Sometimes Love is Not Enough...(A little long)

[NickMark88]

Hey guys,

 

I'm a new poster to ENA and thought I'd join after reading so many of the posts. Below is my story and I thought I'd share with you. You're welcome to comment if you have anything to add or even if you wanna take any lessons away from it. I'm obviously still healing, but I guess part of the process is not bottling it up...The story is that of movie quality in my opinion.

 

It was during a stage in my life where I desired a career change and so I went back to TAFE (In Australia, it is the equivalent of community college) to study Aged Care for 6 months. During the second week, I met a beautiful girl from South America, who enrolled in the same course and was consequently studying it for the same reason as I (we both had degrees in industries that ended up not satisfying us as we wanted to help people). We started just as friends and found that we had so much in common; uncanny life similarities, interests, sense of humour, values and (as we found out shortly later) the right amount of affection that we both loved.

 

Our classes were Mon-Fri, so we pretty much saw each other everyday. Eventually, we started having beers after class and it got to a point where we both couldn't hold back anymore and both expressed how we felt for each other. We both made each other laugh so much and we had this ability to create all these in jokes and moments about everything. We developed this great relationship where we helped each other out, be there for each other and just generally give affection. She would always make lunch for me. Within a short time, we became really close and our body language was so obvious to everyone in class. Even the teachers. I would always walk her to her bike and kiss her goodbye.

 

One day however, she sits me down and has a talk with me. It has been over 2 months at this stage. She tells me that prior to me, she had dated a guy for 2 years. They had broken up 4 months ago. However, she was on a partner visa with him and in order to satisfy her partner visa, she had to live with him for 2 years in order to satisfy it or else she would be deported. She really didn't want to do it, but realised she had to and he still wanted to help her. She told me right there and then that she understood if I wanted to stop but said she really liked me. I told her I trusted her and understood she was in a tough situation. She seemed relieved and we continued. But her visa was really our undoing.

 

She was quite the runner and one day invited me out to one of her community runs. Foolishly, I went knowing her ex did these runs too. Part of them breaking up was his intense jealousy and insecurity about her. Another part was him leaving her all by herself at social events and being the non-affectionate type (when she craved it). Anyways, she would always speak about me to him and joked that I was her new boyfriend. However, when he saw her give me a nice pat on the shoulder after the race. He was very angry with her apparently, has he saw it as a clear sign she showed interest in a new guy.

 

We got closer and closer. (apologies if this is TMI) The sex was amazing; she had said had never felt the ability to get wet with any other guy (her ex had self-esteem issues and never could finish). Maybe the sex was a little too amazing, as due to a miscommunication and maybe being too hot in the moment, I ended up getting her pregnant, which I found out a few weeks later. This both stressed us out. This could possibly ruin her visa (we had to keep our relationship a secret), ruin our working lives and put stress on everything. She broke down to me and confessed that she had an abortion in the past and could not handle the thought of going through with it a second time (It was with her ex, when they were both drunk). We both prayed for her to have her period but it never came. She was often sick during class, but I gave her as much love and support as I could and assured her things were going to be okay. At one stage I was set on her doing something about it after fear, but eventually realised that this wasn't right and said if she wanted to have it, I would help her. From then on, we joked about baby names and how good looking the baby would be. Then one morning, she texted me and said 'We need to do something about this'. I drove to her place, picked her up and drove her to an abortion clinic. While she was undergoing the process, I cried in the car for her. She came out okay and I gave a blanket and a pillow and let her sleep in the front seat. When I dropped her home, I told her that I needed some time to process what happened as it was quite intense emotionally for me too...

 

After a night by myself, she told me she was furious that I left her home by herself (her ex was away for 5 weeks). She said she had no one in the world and needed me after what she went through. I was there the next morning and argued that she did not consider that I needed alone time after what had happened. Apparently, abortions mostly end up in break ups, but we resolved the argument and shortly after both realised we loved each other and that this experience actually brought us closer together. We both felt guilty about the baby and decided we would try for one in a year's time once we were working. We were both so happy.

 

With school, we both got placed at the same hospital for work (we ended up getting employment after), so we loved seeing each other all the time. Again, we would help each other out where possible. But as our time there was winding up, we started to think about the future. There was no way out for her partner visa; if you break up, the foreign partner must move back. In order to satisfy the visa, she had to demonstrate being in a relationship with her ex, live with him, share a bank account with him and have people validate that they are a couple. We tried researching everything and found no way out. Plus, she was determined to save money to buy her residency after 2 years and have money to buy a ticket and help support her Mother back home. The only visa that would work was a Sponsored visa, but in Australia, you cannot get sponsored (or it's extremely unlikely) as an aged care worker. She started to become incredibly needy, and it got to a point where she said we should try and be friends and limit contact only to work. I was pretty sad, but understood.

