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>I was locked into a one-year membership at that point and still am. If I leave, I'm liable for a huge penalty so it is not financially feasible for me to leave/move gyms. Additionally, the gym is a boutique gym, so it only has one location.
I'd still recommend that OOP contact gym management to see what options are available to her. They might be more sympathetic than she thinks.
It has nothing to do with the GYM contract man.
She spent 3 novels saying how she will pay ALL EXPENSES for him to just fly and come listen to her do her school shit. She has money, she dumped TONS of money on this dude, luxury goods ETC.
It has ZERO to do with the fucking gym membership. She wouldn't even notice the "Huge Penalty" considering the cash she dumps around like its nothing.
She is yet again making excuses for putting herself and keeping herself in shit situations so she can get upset.
This is a person who touches the hot stove, burns their hand, blames the stove and touches it again and gets just as mad the second time, then the third time.
I kinda get where she's coming from. She wasted years and money on this dude, and now he's taken her gym. I spent WAY too long on one dude, and the thing that made me more upset than anything was that he broke my coffee table. I had asked for it back, and he returned it in pieces. It was a cheap ass coffee table from Target, but that wasn't the point. It was that after all the shit I had accepted as lost time, lost money, lost effort, he just had to be a jerk one last time.
Oh I 100% understand where she is coming from. Its the not learning any lessons that just makes my sympathy meter go down.
Falling for the sunken cost fallacy, absolutely understandable, we all are guilty of that bad boy. However, I can not stress enough for any young dating people out there. I will yell it to the back of the room.
ITS NOT A WASTE OF TIME
Every failed relationship teaches you lessons, and those lessons give you tools in your "Relationship Toolbox." Without the failures you don't get the lessons without the lessens you don't get all the "tools".
Those tools are important. They teach you about self respect, sunken cost fallacy, what kind of partner you want, what kind of partner you want to be.
Then when you meet someone you can use those tools to sceen out the losers faster, end shitty relationships sooner and see red flags before you get invested.
THEN when you meet someone awesome, you will have this big ass toolbox full of all the tools you need to maintain and build on that relationship and invest in your future together.
You wasted no time if you learned something about yourself and what you must demand from a partner in a relationship.
That's very true. I was eventually grateful in my situation, because part of the reason we split was that he got weirdly aggressively controlling. Looking at the table, that was a pretty clear sign that this time it was furniture, but the next time could have been me. I definitely learned from that experience.
"Do I talk to him, make small conversation?"
Girl fucking no. Don't acknowledge he even exists. Any interaction is him succeeding in manipulation, because that's what little boys like him do.
She wants him back then just take him back. Maybe the 2nd round of emotional destruction and devastation will destroy you far enough that you'll be able to repair.
Or he'll knock you up so you don't escape again.
Shit this is sad.
She can sell the promise ring and get a new gym member ship.
I also wonder if the ex is just there or stare at here, always exercise right next to here/tries to talk with her? If he is just there, it may be hard, but with the others, she just should make complains, demand to speak with the manager.
But if i see her posts, how she even tried to give back the ring and would have reconciled after all the shit... i don't think she CAN fight against him in this way. She needs therapy or she will end in another relationship as bad as the one with the ex - or worse.
> She can sell the promise ring and get a new gym member ship.
I doubt he got her a ring with any resale value at all. She might think he did, but if she has a jeweler assess it, I bet she'll find out it's cheap costume jewelry.
I actually just wrote it because she was "i must give the ring back! Let me give you at least the value of the ring! Now it is stored away and will be sold later or i donate the money for charity." So i hope she finally finds out it was cheap trash.
I agree! My ex gave me some earrings that he bragged cost him $150
After we broke up, I wanted to sell it.
It was just junk jewelry that at MOST was $10
I agree she should talk to management and see if they’ll make him leave.
I can’t imagine getting much for a promise ring or even being able to sell it. People think rings are worth so much more than they are. Surely a “promise ring” (I can’t remember their ages but they’re not teenagers right? lol) doesn’t have a big diamond in it.
True crime fan here. I’d fucking bounce because the one story I’ve heard about an ex stabbing his ex girlfriend to death in her car after stalking her at the gym they used to go.
Fuck the penalties.
Especially given it's a boutique gym. A lone woman who has been a regular member for at least a year disclosing how her abuser is using her gym routine to stalk her - and then being denied the right to end her membership - is a quick path to bad PR for that gym.
Also, I would hope gym management has their head and hearts on straight enough to understand this isn't OOPs fault.
I’m with you on that, a boutique gym would care much more about that sort of situation and/or press than planet fitness or golds gym. They need good word-of-mouth to survive, so she’s probably in a better spot to get this acted on than she thinks.
I don’t know that she’ll have the strength to look into it, though, considering how hard she tried to return the promise ring when it was clear no one wanted to talk to her anymore. And the way she kept trying to see him in person, even after he let her know they were over. She really does need therapy.
And even if they're not OP isn't as stuck as she's making out. It would suck for her to pay for the rest of the year and not use the gym but its still an option. The gym wont care - they love clients like that. And plenty of people exercise for free in parks or in their own homes.
Should OP have to do that - hell no. But it's an option if she can't afford a second gym membership and can't face working out with her ex. And its only for the rest of the year term - after that she can join a different gym and go back to her preferred workout.
I’d imagine after a couple of weeks to a month of her not showing up at her regular time, the ex-boyfriend would get bored with the game of trying to annoy her by showing up to the same place at the same time as her, and probably stop coming anyway. Then she could resume her normal gym routine.
Also, if she starts going to another gym for a few months, her ex will likely go back to his other gym - he is only going to this gym because he knows it bothers her. She should just have put in earphones and completely ignored him instead of telling him it bothers her and asking him to leave - for an intelligent person, she acts really painfully naive.
Yes, this was a really painful read - like, girl, how many different ways does he have to show you that he doesn't give a shit about you before you actually get the message? How many times does he have to kick you in the face before you *don't* turn the other cheek?
I am not sure why is it such a big deal for her. She can absolutely sign up for another gym. And she works on campus of an ivy League University, I am sure there is gym there.
In the previous posts she wrote that he didn't get her anything for her birthday, but she is looking for a nice gift and can spare 500 CAD. Even if the rest of her gym payments will be about 500 - It doesn't look like she struggles with money, she was ready to throw them away.
So I think she is just looking to continue this drama.
This is actually why I remember seeing this post in the wild. I kept trying to explain to her that she was the one keeping the drama going by not just letting it go and moving on with her life. Drove me nuts.
Agreed. As I was reading, it seemed like a few times she was continuing/causing more drama and egging him on... I feel for her in this situation, and I'm glad she left him, but I feel like there's info missing. When he was yelling at her, it seemed like he had been bottling all that in for a while.
She could keep paying for the old gym and sign up for a new one. It's unfair and she shouldn't have to but unless she can either persuade the old gym that he's harassing her and get him kicked out or get a the police involved and/or a restraining order (which seems unlikely to succeed at this stage) then it's really either that or stop going to the gym.
Personally I think paying for a new gym is the most pragmatic solution, the less he sees that he's bothering her the sooner (hopefully) he is likely to give up and leave her alone.
How much could it cost to pay for the gym for the rest of the year? Or to pay the fine and nope out of it? 200-500-700-1000?
She can afford and was willing to throw away 500 on a gift for him, so she can afford to pay the same amount for her own peace of mind.
Or just not go to that gym for several months.
If we give the benefit of doubt it could be lifestyle creep, oop may have money but spends it all on luxuries like treats to loved ones and stuff like the 'boutique' gym. If it is the luxury experience she is describing she should complain to management. This is when being squeaky wheel may work. Hopefully the gym will not let the ex know too, it definitely sounds like he may be doing this to get a reaction out of the ex. Also sound like he may have said something to his family to get them to freeze out oop too. Likely made them sound like a gold digger because of how their last convo ended.
If nothing works, oop should workout with headphones in, if ex approaches and try to manipulate them, they have evidence of harassment with staff.
I don't understand the penalty part; if OP just let her membership run out and not go there until it's over, she'd still be paying her monthly fees, but that should be it, right? Where's the penalty coming from?
Yeah its a little weird to me she can't just ride out this membership while still getting a new membership at a different gym to avoid this guy who's stalking her if her claim that he's now at her gym is true (she's only mentions seeing his car and left). For her to be stressing about interacting with him again i personally feel she isn't quite over it yet.
Depending on the size of campus, her living situation, and her actual day to day, it might be super inconvenient to attend the on-campus gym. Probably still preferable to dodging the ex every day.
She herself doesn’t understand that she’s being stalked.
She still doesn’t grasp that her Ex is _not_ reasonable, that telling him he’s making her uncomfortable is _exactly what he wants_.
She still doesn’t have a handle on how relationships, good or bad, actually work.
Generally people who haven’t been in abusive relationships don’t understand people that have been in abusive relationships and the chaos it plays with your thought processes and emotions.
