Girlfriend Broke Up Saying She Needed ‘Validation’
His long-distance girlfriend dumped him by saying she was going to out with friends because she “needed validation.” He can’t believe it’s over like that.
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Hi Chump Lady,
I was in a long distance relationship with my ex-girlfriend for about a year.
We met in her city for a few months before she moved away for her job. There were many back and forth flights and FaceTime calls because I did love this woman and was anticipating her coming back in a year’s time to build a home with.
We are young and I had hopes because of my need for a love that calms my nervous system. I won’t claim I was the perfect partner, many words cannot be unsaid, and many arguments did build resentment. But part of me was hoping we would make it to the next trip or next flight to solve things.
This did not happen. Because she called me first thing in the morning on a Monday two weeks ago.
She told me she had gone out with some friends and wanted some validation.
I was distraught, upset, and disappointed all of a year’s work was gone like that. I have spent the following days in therapy, the gym, at work, on various couches, but it all feels so pointless, y’know? We are pretty young (early 20s), but I really didn’t expect to get rocked like this. My mental health has been the lowest, my stomach can barely fit food, and I just have an apprehension to living right now.
We fought on the phone and over text where she claimed she was gonna break up with me anyways citing our incompatibilities. She brought up our arguments that upset her and my struggle to communicate with her. And I own all of those and felt awful. But I knew I couldn’t control her actions. Maybe we weren’t the right fit. Maybe I poured too much of myself into her. Now I’m picking up the pieces myself.
I organized an exchange of items and my friend did it on my behalf. He said she asked “he doesn’t want to see me”, and was tearing up, saying sorry multiple times. My heart broke at this thought. But in the same way, she also blocked me first everywhere and updated her social medias.
I’m torn, unsatisfied, and can’t believe it’s just over like that.
I’m left with a memory of my lover and nothing more. She’ll be back in a year and that kills me too.
Do I just wait for Tuesday to come? My heart is racing and head is spinning now.
Thanks,
Rainier
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Dear Rainier,
I’m sorry you got your heart broke. Rejection is one of life’s shit sandwiches and all you can do is learn from it. So, let’s go through your letter and learn from this, okay?
Please know Tuesday is out there.
You’re young. Bonding and investing is human, but be really choosey about where and how you direct your energies, okay?
I was in a long-distance relationship with my ex-girlfriend for about a year.
Not ideal. At your age, it’s pretty normal to be mobile and prioritize career or educational opportunities above romantic ones. Sure, some long-distance relationships work out, but it requires an upfront investment of your time (and money for travel), that puts an extra load on a new relationship.
We met in her city for a few months before she moved away for her job.
So, she wasn’t available for a serious relationship. If she sent you mixed signals about that — pay attention to her actions. She moved away. Maybe she wanted the validation of a boyfriend waiting for her. Maybe you put a lot of hope into a spark you felt after a few months of dating. I don’t know. But “moved away and took the job” is a big clue that the relationship is on the back seat. AND THAT IS OKAY. She’s allowed to have different priorities. If she encouraged you to invest in her and sent mixed signals, that’s NOT okay.
Mixed signals are just one signal — not available.
People who are truly interested in you act like it. Their words align with their actions.
We are young and I had hopes because of my need for a love that calms my nervous system.
Dude, it is not her job to calm your nervous system. That is YOUR job. She’s a girlfriend, not a weighted blanket.
Google “emotional labor.” Don’t put these kind of pressures on your romantic partners. Yes, one of the joys of having a partner is having someone to lean on, to encourage and support you, but you need to bring your own stability to the table first. This is a really good lesson to learn in your early 20s. And it goes both ways too. Be very wary of any adult who needs rescuing. It’s nice to feel needed, but healthy relationships are built on reciprocity.
You can’t reciprocate if you can’t manage your own mental health.
I won’t claim I was the perfect partner, many words cannot be unsaid, and many arguments did build resentment. But part of me was hoping we would make it to the next trip or next flight to solve things.
Arguments? Sweetheart, at your age dating is just s*x and dining out. At any point did you ask yourself — is this relationship acceptable to me? At a FEW MONTHS in, and then long-distance, it should be the honeymoon period. The fun romance stuff. Building the foundation for when it gets harder later. If you’re arguing all the time you have a mismatch. Your values don’t align.
She told me she had gone out with some friends and wanted some validation.
Okay, this is a really shitty way to break up with someone. Hey, I’m going to trawl for strange in a bar with my friends, or whatever. It’s goading you into the pick me dance. Because she’s not CLEARLY breaking up with you. She’s saying she needs “validation” — which leaves the door open to you figuring out how you can “validate” her. Which is an insult. Because if this was a relationship she valued, she would have all the validation she needed.
