My Fiance Broke Up With Me In a Pandemic
By: Jessica M. Phoenix
Tags: Breakups, Heartbreak, Grief, Relationships, Covid 19

I could feel it in my body before it happened. There were some signs, some incidents, and my anxiety was pretty high. Yes, it is a pandemic so this adds to everyone’s stress levels and anxiety. And I had just gone to the doctor to discover that I had high blood pressure. So, I was in full on panic mode over my health. But I assumed my fiance would support me through this, help me, and above all, be around. I assumed his engagement to me, our love, the good things we shared would last through this hard time.

And then, mid-November, after a pretty rough month, he left. He walked out. He said he loved me, but it was not practical for us to be together anymore. He would not let me speak. He just said his piece, and left. Leaving me broken and in disbelief.

For all of the issues, problems, differences that we had I truly felt that I was special to him, that our relationship mattered to him, and that love would out. Love would win. Love would make us both strong enough to work on the issues, save the relationship when it was sinking, and stay together. He said he loved our relationship and it was hard to do this, but he kept saying that it was not practical anymore.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The issue came to a head when his grown, adult, grown up women daughters found a poem that I had written about their behavior in this pandemic. Not social distancing, not wearing masks inside, having parties and gatherings like it was just a normal year.

This stuff was upsetting for me, and I feel, rightly so. But this entire year we have had fights over it. He has four grown daughters and a lot of grand kids.

He was older than me by 15 years. So, every month there’s a party, a birthday, an event. And he would see my points, agree with me, say he believed in the science, and then, after pressure from his family, he would give in and be upset with me.

He placed his stress and anxiety over the pandemic on me and instead of seeing the realities of science — facts — he acted as if I were somehow trying to keep him from his family, and his daughters felt the same way.

No one was listening to me about the realities of the pandemic. In fact, the daughter who had the birthday party that marked the end of my five year relationship, and engagement with her father, told me that I was mentally unstable and living in fear because I felt that having large family gatherings of 13 people inside a small space without masks was unsafe.

At the party I was heartbroken. My fiance had told me it would be outside, and that if not we could open the window. I get there and it is not outside. So I opt to stay outside and take the kids with me. He comes to spend time with me, and then says that everyone else is thinking I am being weird and to just go and socialize a bit. I try but I am so hurt and upset, there is not much to say. I come inside and keep the window open and then his son-in-law yells at me to shut it because they are cold and “no one has Covid!” My fiance sees this and does not come to my aid. He watches it and does nothing. I attempt to speak, telling the son-in-law that it is the safe thing to do and he slams the window shut, glaring at me. All while my fiance watches. I felt betrayed and thrown under the bus. But, I did not say anything. It was too scary and surreal.

When we drive home, it is silent. There is no talking. And this mood keeps up for a few days. And then it breaks. We go back to usual. Our relationship is — was — very cozy, based on a lot of affection, we cuddle a lot, and we have routine. A few weeks later I drive my daughter to her other parent’s home for Thanksgiving Break. When I get back home, he does not come to the door to greet me and this hurts me a bit. And I tell him so. And he hugs me and says he is sorry, and we make love and sleep. It feels like a decent night. Remember now, we had sex the night before he broke up with me. When I tell people this they usually scream in anger. I guess that tells me something, right?

Photo by Jennifer Griffin on Unsplash

The next morning we have a good morning, he is working, I make him breakfast, and we are going to watch a Christmas movie. Our annual tradition is something I have told him over and over again that I could not wait for — we watch every version of a Christmas Carol and talk about them, compare them, pause and talk, and it was just one of my favorite things in the world to do, with anyone. We would make a list and just enjoy it all so much. So, I am making him lunch, a giant pot of soup.

His daughters call, three of them together, all at one place. And they are screaming. He gives the phone to me and they scream at me, on speaker, for twenty minutes. They found the poem and they just screamed at me. They give me no chance to say a word, and the words I say are all about how I was just venting, it is art, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, the night was stressful for us all, etc. They hang up. And he immediately breaks up with me.

He tells me that he loves me, but he cannot go against them. He says how would it look to his daughters if he stayed with me after this? And then, he is gone.

