Anita,

You wrote : “Clearly, in his mind, other items in his life were more important than the relationship with you. Other items were of higher priority than you being in his life.”

It really hurts my heart reading this. So his social college life is more important than his girlfriend? Student council is more important to him? 15.000 people that he does not even know personally one by one is more important than his girlfriend? He sounds very selfish to me.

You wrote : “he chose to remove the item of lesser value in his life, the relationship with you, so that he will invest his time and energy in the more valuable items.”

It hurts even more reading this. So I do not have a high value in my ex boyfriends life right? Military and college is clearly more important than having a girlfriend.

You wrote : “It may be that he highly valued you, Mina as a person, but he didn’t highly value having you in his life compared to other items in his life.”

In the back of mind, I understand these basic things you have mentioned above but the fact that he does NOT want me in his life is a form of rejection in my mind. And it is, right? The college thing was ex boyfriend decisions. The break up was in a way a consequence of his decision as well. I was never involved in this decision. I understand that it was hard for him and he did not even knew that he would even move college in the middle of the semester … but I feel like he is running away in a sense.

Running away from me, from student council, from his problems in his major – from his own life. He really disappointed me with that decision but I have always 100 percent supported him when his parents and his friends were questioning his decisions. Yet … I was the one he REMOVED instead?

I loved him very much, to the point where I was willing to do everything to have him in my life and to make it work. Yet he gave up on me. He also told me that he actually tried to make the relationship with work schedules, the college and army preparation thing but he did not really see it going anywhere in the future. Considering the fact that he would be “free” to date in the next 3-4 years in his life, I probably wouldn’t even be in Korea by then.

I understand his decision and his logic behind it but again – I have a sense of abandonment that came because of the break up. I have a sense of confusion : why me?

You asked : “how do you think you may have unnecessarily burdened him?”

1. By demanding to see him when his schedules were really hectic. My ex can be forgetful to reply to text messages in general and one time he only read my message so I got mad and did not talk to him for about one day – he begged me to forgive him and I did not reply at all. We ended up meeting for dinner and he came to neighbourhood. He actually live 15 minute by bus, he came in and sat in a bench near the bus stop. I asked why he wasn’t standing up and he told me that Business school had some kind of a sports event, and since it was summer, it was really hot and he had to organise stuff as usual – he was so tired that he cannot even stand up. He also got hurt from setting up a running event. He hadn’t even eat proper meals in that day and his first meal was actually that dinner with me. I felt really guilty that I cried, we had a deep conversation after that (which I can post to you in detail since I still have it saved in my phone)

2. I also demanded him to celebrate our 1 month anniversary (very common in Korean to celebrate this) even though I know that he has an exam the next day, a final exam. To be fair, we ended up moving the date to the day before the actual anniversary and we spend time together until 4/5am that day. I was being really clingy and refused to go home – I shouldn’t have done that.

3. I am indeed very attached to him. You guess the nature of our relationship from the very start. I got homesick and lonely a lot here in Korea so I had a very hard time parting with my boyfriend after a date or a lunch or a dinner. My ex boyfriend was very understanding, he knows that I got homesick considering I am here all alone without any family or a lot of close friends. All I had was him. Every time I have a problem, I would go to him for advices.

4. Sometimes I forgot that besides being Mina`s boyfriend, he is also the student council leader, he is also someones son, he is someones friend. I wanted to be only priority and the most important thing in his life. I never told him this, of course – but deep down inside I had this expectations.

5. I heard from some of his Business School friends told me that my boyfriend treated them differently from the way that he treats me. They saw a different side of him when he was with me. My ex when he was with me ended up being very open, vulnerable and soft. With other people, my ex filtered out a lot of things, he became more guarded and had a strong image. Maybe my ex felt the need to treated me extra nice, I mean he did not have to do that. He can just be himself, you know? I do not which one is the real him. The one when he was with me or the one when he was with his friends.

-Mina

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Mina.