My Story...

[Ironside]

Hey everyone! Long term lurker here. I made one post back in 2012 when I was at the height of break up pain. For some reason, I feel it's now time time to share my story. Apologies for the wall of text... the story spans four years.

 

So, back in September 2011, I moved from the UK to Germany for a fresh start after I graduated from university. I went to work in a backpacker's hostel in a city where nobody knew me- during the first weeks, I felt extraordinarily alone and pretty scared in my new environment. Anyway, there was one particular coworker who went out of her way to be kind to me, talk to me, get to know me and help me out- seriously, nobody before that, or even since then, has been so consistently kind and good natured. Anyway, over the first couple of months I developed feelings for this girl but, upon learning she had a boyfriend, naturally kept my distance.

Fast forward to the end of November. My contract at the hostel was up, and I had decided I loved my new city too much to leave so I went and got another job teaching English. Up until this point I was living at the hostel where I had worked. Anyway, one evening I was sitting down in the bar area, having a drink and a chat with my friend on the night shift, when the female coworker appeared. She seemed pretty sad. Anyway we got talking and it so transpired that she had broken up with her boyfriend the previous week. Anyway the night wore on and we spend the entire night talking about everything, drinking and dancing- she seemed so happy by the end of it, and we ended up kissing.

Anyway, things went uphill from there- I moved out of the hostel and got settled into my new job. I moved in with my friend on a temporary basis until my new apartment was ready for me to move into with another group of friends. Things got better and better with the girl and we ended up developing into a pretty intense, passionate and emotional relationship- things were going really great. Anyway, I noticed after a few weeks that she had been staying at my place every time, and I had never gone to visit her at her place. I pointed this out to her and she passed it off as her younger brothers not being too accepting of her aforementioned breakup with her ex, and were still pretty cut up about it (her previous living situation was her, her boyfriend, and her two younger brothers... there were some parental issues that led to her basically being left to bring up her brothers alone). So I accepted this, and allowed the relationship to continue as it had been. We went out all the time, she stayed over multiple times per week, and I had no reason to think that anything was wrong.

I returned to the UK over Christmas to see my family, and kept in constant contact with this girl via email the whole time. Upon my return to Germany, she was waiting for me at the airport with a big sign with my name on, and a massive smile on her face- she was so pleased to see me, and I her.

 

A couple of weeks later, she and I were lying in bed, talking about everything. Then she basically told me I shouldn't get too used to this, as she had never actually broken up with her ex. Naturally I was in a state of absolute shock, and sort of jumped out of bed in surprise. She then backtracked and said she was joking. So I expressed my confusion and distaste of her humour and basically left it at that. Things were fine again the next morning. That same day, I was going to view my new flat with my new housemates. I mentioned the goings on of the previous night to them, and ended up being warned by them that all might not be as it seemed. I was blinded by love, however, and let things continue. The following night, we all went out drinking- a big group of workers and guests from the hostel. The girl I was with got drunk and got extremely distressed and emotional- pointing out various females in the crowd that I "should go home with", before storming off in tears and running onto a train home (I chased her, but got shut down every time I tried to talk to her). Anyway she text me to apologise the next day and said it was the alcohol talking, and making her issues rise to the surface again. She assured me she wouldn't let it happen again. Anyway, by this time, I had started to notice the alarm bells going off in the back of my mind, so I decided to proceed with caution.

 

The following week, she became distant and somewhat uncommunicative. I discussed this with her and she told me her aunt had seen her and I holding hands walking down the street, and had told her family. Her family still idolised her ex apparently, and were very unaccepting of me being on the scene. They supposedly forbade her from seeing me. Anyway I didn't lose hope, and thought that if I just continued the way things were before, things would get better. I was so wrong. When I should have started letting go, I didn't, and I would pay for that in time. Things continued to deteriorate, communication ceased for days at a time.

Just before Valentines Day, she and I agreed to go to the theatre to see an amateur dramatics group. In the e-mail she said she could only come because xxxxxx (a male name) couldn't make it. I assumed this was one of her brothers. Anyway, we went to the play, had a good time, and I took her back to the station to go home. It was at this point she turned to me and said that she wouldn't be able to see me again. I was shocked, confused, upset... all manner of emotions. We both stood there and cried and held eachother and ended up kissing again. In the end she initiated the "leaving procedure" and went to get her train, and that was that.

 

I was absolutely distraught and sent numerous texts to her over the coming weeks, without response. On valentines day, I decided to send her an email expressing the depth of my feelings to her. Deep down, I knew that if I didn't, I would never get the opportunity to do so.

I received two emails as a response... one expressing her feelings for me, and the feelings of regret she had that she couldn't be with me, and instructions to ignore the next email.

