My most difficult relationship pt.1

An emotional hyperbolic time chamber

Some thoughts before the story begins

I struggled to decide what I wanted the goal of this post to be. While it was fun to have all my friends side with me and hate on Adam Jimoh, I don’t necessarily want that to happen with my ex, but any “I hate her”s in the chat will be appreciated. In order to avoid that, I felt like I needed to remember the conversations correctly. I was able to download our chat logs from the time that we were together. I cringed so hard at many of the day to day conversations. I felt frustrated that I let myself go through all this. I felt furious that she talked to me the way that she did.

While reading through the messages, there were multiple times when I would get too worked up. I would take a break to go play games or go hug Ingrid to soothe myself. I felt some dread when I would think about returning to read the messages and write about them. I considered stopping, but the intense emotions I was feeling while I was reading these messages was a signal to me that I should probably keep going. There is a lot to be angry about that I wasn’t angry about at the time because I was so anxious and worried about losing her. If 25 year old Tyler couldn’t be angry for himself, then I will be. It’s been pretty therapeutic.

Many of these conversations happened in person or over video calls, so there are not always text logs. Memory is faulty, so I might not be remembering things correctly and definitely will forget the impact that what I said or did had on her. Consider me an unreliable narrator.

I also should mention that this was my first relationship after beginning to process my parents’ divorce. I was feeling extremely cooked and probably tried to make things work by whatever means necessary since I wouldn’t be able to handle the hopelessness of another breakup. I still beat myself up over not leaving sooner. I’m not saying I was a good partner to her. I communicated poorly at times and violated her boundaries, and I can understand how she would be extremely upset and angry at those things. How she communicated that anger is the issue.

Shoutout to my friends that helped me through all this: Brian, Michael, Wenhao, Angie, Tanner and Momina to name a few.

Content warning: emotional + physical abuse. I don’t even know if this requires a warning. Maybe I’m downplaying or exaggerating how bad things were?

Here we go.

Before meeting in person

In September of 2020, I started talking more with a girl, let’s call her T, who was living in New York at the time. I forgot how much fun it was to be at that stage with her. There was tons of flirting and our conversations were lighthearted and playful. She sent me a video of her reviewing some donuts and I remembering adoring the way she reacted when she was really enjoying the one she just tried. In a playful and flirty manner, she invited me to visit her in New York. Why would I risk flying all the way across the country to hang out with a girl that I haven’t even confirmed has more than friendly feelings for me? Over all the other people in San Diego?? Or even SoCal???! Especially during a pandemic?!?!? I was sprung. Or limerent? And I found her extremely physically attractive. This would be a huuuuuuge win for my ego, which told me that I maybe wasn’t good enough to be with someone like this. I booked my flight on September 26th, 2020 for 6 - November 14th, 2020. Oh boy.

On October 29th, we had our first fight/argument(?). How did I so easily find it in the many thousands of messages sent between us? I remember her calling me ignorant and insensitive. To be fair, what she said exactly was:

She didn’t say that I was ignorant and insensitive, but that’s what I read.

I’m not sure how we got onto the topic, but we were talking about some scandals in Korea, including the Nth room case and the Burning Sun scandal. Eventually, we transitioned to the Asian hate crimes that were occurring in the US. I guess it became a conversation on intersectionality, and I think she made a claim that Asian women were more likely to experience hate crimes than Asian men. I think I was feeling more curious, and decided to do a quick Google search to see if that claim was correct or if that it had been the case that more of the Asian hate crime victims were women than men.

At some point I detected a more aggressive tone in her messages and preemptively apologized if I had upset her, then she responded with

To me, that sounds like something an upset person would say. I was really confused, but I was also upset cause I thought I was just called ignorant and insensitive out of nowhere. To me, it felt like I was just having a discussion with a friend and they just slap me. Here comes my ego again. I ask her what I said that she considers ignorant or insensitive, and she replies to all the messages with her reasons. Instead of trying to further understand why she’s upset (even though she said she’s not upset), I get all defensive and try to give “explanations” or excuses for what I said, and she called me out on that. She sarcastically said that she loves when people get all defensive when asking for feedback. The conversation over text continued to be pretty antagonistic but it seems like resolved it over Zoom? That evening I went to the park with Michael and he let me vent while we tossed the rock.

I can’t remember for certain if I considered ending things with her right after that. That was a pretty rough conversation for people who aren’t even dating. It reminded me of that Key and Peele skit, except I was able to pick up on the shift in her tone. I kinda wish she ended things with me then too. I’ve seen her drop friends for seemingly less significant things. If I knew what I know now, I’d probably try to dig a little deeper into what she was feeling. Why she’s maybe afraid to state that she’s upset (this would show up again). Maybe it was the fact that it was only a couple of weeks until we’d meet in person.

