Hi Anita

I hope you have been well since we last talked. This morning when my mom was taking me to work, we got into road construction and she became very frazzled very quickly and my stomach just immediately went in knots and I had to help her understand where to go even though I was figuring it out on the spot too. It’s this same feeling I’ve always had with my mom, she stresses so much and I have to take over and make things less stressful for her in that moment. I can’t relax, I miss having my ex being able to handle stressful moments like this and knowing I could sit there and RELAX while he handled it calmly.

“… and then, because of the breakup, your objective circumstances deteriorated (you had to move back home with your family, couldn’t get enough sleep, lost the better paying job, etc.), then the breakup would have been a huge loss objectively.” — That’s true. That’s why I actually only ever wanted to just move closer to him and have my own place. At least for the next several years. I was afraid of moving in with him, I’ve seen too many times how that mistake can crumble a person. But yes, even if I got my own place anywhere else, there is always the possibility of having to come back home.

“There were two instances early on into our relationship about possible hurdles for us and he genuinely was worried about me dumping him over them. We talked them out and I know he cared a lot, I saw it and felt it through his actions“- what actions?” — When we first discussed possibly lifestyle incompatibility over his weed usage, he said he was willing to do whatever he could to accommodate me and make it work. He then always kept it away from me, and never once made me feel pressured to smoke weed with him, or resentful that I wasn’t. I even told him I felt bad if he felt that he had to hide parts of himself from me. He said it was fine after checking in with him a few times. The only issue (that I’m aware of) came up with the wedding in July, and I was understanding to that because it was someone else’s celebration. The other time was when he brought up the worry over him not being completely healed from being cheated on from his ex before me, he showed a lot of concern for how that could possibly affect us and gave me consistent care and affection for months after that. I guess you could argue that was still around the first 3 month period where most people are putting on their best face.

“All through the relationship, he lived with his parents because he couldn’t afford a place of his own (“we are both stuck living back home with family in bad financial positions“), and he spent a lot of time- not looking for a better-paying job- but on gaming and liking photos online.. again, not promising.” — I always found it hard to understand why he hadn’t moved out by now, even to just a tiny apartment outside of the small, utopian retirement town he lived in because he made decent money compared to his expenses and had his weekend side hustle with house/dogsitting. He claimed he didn’t make good money and couldn’t afford anything but he made $17.50/hr. which is good in our area, especially without a degree. I never questioned him because I felt it was extremely hypocritical of me considering I was in the same boat, and we weren’t engaged or anything so I felt that his finances were none of my business. Near the end of our relationship, he revealed he wasn’t even working completely full time at his main job anymore and was actually making more money housesitting on the weekends. I found that odd and wondered why he had chosen less hours. I say all that to say that perhaps he really was not in a place to actually want to move any time soon, even if he felt like he wanted to in theory. On the night of our breakup when he was trying to argue that I didn’t want to leave my family, town, or job (completely untrue), I was trying to tell him I could work towards moving to his town and that I was always looking at places to rent. He snapped back quickly and said, “THAT YOU CAN’T AFFORD!”

“To feel like I had ANY part in messing up what was meant for me/us just really is hard to shake off”- meant by whom? — Sorry, I’m not sure what you meant here but I was just saying that I worry I possibly had a hand in ruining a quality relationship that was meant to be for us. And yes, I definitely can’t imagine being someone not filled with shame or guilt or crippling insecurities that I project onto others. I don’t even want to ever date again solely because of my social media jealousy hang ups…