This girl was my first love. We met in high school and also lived in the same apartment complex. In our sophomore year, during a New Year's gift exchange raffle, I was drawn as her Secret Santa — she gave me the best New Year's gift I'd ever received. In junior year, by coincidence, she was drawn for me and I bought her a gift. By that point I was completely in love with her, thinking about her every day, but I couldn't confess. I was afraid that if I did and she didn't feel the same way, I'd lose her as a friend too.
When university application season came, we lost touch for a while — but somehow we both ended up choosing the same department. After all these coincidences, I started believing she was meant to be in my life. Even in our first year of university, I still couldn't bring myself to confess. I did invite her to the theater as friends once — we had a wonderful time — but I couldn't say anything that evening either. She never really gave me any clear signs either way, and I kept telling myself that if she liked me, she'd show it somehow.
Eventually I decided I had turned her into an obsession and needed to move on. For a few months I tried shifting my focus to other girls, but nothing serious came of it — just some Instagram chats about movies, music, that kind of thing. Then it hit me: why am I messaging other people when I haven't even told the person I actually love how I feel? I figured I should at least find out, even if she said no. So I finally confessed — and she said yes. It felt like a dream.
Around that time, I was still casually chatting with someone I'd been talking to on Instagram before. I told her I had a girlfriend, and I even mentioned to my gf once that I'd be meeting this person as a friend. But three months into our relationship, my girlfriend brought it up and said she was hurt that I was still talking to someone I had previously tried my luck with. I explained that it was nothing serious, and I cut off all contact with that person entirely out of respect for her feelings.
Despite that, my girlfriend spent an entire year quietly torturing herself over it instead of talking to me. This issue kept resurfacing throughout our 5-year relationship — almost every month or two — and every time, I felt terribly guilty and apologized, even though I had done so countless times already. Even in unrelated arguments, somehow the conversation would always circle back to this. That was the first major issue in our relationship.
The second major issue came in our third year together. She went to another city for a three-month internship. During that time, she went out with a group of friends two nights in a row, and both nights I couldn't reach her to know she'd gotten home safe. I went through two nightmare nights — sleepless, consumed by worry. On the morning after the second night, she called and told me that a guy who had walked her home had kissed her. I was furious after two nights of emotional buildup, and I told her I hated her. I cut off contact for a week or two and deleted our messages, convinced I needed to remove her from my life.
She told me she was deeply sorry and didn't want to throw away three years. We slowly started reconnecting — but when she found out I had deleted our messages, she pulled back from the relationship for about two months. I spent that time chasing after her, not knowing whether she'd come back or not. It was emotionally exhausting. Eventually we got back together. I asked her to remove that guy from Instagram — she did. But two months later, he sent her a follow request and she accepted it. That really bothered me, and it caused friction between us on and off. That was the second major issue.
Now, the final chapter. After we graduated, I wanted us to build a shared plan for the future. Without telling me anything beforehand, she announced that she had been accepted into a master's program in another city and was going. When I asked why she hadn't mentioned applying at any point, she got upset — saying I wasn't being supportive of something that was good for her. I fully supported her after that, and even though I had a very demanding work schedule, I made the train journey to her city every two weeks.
I had always planned to pursue a master's degree abroad — something I'd talked about openly for four years. That time was now approaching, about five months away, though I hadn't even been accepted yet, I had only applied. In the last month, we had some small arguments about old issues and about the distance we'd face in the future. I never wanted to break up — I thought these were just normal relationship bumps. She had even sent me a message just a month ago saying "I always want to be with you." Then, a week ago, she broke up with me.
Her reason was that if I went abroad, the distance would be too hard and things would go wrong. I was completely blindsided. She was ice-cold about it. Throughout our relationship, she had met my family and I had met her mother. We used to talk about marriage, growing old together. I can't understand how someone can go from "I always want to be with you" to a breakup in the span of a month.
We even had concert tickets booked for about a month from now. When she ended things, all she said was that she felt empty. She also mentioned that the last few weeks had been hard for her too, and that breaking up had crossed her mind more than once. In those final months of long-distance, she had become very jealous and controlling about what I was doing day-to-day. When she broke up with me, she said: "I wasn't like this before — I'm not happy with who I've become." What she was referring to was that unresolved situation from the beginning of our relationship. That event had clearly left a deep mark on her, and it remained a source of tension for all five years. No matter how much I tried, how much time and energy I gave — it came to this.
It's been about a week since we last spoke. She was posting normal Stories on Instagram as if nothing had happened, and seeing that was painful, so I removed her from all my social media. She then sent me a message saying "I can't just delete everything and move on like you can." — but she was the one who ended things.
I genuinely don't know how to process this or move forward after 5 years. Any advice is appreciated.