Needing “validation” is a clue to her character.
The currency is attention, not attachment. That’s an important sign. You want to bond, she wants to see what’s out there in the validation market. You aren’t the highest bidder. Walk away. Relationships aren’t competitions.
I was distraught, upset, and disappointed all of a year’s work was gone like that. I have spent the following days in therapy, the gym, at work, on various couches, but it all feels so pointless, y’know?
Relationships should not feel like WORK — relationships should make you feel SAFE. Work on yourself, but don’t work at connecting with someone. This is one of the tropes of the RIC, that marriage is “work.” No, being saddled with a FW is work. A healthy relationship adds to your life, it doesn’t pile you with homework.
And this experience isn’t pointless if you learn from it.
My mental health has been the lowest, my stomach can barely fit food, and I just have an apprehension to living right now.
No shame in talking to a doctor and getting screened for depression. Heartbreak is hard on your mind and body. It just means you’re human and you crave connection and there’s nothing wrong with that. But therapy can help with boundaries and shoring yourself up after a break up. If you’re seriously considering un-aliving yourself, call a hotline. You’re worth SO MUCH MORE than one checked out person’s opinion of you.
We fought on the phone and over text where she claimed she was gonna break up with me anyways citing our incompatibilities.
She was going to break up with you “anyway”? But thought that getting validation from the highest bidder first was a better strategy? WHATEVER.
Break up with her first. Don’t argue with someone to love you. Ever.
I organized an exchange of items and my friend did it on my behalf. He said she asked “he doesn’t want to see me”, and was tearing up, saying sorry multiple times.
Also, whatever. Who care’s about her feelings or if she wants to see you? That’s her trying to get more validation (kibbles). At this point YOU should be clear that you don’t want this relationship. It’s over. Time to focus on moving forward.
My heart broke at this thought. But in the same way, she also blocked me first everywhere and updated her social medias.
Pay attention to her actions.
I’m left with a memory of my lover and nothing more. She’ll be back in a year and that kills me too.
You won’t know when she’s back because you will have moved on by then. She’s someone you used to (kinda, sorta) know. Someone you stopped investing in.
Rainier, please stop investing. You can grieve what you thought it would be. But learn from this and dream a new dream. Preferably with someone in your zip code. ((Hugs))
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Maybe it was just my reading of the letter, but it doesn’t sound like cheating necessarily happened, just that the girlfriend went out with friends for validation (whether by just being in the company of friends instead of talking with the OP or looking for something, I don’t know). I was a bit wary of the OP’s expectations of this person – the whole looking for someone to “calm [your] nervous system”. Agree with Tracy here that this is NOT another person’s job. A relationship should certainly not make you feel on edge, so in a sense should not be triggering your nervous system, but you are always responsible at the end of the day for your own well-being and should be bringing that to the table in your relationships with others. We are allowed struggles and needing from others from time to time, but it should not be the only mechanism by which we can get along and it should certainly be reciprocal without veering into co-dependency territory. That all being said, if you are not feeling good at the end of the day regarding how this person treats you or interacts with you, the break up may have needed to happen. I’m sure you’ll hate people saying “you’re young, you’re only in your 20s, etc.” because I remember how big and important those kinds of relationships felt at the time, but please know there is more opportunity for connection ahead of you. Maybe the “I’m going out for validation” thing was a bit of baiting, meant to make you worry. That’s not an OK way to air grievances with a partner. Based on what is being said here, it sounds like perhaps emotional maturity is still developing for both parties. Again (and sorry), you’re in your 20s – it’s OK to still be learning! Whether cheating happened or not, you must always ask yourself if the relationship is acceptable to you. Never forget this bit of wisdom. It will save you a bit of heartache when you let your head take the lead sometimes.
Rainier wrote just now to say, he forgot to add that “I broke up with her because she had confessed she went out and cheated on me, maybe that was misinterpreted in my writing, I don’t know if that’s her dumping me or if that’s the interpretation. That’s all.”
In which case, I’m glad you dumped HER. And that’s a shitty way to end a relationship, as many of us here can attest.
Oof, well I guess that answers that. As someone who also coaxed a (partial, because that’s usually how it goes) confession out of their partner, it can be a confusing situation. Now you’re in a position where you have to respond to this information. If she meant it as a break up, she should state as much (maybe she’s fishing to see what he’ll put up with? I got that feeling with ex FW), but the OP certainly does not need to sit around and wait for her. I sat with ex FW’s confession for months and came to the conclusion that what he did was not OK and the relationship could not continue. Rainier, you do not want to play the what ifs game with this person or become the relationship police. She showed you who she was in a pinch, so believe her and move on to better things.
