Help me figure out why my girlfriend left me

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My girlfriend of nearly 9 months broke up with me today. In fact, I think she’s been planning to do it for nearly two weeks, since she came home from being a counsellor in training at her sleepover camp. Before camp we were totally in love- she even cried the last night we were together. She was away for 2 months and in between she had a day at home, and it still seemed like we had a great relationship. Once she got home she was acting strangely, like she wouldn’t let me kiss her or be affectionate. I went on vacation for a week so barely saw her until tonight, when she broke the news. The truth is she is not very confrontational and it was probably hard to break it to me. I sense that she’s had her mind set since before she came home.

It’s obvious to me that she really misses camp, but she says that the break-up wasn’t about camp. She said she didn’t meet someone there. Just that “she needs some time alone” (I have the transcript online if that might help anyone).

The story of the camp- she lived with maybe 25 other girls, and the CITS pretty much didn’t have strict curfews and did what they pleased- when I saw her at the midway point and when she was home for good she was EXHAUSTED. She said they stayed up late at night talking and chilling and such. The day she got home for good, she slept from 2:00 PM to 10:00 the next morning! It is an all-girls camp, but there is a brother camp that they get together with for dances and some other events.

Something that bothers me most is that there is an unusually large amounts of lesbians at camp- I am assuming because the girls spend so much time together and “experiment”. In other words, the lesbians don’t flock to the camp, the camp turns them into lesbians. (It is actually a Jewish camp, so no reason to have so many lesbians). I am very worried that this is why she broke up with me- she’s questioning her sexuality. I am more mad that she’d be hiding the truth from me than that she actually broke it off.

There are a few good reasons to suspect that this is what happened. She has a good camp friend who is a lesbian. I believe she came back as a CIT this year. She also said she became really close with a few CITs, as in they could be her best and closest friends. They have so much free time late at night, I can certainly see her experimenting. Also, when she got home she said she decided not to apply to her first choice college, and just wanted to go to a “small, birkenstock-wearing hippie school”. She honestly said that. She is kind of alternative already- she’s a vegetarian and is an artist, and is in to the whole idea of alternativity but really doesn’t embrace it too closely.

Either camp has influenced her to make the decision, or a sexual incident did- that’s all I can really imagine happened. It seems like she is depressed that camp is over and school is starting, so maybe that could be the reason.

I talked to a friend who was a CIT at the brother camp to see if any of his female friends knew of an “incident” or any at all. He said that she didn’t fall for a guy, that’s for certain. Also a supportive ex-camper said she’d ask her old camp friends.

It’s really much more painful to suspect that she’s hiding things from me than the actual break up. I want to confront her with how I feel but I don’t know if she would reveal why she broke up with me.

I talked to her best friend after she did the deed (this is a home friend, not camp friend). She said that she hasn’t seen her lately but it seems like she really misses camp. She said that maybe she just feels the need for change or some such…it felt contrived. She said that my gf didn’t tell her about any incidents, and she probably would’ve. I’d like to believe her, but if she was told anything she’d keep it from me.

If anyone could give me some advice, something to say to her to get a response…anything. This is a hard time and I’m taking it well, it is just my suspicions which are most painful. In fact it is 4:30 and I haven’t been able to sleep at all. It is quite strange- at first I was very upset that it happened, not I am mostly upset that there seems to be something she’s hiding from me. I can’t stop thinking about what could have happened at camp that made her do this.
Thanks guys…support and suggestions are welcome and needed.

2

Maybe I came off a little paranoid…while I suspect that something could have happened at camp, it’s only a suspicion. She misses camp and her friends a lot, and I think she’s going through a lot of stress from school starting and college applications. It’s just bothering because she says that :poof :her mind tells her not to be involved in our relationship when I know something is really the matter with her. I’m concerned as a friend, but she’s always been very introverted with everything. It hurts a lot.

3

OK, a few things, probably none of which are particularly helpful…

I really really doubt that there’s any such thing as a camp (or any other thing) that turns people into Lesbians. However, some people might experiment and I suppose it’s not impossible that they might ‘discover’ why nothing ever seemed right before. I don’t know if this is the case or not, but I can’t imagine it’s all that common.

You managed to have a working relationship for 9 months, so you obviously don’t smell funny or have three heads.

It may be that you’re never going to know the truth about why it all went wrong; whatever the real reason, it may just be something that she either doesn’t want to talk about, or maybe even doesn’t herself fully understand or know how to express and it may be nothing more than that the camp allowed her some space to collect her thoughts and make some decisions about where her life is going and where she wants it to go.

Obviously it would be good to know if there’s anything you did or didn’t do that precipitated it all; if you’re going to try to get her to tell you the truth (assuming she can), there’s no point in trying to be forceful about it; about the best you can do is to politely ask her to please favour you with the unvarnished truth, but if she genuinely does feel that it isn’t anything you really need to know about, you’re going to have to suck it up and live with that. Sorry.