I endure a night of agony. My daughter is away, and my fiance, the love of my life, or so I said, so he said, so we said, is gone. He is living with his kids. A friend calls and we watch a silly movie together while I cry, while I am in shock, while I still believe he will wake up, snap out of it, realize what he has done, and come home.

He does not. He has not.

After a long and painful week, alone, alone for Thanksgiving, alone for the things we had just planned on doing, before he left, we have a talk on a Saturday. I expect it to be full of some sort of closure, kindness, something. But it is all about his clarity, how much fun he is having with his daughters, how I did so much wrong, and how he can have a date in a week if he wanted to. He said he loved me, and he said he has not “ruled me out” but that he did not want to be in a relationship anymore right now, and that we could be best friends and that being best friends is the mature thing to do.

He is best friends with his ex wife and with his last girlfriend, and they love each other, he said. I asked him if we could try couple’s therapy, if as he says, and as I believe, so much was good why not try to save it? He does not seem into it but he says maybe in three months if I can show him or prove to him I can be better. Somehow, it is all on me. I am the one who has to prove myself to him. And yet, I wasn’t the one who was abruptly left and for reasons that are, in most discussions with most of my friends, really childish and uncool.

I should add that in this relationship I had already forgiven him for his porn addiction that I had to discover in a terrible way. And that I suppose he never truly wanted to quit, I just blocked it and told him that this cannot be in my house, in my relationship, and has no space in a loving relationship. He also had issues with drinking, in the past before me he would drink himself into a blackout often. His daughters told stories of how he almost died as if they were somehow normal and okay. He had stopped drinking with me. We would enjoy a glass of wine occasionally but that was it.

Also, I should add at this time that well, in his past relationships he had always been the one to leave. And usually it was by cheating. He cheated on his wife of 22 years, went with the younger woman, cheated on her, went with another younger woman, and then after that relationship from what I understand, he did the thing that men who have issues with porn and drinking do and self esteem and a giant inner void do, they sleep around with no discernment or concern for anyone’s feelings. He said he might have a kid in another state, he told me this a few weeks after we met and it made my stomach sink, but I pushed it out of my mind. And he gave me my first, and I will say only, STD. Which also made me have a lot of feelings, concerns, and anger but, I pushed that out of my mind too. Because I was the one to end the cycles for him and I was his woman for life. I thought. But, I guess not.

He said he was a risk taker, referring to his feelings about Covid, and that I was not. I think maybe he was a risk taker in other unsafe ways as well. And it hurts to think he wants to go back to that all again, but, that is the general feeling I have after our ‘talk.’ He is done with growing and being caged in by love, he wants this single man freedom. And it is so empty. So so empty.

He is a stand up comedian. And he always said he was different from that ‘culture.’ But I think, I guess maybe he really was not. I thought he had grown with me, matured, was going to start acting his age. I thought I was the one to change his life, to have a life with him, he said so, he told me that I made him a better man.

And then he left me, fast and easy, in a pandemic before the holidays.

I had always felt he was a good guy, a good man. But then, there were times when maybe I was looking at something that was not him, or that was almost him, or that I saw him being in his best moments, when his heart was open. We had different values, different feelings about what is okay and not okay when it comes to porn and sex in a relationship, and different feelings about what is okay and not okay when it comes to socializing, drinking, and how to behave in a global pandemic.

But I saw him try. He went to Buddha temple with me, he read books on Buddhism and Love, Buddhism and Fighting. I was so proud of him.

And then, in the ‘talk’ where I barely talked, he told me that he felt that I did not accept him for who he was, and that I kept trying to ‘change him.’ When to me I was pointing out what is not okay, not healthy, and I was not enabling bad behavior, selfish behavior, destructive behavior. He also said I tried to change his comedy material. When in reality, to me, again, all I was doing was giving him suggestions on how to be less dirty, less misogynistic, and better at lifting the bar for humor.

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I wanted better for him than he wanted for himself. I wanted him to be that loving man that I saw in him at all times. I forgave a lot. I understand humans make mistakes. I understand no one is perfect. And I ache for him now, wishing I could try again to get through to him that I was not against him, not trying to change him, I was simply trying to align him with the higher self that I knew him as, that I connected with, that I cherished so deeply.

In the end, he did not want to go that route. He did not want to work for that level of self actualization. He did not want to choose me, or us.