Thanks for the advice CL. It’s been a month now and I feel a bit better, my heart doesn’t race at first in the morning and I’ve been working out and going to therapy. I’m responsible for how I can grow in my own life but I won’t be responsible for someone choosing to disrespect me.
Friend, you dodged a bullet. I also heard something along the lines of “I needed validation” but that excuse came 11 years into my marriage. I learned the same lessons you are learning now but the consequences were far greater for me and my children. It’s not easy to hear but you’re going to be far better off in future relationships having gone through what you’re enduring now. Also, consider doing some self analysis on your picker, some or us male chumps are taker magnets. Prioritize finding a giver when the time is right.
I echo ChumplyChampion, Rainier. Hearing your spouse of 11 years saying that he needed to be “admired” rather than “loved” was a message I wish I heard and understood when I was in my twenties rather than my late thirties. I invested way too much in him before learning that he was collecting “admiration” from many other sources other than me. Tough lesson to learn.
Glad to hear you’ve been doing better lately. Take care.
There are good reasons few people marry their “first love”. It gives us a chance to become independent first and to build a reserve of maturity and resources to share with another person.
It’s hard Rainer, especially after a year’s worth of emotional engagement.
I say this as someone who had similar long distance relationships, but maybe take stock of how much of the investment was you yearning the relationship into existence. Long distance is hard, but is also leaves plenty of room for yearning, for spending months/years texting and daydreaming with them while not realizing they leave dishes in the sink for weeks. Visits are expensive but also more “vacation mode” than daily life together mode.
There is so much room for filling in the gaps of what you don’t actually know about her with your ideal vision of her. Especially as it sounds like you are in a place where you don’t feel secure and content with yourself and your life as a single person.
Wanting and needing love is natural, and normal. But being desperate for it doesn’t lead to healthy, mutual relationships. I’ve seen women sucked in to bad, impulsive decisions with terrible men (often with life threatening consequences), and men in toxic, draining or unfulfilling relationships with women who either use them, or who expect a healthier balance and cut the relationship short when they realize the man doesn’t love them as a flawed but great person, but has then on a pedestal as the sole source of his self worth and happiness.
Chump Lady is dead on to say “ You can’t reciprocate if you can’t manage your own mental health.”
Care for yourself even if it feels like bullshit. Get involved in your community, invest in strong platonic friendships with men and women, level up your work, clean your living space, get a therapist, a pet, connect with relatives you get long with. The fuller your life, the more calm and confident you will be when you are ready to date again. And this time in your zip code!
(I write a lot. You already know what it is. Coffee/tea up, Chump Nation!)
Rainier,
First of all, I am sorry that you are going through this.
It seems like you learned about “sunk cost” the hard way. I am not throwing stones-I did, too. More on that below.
It’s the early days of heartbreak for you. What you are feeling is normal. The lack of appetite, the physical disturbances, the weird, random emotional lows? All part of the package, brother. It will pass. It gets easier (but never quite “easy.”)
And in time? You are going to realize that you got off light. You dodged a bullet, friend.
Believe you me, I have deep sympathy for a lot of your tale here. When I started my relationship with my Traitor, it was similarly long distance (multi hour Skype (when that was still a thing) video calls pretty much daily, 8 hour drives multiple times a year, having to be Super Boyfriend after said drive, you name it.) Relationships are already another full time job-Long Distance under the best of circumstances are doing it on Hard with broken equipment.
Looking back on it, I realize that I was doing most of the heavy lifting back then (and quite frankly this established the longer pattern). We try not to “untangle the skein” around these parts-it’s very hard not to try and figure out what, if anything, went wrong. “Were I as smart as I think I am I would have noticed”. Love makes fools of us all.
I was also lulled into the same sort of codependence it seems like you got sucked into as well. “Love be like that”-and speaking as a mental health professional? We never really know the precise moment anything became unhealthy (or “toxic” in the modern parlance.)
And stop me if this sounds familiar-it seemed like we were fighting the most when she had other things going on and that is when the intimated “find somebody else” would rear its ugly head and you had to push harder…right? Or there were little signs that she was already evaluating options elsewhere, right? Like “went out and this guy talked to her” and then she would trail off? So you’d push harder?
