My most difficult relationship pt.3

Yeah... it gets kinda bad from here

Part 2:

My most difficult relationship pt.2

Finally, no more long distance

From this point on, most of our time is spent in person and the messages are a lot more sparse. The next 4 months have 9 times fewer messages than the last 8 months. Again, I’m an unreliable narrator.

On May 31st, T comes to visit San Diego again. I’m surprised we didn’t message at all during that trip. I can’t even remember when we drove up to SF together. I remember she called me babe in front of Wenhao and Michael and they looked at each other. Not a big fan of using pet names in front of friends. That’s just for me though. It’s cute when friends do it. I forgot all the things we did in San Diego. I think she was upset that we didn’t get to go to the zoo because I didn’t know that they were doing timed tickets because of the pandemic, and I didn’t get it in advance. She blamed me for not getting the tickets. Classic T.

One thing I remember happening is the she hit me for the first time. We went to Wayfarer bakery in Bird Rock. Recommend it. I only went back for the first time since this incident very recently. I think she preordered the pastries, and after we picked them up, she handed me the box. A few seconds later, she hit me in my stomach. Not sure if it was open hand or with the back of her fist. She was upset that I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t and that was my bad. I apologized for that. On the car ride home, I tried to mention that it saddened me that she hit me while also validating her anger since I seemed ungrateful that she got the pastries. I couldn’t really put a more precise emotion on it other than sadness. And you know what she fucking said to me? Just take it. You’re a guy. You should be able to take it. Or something along those lines. Later that day, she asked me if I was okay. I again told her that I was sad that she hit me. And you know what she fucking said to me????? “Well I do think you should suck it up”.

She’s not strong, and I did Tae Kwon Do for seven years. According to a friend, I am legally considered a weapon. Her punches do 0 physical damage to me, but they also do 100 emotional damage. I remember the following partner I had would sometimes playfully rapidly punch my stomach. I knew it was playful, but sometimes it would remind me of the times that T would punch me, and that made me sad. I’m grateful that T never pulled any real weapons on me, but I wish I left after that first time.

On the drive up to SF, I jokingly said “man I wish you could drive too so we could switch off.” Guess she didn’t pick up on the joking tone cause she got really mad and said “you’re lucky I even came along” and became all pouty. I apologized for not expressing my gratitude earlier.

Trouble with Exes

Not too much time passes before we have another misunderstanding. On June 7th, I had just gotten to SF and I guess Young Jin asked me if I wanted to get dinner with him and another friend who I called my ex, let’s call her S. T thought it was so weird that I would ever want to hang out with my ex and my current girlfriend at the same time. She said it was insensitive of me to suggest that to her. She thought it was weird that I said that S was my ex instead of just my friend and that I should have put more emphasis on her just being a friend now. I was just trying to avoid another LiB type conversation where I didn’t tell her that we had been involved with each other before. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t. I had to reassure her again that I am not interested in my exes or past partners in that way, and S has a boyfriend now, so there’s another barrier to her monogamous assumptions about fidelity. Again, if I were going to cheat, the fact that she has a boyfriend wouldn’t matter to me. That conversation lasted 2 hours. It’s so exhausting having to be on edge for that long, and have to carefully think about what I said in order to make sure that she’s being heard and not say anything that might offend her again. I was constantly calculating and trying to phrase everything just right with all the new communication techniques I learned.

Young Jin was just getting into basketball at this time and I would go with him to the park to shoot some hoops. There was one time that S came along (with her boyfriend). I don’t remember if I even said anything to her. I was kinda just trying not to interact with her. Anyways, that time goes by and eventually Young Jin and I go to Costco with T. Young Jin mentions that S stopped by our apartment to pick up some tupperware, and my sympathetic nervous system activates. My pupils dilate and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. T says something like “What??? She was at your apartment?” I don’t remember her actually coming to our apartment. Maybe I was holed up in my room playing games or something. I probably could have lied to get out of this situation, but I’m really bad at lying, so I just come out and tell her that S gave us something at basketball. T punches me in the stomach and says “Why didn’t you tell me she was at basketball.” I don’t know if Young Jin saw this. I apologize for not telling her and we head back to the car. The conversation continues at home.

