My ex-boyfriend and I dated for only three months. Prior to that, we were friends for a little over a year. I met him through my sister. Do you know that thing where people talk ill about their exes when things don’t work out? Well, that is not what this is about. I won’t lie, I enjoyed every bit of my relationship with him. We were ecstatically happy together. Even though we are both young, we talked about marriage. He is twenty-three years old, while I am eighteen. But we did not hide our relationship. We were both proud of each other. We never hesitated to introduce each other to our friends; “Meet Bertha, she is my girlfriend.” Or “Meet my boyfriend, Judah” Our love was young, so strong, and fast-growing that I did not think we would ever come to an end.  

What happened was, Judah started acting busy out of nowhere. I was worried because he usually dropped everything to be there for me whenever I needed him. I asked him several times, “Babe, is everything okay?” and his response every time was, “Don’t worry about it.” But I am one of those people who worry all the time, so I was worried about whatever he wasn’t telling me. And I kept pushing him to talk to me until he got fed up one day and said, “I need some space.” I didn’t understand what he needed the space for, and the only explanation he gave me was, “My life has taken a drastic turn so I need time apart to sort things out.” As we have already established, I worry a lot. So, I started worrying and overthinking the situation. And the more I thought about it, the more anxious I became that he was going to leave me. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I was a complete mess. 

My parents noticed the change I was going through and became concerned. They called for a meeting and I told them I was having boy troubles. Thankfully, they didn’t get mad at me for dating at a young age. They rather sat me down and advised me to keep calm and wait for things to take their natural course. And maybe, everything would have worked out, had my sister not budged her nose into the situation. She got angry on my behalf and texted hurtful words to him. Honestly, I don’t blame her. She was looking out for her little sister. We are only two girls so we are very close, and we like to stand up for each other so I understand her reaction. My only problem was that she used some profane words on him. And after he read her message, he decided that he wasn’t good for me so we should break up. 

I tried to convince him that we could make things work, but he stood his ground. I felt so miserable and beat myself up for what happened. I feel like if I was patient with him, all this wouldn’t have happened. But now when I think about it, he is also partly to blame. He didn’t even communicate to me his reasons for wanting space. It was after the breakup that he said, “I found out that my dad has a terminal illness and he was hiding it from my family. As the first child, I saw it as my responsibility to break the news to my mother in the best way possible. That is why I asked for space.” I felt bad when he told me this. If he had explained things to me right from the beginning, I wouldn’t have acted the way I did and we would have still been together.  

It’s been two months since he left me, and I don’t think I can move on. He is the first person I kissed and allowed to play with me sexually. We didn’t go all the way but we did all of the things that were close enough. Initially, I was scared to do those things but he persuaded me and I gave in. After I had a taste of it, I couldn’t get enough. I became so addicted to him that sometimes I would skip classes just to make out with him. This had a psychological effect on me when we broke up. It felt like I was a drug addict experiencing withdrawal symptoms.   

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I reached out to him and told him what I was going through. “If you hadn’t persuaded me to do all those things with you, I wouldn’t have been struggling like this,” I said. This guy told me, “If you didn’t like what we were doing you should have walked away. It’s not like I forced you.” I am deeply hurt by this statement. It makes me feel as if he was just using me. It sounds like he indirectly called me a fool for doing something I didn’t want to do, for his sake. Maybe he is right, I should have walked away when I realized things were getting too heated for me. But do you know how blinding love can be? You would see the red flags looking you in the eyes but you would interpret them as pink flags. 

I want to get back at him and make him hurt the way I am hurting. So many bad thoughts are filling my mind right now, what should I do? 

—Bertha

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