My girlfriend of 8 months broke up with me last week, and I’m devastated. To begin, everything seemed fine recently — in fact, last weekend, she invited me to stay at her parent’s home so that I would get the chance to see her hometown and spend time with her family. We then decided to road trip back home, about an 18-hour drive, and things seemed fine until they weren’t.
For context, I suffer from really bad social anxiety, and also deal with depression, and was recently diagnosed with an eating disorder. My ex told me recently that she was concerned about how little time I put into expressing my feelings with her, as I would primarily focus on trying to be as accommodating and sympathetic towards her needs and problems. I agreed, and I apologized to her for holding back, and I promised her to do better. My reluctance to be expressive was not because I didn’t love her or thought she wouldn’t understand my feelings. I just felt incredibly anxious and didn’t want her to have to carry such a significant burden by worrying about me, especially since I’m currently going through therapy for my conditions, which is not only taxing for me but for everyone around me.
Well, during that weekend, my anxiety was especially high, as I wanted to leave a great impression on her family. During the weekend, I kept fumbling over my words and resorted to my habit of speaking softly, which consequently led me to believe that I had made a pretty poor impression on her family, increasing my worrying further. She noticed that something was wrong, and asked me a few times if I was okay. Unfortunately, I resorted to my old habits of trying to brush off my feelings, which upset her. I apologized for doing this, and was able to tell her exactly what was going on, to which she was sympathetic.
Once we began our road trip on Sunday, it was decided that her sister would come along, as she has plans to road trip throughout the summer and wanted to start her journey with us. I was excited but also incredibly anxious, as I was still trying to get to know her sister more. The trip was fairly quiet, with the occasional conversation, and lots of sing-a-longs and podcasts in between. Once we arrived early Monday morning, my ex stayed at my place for the night, where everything seemed normal, as we were being intimate and talking to each other as usual. The next day, she pulled me aside and said, “I can’t believe we were in an 18-hour car ride and we had nothing to say to each other. I feel like I don’t know you.” I felt horrible, because I knew my anxiety was getting in the way again, but I also felt like I was doing my best at the time. I apologized profusely and began crying, explaining to her that I was trying to do everything in my power to engage with her and her sister, but that I was panicking on the inside. She again said she understood, and proceeded to cry along with me. I told her that I’m trying, and to not give up on me just quite yet. She told me she loved me, but I knew something was off because she would later start crying again after we had talked about the issue and wouldn’t tell me what was going on before she left.
Fast forward to the next day, I had yet to receive a response to a text that I left her the previous night, where I thanked her for her understanding and compassion towards my anxiety. She responded the next morning, saying that she appreciated the sentiment, but needed to see me. Once we met up, she broke down and said, “I can’t be with you. I’m sorry. Our personalities are just not compatible.” I begged her to stay and talk it out with me, but she insisted it was over. She told me she loved me and wanted to remain in contact, but was adamant on us not being together.
I can’t help but feel as though my anxiety took away someone extraordinary from my life. I can see where I went wrong, and want to grow from my shortcomings, but I can’t help but mourn the loss of this relationship. I feel stuck. I just wish there was a way to alter my brain chemistry entirely so I could I have the emotional connections in my relationships that I’m constantly striving for, but ultimately come up just short of. Please, be honest and tell me where I went wrong. I need to hear it.
TLDR: My girlfriend broke up with me because I wasn’t being expressive enough. I want to change, but I think it’s too late to fix it.
3 comments
So what are you doing about your social anxiety? When I was 16, I went on my first date. One of the cutest girls in the school, but I just couldn’t talk with her. It was a disaster and I never really talked to her again. I vowed that day never to let that happen again. Out of all of the girls I dated, she remains my only regret. I mean I am happily married now and have no desire to be with the first girl I dated. I guess I used this as motivation to change me.
Maybe you use this experience to be the motivation to change you. You can be the guy who gives up and just says, this is just who I am. Or you can be the guy who really changes himself. Have you been working with anyone to overcome this?
Ok, there are a few things here.
First and foremost, she was correct in saying your personalities are not compatible. This feels like a painful statement, but it is actually just a factual one. Being incompatible is NOT A FAILURE. In fact, it is a positive, because it means you are not wasting time. Incompatibility does not mean either of you did anything wrong. Incompatibility does not mean there is something to change about yourself.
That having been said, there are places you both could have improved. I say this to offer feedback, not criticism. Remember you are both young and inexperienced. You’re learning, and thats nothing to be ashamed of.
Here are a few thoughts, worth what you paid for them:
Your anxiety may be too poorly managed to date in a healthy way right now. You seem to be overly concerned with placating your partner, apologizing, and always seem to immediately assume you are at fault and your partner is perfect.
To date in a healthy way, you must be able to:
Communicate to a reasonable extent what you are thinking and feeling. I think you know this is something you struggle with so I won’t belabor the point.
Understand what your own needs are in a relationship and communicate them. What could SHE have done to make these scenarios easier for you? Don’t say nothing – I won’t believe it. How could she have been more helpful when you were trying to control your anxiety? You must be able to identify these things and ask for them.
Have boundaries! You need to be able to both articulate those boundaries and enforce them. This doesn’t seem immediately applicable to the situation, but consider where you may have been able to save yourself some misery by saying: “I am ok with a few hours of chatting in the car, but them I’m going to need to put my headphones on and disengage for a break.”
One final note: for the love of god, CUT CONTACT. Do not stay friends. Literally NEVER EVER stay friends when a breakup breaks someone’s heart. Your heart is broken, but it will heal, as long as you don’t keep shoving a knife into it by trying to be her friend. Staying friends only works when neither person holds romantic feelings for the other once the relationship is done.
She doesn’t want to be in a relationship, that is fair and totally fine. But she also doesn’t get the good parts of you for “free” either. You have value. Make sure it is a fair exchange, and right now, the power imbalance between you and her makes that impossible.
The bigger issue is your anxiety, difficulty expressing yourself, questioning yourself. This will affect you in many more places than this relationship. Spend time on that. Go get to feel comfortable with yourself with martial arts, with physical fitness, or art, or professional advancement. After you accept yourself, you will have little patience for anyone who doesn’t accept you in good faith. In my 20s I was way worse off but these days I can’t imagine feeling like that. Forget this short term situation, keep working and things will get much better.