The Break-Up

If you’ve ever been in a long term relationship, you know how hard it is. How hard it is to keep things balanced, how to work things out once the honeymoon period is over and the monotony of everyday life takes over. Sometimes, those relationships end. While ending a long term relationship is hard, it doesn’t mean that it’s heartbreaking.

About a year ago, I decided to end a relationship that I had been in for over five years. We had just grown into different people who weren’t compatible anymore. I tried for a year to keep it going but then I realized that when I stopped trying, he didn’t start. Everything always had to be on his terms and if it wasn’t he would throw a fit until it was. A lot of conversations with him would have something along the lines of “well, let’s find a compromise” and then whatever we were discussing would end in his favor.

It was hard, him and I had been friends for ten years and we’d been dating for almost six years.

We spent about an hour just going over why we should break up. Yeah, I had to present talking points. He thought he could compromise on our break-up.

Here are some of the points I made:

Listening: I would say things like “hey, let’s watch ‘Vice’. You like Christian Bale films.” And he would nod and be like “yeah, sure.” Then when we got home, he would get a call from a friend and came to the living saying “Babe! My friend just said we need to watch ‘Vice’, it has Christian Bale!”

Respect: He would constantly disrespect me by talking over me, ignoring my opinions, and twisting my words in arguments.

Memory: Now, this is not completely his fault, but it would’ve helped during most of our fights if he actually remembered what we were fighting about. He once told me that women who got abortions should have the choice “but they should be fucking ashamed of themselves.” Then a year later, I had a pregnancy scare and he sat me down and told me “don’t worry honey, I’ll pay for you to get rid of it. I know that you’re more worried about the money.”

Anger: He would get so angry about the littlest things. He once went to a concert venue in East L.A. and let’s just say that my ex is a slight man. His dad and I asked him if he was sure he felt safe to go alone, I said I’d go with him. He started shouting at the both of us that he’ll just stay home forever and never go anywhere and why should he buy me a ticket to go to a show I don’t care about? He ghosted me for a week and then said that he forgave me. I didn’t apologize. We were once joking around and I tickled him, but he leaned over and grabbed my face and pushed me against a couch and told me to stop or else I’d regret it. He shook my face till I nodded.

Fights: We fought constantly. From what to cook for dinner to what city to live in when we moved in together. We were in New York and one night I had made reservations at a restaurant that he said he wanted to try; but we had to get back to the hotel to change at a certain time. After a day of sightseeing, he wanted to wander around Times Square but I told him that we had to get back to the hotel. He got in my face and yelled at me for being “controlling” and a bitch. Then we walked back to the hotel. He walked a block ahead of me. After we changed he held me and said “we both fucked up, let’s just call this even.” That was it. I wasn’t apologizing, and apparently neither was he. He liked to take the Dane Cook approach to making up after a fight. I don’t like fighting, and I certainly don’t like prolonging it but I hate acting like nothing happened.

I’m not perfect, I’m nothing close to a saint. I make mistakes, curse, trip, say the wrong things, and fight. I’ve done things that I’m not proud of. I certainly wasn’t the perfect girlfriend in this relationship; but I didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

We weren’t good together anymore, we turned into horrible people. He wanted to make a joke out of everything, including me. I wanted to make plans to move forward, to move in together, to get married. He wanted to stay where we were and was constantly changing what job he wanted after he graduated. First he wanted to be in a band, then a music writer, then a music video director, then a lawyer, then a politician, then back to a lawyer, then to work in a non profit, then to own a non profit, then a music video producer. That was just the last two years we were together. We were 25, and he had no idea what to do.

I couldn’t do it anymore. He was always acting like I was going to fix everything for him; yes I even did his homework for him. I helped him write a paper on feminism, I lent him my History of Wonder Woman book. I’ve studied feminism since I was 16; but suddenly after reading the quotes I wrote from him he told me that he knew more than I did. Even though he was literally reciting the quotes and points I had written for him.

I felt drained. His mom would constantly apologize for him, even his dad yelled at him a few times on my behalf.

However, my boyfriend never apologized to me.

A relationship is a two-way street. You give and you take, you both pull the slack. You agree and disagree, but at the end of the day you should decide that your relationship is more important than any fight. At the end of my relationship, I realized that that wasn’t the case anymore.

I was hurt when we broke up, the night we broke up I cried for hours and sobbed into a bowl of ice cream.

But the next day, I was fine. It felt awkward, to relabel myself on Facebook as Single. It was awkward telling everyone that after nearly six years that we were breaking up. SO many people thought we were going to get married.

But, I felt fine. I felt free.

That wasn’t something that I thought I was going to feel.

Everyone told me that I was going to feel broken, like a piece was missing. Movies taught me that I was supposed to spend the next six months mourning the future I almost had.

I didn’t feel any of that.

My great grandmother told me that a relationship was all about finding your ‘missing piece’; that I wasn’t whole until I was married.

That’s not true though, at least it’s not for me. I’m a designer, I’m an artist; and for me, I realized that I needed someone to compliment me. On the color wheel, there’s always a complementary color; red and blue, yellow and purple. I didn’t need actual compliments, I just needed someone opposite.

I realized what I wanted from a relationship and what I was no longer willing to sacrifice for it.

So, if you’re leaving a long term relationship, don’t worry if you don’t feel completely heart broken.