by
Kizzy1984
@ 2008-09-28 - 22:20:28
I don’t really know where to start. The night was going so well, a little wierd, but then the five of us haven’t been together in over 3 years. However, the first few ciders took the edge of any awkwardness and we covered the basics of what everyone has been up to lately while proceeding to get drunk. ‘Nerdy’ outdone himself, going from beer to whiskey. After hugging and repeatedly shaking hands with everyone and anyone, (as well as freaking me out so much by stroking my hair that I moved seats – via the bar for another round to make it less obvious) he was then sick into his whiskey glass. Well, top points for getting it in the glass and not everywhere else.
A bouncer came to swiftly move us on after that, and we headed back to the flat of B, where we were all staying, about 3am.
As the only girl I was supposed to be sleeping in the spare room, but as Nerdy was in such a state, I suggested he sleep in there while we stayed up for a bit watching South Park. B headed off to his room, and the ginger welsh one passed out on the airbed. That just left me and the Ex. I was making a bed up on the floor for myself, with my massive duvet, when the Ex seemed to take offence to me leaving him to sleep on the sofa on his own, despite the fact that it was the second time we’ve seen each other in over 3 years, and I’d not given him any inkling that us both sleeping on a tiny sofa together would be acceptable in any way.
This ‘rejection’ however, set of something that he has been keeping bottled up since we broke up. He still loves me, he has never got over me leaving him, and he feels so bad about the whole thing that he doesn’t know what the point in anything is anymore. I’ve fucked him up for life basically.
We never spoke about what happened, and we haven’t been in touch much since, except for the odd email or text. So he wanted to know why. I was honest, I explained that what you think you want when you are 18, is different to what you want when you are 21. Things change, people change. Especially at that age, through Uni. He just could not grasp this though. He couldn’t understand what was so different about me, why I had to change, why I loved him at one time, and then I didn’t. There is no real explanation though, these things just happen. I am a different person now than I was 6 years ago when we met – I have grown up and everything that has happened to me, all the good things and the bad, have made me who I am today. I didn’t know what I wanted – I still don’t – and needed to experience life and be able to do anything that I want to do, without anyone holding me back. As it is now, the only person stopping me from achieving what I want is me.
He went on about how he doesn’t feel like he is worth anything, he doesn’t know what he has to do to make someone love him, and I’m the only girl he has ever been with. It seems like he has just given up, he’s got such a negative attitude and isn’t prepared to do anything to make things better. Whatever I was suggesting to make him feel better, he just said what was the point. He thinks that the world is against him because everyone else in the world is obsessed with money and power and look down on him because he doesn’t have a ‘proper’ job. I pointed out that nobody has said anything to him about his job, it’s obviously him that has an issue with it. If he’s happy working there, then it has got nothing to do with anyone else. If he’s not happy, then he should do something about it, instead of acting like it’s everyone else that has the problem.
He just kept saying that love is everything, and why wasn’t it enough that he loved me, why did I feel like I needed more than that. Apparently it’s stupid to want to have a good job, to have ambition and to want to achieve something.
Apparently, if you have love, you don’t need anything else. I put it across that actually, happiness to me is mix of different things that combine to make me who I am. Love is important. But so is family, friends, work, hobbies, interests. You need more than love to make you a complete person.
At his insistence, and aggression, I was honest that that his drug use was a problem for me, and not something I was prepared to deal with. And his negative attitude that the world owes him something without having to work for it doesn’t help his appeal either. While he was insisting that he couldn’t understand why I didn’t love him anymore as he hadn’t changed at all from the person I fell in love with, I pointed out that that was exactly the problem. That while most people grow up, he hadn’t. It might be harsh, but there was no reasoning with him. He was crying, getting quite angry, telling me that everything I was saying was shit. And then he would apologise and say that he knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, it was his issue, not mine.
I thought that more than three years after breaking up, he would have got over it and moved on. He has never mentioned anything like this, and I thought that there was no issue. But as it turns out, he seems to be very depressed, he doesn’t think much of himself, or anything/anyone else and I’ve destroyed his faith in love and happiness. I suggested that smoking cannabis is probably not helping him, as that will be making his depressive thoughts even worse, and that he really should speak to someone, his mum, his brother or a friend. But again, he became defensive and insisted that none of this would make any difference.
After going round in circles for nearly two hours I just said that there was nothing I could say to make him feel better – I’d been honest, whether he understood it or not, and that was as much as I could do. I said I was going to try and get some sleep as it was nearly 6am. But of course, after all that it was pretty hard to get to sleep.
I was on the floor, with the Welsh out for the count beside me, (He either slept through the entire thing, or if he had woken up, didn’t want to let on) and the Ex on the sofa. He started to talk to me, but I pretended to be asleep. He thought I was asleep and was lying on the sofa, crying and muttering over and over again, about how he loved me, how I’d broken him, made him a broken man, made him weak. He was also swearing quite nastily, though I think that was more aimed at himself than me.
It was scary. I was lying there, so uncomfortable, with my heart beating so hard and loud, trying not to move, as I didn’t want him to know I was awake. I managed to drift off, though he didn’t and kept getting up and leaving the room and coming back again, waking me each time. He let the cat in and I got the shock of my life when it ran across my pillow and brushed against my head. I was just drifting off finally, and thought it was him touching my head when I woke up, paranoid and uneasy. A few hours of broken sleep, and pretending to be asleep, and it was time to get up. Stayed for a while, making breakfast and small talk, though the Ex was very quiet and red eyed. The guys just figured he hadn’t handled his drink very well and was more hung over than they would have thought.
He didn’t really speak to me this morning. He was probably embarrassed, and he still looked very upset. It was an awkward way to leave things, but I didn’t expect any of this, so I had no idea how to react. I rang B when I got home, as I couldn’t really speak to him with everyone else there, and he has known the Ex since sixth form, though they are not as close now as they once were. No one else knows that he has been feeling this way, so I thought I should really tell B so that he has at least one friend who knows what has been going on. He was as shocked as I was, he thought he had got over me and moved on ages ago, and had no idea he felt this bad about the whole thing. I was worried that I was putting him in an awkward position by getting him involved, but he reassured me that he would rather know so that he can be there for him.
So I’m feeling pretty rubbish that I’m responsible for him being this way. Though I know that it’s not really down to me - I can’t be held responsible for his attitude, lack of ambition and inability to move on. People break up all the time. I’ve dumped and been dumped and I know how awful it feels, but some people deal with it better than others. You can’t stay with someone if you’re not happy. I feel for him, I really do, but equally I’m mad at him for putting this all on me, so long after we broke up.
I don’t really know what to do know. I don’t want to get involved in his life after all this time and make things worse for him, but knowing what I know, I don’t want to sit back and not do anything. He has some serious issues – issues that probably go a lot deeper than breaking up with me. But he’s stubborn, and thinks that the only thing that would help is if the entire world gets an attitude change, as opposed to himself. He won’t go get professional help, but it sounds like it could be what he needs.
I do feel better now I’ve spoken to B about it, and know that he can look out for him. It’s a relief that someone else knows, and I just hope that by talking to me last night the Ex feels a little bit better too. Though that’s probably naive of me. I don’t think there is any easy answer to this one.
Sorry, I have went on quite abit. Just had to get this all off my chest.
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