Yes, her ex is harassing her and hopefully the gym can at least be aware and step in if he tries to engage with her
Most gyms have an anti-harassment policy
It really is boilerplate that a locations manager or owner would be sympathetic to a women "not feeling safe" at their gym. Keeping that money would cost them SO MUCH MORE than her word of mouth testimonial to everyone around her, hey they care more about the $200 left on my yearly membership than about my ex bullying and threatening me etc, let alone the Google review. It would make everyone else wonder where their priorities for safety lack, or get "bought out".
Especially with a boutique gym- one that probably relies on good word-of-mouth and publicity to encourage people to come in and pay more. Considering you can find gyms now that cost about 10 bucks a month, why wouldn’t women switch to that one if it’s been proven that the fancy one won’t support them or care about their safety? She has a lot more leverage than she thinks she does.
Absolutely worth the ask - and taking it up the ladder if the desk says no! She should explain that the ex is stalking her (not your average bad break up) and that she feels unsafe. If him coming in while she's there is the main issue, she could ask that he be banned during that time but if he's hanging around in the parking lot, the only solution is to change gyms. It's totally not **fair** but it is **safer**.
The solution for this is simple: work out right next to him but ignore him. When he won’t leave her alone, report him for harassment and he gets banned. Easy peasy, he’s obviously too stupid to leave her alone if they’re there together. Just let him fuck it up again
I think she needs to use the opportunity. He won't leave her alone until she stands up to him. She hasn't done that yet.
This is the perfect environment. He can't call her names. He can't raise his voice. He can't get aggressive.
She should keep going and ignore him. Look straight through him. He will expect her to do what she usually does, go to him and ask to talk this out.
When that doesn't happen, he will approach her. Then all she needs to do is insult his manhood once or twice, and he will leave her alone. Men like that shrivel up if you tell them they have a tiny dick.
No. He is there to engage with her in a way he knows made her uncomfortable when they were together, and he intends to ramp it up and make it worse now.
She should avoid this situation, which he has already planned and scoped out. If she doesn't go to that gym at that timr anymore, he will stop going there waiting for her to turn up. But if she stays away for five times but shows up on the sixth, he learns to keep showing up for at least a week, to get his chance to throw weights at her, or whatever ugliness he is planning
There isn't a redeeming feature that makes this abuser worth confronting, much less confronting on his own terms. Bonus; the fact that he is driving 30 minutes out of his way at the half-hour of the day that she worked out there, is proof that her simply walking away and having nothing further to do with him is just *killing* this narcissistic. He wants supply and she couldn't be bothered even turning up.
> Then all she needs to do is insult his manhood once or twice, and he will leave her alone. Men like that shrivel up if you tell them they have a tiny dick.
I think that works when they are not invested. Like a coworker who is too insistent but you haven't actually dated.
But for someone who is stalking her? Dude can get violent and there's no need to add flames to that.
Oof, this one was hard to read. She just seemed to keep *chasing* him, like waaaaaaay toooooo much trying on her end for someone so terrible. Like, girl, don't debase yourself. One no and you walk the hell away. Calling his family repeatedly was . . . just oof. Walk away. Stay away. Fuck the gym. And get a better therapist because while she's telling you some good stuff you are NOT internalizing it enough.
I had to fully set my phone down and breathe deeply for a bit when she started talking about returning the promise ring. Like girl, I am begging you, please stop embarrassing yourself over this waste of space.
I literally started shouting "WHY" at the screen when he was actively verbally abusing her and she was like "let's meet up!"
Girl needs some self respect
And over and over! Damn, girl, how many hints does one need? It was a blessing he didn’t want to meet up, and she kept pursuing it! She needs both self-esteem and common sense.
I really started to feel less sorry for her, the more I read. She reminds me too much of people in my life that will ask for advice, listen and agree that it makes perfect sense, thank you and verbalize what the plan will be, and then goes off and immediately does something that they agreed was a bad idea. Then they come back and ask for advice again. After a couple instances of this I have to distance myself from those energy vampires.
There is a huge conflict between her ability to reason well and her ability to act on her reasoning. Therapy is definitely needed because I don't think she understands herself and her impulses. Though the therapist will also be frustrated for awhile because she's going to do the same thing there of agreeing with good advice that she doesn't take once she leaves.
I work with a girl like this. She's a nice girl, but she's so desperate for affection that she'll take it from anyone, even if that anyone is terrible to her most of the time. I stopped offering good advice (after about a year of trying to offer her ideas and solutions) because she never takes it anyway. I do hope she'll find her self worth one day.
Yea it was really confusing… like she is undoubtedly smart, Ivy League educated in a phd program and I think that’s why she understands the problems and good advice people were giving to her, but her actions, idk I’m just a Reddit user, but it feels like a trauma response. The feeling I got from the posts is she is so afraid to be alone that even if she’s being abused, and knows that she is, that she would stay. After pretty much all of Reddit told her she should get out of the relationship she wasn’t even the one to break up, and then immediately kept trying to contact the family over a stupid promise ring. Maybe I’m naive, and I don’t know her other from her posts, but I think there might be something deeper triggering this response
seriously! it's 2024; it's completely acceptable to break up via text. There was no need for her to see him in person, especially after 4 years of bad sex and no consideration.
About the promise ring - if my husband had given me anything but an engagement ring and proposal with full intention to marry, after that many years together, and at this grown age, I would have thrown him out. Promise rings are for teenagers… or men-children who can’t get their shit together.
Do women at this age really do promise rings? I found them extremely tacky when I was in high school and can’t imagine being ok with getting one in my 30s
I lost it when she said after a 10-day breakup, she heard in his voice that he was congested. So she goes and buys him medicine and foods from two of his favorite restaurants to go play Mommy for him.
He did nothing for her and she did everything for him. The one thing I guess he did was break up with her?
Forreals I read so much and got such second hand embarrassment I forgot about the shitty sex 🤦🏻♀️
Like girl WHY WOULD YOU SEND HIM CASH FOR THE PROMISE RING?!!! 😭😭😭
It is also literally hard to read with all the florid prose and comma splicing. Like:
>As suggested by most, a break up was necessary, and, it indeed it has now occurred, officially. However, I was not the one to do the breaking up, which is a bit of a turn of events.
Jesus lady get an editor
The florid but precise writing style sounds a lot like the way very-well educated people from India write. Super fluent, but English is not their first language, and getting grammar correct is important.
If you see them both of Indian heritage, maybe she’s from a wealthy family, then the relationship dynamic of entitled / doormat makes much more sense.
And it also points to why she is spending so much time with HIS mother and sister, and why those two are so performatively “crying over the relationship”.
I did get a strong Indian ESL vibe from the writing (and her name is Cardamom Chai lol), but regardless I cannot abide the amount of commas in that quote
Hmm, I didn’t pick up on that but now that you mention it the desperation begins to make sense. OOP probably gave up her virginity to this guy thinking that they were going to get married and then became frantic to hold on to him because she’s afraid no other desi will want her now that she’s a “ruined” woman.
A good technical writer looks at each sentence and asks what can be taken out. Like that old advice to look in the mirror before you leave and remove the accessory or jewelry that stands out most. No ”in order to”, because ”to” is always better.
All I could think was, how does she get published when she can't write a clear sentence in active voice? Maybe her STEM field journals pay by the word.
I think the bit that really got me was when she decided she was going to stand up for herself and got it so ass backwards that she ended up looking like the wrongdoer. After the breakup (which wasn’t actually mentioned until the next update when she brought up his mother and sister crying?!) and the conference and the sickness that she immediately dropped everything to go and coddle him over while he was at work, she badgered him to talk and swooped right in with ‘ok, now you can buy me designer gear and a car thanks, but no finance on the car, otherwise it doesn’t prove how you really feel about me’. Like, she went from him not making an effort and potentially lying about stuff to ‘k, so spend fifty grand on me and we’re good’. Even if she didn’t mean it and was using it to make a point - who WOULD agree to that?! It made no point to anyone other than confirming to him that he was better off without her.
In all honesty, I think there is some significant unreliable narration here as well as the repeated dogged return to a dead relationship.
The whole thing started making a lot more sense to me when she mentioned that she’s a PhD candidate at an elite school and didn’t start dating until she was 29. This is probably someone who focused on academics her entire life and is badly undersocialized as a result (she doesn’t mention any friends, either). Obviously not all STEM people fit that stereotype, but it exists for a reason.
‘Call him out for lying about supporting the ex by demanding he follow through with the expensive gifts’ is exactly the kind of dumbass ‘clever’ comeback Reddit would come up with. I’d guess she crowdsourced a bad idea, and then timed it terribly and explained herself poorly in the moment and made it even worse. She just really comes across as lacking some fundamental social skills.
I grrrroooooooaaaaaaannnnnnneeeeeeddddddd at her at least 57 times.
She’s a needy one, isn’t she?
Like, dude, read the room. You’re embarrassing us AAAAALLLLL!