The two weeks go by without issue and I make it to New York, and we finally establish that there are mutual feelings for each other. There are two things I really remember from this trip. I over salted the pasta water when we stayed in and cooked together. The other thing was that she asked me if I wanted to try being in a relationship with her. I thought about it for a couple of days, and I had to really think about it because I knew that we’d be starting out doing long distance. Every time I’ve done long distance, which was two times prior to this, it was excruciating. I had been thinking about pretty much the entire time we were hanging out, then all of a sudden I just say fuck it, might as well give it a shot. She seemed pretty happy with that decision.

Now we’re officially together

We saw each other in person a month later when she came to visit San Diego. She came to San Diego twice and I forget when some of the things happen. But there are two significant conflicts over those two trips that I remember. The first one was really my bad, and again, I’m super embarrassed by how I handled this. I don’t know how this topic came up but basically she was communicating with me how she didn’t want me to kiss my friends or yike on them in the clurb. I was pretty sad about this since dancing on my homies in the club is the only reason I go and I need to kiss the homies good night in order to sleep well. Jk. I asked her why she didn’t want me to, hoping that she would change her mind about it. I could have just acknowledged her rule and said something like. “I’m sad that I won’t be able to do these things with my friends anymore but I understand and will not kiss the homies goodnight.” I didn’t even acknowledge her rule, but she said that her reason was just that it wasn’t a common thing in the US. Not yet it wasn’t. But, I made a stupid comment about how just going along with how things are is what gives us racism. Pretty sure she took that as me calling her racist, and she was understandably very upset about that. I dropped her off at the airport later. Pretty bad note to end the trip on.

I talked to Angie afterwards, and told her what went down. I apparently called my ex after she got landed to resolve the conversation. I even prepped a bit by journaling. Although I don’t remember anything that was said during the call, I messaged Angie saying that a concerning thing my ex said was something like “I feel like you should know when what you’re about to say is gonna upset me.” I think her exact words were “tread lightly”. Kidding. According to my messages with Angie, I told my ex that I was worried that I would have to assume too much and then I’d be walking on eggshells. There’s another issue here that I didn’t pick up on at the moment. Why was I going to Angie with my relationship issues? I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but I think it was because I didn’t feel safe in these difficult conversations.

I’ll save the second San Diego fight for the next post, but a couple of weeks later, we had another fight after I mentioned that my friend once saw another ex’s butt. She said she didn’t want to thinking about that. One thing that stood out to me about this one was that she kind of expected me to get upset if she were to talk about her ex’s private parts in that way. If she did, I don’t think I would really care. And the fight got worse when she kept on trying to make the point that I would also be upset if she did. When she brought it up, I wasn’t really able to identify the core of the issue. This fight was extended to a few days because I expressed some frustration too soon (before validating her feelings) and that made her feel like she wasn’t being emotionally supported. It looks like there were about 3 hours of discussion across 2 days for this issue to be resolved. She was right. I didn’t have the skills to be truly empathetic during conflict, and some reddit post made me realize that I was putting the burden on her to teach me empathy. She also mentioned that having to deal with this conflict ruined her first day out from quarantine while she was visiting family. I guess I began looking up resources to help me learn? Looked like there were some on Headspace. A couple of days later, we were making plans to live together. what the fuck was I thinking?!?!?!?!?!

One of the first things I shared on my journey to become more empathetic and a better partner was the State of the Union meeting from the Gottman Institute. The basic rundown is each person shares at least 5 things they appreciate that the other person has done since the last SotU. This is supposed to help them lower their guard and remind each other that y’all really do like or love each other and are on each other’s side. In the next part, each person can share up to 3 things that they ware upset about. The person sharing must use “I” statements in order to reduce the chance that the other person feels like they’re being blamed and becomes defensive. Having this meeting regularly will help prevent someone becoming resentful since it is a regular space to share things that you need to get off your chest. My ex and I started doing this, but honestly, I still felt too anxious to bring up anything I was upset about. Haha so silly of me.

Long distance but she’s in another country

Our next little fight happened on February 3rd. I was talking to some friends about how I was planning on moving back to SF and that I was planning on moving in with my girlfriend. They were surprised that I was now with someone. I felt reluctant to share how I met this person because, honestly, I am still a bit ashamed of how we met. We met on a gooning server on discord (I won’t say the real way we met for anonymity). I told her that I didn’t tell them who was my girlfriend because I didn’t want to deal with questions. She told me that I’d have to face the questions at some point, then a little later she says that if I’m so scared to tell people then maybe I shouldn’t be dating her in the first place. She was right about that, so I apologized that I didn’t tell them and that I am so worried about what other people might think. We chatted for a bit before I went over to Brian’s house to study for interviews. She got upset about that because it should have been a “cancelable” event.

