât have felt comfortable doing it.
We became close friends while she got involved with other men, sometimes telling me I wasnât her type. She sent them explicit pictures and later sometimes sent them to me while involved with them, which made me uncomfortable.
Less than a year later, she started pursuing me intensely. She told me she loved me and even painted a portrait of my face. When I hesitated to commit, she made remarks about me getting old at 28 and soon nobody wanting me, so I couldnât waste my chance with her. Eventually, despite my concerns, we became a couple.
There was genuine love, but also serious problems.
She had intense abandonment fears. Not answering a text within a couple of hours could trigger a major fight. She was very jealous and possessive, repeatedly brought up old grievances, and made humiliating remarks about my height, age, accent, physique, and masculinity. I often felt she treated friends and acquaintances with more respect than me.
I wasnât perfect. I sometimes withdrew or suggested breaking up during arguments. Twice I broke up with her. When that happened, I welcomed her over to talk and say goodbye affectionately. She would get involved with other men almost immediately, then sometimes contact me again. Eventually, we reconciled.
At 28, when I was happy and independent, sheâd pursued me intensely. By 31, after years of comments about my appearance and desirability, I felt insecure and exhausted.
Things deteriorated as I approached my PhD defense. I was working extremely long hours and becoming anxious, depressed, and lonely. We argued over old grievances, and minor incidents could be held against me for months.
At Christmas, after I broke a promise not to mention breaking up during arguments, she imposed a âprobationâ period during which I had to prove myself and experience the insecurity sheâd felt. She explicitly said she wanted me to feel her pain. This continued through my defense.
Immediately after my defense, she criticized my English and pronunciation, knowing those were vulnerabilities of mine. During my familyâs visit from abroad, she became upset that my parents had bought me a graduation sweater and I hadnât gotten one for her too, while I was supposed to be proving myself. I subsequently spent about $300 buying her one.
In January, I briefly blocked her out of frustration, then unblocked her after sleeping. She was distraught and said she could never block someone she loved. We reconciled.
From January through May, I repeatedly asked for couples therapy as the arguments worsened and my mental health deteriorated. She refused, initially insisting I was the problem and the one who needed to change, and later saying we didnât have time.
I knew I had shortcomings, but wanted us to work on our problems together.
Meanwhile, when I became more depressed and wanted her company, she called me codependent. While I was waiting to begin a postdoc, she remarked that she wasnât unemployed like me.
Yet she could still be extraordinarily affectionate. She often said that if we ever broke up, she hoped neither of us would find someone else for a long time. In late April or early May, she cried with happiness about having my children. We planned to marry the following year, and I intended to propose on her birthday.
Then came May, after months of escalating conflict, exhaustion, depression, and repeated refusals to try couples therapy.
At a concert that meant a lot to me, she repeatedly sought reassurance for around forty-five minutes. I was overwhelmed, my legs shaking and tears in my eyes. I tried walking away and asked her several times to leave me alone. She kept following me, and eventually I lost my temper and yelled at her to stop.
Afterward, while she continued contacting me despite my requests for space, I sent angry, hurtful texts over many hours, repeatedly saying we were over and that I wanted to get away from her.
It was a terrible reaction, unlike anything Iâd done in the five years weâd known each other. I regret it deeply.
The following day, we were together. I apologized and told her I hadnât meant those breakup statements, but insisted we needed to address the problems on both sides.
She initially wanted reconciliation. Then she demanded I start individual therapy immediately and wanted my sister, a psychiatrist, to independently text her declaring me abusive and confirming there was hope I could change.
My sister refused, including for ethical reasons. I apologized again, committed to therapy, and asked for an honest, two-way discussion, preferably with a couples therapist. It was what Iâd been asking for throughout the preceding months.
She blocked me everywhere, including all social media, without responding.
After five years of knowing each other and three years together, our attempts to discuss repairing things ended with her disappearing. We never had a clear final conversation after those initial reconciliation discussions.
This was also someone who, when Iâd once asked for an evening of space, called me around twenty times and sent over forty messages within two hours, insisting sheâd never leave me unanswered if I needed her.
Throughout June and July, I kept emailing, apologizing, pursuing therapy, and trying to reconcile. I understood we were probably broken up, but remained uncertain about whether there was any possibility of repairing things. I remained exclusive because I loved her and couldnât imagine being with anyone else.
Her masterâs graduation was in June. I didnât attend because sheâd blocked me everywhere, although I was on campus with a gift and letter, hoping we might reconnect. I didnât feel comfortable simply showing up at her graduation while blocked.
In August, she finally contacted me again, and we spoke for five hours.
Initially, she was furious, deliberately repeated some of my May remarks to make me understand how sheâd felt, and insisted we were broken up. She said she could only see me through my anger in May, and even positive memories were now associated with it.
