I was engaged about two and a half months ago. Loved this guy- gave up everything for him. I passed the Foreign Service Officer Test, passed the second round and got to the interviews, and turned it down. He was in ROTC for the Air Force and I knew that if we got married, those two careers wouldn't be compatible. So I gave up that for him, I gave up an internship with the Dept of State, and I gave up an offer with Deloitte that I was really excited for.
I offered to buy the diamond for my own engagement ring because I was the salaried one with a really good job in investment banking (a job that I took so I could be close to him while he finished school) and he was still in school. I was going to lease him a car and pay the insurance so he could visit me. Everyone kept telling me I was out of his league, but I don't quite believe in leagues.
I gave up all of my hopes and dreams and built my life around him because I loved him and the life we were planning together. And then he brutally and suddenly dumped me. We had had a fight, and he had said that he wouldn't support me working once we had kids. And I didn't want to be controlled. I knew that as a military wife I wouldn't have a lot of choices to begin with, but I was okay with that. I just wanted some freedom in the ones that I did have. And he had all of these expectations for how I was supposed to live my life.
So when I pushed back a little bit and we had one fight (that really wasn't that bad) he decided it was too difficult. He told me he wanted to find someone that it was easier to communicate with, even though we had never had ANY issue communicating before. We talked about anything and everything all the time.
I spent three weeks on the floor of my apartment alone, crying endlessly, and hating myself for not being able to just roll over and do what he said. I had been so happy with him and now he wouldn't talk to me and I was alone and needy and I honestly felt like I had ruined my future for this guy who had left me in the dust after a year of committed dating. I didn't want to exist anymore. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through.
I lost twenty pounds, and then I had to go through the stress of moving to a new city and starting a new full-time job all alone. It was awful. I'm still working on moving on. I have my first date next week with this guy who seems nice and actually works for Deloitte. Honestly, I focus on some of the bad things in the relationship -- the fact that his siblings were ill-behaved and obnoxious. The fact that he grew up in a household were it was okay to just have things be filthy, and okay to let the dog pee on the carpet and just leave it. Where it was okay to not properly take care of their pets.
I had to re-build my future and come up with a new career that I was excited about and that I wanted. Something that made me just as happy as he had made me. So when I get really upset, I focus on the bad things and on my exciting future. But it's hard. I just have to let myself feel the crappy stuff. Like last night I had this awful nightmare where three months post breakup I ran into him and his new wife. He'd gotten married within three months to some random chick, and it was brutal to see him with a wedding ring on his hand, and know that he was just as happy with some other perfectly innocent, cute girl.
I woke up at 3 AM absolutely distraught and alone. So I ate ice cream on the floor of my kitchen and sobbed. The worst, but truest answer is time.