Third Draft – A breakup

Dear Charles,

I love you. I have loved you for a long time, I’ve looked forward to building a life together. When we moved in together, I was excited to make that next step in our lives.

But it’s become clear that we’re not on the same page about what a relationship is and what it means and what it required to maintain one. As I said last night, since last June I’ve been missing two key points, a boyfriend who wants to talk to me, who wants to engage with me and who wants to do the things that I want to do. Secondly a boyfriend who’s passionate about our physical relationship, who wants to love me, who respects my body as it is.

For months now we have been fighting about the same two topics, being engaged and being physical. Every argument comes down to these two things.

I deserve a boyfriend who loves me back in the way that I need to be loved. I’ve tried to make it work, I’ve tried to explain to you how and what I need. But time after time you continue to show that you’re just not willing to do that.

It’s not that you’re not capable of what I need, I can see you do those things with other people. With Eric, with Jay and James, with even random people when we were in tennis class. You corresponded with guys thirsting over you on Instagram while you’re “too busy at work” to reply to your own boyfriend. If you’ve got time to be browsing Instagram, Facebook or TikTok then you’ve got time to reply to someone you supposedly love. Eric once said to me something along the lines of “Charles asks questions about things when he’s interested in it”. To me, the fact that it’s so hard to get you to ask questions or to be engaged, shows that you’re not interested in me.

We have tried, we tried therapy, we’ve tried arguing, we’ve tried talking it out. But every time the outcome is the same. It changes for a few days or a week and then it’s back to the same thing. You said last night we argue every week and this is exactly why it happens so much. Because you just regress backwards.

All I’ve ever wanted from you want to be engaged with me, to be passionate, to be care about me the way that I care about you. I feel like I always give 70% and you give 30%. A relationship needs to be equal. A perfect example of this Is last week I asked you go get groceries while I was at work. You “forgot”, but you had time to go play tennis for yourself.

Your constant forgetfulness is just that you don’t care, you don’t value me or my time or what I need in this relationship as well. You forget about my birthday, you forget about getting us groceries, you forget to book me a haircut, you forget, you forget.

The physical side of what’s missing is easy to explain. When we were in the Thailand/Philippines you were all over grindr, you were horny wanting to hook up every day. But when it’s just the two of us, I can barely get you to have sex once a week. Just this past week, I tried to be “sexy”, I put on a jock strap and came out and laid on the couch. Hoping you’d come over, but instead, buying stuff on amazon was more important to you. That’s incredibly hurtful to me. At one point during one of our past arguments, I asked you “What do you find physically attractive to me?” And you couldn’t come up with anything. You eventually said something like “I like that you work out and trying to improve.” I might not have a six pack body or huge muscles, but I’m sexy and I deserve a boyfriend who sees that.

Time is precious and I want someone who’s going to give me what I want and need. I’m sure there’s someone out there who matches what you want and what you can give. But it’s become clear that it’s not me.

I love you, I care about you deeply, I want us both to be happy and at this point, our relationship is not making either of us happy. I hope that we can both find what we need and hopefully at some point we can be friends again.

Love,

Chris