Anita,

You always managed to analyse the situation perfectly – you are right, my ex boyfriend is indeed a perfectionist and a very high academic and social achiever since he was in high school. I never mentioned my ex boyfriend personality in details but you managed to get that one out of my long narrative above.

You wrote : “because you expressed to him how imperfectly he performed as a boyfriend, you gave him a bad grade.”

I disagree with this one, Anita. I have never expressed or said anything about him as a bad boyfriend. I never even made a remark about it during any kind of conversation with him. Ever.

I have tried to understand his schedules and everything in his life, there were a lot of times when we did not even contact each other through text messages due to his schedules, I hold it in most of the time. I have told him regarding the text message problem, he said he will try but it did not worked so well when his schedules never really changed. To tell you truthfully, I do not mind not contacting each other everyday but our meeting schedule must be constant and guaranteed at least once every week. Again, his schedules was very hectic. We were both put in a bad situation, I demanded him to gave me something that he is actually willing to give but he does not even have it at that time.

I have shared my relationship story with a few of my close friends here and they all mostly agree that I have been quite an understanding girlfriend. Not perfect but I tried really hard. I tried harder than him. Reading you feedback makes me questions some of my actions … and it makes me feel a bit guilty – was I that bad of a girlfriend to him?

My boyfriend during the relationship apologised around 4-5 times for not being around much for me, I never demanded any kind of apology from him, and most of the time he apologise out of his own guilt. I confirmed this with him. Every time he apologised regarding not being a good boyfriend, I never once rejected it. I have also apologised for some of my weird childish actions that were pushed by my home sick-ness. He said that he understood because he also lived overseas for a while and he missed Korea a lot.

There were a lot of times when I was fine not seeing / contacting him after a while into the relationship, and I had no problems with saying goodbye or parting with him too later on the relationship. We kissed and hugged and then I went into my house or rode on the bus without any fuss. I managed to tried to handle it after a while though I admit most of the time, I had a hard time parting with him. I was definitely wrong in that case, I am well aware. But to give him a bad grade as a boyfriend isn’t correct.

You wrote : “He values a good grade, and you didn’t give him that.”

I understand how important his grade is to him, it wasn’t the grade being his number 1 priority that bothers is, what bothers me is I do not understand why I wasn’t important at all compared to his grade? Why I wasn’t a part of ANY priority in his life? My grade is also more important than him but I tried to always put my boyfriend as the second priority after my education. He couldn’t even do that to me, Anita. During final exams, I did not contact him at all. I wanted to watch a concert with him but he got a really huge assignment in English class, so we cancelled. Ok. I did not say anything big or throw a tantrum about it. I tried helping and supporting him when he had assignments that were hard, most importantly I SUPPORTED his dreams to go move to another college. I did not say anything, I kept it as a secret and cried secretly If I feel like it got too much – does it still sound like I do not value his grade as much as he value his grade?

His grade is very important to me, too. But I feel like my boyfriend isn’t able to grasp the condition of being in a relationship, that sometimes we need to make little sacrifices to be with someone. His grades won’t suffer that much to just have one free day to spend with me. Was I asking for too much?

You wrote : “I think he had tender, strong feelings for you, but he got very discouraged. I think that the reason was his discouragement and distress.”

There we go … my biggest nightmare is out. The reality that I have always tried to deny for a very long time.

Reading your overall feedback – shaken me up quite a lot and I feel very very very guilty about everything. It was my fault at the end.

I do regret it very much now … If I weren’t so needy and clingy to see him, maybe we would be together now. My heart hurts really bad.

-Mina