Confused and conflicted

[lost_in_this_world]

Has anyone else had the experience that when they first got into a relationship, their lives changed in a significant way, making the breakup doubly hard? Not only do you go through the usual pains of a breakup, but you go through the process of reverting back to your former self.

 

Let me tell you my story.

 

First some background.

 

I had never imagined that I would have a relationship. I was very shy growing up and any contact with girls would be very awkward, most of the time causing me to blush or say silly things. There were a few girls I’ve got along with OK in the past, but I never considered myself adequate enough to form anything more than ‘friendly’ relationships with them. I think I always felt too different. I think the main reason why is that my personality doesn’t fit in with my background. I come from a ‘disadvantaged’ background – no father figure and raised by a single parent who has never worked. And I’m not looking for sympathy at all; I’m just telling it how it is. At school this was mostly OK – there were others who came from similar circumstances who I could mix with. I was always shy but it didn’t present any major barriers. I made some good friends. The problem with me, I think, is that my circumstances don’t match the way I should be, for want of a better way of putting it. I’ve always taken an interest in my schoolwork and put effort into it, perhaps knowing that it was my ticket out of the council estate lifestyle. So, the people who stayed on in the sixth form at my school were mostly the middle class kids, the ones who realised the value in education. And there’s me, sort of like a fish out of water, having middle class kids as school mates, but never really gelling with any of them. So I was mostly alone in the sixth form. There wasn’t really anyone there like me. But I just kept my head down, did my work, and went home. I continued to associate with my mates who had left school at 16 – they were like me and understood me, and I ‘gelled’ with them. We had similar cultures. A large part of this culture was smoking weed and just ‘chilling’. But that was fine with me, I realised it was wrong, but it connected me to my friends. I felt like I belonged with them.

 

As it happened I ended up with the best A-level results in my school, which weren’t particularly good, but being the school that it was and it’s catchment area, they stood out. So off I went to university. This is where I really was a fish out of water. Everyone was so middle class, so sociable, always laughing and smiling and chatting about this and that, so outgoing. I was different. Inhibited, shy, quiet. I didn’t seem to have the same zeal for life that they did. I felt out of place. I lived in halls but made no friends. I just didn’t ‘fit in’. Even the way I spoke was out place – I swore more, didn’t pronounce my t’s and used a lot more slang. It became too much. Despite doing well in the first semester, I became very depressed and lonely. I used to just smoke weed most of the time in my room and get lost in music. Before the end of the first semester, I can’t remember when exactly, I cried to myself in my room. I couldn’t take it anymore so I left uni. I thought I’d get a job working with computers, as I’ve always been able in this area. Without any IT qualifications or experience though, the plan was very different to the reality. I ended up working with a friend on a factory production line, screwing together toy cars on minimum wage. I did this for a year and a half, during which time I started selling weed, and smoking loads of it, and drinking loads too. I went out often with friends (one of which used to get completely lashed and drive to different pubs, I was in the car) and got very drunk all the time.

 

Fast forward a year and a half. I decided that this lifestyle wasn’t leading anywhere. I felt my brain rotting and my soul withering. I needed to go back to uni. I decided I had a future there and I couldn’t take this job anymore. I was working class like my friends, sure I should have belonged here, but my inner personality just didn’t. I think the reason why I quitted uni in the first place was that I thought I belonged in a working class job like my friends. I felt I belonged with them, connected with them. But after trying this lifestyle out, it wasn’t for me. In a way I was torn between two things – the culture which I had grew up in, and my academic abilities/intelligence whatever you want to call it. I belonged in two places at once and at the same time in neither of them completely.

 

Anyway I decided that anything was better than this job, so I went back to uni. Doing the same course at the same place, but this time commuting, so that I could do the academic stuff but still retain my mates who lived near me who I had known for years. Great. I was so happy to be going back to some kind of future. I was worried that because I had had two years out, I would’ve forgotten the standards required and wouldn’t have been very good. So I worked very hard in the first semester. I ended up getting three firsts for my three modules; the top out of the 70 or so students on the course. I won student of the year, despite my second semester performance being ok, but nothing special. The first semester was that good it was able to balance things out so I still ended up with the highest marks.