Once we’re alone in my room and Young Jin is in the kitchen, she punches me in the stomach again and tells me that she’s still mad at me for not telling her. Later that night, we talk about it more. I guess she’s just talking herself into a hole and she’s like “I’m 99% certain our relationship has run its course”. After a whole lot of apologizing and pleading, I think I kind of accept that it’s over. It gets to be pretty late, so head to bed and we continue talking in the morning. I tell her that I agree that I think we’re done and we should break up. Maybe this surprises her because she asked me why we’re breaking up. In typical fashion, she’s calmed down and thinks maybe we can work through this? Anyways, I go on to say that there’s gotta be some reason that I was so afraid to tell her that S was going to be at basketball even if I wasn’t even going to interact with her. Again, she points fingers at me and says that this break up is not about how I feel and that it’s about how I betrayed her trust and didn’t tell her. And I accept that?! Why did I accept that? This is so fucking stupid. I’m about to break my keyboard thinking about this again. She forgives me, but also tells me that I have to write her an email explaining how sorry I am and what I’ll do to be better. AND I DO IT?! Reading through the emails is how I remember more of what was said. Read the first one:

Hi baby, (I’m cringing)

I’m sorry for withholding that information until after the fact. It was selfish. I was scared that you would freak out and I would have to spend another few hours soothing you and especially have to sit through the initial part where I feel berated and increasingly isolated, which I guess happened anyways. I wasn’t 100% sure that you would freak out, but I knew there was a possibility. There were plenty of better ways to handle this. 1) I could have told you earlier that [S] was going to be there. I did end up telling you about it, but it was too late. I could have been specific when I said that Young Jin and I were going to play basketball with friends. I guess the reason I wasn’t was because of what was talked about on Monday, how you said it’s weird that I only think of her as a friend but put so much emphasis on her being my ex. 2) I could have just not gone to play basketball. I could have met up with Young Jin at the park afterwards or with you and him at Costco afterwards. Either option would have been way better than the one I chose. I’m sorry that I chose the option that hurt you.

I want to be open and honest with you, which is what I was trying to do on Monday earlier that week when I was asking about the dinner thing with Young Jin and [S]. I want to be open and honest with you, but I didn’t trust that you would be open to hearing them. I think another one of the reasons it felt hard to open up about these kinds of things is because I feel like I don’t consistently receive empathy when expressing my feelings. I’m not saying that I never receive empathy from you, just that sometimes I don’t, typically when you are upset also. Like with that talk we had when I was back in San Diego about our sex life and why I was so down after we couldn’t do it. When I was explaining why I felt that way, it didn’t feel like you understood because I can’t remember you saying that you did, instead what I heard was that you were sad to hear the things that I said, and then I felt I had to immediately switch to comforting you. I felt that way in San Diego after the incident the morning we went to get croissants. After you had some time to feel better, you came over and asked if we were okay. I brought up the fact that I was sad that you told me to suck it up, and the response was “Well I do think you should suck it up”. I wish I brought these things up sooner too, so that it wouldn’t be an issue now.

I take the words that you say seriously, so when you said you were 99% certain our relationship had run its course, I thought you were certain and that that was really the end of things and my brain immediately switched to coping mode and magnified reasons that would make me feel better about breaking up. I thought you were really serious about that because I had told you about saying those kind of things before and it hadn’t happened since then, so when it happened this time, I thought it was real. I know what the break up was about. It was about me betraying you by not telling you about S being at basketball. It wasn’t about any of the reasons that I listed on Saturday morning. Those were just things I was telling myself to accept the break up. I didn’t want to throw away all the work that we had put in already. I’m sorry for being so quick to accept the break up and not believing that those things that I listed could change.

