Dear Auntie,
I broke up with my girlfriend about a year ago. I have still not moved on. I am actually in some confusion wondering if I did the right thing. We were part of a group of four friends at university. We had a lot of fun together, but things became complex when she grew close to another guy in the group. It irritated me a lot. I told her that I am not comfortable with it and it frustrated me. I was not against her friendship with him, it was just the things they were doing which irritated me. It was a little too much for me to take, as I was in a serious relationship with her.

Time passed, we graduated, and I forgot about all those things. I tried my best to keep her happy, and I told my parents that I wanted to marry her, and they agreed. Then I came to know that she was still meeting that guy and spending time with him despite my telling her not to. She had agreed not to have any contact with him. Finally, it became so unbearable for me that I had to break up with her.

Throughout our relationship, she never admitted at any stage that she was wrong so she never apologised. She always called me close-minded, over-possessive, etc. I need your advice about whether I was right in breaking up with her or was it stupid of me.

‘Was it stupid of me to break up with her?’

Dear Move-On-Love,
The real question here is not whether how you behaved was right or wrong. The real question is what are you doing to move on from your ex-girlfriend. We will discuss your jealousy later. In the meantime, let’s focus. Now that almost a year has passed on, it is time to pull yourself together and really throw yourself into your life. You talk about university being over, but you do not mention work. Do you have a job or your own business? Do you enjoy it? If you do, throw yourself into your work and if you don’t have any, start looking for something that you do enjoy. This is the time to take charge of your social life and start hanging out with friends and family. If you don’t have good friends, now is the time to seek out new people to hang out with. Work on yourself and your self esteem and make a concerted effort to throw yourself into your life. This includes not looking back, so stop stalking your ex on social media and avoid doing anything that reminds you of her.  Keep yourself really busy in finding things you want to do and then doing them.  Add some fun music (no sad, wailing songs please) to whatever you are doing, and Auntie promises you, it will lift your day.

Use the time in which you are single to work on yourself  and tackle ‘issues’ like your jealousy, which have affected your previous relationship. The only red flag in your story is that your girlfriend continued to meet her friend without telling you. This is not to say that she shouldn’t have met her friend but she should have told you who she was meeting — especially since this was such a charged issue between you two.  

Use the time in which you are single to work on yourself  and tackle ‘issues’ like your jealousy, which have affected your previous relationship.

For easier relationships in future, just remember, we don’t own the people we go out with or marry. No one loses the right to hang out with people they like just because they are part of a couple. They also don’t lose the right to have their own life and neither do you. There’s just a line that no one who is part of a monogamous couple should cross. Just know what it is and trust. Don’t try and control anyone. It only leads to heartache, as you have seen.

Auntie will not reply privately to any query. Please send concise queries to: auntieagni@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 17th, 2019