Some of you know about this already, some don't.

In about June '08 I met Kellen at Firestone near my apartment. We got to talking and really hit it off. However, she was married so I never pressed any further than that. We exchanged numbers anyway because she said I could come over to their house and they would make dinner for me or whatever.

Fast forward to Dec '08. She texted me for the first time since Firestone and asked what I was doing. I told her I was about to deploy. We kept in touch while I was deployed Jan - May '09, and we talked A LOT. It was during that time that I detected that she was VERY unhappy in her marriage. Her husband treated her VERY badly...mental, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse. They had dated for a year and when we were talking they had been married for 3 years. She said he was the same way when they were dating, that he would even fly out of state to see his ex girlfriend. I asked her why she married him and she said she felt that is what God wanted her to do, and she thought He just wanted her to suffer. I asked her why she thought God would want her to suffer, but she didn't really have an answer. She claimed that she never realized she was being mistreated until I came along and by the time I came home she said she decided to get a divorce. She told me several times I saved her life.

When I got back last year we hung out quite a bit, but it was still just friendship. While I was deployed we said we loved each other, but I thought she meant just as a friend. Anyway, after I got back and we were hanging out, she told me she was getting a divorce and asked if I'd wait for her. I thought she might need some time to heal or something, but I figured she knew what she wanted and what she needed, and I said I would. She was and still is an amazing woman, her whole family is amazing. She was a Spanish teacher at a school in C Springs until last year, and she is VERY fluent. Her sisters and brother can each speak about 4 languages themselves. They are all runners too, some of them marathon runners, but all very healthy people. Kellen and I started dating after she got divorced, and she was simply the sweetest, most thoughtful, and most Christ-like person I'd ever met. She kept extra jackets in her car to give to homeless people. She would plan picnics for us, we attended two weddings together, one of which in Breckenridge and we had a GREAT time together, we went to a Huskers game in Lincoln (she's from NE) together with a couple of my coworkers, it was just an amazing year. We were VERY much in love. She would leave me love notes around the house, messages of love on the bathroom mirror, when she would go on trips she would write a card for me for each day she was gone and date them so I'd have something to open every day. She is a patriot, very smart, very talented, quick witted (which I love), we were just very happy with each other.

When I found out I was getting deployed again this year it hit us both pretty hard, but we were strong so we didn't worry about it much. We had already talked about getting married someday but we were going to wait a couple years. We also talked about having kids together. Before her, I never wanted to get married or have kids with any of my girlfriends because I just couldn't see them as my wife. I had finally found my perfect match and we loved each other immensely. I was the happiest I'd ever been in my life, and I felt my life was finally coming together. Not only was my love life in order, I was getting out of my lease and decided to buy a house, so we shopped around and picked out an AMAZING place. So I really felt like I was finally going to be happy all around. I was ready to raise a family and I never had been before. I was set to deploy in May, and I found out in February or March. We discussed getting married before I left but I felt it would be best to wait because I wasn't sure how well she would handle being apart during the deployment. She assured me she would be fine. She had also told me the day before we left and even before that that even if I didn't want to be with her, that she would fight for us. She also told me that she would sleep on a board as long as we were together. She told me several things that made me never doubt our love or her commitment to me, and I never doubted my love for her and commitment to her either.

Since being over here, things were OK with us for the first couple months or so, really about 3 months. She would have a tough day and ask for a love email, and I'm bad about that so it would take me a couple days but I would send her one. We didn't talk as much as last year because I've been much busier this year, and not to mention I've been working with some idiots this year and just being deployed, it all takes a toll on you. Even in the AF, not being on the front lines, it drives you crazy being stuck here. Either August 1st or the last day of July, I talked to her and she wasn't the same. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was just tired. I could always tell she was keeping something from me, so I kept asking and she started crying and said she wanted to take a step back and move out of the house when I get back and just date. I was hurt but I agreed that we were moving a little fast, since we were set to get married Oct 2nd, right after I get back. So I thought that was it. For the next couple days I barely got an email from her, and we didn't talk at all on the phone. I called her two days after the first conversation and she broke down again and said she wanted to break up completely. She said she wanted to be able to move to Europe and teach if she wants to (her brother is teaching in France), she wants to be able to move back to Lincoln to be with her college friends again, and she wants to pursue her Masters and PhD (but from certain schools, one in Phoenix and one in Connecticut).