I’ll communicate more openly about things. I already have. I told you about my one friend in Seattle that I’m planning on hanging out with, even though whatever happened between us was 9 years ago and she has a boyfriend. I’ll try to bring up things that are bothering me like when I feel alone or isolated. I hope you can understand why it has been difficult for me to do so. I know that I need to communicate even when it is difficult to do so. I’ll also try to avoid situations where any of my exes are present. I already told [other ex] that I won’t be able to hang out with her, and now that Young Jin knows about how you feel about [S], it won’t be so difficult to explain to him why I can’t make it to certain things. I will go to couple’s therapy with you. I know that’s something we talked about in the past, and now that we’re both in SF, I feel like it’s a good time to start looking into it. I will try to rebuild your trust again by trying to be more open and communicate with you. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will keep trying even after you start to trust me again, if that ever happens.

Love,

Tyler

She basically tells me it’s not good enough and that I’m blaming her for what I did in the second paragraph, so I wrote another whole freaking email. Here were more of her thoughts about the first email (read from bottom to top):

I still didn’t feel comfortable communicating my anger to her. Here’s some of our messages from the morning after all this happened. I don’t realize that she’s just as scared as I am about things ending, but why am I the only one doing any reassuring.

Also, for someone who is so worried about exes. She did mention hers a couple of times. There was one time, I think it was a couple of weeks before we broke up, she brings up that she noticed that her ex stopped viewing her Instagram stories. I know I look at who’s viewed my stories, but for her to be aware that her ex specifically stopped viewing her stories should have been weirder to me. I probably thought it was weird that she even mentioned it to me but I must have shrugged it off.

Seattle with the homies that I love to kiss

During my trip to Seattle with college friends, there was one night that we were drinking and my other straight male friend with a girlfriend, DZ, puckered his lips right in front of my face, basically challenging me to kiss him. So I did. It was a quick little peck but it sobered me up immediately because I remembered the conversation that T and I had back in December. Kissing friends is a no-no. Doesn’t matter if it’s a guy homie. I retreated into the room that I was staying in and messaged her about it.

I was freaking out, but it was late in the night and she had already gone to sleep, so I just had to sleep and wait for the morning. Yeah she was mad at me. My anxiety and guilt ate away at me for the remainder of the trip. Angie mentioned recently that I had completely changed. Every night I would message her “I love you and I’m sorry.” T didn’t keep hounding me for what I did during the trip, but she did remind me that she expected me to make up for it when I got home. That’s fair. I wrote another apology letter email that was sent on 7/2/21.

Back in SF

There was another instance of me learning how to deal with her. I was able to tell T that I was planning on hanging out with Young Jin and an old intern buddy who I once kissed at EDC. I mentioned in our messages how nervous I was telling her. She asked me things like why we kissed or like why did the kiss not mean anything? No fight ensued, and I was able to get ice cream with my friends. Thank goodness.

On July 16th we went to Temple SF (RIP), and there was a group of guys in the corner at a table who had a money gun. I think we walked away with $20 each. That’s not the important part. I think one of the guys called her over and she noticed that she was the same ethnicity as them, so she went over. She just chatted with that one guy for a little bit. They were sitting side by side and he had his arm over her. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. She came back after a short amount of time. I asked her who he was or what he wanted. She just said he was some guy of the same ethnicity. Pretty sure I asked her about him putting his arm over her. She said it was really normal in her culture. I kinda just accepted that. It didn’t sit 100% right with me, but it was whatever. I’ll take her word for it. BUT FOR SOMEONE WHO’S GIVEN ME SO MUCH SHIT ABOUT “OH DON’T YOU THINK IT’S WEIRD THAT YOU THINK THIS IS OKAY. WHY CAN’T YOU JUST KNOW WHAT I WILL THINK IS DISRESPECTFUL TO ME AS YOUR GIRLFRIEND” I REALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE PISSED AT HER ABOUT THIS.

