Having trouble getting over bad break-up

I'm turning 33 soon and I broke up with a guy I was dating for 4.5 months about 3 months ago. It was a short, intense relationship. We were exclusive after four dates, he said, "I love you," within a month, and he invited me to meet his whole family across the country a month later. He was incredibly smart and kind, and one of the most interesting people I had ever met. Initially, we talked for hours a day and it seemed like we had so much in common, and I thought that maybe I had found my person. He told me he had never felt this way about anyone, and I was excited about our future.

However, we started fighting a lot about 2 months in. The first time was when he was about to meet my friends for the first time. He told me earlier in the day he would definitely be there, and to text him when we were heading to the bar. When I did, he replied, "I'll let you girls have fun; I don't want you to get sick of me just yet haha." I was worried I had said something to hurt his feelings, so I called him and he was like, "oh you're making this so serious, you're calling me." Even though he ended up coming, I felt uncomfortable. Later that night, he told me that I was overreacting and it was a "red flag." I apologized, but felt like I hadn't really done anything wrong.

From that point forward, things got worse. One night, he asked me about what “drove” me and I talked about public health research and wanting to help others (I'm a medical resident). Then I asked him and he said "everything," and I replied, "well that's not very specific," (admittedly I had worked 12 hours that day so I may have been curt). This devolved into an hours-long discussion about how my tone escalated things. A few days later, he had been asking to see me masturbate with a dildo, and I had told him that I usually masturbated by grinding against the bed, so I started grinding up on him. At one point, he said, "this isn't doing anything for me and there is no rhythm to it and I don't know what you want." I'm open to feedback from my partners, but the delivery was shitty and I said, "I was hoping you could read my body language." He got angry and told me that by this point with all of his other partners they had figured out sex and that I should know myself sexually at this age. It was awful. His mother was coming to visit the next day and he had already invited me to meet her, so I tried to put the argument aside. We had a nice time with her, but afterwards I tried to talk to him about it, and he wouldn't. Eventually I stopped trying to get him to apologize and while things got better, I knew it would only last as long as I didn't say anything about what happened.

Things eventually went from bad to worst and he started making a lot of comments about race, class, and my profession that were hard to engage with. I'm white and he is part white/Hispanic/Asian. I grew up in a single parent household where money was often tight, but a few years ago, my estranged father passed away and I inherited money. I feel self conscious about it for a number of reasons I won't get into here, but I was able to pay off my loans and now live on my own rather than with a roommate, which I realize makes me very fortunate. My ex never said anything about it at first and often suggested going out for drinks/dinner in my neighborhood when we started dating, but once we started fighting, he started saying how I had expensive taste. This was particularly weird because when we went to visit his family, his mother gave us $1000 for a hotel (for 3 nights!) which I thought was excessive. I thought we would get something cheaper and find a way to give it back to her, but instead he booked a suite at a fancy hotel that was $500/night, and when I offered to help pay for it, he wouldn't take my money. Weirdly, he later also told me that his mother had said I was high maintenance even though she had given us that money unprompted and I had thanked her a million times. He never had anything nice to say about any of my friends - initially he would just tease me about them being square, but eventually when I'd invite him out he'd say things like, "let me guess, they're Jewish, from NY old money, like skiing, and bonus points if they worked in a developing country." I know that I have a lot of white, privileged friends, and I think we could have had an interesting discussion about that and race/class in general, but I felt like he was just constantly attacking me. With regard to my profession, we were out with his friend, and he was ranting about how when he was working at a cancer institute and that med students used to come gawk at patients, and how he wanted to tell them all to go fuck off. I tried to explain that they were likely assigned there as part of their learning and he asked me what I thought of the fact that trainees learn on patients at academic hospitals and I said that unfortunately is no other real way for doctors/nurses/etc to learn and it is part of the social contract of getting care at those places. We had a heated discussion in front of his friend (which was embarrassing), and he told me that my comments were heartless. He also said that I talked about working with underserved communities like I was wearing a badge of courage. He had gone to community college and eventually got a PhD and had started a scholarship fund for students, which I really admired, and I told him I wanted to do something similar for minority and low-income students interested in careers in science. He told me it was weird and that minority communities needed to rally together and develop without white influence. I had planned a vacation in Cuba during my week off and while I know there are a lot of ethical issues around traveling there, I was trying to do so responsibly. Leading up to my trip, he told me that he thought white people traveled abroad because they have no culture, and while I was texting him while I was there, he made snide remarks asking if I had done a yoga pose in front of a waterfall yet. Later he posted on FB that "rich white people were weird." I asked him about it and he said that it wasn't about me and that it was weird that I thought that was the case, but I felt like he was gaslighting me.