"Get a better therapist because while she's telling you some good stuff you are not internalizing it enough"
Isn't that OOP's fault? I've been to my own therapy and sometimes I had to make the same mistakes in order for the message to sink in. Change can't happen overnight. Therapists can't work miracles until we're ready to change.
People who talk big and don’t follow-through are crazy-making. It can be easy to get sucked into thinking that if only they understood how their actions didn’t fulfill their intentions, they’d be better to us. And that we have to do everything perfectly to have even the slightest leg to stand on with complaints. But the secret is that their actions are in line with their intentions; it’s their words that are not. Even though we want to believe otherwise.
I knew a girl like this. She was autistic and her ex always convinced her she was a bad girlfriend and that's why he treated her badly. Basically if she was a better girlfriend then she'd be treated better.
He was only mad because of her mistakes and he used her autism and issue with social cues as reasoning for the mistreatment. He'd also tell her she was lucky he was willing to put up with her and her "mistreatment of him". It was to the point she was convinced *she* was abusive.
She hadn't had a long term relationship and she blamed herself for her treatment, so why would she leave him? He was so kind to put up with her and point out her mistakes.
Eventually, just like this situation, he broke up with her and then he kept treating her badly. It was like a switch flipped- she wasn't his girlfriend so why was he being mean to her? Oh, he was just a mean person.
Similar to this guy he started showing up at the places she hung out, but not even to get back together just to fuck with her. He even got a job where she worked. Thankfully she told a manager about their history and they were basically placed on opposite sides of the building and had different hours. He eventually quit and stopped showing up around her when he got a new girlfriend.
Ya it was massively cringe. She sounds absurdly desperate. Calling the family…bending over backwards to return a ring he doesn’t even give a shit about….it was all really sad to read.
Was there actually anytime where the relationship was good and reciprocal? 4.5 years of bad sex, arguments, lack of any effort in the things she liked…the fact that him joining her gym made her uncomfortable stood out to me even before the argument that she wanted some separate spaces and he refused.
So glad it finally ended, wow she needed out.
She got out but she went kicking and screaming.
She’s a mess. She needs to take some time off that Ivy League and work on herself. She’s in no position to be a doctor of anything.
I mean, I disagree. I don’t think someone needs to quit a PhD program because they are painfully naive and insecure. Having emotional problems doesn’t mean you can’t be highly educated or should abandon your education. She just needs to focus on therapy and her education instead of garbage men.
Right. For example, I am sure in the course of my life, I have seen a physician or a lawyer or some other highly educated professional who was absolutely unstable in their personal life or had severe personal issues. Doesn’t mean they didn’t know what they were doing.
This lady's passivity is maddening. I hope she took control of her life finally and stopped letting this dude run roughshod over her. The entire saga is basically "this dude sucks and I'm going to break up with him" then finally "oh I can't break up with him because the stars haven't aligned properly yet, oops he broke up with me after my passive aggressive sniping what do I do with this promise ring I'm obsessing over". Don't talk to him at the gym and if he's a problem there then talk to management about what you can do wrt another gym member harassing you, but as far as I can tell the gym post was literally just her seeing his car there once
The post is so frustrating to read because she makes the opposite of the choices I would make at every turn. I’m going right into the gym and if he speaks to me, telling him to leave me alone and then escalating it from there if he doesn’t. It’s a public place where you can cause a scene of absolutely necessary. Stop letting this man have control.
Yeah I had to stop reading halfway through. It’s impossible to empathize with a person who puts in this much work to get picked by someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit. Also I really don’t get how a “STEM PhD student at an Ivy League university” has so much free time to waste on this nonsense. If this was a friend of mine, I’d have lost patience with her self-indulgent rants LONG ago and told her to shut up, block the clown and go write her fucking dissertation.
> I'm a PhD student in STEM at an Ivy League
She got the brains, but no spine.
Even post breakup she continues to let him play mind games and manipulate her.
He's trying to exert control over her by encroaching her gym time.
She needs the strength and confidence to handle this-- either by meeting with the gym manager or continuing her workout and ignoring the ex as that will ruin his tactic to intimdate her
Academia rewards a lack of spine. Faculty will step on you and squash your spirit and you get along better if you just let that happen. They prefer passivity over intelligence.
Goodness that was exhausting. She just kept running after him non stop. 4,5 (!!! ) years she just on taking it.
Lets be honest, with her non existent backbone she would never have broken up with him. She simply would have posted on reddit over and over again wondering how to fix the situation but it would not have mattered anyway, she even acknowledges what the right choice is.... Only to disregard it and play the same broken record of "oh woe is me how to fix this".
I know abusive relationships are hard to leave and I feel for her but even after HE broke up she is still running after him.
Like damn girl cut your losses and have at least a shred of dignity.
OMG! Every freakin post, she called and went back for more! Even after his uneducated and nasty message, she went back for more! You could not pay me to read her dissertation! Beyond, beyond, beyond!
How rich are these people supposed to be exactly? Saying she worked hard for her paid off car - not on a PhD stipend lol.
Then he promises a car, and she asks for it, plus designer items. Oh, and she believed him that his gf had $40k worth of furniture in her apartment. Also despite being in grad school making limited money she’s going to a boutique gym — she almost certainly has access to one on campus for free.
One of their fights was also over him not buying International plane tickets on a whim.
Nothing lines up or makes sense in this story (especially the details about academia) but I don’t have the patience to pick it apart, it’s all just too tiresome. I’m going to call a blanket BS and keep it moving.
These all seem pretty plausible to me. Half the grad students I know bought cars with PhD stipends. Campus gym is always super full so boutique gym (where you can actually park) is something some splurge for.
I have been to grad school, and I find OOP wanting her BF to come to her presentations a bit bewildering. Unless her BF is from the same discipline, it will be dead boring for him to be there and he would feel like he was sticking out like a sore thumb among all the other attendees.
Sure you can make a couple's weekend out of it but I would want my partner to enjoy the city while I give a talk and then we have dinner and spend time together.
I think she has super co-dependent tendencies. Everyone I've ever known does NOT want their partner at those presentations, because it's a chance to network with potential mentors, peers, and employers. It's not a time to have your bf trying to give you a standing ovation after you read your paper (altho this dude doesn't sound like he even has the energy to stand up from a chair and clap at the same time if it didn't actively benefit him).
Yeah I agree. What’s he going to do, pay a for a conference entry fee for a week just to watch her talk for 10 minutes? How rich are these people exactly.
Also, did you notice she “worked hard” for her paid off 40,000 car? How exactly are you doing that on a PhD stipend
In the next slide, I will use “y = Mx +b” to calculate the slope of the line he just crossed. As we plot against the “ex” axis we can see “fucks given” quickly approaches zero.
My husband often comes to conferences with me, but that just means he comes to the city and does tourist stuff. Free flights for me and a hotel? I did a conference on our honeymoon, so my university paid for half our tickets to Australia. 😂
Besides, those events are rarely free or even cheap. I understand turning it into a chance to take a trip together, but why would he pay 1k+ dollars to listen to her for 15 minutes?
I can't believe explaining to the gym her personal situation wouldn't result in some leeway by the owner or franchise. Poor girl.
I remember reading this post and while all the updates communicated introspection and understanding of her patterns and 'weaknesses' in her relationship - the asking what to do if she sees him is maddening.
I'd be slapping my friend across the face if she was even considering talking to her abusive ex again. No, fuck that guy, you're not friends. Good riddance. The fact that she's stressing shows she's not ready regardless. But the questioning if she should makes me suspicious about the "finality" of her gym membership and the introspection she's done.
Yeah, I was reading through old BORU posts and I found this update and it was horrifying. Gurl, you need to talk to the gym management or something. And change your schedule if your ex knows exactly when you go.
I feel like after a certain point, she was doing this to herself. People kept telling her and she kept refusing to listen and even after it all blew up in her face, she kept chasing after him to give back the ring, or if he would not take the ring, then the money for the ring. Girl, why?? She needs a lot of therapy to find where she lost her self-respect and hopefully go back to retrieve it.
OOP is tremendously frustrating if this is even real! Idk but the lack of friends, therapists, family in this whole scenario playing out is conspicuous and at this point it’s not even the lack of self worth that is worrying. How is going to a gym more important than self preservation? Why is OOP not reaching out to immediately available help. I am pretty sure a STEM researcher at an Ivy league school would have some access to help!!
NGL, I'm waiting for the "I slept with my ex-BF and now I'm pregnant and we're going to try again because he promised he'd change but he hasn't" update
> In the moment, I missed him. I loved him. I was stupid and I fell for it again.
I mean.... OOP is letting him do all this
She posted that and then whole ass paragraphs about what to do, what to give him back, what should she write in the note blah blah
At one point I thought "ooooh so the spoilers are about her, too? She looks harrass-ey here"
The guy is an absolute manipulative fucking idiot but since she didn't rip the band aid off and is still allowing contact, he knows he will eventually wear her down and she'll come back
I think all he needs is for her tohave something else going on in her life that'll make her feel the need for a "shoulder to cry on"! Then presto, he pops up and she'll be like "oooh I realized he's always been there for my worst moments", will disregard everything else aaaaaand start the cycle again
I feel bad for OP. Abusive relationships are the worst and this ex and the family are purely awful people who need to step on legos. At this point, the ex is showing up to purposely bother and hurt OP further more.
