She Told Me I Wasn’t Enough

By: James

I had a girlfriend who I loved more than anything else in the world. But she did not love me in return. Our relationship, at the beginning, was great. She was great and everything I could’ve asked for in a partner. However, once we moved in together, things changed drastically. This is not a story of physical abuse, but one that occurs mentally and silently.

It first started off by her complaining over the things that I wore, ate, or how often I went to the gym. What I noticed was that I slowly started dressing down and skipping my gym sessions. Then came the family. She would constantly complain about how terrible my family was and what they supposedly said about her when I wasn’t around. I noticed, at that point, that I started missing family events and sending phone calls from them to voicemail. Then it came to my job. I wasn’t making enough, my boss was a jerk even though she supported me, and I was always away from home. I noticed I was then looking for work from home jobs to be around more often.

Slowly, without me realizing it, she was isolating me and forcing me to move away from the things I loved to do and the people I loved to see. But what came next was the hardest of all. It was the emotional abuse. I was constantly being told that I wasn’t doing enough and that I wasn’t affectionate or supportive enough. Every time I tried a new tactic to make her happy, I would bring it up the next time she got frustrated with me. Then she would say things, “Well you do this and that to me…” I was beginning to believe that I was the real issue and that I wasn’t worth it and would never make her happy.

It wasn’t until one day that I said I had enough. That morning, I didn’t scrape off her car early enough for her to get to work, so she showed up late. She was telling me how much she does for me and how incompetent I was. She was telling me that I would never be enough, and she could find a better guy who would do so much more for her. At that point, I told her I was done doing this and I needed to find happiness. Throughout that day, she proceeded to call me many times and text me over and over trying to get me to answer. When I did answer, she would say she was super sorry, and it would never happen again. At that point, I knew I had to get out.

In the end: The hard part with this story, is that I am still healing from this abuse. I have low self-esteem and have a hard time with other relationships. I constantly overthink and work too hard to make my significant other happy. Even when they say they don’t need me to do all of these things for them, I feel like it is something that needs to happen. I have a hard time going to the gym without getting permission from my significant other, but she has been supportive enough in my healing process. What I learned is that if someone actually loved you, they would love all of you. They would appreciate the things you do and would stick with you even through your hard times. I learned to not settle and to find someone who would give me this appreciation.