So I wrote about this once before, albeit very briefly, so apologies if it rings a bell.
My (now) ex-gf and I headed off to university this Autumn (her in London, me in Exeter). We had been together for 6 months, 2 months of which was fairly casual and 4 months of which was VERY intense. After about 2 months, she asked that we be exclusive and I agreed. I am not a huge electronic communicator, preferring to see people in person, so only texted her a few times a day. This, despite my agreeing to be exclusive, she interpreted as a lack of interest, so, unbeknownst to me, she kissed a guy at a party only a week later. Apparently they were ‘rolling around on the kitchen floor together’. She then proceeded to not contact me for 4 days, before finally making contact and things proceeding. I had heard about these events from someone else but decided to not bring up what I assumed was a drunken mistake.
A few weeks later, her interest again seemed to be waning so I asked whether she wanted to give things a rest. She insisted that she was not interested in anyone else and, after considerable persuasion on my part, she admitted to having kissed this other guy. She explained it had meant nothing and was simply a mistake so I let it go and made efforts to message more and show more interest. Very shortly after this chat, she told me that she was falling in love.
Over the next few months, we spent almost all of our time together. We would do all of the usual couple things, became FB official and spent a huge amount of time with her family (so much so, in fact, that her mother once called me her second son). My ex would come out with what seemed to be hugely intense expressions of emotion including: “I feel like I’ve met my soulmate; I want to spend the rest of my life with you”, “If I was to get pregnant, an abortion would be very hard knowing that it was yours”, “if you move to Australia after uni, I would come with you”, “you’re my world”, “I’ve never loved anyone like this before”, “we’ll have a dog and cat named …. in the future, and we’ll live in a house in London full of antiques from all of our travels etc.”. Alongside this was constant high praise along the lines of “you’re the perfect man”, “you look like David Beckham” (I don’t), etc. She (according to her sister) was also writing similar things in her diary so she must have believed it all.
Towards the end of our time together, we lived at her place for a week whilst her parents were on holiday (they even gave me a key) and then went on the most magical holiday to Barcelona for a week, which she referred to as “a dream”. Constant expressions of emotion and love and plans for the future here also.
However, alongside all of this fantastical language was a darker side. She told me early on that she had cheated on her ex of 2 years and hadn’t felt guilty as she “wasn’t in love with him anymore”. She also didn’t tell him due to “cowardice”. This, of course, rang alarm bells but, since they were at long distance most of the relationship and he had unexpectedly decided to take off for 2 months over their long awaited Summer together, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. I also interpreted her honesty as a willingness to change. Additionally though, she would often say things like “I trust you with my life” and “i don’t think I could ever lie to you”. She also told one of her friends that she had “stayed true” to herself and true to me at a festival (as if she thought she might not…). Finally, she would occasionally break down in tears and tell me that she was terrified of messing things up once we got to uni and that she had never meant to go to uni with a bf, but didn’t want to lose me.
She was also a keen festival/Brighton goer and would take huge amounts of drugs on these occasions, which I disliked hugely. She had been wildly promiscuous at around 16,17 at festivals so I was again, perhaps needlessly, a touch concerned sometimes.
Well we promised each other that we would try to make it work. She never, however, seemed entirely convinced, Again, in the diary, she said how much she wanted it to. After a week of university, and sporadic, unenthusiastic communication on her part she started to say things along the lines of “maybe you’ll meet someone else”. She would excuse herself from phone calls and not message back for 24 hours. Obviously I took this as a bad sign, but hoped it was just Fresher’s enthusiasm. One or two times, however, she phoned whilst drunk saying, “I’m terrified of messing up, or you meeting someone else”, “I want this to work so so so much”, “I need you here to make me believe this can work”, “I miss your mind, body and soul”, “you’re my world” etc. She also seemed devastated when I suggested that we could end things if she was losing interest. Needless to say, I was confused…
I decided to go and visit 2 weeks in to clear things up, so we agreed a few days prior. I was still barely hearing from her though. I drove 2 hours to get home, before leaving to meet her from her final Fresher’s fortnight event, as we had agreed earlier that evening. As I was leaving the house, at 1 am, to make the final 2 hour drive to London, I sent a confirmation text. She replied, without apology, saying that she would not be home, and was staying with friends (she hadn’t even remembered I was coming). I was annoyed but determined to save the relationship, if I could, so agreed reluctantly to go the next day.
When I arrived, she was in tears but would not say why. She was also wearing another guy’s jumper and lied about how she had got it. We went out for a meal only for her to spend the ENTIRE time messaging other people and, as it turns out, the guy whose jumper she was wearing. She was cold as hell towards me and kept flying off the handle about tiny things. She also would not engage in conversation. When we got home, I demanded to know what was going on and why she was so uninterested in my presence. Turns out that she had agreed to go home with this other guy the night before (on the night I was coming to visit), and slept in his bed “cuddling with clothes on”. She insisted vehemently that nothing more had happened. Even as we discussed a break up though, and she flooded with tears, she picked up her phone, AGAIN, and messaged this guy.
Now I’m not an obsessive boyfriend by any means but I was so suspicious that, when she left the room at one point, I checked her phone (shameful I know, but she was being so evasive and I had to know what was going on with this girl who had seemed so utterly obsessed with me all Summer). Turns out she had been saying things like 'conversation is really forced’, ‘the meal was ****’ and ‘I’ve had the most boring day waiting around for him’ etc. (whilst we were together, to a guy she had known for a week!) They had also been messaging constantly for the past few days, during the time she avoided by calls and texts. Bearing in mind that this was just a few weeks following us being sat on a sunny Barcelona terrace and her planning our lives together… She also thanked him for the 'cuddles last night’ and told him that he had tired her out. The conversation didn’t confirm that she had slept with him but certainly seemed to suggest it.
Since then, we have spoken once or twice. She told me that she didn't know what she had done to offend me, that I had hurt her by removing her from Facebook and that she thought we ended things amicably!
Obviously I am heartbroken and I wanted to know what others thought. I wanted to know whether her behaviour seemed poor or whether I am simply overreacting. Does this seem like the behaviour of an immature, rather dramatic girl (drama student) at uni, or is her behaviour indicative of her not being a very nice person? I should add that she's not that young - she's 21...
Would love to hear from anyone