This year started a little differently than I had expected. Though, in a way, it started very similar to last year. I had thought I would be spending the night two-stepping and having a good time but instead I spent it inside with my boyfriend. He had the flu so going out was not really an option. It was kind of nice to wake up the next morning and not feel like I had been hit by a train.
Since my year started a little slower than previous years, I thought it would continue to. It sort of had until last week. My boyfriend has been out of a job for a good seven months. He sat me down one day and said he had quit his job because he was unhappy. I just sat there stunned and could feel tears begin to fill my eyes. I was trying to be supportive because I knew what it was like to have a job that you completely hate it. But I also knew that as a 26 year old man, quitting your job because you hate it is not really an option. Especially when you have financial responsibilities and no other job to fall back on. With that being said, I did not support what he had done.
For the next seven months, almost daily I thought about what my life would be like without him in it. Some days I wanted to stay and be with him and others I wanted to walk away. What made it even harder was that we had just re-signed a 10 month lease on our apartment and I did not want to pay penalty costs for breaking the lease. So I continued to love him and financially support the both of us. A part of me died inside because I felt like I was becoming the man in the relationship and I didn’t feel special. We hardly went on dates and there was little to no intimacy. But I still loved him.
Sometime in October, the first big “punch” to the stomach happened. I got home early from work and noticed my boyfriends phone laying on the couch. I guess that’s why he wasn’t answering the phone. I couldn’t help but look through it and there it was. A text between him and a girl he had met while in Houston with some friends. They had sent suggestive pictures and words back and forth to each other. This had been going on for two weeks. I had thought something was going on because he became more protective of his phone. He began sleeping with it under his pillow and taking it with him from room to room. Confronting him was hard because I really just wanted to end things right then and there. Yet again he begged me to stay because he wanted to show me how much he loved me. He kept asking for more time. So I stayed.
The holidays came and went and things seemed to have gotten better between us. I could feel myself falling back into the love I had for him before. It was nice. I was happy. But deep down I could feel myself still wanting more.
My boyfriend finally started a new job this January and really liked it. A month later he interviewed for a different position within the company and got the job. This meant that within two years he would need to move to Houston. This meant that within two years I would need to move to Houston. This was the man I was going to marry one day when he eventually asks. When we are literally the last single couple of our friends. When he finally gets the money together to buy a ring. The next week I was proven wrong.
I can still hear the words that seemed to drip out of his mouth. He told me that in six months when our lease ends, HE is moving to Houston and that would mean I would need to find a place to live. The words WE never left his mouth. He said that he was going to live with a friend because he needed this time to live on his own. He had never lived away from home or away from his parents. And now he decided that he wanted this time to really focus on himself and his job. What he said next will stay with me forever.
“I’m not ready to get married. I don’t want to marry you right now.”
It felt like he was saying that he didn’t really love me. That the last four years didn’t make him realize how much he loves me and that he needs me in his life. That he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me. I have never felt more hurt in my entire life. I was happy he found a job he loves but I was not ready leave the life that I had been building for the last two years.
I’ve reached a point in my life where I know what I want. I’m 25 years old and I do not want to keep moving cities every few years or be with a man who does not really know what he wants from a relationship. I know the kind of man I want to marry. I’m not going to stay in a relationship that is no longer working.
For so long, the thought of letting go seemed extremely hard. So I stayed. But to be truly happy and achieve what I want in the next five years, I have to let go.
So I left.