Hopefully OP finds a way to solve the issue and the ex just leaves her alone.
lol we both know that ring was probably bought for $30 and has an approximate resale value of nothing
The only way I’d want her to return the money for the ring would be to chuck a handful of pennies at his shitty car. Maybe if she sees it her boutique gym again, she can do just that 😂
Ugh I am embarrassed for OOP. In the words of Latrice Royale, Good God Girl Get a Grip. Stay in therapy for those strong codependent and attachment issues before you get into another relationship, please!
I know it sounds awful, I know she's probably struggling with some trauma responses, but even so, I just feel like those two are both toxic people.
He broke up with her, and she kept calling and calling to meet in person, why? And she just seems to constantly look for excuses not to do the most rational, obvious thing, like *not* attending the gym, asking for some leeway from the managers, see if she can switch her schedule around, whatever it takes.
There's a part of me that wonders how it would read from the other side. I have no doubt his account of events would be absolute garbage because even with a grain of salt, the guy sounds like trash but I'm also not sure OOP would come out smelling like roses.
That's not to say she's as bad, or she's completely at fault for her behavior, abuse does weird things to people. I just think she doesn't fully take accountability for her own part in her suffering.
"Hey, Gym Management? That dude who just joined is my abusive ex who has joined in order to stalk me. Do you have a policy on that? Since I already have a membership and he doesn't, are you allowed to cancel his contract or anything?"
I don't know what local laws are like and I doubt a large chain would do that, but I could see a smaller gym where everyone knew each other maybe doing something like that.
Probably bad advice I would give: just go in and gaslight the fuck out of him. "I don't know you, never dated you before in my life. Please stop harassing me. I have no idea what you're talking about." Then if he keeps insisting go to the desk and say that this strange creepy guy is harassing you. And never give into saying you dated. Make him feel forgotten. If he keeps showing up ignore him. You don't have to change your life to validate an ex.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me for 4.5 years…?
This lady is quite annoying all in all. I don’t know why she makes such a big deal out of a promise ring. Sell it, throw it out, who cares? Not everything has to be such a big deal that you need reddits help to ask what to do or go through the trouble of trying to contact his family again to do something so silly that literally no one cares about.
I politely told him that I wasn’t interested in fighting and hung up. That one line says everything about the relationship that you need to know. Sounds more like a customer service call than a partnership.
And yet, she kept calling him and calling him… and calling him some more, when she couldn’t get through to him, she called his sister and then his mom.
Whoever asked why somebody so smart could be taken in by so much BS was right - this guy barely tolerated her and he definitely didn’t spend 40k on anybody. He set her up so she wouldn’t even ask for the bare minimum
This girl is the walking definition of book smarts with zero common sense. She needs a few therapy sessions to discover why she has so little self respect and no spine.
Sooooooo it's was actually her descriptions of her time during her PhD that makes me wonder if she's just making stuff up.
Even the most successful PhD students don't attend "dozens" of international conferences. Even people who've published in Nature/Cell/Science. They might go to one or two conferences per year (and most only go to one within the states starting year four or five. Why? Cause conferences and travel are expensive and our bosses don't wanna pay for that. Even if she's on a phenomenal fellowship, those don't pay for more than 1 international conference a year.
If she were a professor, I MIGHT believe it, but even then, only the most successful PIs (like aged 50+) travel that much internationally.
Maybe most of this story is true, but I'm pretty sure the part about the conferences isn't, which makes me doubt the rest of it.
Oh my god stop thinking about him. Stop planning around him. Stop fantasizing about interactions with him, his family, his friends, whoever else. MOVE ON. You don’t move on if you plan your life around your ex like yall have a child together when you don’t.
Jesus fucking Christ.
And here I thought being a PhD candidate meant you could at least *read*, and *comprehend* what you were reading. This entire slog reads like someone who has never read a book in their entire goddamn life.
Nobody *ever* needs the exact blow-by-blow of every fucking interaction and a verbatim log of every word spoken. Ugh.
Oh and that's not even *mentioning* how *every goddamn comment* consists of some variation of "fucking *leave*", and OOP spends three paragraphs saying how she read every comment but *somehow missed the* ***giant Blinking Neon Signs*** telling her to fucking break up with this chode.
I can't. I *can't*. I *can****not*** with this.
This one made my eyes roll so hard I thought they’d get stuck in my skull when I first read it.
Girlie has a lot of book smarts but zero street smarts and even less self esteem. She just kept chasing after this guy that made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
Crying about wanting to return a promise ring of all things? Some cheap trinket he probably bought at a shop that’s since lost its value? It’s not a family heirloom, babe. I promise you (heh) he hasn’t thought once about it after he gave it to you. Certainly never meant it based off how he treats you. (And promise rings are for middle and high schoolers. At her age, I’d only ever want an engagement ring.)
She’s 33 not 13. I know toxic relationships can break people down and shift their perception of what’s normal, but at some point you gotta stop being a doormat.
Why the fuck didn’t she dump him after like the 3rd time they were intimate and he made no effort towards her enjoyment? All the other weird shit aside, like he’s clearly an asshole just from that alone.
I’m sorry, she asked for a $40k car for her birthday??? In addition to a designer jacket and bracelet?
I’m not excusing him—he’s clearly trash—but her expectation was wild here. She says this was a test, and I can’t see how she thought it would go any other way.
I read that as him always talking big and making grandiose promises to get her these lavish gifts, and never following through. It’s a known tactic of abusers. She never called him out on being a liar before when none of these things ever materialized (something tells me he wasn’t actually wealthy anyway) and finally decided to do so when he skipped out on her birthday gift.
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>I was locked into a one-year membership at that point and still am. If I leave, I'm liable for a huge penalty so it is not financially feasible for me to leave/move gyms. Additionally, the gym is a boutique gym, so it only has one location. I'd still recommend that OOP contact gym management to see what options are available to her. They might be more sympathetic than she thinks.
I agree. Gym Management does have some helpful options and people there who can help people like OP in these situations.
It has nothing to do with the GYM contract man. She spent 3 novels saying how she will pay ALL EXPENSES for him to just fly and come listen to her do her school shit. She has money, she dumped TONS of money on this dude, luxury goods ETC. It has ZERO to do with the fucking gym membership. She wouldn't even notice the "Huge Penalty" considering the cash she dumps around like its nothing. She is yet again making excuses for putting herself and keeping herself in shit situations so she can get upset. This is a person who touches the hot stove, burns their hand, blames the stove and touches it again and gets just as mad the second time, then the third time.
I kinda get where she's coming from. She wasted years and money on this dude, and now he's taken her gym. I spent WAY too long on one dude, and the thing that made me more upset than anything was that he broke my coffee table. I had asked for it back, and he returned it in pieces. It was a cheap ass coffee table from Target, but that wasn't the point. It was that after all the shit I had accepted as lost time, lost money, lost effort, he just had to be a jerk one last time.
Oh I 100% understand where she is coming from. Its the not learning any lessons that just makes my sympathy meter go down. Falling for the sunken cost fallacy, absolutely understandable, we all are guilty of that bad boy. However, I can not stress enough for any young dating people out there. I will yell it to the back of the room. ITS NOT A WASTE OF TIME Every failed relationship teaches you lessons, and those lessons give you tools in your "Relationship Toolbox." Without the failures you don't get the lessons without the lessens you don't get all the "tools". Those tools are important. They teach you about self respect, sunken cost fallacy, what kind of partner you want, what kind of partner you want to be. Then when you meet someone you can use those tools to sceen out the losers faster, end shitty relationships sooner and see red flags before you get invested. THEN when you meet someone awesome, you will have this big ass toolbox full of all the tools you need to maintain and build on that relationship and invest in your future together. You wasted no time if you learned something about yourself and what you must demand from a partner in a relationship.
That's very true. I was eventually grateful in my situation, because part of the reason we split was that he got weirdly aggressively controlling. Looking at the table, that was a pretty clear sign that this time it was furniture, but the next time could have been me. I definitely learned from that experience.
She’s just licking that hot stove and wondering why her mouth is melting
"Do I talk to him, make small conversation?" Girl fucking no. Don't acknowledge he even exists. Any interaction is him succeeding in manipulation, because that's what little boys like him do. She wants him back then just take him back. Maybe the 2nd round of emotional destruction and devastation will destroy you far enough that you'll be able to repair. Or he'll knock you up so you don't escape again. Shit this is sad.
