I said I was going to write a feels/emails-related entry so this is my attempt at it because I just have a bunch of jumbled up thoughts in my head and I should probably try to expel them. Oh I also did finish a first draft of my response before so I was able to play Kingdom Hearts for a while. So yay. I'll edit that tomorrow and finally start in on grading the undergrads' essays, which I have been procrastinating on since I really just neither want nor care enough to do it.
Anyway.
I keep thinking about how the ex claims that he really did try to make us a priority and whatnot. And the reason I don't believe him - well...besides his track record when it comes to not telling me the truth and also his inconsistent stories and whatnot - is because nothing that he did is visible. He can claim forever that he tried, but it will never measure up to how hard I tried, because the things that I did were actually real. I made him and us a priority. When he played fighting games all the time, even when I visited after I graduated, I barely complained, despite always feeling like I was competing with them for his attention and affection, in a way. I paid for most things after a while because I realized that he didn't have much money, and I had a job again. Therefore, I was happy to pay for things if it just meant spending time with him. I gave him space when he needed and wanted it. I didn't say much when he would social host the night I came to visit, despite the fact that I pretty much hated a bunch of people in his frat. I gave up my search for London, because memories of him crying and telling me how much he would miss me and how sad we would be crushed me. And him pretty much saying that if I left, we would not survive...that scared me. Because I wanted things to work. Because I loved him, even with his flaws. I really tried to do things that would help his situation, because I did not want to lose him.
The things I did I could list, and I am sure what I've said here doesn't capture everything, really.
However, I can't think of one visible thing he did to try and save us. I can't think of one thing he did to try and keep us a priority, as he claims he did. He maintains that he tried so hard, but he "just couldn't." And I find that to be a load of horseshit and if he truly thinks that then he is lying to himself. Did he go to Wellness or go speak with someone about his issues (because I am not a professional and so can only try and help so much) when I suggested he think about that back in...at least December? No. Did he try and go out with me more, or do things that maybe I wanted to do (which really was as simple as fucking going out to eat)? No. Did he sacrifice a bit of his time playing fighting games? No. Did he really talk to me about things? In a way, he tried, but that effort was minimal at best, really.
Instead, what did he actually do? He pulled away from me. He retreated into games. He stopped trying to do things with me and have fun with me.
He didn't try.
I don't know why he didn't. I don't know why he didn't expend the effort in the same way that I did. It hurts to think about those asymmetries: they are not only just a testament to our character and the imbalance of what we were each willing to do for each other throughout our relationship, but it also demonstrates how much each of us was willing to sacrifice and do for the other in an attempt to save what we had. I believed that our relationship was worth all of that effort. I believed that because I loved him and have never had a connection like that before. I was okay with doing things like that because that is what people who love each other do (at least, I believe that and I have this deep desire to please others over myself so I will usually volunteer to be the one to sacrifice, in a way). They sacrifice for the other. They try and make the person they love happy, however they can. And that is what I did. I tried. I did not run, because as I told him when he expressed his fears about me becoming fed up with him and his depression during the Christmas season, I was not going to give up on him. I was not going to give up on him and on us and I was not going to run away from him and leave him alone and abandoned. I wasn't going to do that.
I didn't want to be with anyone else. So I was okay with sacrificing some things for him. At the time, even, they hardly felt like sacrifices. They were just attempts to make him happier. Which I realize now I could not do on my own. There is nothing more I could have done.
He gave up. I didn't.
His claim that his emotions just changed stun me, because I cannot fathom that happening to me. His feelings for me he argues suffered from a gradual shift because "we were together for far too long." Reading that kind of stabbed me in the heart and made me furious, because if he loved me the way he always claimed, he would not think that way. Really, again, I will never believe that that gradual shift occurred. He shied away from my challenge to his argument: that since he told me two weeks beforehand how much he loved me and wanted to be with me and convinced me that everything was going to be alright between us when I started to get worried...his gradual shift does not exist in reality. Not only with the two weeks, but he told me the day before breaking up with me that he wanted to see me and spend Spring break with me and my family. It is contradictory to claim that that was true but also claim that a gradual shift occurred. I am not surprised he backed down from my challenge to that particular line of reasoning, though.
Really, I'm not surprised that he cannot adequately respond to any of my challenges. Because everything he is saying is crap and I can poke holes in all of it so easily.
He also iterates that he is trying to see things from my point of view and see what he did wrong and become a better person. And while I hope he is sincerely doing that, I can't say that I have high hopes for that actually occurring or anything.
I also hate that I basically had to be the sacrifice for him to realize what a terrible person he can be.
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