 

This lasted 2 days. She started calling me and texting me more than before. I explained to her that I was confused and that her doing this was actually hurting me as I took it as a break up. She was upset but understood. Randomly, I saw her at the mall one day after 1 week of NC and she was so happy to see me. We both wanted to hug, but resisted. Another week passed and I saw her at work. I was friendly. She texted me after work and invited me over for lasagne just as friends. I said it was hard for me as I still loved her, so I said I better not at this stage. She had a big argument with me, saying that she actually wanted me to come over to work out a plan for us and that we should consider moving out together, but to just forget it. I was so emotionally exhausted by her back and fourth decisions that we didn't text for 2 or 3 weeks. During this time, I ended up leaving my job at the hospital because of the lack of shifts, but also because of her.

 

This was in December and I ended up caving after 3 weeks and wishing her a Merry Christmas. I missed her so much and my frustration had melted. She wished me one back. The next day she deleted me off Facebook. On Boxing day, she asked how I was and how my new job was? I didn't text back out of pure confusion of her actions. I texted her 4 days later asking me how confused I was. Did you want me out of your life? If so, why are you texting me asking how I am going!? She texted back saying that we should talk on the Monday (this was on a Friday).

 

As you can imagine, I imagined the worst. I was daunting the whole thing, but figured I needed closure. We ended up meeting on a park bench looking at the water. It started with small talk. Then she told me how painful it was not speaking to me for 3 weeks, that everything reminded her of me and that she almost drove to my apartment after picking up her drunk ex from a party. She even went to the mall near me hoping that fate would place make us run into each other again, but that obviously never happened. But she said out of this anger and hurt, she grew up and had a clear realisation that it was not going to work and that in fact we would only make each other's lives much harder. As aged care workers, the pay is not great and that we would only run into problems. She admitted that she would love to run away with me, but it would be extremely selfish to chase her own happiness and that she still had her visa, mother and plane trip to consider and that it would actually be so unfair on me to ask her to move in together after 7 months. Plus she was turning 31 and needed to consider having a child. She was tied to her ex for so many financial reasons. I asked her if she was back with her ex and she said they had decided to work things out. It stung, but I assumed this was what had happened, so I didn't really show it. She was under the assumption she would never hear from me again and that I ran for the hills. Her reason for removing me was so that I didn't see them spend Christmas together. She also said that she never wanted to see me with another girl. I asked her how it was going and she said that she wished she could tell me it was going well, but it wasn't. She also added she felt that they weren't really compatible. When I asked how she felt about me right there and then, she was so surprised. She said she wished she hug me, kiss me and have sex with me right there and then, but couldn't. She asked if we could be friends, that we could still have a laugh. I said that I felt (at the time) that I wanted her in my life, but that I needed time and hopefully we can someday. She gave me the biggest hug ever, but said she felt weird as she had this incredible headache afterwards and needed to go.

 

For a few days, I thought I had closure, but realised I still had more questions to ask. Would she of ever reached out to me if I never texted her? How could she this while she was still in love with me? The truth is, love alone won't keep a relationship afloat. I learnt there needs to be more and sometimes love has to be sacrifice, but I still had trouble grappling this notion.

 

Two days later, I got this weird text saying how there was plenty of work available and that people were asking if we a couple (again, we had to keep things on the down low because of her visa situation) and I texted her back a couple times. Foolishly a week later, I texted her regarding a memory, which took her 2 days to get back to me (she never delayed a response that long before) and she just said she was going for a run and a coffee...and that was the last message I heard from her. I ended up seeing her at a bar playing pool with her (they just held hands very, very briefly) and to me, she didn't seem really happy at all.

 

She stopped following me on Instagram after I posted a picture of a me and a female friend (she knew she was just a friend, but I guess she was the jealous type) and last I checked, she was looking forward to a holiday with her former ex, now partner. This triggered me.

 

It's been two months and I do still hurt. In some ways hard to accept that she hasn't even tried to contact me (I know, why should she?) or even cares how I'm going. I guess it's the normal feelings of a break up. I guess maybe she thought I was a mistake, I'm not sure. Safe to say it doesn't matter anymore. It was just weird, as she was someone I communicated with everyday and now it's like nothing, and I have these brief moments of hope, but I really need to shut them down. I felt for a while that I could of saved her, but again that's just part of the process. I just hate that I may never hear from her again.

 

Anyways, I feel better sharing my story

[Keyman]

Thanks for telling us the story, bro, and sorry that you went through this. It's hard I know and most of us have been at the point where you are looking back.

 

Keep on going forward and she will sink into the past. You will always remembr her, we always do, but when you are fully ready, close that door and move on.

[limichelle]

Yes given I was in a ten year relationship with my ex. I agree love isn't enough. You need that trust, good communication, honesty and companionship.

 

I'm sorry you went through all of that. Thank you for sharing your story.

 

Lisa

[randomer2000]

Damn! That is a heart breaking story man! Thanks for sharing. I know circumstances like this happen, I too was in a pretty serious relationship with who I thought was the "one". But sadly that ended as well and it left me devastated, but it helped me learn and move on.

[twentysix]

I'm so sorry to hear all this. What a roller coaster of a time you've had! Wishing you the best.

[NickMark88]

Thanks guys, I went through an overthinking stage thinking how she could turn her feelings off for me. But maybe she never did turned them off and just comprised.

 

I keep playing with the thought of texting her for birthday in April and tell her that I hope she is going well. But i run the risk of her saying nothing back. What do you think?