About two months ago my long term partner of three years decided to end our relationship. It came as complete surprise to me given that we had recently just agreed to start buying some furniture together and move into a new flat as well as I had been working to financially support us for the past year or so while they waited to get into uni.
In the early stages of our relationship things were tough - both of us had a lot of baggage, but over three years we worked on our previous issues and started to focus on our goals and plan for the future. My job had been stressful recently so I decided to transfer to a different department to take pressure off me and the relationship.
In the few months leading up to the break up, feeling safe and secure in the relationship, I decided to touch base again with the things I enjoyed before we partnered up - hiking with friends etc. This meant spending a bit more time apart than we previously had, and pursuing the things we had neglected over the past few years.
I'm not perfect and I know I made plenty of mistakes along the way but have always been focused on self improvement and working on my relationships - I'm always prepared to go the hard yard. In the past few months leading up the the relationship I tried injecting a bit more romance into the relationship since I had felt it had been lacking somewhat - I had been somewhat preoccupied by work due to some customer aggression experiences I had gone through in my role in social services.
The thing is, after they decided to split they told me that they didn't ever really enjoy the things we use to do, and to add insult to injury indicated that they had been thinking about breaking up for months! This was news to me and all my friends observed my partner appeared happier than they had ever been - we were starting to go on vacations together - exploring our home state etc, plan for the future and painting our apartment among other things.
To make things worse after we split - my partners decision, my partner became aggressive, picked a fight with our shared friends and started attacking them personally and burning all their bridges. I have no idea where this has came from other than they had recently reconnected with some of their old friends that has disliked me from the beginning feeding rumours to my partners family. My friends on the other hand loved my partner and always welcomed them into the group and their homes.
