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The truth is, the whole sacrifice thing has been going on throughout the relationship.

It gets worse and manifested into something bigger and deeper after the break up.

I always think that Gyunnie feelings is more important than mine.

As a couple, sometimes – we fight over stupid things.

I would be scared of him being mad than anything. I am also scared of hurting his feelings.

That is why Gyunnie always tried to protect my feelings, that when he gets mad or after he got mad – he would ask me if I got scared or not.

We usually apologised to each other about the stuff and for being mad.

I, especially, had a habit to apologise to him over the silliest things.

-Mina

Anita,

That whole conversation with him changed almost everything.

My mind finally sync in with reality, and it was … a weird feeling. A thousand wave of emotions that cannot be explained.

I cried, I laughed, and I was confused because this Gyunnie was not the Gyunnie that I dated.

Of course not. Because he is no longer my boyfriend. I noticed that he tried to keep things as casual and as platonic as possible.

Very understandable.

It has been MONTHS since the break up, his feelings have changed over the course of time while mine stayed the same.

The way that he answered was very different comparing to the birthday message email back in July.

He seems more distant, and does not want to discuss anything related to our past relationship any further.

I sense that it is not because he does not care about me, it is just that our relationship is just … something from the past. Something so behind him.

He is ready for a new future since he got his acceptance letter and he seems kind of uncomfortable when I mentioned Peter (our mutual friend) – I sense it is because he just wants to get over the past.

The past is not something that he wants to remember at fondly. The past that has me, Peter, K University, Business school people, Student council … just everything about it.

And I understand him. I do not want to push him any further or initiate contact anymore.

I admit that I was very mad at everyone and everything. For separating me and him, and I feel like we are in this tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet.

I know now that he is not Romeo and I am not Juliet.

We are just not meant to be together.

and for the first time ever, I am okay with that.

Gyunnie came into my life, he taught me on how to love and accept myself and then he left.

He was just a lesson for me in my life. A memory. A memory that I slowly forget as well.

He was never meant to stay with me permanently and there was nothing that I could have done to made him stay.

It is not easy for me to type here right now to you. I am admitting everything that I refused to admit weeks ago.

And Anita,

I have little gift for you.

We have been talking here for around 4 months, we talk about my personal life and my deepest secrets, something that I never shared with anyone. Not even my closest friends, or Gyunnie.

You deserve to at least know my name.

Mina is not my real name, it is a name that Gyunnie gave to me. He lend me his last Korean name and I added that first Korean name : Mina.

Kim Mina.

That was my Korean name.

Mina is a name filled with pain, memories and just … sadness. I hide behind that name for a very long time. I felt safe using a name that Gyunnie gave. I felt a sense of belonging with him. A sense of connection, but I need to understand that the first step to be myself again is to actually … use my real name.

So, hello Anita. It is very nice to talk to you. I am Monica.

-Monica

Anita,

Thank you for understanding and appreciating my little gift. It meant a lot to me.

For others, it is only a mere name but for me the name Mina and Monica have a very different meaning.

It is important for me, to let go of Mina.

I have been holding on to a lot of things in my life during these past few months.

The name Mina itself, my long black hair that I refused to cut because Gyunnie liked it very much, our old photos together that I still carry everywhere that I go. Our last date receipt from a restaurant that actually already fades right now, I still keep it all.

Because that is how I keep the relationship alive by myself.

Struggling, refusing to let anyone in, refusing to hear what anyone says about him, or about our relationship, I fought so hard alone to keep it alive. It was so hard, very hard.

The earthquake is already starting … it feels like breaking up with him all over again.

It is … truly over this time.

I have said everything and he had heard everything.

Loss is so painful, so heart wrenching, to the point where death is an option – because you realise that it was once good.

It was perfect. It was everything that you had hoped for in your life.

I am so lucky to have a lot of amazing friends, their support has been overwhelming over these past weeks.

I cannot even describe it, I struggle with my belief and faith, my love life problem and my study here at K University.

I struggle everyday and it is not easy to talk with me logically sometimes, I have my own moment when I get very distress that I cannot think straight.

I feel like an outsider here, I have 3 more years as well. That became the main issue of my depression, and the break up was the cherry on top.

I broke down last summer – I was originally a very bubbly and happy person.

I used to love studying, shopping, and being alive. I used to.

Seeing the current “Monica” was a shock to a lot of people, even to my closest friends. I look very tired, and depressed most of the times. I want to get out of this, I really do.

To live my life as Monica, not Mina.

I am currently still in a lot of distress due to the change and shock from Gyunnie`s message, which is normal, I guess. I hope.

