Hey r/dating_advice, I’m doing some reflection on a recent breakup and trying to determine if I was the one in the wrong. Would appreciate some brutal honesty!
I (22M) got together with my ex (22F) the final semester of college earlier this year, and we dated for just under 3 months. Neither of us had dated before – things just started out as a crush on my end, progressed to a dating, and quickly turned into a relationship. The relationship itself was good, we hung out most of the time and studied/cooked/etc together. The issue is there were a lot of long term dealbreakers that we just didn’t talk about, and rather just enjoyed the present.
After graduation, I brought up our differences and told her that I didn’t think our relationship would work long term, since we were of different religions, and had veg/non-veg and approach to drinking differences. Although we hadn’t discussed it, I told her we wouldn’t be able to find a happy compromise on how to raise our kids especially since we were both strong about our faiths.
She didn’t take that well, and said that if we loved each other we would make the compromises to make it work. I ended up breaking her heart, and she blamed me for playing with her emotions if I knew it wouldn’t work out. I’ve basically lost most of our mutual friends in the breakup as well, since they were closer to her beforehand and picked her side. I tried reaching out to be friends recently after around 6 months of no contact, and she declined.
So my question is: am I in the wrong here? Are relationships just implied to go to marriage, even if we don’t explicitly discuss it (my takeaway is discussing this + dealbreakers upfront next time)? Since this was my first relationship, I got a lot of advice from my friends to just date to find what I like in a partner rather than necessarily thinking about the future; was that wrong?
5 comments
No, you weren’t wrong. Adult relationships aren’t just about love, they’re about compatibility and mutual wants and goals. If this was an incompatibility for you, it was better to cut things off now rather than drag out a relationship without a future for a while.
People have been making interfaith marriages work for ages. If you knew going in that you didn’t think this could work and you failed to mention that to her up front, then you totally lead her on and mislead her. Does that sound like a good way to treat someone you care about? You acted on your crush, you were in a relationship, yet you failed to mention to her that you had no intention of being serious. That’s info she was very much entitled to have and she very likely wouldn’t have dated you at all had you had the decency to be honest with her. You completely disrespected her and took advantage of her letting her believe a pretense you knew all along was false. Your lack of dating experience doesn’t excuse this.
You should have thought about these things before dating her. These are very common show stoppers and you wasted her time and led her on. Don’t start something if you know it won’t happen
>The issue is there were a lot of long term dealbreakers that we just didn’t talk about, and rather just enjoyed the present.
As a fairly traditional person who isn’t interested in anything resembling a short-term relationship, this part makes it seem to me like it’s both your faults. Both parties need to discuss their goals for the relationship prior to starting it, which is important for people like me (and it seems your ex) to weed out people who aren’t interested in anything serious.
While I think it is wildly unkind and lacking in basic empathy to enter into a relationship with someone if you know there is an expiration date on the relationship and not tell the other party, it doesn’t sound like that’s what you did here.
You discovered, through the course of dating, some baseline incompatibility. These are incompatibilities you did not desire to overcome or compromise on so you ended the relationship ship. That is the mature thing to do.
Adult relationships are not just about love and the idea that love can overcome anything is romantic but not based in reality. Adult romantic relationships are often about building your lives together and that requires a whole host of practical concerns on top of love and sexual compatibility – faith, diet, and drinking are clearly parts of your life you don’t intend to change or compromise on. I’ve been in interfaith relationships and been fine, but I can’t be in a mixed political relationship and I share the point of veg/non-veg diets.
This might be a point for you to reflect on what you can compromise in a relationship and what you can’t do you can be a better partner and build better relationships in the future. You know now, for example, to only date within your faith. Where else do you feel the need to be rigid? Where can you be flexible?