I don't know if this fits properly in the Just Found Out category, but I guess I'll take the chance and post it here first. I'm going to write down the whole story as it happened, to the best of my memory, so it may run a little long.
It all really started to happen about 6 months ago. We had moved to a new city since she got in to a good school around here. I managed to get a transfer and keep my old wage, so we've been fairly comfortable this whole time. After a couple months, she started to feel a little depressed. She was being overwhelmed with school, and the incredibly poor organization of such. I did my best to support her, and express my own frustration at what she described as "A fucking gong show." But she just kept getting more and more upset. I mentioned seeking professional help several times, but she always just said she'd think about it.
Things steadily got worse, until she found some new friends in the program. A small study group had formed of 5 people including her. This was an amazing step in the right direction for her. She started to be noticeably happier since she now had a few people experiencing the same BS she was going through. TO make things even better, she took up a new hobby. One of the friends in the group, who would eventually become the AP, enjoyed climbing and invited her to go one day. She absolutely loved it, and invited me to go that same day. After that, we both signed up and climbed together regularly. She would go most mornings with the AP, and then climb with me a few days a week in the evenings. For a couple months things were great. New city, new hobbies, good job, amazing place to live, we were living the life.
But... It didn't last. For seemingly no reason, she started to steadily grow distant from me. I was seeing her text me less and less throughout the day. It finally hit home that something was seriously wrong when she had expressed several times at the end of the day how tough it had been, but during our texting she would say "Fine." whenever I asked about it. One night when she left her phone on the night stand, I decided to check her messages to AP. By now I was already getting very suspicious. Sure enough, there were hundreds of messages between them throughout the day. Half of them were normal, talking about class and projects, but it went so much deeper than that. When I had asked her earlier how the day was going, she replied with the usual "Fine." when I asked her when she got home, I got the same "Fine." Meanwhile, she had written him a small novel expressing her frustration with everything and saying she wished she could be climbing, or that they could hang out more "Out of the studying environment." This was immediately a shock to my reality. The first real proof that things had gone way too far.
I decided to not say anything right then. She had a day full of tests and exams and I didn't want to sabotage her by bringing up something so heavy, so I waited. I go to work the next day, and ended up coming home in about an hour. I was a wreck of anxiety, fear, frustration... Everything one might expect to feel. That was the 2nd worst day of my life... I tried to occupy myself with games, books, movies, nothing could take my mind off of the inevitable. So, I started doing research. Reading in to what this was, what I could do, how I should bring it up, etc.
I made a reddit post, and eventually came up with a long list of issues which I wrote down, including the name... This was a full blown EA.
When she finally got home, I told her we needed to talk, and it took me almost half an hour to finally get the words out. Even then, I couldn't hold myself together. I ended up giving her the notebook I had been writing on, i had suspected this may happen so I made sure to have descriptive notes so I could hand it off instead of trying to verbalize. She read it over, and started to cry.
She wasn't defensive, she made no attempt to move the blame, she accepted full blame and responsibility and immediately offered to completely cut ties with AP, start going to counseling, and go on Anti-depressants. We spent the rest of the day crying, spilling our guts to each other, and making plans for moving forward. This was always our norm. Communication, honesty, and showing genuine care and compassion.
She wrote AP an email explaining everything and why they could no longer be friends, asked me to read it over, then sent it off. Things started getting better again, until the rest of the group of friends found out what she had done. I had been invited multiple times to group outings, and the 3 others and I got along great. We always had a lot of fun together, and was extended a permanent invitation to all future outings, which I gladly accepted. After they found out about her AF, they started to cut ties with her. They said they needed a short break from their relationship, and would start hanging out together again after a little while. She immediately began to spiral downwards again, and yet maintained her climbing schedule, which had already been altered to avoid contact with AP.
Things fluctuated for a while, good days and bad days. Until yesterday when it all fell apart...