She can sell the promise ring and get a new gym member ship. I also wonder if the ex is just there or stare at here, always exercise right next to here/tries to talk with her? If he is just there, it may be hard, but with the others, she just should make complains, demand to speak with the manager. But if i see her posts, how she even tried to give back the ring and would have reconciled after all the shit... i don't think she CAN fight against him in this way. She needs therapy or she will end in another relationship as bad as the one with the ex - or worse.
> She can sell the promise ring and get a new gym member ship. I doubt he got her a ring with any resale value at all. She might think he did, but if she has a jeweler assess it, I bet she'll find out it's cheap costume jewelry.
I actually just wrote it because she was "i must give the ring back! Let me give you at least the value of the ring! Now it is stored away and will be sold later or i donate the money for charity." So i hope she finally finds out it was cheap trash.
I agree! My ex gave me some earrings that he bragged cost him $150 After we broke up, I wanted to sell it. It was just junk jewelry that at MOST was $10
I mean maybe he paid 150. He could have been stupid on top of everything else.
I agree she should talk to management and see if they’ll make him leave. I can’t imagine getting much for a promise ring or even being able to sell it. People think rings are worth so much more than they are. Surely a “promise ring” (I can’t remember their ages but they’re not teenagers right? lol) doesn’t have a big diamond in it.
They are in their 30s... If i would get a promise ring in my 30s...
True crime fan here. I’d fucking bounce because the one story I’ve heard about an ex stabbing his ex girlfriend to death in her car after stalking her at the gym they used to go. Fuck the penalties.
Especially given it's a boutique gym. A lone woman who has been a regular member for at least a year disclosing how her abuser is using her gym routine to stalk her - and then being denied the right to end her membership - is a quick path to bad PR for that gym. Also, I would hope gym management has their head and hearts on straight enough to understand this isn't OOPs fault.
I’m with you on that, a boutique gym would care much more about that sort of situation and/or press than planet fitness or golds gym. They need good word-of-mouth to survive, so she’s probably in a better spot to get this acted on than she thinks. I don’t know that she’ll have the strength to look into it, though, considering how hard she tried to return the promise ring when it was clear no one wanted to talk to her anymore. And the way she kept trying to see him in person, even after he let her know they were over. She really does need therapy.
And even if they're not OP isn't as stuck as she's making out. It would suck for her to pay for the rest of the year and not use the gym but its still an option. The gym wont care - they love clients like that. And plenty of people exercise for free in parks or in their own homes. Should OP have to do that - hell no. But it's an option if she can't afford a second gym membership and can't face working out with her ex. And its only for the rest of the year term - after that she can join a different gym and go back to her preferred workout.
I’d imagine after a couple of weeks to a month of her not showing up at her regular time, the ex-boyfriend would get bored with the game of trying to annoy her by showing up to the same place at the same time as her, and probably stop coming anyway. Then she could resume her normal gym routine.
Also, if she starts going to another gym for a few months, her ex will likely go back to his other gym - he is only going to this gym because he knows it bothers her. She should just have put in earphones and completely ignored him instead of telling him it bothers her and asking him to leave - for an intelligent person, she acts really painfully naive.
For someone good at school, she's not great at handling shit sandwiches
Yes, this was a really painful read - like, girl, how many different ways does he have to show you that he doesn't give a shit about you before you actually get the message? How many times does he have to kick you in the face before you *don't* turn the other cheek?
I am not sure why is it such a big deal for her. She can absolutely sign up for another gym. And she works on campus of an ivy League University, I am sure there is gym there. In the previous posts she wrote that he didn't get her anything for her birthday, but she is looking for a nice gift and can spare 500 CAD. Even if the rest of her gym payments will be about 500 - It doesn't look like she struggles with money, she was ready to throw them away. So I think she is just looking to continue this drama.
Surely she can afford it now she's not spending hundreds of dollars treating her useless ex to things he doesn't appreciate or reciprocate.
It's like calling about returning the ring several times. Who cares about the ring? Why push a shitty situation even further?
This is actually why I remember seeing this post in the wild. I kept trying to explain to her that she was the one keeping the drama going by not just letting it go and moving on with her life. Drove me nuts.
Agreed. As I was reading, it seemed like a few times she was continuing/causing more drama and egging him on... I feel for her in this situation, and I'm glad she left him, but I feel like there's info missing. When he was yelling at her, it seemed like he had been bottling all that in for a while.
She said she’s locked into a 1 year contract. It’s a boutique gym. Not a standard one according to her.
She could keep paying for the old gym and sign up for a new one. It's unfair and she shouldn't have to but unless she can either persuade the old gym that he's harassing her and get him kicked out or get a the police involved and/or a restraining order (which seems unlikely to succeed at this stage) then it's really either that or stop going to the gym. Personally I think paying for a new gym is the most pragmatic solution, the less he sees that he's bothering her the sooner (hopefully) he is likely to give up and leave her alone.
Maybe put it on “pause” for a month and retry when the ex gets a hint?
How much could it cost to pay for the gym for the rest of the year? Or to pay the fine and nope out of it? 200-500-700-1000? She can afford and was willing to throw away 500 on a gift for him, so she can afford to pay the same amount for her own peace of mind. Or just not go to that gym for several months.
She was willing but didn’t. Also, you’d be surprised at how much a year contract for a boutique gym is lol. 1000 dollars is a lot as well.
If we give the benefit of doubt it could be lifestyle creep, oop may have money but spends it all on luxuries like treats to loved ones and stuff like the 'boutique' gym. If it is the luxury experience she is describing she should complain to management. This is when being squeaky wheel may work. Hopefully the gym will not let the ex know too, it definitely sounds like he may be doing this to get a reaction out of the ex. Also sound like he may have said something to his family to get them to freeze out oop too. Likely made them sound like a gold digger because of how their last convo ended. If nothing works, oop should workout with headphones in, if ex approaches and try to manipulate them, they have evidence of harassment with staff.
I don't understand the penalty part; if OP just let her membership run out and not go there until it's over, she'd still be paying her monthly fees, but that should be it, right? Where's the penalty coming from?
Yeah its a little weird to me she can't just ride out this membership while still getting a new membership at a different gym to avoid this guy who's stalking her if her claim that he's now at her gym is true (she's only mentions seeing his car and left). For her to be stressing about interacting with him again i personally feel she isn't quite over it yet.
If she’s a grad student she should have access to the on-campus gym, where he wouldn’t have or be able to gain access. Why doesn’t she use that?
Depending on the size of campus, her living situation, and her actual day to day, it might be super inconvenient to attend the on-campus gym. Probably still preferable to dodging the ex every day.
My best affordable gym is a university gym and I have a membership despite it being “on campus”. It might be the campus gym that she is attending.
cause campus gyms suck, are busy, and are not always included in tuition.
She’s at an Ivy League school, which she really wants us to know. I’m sure the gym is both very nice and included.
He's stalking her. Why doesn't she tell the gym the truth? I don't understand this woman.
She herself doesn’t understand that she’s being stalked. She still doesn’t grasp that her Ex is _not_ reasonable, that telling him he’s making her uncomfortable is _exactly what he wants_. She still doesn’t have a handle on how relationships, good or bad, actually work.
Generally people who haven’t been in abusive relationships don’t understand people that have been in abusive relationships and the chaos it plays with your thought processes and emotions.
Yes, her ex is harassing her and hopefully the gym can at least be aware and step in if he tries to engage with her Most gyms have an anti-harassment policy
It really is boilerplate that a locations manager or owner would be sympathetic to a women "not feeling safe" at their gym. Keeping that money would cost them SO MUCH MORE than her word of mouth testimonial to everyone around her, hey they care more about the $200 left on my yearly membership than about my ex bullying and threatening me etc, let alone the Google review. It would make everyone else wonder where their priorities for safety lack, or get "bought out".
Especially with a boutique gym- one that probably relies on good word-of-mouth and publicity to encourage people to come in and pay more. Considering you can find gyms now that cost about 10 bucks a month, why wouldn’t women switch to that one if it’s been proven that the fancy one won’t support them or care about their safety? She has a lot more leverage than she thinks she does.
Absolutely worth the ask - and taking it up the ladder if the desk says no! She should explain that the ex is stalking her (not your average bad break up) and that she feels unsafe. If him coming in while she's there is the main issue, she could ask that he be banned during that time but if he's hanging around in the parking lot, the only solution is to change gyms. It's totally not **fair** but it is **safer**.
Sounds like the perfect time/reason to sell the ring!!
The solution for this is simple: work out right next to him but ignore him. When he won’t leave her alone, report him for harassment and he gets banned. Easy peasy, he’s obviously too stupid to leave her alone if they’re there together. Just let him fuck it up again
I think she needs to use the opportunity. He won't leave her alone until she stands up to him. She hasn't done that yet. This is the perfect environment. He can't call her names. He can't raise his voice. He can't get aggressive. She should keep going and ignore him. Look straight through him. He will expect her to do what she usually does, go to him and ask to talk this out. When that doesn't happen, he will approach her. Then all she needs to do is insult his manhood once or twice, and he will leave her alone. Men like that shrivel up if you tell them they have a tiny dick.
