He Dumped Me

Almost a decade ago, I found myself in an interesting romantic relationship. It began like your typical romantic comedy. I was bursting with positive vibes after a yoga retreat in Sedona, Arizona. My yogi friend and I are having a cocktail at the airport bar. We had just suffered through a week of raw food and fresh juices. We realized the airport was paging us over the intercom. Our plane back home to Chicago was leaving. Last call for us to board! They were literally calling our names over the intercom. Oops! We rushed over and were scolded by airport personnel. We were told to find the first seat and sit in it. The first seat I found was between two men. With my crazy hair and my safari hat, I apologized for keeping both waiting. I proceeded to converse with one of the men about why we were both in Arizona. Over the course of that four-hour flight, magic happened. We made a connection. He asked for my number. I gave it to him.

We started dating. He lived on the north side of Chicago. Over time, I was leaving my office in Bolingbrook on Fridays and driving to his apartment on the north side every weekend. When I asked him to come to my place, he stated because I had a cat, he could not come over. I accepted that. We cannot choose our allergies, right? In the first few months of getting to know each other, he took me to many places. I was excited to have new experiences around the city. However, after that, it seemed that we would just sit at his apartment. He talked at length about his family and friends, but I never met them. I was twenty-four at the time. I was naive.

After almost two years of dating, he told me he was moving temporarily to California for business. How exciting! What a great opportunity for him. When I brought up the future of our relationship, he stated, rather bluntly, that there was not one. He was dumping me. He did not want to do the ‘long distance thing’. I was crushed. I was worse than crushed, I was an absolute mess. I had never been dumped. I was the dumper. I had put so much time and effort into this person. Now, they were walking away from me.  What did I do wrong?

It took many months and many orders of Portillo’s cheese fries to realize I did nothing wrong. I was not the bad guy. I did not bring this upon myself. The reality was that my boyfriend and I did not have the same expectations of the time we invested into our relationship. We never had the conversation. In my mind, my time and effort were an investment in someone I would one day call my husband. His intentions were clearly not the same. How do I move forward?

I moved forward slowly. With more Portillo’s cheese fries of course. I realized that when I enter a romantic relationship with another person, they may not have the same goal in mind as I do. Now, as a woman in my thirties, I know better. I know what a healthy relationship looks like. I know that I cannot continually do the work of both people within a relationship. I was so focused on the outcome of the relationship that I missed all the red flags of why this person was terrible for me. Now, I enter relationships with that same goal in mind, but I communicate my goal with my partner. Right now, my partner and I have the same goal. We work towards that goal together. I could not be happier.

If you would like to speak to a professional counselor or psychologist about this and are in the Chicago area, please feel free to contact Olive Branch Counseling Associates, Inc. at 708-633-8000. We are located at 6819 West 167^th Street in Tinley Park, Illinois 60477.

Hillary R.,

Masters Level Intern, 2023