 

The reason why my second semester marks dipped is that this is when I met, let’s call her, Jenny. She was a very pretty girl, but more importantly, she was down to earth and said things how they were. On top of this, she was very funny, always joking around. I couldn’t help but joke around with her – our senses of humour were exactly the same. I started to hang around with her and her two mates – I became part of the group. We often all went for lunch together and sat together. Amazing! Joy! I was part of a group! Now, the other two people I found it hard to connect with at first, but it turns out they were quite down to earth too. Anyway it was made easier because I related to them through Jenny. She was so outgoing and would talk to anyone, would say whatever was on her mind. It was great. Not only had I made a good friend at uni, but it was a girl too! And to top it off,

I found her very attractive and fancied her too.

 

I found out she had a boyfriend and when I heard this news, my face dropped. I wanted to get as close to her as I could. I mean, this was a miracle. There’s me – shy, quiet, out of place, ‘different’ to everyone else at uni, very low self esteem and confidence, and I’ve managed to become friends with a very pretty funny girl. I never pictured this happening. Anyway the four of us went out to lunch one day and Jenny asked if anyone wanted to go out. No-one was up for it but I sure as hell was. So it ended up being just us two, and we had a great time together. I was in ecstasy the whole night, so full of joy to be out with a pretty girl who I got along with so well. We started going out more, we liked each other’s company so much. As I commuted, she let me stay on the sofa at her parent’s house. All this despite the fact she had a boyfriend. I was falling in love and it didn’t matter, I didn’t care. I never thought this moment would come. I’d spent all my teenage years of fantasysing about being close to a girl, and here I was. We saw each other more and more and more, eventually I was staying round hers most nights in the week. We ended up being intimate. I didn’t care how wrong it was. I thought I’d die a virgin and that’s the truth. I wanted to have the experience so much I didn’t care, and the fact it was with someone who I was beginning to love by this time made the temptation unbearable. So, as you can guess, we ended up falling in love and having a relationship behind her boyfriend’s back. I would see her everyday and every night and Sundays – whenever he wasn’t there. I saw her more than he did. During this time I also got her pregnant, which he thought was his. She had an abortion. If there is a heaven and hell, I can guess which one I’m going to for this. This affair went on for quite a while. I was in love and was experiencing the feelings of joy and happiness associated with that and I just didn’t care about the consequences. I’d never been happier in my life that’s for sure.

 

This went on for about a year. By that time I posted a few times on ena about my dilemma. I was feeling intensely jealous over her other relationship. It was too much. She was going on another one of her holidays with him and the thought of what they’d be doing the week whilst I was at home alone, I just couldn’t handle it. I followed advice and gave her an ultimatum – me or him. To my shock and joy, she chose me. After the holiday she was to break it off with him. She did this and soon after we got together. We were together for about a year and three months. During this time, she had always continued to see him. I busted her so many times and each time forgave her. I never thought she’d slept with him, and I still don’t know exactly what happened, but they would meet up to go shopping, or for a coffee, that kind of thing. A couple of months ago it had came out that she had still been seeing him, despite me thinking that all ended months ago. Not only this but I found out she’d slept with him, and she had also slept with him in June. So I again followed advice and broke it off.

 

And here I am two months on. The usual pain associated with a breakup, yes I’m going through all that. Most of us know how hard it is. But there are other things for me. Like I mentioned, I come from quite a poor background. With Jenny, I did so many things for the first time. It was amazing. The first time I went to a restaurant, the first time I went clubbing and danced, the first time I went abroad on a plane, the first time I went to see a football match, the first time I stayed in a hotel, the first time I went to a ball, the first time I had a decent haircut and the first time I’d been dressed trendy. I mean, I changed incredibly as a person. The things I experienced were amazing to me, I saw a different side to life, how good it could be. I went from a chavy looking, slang speaking, drug taking, sheltered person to someone who experienced culture, went on holidays, had city breaks, went to a posh ball, went cinema, ate at lovely restaurants, went to fancy bars, rubbed shoulders with people with good jobs, went shopping, wore nice clothes. I had career aspirations. I tried going into teacher training. I never in a million years thought I could be a teacher but Jenny gave me the confidence and told me I am good enough to be these kind of things. I wanted nice things so I was willing to work hard and achieve what I needed to. I failed in entering training anyway, but I still had my sites set on other things, which I still do now.