4

Lesbian girl camp? I was at one that had bi-sexual women. All over the place. Lots of water fights. And pillow fights. Hmmm, the memories.

No, wait, I just wanted to go to one of those.

Seriously Splanky, take it from someone who had been dumped a lot before getting married at 25 yo. It’s gonna happen, its not always going to be your fault, and they’re not always gonna tell you why. That said, don’t make a scene with her, don’t go into the obsessive zone, and lump this one out until you feel up to trying again with someone else. You’ll survive.

5

I’m amused that if she dumped you, she MUST be a lesbian :wink:

I’m just messin’ with you, relax.

I can’t remember much lesbian-ing going on at camp when I was a kid. I lived in Kentucky, though, where they don’t really have lesbians. They just have girls who know how to fix a car.

It’s anyone’s guess why she broke up. People are crazy.

6

You’re in high school – at that age, 9 months is a long relationship. Ya done good. Now it’s time to move on.

7

My guess is that she sneaked over to the boy’s camp and got laid. Now she feels guilty and she just wants you to think the camp turned everyone into lesbians because she knows the thought of her being with another guy will destroy your sense of masculinity and leave you a wimpering shell of your former self.

Or maybe your relationship has just ran its course.

I’m betting on the latter.

8

There are so many reasons this could have happened - from not being ready for a long-term relationship, to being attracted to someone else, or confusion over her sexuality or a whole host of other reasons; however, it doesn’t seem like it had anything to do with you or something you did wrong. It seems as though it’s something she’s thought about for a long time, and that she really does need to think about things, as she told you.

It really, really sucks, but it’s true: these things do happen. Try to ride out the pain, talk to your closest friends if you need to - they’ll support you, and you can talk about how weird girls are. It will stop hurting eventually.

I’m sorry this had to happen to you, but you’re in high school on the verge of going to college. Enjoy your senior year and look forward to the great time you’ll have in college.

9

Like the others have said, there aren’t any camps that turn girls into lesbians. Heck, there isn’t anything that “turns” anyone gay or lesbian, that we know of - people just seem to be born with their sexuality regardless of what it is, and have to figure it out at some point in their life.

If there in fact are an “unusually high” number of lesbians at that camp, I suspect it’s some combination of the fact that it’s an all-girls camp and thus you have a much larger group of women than you would at a coed camp, plus camping/outdoorsy stuff is more stereotypically a “masculine” thing and lesbian women might feel less reserved about getting involved with something that isn’t “feminine.” Not to mention things like sexual experimentation out of curiosity that might be tossed aside later as not being their cup of tea and, as someone else mentioned, the possibility of some women discovering “wait a minute, now I know why I had nagging feelings that something wasn’t right…”

I’ve mentioned before on this board that the guy who I dated for a few years and once thought was the love of my life turned out to be gay. He became more and more distant until I broke up with him, but for the majority of the relationship, we were close, happy, and from all appearances very much in love. He had been raised a strict Catholic and didn’t even realize the truth of his sexuality until later in the relationship when he’d gone off to college away from me. So yes, there is a chance that maybe your ex-girlfriend came to a similar realization, and doesn’t want to hurt you by telling you that.

However, that’s a pretty small chance, I suspect, and what might have happened is that she just “moved on” without you. If you mentioned anything about age I missed it, but you two sound like you’re pretty young. High school, high-school-into-college, and college relationships can be fairly short-lived, as during that age span, who you are as a person and what you want out of life are changing dramatically. Even your taste in a partner changes. The man I ended up marrying is in many ways completely different from what I thought I wanted in a future husband, but we’re best friends and very comfortable together.

Sometimes, you don’t get answers about why a relationship ended, about why someone you used to love just changed. I thought it was going to be that way with my ex, until we spoke years later and he admitted what had been bothering him at the time. Most people aren’t so lucky as to get some kind of answer that satisfies their curiosity - sometimes “it was time to move on” or “we’re not right for each other any longer” is the only answer you get, or it’s the real answer but not a satisfying one.

10

Whoops, I just skimmed the part about her college choice - so I was accurate with my age estimation. I’ll reaffirm the part about people changing a lot during those years. I changed where I wanted to study, what I wanted to study, I went vegetarian, and so on. I’m afraid you might have just run into her growing apart from you.

I wish you the best in trying to move on and heal. I know all too well how much that kind of thing hurts terribly, and I hope you’ll trust me when I say it is possible (not to mention almost certain) to get past all that hurt and find someone else right for you.

11

Sometimes, having a major change of scenery for an extended period of time can cause people to reassess their lives and their plans. It’s not necessarily a single incident that triggers this. Being at camp, where you’re in constant contact with nature and you have to make do without a lot of little everyday luxuries, can really bring home the concept that there are different ways to look at life. And it’s not something that they’ll set out to* hide,* either; its a shift in worldview, and how do you sit down and explain that to someone in 1000 words or fewer?

