She cried in the shower after his friend humiliated her – and he just laughed. UPDATED
"My BF booked our tickets for a different day. I’m tired, frustrated and contemplating breaking up with him. What would you do in my place?"
I, 24 F, have been dating my boyfriend, 27 M, for 2 years long-distance. We don’t live together, but due to our demanding jobs we try to see each other at least 3x/month. Overall I can say many positive things about our relationship, however things took a turn a few weeks ago and I can’t seem to forgive him.
For context, I’m very much a Type A person, I need everything planned and to be in order. However, since I’m always planning things (with friends, BF or at work), I get worn down pretty quickly and it takes a toll on my mood.
He on the other hand is very laid back and goes through life with an “it is what it is” attitude. So naturally, it has always been me who’s been planning activities, booking places to stay, sightseeing and holiday all throughout our relationship.
A year ago, BF got me tickets for my favourite artist and I’ve been excited ever since. I still had to book transportation, hotel and plan activities though, but I didn’t mind as long as we could get to see the artist in time. Spoiler alert: we missed the concert because BF booked the tickets for a different day and we couldn’t get a refund.
Safe to say, I’ve never been more disappointed in my life. I still feel physically, emotionally and financially drained, and that I can’t rely on him. I decided we needed to go on a break and I’ve been talking with my friends and my therapist about what to do.
My therapist said that I’m processing it as a betrayal and a breach of trust. My friends are telling me it’s up to me if I want to continue the relationship, but if they were in my shoes, they couldn’t trust him with anything ever again.
I understand that it’s a mistake anyone could have made and in the end it’s not that serious. He has apologised about a million times and feels very sorry about how he let me down. But at the same time, all this pent-up frustration that’s inside me keeps reminding me he had one job and still managed to ruin the experience for me.
Of course, not everything is black and white. Besides this character flaw, he is a very good boyfriend, kind, funny, and we have the same opinions on politics, human rights etc. (basically all the serious life stuff). I can’t seem to get over this mistake though.
We were planning on getting married and spending the rest of our lives together, yet I don’t want to end up being the only one pulling the weight. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: there seems to be some confusion regarding booking and tickets - there were two concerts, one was happening on the 31st and second was on the 1st. BF told me we had tickets for the second concert, so I booked everything in accordance to that.
Then on the 1st he realised we had tickets for the 31st - so the day after we were supposed to attend the concert. Also, only he had access to the tickets. Hope that clears it up a bit.
Edit 2: so far I’ve seen people form 3 stances in the comments: break up with him or I will have to manage him for the rest of my life, give him a chance with a set of boundaries or I’m actually neurotic and he should break up with me.
I’ve done some introspection and considering all the facts - uneven mental load, distance, how long we’d still be apart, my reaction - I’ve drafted a message explaining how I felt, highlighting how much I still care about him. I’ve also written a few questions to ask him about the future of our relationship.
He probably thought a lot about our relationship as well, and if he doesn’t want to be with me, I’m not going to force him. I’ll ask him probably next week, not sure if anyone wants an update on that though. Overall this situation has saddened me and I feel extremely uncertain about my future.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
I had a somewhat similar experience with my ex. We were going on a trip and I asked him to book the train tickets. He booked them in the wrong direction. Luckily I noticed. I also reminded him he needed to fill out an online form to be allowed to enter our country of destination. He didn’t.
So I passed through the checkpoint and he was stuck. We were able to resolve it, but still, not exactly fun to stand there for a few minutes thinking “ok, what if this turns into a solo trip?”
There were plenty of other issues in this relationship that justified breaking up, but moments like these definitely had me picture the rest of my life, where I would either have to do things myself or always double-check and remind him. You’re not overreacting for feeling the way you do. You want to be able to rely on your partner. Is his laid-back attitude always going to be at your expense?
This one thing was a mistake. It's also part of a pattern. Do you want to be the one taking responsibility for everything that matters in your lives? You want to be the one who looks up and books hotels, flights, things to do, where to eat, make sure you both have boarding passes and tickets and passports?
Do you want to be the only one who knows what your child is allergic to, who their friends are, who their Dr and teacher are, when the first and last day of school is, what's the homework, when is PTA, when is the field trip? Do you want to be in charge of everyone's birthdays and holidays, when they are and what they like and how to get it there?
