I just need to write this out of my mind…

hence I am going to write my disturbing thoughts about a recent break-up. If you have advice how to best cope with these feelings, your comments are welcome.

So, this post is meant to fill 3 functions:

·         get this negativity out of myself

·         avoiding overburdening my friends and family with repetitive complaints

·         collect positive thoughts

This split up had to happen, however, I am very bothered and angry with myself for the fact that it was not me who said it. I missed the right moment and thereby gave the possibility to the other to humiliate me as a farewell. Another disturbing thought is that I will never know if he purposefully and maliciously manipulated me into this situation or he said out the final word out of sudden intense rage. I know it is always the case that we cannot know the full story from the other’s perspective, but it might be understandable that I, as a person who is striving to be an intellectual, hate not understanding things.

Maybe it doesn’t hurt to begin with the fact that this relationship brought a lot of joy into my life and I appreciate this person for many reasons. Unfortunately, I am very prone to choose relationships which are “not meant to be” for some serious incompatibility between me and the partner. I am too curious to not to walk down risky roads. So, I was curious what this multiple-nights stand can evolve into and this person was so much the opposite of what I wanted to avoid, that I kept dating him despite the long distance and we ended up in a relationship. He kept saying he chose me as a partner very consciously for my values (like honesty, small and cute while hot and beautiful, warm, empathetic, intelligent, open minded), for reason is super important in romantic involvements too. This went on for almost 8 months. Only the last week was awful and even that had beautiful moments.

During the last week he bombed me with so many ranting against the EU not granting to Trump and Putin and to Visegrad countries’ politicians “the respect they deserve since they are elected leaders”, that I achieved a permanently super high stress level and had this flash moment of realizing that I cannot have kids with someone who despises my values so much. And the weight of the responsibility that it is solely my fault that I am romantically involved with someone like that. My political values are very important for me, therefore I included them in my tinder profile. I like discussing politics with people who have different views from me, but in the framework of my romantic relationship it is too exhausting to start over each time politics comes up that I cannot hate Western hypocrisy more than the Trump/Orbán/Putin/Erdogan club, and whatever the defects of liberal democracy are, up until now nobody showed me a better alternative.

One of his first sentences on our first date was that he had read in my profile that I was a lefty, he is not. He is libertarian. Indeed, we had many interesting discussions. I liked that he started off with saying that he disagrees with my views, not like most guys who pretend match everything I write in my profile. We also had many disturbing discussions too, for instance in the middle of the Lex-CEU crisis he was able to share a Kusturica interview with me where Kusturica calls Soros a CIA agent…. However, now in the last week I had this moment of crystallization that there is no good reason to invest more into this relationship, if we are so incompatible. Of course, it was an accumulation of his pushing me to read alternative sources to “mainstream media” for months, but sometimes one clearly feels the crystallization points. After making me very upset he always withdrew a little bit from his pushy arguments.

Now, I wanted to talk this over with him face to face, since as I was in love with him I still wanted to somehow conclude that he is not an asshole antidemocrat. One of the awful things about long distance relationships is that it is impossible to have normal arguing with normal dynamics of conflict and making peace through skype. On Saturday we got into an argument again where I told him it is a huge risk for me to have the perspective of bringing up kids with someone who rejects values that are so central to me (most easy to sum up them with the label of liberal democracy). He said that so it is for him to have the perspective of having lefty kids, however he thinks that I am a wonderful potential mother and politics is not that central to him as for me, why do I bring it up all the time.  

This could have been the moment of a civilized break-up, but I dislike breaking up out of sudden intense outbreak of rage, I felt that I needed time to get the intense outrage go and think with clear mind. I even told him so at another point in the weekend, his answer was that he does not want me to think about this for 2 weeks until our next meeting, these things are always the beginning of the end. I still don’t know why did I not say in this moment that ok, let’s just break up now.

In the end, we made peace several times during 2 days and in the end he used a sentence of mine said during the metro ride to his bus as a casus belli. I remarked that it was absurd how quickly he had always responded on chat when he wanted to push his arguments and in a particular evening he did not care for my need of his input in it. He behaved super angrily during all the metro ride, I considered just leaving him alone there, but than thought it would be too hysteric, so I still accompanied him to his bus where he told me I didn’t need to go to his city anymore, because it is such a red flag that I had hidden from him that in fact I was anxious if he did not respond to me, thus I am putting pressure on him and he has had many of such experiences with anxious girls. It is not true that I pressured him, I also don’t like when good morning and good night messages become compulsory, I really referred to a particular situation, not to a general pressure on him to write this or that many times. So he let me go to this unnecessary metro ride and apologize because of my misundarstandable sentence, misunderstood it purposefully and used as a casus belli. Now I am afraid he convinced himself about this narrative that I lied to him and I am an unworthy person and will keep me in his memory like that. I know we cannot control how the other remembers us and everyone can hold on to their narratives, but this bothers me so much, I wonder how can I overcome this feeling of disturbance with this?

For the future, my biggest concern is that he returns to me a dedicated book I left in his apartment. In my email in which I asked him to send it to me, I also wrote that I regret I did not say out the break up in the right moment. However, I still don’t regret I went into this relationship, since I had enjoyed it. I was told by a psychologist that the normal way of breakup is to first of all say thank you for everything the person did for you. Now I was not told thank you for anything, and am left with a bitter experience of humiliation.

One of the few things I managed to learn about myself in the last 27 years is that my body gives signs to me with psychosomatic breathing difficulty when I am in a relationship I should not be in. I cried almost every day during the last week, but quite often also in the last several weeks because of the anxiety around CEU and living in the Orbán regime, so it was not distinguishable from the stress this guy caused to me. However, on our last evening spent together my nose bled and in the last night I had this thirst for air again. Since this awful breakup I did not cry at all, on the way back from the bus station I felt very relieved and calm. But then these bothering thoughts, I have just written down, attacked me.

On the first night alone after this I could not sleep not even a minute. Thanks to my patient parents and friends I could immediately vent, but even after 3 am I could not fall asleep. So I turned my brainpower to finish an article I have to submit soon. The next day I was still not tired from the complete lack of sleep, but I could not eat anything. I felt very hungry, then after one spoon of yoghurt I felt I was terribly full. The second morning after the break up was the first occasion when I ate more than a spoonful of food. Now I understand much better than ever the tradition of fasting when commemorating sad events in some religions.

In my next post I am going to write about how while certain people don’t say one word of appreciation after months of receiving love and appreciation and attention from me, a random strangers cared enough to make me laugh and feel good when I felt miserable.