We plan to talk about it on February 5th since she planned to hang out with her friends back home on the 4th. It was around 6pm my time when she messages me and asks what my plan was for the day. I tell her I have plans at 9pm with Michael and Nhi, then she gets mad that I’ve only allocated a few hours to talk with her. Maybe she was worried that we won’t resolve the conversation and that I’ll leave to honor my plans again. I tell her that I’ll cancel with them. She responds with “you should’ve known this before I even had to tell you though.” She says “clearly my emotional needs aren’t a priority to you.” She starts to push me away and say things like “I don’t want to talk” and “go hang out with your friends.” I tell her that it’s unreasonable to expect me to know exact details of timing for our conversation when all we agreed upon a couple of days prior was that we’d talk about it on the 5th. Then she hits me with a “How long we’ll talk for, those things shouldn’t have to be communicated. If you really care for me and my emotional needs you would’ve planned for the maximum it might take to talk this out.” After another round of “I’m done talking about this. Go hang out with your friends,” she stops responding to my pleads, and I lose hope. I send her one last apologetic message.

I’ve already turned to Angie for comfort at this point and planned to go over to one of our other friend’s (Stacy) house, but then she messages back like 5 minutes later. I still go over to Stacy’s to hang out, but after we kinda talk things out. I remember eating In N Out, and Angie hated that I like root beer.

In the end the call lasts 100 minutes. Wow that’s like within the amount of time I planned for us to talk. I haven’t learned anything about attachment theory at this point, but if I had, I hope I would have spotted the behavior indicative of anxious attachment styles.

After the whole thing, she sends me over articles on defensiveness and assertiveness:

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/behavior/understanding-defensiveness-as-a-coping-skill/
https://nickwignall.com/defensiveness/
https://nickwignall.com/intellectualized-emotions

And I send over more Gottman institute articles:

https://www.gottman.com/blog/help-your-partner-understand-your-side-of-the-conflict-in-3-steps/
https://www.gottman.com/blog/two-views-every-conflict-valid/
https://www.gottman.com/blog/transforming-criticism-into-wishes-a-recipe-for-successful-conflict/

And part of being assertive is knowing what emotion you’re feeling, so here’s the reference we used:

For a while it felt like we were both committed to improving for the relationship, which is maybe what gave me so much hope.

We lived together for 10 days

The end of February rolls around, and I’m so excited to finally be reunited with her in person. Yippeeeeeeee! Yeah I guess that excitement barely lasted a week and a half. We initially moved into some temporary housing together while looking for a more permanent place. It was a small one bedroom around Rincon Hill. The area felt like it’s changed forever after the pandemic. A lot fewer people around since no one was going into the offices in the area. Neither of us had been cleared to return to office either, so we kinda just saw each other all day, every day.

On March 10th, I woke up earlier than she did, and thought I would go out and grab coffee from Philz. I asked if she wanted some, and she said sure and told me to put it on her card. Her treat. So I go out and order a large coffee for us to share. Just a regular coffee. Maybe it had some milk and sweetener in it. I don’t remember. I get back and start work before she’s up from bed. I’m locked in. She comes out and notices that I didn’t get her a mint mojito, the only thing she will drink from Philz. I guess I forgot that it’s the only thing she will have from Philz. She sits down next to me as I’m working and tells me that she’s upset that I didn’t get her a mint mojito, but still in a kinda calm way. She’s not dialed up to 100 yet. I was trying to use some of the communication skills I had learned, so I tell her that I appreciate her telling me that she’s upset, but that was it. I couldn’t really figure out what to say. My mind was focused on work, and I was also thinking something like “you’re not expecting me to run back out and grab you a mint mojito, are you?” Eventually she gets up, and starts aggressively getting ready for the day. As she heads out, she also aggressively grabs her designer bag off the dining table. I don’t remember if she tells me that she’s going to grab her own coffee, but that’s what she does.

Later in the day, we talk about what happened. At this point, I’m also frustrated that I tried to do something nice, and I’m only met with criticism. She says that she questions if I even care about her since I didn’t get her what she wanted. She also throws out that she doesn’t think things are working out between us again. This time though, I agree with her. I say something like “you’re right, I’m clearly not ready to be your boyfriend.” I figured that it’ll still take some time for me to learn better communication and how to be more attentive, so we agree to take a break for a bit while I go do that. I book a flight home for the next day. I remember the morning of the flight, I go out to grab coffee again. This time from Blue Bottle. This time I make sure to confirm what she wants. I remember crying all the way to the airport, during the entire flight to SD, and on the way back to an Airbnb that Wenhao was staying at at the time. Can’t remember the last time I had shed so many tears before that. Thanks to Wenhao for picking me up that day.

I think we should take a break here. Apparently there’s an email size limit, and Substack has warned me that I’m approaching it.

Part 2:

My most difficult relationship pt.2