She went to a volleyball tournament as a volunteer for a week, something she's done regularly for the last 3 years. After that, she flew back to her home state to join her family for a Christmas party. I had been invited, but decided to not go. Her family also loves me, and her brother has been a huge help in getting me through this, but I digress.
While she was gone, I heard from her very little. This wasn't entirely unusual for the tournament, as a volunteer she was always kept very busy. But this was almost like being ghosted. A fun tradition we've had for a few years, is sending way-too-many pictures of ourselves cuddling our cat to whichever one is gone. So, like was tradition, whenever the cat cuddled up on me while watching TV I would send dozens of pictures of her looking adorable. They were almost never responded to.
Then, when she had ample free-time at the airport on the way to the party, she only wanted to chat for about 15 minutes. Her flight was delayed by 3 hours, and didn't call me back a single time.
At the party, again I heard nothing from her until almost midnight. The next morning she went to breakfast with her Aunt.
I asked her in the 15 minute window she would talk to me:
"So what did you guys talk about."
"Oh, just life."
"Nothing specific?"
"No, not really."
At this point I knew something was seriously wrong. This specific Aunt always made for stories to be told... I knew we needed to talk again, so i drafted an email to send her when she finally got home, if I couldn't muster the words again. Unfortunately, since the flight was so delayed, she didn't get home until very late. Add in I got called in at midnight, we had no chance to speak about anything of real importance.
When I finally got to go home around 9am, I called her up. This is when she said we needed to talk. My stomach turned and I asked if she could just start now. A 45 minute drive flooding with anxiety was not what I was okay with at that moment.
She started by saying she loved me, but... As soon as she said that but, I immediately said "Are you leaving me?" She didn't reply right away. After a moment she said "I just want to take a break." I expressed my extreme doubts that this was a break, but said "If you truly believe this is a temporary thing, and you want to work on getting back together, I'll believe you and we can go from there." She admitted it was very unlikely to be the case, and we had a short conversation about what to do next.
I asked her to move out immediately, but to wait for me to home, I wanted a hug at the very least before she left. I finished my drive, walked inside. She was sitting on the couch petting our dogs, she was crying pretty hard... I couldn't feel anything... It was like I was watching from a 3rd person perspective. I stood next to her for a few moments before she got up. We looked each other in the eyes before hugging, long and tight. I still couldn't feel anything. I broke off after a couple minutes, she walked out the door and didn't look back...
I sat down on the couch for what was probably an hour, just staring, completely devoid of everything human. I decided this was not the right response, so I called one of my oldest friends and broke the news. He had been through a VERY bad divorce some years ago, and I knew he would be a good ear. I was on the phone with him for only about 3 minutes, when I realized everything was flooding in, and fast. I quickly left and spent the rest of the day bobbing back and forth between crying hysterically and just feeling dead inside. I spoke to a friend on Discord, and went back to reddit to lament, which brought me here.
Yesterday was, without a single competitor, the worst day of my life. I want to say I was completely blind-sided, but I know that's not true. She was my best friend, she was my fucking world, and now she's gone... For a couple hours I held out hope that she would turn around and come back, or I would hear the truck pull up and she would run back in to my arms. At one point UPS pulled up. I heard the large vehicle and literally sprinted to the window to see...
Today wasn't as bad... I've only been hit by the grief a few times. I've changed most of my passwords, removed her access to the deck cam when I realized I was hoping she might be watching it at any point, and signed up for counseling.
I was doing well, until I went to check my insurance information, and it hit me again like a tonne of bricks... She's been dealing with most of the administration of our home for years. I clearly remember her saying earlier this year, in regards to me asking her about banking information "It's a good thing we'll be together forever, or you'd be totally screwed." Taking stock of my work insurance just drove it home once again what all was happening. I've been bobbing in and out of grieving since then, but it's no where near as bad as it was yesterday.
I know tomorrow will be better, and the day after even more so. It's just..... Awful.
[This message edited by HeyItsMe at 8:31 PM, December 25th (Wednesday)]