The feeling of loss is just so profound, so deep, so painful. It cannot be described with words.

I wrote a few things above on my last reply, on why he was so distant – was my assumption regarding the reason behind his action right, according to you?

That he at this point – just wants to move on and start anew at Y University.

I would love to hear your feedback as usual.

I hope that I do not sound too emotional or stressed out in this reply.

-Monica

I wish that I am pregnant now,

It sounds very distraught and weird,

But If I am pregnant with his baby, he’ll stay with me, right?

We’ll get married and live happily with our kid.

my life will be perfect

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.

Anita

You wrote :

“There is no indication in it of affection or intimacy on his part, only politeness and social graciousness.

There is no indication of him having an intent to resume any kind of relationship, be it friendship or otherwise.”

I feel the same way as you.

I was …. presumptive about the whole friendship thing. During the relationship, I mentioned to him that I have a very good relationship (platonic) with all of my exes.

Me and my exes do not stay in contact, but I still consider them friends because I feel like we shared a lot of memories and affection together.

I still have a pretty good relationship with my first love, the one I dated in high school, we still follow each other on social media and have nothing against each other what so ever. We have a good platonic friendship. We can share a happy birthday message once a year, and that is it.

Upon hearing this, Gyunnie was confused. He did not understand how exes can stay friends. He only had one real ex girlfriend, they broke up in such awful terms that they never spoke to each other again or even have each other phone number / social media. He is not familiar with the concept that exes can be your friend.

He never agreed to be my friend, Anita. I just realise that. I forced this friendship thing to him. Even during the break up talk, he never said anything about staying in contact as friends. His personality is “all or nothing” so MAYBE to him, either I am his girlfriend or nothing. It is hard for him to find a middle ground, sometimes. That side of him was the main reason why he easily decided to move college and wasted one year of his life.

Regarding the words “dating” and “relationship” – I cannot really give you assurance because of the translation. Maybe he was referring to “dating” as it is the proper words to use, you cannot say “I do not know the right manner in a relationship” because it sounds really weird in Korean, but I will not defend his choice of words, you can assume that for him it was only dating.

He did tell me that he loved me. After some pressure from me, I guess.

I asked him whether in the past, to friends or family or ex girlfriend – did he ever say “I love you”?

He told me, only to his close friends as a joke when they did something good for him. He asked if this was my way of asking him to say “I love you” and I said no. It was a lighthearted conversation, I was not serious. Yes, I was fishing but I never really excepted him to say it.

He said I love you after the night of that conversation. I did not say I love you back.

Later on, after a few weeks, we kissed and he asked me why I never told him that I love him.

I told him at that point.

Nothing about future, only tiny bits when he told me how he was willing to postpone his military service for me and come down to K University from Y University every week, it is something involving his future that he was willing to change for me. That was it.

You wrote : “Fourth item is your perception that you have close friends while in reality you don’t share your intimate thoughts and feelings with anyone (so you wrote)”

During my depression period or episode, I refused to reach out. The truth is, most of my good friends (at least 10 people) knows what is going on with me in general. They are aware that I am depressed and always tried to reach out but I was always … very closed on them, I guess. I have 2 best friends named Jessica and Henderson – I talk to them in a daily basis. They also knew that I almost killed myself during these past few months. They tried to make things better, tried to made me feel involved but we are so far away. Distance is the real problem here. They asked me to seek professional help, forced to go out with people so I won’t feel so lonely but I was just very negative and refused to listen.

Yesterday was the first time that I can truly see my friends effort in helping me, their support has been super amazing.

Henderson in particular, as a guy, helped me a lot with seeing things from Gyunnie perspective. He mentioned that I was too serious with him from the very first day. We are only 19, and I am very rushy to get married – in a way maybe Gyunnie feels it as well. That I was taking the relationship into a very serious manner.

The truth is, we almost broke up when Gyunnie told me that he was moving college. I CLEARLY told him that it would be better to break up now if he is not all in. Gyunnie told me that he was all in, he was willing to commit to me LONG TERM regardless military service and the distance between Y and K University (which is a 2 hour bus ride)

He promised me that. He broke it off himself. That was why maybe he apologised during the birthday message, because he is aware that he was not consistent with his own words. He did it out of his guilt.

To give you more context, I think the break up trigger was when I told him that I am not the type of girlfriend that can go without seeing my boyfriend for a long time of period. Something in Gyunnie snapped after I say that. From that point, he realised that the relationship is doomed. He was and still is a bad liar, so the shift was very visible.

-Monica