A few weeks ago an important chapter of my life came to an abrupt end; my relationship of 5+ years.
For whatever it’s worth, I would love to add to the conversation.
Like her, it was my first real relationship. Prior to that, I had “relationships” in my teenage years spanning no more than a few months. We entered into a relationship young. I had just turned 19 and she was just about to turn 17 (I’m now 24 and she’s 22).
Prior to writing about me and our relationship publicly, she wrote to me privately with an explanation about why she was leaving. I went through the gamut of emotions. I was mostly focused on the why, not the how. Why did she leave me when just a few hours before, we saw each other, spoke to each other normally and exchanged I love yous the way we usually do only to wake up to a text on my phone the following morning saying that she was unhappy and that she was leaving. I was confused, disappointed and angry.
When we first met (via twitter) I was not interested in a relationship; I was indifferent to relationships and I thought that love and relationships were a distraction. In fact, in the footnote of the plan for my life (which I wrote it 16 or 17 years old) I said that marriage and love may offset my goals by a few years. I was bitterly opposed to the idea of a relationship and I expressed that to her in the most vile and disgusting way; that was the genesis of our relationship and my emotional abuse towards her.
As I mentioned earlier, I was mostly focused on the why, not the how. I read her post, re-read it many times it and decided to think about the how. How did our relationship end in the way that it did and is there any merit to the things that she said? My answer to that is yes. As it’s said, hindsight is 20/20. I can accept that I was passive aggressive, controlling, overly jealous, belittling towards her, emotionally abusive and unavailable among other things. I am not happy or proud about many things that I’ve done or said in my past and I work daily on becoming a better person. Nothing that she has spoken about publicly are things that we didn’t speak about in private, not once, but many times spanning over a few years. I recall that my response/remark to many of our issues was a cavalier “it’s not that big of a deal”; my default response to most of our issues. For her, I think that the love, concern and need for a resolution turned into resentment over time. What I naively saw as an improvement in our relationship dynamic and a resolution of long standing issues that followed us throughout our relationship for years was just her choosing to keep her thoughts and emotions to herself which inevitably caused us to become distant, but I was too busy being lost in my own head to see it.
I have never loved any other woman the way that I have loved her and I don’t regret any of the time that we were together. I can truly say that a lot of the growth that I’ve experienced as a human being between 2010 and 2015 I attribute to her and our time together . Our conversations were many and varied from speaking about women’s rights, racism, homosexuality, education, love, religion, health, work and many others; my evolution of thought on many topics are as a result of these conversations.
We had an imperfect union, but every experience is an opportunity to learn, take responsibility and seek out growth. I am not in denial or oblivious about my shortcomings as a human being and the demise of my relationship is a consequence of those shortcomings. I accept that. I will continue to work towards becoming a better leader, partner/lover, friend and human being in whatever form that may take, whether through counseling or other otherwise.
We had a public relationship and a public breakup. The separation has been very hard for me, it being public has made it even more difficult. Thank you to everybody who has reached out in support; I appreciate every kind word.
Relationships are challenging, understandably so. Two people from two very different backgrounds with different views, experiences etc trying to operate as a unit in this crazy, but beautiful world is very, very difficult, but if I had to do it again, I would.
But I hope with all my being that I would be able to do it better.
Originally published on gordonswaby.com on 2015-03-31 (recovered from the Internet Archive).