She left me because of her mother

[gonzilla]

I'm a bit weirded out about posting this, but I've been carrying these feelings about inside me for 14 months now. So here I am hoping that someone will help me gain a perspective that will mean that dull, constant, gnawing pain inside me finally ceases.

She ended our relationship because her mother took an irrational dislike to me - she took an irrational dislike to a lot of people. Her mother completely controlled the lives of her and her siblings. The family are the false Christian type - the sort who go through the motions for show but are really filled with fear and unhappiness behind the scenes. She finished it with me after an awful relationship of fighting to be together. Her professional life fell apart due to her being accused of falsifying her work shortly before this. After a few months we were seeing one another again in secret, so her mother wouldn't find out. We're not kids, far from it. We are both very well educated and in good jobs (or at least she was at the time). I finally ended it because I couldn't deal with being someone's secret and because she wouldn't stand up for herself and told me she never would against her parents. I guess I just want closure, to understand how she could do that to me, given how we felt about one another. This is one of the last communications I had with her. It still haunts me:

<my name>,
I love you. I absolutely adore you. I want nothing more than to be with you. But so much as happened that I can't see a way that we will ever be able to have a future together. So much has happened that it just wouldn't be possible. My family would never accept it and I don't believe that your family ever would completely accept it either. I know your Dad said he would support you but he wouldn't actually want it for you, and I don't believe your brothers and sisters would accept me. They all think you are the best thing and are fiercely protective of you even though you probably don't realize it. We would be happy together but we would never be able to have a normal life were we involved our families in everything we did. At the minute there are two things that are keeping me going. The first is how much we love each other and the second is some blind hope that there will be a miracle in the future that will change all this. But truthfully I don't think that miracle will ever happen. What we are doing now we shouldn't be doing because we are just setting ourselves up for more hurt. But I can't stop it. Its like I'm addicted to you. I need to see you, to talk to you. I can't not touch you.

You do need to make a decision about me because I cant make a decision about you. We both know that decision needs to be that we aren't together. That will mean that we are both completely destroyed but eventually we will both move on. It needs to be that decision to allow either of us to have any chance of being happy in the future, whether that means that we are brought back together again when I'm not in such a messed up part of my life or if it means that we meet other people. I know that when we are together we are completely happy but I also know that you have moved your life on and that you are happier now than when you were with me. And I'm glad you are.

You wanted to know why I made the decision to finish it. This is going to sound like a cop out or really cheesy but its not - its the truth. I finished it because of how much I loved you. I could see that I was destroying you, that being in a relationship with me didn't make you happy. Spending time with me did but the relationship didn't and never would. I wasn't and I'm still not in the right place to be in a relationship, especially not one that I had to fight with everyone for. Ending it was the hardest thing Ive ever done in my life but it was what I needed to do for us, to stop us both from having a breakdown.

I hate talking about this because when I'm with you I don't want to be reminded that its not real - that we aren't together, instead its all secret. I don't want the truth to poison what time we spend together.

I can't stay away from you even thought my head is telling me we shouldn't be doing this. I love you.
<her name> xxx

[tjtigers14]

I'm sorry but if you really loved her, you would not be publicly condemning her mother. I had the same problem, I always dissed on my girlfriend's family, but in the end you are always 2nd when it comes to family.

[gonzilla]

Thanks for the reply tjtigers. I get what you're saying about her mother, but I've just told the truth. Her dad, bros, sisters were all fine. The reason we broke up was because her mother basically bullied her. Her dad said he'd no problem with me but her mother said she didn't like me although she couldn't say why. This went on until her mother threatened to kick her out unless she left me. She was ultimately under house arrest until she finished with me. She's not 18 either - she was 28 at the time.

I mean, what would you have me say? There's no sugar-coating something like that.

[Vanessa]

I think you did the right thing ending it. You can't be with someone who lets their parents control their life. I didn't read the whole letter/email thing but I don't think it makes a difference. It's about actions, not words.

[vashti]

I want nothing more than to be with you. But so much as happened that I can't see a way that we will ever be able to have a future together. So much has happened that it just wouldn't be possible.

What did you do? What is this "so much has happened" reference about?

[ramramita]

i think you took the right decision dude.Try to move on.

