Mr. No-longer-perfect
This past fall a guy I'd once adored, a very good friend, moved home after being away for several years. Before he left he was an amazing, dynamic individual with a lot of heart. He cared for everyone, was conscientiousness, sweet, intelligent, and geeky. I adored him, but we never dated. When he came home, we began a relationship… But he took his mother out on dates more often than he took me (his girlfriend). He'd often show up late (sometimes an hour or more) because he was doing things to help his mother or grandmother, but would never call to tell me he was going to be late. I figured out that he was growing more distant because he wasn't over his ex, and that he had a lot of family struggles he was dealing with at the time. He kept trying to push me past the point I was comfortable, intimacy-wise, and portrayed himself as the golden boy to everyone else. I got tired of his grandstanding and conceit, his vanity and lack of attention. I told him we were done. A month later he'd left to move back out west, and 2 weeks after starting back at his college, he had rebounded with a girl he'd been talking to before we'd started dating. A couple of weeks later they split. This came less than a year after I broke off an engagement to a guy who lied about having a really bad pornography addiction, a relationship that left me shattered and hurt beyond words. This guy started off trying to fix the damage left by the last one, but just ended up destroying my trust even further.
Break-Up Phase: (what's this?)
Be sure you dont carry it into your next relationship. I'd hate for anyone to hold me to standards induced by total jerks.