Struggling to believe in humanity again

I was told this could be good for me to process my pain and I am willing to do anything to not feel like this so here I go.

The short version is the woman I was going to propose to came home one afternoon to the apartment we shared, packed all her things into her suitcases without saying a word while I watched mortified and distraught. When she left, she stuck a note on the fridge that said I was worthless and I had to sort my life out myself and if I needed help, call these suicide hotline numbers that she had listed. It was one of the most brutal and traumatic experiences of my life and I've been through a fair bit. It's been an excruciating 9 months, and after huge amounts of therapy, medications and a suicide attempt, I still feel very lost and trying my best to hold on.

The longer version starts with me purchasing a bar in the Sydney CBD a few years back and thanks to the lovely lockouts and the mess that was the Sydney Light Rail, the bar I owned got worse and worse with each passing week. It was devastating going into work every single day and no matter how hard our team worked, we just couldn't turn it around so last year we joined the long list of CBD businesses that had to close down. It was heartbreaking. The staff I had were like family. We had very little staff turnover and the majority of them had worked with me for 3 years+ as I believed in treating them well, paying them right, and helping them in their personal lives.

Before all of this happened, I thought I had found a ray of light in 2017 when I met CL. It started off with a casual dinner and soon progressed to brunches and day trips to events around Sydney. Despite the intensity of my work, I specifically made time for her as she was the best part of my week when I saw her.

She was softly spoken and intelligent which I admired greatly. She rarely made demands, never wanted anything besides my food (lol), hardly wore make-up and had a very natural beauty. She wasn’t the dress-up type or one to be too fancy. She was a simple girl and that made me fall for her more. She was from the Americas and in Australia to do a PHD with one of our universities doing research experiments in medical science but not long after we met, her university cancelled her PhD due to funding and resource problems that left her in an unfortunate place. She was stressed and sad about the prospects but I knew she was a smart woman that could achieve anything so I helped her redefine her career path and professional purpose and she started contacting other universities for other PhD programs. It was a difficult time but she ended up finding another program at the existing university with a new professor.

As she was a PhD student with very little income, she lived in a shared bedroom in a shared apartment and she constantly expressed struggles living in a shared bedroom. The relationship with her roommate was deteriorating so I offered her a key and the option to move into my apartment as I lived by myself. We had been dating for a few months now and I just wanted the best for her and after trialling it out for a few weeks, she decided to move in. I was a typical bachelor so I had to sort my place out and fix and install a few things to make it more female-friendly but I wanted her to feel at home and have everything she needed. She had issues with her health, just minor things but they came up often so I would go get her medicine or food that she needed. I believe a gentleman should do that and look after his partner and I took on the typical masculine role of protector and carer.

A very serious health issue came up which we didn’t know what it was so she had to go get a bunch of blood tests to try and figure it out. I asked several friends for good female GPs near us and we found a medical centre with a really good female GP. I still remember CL stressing out and I held her hands before she went in to see the GP for the first time and told her I would be here no matter what and we would get through this together. You take people for who they are, not who you wish them to be and you stood by them no matter what. Loyalty was a core principle of mine and the fact she was sick didn’t change who I had thought she was. We had to wait several weeks for the test results and this stressed her out so I constantly tried to distract her with activities and things she liked. When the tests came back, it turned out to be nowhere as bad as she had thought and the right medication was going to fix it which was a relief.

In the midst of all this, the bar was still falling apart and I was still going to work devastated by the result but I tried to separate that and not let that impact my relationship with CL. Despite my professional world crumbling around me, I actually had a positive outlook because I thought I had this beautiful, amazing, sweet woman in my life. When the business closed down, she had to go overseas for her PhD which was sad because I could have done with the support but at the same time, it was a blessing not to have her see me at the end of this hard and difficult journey and fussing over me. After the business closed down, it was really difficult. The economy was in decline and my experience despite running a bar was originally in professional services at an executive management level so there weren't many jobs around and the ones I applied for wanted something more specific and detailed. At the same time, I felt so burned out that I was enjoying being at home and recovering so I didn’t push it. We were financially stable and everyone told me to take the time to heal and recover instead of throwing myself in a job that could cause me stress so that’s what I did. Maybe I was too relaxed about this or I didn’t convey this to CL but she ended up seeing this as me not doing anything with my life and being a failure.

One week before “the incident” as I call it, I had sat her down and opened up to her about everything. The pain of losing the business which for a long time was my identity, the devastation at letting go of all my staff, and my heartbreak at not being able to find another job despite sending over 50 customised job applications. I told her I felt I had failed her as a man and I wanted to look after and provide for her. I opened up about all my deepest fears and left myself completely vulnerability in a way I have never done with anyone else before. I loved her and trusted her. Her core principals were kindness, forgiveness and compassion so I felt she would understand if I told her how I felt. I asked her for her patience in this difficult time and told her I just needed time to heal and find my place in the world again.

