Reflection on Break Up

Tilly and I broke up. Purpose of this blog is to keep / flush out all my thoughts in one place.

End of November tilly and I had a conversation about continuing the relationsihps, after the converstaion it seems break up is the best choice for both of us moving forward.

Of course break up = discrpency, there were four that tilly brought up in the conversation:

  • sean tends to lay flat, and takes more time to improve on his current situation
  • sean is very rbotoics, unflexible towards expressing emotions
  • sean seem chaotic, less content / express doubt about the relationship
  • sean has many female friends

Now instead of refuting and proving myself, think from a third person perspective, how did these came into place?

Laying flat

  • Tilly brought up two points, one was I am content with a job even with much inflexibility, the other was I tend to rest during off hours, instead of trying to make life better
  • Both were fine observations, what made her think that way I was more curious. I think it’s a culture issue.
  • Tilly and I came from two (very) different background. I was in US in 2013 so most influence came from parents. The older generation tends to be more passive, I remember hearing more on ‘不要太出头’, ‘让世界流经自己’, ‘要听老师的话’ etc etc.
  • Tilly’s influence came more so from her peers, which the younger generation is much more active. ‘只要付出就有回报’, ‘凡事事在人为’, ‘我命由我不由天’, etc.
  • And because of this mindset tilly always had a more settled life path, early November we chatted she was planning on a promotion in 2025, first house down payment in 2028, and work / found a start up before 2030.
  • Tilly arguably has been great on this path, independent, reliable, hard working, all with her own effort. This has very little to do with age, more so on life choices. I must’ve been part of her life path and have deviated from the original plan, which caused the anexiety on her side.

Robot like

  • Saying ‘this is my first relationship’ felt more like an excuse at this point, my mind went back to last year when Elisa mentioned about the five types of love languages.
  • Now it would be naive to say the reason was love language diff. It’s been a year and I’ve already learned much. I felt it’s the delay in response of the love languages that made it difficult.
  • Tilly value very much in 生活中的新鲜的事物, especially experiencing these together. So things like going on trips together, photoshots, rock climbing all have been nice.
  • It tends to take me longer than usual to adapt, and when I adapted to the new type of language tilly has likely moved to something else, which, made my act more forced than I like to appear. One vivid memory was tilly mention wanting to have hotpots. By the time I executed the weather has cleared up, which hot pot was no longer the best choice.
  • Having to constantly propose new things and wait for me to follow must have been exhuasting, I resonate with the feeling.

Chaotic universe

  • Okay for context the full sentence I said was ‘这个宇宙充满混乱，当我们始终拥有选择’
  • That’s not the main point though, what made tilly thinking this was my thought of wanting to break up instead of the opposite.
  • I think it’s an communication issue, the way that I spoke made the difference.
  • Wenhao mentioned communication is about 距离, 权力, and 主动权. When the distance is close, power and energy around the same, whatever one says in the relationship would be beneficial.
  • It’s difficult for me to recall but I must’ve said it in a way that caused tilly to feel distanced. Perhaps I said it in a mono tune, perhaps I said it with avoidance, perhaps I said it that made her she is not the only choice.

Female friends

  • The observation was true, but again, the issue is about the judgement based on the observation, why did tilly felt that way
  • This is the hardest one of all, my best guess right now is about the difference of how we measure personal growth
  • Tilly tends to be quite mature, we were talking once of how Chip Nguyen measure personal growth and felt resonating towards tilly’s life path: rate of change, time to solve big problems, and number of future options.
  • TLDR for the article, they mentioned a fast personal growth is the one that changes oneself rapidly, solve big problems (career, family, finance) quickly, and have as many future options open possible.
  • I wonder if tilly measured my personal growth using the metric, and more importantly, if she thought my females friends was my act of keep my options open.
  • It’s the hardest for me to relate to this not because I don’t know, but I know it quite well. This feeling of betrayal she must have felt, thinking that she’ve poured everything into the relationship, where I appear to be playing around / uncommital.

So yeah, to wrap it up, relationship is about feelings, and feeling anxious, exhuasted, distant and betrayed in one is destrutive, which lead to the break up.

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Be cautious here as I write like a victim, when an avalanche happen no snow flake is innocent, the relationship ended bc I was also the perpetrator, it matters much more that I learn from what happened, communicate better, and avoid the others at all cost.

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One last note, I wish to write one emotional thought, just so the later self reading this grasp the feeling better.

I try to stay as objective but the past few days has been quite torturing, it peaked when I started writing this blog.

写这些最让我难受的不是分手本身，而是一种，深深的无力感？ 明明这些我在聊天中都已经看到/听到了，可这些被说出口的时候又突然发现，似乎一切都已经太迟了。

可能经过一年的磨合我们才发现，爱和舍不得是两个东西吧。

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I know both me and Tilly will find peace one day, I wish her all the best.