Things with Jefferson are over now. We had a good run, but in the end, it wasn’t meant to last.
I wasn’t sure at first I even wanted to write this post. I loved him, and I felt that I owed him a certain level of privacy and respect, considering that we had a genuine relationship for several months. The conclusion that I came to, however, was that in the end he didn’t give me the respect or basic decency that I would give a stranger, let alone someone that I claimed to love. Because of that, and because I believe in accountability, I no longer have any qualms about spilling the tea.
There wasn’t really any buildup toward the end of our relationship, at least not for me. In one of our final conversations, though, he told me that he had felt I was distant and “looking for a reason to break up with him” for quite a while. We’d had a conversation about him feeling like I was distant before, which I felt we had resolved. In hindsight, it seems that he was still feeling that way for the duration of our relationship, after those first first few weeks.
There were a couple of times that I thought he might be about to break up with me, though. Once I had my phone turned on silent for a day and didn’t see or respond to his messages, including one message asking if I wanted to come over that night. I didn’t see it until the next morning, and I felt bad when I realized. I apologized and explained what had happened, but he seemed to not believe me that it wasn’t intentional. He said something like, “I’m surprised you would think that I would ignore you all day.” When I told him that my phone was accidentally put in a focus that blocked all notifications, including badges, he said, “even text messages?” as if he didn’t believe me. He’d tried messaging me in two different ways, and I guess he seemed to believe that I should have seen at least one of them.
I told him straight up that he seemed mad at me, and he never responded to that. The conversation just went on to different things, and I let it go. There was also a time when he didn’t say good morning to me in the same way he always did, which was “good morning my beautiful babygirl.” I immediately thought the worst, that he was planning to break up with me. He didn’t though! I asked him if everything was okay and he gave me reassurance.
But back to the end.
It started when I noticed that his responses to me voicing my concerns about the state or our country were extremely short and vague. For example, I sent him a message explaining why I was feeling anxious:
As you can see, his response was supportive but provided no indication whatsoever about how he felt about those things. Because this happened on a couple of occasions, I started to worry that his quietness on the subject was because he held opposing viewpoints.
So, things came to a head when I sent him a message saying that I was worried about our core values potentially not matching up. I told him that I had some questions to ask him because I needed to know if we were compatible going forward. Those weren’t my exact words, but unfortunately I can’t share the exact words. Why? Oh, you’ll see.
His response, however, I can share.
As you can see, I asked him some very specific questions, and his response after that was the he wanted to talk on the phone because there was a lot to say. I agreed and later we had our final conversation.
The irony of that final conversation was that he assuaged all of my concerns about his political stances, but he gave me even bigger concerns with the way he spoke to me.
I will try to sum up some of the points we spoke about.
He was displeased that I had asked him if he thought perhaps he was feeling distant because we hadn’t had sex in a while. He said that he would address my “allegations,” and then informed me that he had plenty of sex with other people and that he never expected sex from me. I appreciated the meaning, if not the delivery.
He was outraged by me asking if he supported people of color and the hispanic community, because his wife and child are not white. First of all, I didn’t know that. I’d seen photos of his child and I guessed that she was of mixed ethnicities, but I wouldn’t make an assumption that she was anything specific, or that because of that he couldn’t possibly be racist. Unfortunately, that’s not a safe assumption to make. When I made that point, he became furious and said that he “lived this every day.” When I suggested that being married to a person of color and having a child who is a person of color does not automatically mean that a person isn’t still in support of ICE and the cruelty of the deportations that are happening right now, he became even more furious and said that me saying that was actually racist.
He was also outraged that I would suggest that he doesn’t fully support and defend the constitution, because he’s a veteran and he took an oath. Again, I had to point out that many people have taken an oath to uphold the constitution and then done the exact opposite.
He accused me multiple times of making assumptions. He said that I had assumed that we didn’t share these values. I was confused by that because the point of the conversation was to figure that out, because I wanted to know how he felt about these things instead of making assumptions. I don’t understand how me asking questions about his views could be construed as making assumptions.
He accused me of being dismissive of his feelings, because when he said he felt distant for quite some time, I told him I didn’t feel the same way (which I followed by asking if there was anything I could do to help him feel better).
He accused me of not caring about him as much as “I think I want to,” because I didn’t glean his political views from the brief conversation that he and Romeo had once about some obscure political things. I was present, but not involved in that conversation, and at no point in it did I or Romeo gain a clear understanding of his positions. The only thing I understood from what was discussed is that he leans toward being a centrist or a moderate. In any case, I feel it’s a bit harsh to say that I don’t truly care about him because I didn’t remember details of that conversation.
He again accused me of trying to find a reason to break up with him.
All of these accusations were hurtful to me, obviously. But what was worse was the way he spoke to me. At one point he cursed at me and raised his voice. He wouldn’t let me respond to some very harsh things he was saying, because he wanted me to “let him finish” first. His tone at multiple points was, as I previously described it, furious and outraged. He was just plain mean, and that not only hurt me but caused me to feel emotionally unsafe with him.
Long story short, that conversation broke my trust in him, and our love was not yet strong enough for me to feel able to (or even want to) attempt to repair it. I didn’t feel safe to do so.
The next morning I sent him these messages:
As you can see, I didn’t break up with him at that point, but I was planning to. I left the window open just a crack for him to apologize or try to salvage the relationship, even though I had very little hope of that.
What happened after that is he deleted our entire conversation. He never responded. He ghosted me. He cut me off before I could actually break up with him. I guess that means he’s still my boyfriend? 😂 (Trying to inject some humor here… is it working?)
I found it shocking that he would respond that way. He had told me that if we did break up, he would be able to handle it like an adult. Clearly, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
As a result of his instant erasure of our entire relationship history, I haven’t been able to share some of the exact words that were exchanged between us. Fortunately I had some screenshots taken previously, so I at least have a record of a few of our messages.
This experience has taught me one very important thing that I will take with me moving forward. I now understand that love ending doesn’t negate its existence or authenticity. I did love him, and even though that changed very quickly and I don’t anymore, what we had was real.
Maybe someday I’ll miss him. For right now, though, I only feel relieved that I never again have to see or speak to this person who made me feel like a shitty person just for asking questions.