On Sunday she was at the beach with her best friend and she messaged me saying she missed me and wished I was here. I feel couples should have their own time so I wanted her to just spend it with her friends without me having to always be there. On Sunday night, she was tossing and turning in bed all night and in the morning, I asked her if she was alright. I was still half asleep but I was concerned and she said she was upset and couldn’t sleep because she felt I wasn’t doing anything with my life. I was shocked but was too sleepy to fully understand and process it so I said we can talk later. Throughout the day, I just remunerated on what she said. I bared my soul to her only a week ago and asked for some patience while I dealt with this and a week later she’s hitting me with this. As I dwelled on this more and more, I got more and more upset so I messaged her and told her I didn’t want to resent her but it felt like a punch in the guts and we should talk about it tonight. When she came home that night, I was upset and felt she didn’t value me so I told her if she could find a better place to live than she should. It was wrong of me to say that but I wanted her to think of how much I had always supported her and how good things were instead of seeing the negative. I thought I should cool off before we talked more so I went for a nap but when I woke up, she was gone. She left and went to sleep at her best friends place. The next day I told her to come home so we can talk but she refused. I was hurting and wanted to sort it out instead of letting it linger but she didn’t care and said she was staying with another one of her girlfriends that night.

The next day, she came home and I asked her to sit down for a chat. She sat down for about 30 seconds while I tried to find my words and before I could say anything, she got up to get a glass of water. She didn’t come back to the couch and afterwards, she went to the bookshelf and started to put all her books into a bag. I asked her what she was doing. In my mind, if you need some space you go grab some clothes and toiletries but grabbing your books told me she had made up her mind to leave. She didn’t say a thing and kept packing. I was distraught so went into my room and slammed the door. I couldn’t believe someone that I had stood by for so long through so much would just leave. I came out 5 mins later and her best friend was there packing all her things with her. She was waiting in the hallway all along. They had suitcases ready and was busy packing all her things. My brain was just in a spiral. It felt like the world was speeding by and I was moving in slow motion. I told her I couldn’t stay here and watch her pack around me and to grab what she needed and we could arrange another time when I wasn’t home for her to grab the rest of her things. She rushed off and left 15mins later and left a note on the fridge. The note took my deepest fears that I had opened up to her about and she said I had become a failure who wasn’t doing anything with my life. That I had to sort it out myself as she couldn’t help and if I needed someone to talk to, to call these suicide hotline numbers which she then listed. I was absolutely distraught and had a panic attack afterwards that left me huddled in a corner in tears unable to move. I slept for about 18 hours afterwards as it was the only way to stop the pain.

Two days later I tried to call her and her phone was disconnected. She changed her number and didn’t want to talk to me. I emailed her and eventually got a response and I expressed to her how much I loved her and how we should talk and try to work it out. She kept criticizing me saying all the things I did from what I ate, to what I watched on tv and how her counsellor helped her see I was emotionally abusive and controlling. A few months ago, she had to pay her international health insurance as required by international students and she had trouble paying it with her international credit card to an insurance company that wasn’t in Australia. The transaction got declined and her credit card was suspended. She was stressing about not being able to pay it and if it lapsed, she would be in breach of her visa and could get kicked out of the country. We eventually sorted it out after I gave her my phone to make international calls to her bank and the insurance company but to avoid it happening again, I just put her down as an additional cardholder of one of my credit cards. I didn’t ask her for permission or talk to her about it. I understand that was wrong but I didn’t get her a credit card to try and control her. I knew she was very responsible with her money, never indulged or went on shopping sprees and she always paid me back for anything. I just said this is a back up if anything was to ever happen and she could just pay me back whenever. There was no bad intention besides to help support her and definitely not to control her. She had never said a single thing about it when I gave it to her. She didn’t tell me it upset her or that she didn't want it. She thanked me and said she would put it in her bedside drawer to use in an emergency. She also said the counsellor made her realise I was emotionally abusive because I would recall stories of things that happened in our relationship. She ate my food on several occasions and I told friends as a story of endearment and not to shame her or anything. She was a very skinny girl so it wasn’t like I was trying to fat-shame her. It was just a funny story of how I bought us 2 items and she ate both of them. Stories like that and she took it as me being emotionally abusive. I’m very self-reflective and let me just clarify that I am no saint. I have many flaws just like anyone else and I’m sure the devastation of losing my business reflected in my attitude but at no point have I ever done anything with bad intentions to CL. I loved her with all my heart and had been secretly driving an uber during the day while she was at uni for several weeks to make some money to buy an engagement ring.

