2: Break up with Jade in My own struggles

The story starts on Saturday 28th November 2015. At this point, i would say life is good. I just switched jobs internally at work following on from 2 years of struggles at work. I’m living in a beautiful 3 bed house in Milton Keynes which remains the nicest house I’ve ever lived in. We had 2 cats - Socks and Fudge. As well as Lauren, i really miss these 2 cats. If you ever had a bad day at work, which for me at this point was quite often, they would just jump on your lap and purr at you. It was so relaxing and nice. Really made me happy.

And then i had Jade. We had been together for 8 years but hadn’t been engaged yet. The thought had cross my mind to take the plunge but more often than not i held myself back. I just admit that this was due to my dad and brother having split ups with their wives with dad having decided to have an affair to end his marriage and my brother was more respectful in just saying he didn’t love his wife anymore. The other reason for not proposing to Jade was also sad to say was that i couldn’t afford an engagement ring. I wasn’t very good with saving money (barely any better now!) and wasn’t helped by being a contractor, meaning that to keep up with payments etc. i had to work extra hours more often than not being on an hourly rate.

We were getting ready to go to a party at my dad’s house. I just finishing off getting ready putting on my aftershave in the bathroom. She walks in as says i look nice. We had a kiss and then she puts her arms around the back of my neck hanging on and looks at me and says “Babe, can we talk?” I reply “Sure. What about?” A bit of a brief pause before she carries to say “About us......”

She went on to say on that she was concerned about how our relationship was going. I must admit when i hearing her out that the penny didn’t drop for me. I actually blamed it on her job as she was constantly moaning how she hated her job and hated some of the people she worked with as it was affecting her attitude. But not for once did i think that her change of attitude was down to me.

As she finished opening up about her concerns, she tried to persuade me that we should stay in and not go to the party but i thought this would have been unfair to pull out at the very last minute especially when we were about to leave. I told her that it would be a quiet get together. When we got there, it was anything but quiet! And this made things even more awkward between me and Jade.

The journey up to dad’s was okay. I put on a Motorsport podcast that we both enjoyed listening to on a regular basis. I could sense a change in attitude from her but thought that things would be okay. As we arrived at the party and could see that the house was full, that awkwardness from Jade only intensified and actually put me in a difficult spot. It was worse as the night went on. She became more anti-social and i was just clueless as to what to do. As we went to bed at the end of the night, she asked me if i have given any thought to what she said and if i would try and improve on anything. I said i would.

We did have a passionate kiss when we got back home but looking back on it, this was to see if she felt any magic and passion with me. That was the last kiss i ever had with Jade but i weren’t to know at the time. There were no more discussions until the following Wednesday but even the day after i could sense the penny had dropped for me. My relationship was severely under threat. And it was affecting me in every way.

I got into work on Monday and one of my colleagues, Sarah, could tell that i wasn’t okay. I explained her what had happened from the weekend just gone without sugar coating it. Even when i was explaining all this to Sarah i was still in a state of confusion and now, fear. The quality of my work suffered from the point of that weekend as i just couldn’t concentrate on the job in hand. I was making too many mistakes.

By the time Wednesday evening came round, there was still some awkwardness in the air between me and Jade. I could really sense it and wanted it to stop. I said to her “What’s going on? I don’t like this situation.” She really didn’t know either at this point and burst into tears. I was upset too but didn’t really cry until we went to bed when i had a little weep. Jade had said she was going up to her parents for the weekend just so we could have a little break from each other. I would do my own thing by going out with my work colleagues on Friday night followed by working on a car rally at Rockingham. The rally was a good distraction as it kept me busy and was something new for me to do.

Sunday 6th December, i was coming home that night from the car rally where i get a phone call from my dad. I explained what had gone on with Jade as described before in this chapter. I also got news from my dad that my cousin was going to jail for sexual assault. I won’t be mentioning his name on here for the sake of privacy. Fair to say this sent shock waves through my family, close and extended. Weirdly, it gave my own problems a bit of a welcome break as i could switch off from what was going on with my life. I rang my grandma after to check if she was okay. I had planned to stay with her for the following week but only told Jade Sunday night that i would be going to help support grandma with this recent trauma.

Fair to say staying that the week staying with grandma had been long. I had no contact from Jade until Wednesday when i got a text saying she wanted to speak to me. I asked if this could be done via a phone call but she said no. This had to be done face to face. In the back of my mind at this point, i kinda knew that it was over. But i used the time at Grandma’s to reflect and note down what i had gone wrong and what i would try and do to make things right. And that would be my strategy, to go in straight away and convince of her that i was being honest. I agreed that i would be back home on Friday.

Friday 11th December, i finished work at 3.30pm. I was nervous as hell. I went back via the florist to buy Jade some flowers. As soon as i opened the front door and came through holding the flowers, she looked at me and came straight to hug me and cried on my shoulder. I was trying to keep steady and i said to her it’s okay, not knowing how the next few minutes would pan out. The talks began and i started things off by saying on the things that i reflected on when i was staying at grandma’s. But it was to no avail. The last thing i said to her before she spoke is that i believed in us and i wanted to relationship to continue. She shook her head and said she didn’t want to. The ending quote from Jade was “I think we need to call it”. From that moment, it was clearly over. I was absolutely shattered. For the first time in years, i actually burst into tears.

It was fair to say that i was experiencing things i had never experienced before. Before Jade, i only ever had 1 girlfriend called Amy but we only went out 1.5 months which certainly doesn’t compare to 8 years i had with Jade. Not only was i heartbroken i was numb, dazed, confused but most of all, just sad.

I knew from here on in that things wouldn’t be the same again.