Writing all of this, it’s hard to wonder why I stayed so long but I was trying to be understanding of the differences in our backgrounds and was hoping it was something we could work through if we understood each other better. However, the straw that broke the camel's back came when he met two of my friends (we all used to work in sub-saharan Africa together). He started grilling one of them about why she decided to work abroad and while she said some things that were a bit tone deaf (she talked about how it was amazing seeing roads get paved in the city we were living in, I see how it could have *maybe* sounded white savior-ish but I think she really was just impressed by how much things developed over the five years she was there), nothing she said was that off and he was very mean to her. At one point, she said something about how the job had helped her pay off student loans, and he basically concluded that she went to Africa to make money. Watching him grill her, I realized he was talking to her the way that he talked to me, and I was mortified. Afterwards, I asked him what was up and he was like, "I'm sorry, but honestly I just wanted to tell them to fuck off and I don't know why." I realized things would never get better and ended up breaking up with him a few days later, and haven’t seen him since.

What I feel bad/pathetic about now is that I think about him on almost a daily basis, even though I know I made the right decision to break up with him. I look at his FB more than I care to admit and he has already posted a photo of another girl, and has slowly been deleting the photos/posts that referenced me. While on the one hand, it confirms a pattern for him (e.g. when we started dating he posted poetry quotes at first, then started referencing me, then started posting photos of me, the same way he is now doing with her), I am thinking about him too much. I want to unfriend him, but don't want him to know I am still thinking about him enough to want to remove him from my social media.

Finally, I’ve allowed this relationship to negatively influence my sense of self. I know I have always had privilege as a white person and now have even more privilege because of my inheritance. I’m trying to be conscious of that as I move through the world and make decisions. My ex said I was demanding at the end and I did become needy because I was feeling so insecure and anxious. All I really wanted was consistent, engaged communication, and for us to be friends and support each other. I never expected him to spend a lot of money on me and I wanted him to be interested in getting to know the people in my life. I was genuinely interested in his thoughts and experiences as a person (and, when he talked specifically about how those experiences were related to him being a minority I was interested in that perspective, but I never expected him to be a spokesperson for his race).

Anyway, I have been dating again and have had a few fun flings but no one that has been long term material (although it’s been good for my confidence). Am I crazy to still be thinking about this guy, and how do I move past it?

TLDR: I'm having trouble getting over a bad break-up and am wondering how to move past it.

