My [27/M] girlfriend [26/F] of 8 years ghosted me 12 months ago. Last week I ran into her on an anonymous app built for people recovering from breakups. She confessed she still loves me. What should I do?
Throwaway for obvious reasons
Background: I (27M) met my now ex-gf (26F) at a mutual friend’s party in high school. We immediately hit it off and started dating soon thereafter. (She was from a foreign country and went to a small exclusive private boarding school for kids from ultra-wealthy families. I was local and went to a regular public high school. This small fact will become important later in the story, but at the time we didn’t care). We were just two kids madly in love. We were perfect for each other and were basically attached at the hip from that point. After graduating we even went to the same college so that we could be with each other. Our mutual friends often referred to us as “the perfect couple” and our worlds revolved around each other. For the next 4 years we were together. I honestly I thought I was going to marry her. Neither of us had ever dated anyone else and we were each other’s first everything. In total we were together for over 8 years.
Then sometime almost a year ago, I had to go on a week-long work trip. She had to visit her parents (no occasion, just her yearly trip home), so we coordinated that she would go to her home country during this time. She texted me saying she needed to talk, nothing out of the ordinary so I told her I’d call her as soon as I was done with my meetings for the day. As soon as I heard her voice however, I knew something was wrong. Her voice was trembling and she made some small talk. Then she launched into it.
She basically started talking like a robot, the summary of which was basically – “I love you – You’ve given me the best years of my life – We can never get married – You won’t understand – Thank you for everything – I love you – I’m not coming back to America – I love you more than you can ever imagine – I am not in any physical harm – I am doing this out of my own will – Please forgive me (she kept repeating this) – I love you – Please forgive me – goodbye.” I asked her if she had cheated on me and she said no, but wouldn’t give me any further explanation. I honestly thought it was a joke or I was being pranked. She then disconnected the call. It didn’t sink in until I tried to call her back and found out that she had blocked my number. I cut my trip short and took the next flight home the next day hoping that this was some sick joke and she would be there in the apartment. When I got to our apartment, all of her stuff was gone. There was a check for basically the entire year’s rent made out to me which was left on the kitchen counter. The check was issued from her father’s company.
Long story short I tried to contact her in every way I knew (texts, calls, social media) but she had blocked me everywhere and had deleted her social media. I tried reaching out to her via mutual friends but she didn’t respond to them either. I eventually called her work pretending to be a relative and they confirmed that she had quit her job. They wouldn’t give me any additional details.
That was how our 8 year long relationship ended. No explanation, no closure, not even a hug good bye. She literally vanished from my life and off the face of the earth. I tried contacting her parents (I had both of their numbers on my phone in case of an emergency) and they didn’t return my calls and eventually changed/deactivated their numbers when I started calling from friend’s phones. Yes, I even contacted her country’s embassy twice to inform them about this and to check on her. They politely listened to me but I never got a follow up response from them. I contacted the US consulate in her country but they told me that since she is not a US citizen there is nothing they can do. She cut ties with all our mutual friends too.
I thought about going to her country and showing up at her door. But I’ve never been to that country, don’t speak the language, don’t even know her address and can’t quit my job (loans + I support my parents). In hindsight, she kept her entire life back home hidden from me. It should have been a huge red flag but since we were living in America and she had told me she had no plans of ever moving back home, it’s just something that I never bothered to learn about.
Not going to lie this whole episode really fucked me up. I lost weight, I started getting anxiety attacks, I’ve had a hard time trusting people since and I still haven’t been able to sleep well. Many of our mutual friends who were also perplexed by the situation thought that I must have done something wrong/horrible to her and began distancing themselves from me (although to be fair I may have pushed some of them away because this is all I would talk about whenever I met them.) My own family and friends were extremely supportive but after a few months told me to “move on” or “you don’t want to be with someone who could do that to you anyways”. I couldn’t move on so easily and this haunted me. I was first confused, then angry at her (and that’s putting it mildly) but in my heart I just couldn’t accept that she would do something like that to me. It wasn’t like her at all and the whole thing was so bizarre.
Then about a week ago, I was browsing r/breakups and I came across a free service that a good Samaritan redditor set up for that subreddit. Basically he created an app that recreates Alcoholics Anonymous online for people going through a breakup or divorce. Everyone is anonymous and the groups are limited to 8 people. It's all text chat based. Apart from a username, everyone is 100% anonymous similar to how Reddit works.
Clearly I wasn’t over my breakup and I wanted to stop bugging my remaining friends about it so I downloaded the app and got randomly assigned to a breakup support group. The only sorting criteria is age i.e. you’re put in a group with people the same age range as you. It worked well and everyone in my group really bonded/opened up to each other. I guess having the company of other people who were going through similar issues was really comforting. Everyone introduced themselves, shared their high level breakup stories and gave each other support. One user, let’s call her Jasmine, had a story that particularly hit home with me. She had been forced by her parents to return to her home country and breakup with her boyfriend in America.
Yup, I was intrigued so we moved the conversation to DM’s and got to know each other better. Based on what she has told me, the way she writes and a few obscure interests of hers that only I know about, I am 100% sure Jasmine is my ex.
I haven’t told her that its ME yet. I was so shocked I initially didn’t even know how to react. I haven’t pressed her for the full story yet as I’m walking on egg shells and don’t want to appear to be too prying. All she has said is that her parent’s emotionally blackmailed her into it as her bf (me) wasn’t in the same league financially as her family. She’s also confessed that she’s still madly in love with her ex (me). She said she’s never been able to forgive herself but had to “make hard decisions for her family”. I haven’t asked her why she ended things the way she did yet.
I know its morally questionable for me to keep talking to her anonymously when I know who she is. But part of me is afraid that if I revealed myself to her, she will freak out and I’ll never know what really happened/I’ll lose her again.
I don’t know what to do. This has been tearing me up and I can’t focus on anything else. Part of me wants to jump through the phone and be with her. It feels SO good to be talking to her again (even if she doesn’t know it’s me). I’m over the moon that she still loves me.
But part of me is also VERY angry at the way she treated me. She just walked out on us with no explanation and never bothered to check in on me or contact me for over a year. Money was never something we spoke about or cared about so for her to do this over money is bizarre, immature and despicable. The last twelve months have been hell for me and she knew fully well what her actions would do to me.
I think I have three options:
1) Stop talking to her and try to move on with my life
2) Tell her it’s me and see what happens
3) Keep talking to her anonymously, find out more and then decide what to do. I know this is morally questionable abusing her trust but there are so many unanswered questions here.
My ex was never a Redditor and Reddit is straight up banned in her country. What were the odds that we would be placed in the same freaking group on an anonymous breakup support group app built for Redditors? My logical mind tells me that I’m only going to hurt myself by further indulging in this, but my heart is saying that this might have happened for a reason and maybe there is more to this story.
Advice?
Edit: shortened it as I realized I word vomited a little
Edit 2: Since many people are asking below, I'm 100% sure its her. I won't go into details for privacy, but she had a few interests which are extremely obscure so there is no doubt in my mind that this is her.
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