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The last nine years in steps:
My dad died when I was 17, I had ignored the last call he tried to make to me.
I got accepted into one of the top universities in the UK.
I had a few very close friends there, and a wider circle of people to hang out. I wasn’t always the loudest or most sociable, but I was liked, and I had energy, enthusiasm and a lot of joy. I met an amazing young woman, became good friends and then later had a relationship.
I graduated in 2012, myself and all of my friends scattered back to where were from.
I struggled to find rewarding work, but did manage to visit my girlfriend in her country.
It seemed hopeless that I would be able to join her permanently any time soon.
5 months later we broke up.
4 months later I moved to London, shared a flat with an old uni friend/ex-of-my-best-friend (I checked with him before becoming flatmates)
I lived quite far out and had very little money, and life was pretty isolating, but I went away to Paris with friends (twice), and visited another friend in Cardiff. I didn’t have the internet so couldn’t speak to as many people as I’d like, but still managed to spend some time with friends from uni who gravitated towards London.
A year after coming to London, I moved into a friends’ spare room, it as tiny, but more central. I met someone, and we quickly (possibly too quickly) fell for each other.
About 6 months after we met, I moved into her shared flat to stop them from being kicked out.
7 Months later, we moved into a different flat, just the two of us.
A year later I moved out but nearby.
Six months from then I moved back in due to problems with her new flatmate.
Now- I’m moving away to a city closer to my hometown, continuing my job remotely for 6-months to a year. The GF is following me in a couple of months. It’s going to be tighter than now until she can find a job, but I can just about afford this 2 bed place (2nd bedroom as an office) whilst I could nota fford a 1 bed place in London.
Issues I know I have
• My dad- pretty standard loss of a parent/good friend who I was very close to, but still didn’t know as much as I’d like to about.
• Friends – I’ve always been pretty quiet, mixed with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Part of this enthusiasm was reduced when I was un/under-employed for a year, but I remember still doing a lot of excited skipping during my first year in London. I now struggle to make new friends, and I feel I’ve massively drifted away from some in the last few years. I want to reach out, but I’m not sure how. My closest friends in London have family property/money so don’t seem to deal with the same costly reality I do. My best friend was around last year, but is now contractually obliged to be somewhere else til next March. The city I’m moving to I do have some friends there already but it’s so far been a very irregular (time-wise) friendship,a nd I’m worried I’ve lost too much of me.
• Costs of London- this city is prohibitively expensive, and whilst I make a decent wage, my GF hates her job, (but not the industry) and it pays very little, this means I contribute more to everything, but we can’t afford to do too much.
• My Girlfriend – I’m not sure where to go or start with this one. We escalated things incredibly quickly and shouldn’t have moved in together when we did I feel. She utterly adores me and understands me very well. I care for her a great deal, but worry that I don’t love her anywhere near as much as she loves me. And my weird conflict about this torments me.
o There was a period when we tried an open relationship (for her sake) but it was destroying me mentally and physically (self harm) when she realised, she shut it down completely.
o She hates her low paying job but still commits to spending time/energy there. Pretty much this, she can’t contribute that much to our finances (we don’t actually have a joint account or anything) which puts the strain on me. She also complains constantly about her job, and is physically worn down by it, but won’t consider switching careers whilst in London.
o 3rd is the most difficult, she has a chronic pain condition, along with anxiety and bouts of depression. It kills me to say it, but this has an impact on us. I often feel like I’m a caretaker or helper, and seeing her so tired all the time or in physical pain wracks my insides. We rarely have sex (she is often physically unable to, and when she is, if she has been really bad recently its hard for me to get ouit of ‘caretaker’ mindset, the vast majority of the housework falls to me as she will be too tired/pained/low energy to cook or put washing on, run her own bath etc…
We have to cancel plans at the last minute frequently, which makes it harder/less likely that we end up planning to do anything.
Because a lot of the time we have is not ‘quality time’ I find myself cancelling other private plans with friends to take advantage of the time when she is feeling well and up for doing things.
If I do go out on my own I know that one of two things will happen- I’ll either get a lot of messages from her or I’ll hear nothing and guess (85% of the time correctly) that she has slept through meal times, which makes me feel the need to cut things short, or just dread going back as I know she will be worse for having missed food.
There are also times when we have plans to hang out, but she needs to rest for half an hour, so I potter about, doing pretty much nothing intensive, then half an our passes, and she actually needs another half hour, and so on. This can’t be helped, but it is frustrating, as if I knew she needed, say 4 hours rest, I could have done proper exercise, or met with a friend, or something else productive, instead of just incrementally wasting my day.
I worry about long term things like how her illness would factor in if we ever had children, or how I feel I would like to do more outdoorsy stuff but she definitely can’t.
And I feel terrible about it all, her illness isn’t her fault, and how I respond to it also isn’t her fault, but I find it difficult and I struggle to talk to her about it as it feels like she is so rarely able to physically deal with having the difficult conversations.
• My ex-girlfriend from uni - The 10 months long distance at the end was too much, and whilst we probably shouldn’t have done it, I think we were better for trying it. It took me a long while to get over her and the relationship, and even when I was ready to date other people again I was still a little hung up.
We met up again and spent a lot of time together over the course of a weekend uni reunion last year. It was very helpful closure for me, and I have since realised that I do not miss a relationship with her, but more a relationship as equal and energetic as that one was.
• The move- As I said, I’m moving away from London for a while. I realise I might return, especially if I want to work for the same company. I had cold feet about the move, but spoke to the GF about it, and because she wouldn’t bae able to quit her job and have a few months off if we stayed in London, I went ahead with the plan. And I’m worried. I’m worried that a move won’t actually prompt a change in me (though that extra 3 hours not commuting will lend time for exercise and some actual rest).
I’m also worried that the time apart from my GF (she is going home for a few months) , of not being in the same flat (or round the corner as I was at the start of our relationship/when I briefly moved out) will cause me to end things, as I would be free of all the caretaking aspects, without the nicer moments to remind me why I’m with her. In that instance I’m worried that, despite her not being able to afford London and hating her job, she’ll feel I messed it all up for her. I’m also weirdly worried that it won’t cause a revelation, and that I’ll stay, and she’ll move up, and that this level of satisfaction and happiness is the best I can aim for.