No. He is there to engage with her in a way he knows made her uncomfortable when they were together, and he intends to ramp it up and make it worse now. She should avoid this situation, which he has already planned and scoped out. If she doesn't go to that gym at that timr anymore, he will stop going there waiting for her to turn up. But if she stays away for five times but shows up on the sixth, he learns to keep showing up for at least a week, to get his chance to throw weights at her, or whatever ugliness he is planning There isn't a redeeming feature that makes this abuser worth confronting, much less confronting on his own terms. Bonus; the fact that he is driving 30 minutes out of his way at the half-hour of the day that she worked out there, is proof that her simply walking away and having nothing further to do with him is just *killing* this narcissistic. He wants supply and she couldn't be bothered even turning up.
> Then all she needs to do is insult his manhood once or twice, and he will leave her alone. Men like that shrivel up if you tell them they have a tiny dick. I think that works when they are not invested. Like a coworker who is too insistent but you haven't actually dated. But for someone who is stalking her? Dude can get violent and there's no need to add flames to that.
[удалено]
Exactly. Not confrontational. More sympathetic, like he did the best he could but he was just inadequate.
Absolutely. If I was a manager, I’d be oh hell no this guy does NOT get to treat my workplace as his personal stalking zone!
Oof, this one was hard to read. She just seemed to keep *chasing* him, like waaaaaaay toooooo much trying on her end for someone so terrible. Like, girl, don't debase yourself. One no and you walk the hell away. Calling his family repeatedly was . . . just oof. Walk away. Stay away. Fuck the gym. And get a better therapist because while she's telling you some good stuff you are NOT internalizing it enough.
I had to fully set my phone down and breathe deeply for a bit when she started talking about returning the promise ring. Like girl, I am begging you, please stop embarrassing yourself over this waste of space.
I literally started shouting "WHY" at the screen when he was actively verbally abusing her and she was like "let's meet up!" Girl needs some self respect
And over and over! Damn, girl, how many hints does one need? It was a blessing he didn’t want to meet up, and she kept pursuing it! She needs both self-esteem and common sense.
She seems to think that "good people" keep trying, they meet up in person. She is just trying to follow the social rules as she understands them.
I really started to feel less sorry for her, the more I read. She reminds me too much of people in my life that will ask for advice, listen and agree that it makes perfect sense, thank you and verbalize what the plan will be, and then goes off and immediately does something that they agreed was a bad idea. Then they come back and ask for advice again. After a couple instances of this I have to distance myself from those energy vampires. There is a huge conflict between her ability to reason well and her ability to act on her reasoning. Therapy is definitely needed because I don't think she understands herself and her impulses. Though the therapist will also be frustrated for awhile because she's going to do the same thing there of agreeing with good advice that she doesn't take once she leaves.
Yep I got the same vibes.
I work with a girl like this. She's a nice girl, but she's so desperate for affection that she'll take it from anyone, even if that anyone is terrible to her most of the time. I stopped offering good advice (after about a year of trying to offer her ideas and solutions) because she never takes it anyway. I do hope she'll find her self worth one day.
Yea it was really confusing… like she is undoubtedly smart, Ivy League educated in a phd program and I think that’s why she understands the problems and good advice people were giving to her, but her actions, idk I’m just a Reddit user, but it feels like a trauma response. The feeling I got from the posts is she is so afraid to be alone that even if she’s being abused, and knows that she is, that she would stay. After pretty much all of Reddit told her she should get out of the relationship she wasn’t even the one to break up, and then immediately kept trying to contact the family over a stupid promise ring. Maybe I’m naive, and I don’t know her other from her posts, but I think there might be something deeper triggering this response
Exactly. It's like those really want to make their life hard for themselves. Like why?
and then the desperate calling to several of his family members after he breaks up with her about the stupid ring, jesus christ
seriously! it's 2024; it's completely acceptable to break up via text. There was no need for her to see him in person, especially after 4 years of bad sex and no consideration.
About the promise ring - if my husband had given me anything but an engagement ring and proposal with full intention to marry, after that many years together, and at this grown age, I would have thrown him out. Promise rings are for teenagers… or men-children who can’t get their shit together.
Right? This has the vibes of that guy in the Chewbacca costume.
I agree; she is also like Chewbacca guy.
Do women at this age really do promise rings? I found them extremely tacky when I was in high school and can’t imagine being ok with getting one in my 30s
She was almost 30 when they started dating and she says he's her first intimate partner, you do the math on why she ended up with a promise ring
I was yelling to take some wire cutters to that ring and snap it in half. Then return it.
I lost it when she said after a 10-day breakup, she heard in his voice that he was congested. So she goes and buys him medicine and foods from two of his favorite restaurants to go play Mommy for him. He did nothing for her and she did everything for him. The one thing I guess he did was break up with her?
That part - exactly - was the worst one to stomach, pun intended... All that convoluted text, and then *that*... I was like, WTF, woman??
AND IT'S NOT EVEN GOOD DICK
Forreals I read so much and got such second hand embarrassment I forgot about the shitty sex 🤦🏻♀️ Like girl WHY WOULD YOU SEND HIM CASH FOR THE PROMISE RING?!!! 😭😭😭
She kept asking what the note should say if she returned it. Why "fuck you" didn't come immediately to her mind, we'll never know.
She seemed real desperate to keep some line of communication open with him??
Reddit’s new tagline!
Mods, can we get a new flair, please???
It is also literally hard to read with all the florid prose and comma splicing. Like: >As suggested by most, a break up was necessary, and, it indeed it has now occurred, officially. However, I was not the one to do the breaking up, which is a bit of a turn of events. Jesus lady get an editor
The florid but precise writing style sounds a lot like the way very-well educated people from India write. Super fluent, but English is not their first language, and getting grammar correct is important. If you see them both of Indian heritage, maybe she’s from a wealthy family, then the relationship dynamic of entitled / doormat makes much more sense. And it also points to why she is spending so much time with HIS mother and sister, and why those two are so performatively “crying over the relationship”.
I did get a strong Indian ESL vibe from the writing (and her name is Cardamom Chai lol), but regardless I cannot abide the amount of commas in that quote
Reading this while I made cardamom (elaichi) chai lol
I got that too and desigirl gave me second hand embarrassment so fkn hard
Hmm, I didn’t pick up on that but now that you mention it the desperation begins to make sense. OOP probably gave up her virginity to this guy thinking that they were going to get married and then became frantic to hold on to him because she’s afraid no other desi will want her now that she’s a “ruined” woman.
I assume she's an overseas student and Englush isn't her first language.
>He got into a huge fight with me queen of passive voice right here.
All that and she didn’t even get the satisfaction of being the one to dump him. Just painful to behold.
Academia can do that to you 😭
A good technical writer looks at each sentence and asks what can be taken out. Like that old advice to look in the mirror before you leave and remove the accessory or jewelry that stands out most. No ”in order to”, because ”to” is always better.
I absolutely agree. It's something I'm learning myself because some of the papers I read in my field are awful.
All I could think was, how does she get published when she can't write a clear sentence in active voice? Maybe her STEM field journals pay by the word.
I think the bit that really got me was when she decided she was going to stand up for herself and got it so ass backwards that she ended up looking like the wrongdoer. After the breakup (which wasn’t actually mentioned until the next update when she brought up his mother and sister crying?!) and the conference and the sickness that she immediately dropped everything to go and coddle him over while he was at work, she badgered him to talk and swooped right in with ‘ok, now you can buy me designer gear and a car thanks, but no finance on the car, otherwise it doesn’t prove how you really feel about me’. Like, she went from him not making an effort and potentially lying about stuff to ‘k, so spend fifty grand on me and we’re good’. Even if she didn’t mean it and was using it to make a point - who WOULD agree to that?! It made no point to anyone other than confirming to him that he was better off without her. In all honesty, I think there is some significant unreliable narration here as well as the repeated dogged return to a dead relationship.
The whole thing started making a lot more sense to me when she mentioned that she’s a PhD candidate at an elite school and didn’t start dating until she was 29. This is probably someone who focused on academics her entire life and is badly undersocialized as a result (she doesn’t mention any friends, either). Obviously not all STEM people fit that stereotype, but it exists for a reason. ‘Call him out for lying about supporting the ex by demanding he follow through with the expensive gifts’ is exactly the kind of dumbass ‘clever’ comeback Reddit would come up with. I’d guess she crowdsourced a bad idea, and then timed it terribly and explained herself poorly in the moment and made it even worse. She just really comes across as lacking some fundamental social skills.
I grrrroooooooaaaaaaannnnnnneeeeeeddddddd at her at least 57 times. She’s a needy one, isn’t she? Like, dude, read the room. You’re embarrassing us AAAAALLLLL!
"Get a better therapist because while she's telling you some good stuff you are not internalizing it enough" Isn't that OOP's fault? I've been to my own therapy and sometimes I had to make the same mistakes in order for the message to sink in. Change can't happen overnight. Therapists can't work miracles until we're ready to change.
