I broke up with my girlfriend of 4 years because she ignored me

[anon2390]

Two days ago we were talking normally while she was at work and I was at home (we live separately).

I dozed off at 9 pm and woke up the next morning. Everything seems normal.

I text her to ask if she's awake and she replies "Yes I just woke up". I continue the conversation and then... nothing. Left on seen on both messaging apps.

Around 24 hours later and I get a message from her: "Can we go get a cat".

What?! You're going to ignore me for a whole day and randomly ask if we can get a cat?

I reply back asking why she didn't reply to me. "Well I thought you were going to message back and ask me why I didn't reply to you. I feel like you've been ignoring me lately".

So because you felt ignored, instead of addressing it and resolving the issue you do the exact same thing to me?

For context: I've been able to text her less lately because I've been putting in extra hours each day after work to learn new programming skills. My current job contract ends soon so I need to polish my skills in order to get a better job.

And who benefits from this? Her. Who took her to Montreal 2 times this year, Florida in August, and NYC 3 weeks ago? Me. I didn't let her pay a single dime and all of that is possible in the first place because of what I work towards every single day. I even told her that if I put my head down and work extra hard for the next 6 months I can take her to even better places but of course, she cannot understand this for some reason so she assumes when I don't reply for a few hours I'm ignoring her.

Anyways, I broke it off with her because she likes playing these little games with me and messing with my head.

What would you have done in my situation?

First time talking about relationship stuff on the internet and this was the first site that popped up so I went with it

😆

You've both got a lot of growing up to do OP. It's for the best you've split. Concentrate on being a teenager and learning about how adulthood works for a while.

I think you should stop trying to pay due everything with your next gf and try to have a reln of equals. Always nice for the man to offer to pay the first few dates of course - but in a longer term relationship you should aim to be equals friends and lovers and for it not to be something where you have to treat your gf like a princess all the time.

@anon2390 · Today 11:53
Furdinand · Today 11:48
Why aren't you on Reddit? Is MN really the go to for advice for teenage Canadian boys now? 🤔
First time talking about relationship stuff on the internet and this was the first site that popped up so I went with it

No it was not ! Nice try though

Maybe he spends a lot of time looking up naice ham and it's a weird google algorithm thing?

It all sounds very immature and pathetic. You both need to live life a bit more and grown up a lot.

OP is allowed to post on a forum without owing an explanation

I was with someone like this. Playing weird games then blaming it on me.

Both of us through stress and business of life with 3 kids between us got a bit lazy with the relationship and outside of some Netflix and cuddles after bedtime we weren’t doing much or saying all that much to each other.

I get accused of no longer loving my DP as I hadn’t said I love you for a week. I pointed out they also had not said it. Apparently they had stopped to see if I would say it unprompted. I argued that we have both been a bit lazy with each other and it works both ways, let’s both try to say nice stuff to each other more, but they couldn’t see beyond the fact I’d failed the ‘test’.

Immature and pathetic. Wow.
Some of the answers on here are just unnecessarily cutting.
Op has described a perfectly normal and lovely young person's relationship, within which 2 people find themselves arrived at slightly different outlooks on where they are and how they want to behave in that relationship based on the way they are approaching life at this point in time, and people are ripping into it as though they should magically be behaving like two equally fully mature adults.
If any of your own teens ever ask an older person for the benefit of their wisdom (wisdom is knowledge gained through experience to all the people with their claws out) I sincerely hope they are met with replies containing more nuance and tempered by an understanding of the context of their life stage.
In fact the only immature people here are the ones who are tearing strips off the op for not having the life experience of a much older person.
Nobody with anything worth saying in reply to a question like this has anything to offer without having met all the usual pitfalls of life already and op and his gf will be no different in 10 years time.

I'd have done the same - it sounds like your ex is not really learning or developing as a person, as evidenced by her childish behaviour. It looks like you're expected to do a lot of work in this relationship but the partnership isn't equal. Also, you're obviously hard-working and amibitous and I think you need someone whose values are the same, and who respects you working long hours in order to build a career.
You're young and have many years of relationship ahead of you so my advice is this: neediness is always a bad sign, learn to recognise it early on and bail.

Brilliant post, as was your previous one.

anon2390 just ignore the idiots. You sound mature for 18 to me and I love that you are spending your money on travelling.

I'd have spoken to my partner rather than stealth-bragging on Mumsnet.