In early August, we take a weekend trip together to Vegas. Wow, a trip for just us? It’s almost like she’s an important person in my life. I’m bitter. That weekend goes by without trouble. I’ll take it. I remember I was telling my teammate that I was a little anxious about how expensive Vegas is. T overheard me and interpreted it as me not wanting to go to Vegas with her. Wtf. We come back and my dad and Dylan are visiting the bay, so T comes to join for dinner one night. That also goes by without issue.

There’s not really any text logs of this fight, but we have another fight on August 9th. This was mostly on me. We were in her parking garage and walking back to her apartment and I was slapping her butt and teasing her. She told me to stop. I kept on going. She got really mad, so I stopped for real. I don’t know what it is with me and teasing. Maybe it has something to do with how family members would keep squeezing my cheeks as a kid. Again, on me for not respecting her boundaries. I kinda meekly apologize to her, but I don’t do the full apology I’ve learned to do because I’m still kinda startled by how angry she was.

I don’t do a good job of reassuring her that I know we’ll need to talk about it, but that we’ll take some time to cool off first. Instead she goes back to her desk to work, and I go back to lying in bed while watching the Office. Not too long passes before she confronts me and asks me if I was going to talk to her about it. And then we get into.

The things I remember about this argument were that she asked me why I did what I did, both in the garage and when we came back into the apartment and just went back to bed. In a previous argument, I think it was the one where she punched me, we had talked about how she would always get more mad after she asked why and I would try to give some of my thoughts behind what I would do. I reminded her that we had talked about that and there was no point in me trying to explain what I did. I think she still pushed me to explain.

One of the reasons that I went back to bed was because she had told me that if she were in a state of heightened emotions, then we should wait and let her cool down before we start talking about whatever happened. I think that conversation also happened during basketball fight. She denied that she was in a state of heightened emotions. Okay buddy. Do you think I can’t tell when you’re pissed off? After the argument, she tells me to leave her apartment and that she’ll need to think about whether she wants to continue the relationship.

Back to Life is Beautiful

On August 14th, T and I hung out with Momina at the Ferry Building market, one of my favorite places to chill on a Saturday morning. At the end of the hangout, Momina asks T if she’s going to LiB. If you’re reading this, it’s not your fault Momina. That reminds T how upset she is that I don’t want her to come. Just let me hang out with my friends!!! So then, after we get home, I’m trying to soothe her and everything. She tells me she still wants me to make it up to her, so I’m like okay what do you want me to do. Then she’s like idk you figure it out. I ask her if she wants me to get her a gift or something. I ask her to at least narrow down the options. She says that defeats the purpose. What is this a fucking test?! In a last ditch effort to get her to SHUT THE FUCK UP, I tell her that she can come. Then she’s like “I don’t believe that you really want me there.” In my head, I’m thinking “OF COURSE I DON’T WANT YOU THERE, I TOLD YOU THAT FROM THE VERY START!”

So now she’s having me thinking of ways to convince her that I actually want her there. She comes up with some stupid fucking story about a girl who was initially rejected by a guy for prom and then later down the line the guy is like nevermind I want to go with you. Okay I get the story, but how about you tell me how you fucking feel and what you fucking want. One of the things I attempted was getting on my knees and begging her to consider. How humiliating. Finally, I offer to buy her a ticket to the festival especially cause she knows how stressful it was for me to spend money like that, AND EVEN AFTER THAT, she’s like “Hmmm, I’ll think about it.”

Later that night, we’re chilling on the couch and I’m messaging Angie about what just went down cause I was so frustrated, and I know that T didn’t want to hear about it. So I’m messaging Angie and T asks me who I’m messaging. I tell her it’s Angie, then she asks about what and then because I cannot tell a lie to save my life, I tell her it’s about the fight we just had. Idk if you would even call it a fight if it’s her just going at me. Anyways, she gets really upset that I’m telling Angie about this.

I think she had this worry about my friends not viewing her in a positive light if she knew what kind of issues were happening within the relationship, which is maybe one of the signs that this relationship was toxic. I wonder if it was a tactic to isolate me from my friends, so that they couldn’t slap some sense into me and convince me to leave earlier. Hey, remember when she was asking her friends about the whole coffee situation back in March? Well, Angie told me multiple times to leave, but I never listened. How foolish of me. Back to the story.