[gonzilla]

A lot of stuff happened. It started after we'd been dating a few months and her mother would call and insist she was home early. I don't think I ever saw her beyond midnight. She would come to my house regularly and it wasn't until a night of heavy snow that I saw the first real signs of trouble. I was driving her home and her phone rang. It was her mother asking where she was and when she'd be home. She told her we'd been to see a movie, which movie it was and when it was over. The truth was she'd spent the evening at my house. I was confused and upset at her lying but she kept telling me "trust me, its easier this way". She came to my house after that but eventually it came out that she'd been banned from going there because "she had a reputation to uphold". About a month later her mother banned me from her house. I was devastated - nobody ever banned me from their house before - but I wasn't going to give up on the woman I loved. I drove up to the end of her driveway and we either went out for coffee or I brought a flask of it with me. Eventually her dad said it was madness and invited me back in. Throughout all of this we would set times to meet up and go do things together. A lot of the time she wouldn't show up and it was because her mother found something for her to do in the house or somewhere to go with her instead, to keep her from me. This drove me mad because I would sit for hours waiting. We would fight about it because I felt she was old enough to honor arrangements with me. I often told her that if she wasn't going to make it then she should tell me and I could find something else to do with my free time.

The final nail was when she got into trouble at work for allegedly lying about work she'd carried out and manipulating results. They carried out an audit on everything she did and, a few months after we last spoke, she was fired. She also lost most of her qualifications because they decided she'd lied about the work she'd carried out for that too. Her mother somehow blamed me for that and I think that was the part she meant there was no coming back from. I had NOTHING to do with her work. I can say with hand on heart that I did nothing wrong throughout any of this except complain a lot and stick with her despite her mother's efforts.

[Kyrina]

If your in love the world should know it if they dont approve then you wont be able to have a happy relationship and false christians are the worse for any kind of real and true love, maybe its not her fault but the way she was brought up and until she decides to break from or stand up to her family you dont have a chance and sadly neither does she. She may eventually find a guy who seems genuine and have her family approval but is that kind of love going to make her happy because i think any guy her family approve of will need to have the same standards her family have. Im sorry for you and hope that you find a love that isnt tainted by other's.

[Borealis]

I'd throw her mother under the bus. I don't care.

If you're a real man a woman will lay down nearly everything for you.

She didn't really love you. Walk away, you're better for it. No need to be haunted. All I got from reading that was this gross feeling in my throat. Why? Because it sounds so irrational and manipulative.

[gonzilla]

Thanks to all for the comments, I sincerely appreciate them. The last one by Borealis really got to me and I've had to think about it before I replied... It was as if, throughout the relationship, something didn't add up. I often questioned if she really loved me but it seemed that, every time I would dispair about it, things would improve and she'd show me a lot of attention and love and make huge efforts with her mother on my behalf. This was always followed by something insane a few weeks later though.

I've wanted closure on this chapter of my life but I never got it because I could never understand. You're right - if she loved me she would've moved heaven and earth to be with me and she wouldn't have regularly made attempts to make me jealous throughout the relationship. Her last words spoken to me were "I love you", while she was in tears and walking away from me. Why would a woman say that if she didn't mean it? Why would you mess with someone's head like that? How could she possibly profit from keeping me hanging on? Was it a need to have power? Was it insecurity? Why did she write the email I posted above? Its left me wondering what was real and what wasn't. She's already been proven a manipulative liar by being fired from her job. Did the problems with her mother stem from something she said about me? Was she playing us off one another? I've never had a problem like that in my life before or since. People generally like me and I like to think I'm open and friendly.

None of this ever made sense to me - part of me had been waiting for her to send me a message saying "I was a fool, I should have fought for us. I'm miserable and I miss you". I know it was never going to come because she wasn't the person she pretended to be with me. She couldn't care less about me. Part of me is really sad that this is probably true. Another part pities her because that type or irrational behavior is pathetic and she'll never be happy if that's how her mind works.

[gonzilla]

Some 1990s Jerry Springer-style final thoughts on my thread:

I've spent the past year-and-a-bit trying to make sense of the most emotionally-traumatic period of my life. I fell in love with a girl who brought pain, anger, misery and confusion into my life, all inter-mingled with the most beautiful and intimate love I ever experienced. She swore she loved me more than anything or anyone before in her life. She swore it right up until that last bitter-sweet kiss; that last teary goodbye. Her last words were "I love you". How could she leave me?

She left me because she was a coward. She told me she loved me because she was a coward. She lied to herself and to the world in every situation where the lie made life easier than the truth. She didn't love me because she couldn't. She couldn't love me because she couldn't love herself. She told me she loved me because she needed me to love her. She felt ugly and I made her feel beautiful. She didn't love me, she loved the endless attention I gave her. She lost her job because she was a coward there too and lied when the truth was difficult to tell. I've no doubt she lied to her parents as well, regarding me, her relationship with me and maybe even about who she was. I pity her because she has to be miserable inside.

The moral of the story is.... I dunno... if things get weird, stay weird and then get weirder - get out before that proverbial tanker of butt-juice explodes. Stay away from incredibly hot women because they have a higher chance of being nuts than a less-hot woman. As Veronica from "Better of Ted" said, "You should jump on that before the crazy outweighs the hot".