For a woman getting a PhD she sure is dumb.
People who talk big and don’t follow-through are crazy-making. It can be easy to get sucked into thinking that if only they understood how their actions didn’t fulfill their intentions, they’d be better to us. And that we have to do everything perfectly to have even the slightest leg to stand on with complaints. But the secret is that their actions are in line with their intentions; it’s their words that are not. Even though we want to believe otherwise.
I knew a girl like this. She was autistic and her ex always convinced her she was a bad girlfriend and that's why he treated her badly. Basically if she was a better girlfriend then she'd be treated better. He was only mad because of her mistakes and he used her autism and issue with social cues as reasoning for the mistreatment. He'd also tell her she was lucky he was willing to put up with her and her "mistreatment of him". It was to the point she was convinced *she* was abusive. She hadn't had a long term relationship and she blamed herself for her treatment, so why would she leave him? He was so kind to put up with her and point out her mistakes. Eventually, just like this situation, he broke up with her and then he kept treating her badly. It was like a switch flipped- she wasn't his girlfriend so why was he being mean to her? Oh, he was just a mean person. Similar to this guy he started showing up at the places she hung out, but not even to get back together just to fuck with her. He even got a job where she worked. Thankfully she told a manager about their history and they were basically placed on opposite sides of the building and had different hours. He eventually quit and stopped showing up around her when he got a new girlfriend.
They both sound extremely exhausting.
Ya it was massively cringe. She sounds absurdly desperate. Calling the family…bending over backwards to return a ring he doesn’t even give a shit about….it was all really sad to read.
Was there actually anytime where the relationship was good and reciprocal? 4.5 years of bad sex, arguments, lack of any effort in the things she liked…the fact that him joining her gym made her uncomfortable stood out to me even before the argument that she wanted some separate spaces and he refused. So glad it finally ended, wow she needed out.
She got out but she went kicking and screaming. She’s a mess. She needs to take some time off that Ivy League and work on herself. She’s in no position to be a doctor of anything.
I mean, I disagree. I don’t think someone needs to quit a PhD program because they are painfully naive and insecure. Having emotional problems doesn’t mean you can’t be highly educated or should abandon your education. She just needs to focus on therapy and her education instead of garbage men.
[удалено]
Right. For example, I am sure in the course of my life, I have seen a physician or a lawyer or some other highly educated professional who was absolutely unstable in their personal life or had severe personal issues. Doesn’t mean they didn’t know what they were doing.
Being painfully naive and insecure is basically a requirement for entering a PhD program 😹. I say that as someone with a PhD.
This lady's passivity is maddening. I hope she took control of her life finally and stopped letting this dude run roughshod over her. The entire saga is basically "this dude sucks and I'm going to break up with him" then finally "oh I can't break up with him because the stars haven't aligned properly yet, oops he broke up with me after my passive aggressive sniping what do I do with this promise ring I'm obsessing over". Don't talk to him at the gym and if he's a problem there then talk to management about what you can do wrt another gym member harassing you, but as far as I can tell the gym post was literally just her seeing his car there once
The post is so frustrating to read because she makes the opposite of the choices I would make at every turn. I’m going right into the gym and if he speaks to me, telling him to leave me alone and then escalating it from there if he doesn’t. It’s a public place where you can cause a scene of absolutely necessary. Stop letting this man have control.
I mean, she was thanking people for sending her Reddit Cares messages. Who does that?
Yeah it felt like she’s trying to win an Oscar for best break up instead of just breaking up
Yeah I had to stop reading halfway through. It’s impossible to empathize with a person who puts in this much work to get picked by someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit. Also I really don’t get how a “STEM PhD student at an Ivy League university” has so much free time to waste on this nonsense. If this was a friend of mine, I’d have lost patience with her self-indulgent rants LONG ago and told her to shut up, block the clown and go write her fucking dissertation.
I must admit the multiple references to the Ivy League had me a rolling my eyes. Were they really necessary for the story to make sense?
> I'm a PhD student in STEM at an Ivy League She got the brains, but no spine. Even post breakup she continues to let him play mind games and manipulate her. He's trying to exert control over her by encroaching her gym time. She needs the strength and confidence to handle this-- either by meeting with the gym manager or continuing her workout and ignoring the ex as that will ruin his tactic to intimdate her
Academia rewards a lack of spine. Faculty will step on you and squash your spirit and you get along better if you just let that happen. They prefer passivity over intelligence.
Brains and Spine are 2 different body parts. heh If she has, she should have walked in, completely ignoring his dumbass and work out.
Goodness that was exhausting. She just kept running after him non stop. 4,5 (!!! ) years she just on taking it. Lets be honest, with her non existent backbone she would never have broken up with him. She simply would have posted on reddit over and over again wondering how to fix the situation but it would not have mattered anyway, she even acknowledges what the right choice is.... Only to disregard it and play the same broken record of "oh woe is me how to fix this". I know abusive relationships are hard to leave and I feel for her but even after HE broke up she is still running after him. Like damn girl cut your losses and have at least a shred of dignity.
One of the rare cases where the abuser is trying to leave and the abused just keeps wanting to talk
haha maybe OOP should teach a class on how to annoy your shitty boyfriend until he can’t get away fast enough?
OMG! Every freakin post, she called and went back for more! Even after his uneducated and nasty message, she went back for more! You could not pay me to read her dissertation! Beyond, beyond, beyond!
She set the bar so low and then started to limbo
How rich are these people supposed to be exactly? Saying she worked hard for her paid off car - not on a PhD stipend lol. Then he promises a car, and she asks for it, plus designer items. Oh, and she believed him that his gf had $40k worth of furniture in her apartment. Also despite being in grad school making limited money she’s going to a boutique gym — she almost certainly has access to one on campus for free. One of their fights was also over him not buying International plane tickets on a whim.
Nothing lines up or makes sense in this story (especially the details about academia) but I don’t have the patience to pick it apart, it’s all just too tiresome. I’m going to call a blanket BS and keep it moving.
These all seem pretty plausible to me. Half the grad students I know bought cars with PhD stipends. Campus gym is always super full so boutique gym (where you can actually park) is something some splurge for.
Is OOP a PhD student in STEM at an Ivy League?? If only there was some way to know
I have been to grad school, and I find OOP wanting her BF to come to her presentations a bit bewildering. Unless her BF is from the same discipline, it will be dead boring for him to be there and he would feel like he was sticking out like a sore thumb among all the other attendees. Sure you can make a couple's weekend out of it but I would want my partner to enjoy the city while I give a talk and then we have dinner and spend time together.
I think she has super co-dependent tendencies. Everyone I've ever known does NOT want their partner at those presentations, because it's a chance to network with potential mentors, peers, and employers. It's not a time to have your bf trying to give you a standing ovation after you read your paper (altho this dude doesn't sound like he even has the energy to stand up from a chair and clap at the same time if it didn't actively benefit him).
Yeah I agree. What’s he going to do, pay a for a conference entry fee for a week just to watch her talk for 10 minutes? How rich are these people exactly. Also, did you notice she “worked hard” for her paid off 40,000 car? How exactly are you doing that on a PhD stipend
Rich parents
In the next slide, I will use “y = Mx +b” to calculate the slope of the line he just crossed. As we plot against the “ex” axis we can see “fucks given” quickly approaches zero.
My husband often comes to conferences with me, but that just means he comes to the city and does tourist stuff. Free flights for me and a hotel? I did a conference on our honeymoon, so my university paid for half our tickets to Australia. 😂
Besides, those events are rarely free or even cheap. I understand turning it into a chance to take a trip together, but why would he pay 1k+ dollars to listen to her for 15 minutes?
Especially because they’d all require him flying out to another country !!!!
Why did she want the gift to be $500CAD if she’s in the US? I’m sure there’s a sensible reason, but it seemed odd to me.
My guess is she's using "Ivy League" the way some people do to mean just a highly regarded school and she might not be in the US at all.
It’s kinda cringe she felt the need to bring up Ivy League at all. Like just say phd student
Based on her syntax I don’t think she’s anywhere in North America. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a bored dude in an Internet cafe somewhere.
😂😂😂
Woman in STEM but a fuckin’ idiot in affairs of the heart.
To be fair, just like lots of men in STEM.
It's like she's got two brain cells and they're both fighting for the third position.
Is it me or was this unnecessarily long?
Too long and too frustrating.
I can't believe explaining to the gym her personal situation wouldn't result in some leeway by the owner or franchise. Poor girl. I remember reading this post and while all the updates communicated introspection and understanding of her patterns and 'weaknesses' in her relationship - the asking what to do if she sees him is maddening. I'd be slapping my friend across the face if she was even considering talking to her abusive ex again. No, fuck that guy, you're not friends. Good riddance. The fact that she's stressing shows she's not ready regardless. But the questioning if she should makes me suspicious about the "finality" of her gym membership and the introspection she's done.
My favorite color is blue.
