Culture skirmishes
I witnessed my best friend break up with his three-year fiancée yesterday. She cried for hours while he was there then called him crying. Twice. At five in the morning.
This is the story, as short as I can tell it:
She moved from México to New Mexico (it was a short trip) to study fashion design. Shortly after arriving, she met my friend and they started dating.
About a year into the dating, she had problems with her host family and my friend offered to help her out by moving in with her. This caused lots of internal problems for her because she was Catholic and thought it was a sin to live with a boy before getting married. He’s an atheist and thinks it’s stupid to not live with someone before you get married. The home situation worsened and forced her to move in with him on the condition they eventually get married. He agreed.
A year or so after living together, my friend realizes that he has not seen any of his friends in a year and is greatly displeased. It seems that she’s of the opinion that once a couple is together, they should not spend any time apart or have individual friends. My friend was suffocating, but could not leave because she had no car, an inadequate job and no place to live without him.
He helped her pay for a car last week and yesterday he stayed out until midnight with his brother and me. Before that, he hadn’t stayed out past 11 in a year (or past 8, depending on who’s telling the story). She panicked. He asked me to help him get his stuff out of his house (this was at 2 o’clock last night).
She made several ultimatums, he ignored them and told her they’d talk in the morning when they were both calm.
I don’t think they’re going to recover from this. It was bound to happen at some point, whether today or two years from today.
And although it’s not my fault this time (unless you really stretch your imagination), I still feel terrible. My friend had a terrible break up, but at least he could talk to me about it afterward. She’s been in this country for three years and had nobody. She drove to Wal-Mart at 3 in the morning because she had nowhere else to go.
When someone is everything in your life, what happens when they leave?
I witnessed my best friend break up with his three-year fiancée yesterday. She cried for hours while he was there then called him crying. Twice. At five in the morning. This is the story, as short as I can tell it: She moved from México to New Mexico (it was a short trip) to study…
Sigh…
You’re right; it would have happened, eventually.
When someone gives up everything to become somebody else’s everything and then walks away, what could either of them have expected?