I was dating my friend. We’ve been classmates since Primary Five and have stayed friends ever since. So I was confident, really confident, that I knew her. Knowing someone since you were eleven means you know each other well.

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When we started dating, I told her everything. My past relationships, how they ended, how I dealt with the heartbreak – all of it. My relationships always ended because of a ‘male friend.’  I’m the kind of bloke who doesn’t make female friends outside of my girlfriend. When I was with someone, she was my only girlfriend, my partner, and my best friend. I thought that was what girls wanted, what made them feel safe. But every woman I’ve been with has cheated on me with one of their male friends. So with her, I told her everything, maybe with the hope that she wouldn’t break my heart the same way.

One day, while we were talking, she called me by her ex-boyfriend’s name. That ex was also our mate, my close friend. I was even sitting at the same desk with him at the time. She said what they had was just school dating, nothing happened. We weren’t dating when she did that, so I told her if she was still in love with him, she should go and tell him. We laughed over it.

It should be easy to ignore. But it happened three times in a row. We were just friends then, so I took it normally.

The problem started when we began dating properly.

One day she came to my house. She was talking to someone on the phone in front of me, telling them to tell *him* she would visit when he got back from his trip. After the call, she told me it was our classmate. Her ex. I asked her why she was inviting herself to her ex-boyfriend’s house. She said it was nothing, that she wouldn’t actually go. I got furious. I escorted her home and, I’ll admit, I nagged. I brought it up again. I asked her not to go. I wasn’t trying to limit her, but really, who goes to visit their ex? I told her not to repeat it.

The second time, a friend asked our mate, the ex, if my girlfriend and I were dating. He said he didn’t know. So I told my friend to set him straight, to tell him we were dating and soon to be married. I told my girlfriend about this.

Three days later, she came over and said the ex had asked her if we were dating. Someone had told him. And my girlfriend denied it. She told him she wasn’t dating me. I was stunned. Why would you tell your ex you’re not dating when you know you are? She said she didn’t think about it that way. We talked, and I told her it was getting too much. If nothing was going on, she should stay away from him and never contact him again. I gave her a warning. I thought it was over.

A few months later, she came to town for a friend’s wedding, and lots of our mates were there. I was feeling poorly, so I couldn’t go, and I didn’t know her ex would be there.

She came to my house around 6:15, after the wedding, and said she was going to take her bath and come back, but I waited till 10pm. When she came, I was nearly asleep and still feeling unwell.

We started to watch a movie on her phone, and then a message popped up from the ex. I didn’t open the text but went straight to her call log, and I saw she had called the guy more than five times during the time she said she was going to take her bath.

I asked her, and she said that when the guy got dropped off at the station, he saw her and some mates but didn’t speak, and at the wedding, he kept his distance, but then that night, he told her kid sister to ask her to call him, which is why she called. I asked, Why would you still call him after he’d refused to talk to you all this while?

I was so hurt and heartbroken. She left town the next day, and three weeks later, I called to break up with her. It hurt like hell, for this is the girl I love very much, and she has helped me a lot—I won’t lie.

Marriage Through the Eyes of Millennials and Gen-Z

But my problem now is this: I don’t want to be ungrateful. She has done so much for me. I have decided not to talk to her again, but that feels like I’m throwing all her goodness back in her face.

So please, help me. Should I be talking to her after we broke up?

—Prince

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