 

So here I am. I am back now. I’m back to the council estate. I'm back to this dingy, backwards town, such a contrast to the happening, forward-thinking city where I've been living. I still go uni there (doing a post grad course) which just reminds me of the way things were. I don’t go for meals/cinema/bars, I don’t really go out at all. I don’t know what clothes to buy to look how I did. I don’t go on city breaks and I doubt I’ll be going abroad in the next few years. I’m back to hanging around with my mates who have dead end jobs for the most part, not her mates who are going to be or are teachers, doctors, nurses... I am reverting back to my old lifestyle. I thought I was going to be part of the middle class culture which I felt alienated from going through school and growing up, I so nearly made it, I nearly broke free. Now she is sharing these things with someone else. I am still changed. I refuse to go back to taking drugs, even though my mates still do around me. I do drink fairly often now though. I still want a good career, although the career I want has changed slightly. I have learnt new skills, how to eat out at a restaurant, how to act around others. I have had experiences such as being on holiday. I look different, I don’t wear all Nike clothes like I used to and have my hair short anymore. I am more 'cultered' ans socially ept. But I am left in between two places and I feel like I belong in neither. I am not like my friends anymore, although that is where I’ve always belonged. I feel ailenated. I don’t take drugs or want a minimum wage job; I don’t eat crap food and want to sit around playing computer games all day. But I’m not middle class either. I don’t speak properly for that and I’m losing touch with what it means to be immersed in culture – going for Sunday lunches, night clubs, cinema. My music taste has changed back to what it was before I met Jenny. What I want in life has changed. How do I balance these things up? I don't know who I am.

 

God knows what happened to her long term ex but she got with someone new a few weeks after we broke up and moved in with him. She told me this new bloke is bubbly and much better suited to her. The pain of her enjoying these things that I did with her with someone else is great. It makes me so sad to think of her going on holiday abroad with someone else, going for romantic meals with someone else, going shopping with someone else, and of course most of all making love with someone else. Doing the things I won’t really do anymore. I miss it all, but then I wonder, is it really me? I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone will understand me like her. I’m almost certain I won’t get anyone as pretty and I’m fairly sure I won't find anyone with the same sense of humour. It took me so long to find a girl I was comfortable around and I just don’t see it happening again. Unless it’s far in the future, by which time my younger years will have passed by, and the person is likely to have kids. Most people are in relationships by this stage anyway. I don’t understand who I am or what I want. Sometimes I’ve seen myself becoming religious, listening to sermons and starting to believe in god and seeing the virtue in leading a religious lifestyle. Other times I think it’s all a lie to keep people happy and my academic/common sense tells me it’s a throwback to years gone by where people when people didn’t know much about the world. I don’t know if I want a middle class lifestyle or if I should stay close to my roots and friends. I don’t know if I think taking drugs every once in a while is OK or if I should abstain. We could all die tomorrow anyway. I don’t know who I am. What I do know though is that I am still painfully shy, meaning it’s unlikely I’ll be able to have a decent career in my field – I mean, I am rubbish at articulating and explaining myself verbally. I think a lot of my self-esteem was based on the fact I finally had a girlfriend, a very attractive, popular one at that. I am fairly sure I’ll end up lonely. I am lost in my own thoughts and lost in myself. My mind is overactive and over thinks things and contradicts itself and is unsure and confused more than anything.

 

Her behaviour has been awful at times. She has been very nasty and spiteful and said some horrible things. Yet sometimes she was also so kind and giving. She has had a troubled upbringing herself (abuse), maybe accounting for why she cheated to seek affirmation of herself from others. Maybe I shouldn’t have ended things with her. She has been an angel to me in ways, taking the burden of changing me and showing me things and giving me new experiences. Maybe I should have put up with her flaws as she put up with mine. I sometimes feel she felt sorry for me. She said after we split she’d never really loved me. At times she said in arguments that she was a charity worker. She has gone out with a couple of people not as good looking as herself because she has got along with them well, and tried changing them and improving them. Sometimes I think she is evil – she is a liar, a cheat, and sometimes could act very selfish. But then I don’t know if I believe in evil. These behaviours were so obviously inhereted from her mum. Sometimes she was kind, giving, helped others. Perhaps her problems are not her own fault. Have I let go of something I shouldn’t have? Or should I say tried to let go. I just can’t do it. I can’t seem to let go of her, the person who I’ve been closest to and the person who’s changed my life in ways I didn’t think possible. I really miss her. Sometimes in a very deep sense. I just want to talk to her again.

 

 

Thank you for reading my story. I will add to it as life goes on.

 

/thoroughly confused, conflicted and sad.