So for the past month I've been completely devastated, hardly eating anything, I had a panic attack that first night when I was tryinig to go to bed and I've NEVER had a panic attack before...I'm still a wreck. I just don't understand what happened. She would barely talk to me anymore and I couldn't get any answers from her. If she DID send me an email it lacked any love whatsoever, which is very unlike her. I ran through so many things in my mind...what did I mess up, did I treat her badly, how can I fix this, etc. She told me a couple months ago that she thought I loved my car more than her, and that is SOOOO not the case. One time a couple months ago I couldn't get ahold of her and I left her a message saying "what the hell?" She would not let it go saying I cursed at her. Keep in mind, we NEVER argued, not even once. We were both so laid back that it just never happened. Of course she was still a bit timid from her marriage so she was very apologetic if she even THOUGHT she did something wrong, to which I would hug and kiss her and tell her she was OK and nothing was wrong.

To you guys in the Springs that meet on Friday nights, a lot of you know her and how she is, and how we were together. NO ONE that I've talked to could ever see this happening, not even her parents. They loved me and my parents loved her too. In the past few days I replied to some emails that I hadn't gotten to before and I called her once and left a message and have sent her a few texts. Yesterday I got an email from her and she basically told me to leave her alone and give her space and that I shouldn't contact her parents either (I emailed them the other day to see if they had any answers for me). She said that when she was at her sister's wedding the end of July that she freaked out when they were taking their vows and suddenly couldn't see me as her husband. Funny, because she was the one wanting to get married before I left and would sleep on a board to be with me and would fight for us to stay together. Now? Bailing. Why? Because apparently she can't remember 4 months ago and how happy we were together and thinks that THIS is what life would be like together...I guess.

I still love her and I still think we are a perfect match, but I have to say, now that I've seen this side of her and how heartless she can be, I'm beginning to think I may have dodged a bullet.

damn i'm so sorry love sucks, it's nice when it's nice, but tough when it's tough...
Keep your head up, maybe she'll come around with time, but either way, know that you did your best.

I'm sorry you have had to deal with this. Sometimes we have to look at the positives about situations in order to fully understand why they've happened. I think you're right, that you've dodged a bullet and as time goes on you'll begin to see more and more of the warning signs you may have missed before.

I won't tell you what to do with your life, but I'll tell you that time will take care of the pain and you have to let it do that. I was in the same spot with someone that you were... dated for two years, thought I would marry him but I found out he cheated on me with someone significantly younger and lied to me about it for a year. It absolutely destroyed me. It took me awhile to see how bad he was for me, the place I was in when him and I were together and now, while I'm still hurting, I can see that that wasn't where I was meant to be. Each day gets a bit better. Don't be afraid to talk about it, because keeping it locked up inside makes it ten times worse.

I wish you all the luck in the world in your healing process.

that sucks bro. keep your head up you can get through this.

Sorry man. I honestly fee you got out of a bad situation at the right time. And of course, feel free to call me or email me if you need any support or just to talk.

She's boning the ex.

^^ouch. straight to the point eh?

Sorry to hear this man. All kinds of red flags at the beginning of this thing though. Sounds to me like she doesn't really know what she wants. I know it hurts right now but I'm sure later you will be glad it happened.

Thanks for your support folks.

To answer some posts, and expand...first of all, I'd bet my life that she is NOT boning the ex, but thanks for that dommo lol.

The only warning sign I could MAYBE see in the beginning was that she was just getting out of a bad marriage and might need some time to heal. However, he hadn't been around in a while because he was going to fire fighter training in Ft Collins and she had always been happiest when he wasn't around. She told me one time that she has an easier time being away from someone if they're further away than being in the same town and not being with each other, so that is almost the only thing that I could think of that would remotely explain this. I'm sure I've changed a tad since being here, but it's only temporary because of the people I work with and being deployed in general. I'm always the same person when I get back as before I left. I'm the exact same for the most part, so that brings me to this...A. her love for me in the past was actually complete BS (which our mutual friend and coworker here with me disagrees with, she thinks she was genuine), B. she has forgotten how in love and happy we were, or C. there was a third option I don't remember right now lol.

I've lost quite a bit of weight too. About three weeks ago I saw a chaplain and he told me that he fasted and prayed about marrying his wife, and he suggested I do the same. Back then I thought it might be possible to talk her into staying, but after getting a pretty heartless email from her yesterday I have given up on that. In any case, since I still saw a glimmer of hope, I decided to do that. As far as I know, I hadn't heard anything, and I continued fasting for the past week in addition to the first week, and now I'm just not hungry much anymore. I usually have a very small dinner and I have pop tarts for breakfast, and that's it for a 24 hour period. I also haven't been drinking much water because I'm just not thirsty. I thought about extending over here because there isn't much reason to come home now, but I have a family reunion to attend still and they planned around our wedding and us being home, so that's nice too.

