Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/idqoq6/girlfriend_made_food_with_nuts_in_it_im_currently/
TL;DR: girlfriend acknowledged she broke/forgot things frequently but told me it was a dealbreaker if I didn’t trust her not to make those same mistakes in the future. After my brother reminded me that I deserve better, I talked to the gf about it again. We broke up and it was the best possible outcome.
About a year ago, my (25F) then-girlfriend (25F) accidentally made food with nuts in it and I spent some time at the ER as a result. I posted on here about it while I was sitting alone in the ER (covid restrictions wouldn't let her come back). The update is the how and why this led to our breakup. It's maybe important to note that our relationship was already not in a good spot prior to the nut incident.
On the way home from the hospital trip, I was trying to delicately figure out where things were standing. I was really upset but didn’t want to pile on if she was already feeling bad. She noticed this and got annoyed with me, because she wasn’t feeling bad over it and didn’t like the implication that she should be. From her perspective, it was just a mistake. Everyone makes those. I was fine and she wouldn’t buy that sauce again. Problem solved!
We had progressive fights about it over the next few weeks. I felt like I couldn’t trust her at all. Honestly, it was about the nuts but it was even more about a pattern that was emerging. This kind of thing wasn’t uncommon with her. In the comments of the other post I gave examples about a missed interview and a trip that had to be canceled because she forgot her passport, but that’s far from all. She broke a nice piece of luggage of mine that had sentimental value (covered in stickers from everywhere I’d been) and played it off as a joke rather than take any responsibility or offer to get it fixed; she broke or chipped a significant fraction of my plates and mugs; she melted my rice cooker on the stove; the list goes on. Things tended to break or be forgotten around her and she always played it off as “just a funny mistake lol”. She wouldn’t take actual responsibility or make any steps to even try to fix the problem unless I got upset with her.
Eventually in our fights over the nut incident, she told me that it would be a dealbreaker for her if I didn’t trust her. That she couldn’t be with a partner who expected her to make these kinds of mistakes. She didn’t like that I was calling it a pattern and she wasn’t willing to make any changes to try to fix it, because she didn’t think she had any control over it. So, she set it as a dealbreaker. That very effectively shut down the conversation, because at that point I didn’t want to break up with her.
We tried implementing some common-sense strategies. She didn’t want to let me do any cooking and she didn’t want me to do the shopping, but she reluctantly agreed to let me check the groceries for nuts. The first time she came back with groceries after that deal, she put them away before I had a chance to look at them. When I asked if she could help me by pointing out everything that was new, she was pissy and passive aggressive about it. She apologized later, but it wasn’t a great feeling.
Fast forward a few weeks and she went to visit her mother. I was alone in the apartment for two weeks and had my first post-allergy panic attack. I was with friends, we ordered burgers from a place I’d eaten before, and I had a fucking panic attack because I was scared about allergies. That had never happened to me before, but continued to be a problem for months after. It’s still kind of a problem now, a year later. I told my gf about it and she was sympathetic but still wasn’t taking the issue any more seriously. Finally, I told my brother about the whole thing. The nuts, the panic attack, my gf calling my lack of trust in her a dealbreaker. Now, my brother is an extraordinarily even-keeled guy. He doesn’t get mad. But when I told him about this, he was pissed. That was incredibly validating, to hear someone tell me that it was actually quite reasonable that I was worried about this pattern and that I didn’t deserve to have this incident dismissed as unimportant.
I was talking to my gf on the phone the night before she was coming back from her trip and mentioned the conversation I’d had with my brother. I was fully intending to just have a conversation about it, but in the middle of the conversation she asked if I was breaking up with her. This was a thing she did when we had literally any kind of difficult conversation. I absolutely hated it because it felt manipulative. It would completely derail any conversation we were having away from the conflict that needed to be resolved and into validation and reassurance. Frequently, we would never make it back to resolving the conflict. Our relationship had been on the rocks for a very long time, even putting aside the nut thing. So when she asked, I thought about it and told her that yes, in fact, now she asked, I was breaking up with her.
Best damn decision I made during 2020.
Submitted September 28, 2021 at 11:29PM by badwolf_910 https://ift.tt/3AQJp87
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