Alysa's leaving.
Alysa says she's going on a couple-weeks-long road trip starting on Tuesday, and moving when she gets back--both of them for the sake of getting away from me. Considering her track record with telling the truth and sticking to what she says, I'll believe it when I see it. Still, I'm hopeful. I was actually thinking about finding a new place myself and moving out to avoid her. Anyway, the apartment will pretty much be mine soon, and she's still paying her half of the rent for July. She says that it's worth the six hundred-plus dollars to be rid of me; I've lost more than that for having been guilted into getting this place with her, so I'm hardly sympathetic.
Should I have gone with my better sense and refused to be her roommate when she came crying to me and begging? Should I have recognized that she wasn't telling the truth when my "friend" said that she couldn't afford a place on her own and that I was the only one she could turn to? Should I have let our mutual friends think I was an asshole for turning her down when she had told me that it would mean sleeping in the street for her? Yes, they all say, I should have. Instead, I chose to help with what I saw as a friend in crisis, and I've been regretting it ever since. Lesson learned.
I think it's unfortunate that it came to this, but there wasn't much chance of us remaining friends once I realized that she's been using me and taking advantage of my willingness to give in a relationship all along; it took far longer than it should have, but I let myself gloss over the vital clues and red flags in the interest of being a good boy/friend. After we broke up, she still clung to me, weeping and damanding my time just as much as before and crying about rejection because I wouldn't use the term "boyfriend" anymore--until she found replacements, at which point she all but forgot about me unless I could be of use to her (e.g., being her roommate). It must have come as a shock to her when I took the blinders off and started doing right by myself for a change, and things were never the same after that. It also didn't help that I was the only one willing to compromise and try to maintain some kind of civility between us.
To be fair, I did take a lot of snipe shots at her for the first several months we lived together. Something about being blatantly used and manipulated and then tossed aside just gets me really annoyed, and that's how I usually express annoyance. Of course, it didn't help that she would continually pick fights with me. It was just a bad situation to begin with, and we both made it worse.
The upside is that I've learned to take nothing that anyone says at face value, no matter whether or not this person says s/he loves me, and to know someone much longer before I start dating her. Having been through this ordeal, I feel that I'm wiser and less idealistic for it. I understand that there is a place for my own needs and wants in any kind of relationship, and I'm not going to let anyone take advantage of me anymore.
It will be interesting to see what develops next. I find myself hesitant to think about being in a new dating relationship; that's partly because of the dislike for labels that led me to withhold the term "boyfriend" after my initial breakup with Alysa, but only partly. I just have trouble imagining myself getting close enough to trust someone again after what I went through with Alysa. I'm sure I'll be okay with it after a while, but for now, I'm thinking that friends are all I'm going to want.
It would be interesting to hear her perspective on all of this, but when she and I discuss it we usually end up just making accusations that have already been made and denied. I wonder if there was a particular incident that drove her to this, or just the continual grind that she chose when she decided to manipulate me into being her roommate. Well, the important thing is that I know better than to let it happen again. And if I really have learned all of this, it only took me one relationship to realize all of this. Not too bad.
Should I have gone with my better sense and refused to be her roommate when she came crying to me and begging? Should I have recognized that she wasn't telling the truth when my "friend" said that she couldn't afford a place on her own and that I was the only one she could turn to? Should I have let our mutual friends think I was an asshole for turning her down when she had told me that it would mean sleeping in the street for her? Yes, they all say, I should have. Instead, I chose to help with what I saw as a friend in crisis, and I've been regretting it ever since. Lesson learned.
I think it's unfortunate that it came to this, but there wasn't much chance of us remaining friends once I realized that she's been using me and taking advantage of my willingness to give in a relationship all along; it took far longer than it should have, but I let myself gloss over the vital clues and red flags in the interest of being a good boy/friend. After we broke up, she still clung to me, weeping and damanding my time just as much as before and crying about rejection because I wouldn't use the term "boyfriend" anymore--until she found replacements, at which point she all but forgot about me unless I could be of use to her (e.g., being her roommate). It must have come as a shock to her when I took the blinders off and started doing right by myself for a change, and things were never the same after that. It also didn't help that I was the only one willing to compromise and try to maintain some kind of civility between us.
To be fair, I did take a lot of snipe shots at her for the first several months we lived together. Something about being blatantly used and manipulated and then tossed aside just gets me really annoyed, and that's how I usually express annoyance. Of course, it didn't help that she would continually pick fights with me. It was just a bad situation to begin with, and we both made it worse.
The upside is that I've learned to take nothing that anyone says at face value, no matter whether or not this person says s/he loves me, and to know someone much longer before I start dating her. Having been through this ordeal, I feel that I'm wiser and less idealistic for it. I understand that there is a place for my own needs and wants in any kind of relationship, and I'm not going to let anyone take advantage of me anymore.
It will be interesting to see what develops next. I find myself hesitant to think about being in a new dating relationship; that's partly because of the dislike for labels that led me to withhold the term "boyfriend" after my initial breakup with Alysa, but only partly. I just have trouble imagining myself getting close enough to trust someone again after what I went through with Alysa. I'm sure I'll be okay with it after a while, but for now, I'm thinking that friends are all I'm going to want.
It would be interesting to hear her perspective on all of this, but when she and I discuss it we usually end up just making accusations that have already been made and denied. I wonder if there was a particular incident that drove her to this, or just the continual grind that she chose when she decided to manipulate me into being her roommate. Well, the important thing is that I know better than to let it happen again. And if I really have learned all of this, it only took me one relationship to realize all of this. Not too bad.