Oh, before I left we cancelled my phone plan and used her ex's phone number for me on her plan. Now she wants me to assume responsibility for it, but I had already told Verizon I wasn't going to go use them again because they kept sending me bills after my account was cancelled. So, I'm thinking about just getting AT&T or something, but I don't want her holding my house for ransom either. She also painted almost every room in the house since I've been gone and I'm not sure I'm going to like it, and she's also been working about 80 hours a week with her weekends working for a tree farm and the majority of the time working as a nanny for a couple doctors with brats for kids. She wants to save the world and gets frustrated when she can't. She wants to change the kids so they will be good but they won't either, and the couple is going to separate. Before, she said that our relationship could serve as an example to them. Whatever.

So I think working that many hours (the only reason she was doing that was to keep her mind off me being gone), dealing with a family that is killing her inside, and forgetting how much we were in love, all rolled up together certainly didn't help keep her love for me. I really hate this.

That sucks man. Really don't know what to tell you but if she started freaking out at her sisters wedding and this has all been going on since then (correct me if I read that wrong) than something about her past must have come through.
Maybe something about her past marraige freaked her out and she doesn't want to go down the same path. Maybe the relationship you two have has been similar to her past one and she is freaking out it may end the same. It could be lots of things though. Who knows really?

Just know that it wasn't anything you did and don't beat yourself up over it. (Even though it's hard to do) If you don't want to be with her either now after seeing how she is, then don't sweat it. Someone better will come around.

Yeah, that was kinda harsh. Sorry for that.

Im sorry to hear that man im only 18 so im not gonna tell you my experiences with love and whatnot haha but i think that she may have a lot of distractions in her life and thats stressing her out and then there is one thing in her life that is at its weakest link and that is your relationship and you being deployed and i think her stress is just breaking that connection if that makes any sense. i would say make sure you can get all of your things like your house and phone service under control then once you get back sit down and talk things out i hope to god everything is okay between you two man good luck

-grant

love = sucks
wish it wasn't that way, but so far seems so.
any happy peeps out there?

Thanks guys.

From the things she told me about when she was with him, NOTHING about our relationship was the same. But she said when she heard her sister and husband (who just graduated from the Academy this year btw) taking their vows, she realized that we would be getting married soon and she thought of her last marriage and didn't want to do that again so soon. I told her I thought it was fast too and we didn't have to get married anytime soon, but now she tells me she doesn't see me as anything more than a friend. Gimme a break.

Another thing that has been getting to her is that all her friends from the Academy graduated this year so she believes all her friends are leaving and she's stuck there friendless, which isn't true at all. Backstory...her new brother-in-law is a family friend from NE. Both of their families grew up together and when his older brother attended the USAFA she wrote to him and everyone thought THEY would get married. Anyway, when this one attended, she was already in Co Springs and would have him and his friends come over to their house on their weekends off or whatever. So she became friends with all his friends and would always hang out with them. Not they've graduated and are gone, she's working 80 hours a week, taking care of the house while I'm gone, working with a family that's killing her, her (former) best friend and fiance has been gone for 3 months (at the time)...it all adds up, but she won't see that. This is the EXACT reason I didn't want to get married before I left. I mean, I didn't think she'd actually leave me, but I figured she might want to take a step back or something.

What kills me is that I'm NOTHING like her ex. I don't control her at all, she's as free as a bird to do whatever she wants. I didn't abuse her in ANY way, we loved each other like crazy. I had no problem with her attending one of the schools to get her Masters and PhD, as long as we stayed together, and I told her that. If she were stronger, we could have done that. But she is too weak I guess. There were times when I would reach up to scratch my nose or something and she would flinch. The first time it happened I thought I'd lost my mind. She said that she was afraid I was going to hit her. I NEVER wanted to hit her, never even crossed my mind, not even now after what she's done. And then the way she was about when she thought she'd done something wrong and she would wince and kinda bring her arms in and close up and keep saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry". It was heartbreaking. The weekend we were leaving to attend the Huskers game, I went to her apartment and she had pulled something off a shelf and a container dropped on her head and she had trouble seeing and was dizzy and all that. I told her I wanted to take her to the hospital but she kept saying she didn't have money for that or want to pay for it. She said she would usually go to the chiropractor so I said I would take her there but she said she was fine and didn't want to do that either. I told her I was taking her no matter what because I wanted to make sure she was OK, and as I grabbed her hand she slid down the wall and said "no please don't make me go, please, please", like a child. Another heartbreaker.

