I broke up with my girlfriend of a year today. over the course of this year, we've had a lot of fights, bitterness and resentment has grown, as two people tried to navigate a messy relationship. I tried to leave this relationship several times, and I was roped back in with promises that it would get better. Over and over again, I told her that I believed we were a bad fit, and that we would find happiness elsewhere more easily. all these fights were tearing us apart, and it shows.
after I broke up with her, she begged me to reconsider, this time I stood firm. she asked me if we would ever have another shot, and I said "I wouldn't count on it." barely half an hour later, I'm reading the same tweet about my behavior as everyone else. by her own admission, she had it ready to go for weeks. I am shocked that the person that told me 30 minutes ago that she doesn't want to lose what we have, that she will wait forever for it to work - has a cancellation attempt ready.
I'm far from a perfect person, but I'm being painted as some kind of monster that I do not recognize. cropped screenshots of our conversations are being sent my way. she admits to having done a lot of wrongs as well, but her mistakes in the relationship is completely omitted. our conversations are colored by two people who have been at each others throats for almost a full year without a break. most of our fights we've had ten times at this point. I should have walked away a long time ago, and I didn't.
like every relationship, this one had its fair share of ups and downs, but mostly the latter. a recurring theme in our relationship was one-sided jealousy from V's side. she felt jealous of female friends of mine, female streamers, female chatters that I didn't know or speak to and would voice these concerns. at the same time, I let her hang out with anyone she wanted, and I was even aware of her still talking to her ex-boyfriend of four years, without having a problem with it. after a while of feeling hamstrung by her jealousy, I asked for the same trust and freedom that I had always given her. it became a huge fight like it always did, but in the end she agreed. months later, I found out she monitored my movements in Twitch chat, made an effort to befriend anyone I associated with and even DM'd my friends about me. which would not normally be an issue. However, she would ask my friends if I ever talked about her or our relationship and asked them to keep the fact that she did this a secret from me. I was obviously told about this and confronted her about it. It sparked another fight, and my wish was for her to stay out of my circles, and I would stay out of hers. saying you will give someone freedom and trust that their actions mirror their sentiments - and immediately choosing to follow their footsteps to remain in control is not trust. breaches of trust like these were frequent throughout our relationship.
my first response after we broke up was DMing my friends that I still have the utmost respect for her, and to please remain her friend despite our breakup. her first response has been this. I want it to be clear I do not care at all what communities she is in or friends she has, what I care about was how she as an individual treated these friendships. they were sometimes only a tool to gain insight into my private conversations with them, if i spoke about her or us, and sometimes were used to talk badly about me. after New Years Eve, she shared extensive screenshots she had accumulated of her DMs with a CS streamer who would frequently badmouth me and everyone else in my friend group. these screenshots we were shown were cropped, and in none of them did she defend me (her boyfriend) or anyone else involved.
the "hate in my chat" v is referring to, was a singular bad egg DMing her on Twitter, after a YouTube video came out where I (jokingly) discussed why my previous ex didn't want me to be a vtuber. a viewer mistakenly connected it to V, and DMed her. this was something I immediately addressed with my community, and I announced on stream, that going forward I would not divulge whether or not I was in a relationship, because of how parasocial it all felt. I didn't want people fighting my battles for me, and I didn't want people harassing others on my behalf. these are things I've been outspoken about on stream for years, and I hope the consistency of my actions put some weight to my words.
the claim of us "hiding the relationship" for my sinister intentions is a fabrication. she knew how wary I was of tying our communities together tightly, in the event that we broke up. as the relationship started going downhill and we broke up the first time last fall, us keeping it on the low until we were stable was a part of the agreement. I pulled the plug on the relationship, she begged me to stay, and in the end I chose to believe that we'd figure it out this time.
to V: I'm sorry about how our relationship turned out, and I wish we both had the courtesy to call it quits sooner. I share my half of the blame for how this panned out, but in the end this was the story of two people trying to make it work for much longer than we should have.
was I a good boyfriend to you? not really, I'll be the first to admit it, and you've heard me say it many times. I was largely MIA for it, chasing and securing the future I wanted to build for myself - and by extension for you. I was doing what I thought was the best I could do, with the time and resources I have.
I believe you need to be with someone that wants to spend every waking moment with you, and I hope you find that. I'm too much of an individualist for that to ever be the case. throughout all of this, I hope you find your happiness and success in life.