I'm going through a very rough break up at the moment and below is me trying to summarize where it started and how it got to this point.
9 years ago next month, I met a girl in Berlin and we fell in love. She tagged along with me on my roaming around Europe for a few months from there. When I had to go back to NYC at the end she told me she had an internship offer there. She said I was keen to see where things would go she'd accept it. Naturally, I said of course I did.
Those months were great. When her internship was over our situation wasn't so simple. We're from two different countries so we weighed our options: someone gets sponsored, both of us get remote jobs, or we get married. We didn't make that decision instantly but eventually we did decide to get married.
We set everything up and did that at a courthouse in Vienna. After that she went back to her job in London and I to mine in NYC. We decided on doing the green card process and getting her to NYC. That took 1.5 years and was rough.
During that time, we talked about doing an open relationship. She said she wasn't keen on having sex with other people but I wanted to. We never really confirmed that and I did it anyway. Shortly after her getting to NYC, I still had dating apps on my phone and she saw an alert. That was my first huge fuck up, it all could have ended there.
We didn't break up though and lived in NYC for a little over 1.5 years together. I remember everything being good there but I don't think she really ever liked NYC. We decided to leave NYC and move to Berlin but travel for a year in between.
During that year, I think it was mostly fine. We did have our arguments - lots of them at certain points. They could be about cleaning the AirBnB, booking accommodations, flights, etc... Some so heated we even talked about breaking up. There was even one instance about her going to do a working holiday in New Zealand but I wouldn't have been able to get one so I'd have to keep roaming around in the meantime.
Fast forward through all that, and we finally make it to Berlin. She came a bit before to set everything up. When I first got here she was living with this weird old man roommate. I was only there for 2 weeks at that point then going back to NYC for a month. That guy was super awkward, locking himself in his room, then when I was walking out the door to go to the airport he came out me asking who was paying rent for me since I didn't hang out with him. Come to find out, he later unregistered my wife without her knowledge.
After NYC, I came and we were able to move into our own flat. I had a little freelance gig still and started looking for a full time job. She already had one and things were going well for her. I remember her instantly wanting me to pay for half of everything even though I didn't have FT job yet. That was rough finding one since I wasn't fluent in German. I guess I just didn't feel supported so we had conversations about that and Berlin was a rough for me.
I guess I never really liked Berlin. I could say hated it. I didn't feel supported, was having trouble finding a job, and generally not vibing with German culture. She loved it and was going out to techno clubs. During one of my lowest points she wanted to have an open relationship again. I didn't really feel like I could say no because of the NYC situation.
At some stage, I definitely reached my lowest point in Berlin. The stress was getting to me and my face even went half numb at one point. I had to go to the emergency room and in that experience everyone was bitching at me about not speaking German fluently. I became depressed, thought about suicide, and admittedly a shitty person for a while. I wasn't really "there", negative, and complaining about everything. Usually blaming it all on Berlin.
Then corona happened and that was actually good for us. But I think I was still complaining and negative throughout. She was trying during that time and I was kind of vacant. I didn't have much of a sex drive and wasn't sure if it was just me or if I'd lost the attraction to her.
Once things opened up and it was possible to travel again, since I got a remote job during corona, I just started leaving all the time. I wasn't in Berlin for more than a month at a time for over a year. She didn't seem bothered by it and I would always cite just hating Berlin, saying something like I missed her but nothing about Berlin.
She just recently came with me to Barcelona for a month. Things were better there - we shared intimacy and affection again. It was the first time we'd had sex in a months. Afterwards I went to a couple of other cities for another 1.5 months before returning to Berlin. We actually decided to open our relationship up for that time frame.
Once she got back to Berlin, she said she had a breakdown. She realized she did miss the intimacy, affection, and that I was just so heavy all the time now. That I just quit trying to work on myself. Maybe we needed to take a break and would have that conversation when I was back.
We stayed in touch but at one point she told my Mom she was going on a date. Naturally my Mom, and my best friend my Mom told back where I'm from, started calling to ask if everything was alright. I was bummed she did that and started thinking more about how I felt and what this conversation was going to be. I was thinking I'd be happy to take a break and go back to Brazil for 3-6 months. Then I started thinking...maybe this is it? Maybe we don't take a break and this conversation is just us deciding to get divorced.
The conversation went in the latter direction. She had also even started dating someone when I was recently away. I'd mentally prepared for it but it still hit me hard. Harder than I expected. Even though it feels like it was a long time coming, it feels like it happened all at once. I'm just feeling so alone right now and have a lot of things to figure out.
I had a friend who when I talked to him, he would always ask if we were still together. The other day I asked him why he always asked that, did he always really think we would break up? He said that I was just never really never the best version of myself, time to start now. I don't think it was all me but that really got to me.
Topic: The WELLNESS OUTREACH & SUPPORT Thread (Read 28947 times)