She said that right before she broke it off with me, her sister (that just got married) was at our house with her and she was crying and told her that she (Kellen) had to do something because she was so sad. Um, HELLO, her fiance is gone and she's going through all this other crap! OF COURSE she's unhappy...for the time being! So basically she chose her family and friends over me. I don't want that in a wife. If I'm going to choose her over my family, I must have the same in return.

As far as talking things out when I get back, I think she's closed her mind off to that. I won't know for sure until I get there, but it looks that way at this point. If she is requesting time apart and all that, I seriously doubt she will want to even see me when I get back.

Pretty much the same thing happened to my deployment commander 2 years ago when he was out here, and he said that his time AND this time for me were both chicken-shit moves, breaking up with someone because it's easy for you to do it while they're away and can't do anything about it. His wife of 9 years decided she wanted to be young again after her 20 y.o. cousin came to visit, so she ran off with a pastor that he grew up with. They have two boys also. That was 1 month into his deployment...luckily ours are only 4/4.5 months and not a year like the Army, I can't imagine spending any more time thinking about this than the month that I've put into it, much less 3 months or a year. Although at this point I'm completely dead inside and staying here a few more months wouldn't hurt me at all right now. I'm not even looking forward to working on the car when I get back, I find joy in nothing anymore. The only thing I want to do is sleep because it's the only time I'm remotely happy.

If I concentrate on the VERY VERY few things that I didn't like, I can be somewhat content. But when I start thinking of all the good times we had together it starts to kill me and I start losing my faith and start thinking that she was the one and I somehow messed it up. Last year she bought tickets for us to see Seinfeld, as I'm a huge Seinfeld fan. Then after the show she took me to The Famous, an expensive steakhouse downtown. We went to Skysox games together and had so much fun. We went for a walk one time with Tank (her AWESOME dog that brought us together at Firestone) on the trail next to the Academy, and we sat on a bench together and just looked at the mountains as the sun was going down. She was passionate, romantic, fun, thoughtful...and so many other things. She was everything I ever looked for in a wife, even more than I looked for, she was my everything. We did pretty much everything together too, and always had fun doing whatever it was.

I think my main downfall was that I didn't answer her emails enough or fast enough sometimes. She sent me an email on facebook back in December and it was pretty long. I had opened it and said I'd go back and read it but I forgot about it and didn't think about it again until she mentioned it when breaking up with me. I went back and read it and she was saying in the email that she wished she had a cool car like we did and that she made more money so she could buy me car parts instead of giving me "stupid burnt CDs (of lovesongs), cards or cartoon clippings from the newspaper". That really broke my heart. I ALWAYS loved her gifts, because they were from the heart. I didn't WANT her to buy me car parts, I can buy those myself. She gave me things I could never get for myself. I hated myself for not responding back then and reassuring her yet again that I loved her gifts. I still kick myself for that. I really hope that she goes and works out her issues and then remembers our love and comes back someday, because other than a couple small things I still think we were perfect together.

Last year when she asked if I would wait for her, I said yes, but inside I was hesitant because I thought we might be better as friends. But, I figured she saw something that I didn't, so I gave it a shot. Since then my love grew for her to something I never could have imagined and now she is the one not seeing our love and the happiness we had and could still have together.

Ugh, man, SO sorry to hear this. I've been through a similar situation before, though not to the point where we were ready to get married. I dated a girl for five months, we were very much in love (or so I thought), everything was great. Then she went on vacation for a month, and when she came back nothing was the same. She didn't even want to see me. I kept asking, did I do something wrong? Can you please just tell me honestly what's wrong so we can talk about it? Come to find out she had been both verbally and physically abused in several relationships before, and was incredibly afraid of commitment. Being on vacation I guess she realized that she liked the single life and wasn't ready to be in a serious relationship.

At any rate my point is, you've just gotta keep in mind that it's not your fault, at least from what I can tell. Sure, you may be kicking yourself over a couple things you think you did wrong, but if she really loved you and wanted to be with you, she would understand. I'm no psychologist, but I do know that trauma is one of the hardest things to get over---because, after being traumatized, people subconsciously continue to seek out that trauma, despite how much they hated it. It's one of the more bizarre aspects of the human mind. In shunning you, it seems like she is reaching out for the very thing she supposedly doesn't want.

Either that or like others have said, she must have just realized that she wasn't ready, and has her mind set on rejecting any kind of romantic relationship, no matter what her heart feels. I'll bet she is probably very conflicted over things despite what she's written. It's easy to hide feelings in emails. But, my advice to you is this: don't look back. Don't entertain the thought of getting back together, no matter how much you might want to. With therapy and such you may be friends (or at least on hospitable terms) again, but in the time that takes, I bet you'll find someone who is better for you.