Mine gave me a scare about a year in (sound familiar?) about looking elsewhere with something pretty similar. I was struggling, and she withdrew and we fought more and she told me that someone else was making overtures. Knowing what I know now? I should have let him have her and cut bait. But no. I doubled down. And issued an ultimatum (which on a long enough timeline it was clear she had no intention of following through with) concerning how monogamy has to work with me.
But I was in love.
If you were already fighting a lot and there were already the resentments? Well, I get the distinct impression based on her narrative that she was not as invested as you were. Relationships are fundamentally asymmetric-we shoot for 60/40 typically-sounds like you were doing 90 and she was doing 10. Don’t put yourself through that again.
I ended up moving mine in with me to take the long distance out of the equation and really build that future. And for a while, it was good…wonderful, actually. Until it wasn’t. Until the same patterns of avoidance bubbled back up over time.
Famously, I got diagnosed with diabetes and suddenly the next day she wanted an open relationship. 9 months of pick-me dance. It felt like it was going to still work. Then the open disrespect started. The gaslighting. The emotional abuse. D-Day. Heartbreak. Staring at my bedroom ceiling begging to be taken by death while one by one I watched my dreams and goals and everything I built over 13 years get pulled into a black hole.
You can live with someone, do laundry and taxes with them, do holidays, get a cat, joint checking accounts, all of the trappings. It’s not until they are being held over the volcano that you actually meet them.
I wasn’t a perfect partner, either. You actually can’t be one. That’s not realistic. I did not heed the warning signs-that her version of conflict management was avoidance and running (and true, fun story-I just got a summons in the mail for the Traitor-running a public records search, she is getting taken to court over debts she had…and, wait for it…skipped the country rather than pay her bills or make sure they were forwarded to the correct address. I hope her new husband knew what he was getting himself into. A Traitor through and through. Might I add, “Idiot.”) You and I deserve a lot of things good and bad-getting cheated on, blamed, and abused for not meeting some invisible expectation is not one of them.
You are hurting right now. And you should be. Heartbreak sucks. And again, I am sorry you are going through this. It will get better. When you are ready, you will be back, you will be stronger, and you will have a more finely tuned horse hockey detector. And ultimately more of yourself to give for someone that actually deserves your love.
You dodged a bullet (if your story was going to turn out like mine? 12 years’ worth of a bullet, I’d wager). Regardless of what you did wrong, rather than actually work on the issue or be an adult about her unhappiness she elected to go out pick up a stranger.
You are going to hear this a lot, so let me reinforce it because it is true-work on you. You know better now. Keep going to the gym, keep investing in yourself, take your therapy seriously, and grow from this. If nothing else, you are at the age where mental health symptoms start to solidify-get ahead of those. I waited too long to take therapy seriously(I am coming up on one year with the best therapist I ever had-I owe a lot of my successes in that time to her.)
I am coming up on three years from my own D-Day(three years ago right now? I was in the worst part of the pick-me dance. Don’t make my mistake!) Our couple’s counselor was correct about exactly one thing-I have grown more in that time than in all of the years the preceded it. I’m not quite at Tuesday (seeing Certified Mail with her name on it caused a brief spiral, not gonna lie). But I’m getting there. I’ve been on dates and met some great people. No where I want to be, but not at all where I was. And I keep growing. I am closer to all but one of those goals from back then than I ever was with her “helping.”
Just imagine how far YOU will be!
You might not believe in you right now. I get that. I believe in you, though. Where you walk now so I have tread. Go further than me, now!
Stay Mighty, all!
Oh, and I’ve bothered you all enough for one day/week/etc…but you know…with all of the Columbo I’ve watched lately…just one more thing.
The real red hot needle in my brain I developed reading our new friend’s account is the tearful “he doesn’t want to see me.” I think that is the precise thought, were it me, that would start to transmute my self-loathing into righteous indignation. To me, that’s just proof that it was always all about her (and I imagine leaving out the “I went out impulsively and cheated because all of the undivided attention I get is not good enough for me” part.)
Rainier,
You have put a lot of effort into trying to make your relationship work; a relationship with someone who just doesn’t sound like the right person for you. It’s not just that she’s a Cheater, but she’s not matching your commitment or energy at all either. I’d gently suggest that you step back, accept the loss for what it is, work on yourself and, when you are ready, find someone who is a better match for you.
Do not invest further time, effort and emotion into a relationship that is never going to give you what you need. You were only with her for a year or so, however my late father’s words still apply ….. “Just because you’ve spent a long time making a mistake doesn’t mean that you have to keep on making it.”
LFTT