I posted this in "Depression" but figured I would post it here as well.

Her name is Sarah. We began dating in April of last year (2012) and have been together since then...so over a year and a half. When we started, everything was unbelievable. I was in the Army at the time and was on leave. Pure magic...I had never felt the way about another person the way I felt about her. I've never been able to say that I would voluntarily die for someone if asked...an awkward position, I suppose, considering I was in the Army. She would have said the same for me with no hesitation. She decided to wait for me, and I got out in January (of this year, 2013). I even used an option in the Army that allowed me to get out earlier (as my contract originally would've ended in March) in order to be with her. We exchanged letters, e-mails, countless hours of Skype, phone calls and text messaging...and even paid for flight tickets about 3 separate times just to be together for 4 days in between that time. I returned on leave in June/July of last year and we decided we were going to move in together upon my return. Leaving to go back to North Carolina was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

When I got back in January, life was unbelievable. We were finally reunited. I felt like the world was at my fingertips. Even when work (I started working immediately after returning) or school (which I also started immediately after) got too hard, I always thought "I can always go home and at least I'll have her. I suppose that's all that matters."

My world is crumbling. I suppose we found out we're two different people - but I always thought that we balanced each other out. I've never introduced the fact that we'd never work, and always thought that no matter what happened, we would work to make it better. After a weekend at the lake with a bunch of friends, we almost completely avoided each other. I am broken. We were argumentative at times. On Saturday, I even went to bed early without even telling her, hoping that she'd instead ask "what was wrong". Perhaps it was a bid to get attention. Despite everyone else having fun and being very social, I sat almost utterly silent for the entire weekend. I can count the amount of times I smiled or laughed on two hands.

I take things very seriously...I consider myself a self-styled intellectual, although at times I'm not sure how well that label fits. She is perhaps a little opposite of that. She can be very serious and passionate at times, but she is "fun-loving" to say the least. She doesn't worry about the future or money or politics as much as I do. She doesn't let little things bother her. I do, almost constantly, and it has completely ruined us.

Two weeks ago, we had a similar trouble to this one. She began thinking we were incompatible, but we did fine. We went to a Twins game and on the drive back she began questioning when we were going to get married. Everything was normal again. The passion had returned, I thought.

Two weeks later, however, it all returned. Last night, she offered to stay at her parents for a few nights. I sobbed and wept in front of her, harder than I ever have in my life. I gave her an ultimatum: if you leave, take everything with you, delete my number from your phone and leave your keys on the counter, or stay with me and work through this somehow. There was no easy answer - I couldn't even provide an ability to explain how we would "fix" what we had broken. I just knew that we had to try. I asked her what her decision was and she was unable to make one. I then said being indecisive on something like this is an answer enough...and we both knew that being unable to say "we'll work through it" was evidence enough that perhaps this was all a fallacy. Something like that should take a half second to respond to. It shouldn't take a few days.

I need someone to help me. To listen. I can provide further details to this story if anyone wishes. My mind is racing in several different directions so it was very hard to compile all of my thoughts immediately.


Rohag asked: "What was it about the dynamics of that social grouping that led to conflict? Was that the first time you as a couple had been in that type of environment?"

I answered:

No, not at all. It was the fact that perhaps I just wanted more for just "us" rather than "us" AND "everyone else". Combined with the arguments and I really just shut down in an effort to get her attention. Four months ago I feel that she would've done anything to make me happy, or would've done anything to see me smile if I was acting like that. Perhaps that was what I was hoping for when I stopped interacting with everyone.

It snowballed from there. She ignored it and pretended like I didn't exist. She valued more time with our friends than she did with me (arguing that she doesn't get to see them that often) and so it crushed me. And broke me completely.