Part I: "Wherein Laura and Bill Make a Foolish Mistake"
I'm putting this here because I honestly think the world needs an accounting of when people fuck up, and the likelihood of anyone actually reading this is pretty nil.
My ex-boyfriend and I broke up on January 24th. It wasn't a random or careless decision, but one I agonized over for some time without knowing how far gone the situation had become. Every person I confided in--even staunch supporters of our relationship--told me to end it. I demurred, saying that I couldn't do something like that at the time, because my boyfriend was going through a real rough patch (no job, money issues, susequent feelings of inadequacy) and I didn't want to hurt him more. A wise friend told me that if I stayed with Bill through all of this--particularly for the wrong reasons--and the bond between us grew stronger, it would be that much more painful for him when we broke up. I was viewing this situation strictly from the point of my having stronger feelings for Bill that he did for me, because of the fact that he only discussed love when he said that he didn't love me (which was last said about a week and a half before we broke up, and I had detected no softening of his feelings) and the fact that I was to the point where I felt horrible about myself every time I saw him.
Bill didn't mean to make me feel this way. He was so critical of me, and I have such a fragile ego, that he made me feel horrible even when I loved him. I reached the point where the joy I felt being with him was overshadowed by fear of the next comment beginning with, "Why do you have to be/act like that?" or "I don't appreciate...[something I did wrong]". Bill was significantly older, and he saw it as his responsibility to guide me to the right path as a person; unfortunately, Bill wanted me to be molded into his concept of a healthy person, and in so doing he unintentionally tried to squash me being myself. Every time we got to together near the end of our relationship, I felt trapped and waited for the feeling that I was never good enough or could never say the right thing. Bill said that our ages didn't matter, they really did matter. Bill and I had arguments and disagreements, but they never got resolved. Inevitably, the argument would come down to my being too young to understand or not yet with the maturity that a few years--Bill's age--would grant me; I would feel guilty or chastened, and either apologize or back down and change the subject. I'm not saying Bill is a bad person, I'm saying that Bill and I were bad for each other. We both helped the balance of power become so uneven that our relationship never stood a chance.
I am too sensitive to criticism, too reticent to speak my mind when what I say will cause conflict with those I love. Bill's criticisms--which even he labeled excessive--hit me much harder than they would have another person. I don't see myself as a negative person, but Bill's constant berating over my negativity made me feel horrible about myself. Maybe he was trying to compensate for how he sees his youth, maybe he just wanted to help me out...but I felt like a fixer-upper, and that's a feeling I wouldn't wish on anyone. Still, the downward spiral of our relationship was my fault. If I had stood up for myself and what I thought more, things would not have gotten as bad as they did. I sucked it up when I thought that he was wrong, or being an ass, because I didn't want to start another fight. I put myself in the role of placating him, and I didn't pull out of it until we broke up. It's not especially surprising that he was stunned when we broke up; I was doing such a good job repressing that even I didn't know the damage I was doing to myself.
[to be continued in Part II: "Wherein Laura becomes a hermit, Bill becomes an ass, and Lizzy flips the bird"]