People who are "go with the flow" are supported by someone steering their boat and patching all the holes. This man can't even put an oar in. So yeah, he's nice. But he's incompetent and has made that a personality trait.
I think this is not about him, it's about who you feel your have to become when you are with him. The dance for the two of you is that his nature brings out the most anxious and stressed part of your nature.
For me, I'd part with love. This is just not a good fit. Not because of who he is in the relationship but because you don't like who you are in the relationship and it's not how you want to spend your life.
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
For those, who want the longer version with a bit of recap of the entire situation: I omitted a lot of details and lied about our personal lives, just so I could get truly unbiased opinions. To tell the truth, I’m a med student, got into med school a bit later because well… life happened.
He’s just finished law school. At the time of the concert, I had to study for my anatomy final and could not have any distractions, but I told myself that the concert would be a treat to myself during this tough time period.
We had arrived at his friend’s place where we’d be staying and tbh I’ve never felt so unwelcomed and out of place in my entire life. Me, my bf (let’s call him Jim), his friend Jane and her bf John decided to go to a restaurant in the evening, and Jane basically didn’t acknowledge me for the entire evening.
Every time Jim had to leave the table, Jane would turn to John and pretended I wasn’t there. I then heard her say that after dinner, she’d like to go get something cheap and sweet to eat, to which I proposed a certain shop in the city we were in.
Jane replied that it smelled there. After asking her how did the shop smell, she looked me in the eyes, laughed and said it smelled like poor people. When Jim returned, I took him aside and told him what Jane has said to me, to which he just laughed.
For the rest of the evening it was clear I was sticking out from the group, because the conversation topics were about things I had no knowledge about so I couldn’t participate in them. So I sat in silence until we came back to Jane’s flat. I then cried in the shower. I felt completely useless, like the evening would have gone exactly the same wether I was there or not.
The next day, the ticket incident happened. Jim checked the tickets and realised he booked them for the day before. I tried to get the tickets and was contacted by a scammer, and got scammed circa 80€ (already talked to police but they put the investigation on hold).
During this time, Jim kept repeating how stupid he was and that he would fix everything (just didn’t know how). The artist won’t come to our country any time soon btw. Jim also never said how he would prevent similar mistakes from happening again.
After that, I didn’t speak to him for almost 2 weeks and took to reddit. In the end, I decided to give him one last chance, and said probably both of us should work on our communication.
He said he didn’t expect me to give him another chance, didn’t know how to react - so he thought it over for 12+ hours and didn’t contact me. During this time, I kind of emotionally accepted he didn’t want to be with me anymore.
The next day Jim agreed to give it another try, but the excuses started. He kept telling me he would be jobless during the summer, money would be tight, we wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere, that I should enjoy my summer etc.
To me, it sounded like he wanted an out, but didn’t want to be the bad guy and propose the break up. Come to find out, he wasn’t as broke as he was telling me, because he attended a film and music festival. Doing the math, he probably spent around 300€.
So I messaged him that I’m tired, he didn’t even say sorry after Jane insulted me, and I didn’t see him making any effort in planning our future and owning up to his mistakes. We wished each other well, we would be open to communication if we ever crossed paths again, and I now feel like somebody close to me died.
Rationally I know I did the right thing, but I’ve never broken up with anyone amicably before, and grieving this relationship is extremely hard on me. Thank you all for reading. Take care.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Breakups suck, even when they're the right decision. Let yourself grieve the future you wanted. Cry. Watch movies that make you cry more. It will get easier. I hope your finals went well.
ThrowRAtickets (OP)
Yes, thankfully I passed. Thank you for your kind words.
Breakups always suck, but you definitely did the right thing. Anyone who would laugh at Jane saying the place you suggested smells like poor people is not someone you want to build a life with.
ThrowRAtickets (OP)
I don’t want to indulge in this whole classism thing, but tbh Jim comes from a worse financial situation than me. Jane has generational wealth and I think he didn’t confront her because he would lose access to the perks of being her friend. After thinking about that moment so many times, I couldn’t come up with any other explanation.
OP really buried the lede there. It seems like the break up was more about the disrespect his friends showed her and the fact that he didn’t stand up for her.