He said a lot of things — that he treasured me, that I was the One, that we were family, that he was always going to be with me, as my husband, as my daughter’s stepdad, and that he was blessed to have me. And I said yes, yes, yes, to all of this. But one bad month, one pandemic, one ultimatum from his screaming and grown up daughters, and I am out.

He ends it. Those promises — five years of promises — were broken. My heart — fully his, for five years — is broken.

Four Weeks In

Four weeks later and we are emailing about stuff and things, bills and moving out. And it still hurts just as much, still feels just as surreal. I wake up feeling heavy every morning. I cry a few times a day. I read my books on break ups, PTSD, healing, self love. I try to eat, sleep, move, and meditate. I try to not send so much of my limited energy to thinking of him, missing him, wondering why he did this, wishing things were different. I try to manage my days by creating new routines, reaching out to friends, and yes, I called a therapist and we have our first meeting this week, on Zoom.

Four weeks in and what have I learned?Besides the constant voice in my heart wishing he would come back, fix it, heal me, heal us, run into my arms, beg for my forgiveness, and make it right? Because that happens. That is a constant in my day despite all of the grief, anger, hurt, pain, the ups and downs, it is just this longing for him to come back home and this feeling that I would take him if he did. And I guess maybe, from what I read, what my friends say, that is not super healthy and I have some work to do on me. I know that.

But, besides constant reflection on pain and longing, what else have I learned? A short list, four weeks in that I will update and add to in future posts.

Well, for one love is not what I thought it was, or did not mean what I thought it meant and maybe I need to learn more about love before giving my heart, and my love, and my body to another person.

I need to learn about safety in relationships, about trust, and about what it might look like to have someone choose to be with you, choose you, and not walk away. I think I have learned, I have an insight, that love does not leave. Love does not abandon. Love does not give up for ‘practical reasons’ or because adult children had a tantrum. Love would protect love and value love. Love would not give in to fear, outside pressure, or illogical upsets from those who are not in the relationship. Love would choose love.

I have learned that I have a lot of work to do to heal my heart, love my heart, protect my heart, and be ready to share my heart again.

I have learned that maybe I have codependent, or self-love deficiency disorder, and that it takes two to be in a relationship, to work on the relationship, and that I cannot be the only one pushing for things like positive change, growth, and healing on issues.

I learned that I cannot make one person my everything, and that if they say move to this city for me you are my family, that I had better have a ring and a deep level of trust and commitment first, or that they can move to where I am, show me that level of commitment. Because oh did I mention I am only in this city because he told me we were family and that he was going to marry me? Did I mention that now I am in this city without so much as an emergency contact because two years in I do not have a network here yet, and all that I had was him and his family. Oops.

I have learned what I want and do not want in love, and I know I will keep going and growing and have more to add to that list, and to add to my ways of self love, as I work through this healing process.

But I know I want a man who is self-aware, who works on his issues, who wants to grow, who values what I value, and who values me and the relationship in a way that is mutual with how I value him and the relationship.

I want someone who will appreciate me and support me. Who will be my cheerleader and my best friend.

I want someone who is affectionate and caring, who is deeply kind, and who is spiritual. Who is intimate in the bedroom way and in the vulnerable heart to heart way. Who gives and takes and who shares their inner worlds with me.

I want someone who respects me, my body, my child, my heart and who I respect in all of the same ways. I want someone who is joyful and stable. I want someone who has no active addictions and who knows their triggers if they have had addictions. I want a man with empathy and compassion. I want a man with a passion for me, and for us, that will match mine for him, and for us. I want equality and justice in love and in life.

And okay, of course, I would like him to be tall, dark, and handsome too. And closer to my age.

But for now, I want to heal. I want to grow. I want to reach that point of self love where I hear you start to attract healthy people into your life, instead of broken people. I want to create a life of meaning for myself and my daughter and one that someone would be happy to join in, happy to co-create, and happy to belong in. I want to love myself and value myself so much that the man of my dreams will see this, feel this, and love and value me just as much.

Do you have any words of support or love to share? Do you want to share your own story? Or do you want to tell me your thoughts on my life, this journey? Or maybe you want to just vent with me, or share your own story. If so, do it in the comments. I will reply with joy.