I broke up with them because I was tired of asking to be loved and asking for an actual partner.

It was brutal, it took a long time, and I wasnt trying for it to come as a shock because I had made it clear for a year that things were rocky and the last 6 months we were together that I needed them to do stuff like clean the cats litterboxes on their two days of the week and wash the dishes once in a while and get a job or welfare or anything because I'd run up so much debt supporting us while I was in school doing clinical. I had to go to a small town as a rural clinical for a few weeks, I left my car with them and it hurt that they didnt come to visit but when I came back it was like a hoarders house, clothes over every inch of the floor, every dish was dirty, the toilet was full of what people do in the bathroom (these are not exaggerations) - but worse, the cats water dishes were empty, their food was empty (we had kibble and wet food left), the litter boxes were full. I couldnt keep running their mental health appointments, setting them up, taking them, making sure they took their meds, trying to ensure they kept to a sleep hygeine schedule and eat food partly because of how pissed they'd get when I told them it was time or how pissed they'd get when I didn't tell them and they missed something because the last time Id tried they got very mad and yelled or hit themself. I dont miss the screaming matches or their self-harm or when they'd promise their friends they'd do stuff like dog sitting but literally couldnt do it so, really, it was another thing I was tasked with doing. They insisted on the house we rented - we did have to move cause the old house literally got shot and was in a very bad neighbourhood, but there were other options. They would only agree on the priciest house to rent instead of something we could've actually afforded in part because it had a bath tub and that extra $500 a month was worth it for the bath tub to them. They just didnt go to work anymore for years after 2020, I was able to step up for three years and I had hoped love and patience would've been enough. They at least got a job towards the end but they couldnt handle working enough hours so I was still paying rent and groceries. I remember so often wishing I had a Terminal to shoulder some of the stuff I was going through but I felt I had to be the rock cause any time I started to open up about how dark my headspace was getting they'd have an emotional or mental health crisis and we'd be back to focusing on them. I got covid before the vaccines, and instead of getting to rest in bed I still had all the chores to do on top of reassuring them that it was okay I got covid and they would be okay if I died. And some of the very dark abusive stuff they did to me in our very first couple of years never really left my nervous system.

Saying that, I made plenty of mistakes, I fucked up lots. Especially the end when I was so worn down between nursing full time at school in clinical and then coming home and more or less nursing my ex for the rest of the 24 hours of the day. I regret not being more supportive about some of their art (like music stuff or theatre). I regret plenty of the things I said. I often wish I could go back and try again but I already lived through it once and was pretty patient and supportive even when I didnt have the resources.

I do still have feelings and part of that is the distance in time from just how hard it was and how shitty things were. Theres a lot thats still very tender memories and there's a lot we shared and went through during some very formative years of my life, there's a lot of stuff of theirs thats still in me and visa versa. Seeing them again and reading the emotional pain on their face so quickly, or running into them out of chance makes sense because despite everything... we do still have a lot in common and its going to be inevitable to keep crossing paths unless one of us goes quite far and I gotta say we might both pick the same places to try and escape to only run into each other again lol.