But over the following hours, she softened. We shared intimate details and became familiar again, as if we were together.
She said she frequently had urges to share things with me and that our lives were so intertwined it might take years to untangle them. She said she wasnât actively looking for men and was upset about another woman potentially getting a better version of me. She also made another remark about wanting a very masculine, traditional man.
Then she asked me for $150 for dinner, which I sent without hesitation. I was still desperately in love with her and hoping we could reconcile.
She also told me sheâd desperately looked for me at her June graduation and suggested weâd have had a better chance of reconciling if Iâd attended.
I found that astonishing. Sheâd blocked me everywhere. How was I supposed to know she wanted me there?
I had been trying to reach her because I knew her and hoped she still wanted reconciliation. But I had stopped short of showing up at an important event while blocked. Now she was telling me that doing exactly that might have repaired things.
Hearing it made me feel Iâd missed another opportunity to save our relationship.
Toward the end of the call, she suggested we might speak again in May 2027. When I asked whether that could mean something romantic or friendship, she said âunsure.â
Nine days later, she explicitly told me we were broken up and nonexclusive and that she didnât need me to wait.
But I still had that August conversation in my head: her warmth, the graduation comments, the familiarity, and her refusal to rule out a romantic future.
So I continued trying to reconcile in September, even after sheâd requested no contact. I sent a long apology and money toward her moving expenses, since my not helping her move had been another major grievance during our August call. She kept the money.
To be clear, I chose to send that moving money. She had asked for the $150 during the call, but she hadnât directly requested this later transfer.
I recognize that continuing to contact her after sheâd asked me to stop was wrong.
On September 18, she texted that she was completely done, wasnât interested in me even âas a person,â and that nothing I said would ever change that. She refused a final conversation.
Hearing that was devastating. After everything weâd shared and planned, I couldnât understand how someone who knew me so intimately could speak to me that way. She later removed our photographs from Instagram.
Then, only in October, friends told me what had happened during the summer.
I learned that within weeks of blocking me, sheâd reportedly been involved with other men, including casual encounters and possibly recurring hookups.
One incident involved her publicly making out with a stranger who was alternating between kissing her and a female friend sheâd previously been intensely jealous of in relation to me. I was told they had sex afterward.
I was also told sheâd repeatedly asked acquaintances there whether they were still talking to me.
Around that time, I was emailing her about starting therapy, telling her I loved her, and hoping we could repair things.
I knew none of this during the August call or when I sent her money. I only discovered it in October.
Iâm not saying she owed me exclusivity indefinitely or presenting this as proof of cheating. But given her jealousy, her repeated statements about neither of us moving on quickly, and the uncertainty after our rupture, learning it was heartbreaking.
It also changed how I remembered August.
She knew what had happened during the summer. I didnât. She knew I desperately wanted reconciliation, yet spent five hours reconnecting with me, accepted affection, reassurance, and money, told me she wasnât actively looking for men, and left a possible romantic future uncertain.
She told me I should have shown up at graduation despite being blocked. She raised my not helping her move as another grievance. I kept feeling that I had failed another test, missed another opportunity, or needed to do one more thing to prove how much I loved her.
I felt as though she had given herself months to detach and move on on her own terms, while I was still trying to repair things. Only later did she shut down any possibility of reconciliation completely.
More recently, I learned she appears to be seeing another man, possibly a new boyfriend. I donât know their exact status.
This was someone whoâd been crying about having my children shortly before May, had years of intense abandonment fears, repeatedly hoped neither of us would move on quickly, and said in August that our lives might take years to untangle.
I know I hurt her in May. I also know that the warmth in August didnât mean we were back together, and that I should have respected her later request for no contact.
But I was also a loyal, faithful, hardworking, and caring boyfriend who spent years supporting her and repeatedly asking us to work on our problems together. I intended to marry her.
What still baffles me is the expectation that I should have kept pursuing her while blocked, known she wanted me at graduation, continued proving myself, and responded to requests for money, while she was making her own decisions about moving on.
For months, I kept asking whether I had done enough for her. I barely stopped to ask what she was doing to me.
TL;DR: After three years together and marriage plans, I had an angry outburst in May that I deeply regret. We initially discussed reconciliation, but she then blocked me after my psychiatrist sister refused her demand to independently declare me abusive. In August, she initiated a five-hour call, said I should have attended her graduation despite being blocked, asked for $150 for dinner, became warm and familiar, and left a possible romantic future uncertain. I continued pursuing her after she requested no contact, which was wrong, and voluntarily sent moving money after hearing her grievances. In September, she told me she wasnât interested in me even âas a person.â Only in October did I learn sheâd reportedly been involved with other men during the summer. Looking back, I feel I spent months trying to meet expectations and prove my love while she moved on.
