It was actually for a casual relationship, not a serious one. So, I guess it wasn’t technically a breakup... (also, disc: I wasn’t perfect in this situation. This is just my viewpoint of it so take it with a grain of salt)

He was the first person in my life to whom I admitted I had been assaulted a year prior (after I had a breakdown which made me realize what happened) and he promised to show up of his own accord, insisted he could do it, and he bailed. And that itself took about two months to work through, and though we did, I should have just ended it then and I didn’t.

It went on for months. He was just so indifferent to me... like he basically didn’t care enough to even text me if I was scared or in the hospital or anything at all. He bailed all the time without any explanation. He said he’d be better about messaging back and letting me know when he needed to bail and that didn’t get better. He lied and forgot that he had done so, so later on he would say something that would make it obvious that he had lied.

I just had so much anxiety and was dealing with the aftermath of an assault. I couldn’t bring myself to just say, “This isn’t a healthy situation for me and I need to end it.” I didn’t even want him to think of me as his girlfriend or anything. I just wanted him to care, just a little bit.

I had such a hard time telling him when I was feeling upset and when I did, it was usually the result of being pushed to a breaking point (sometimes by him but a lot of it due to my whole personal life going up in flames) over time. Eventually, I just couldn’t deal with him being in my life at all and I texted him to end it, since it’s not like he’d be willing to put in the effort to meet up in person anyways.

The whole thing made me feel hollow; like I wasn’t good enough for anyone to even care about me at all. And that wasn’t entirely his fault; some of that mentality was already there and I was dealing with a lot.

And it’s taken time to heal from that but I have. It taught me a lot about the importance of being my own cheerleader in any situation, therapy, and talking about my feelings before they accumulate into a breakdown. I’m doing pretty great now and I just hope he never treats anyone as badly as he treated me. Because I don’t think I could even show the level of indifference that he showed me to a stranger.