My Boyfriend Left Me When I Left For A Work Conference & I’m Still Bitter About It

I had to go away for a work conference, so I said goodbye to my boyfriend not really realizing that it’d be for the last time. He left me that same weekend and frankly, I’m still salty about it.

1. Our breakup was inevitable. To be honest, we were in a really bad place anyway. I was looking forward to spending a few days away from him at the career conference. I wanted to figure out the best way to amicably end our relationship but I also wanted to take some me time and invest in my professional future. I was looking forward to having a weekend to do just that.
2. He told me the night before I left that he was planning to leave. It was late in the evening. I was all packed, ready to leave and planning to settle my nerves down with a glass of wine and a book when he told me that he was ready to end the relationship. Mind you, I had a 6 a.m. flight the next day. When he announced that he was leaving after I left for the airport, I went into a frenzy. I was shocked, angry, sad, and blindsided. I didn’t sleep at all that night and I felt like crap.
3. He showed himself to be a huge coward. I’ve never gotten over his immensely cowardly behavior. He didn’t give me enough time to process his decision to end our relationship. He didn’t show me the respect I deserved for being in a relationship with him for years by having an actual conversation with me. Instead, he made a decision without considering how it would make me feel. When I started to ask him why he was leaving, he offered little explanation about where he was going or what he was doing. Telling me it was over 10 hours before he was going to leave showed that he had zero respect for my feelings or our relationship.
4. I’d known something was up and I should’ve listened to my gut. Looking back, I remember feeling like he was up to something for a few weeks prior to his announcement. He wasn’t sharing as much with me. He wasn’t in our apartment as much. He’d take calls in the bathroom instead of in our living room. My intuition kept telling me that something was totally off. Basically, I knew we were going to break up but I figured I’d be the one to end things and I kept stalling on when to pull the trigger. I wanted to make sure I was ready but I also wanted to be fair to him and to the years that we spent together. In retrospect, I wish I would’ve broken up with him sooner and during a less stressful time for me so that I wouldn’t have felt so betrayed and hurt.
5. It put a damper on my super cool career thing. Needless to say, I was super distracted when I got to my job conference. I was bitter as hell and it was really hard for me to feel positive and uplifted about the incredible professional opportunity in front of me because I was in my feelings about the whole breakup. On the outside, I wore my brightest smile and tried to tune into the experience I was having, but on the inside, I was reeling. I’d go back to my hotel room throughout the conference just to cry. It was horrible. I couldn’t do the networking I wanted to do because my energy was totally off.
6. I almost lost it when I saw him again. My ex-boyfriend took off that weekend and I didn’t see him for months. He left a bunch of his stuff at the apartment we shared and he came back to get it a while later. When we saw each other, it was extremely uncomfortable. The air was thick with emotion. All of my unresolved rage came alive through angry words and a flood of tears. I had zero composure. I’m not super proud of my display of raw emotion because I pride myself on being poised, but I’m only human. I practically threw his things at him because I couldn’t wait to get him out of my life for good.
7. His behavior made me lose faith in guys for a while. I took a step back from relationships and dating for many months, even after I saw him for the last time. I desperately needed time to heal from how he treated me. I figured that if one man who professed to love me could leave me in such an abrupt, callous way then all of them could and would. I turned down dates. I didn’t download any dating apps. I basically wanted to throw the whole male gender away.
8. I knew I deserved better, but I wanted him to come crawling back. A huge part of me really wanted him to come crawling back and beg for my forgiveness like all the guys do in the movies. I wanted him to grovel and beg just so I could shut him down in a way that was proportionate to how he treated me that weekend. In all honesty, I wanted retribution. All of this sounds dramatic, I know, but think about a time that someone has hurt you so deeply that revenge feels like the only thing that will make it feel better. I’m not proud of feeling this way, but it’s a deeply human response to have, I think.
9. This was a blessing in disguise. I took some much needed time to reevaluate what I needed in a relationship and how I’d do things differently next time. I got to know myself again because for the first time in years, I was only responsible for myself. There’s something nice about becoming comfortable with cooking only for yourself, taking myself out to eat, and doing a ton of entirely selfish things that made me happy. Plus, when my current boyfriend came along, I was in a much better place to fall in love again because I was healed and I was happy. Healing is SO underrated. Yes, I remain bitter about the events that occurred with my ex, but I also know that I’m better for having gone through it.