The second email was cutting- it absolutely destroyed me. She explained in it that she had, in fact, never broken up with her ex. They were still living together the entire time. She told me that she regretted hurting him the way she had done, and that he knew everything and was willing to forgive her. She told me that she had never actually had feelings for me, and the whole thing was simply a mask for the feelings she had for her ex.

 

It was at this point that it all hit me at once. I broke down completely. Printed out and read the emails over and over again until I was practically insane from emotional devastation. I was still relatively inexperienced with love, and this was my first true betrayal.

I became emotionless... absolutely emotionless. The following weeks, I did what I could to cut her out of my life- deleted her number, deleted all her emails, texts, everything. I was in a bad way for a few months- drinking heavily, breaking down emotionally most nights. I had been through breakups before this, but none had ever destroyed me like this- it felt like she had taken everthing that made me who I was, and crushed it, leaving me to rebuild myself from scratch.

 

But still I couldn't let go. Even though every fibre of my being hated what she had done to me.

 

A couple of months later, I kept viewing her MySpace profile and noticed that she regularly updated her status. So I updated mine. Then I noticed she updated hers to something related to what I had just posted. This went back and forth- we were basically communicating through statuses. This continued for a couple of weeks before I got a message from her.... it was actually her boyfriend writing to me warning me to stay the hell away, or else "there would be pain". This was the shock I needed to get away. I shut down my MySpace, and that was the end of that- I didn't hear from her again. This was April/May 2012.

 

Fast forward to October 2013- a year and a half later... I was pretty much fully recovered. I still thought about her regularly, and often wondered what had happened to her. Anway one day I received about 15 missed calls at work from an unknown number. I couldn't return the calls so I ignored them. The calls continued the following day, and finally there was a voicemail. It was her. She told me she really, really, needed to speak with me. I didn't have a way to call her back, until I realised that I had an old contact list on my computer, which I hadn't updated since 2011- her number was on there. So I called her, and she told me she was still with her boyfriend, but she just needed to see me and talk to me. Being the forgiving soul that I am, I agreed to meet up with her for a coffee.

So we met, and I was pretty emotionless. She explained to me that she had been at a party and a song came on which reminded her of me (we used to listen to this particular band and song together), and it had basically triggered an emotional breakdown/meltdown. She had been going to therapy to sort herself out and her therapist had told her to write me a letter (which was never intended to be given to me... but she gave it to me anyway). She told me she wanted to clear everything up so that we could both get on with life. The letter told me that the feelings she had were real. She thought she was going to break up with her boyfriend- he had in fact moved out and everything- but he had come back, and she didn't have the strength to say no to him. The letter said a lot more than this, but it did answer a lot of questioned I had always had about what happened. We actually met up a couple of times after that- nothing serious, just chatting and talking about goings on in life, interspersed with her apologising to me ever second sentence. Until one day she didn't turn up. I had, by this time, decided to leave and return to my homeland, which I did a couple of weeks later. I didn't hear from her again after that.

 

Fast forward again to last month (October 2015). I had just created an instagram account to share my pictures. Since my return to the UK, I completely reformed myself- practically quit drinking, started exercising regularly, changed my image, etc. Anyway I suddenly got a flurry of likes on my photos... and it was her.

We got talking...shes broken up with him now. Things went south with their relationship shortly after I left the country. Anyway... we are still talking. Nothing sinister- just discussing current affairs, goings on in our lives. I am staying away from emotional topics.

 

 

I feel that I am healed in general, but I guess her reappearing...again... has thrown my mind off a little bit. She cant hurt me now- we are too far gone for that, so I think I am doing the right thing by just being friendly and normal to her.

 

 

Sorry about the wall of text here. It's a story spanning the last four years. I never wrote it all down before, and I felt like I should before I forget all the details over the years, and to basically just document it. I don't even know why I feel like I should remember it all, but hey... here you go

[dias]

If i were you i would go NC forever . You feel pretty sure you can handle your emotions now but chatting with her will make you to succumb to the temptation to meet her again. Personally i think we should go NC for good when we are talking about tumultuous and whirlwind relationships. You know better of course , i am just stating my opinion.

[Ironside]

Thank you for your response, dias

 

This girl and I... we live literally thousands of miles apart now- even if the temptation to meet up did arise, it would be impossible. I am a different person now, to the person I was when all the negativity happened. It helped shape me up and become a stronger person overall as long as we stay away from discussion of emotional topics, I don't foresee any problems. Fingers crossed.

[Hazyillusions]

You know she could still hurt you despite being overseas and so far away from you right?

It's the heart that can be damaged, and seeing what she did to you before, why are you talking to her?

She's just using you to ease some loneliness and boost her ego. She was so deceitful and she broke you.

Talking to her now is counterproductive, a waste of energy and really...It makes you look like a chump.

[eldasensei]

What do you gain from this?