Once T storms off back into my room, I’m just like oh my fucking god, Tyler you idiot. But I’m also thinking, damn I just went through many hours of trying to appease her, I have to this shit over again. It was probably like 30 minutes since we stopped fighting. So I follow her into the room and listen to her criticize me and tell me how I’m a shitty boyfriend. One quote that I particularly remember well because I wrote it down in my notes was “How am I supposed to love you when you have zero empathy.” Ouch. I had been working so hard to learn more about emotions and communication. None of it mattered because I still had zero empathy. I don’t remember much else of what she said or what I might have said, but after things cooled down a bit, I told her how I felt when she criticized me so harshly. AND YOU KNOW WHAT SHE FUCKING SAID TO ME?!?!?! “What do you expect me to do when I can’t hit you.”

Oh yeah, we had a conversation where I told her she couldn’t hit me. Go me. It was immediately met with protest from her. I can’t even remember what she said. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to give me a taste of my own medicine from back in December, or if she’s also very bad at accepting other people’s boundaries. Eventually, she accepts and she didn’t punch me after that. Good for her. How could she think that hitting is an acceptable way to communicate? Unless she’s also been hit? Hmm…

There was another time she was uncomfortable with boundaries set by someone else, let’s call her J. T and J had met from work about a year ago, and they connected because they were from the same country. The conversation that T told me about was completely in their native language, so I couldn’t verify if anything she was saying was true. T had met someone that J knew and T wanted to know what J thought about this person. When asked, J said that she didn’t want to talk about the person. T was curious why J didn’t want to talk about this person, so she asks J why she doesn’t want to. J apparently said that she just doesn’t want to talk about that and that T should form their own opinion. T is just so confused why J is so adamant about not talking about this person. I guess T is offended by what J said. Can you believe this is what led T to cut off J as a friend? Maybe she didn’t communicate to me other grievances against J.

Beginning of the end

From this point on, there are no more big fights. Just a small little one where I was suggesting restaurants we could go to in order to celebrate surviving nine months with each other. Maybe I’m interpreting wrong or she’s just really bad at conveying her thoughts in a non-aggressive way.

This is cause I suggested we go out for brunch somewhere and we went out to brunch for our first date. She just didn’t see brunch as a special date spot. No fight ensues cause I apologize for making it seem like our 9 month celebration is insignificant and start looking for other places. I’m just a dog.

Life is Beautiful weekend happens and there are no issues. I’m pretty anxious the entire weekend, trying to make sure that she understands that I’m not going to cheat on her that weekend. She’s at another rave with some other friends. Oh yeah, in the end she decides that she doesn’t want to go to LiB because she’s not a big fan of most of the artists there. What was all that pain for? I hate her.

Around September 22nd, she told me that she couldn’t see herself marrying me, so what’s the point of continuing to date. I guess we agree to take some time to ourselves to think about it. I got pretty sick the following week, so I was kinda just lying in bed alone all week. We would call some days, but I just really wanted her to come over and keep me comfort. I remember her telling me that she had talked to one of her friends about our situation, and that they told her that she shouldn’t go over to make things easier in case we do break up. Remember how she got mad at me for talking about our relationship stuff with my friends? The hypocrisy. I remember crying pretty hard the night before we broke up. Here’s a message I sent from that night.

As I mentioned in the message, part of the reason I was upset was because she was out with friends almost every day that week. Remember how she got mad at me for going to Brian’s to study for interviews and not prioritizing her? I guess it’s okay for her to follow up with promises and plans. The hypocrisy…

Later that evening, she came over and we finalized the break up. She cried. I had done my crying the night before. We hugged goodbye. I’m kinda grateful that she let me go after only 11 months. I feel like if she were truly evil, she would have held me hostage even longer.

I’ll talk more about the aftermath and everything I learned in the following post.

Part 4:

My most difficult relationship pt.4