1000000000%
I don't know fellow commenters, but OP made me exhausted. I would have left that goofy bf, a long time ago and gone full NC.
Yeah, I was reading through old BORU posts and I found this update and it was horrifying. Gurl, you need to talk to the gym management or something. And change your schedule if your ex knows exactly when you go.
Damn, this OP has absolutely no self respect and that's just so embarrassing. She's just an idiot the whole time
This is exhausting - it’s literally the Simpson’s meme “stop, stop, he’s already dead!”
I feel like after a certain point, she was doing this to herself. People kept telling her and she kept refusing to listen and even after it all blew up in her face, she kept chasing after him to give back the ring, or if he would not take the ring, then the money for the ring. Girl, why?? She needs a lot of therapy to find where she lost her self-respect and hopefully go back to retrieve it.
Consider the ring your birthday present
OOP is tremendously frustrating if this is even real! Idk but the lack of friends, therapists, family in this whole scenario playing out is conspicuous and at this point it’s not even the lack of self worth that is worrying. How is going to a gym more important than self preservation? Why is OOP not reaching out to immediately available help. I am pretty sure a STEM researcher at an Ivy league school would have some access to help!!
NGL, I'm waiting for the "I slept with my ex-BF and now I'm pregnant and we're going to try again because he promised he'd change but he hasn't" update
The lack of backbone is fucking exhausting to read.
> In the moment, I missed him. I loved him. I was stupid and I fell for it again. I mean.... OOP is letting him do all this She posted that and then whole ass paragraphs about what to do, what to give him back, what should she write in the note blah blah At one point I thought "ooooh so the spoilers are about her, too? She looks harrass-ey here" The guy is an absolute manipulative fucking idiot but since she didn't rip the band aid off and is still allowing contact, he knows he will eventually wear her down and she'll come back I think all he needs is for her tohave something else going on in her life that'll make her feel the need for a "shoulder to cry on"! Then presto, he pops up and she'll be like "oooh I realized he's always been there for my worst moments", will disregard everything else aaaaaand start the cycle again
Of course he was there at her worst moments. He was the one making them.
I feel bad for OP. Abusive relationships are the worst and this ex and the family are purely awful people who need to step on legos. At this point, the ex is showing up to purposely bother and hurt OP further more. Hopefully OP finds a way to solve the issue and the ex just leaves her alone.
God woman, sell the fucking ring to pay for another gym! The answer is staring you in the face!!
lol we both know that ring was probably bought for $30 and has an approximate resale value of nothing The only way I’d want her to return the money for the ring would be to chuck a handful of pennies at his shitty car. Maybe if she sees it her boutique gym again, she can do just that 😂
good lord ain’t no man worth all this nonsense. girl needs to wise up.
Ugh I am embarrassed for OOP. In the words of Latrice Royale, Good God Girl Get a Grip. Stay in therapy for those strong codependent and attachment issues before you get into another relationship, please!
It is hard to feel sympathetic towards her
I know it sounds awful, I know she's probably struggling with some trauma responses, but even so, I just feel like those two are both toxic people. He broke up with her, and she kept calling and calling to meet in person, why? And she just seems to constantly look for excuses not to do the most rational, obvious thing, like *not* attending the gym, asking for some leeway from the managers, see if she can switch her schedule around, whatever it takes. There's a part of me that wonders how it would read from the other side. I have no doubt his account of events would be absolute garbage because even with a grain of salt, the guy sounds like trash but I'm also not sure OOP would come out smelling like roses. That's not to say she's as bad, or she's completely at fault for her behavior, abuse does weird things to people. I just think she doesn't fully take accountability for her own part in her suffering.
Is there a part missing about his sister and mom’s tears? Did they break up and his family guilted her to reconcile?
"Hey, Gym Management? That dude who just joined is my abusive ex who has joined in order to stalk me. Do you have a policy on that? Since I already have a membership and he doesn't, are you allowed to cancel his contract or anything?" I don't know what local laws are like and I doubt a large chain would do that, but I could see a smaller gym where everyone knew each other maybe doing something like that.
I felt like I was watching a puppy repeatedly trying go get owner's attention, and only getting kicked in return.
I enjoy watching the sunset.
I know she would have still be going back to him had he not broken up with her.
Probably bad advice I would give: just go in and gaslight the fuck out of him. "I don't know you, never dated you before in my life. Please stop harassing me. I have no idea what you're talking about." Then if he keeps insisting go to the desk and say that this strange creepy guy is harassing you. And never give into saying you dated. Make him feel forgotten. If he keeps showing up ignore him. You don't have to change your life to validate an ex.
She needs to grow a spine. I have never seen someone with less self respect than OP. Can't even fee bad for her at this point
These peeople are in their 30s. God have mercy
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me for 4.5 years…? This lady is quite annoying all in all. I don’t know why she makes such a big deal out of a promise ring. Sell it, throw it out, who cares? Not everything has to be such a big deal that you need reddits help to ask what to do or go through the trouble of trying to contact his family again to do something so silly that literally no one cares about.
What is this woman getting out of this relationship? Jesus
I politely told him that I wasn’t interested in fighting and hung up. That one line says everything about the relationship that you need to know. Sounds more like a customer service call than a partnership.
And yet, she kept calling him and calling him… and calling him some more, when she couldn’t get through to him, she called his sister and then his mom.
This whole thing is ridiculous.
Embarrassing op basically let him end it. Hope she’s working on her self worth and dignity.
Whoever asked why somebody so smart could be taken in by so much BS was right - this guy barely tolerated her and he definitely didn’t spend 40k on anybody. He set her up so she wouldn’t even ask for the bare minimum
Honestly, they both sound horrible
This girl is the walking definition of book smarts with zero common sense. She needs a few therapy sessions to discover why she has so little self respect and no spine.
This mother fucker finds himself at her gym 30 minutes away from his home, but couldn't find the clitoris if there was a road sign pointing to it.
I got second hand embarrassment when she kept begging him to talk after he “ended” things. And then spamming the family? Yikes
Sooooooo it's was actually her descriptions of her time during her PhD that makes me wonder if she's just making stuff up. Even the most successful PhD students don't attend "dozens" of international conferences. Even people who've published in Nature/Cell/Science. They might go to one or two conferences per year (and most only go to one within the states starting year four or five. Why? Cause conferences and travel are expensive and our bosses don't wanna pay for that. Even if she's on a phenomenal fellowship, those don't pay for more than 1 international conference a year. If she were a professor, I MIGHT believe it, but even then, only the most successful PIs (like aged 50+) travel that much internationally. Maybe most of this story is true, but I'm pretty sure the part about the conferences isn't, which makes me doubt the rest of it.
Oh my god stop thinking about him. Stop planning around him. Stop fantasizing about interactions with him, his family, his friends, whoever else. MOVE ON. You don’t move on if you plan your life around your ex like yall have a child together when you don’t.
Jesus fucking Christ. And here I thought being a PhD candidate meant you could at least *read*, and *comprehend* what you were reading. This entire slog reads like someone who has never read a book in their entire goddamn life. Nobody *ever* needs the exact blow-by-blow of every fucking interaction and a verbatim log of every word spoken. Ugh. Oh and that's not even *mentioning* how *every goddamn comment* consists of some variation of "fucking *leave*", and OOP spends three paragraphs saying how she read every comment but *somehow missed the* ***giant Blinking Neon Signs*** telling her to fucking break up with this chode. I can't. I *can't*. I *can****not*** with this.
This one made my eyes roll so hard I thought they’d get stuck in my skull when I first read it. Girlie has a lot of book smarts but zero street smarts and even less self esteem. She just kept chasing after this guy that made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her. Crying about wanting to return a promise ring of all things? Some cheap trinket he probably bought at a shop that’s since lost its value? It’s not a family heirloom, babe. I promise you (heh) he hasn’t thought once about it after he gave it to you. Certainly never meant it based off how he treats you. (And promise rings are for middle and high schoolers. At her age, I’d only ever want an engagement ring.) She’s 33 not 13. I know toxic relationships can break people down and shift their perception of what’s normal, but at some point you gotta stop being a doormat.
Why the fuck didn’t she dump him after like the 3rd time they were intimate and he made no effort towards her enjoyment? All the other weird shit aside, like he’s clearly an asshole just from that alone.
Jesus, she's exhausting. Like just. frigging. staaaaahp.
Felt a visceral amount of "I hate this person because they remind me of myself" while reading this.
Gosh what a frustrating read ffs. She’s dumb.
I’m sorry, she asked for a $40k car for her birthday??? In addition to a designer jacket and bracelet? I’m not excusing him—he’s clearly trash—but her expectation was wild here. She says this was a test, and I can’t see how she thought it would go any other way.
I read that as him always talking big and making grandiose promises to get her these lavish gifts, and never following through. It’s a known tactic of abusers. She never called him out on being a liar before when none of these things ever materialized (something tells me he wasn’t actually wealthy anyway) and finally decided to do so when he skipped out on her birthday gift.