Pre-Breakup
Welcome to our column written by Managing Editor Caitlyn Mae Araña, called Catching Up With Caitlyn. Through letters, she addresses the trials and tribulations that come with learning and growing as a 20-something.
This semester, she will be focusing on one particular narrative that has impacted her over the years, although not all articles will be about this one situation. So, tune in for your weekly dose of drama and strap in ladies and gents… Nothing is off limits here.
Dear Jacob*,
Finally, we’re getting into all the things that mattered and all the things that we both did wrong. Yes, you heard that right. I can admit that I’m also to blame, and I’m taking responsibility because I truly think that I was the one that initiated the end of our relationship. I didn’t mean to, but I did. But the thing is, what I did was fixable—every decision you made after that is what really ended our relationship. But, we’ve talked this through enough times already. I’m just hoping that this time, you might actually listen to what I have to say.
The start of our breakup happened on a night where I made a stupid joke that I still regret. I jokingly accused you of using me when it clearly wasn’t true. I never actually thought that—that you used me. I still don’t think that. In my head, at that moment, it felt like a joke. So, I said it. And that was the beginning of the end of our relationship.
You quickly took offense to it, as anyone would, and I immediately apologized. I told you that I didn’t mean it, that I thought you would take it as a joke. I remember just wishing I could take back those two seconds it took to say such a stupid joke. We didn’t talk much for the rest of that night.
Eventually, you forgave me, or at least you said that you forgave me. But it was too late. Things were already different. After that, it was just fight after fight after fight. It was exhausting. You started hanging out with your friends more, which was not a problem. You also started lying to me, which was a problem.
Most of the arguments happened during the lead up to Ella’s* birthday. I asked you if you wanted to go. You were hesitant at first, saying that you didn’t want to be in the same room as Tatiana* and her new boyfriend. You thought it’d be awkward, but I reassured you otherwise. You told me you’d think about it.
A few days later, I texted you that I was going to hang out with my friends at Tatiana’s house. I even invited you, but you said you had to work. Alyssa, Tatiana, Ella, and Ricky* were going to be there, and you were not happy about that. When I confronted you about it—asking if you had a problem with me hanging out with my friends—you said that you had a problem with me hanging out with Ricky. You had a problem with it because of everything that happened two years prior. Two years had passed. Tatiana had moved on. Ricky had moved on. I, clearly, had moved on… with you. Yet, you had an issue with it.
Around that same time, I had also sent you a screenshot of my group chat with my friends to show you a funny conversation, and you got mad about it because Ricky had said something about me looking good. You were upset that I didn’t shut Ricky down and tell him immediately that I had a boyfriend and that he shouldn’t be saying flattering things to me. Maybe I was wrong there. Maybe I should’ve said something. But truthfully, I didn’t think I had to because he knew that you were my boyfriend and there was text evidence that I didn’t even take the comment seriously. But of course, this conversation fueled your argument about me hanging out with my friends even more.
I asked you if you trusted me and told you that I couldn’t be in a relationship that didn’t have any trust. You reassured me that you did trust me, but you didn’t trust Ricky and what could possibly happen if I were under the influence and “vulnerable” to him. Of course, I was livid with what you were saying, but we decided to forget about the issue altogether with the last words of that conversation being a guilt trip along the lines of, “If you want to go and get drunk with Ricky, then go ahead. If you want to hookup with Ricky, then go ahead.”
The next day, I went to hang out with my friends anyway. Maybe I was wrong to do this, too. Except I didn’t do it to make you upset. I did it to spend time with my friends. For a while, I was able to forget about anything that we were arguing about while I was with them. It wasn’t until you sent me Alyssa's Snapchat story with the words “great” or “nice” facetiously attached to it that all the arguments started up again.
I watched her story, but I didn’t understand what you were upset about. I responded to you, confused, asking you what you were angry about. It wasn’t until I slowed down her story that I actually saw it. As Alyssa was recording an overview of the room that we were in, she quickly passed over me sitting down next to Ricky. You were upset that I was sitting next to him. I tried to call and text you, but you kept telling me that you were at work and couldn’t answer me.
I accepted it. Although, an hour or so later, I remember scrolling through my Snapchat completely sober and watching people’s stories. Imagine my shock when I came across your friends’ story and saw you hanging out with him when you were supposed to be at work. The idea that you lied to me about something as small as being at work just to avoid a conversation made me so angry. I remember texting you about lying, crying about it with Alyssa, her posting it on her story with the caption: “don’t lie to your girlfriends, boys,” and then you texting me separately, telling me to stop crying.
After that, I don’t remember much. I don’t remember resolving the issue. The truth is, I probably don’t remember it because it probably didn’t matter, or didn’t happen. It didn’t matter if we resolved the issue or not, because the second we started lying to each other was the second that the trust in our relationship was broken. How could I be in love with someone who I couldn’t trust or who couldn’t trust me? But I was… God, I was in love with you. And I wished I wasn’t.
The next things I can recall are just small petty moments. There was a specific time where you were very obviously trying to make me jealous. You weren’t responding to my texts, and you eventually responded with, “I’m with an old friend, walking around the mall.” The obscurity of your text was enough to bait me, so I replied, “Oh, who? I was just wondering what you were up to since we haven’t talked in a while.”
“Her name’s Emily*, we’re just catching up,” you said. I truly didn’t care who she was or if you were trying to make me jealous, but after all of the fighting, I decided to be petty. I chose to put up a new post on Instagram with a caption reading along the lines of constantly giving out chances and being let down, to which you commented and laughed about. I admit, it was childish of me to do so, which is why I ended up changing the caption later on.
All of these tiny, petty arguments spring-boarded us into one of our biggest fights, and as much as I didn’t want it to, it did happen over text, which I think only made it worse. There was a lot of blame and a lot of pain involved, at least on my end. I wanted so badly to just talk this through in person. But that’s not what happened. Not even a little bit.
Only Love
Caitlyn Mae
*Names have been changed to maintain integrity.