After the breakup, we exchanged several emails and had two or three phone conversations before she cut off all communication. Eventually, she just said she didn't want to talk to me anymore and stopped responding to all emails. Turned out her university counsellor had given her all this advice including for her to leave immediately on that Wednesday with all her things and to not talk to me and leave me a note telling me to talk to a suicide hotline for help. I can’t believe a counsellor could give such advice so I eventually rang the university counsel number to try and arrange an appointment with this counsellor to express my side of the story and I was told I can’t talk to her because the counselling service was only for students and staff. I called back a week later asking to remain anonymous to get an appointment but then her manager called me back. I wasn’t trying to hide who I was as I gave my real phone number and everything, just not my name so I could get an appointment but this manager was aggressive from the beginning. Even when I told her the advice that was given to CL, she just disregarded it and said that her counsellor would never say that. Then the real truth came out. CL had told the university I had gone to campus, stole a staff member’s ID badge, hacked into their email address, and was actively sending abusive emails to her colleagues to try and get her expelled from the university. The counselling manager told me that she had raised this with the Head of University Security and they had opened up an official investigation with NSW police. The news of a police investigation left me mortified and distraught all over again. I had done absolutely nothing to CL besides yell at her once when I was upset. I have in my life never hit her, swore at her in anger, never threatened her, never kept anything of hers, I didn’t stop her from leaving and even on that day she left, I didn’t even touch her as she was packing all her things. I was never drunk around her. Didn’t take drugs or gamble or anything. I worked and I spent time trying to build our relationship. This was a woman that I had loved so dearly and spent all my time trying to look after her and make sure our relationship that I valued so much was in a good place despite the other problems in my professional life.

To this day, I still can’t comprehend how someone could do something so cruel. CL and I had talked about having kids in a few years, we had planned an overseas holiday, there just wasn’t any signs she was unhappy or had issues with me. If I had known, I would have listened and worked through them with her as we had worked through so many of her problems but how did it go from that to her making up such a horrendous story and trying to get the police to arrest me? I fell in love with this woman because throughout our entire relationship, she expressed her core values were kindness, forgiveness and compassion and the fact she followed rules and believed in the system. Yet the moment things got tough for me and I asked her for some patience while I dealt with things, she had no problems taking all her things and walking out the door and telling me to go seek help from suicide hotlines. How can someone be so cruel and have sold herself as this kind and compassionate person the whole time? This is a woman who didn’t cross the street unless the pedestrian light was green. This is how much she followed the rules and yet she was fine to betray this core value and make up such a horrendous story of me stealing, hacking and trying to destroy her career? My saving grace was that she knows nothing about computers and I.T. and all that kind of stuff is tracked with IP addresses and date stamps and it was all found to be made up. Otherwise, I could be in jail right now. I ruminate on this daily and soon after discovering these accusations, it lead me down to the lowest point of my life. I didn’t think I could get knocked down any further when she left but the news of the police having an active investigation and being treated like a criminal lead me to a suicide attempt. I was never suicidal but that note she left put it front and centre of my mind and when I found out the lies CL had made up about me, I just could comprehend the world anymore. How can someone I cared for and treated so well can change so dramatically to the point of fabricating stories and trying to send me to jail? My friends found out about my suicide attempt and several dear friends rushed to save me. They helped me see specialist therapists, paid for consultations, and got me medication. I spent the first 6 months having daily panic attacks. It was like I was getting tortured every day sometimes multiple times a day. I was an absolute mess and I lost faith in humanity. A large part of me still has lost faith in humanity.

So this leaves me to where I am now. This brutal break up with CL has put me in what my psychologist and psychiatrist diagnosed as clinical depression. I’m still coming to terms with that diagnosis and how to manage the traumatic flashbacks, deal with panic attacks, and breaking the ruminating cycle. I’m told this could be there for the rest of my life and I might never escape it but I can manage it. I’m seeing a therapist twice a week, on medication daily, exercising semi-regularly, having proper nutritious meals delivered so I’m eating right again. I’m meditating daily even though I’m hopeless at it but I know that is ok and not to be so harsh on my wandering thoughts. The mindfulness exercises do help and I’m understanding how exercising the mind is as important as exercising the body. I’m still a mess and my week is still filled with more bad days than good but I’m having more good days regularly now. I’ve been extremely fortunate to find a new job that allows me to contribute with my work while dealing with my depression and trauma. I am still very broken but I take each day as it comes, try to hold on, and try to find good in the world again.