She’s scrapping her original choice of college and planning to go to a much smaller school? No offense intended, but this will be a much more life-impacting decision for her than breaking up with a high-school boyfriend will be. You’ve said she’s kind of into alternativity but doesn’t embrace it too closely - maybe that’s changed, and maybe she couldn’t see you changing with her.

(BTW, none of this means that it was a sexual experience that “changed her mind.” You can’t “turn somebody into a lesbian.” They either are already (perhaps not having realized it yet) or they aren’t. Your imaginings of experimental lesbian camp orgies is frankly odd.)

12

Sorry about the bad news. As others have said, at your age, you’re better off not looking back.

As for why she broke up with you, my bet is that there is no good reason. Folks your age do crazy things for very little reason. Especially chicks. :slight_smile:

13

Huh? Anyone want to explain this?

14

Exactly what I was going to say. I used to work at a Scout Camp as a councelor. For 7 weeks, I would be out there on my own, independent of family and my normal circle of friends. When I was done, I know I was markedly changed. I don’t know what it was that changed me, but I remember feeling more confident about myself when I left.

Perhaps her experience was similar and there was no one thing there that made her break up with you.

15

Ditto, including getting married at 25. I was in a similar situation, but with this in reverse. I went off to college, she finished her senior year at high school. I came back for spring break, and things were cool, and even cooler when I came home for the summer. She never did/could tell me why except for the “I need time alone” line. I wasted a lot of energy and time beating myself over it (As luck would have it, we found each other again many uears later and talked about it; she didn’t understand why she broke up with me either).

Relationships often start out with very intense feelings related to a period of infatuation lasting about 4 - 6 weeks. After that, you have gotten to know each other, and begin to see each other as you really are, without the infatuation. If there are enough things in common and the maturity is present, a friendship develops and can grow. Otherwise, the relationship fades. And you learn and move on. I can’t stress that enough (well, I could underline it and put it italics…). Seriously, you kept a relationship going longer than many during the high school/college years, so it is possible. Take some time for yourself, and then go out and be social again.

ROFLMAO!! Does that include Metro Louisville? :wink:

Vlad/Igor

16

I saw that you were in Baltimore too, Splanky, and I was going to offer to buy you a beer and we could commiserate about women…

But not if twickster is right and you’re still in high school. Buy your own beer! :stuck_out_tongue:

Seriously, what part of town are you in?

17

I laughed pretty hard at that one, but I think it was just a clumsy way of expressing that it’s a “normal” camp, instead of a retreat for, uh, LGBT teens?

18

I agree with Jenaroph. Sometimes just getting away on your own can cause you to reassess things. My guess is that she realized she wasn’t ready to be committed to one person right now, or she realized her feelings for you had cooled, or maybe she just wanted to make some changes for the sake of making changes.

Really, don’t try to figure it out. It won’t make it hurt less, and it won’t change anything. Take some time to be sad about it, and then move on.

Also, don’t play the “concerned as a friend” role. You may feel it to be true, but right now, like it or not, your primary relationship with this girl is ex-boyfriend. If you keep your distance for a while, there’s a good chance you guys can be friends again, but right now it’s unlikely that can work right away.

19

Thanks for the response guys…just a few comments.

  1. Obviously you can’t be turned into a lesbian. What I meant is that people notice that there are a lot of open lesbians there- partly because it seems to be a very liberal place, and maybe because of the experimentation. People actually do talk and joke all the time about how the camp is full of lesbians (This is Camp Louise in MD btw).
    What I was worried about was that being around these girls so long may have led to some experimenting, and maybe she is stressed and confused about her sexuality. It seems plausible at least.

  2. Feel I need to be concerned as a friend and I’m definitely not the only one. All of her freinds have pointed out that she doesn’t make plans with anyone any more- she just stays at home. In fact, one of her closest friends thinks she doesn’t like her anymore because she’s been neglected all of a sudden.
    I think she’s seriously depressed, and a lot of other people who know her well do too. Also, I have been friends with her since before we were together and we’re in the same “group”. We were friends above anything, or at least thats how it felt.

I do think she’s changed as Dragwyr said, but I don’t think it’s good that she’s isolated herself from her friends. I don’t think she can cope with these changes and even moreso, coming back to reality after 2 months.

av8rmike I live in the county. Owings Mills raise a bell? If I could I’d probably be at a bar right now drinking away the tears.

I really feel like I want to confront her about all this strictly as a friend, because I feel bad that it’s all happening to her. I think I’ll just wait it out and see if school puts her back to semi-normality.

20

Whenever this has happened to me in the past, it’s because there was…another guy. Not much you can do about it, sorry.