Submitted May 07, 2019 at 01:29PM

I'm turning 33 soon and I broke up with a guy I was dating for 4.5 months about 3 months ago. It was a short, intense relationship. We were exclusive after four dates, he said, "I love you," within a month, and he invited me to meet his whole family across the country a month later. He was incredibly smart and kind, and one of the most interesting people I had ever met. Initially, we talked for hours a day and it seemed like we had so much in common, and I thought that maybe I had found my person. He told me he had never felt this way about anyone, and I was excited about our future.However, we started fighting a lot about 2 months in. The first time was when he was about to meet my friends for the first time. He told me earlier in the day he would definitely be there, and to text him when we were heading to the bar. When I did, he replied, "I'll let you girls have fun; I don't want you to get sick of me just yet haha." I was worried I had said something to hurt his feelings, so I called him and he was like, "oh you're making this so serious, you're calling me." Even though he ended up coming, I felt uncomfortable. Later that night, he told me that I was overreacting and it was a "red flag." I apologized, but felt like I hadn't really done anything wrong.From that point forward, things got worse. One night, he asked me about what “drove” me and I talked about public health research and wanting to help others (I'm a medical resident). Then I asked him and he said "everything," and I replied, "well that's not very specific," (admittedly I had worked 12 hours that day so I may have been curt). This devolved into an hours-long discussion about how my tone escalated things. A few days later, he had been asking to see me masturbate with a dildo, and I had told him that I usually masturbated by grinding against the bed, so I started grinding up on him. At one point, he said, "this isn't doing anything for me and there is no rhythm to it and I don't know what you want." I'm open to feedback from my partners, but the delivery was shitty and I said, "I was hoping you could read my body language." He got angry and told me that by this point with all of his other partners they had figured out sex and that I should know myself sexually at this age. It was awful. His mother was coming to visit the next day and he had already invited me to meet her, so I tried to put the argument aside. We had a nice time with her, but afterwards I tried to talk to him about it, and he wouldn't. Eventually I stopped trying to get him to apologize and while things got better, I knew it would only last as long as I didn't say anything about what happened.Things eventually went from bad to worst and he started making a lot of comments about race, class, and my profession that were hard to engage with. I'm white and he is part white/Hispanic/Asian. I grew up in a single parent household where money was often tight, but a few years ago, my estranged father passed away and I inherited money. I feel self conscious about it for a number of reasons I won't get into here, but I was able to pay off my loans and now live on my own rather than with a roommate, which I realize makes me very fortunate. My ex never said anything about it at first and often suggested going out for drinks/dinner in my neighborhood when we started dating, but once we started fighting, he started saying how I had expensive taste. This was particularly weird because when we went to visit his family, his mother gave us $1000 for a hotel (for 3 nights!) which I thought was excessive. I thought we would get something cheaper and find a way to give it back to her, but instead he booked a suite at a fancy hotel that was $500/night, and when I offered to help pay for it, he wouldn't take my money. Weirdly, he later also told me that his mother had said I was high maintenance even though she had given us that money unprompted and I had thanked her a million times. He never had anything nice to say about any of my friends - initially he would just tease me about them being square, but eventually when I'd invite him out he'd say things like, "let me guess, they're Jewish, from NY old money, like skiing, and bonus points if they worked in a developing country." I know that I have a lot of white, privileged friends, and I think we could have had an interesting discussion about that and race/class in general, but I felt like he was just constantly attacking me. With regard to my profession, we were out with his friend, and he was ranting about how when he was working at a cancer institute and that med students used to come gawk at patients, and how he wanted to tell them all to go fuck off. I tried to explain that they were likely assigned there as part of their learning and he asked me what I thought of the fact that trainees learn on patients at academic hospitals and I said that unfortunately is no other real way for doctors/nurses/etc to learn and it is part of the social contract of getting care at those places. We had a heated discussion in front of his friend (which was embarrassing), and he told me that my comments were heartless. He also said that I talked about working with underserved communities like I was wearing a badge of courage. He had gone to community college and eventually got a PhD and had started a scholarship fund for students, which I really admired, and I told him I wanted to do something similar for minority and low-income students interested in careers in science. He told me it was weird and that minority communities needed to rally together and develop without white influence. I had planned a vacation in Cuba during my week off and while I know there are a lot of ethical issues around traveling there, I was trying to do so responsibly. Leading up to my trip, he told me that he thought white people traveled abroad because they have no culture, and while I was texting him while I was there, he made snide remarks asking if I had done a yoga pose in front of a waterfall yet. Later he posted on FB that "rich white people were weird." I asked him about it and he said that it wasn't about me and that it was weird that I thought that was the case, but I felt like he was gaslighting me.Writing all of this, it’s hard to wonder why I stayed so long but I was trying to be understanding of the differences in our backgrounds and was hoping it was something we could work through if we understood each other better. However, the straw that broke the camel's back came when he met two of my friends (we all used to work in sub-saharan Africa together). He started grilling one of them about why she decided to work abroad and while she said some things that were a bit tone deaf (she talked about how it was amazing seeing roads get paved in the city we were living in, I see how it could have *maybe* sounded white savior-ish but I think she really was just impressed by how much things developed over the five years she was there), nothing she said was that off and he was very mean to her. At one point, she said something about how the job had helped her pay off student loans, and he basically concluded that she went to Africa to make money. Watching him grill her, I realized he was talking to her the way that he talked to me, and I was mortified. Afterwards, I asked him what was up and he was like, "I'm sorry, but honestly I just wanted to tell them to fuck off and I don't know why." I realized things would never get better and ended up breaking up with him a few days later, and haven’t seen him since.What I feel bad/pathetic about now is that I think about him on almost a daily basis, even though I know I made the right decision to break up with him. I look at his FB more than I care to admit and he has already posted a photo of another girl, and has slowly been deleting the photos/posts that referenced me. While on the one hand, it confirms a pattern for him (e.g. when we started dating he posted poetry quotes at first, then started referencing me, then started posting photos of me, the same way he is now doing with her), I am thinking about him too much. I want to unfriend him, but don't want him to know I am still thinking about him enough to want to remove him from my social media.Finally, I’ve allowed this relationship to negatively influence my sense of self. I know I have always had privilege as a white person and now have even more privilege because of my inheritance. I’m trying to be conscious of that as I move through the world and make decisions. My ex said I was demanding at the end and I did become needy because I was feeling so insecure and anxious. All I really wanted was consistent, engaged communication, and for us to be friends and support each other. I never expected him to spend a lot of money on me and I wanted him to be interested in getting to know the people in my life. I was genuinely interested in his thoughts and experiences as a person (and, when he talked specifically about how those experiences were related to him being a minority I was interested in that perspective, but I never expected him to be a spokesperson for his race).Anyway, I have been dating again and have had a few fun flings but no one that has been long term material (although it’s been good for my confidence). Am I crazy to still be thinking about this guy, and how do I move past it?TLDR: I'm having trouble getting over a bad break-up and am wondering how to move past it.