Here’s a bit of backstory. My friends and my (now ex, probably for good reason) girlfriend have always butted heads. We’re still in high school, I’m a part of the stoner group at school and my gf has always hated this. We would also vape, and she’s always said she hated this. She would guilt trip me and say that I don’t care about her because I fail to realize that if I get popped I can’t see her. This got to me so much that I quit just for her, and even then she accused me of quitting to appease her feelings and not because I genuinely wanted to. Whenever other girls came into the picture remotely, she would need to be there physically with me, and she literally admitted to her being jealous and not wanting me to “see something I shouldn’t” regardless of whether I made the right choices should the situation arise that another girl is into me. My friends took notice and tried to initially get me to drop her, but they realized that they were being dicks about it and that they should respect my decision. 

The thing is though, it hasn’t impacted my life. I get good grades, I have AP classes in my schedule, and I’m always happy to take a night in if stuff needs to get done. I play sports and I’m involved with clubs, so it’s not like I have no life or anything. 

Fast forward to the situation. It’s homecoming time, and there’s two groups we could have gone with, her friends or mine, we could have gone either way. I ask her if she wants to go with her friends, she said she doesn’t mind going with mine. She takes charge on most of the planning and nips it in the bud right away. A mutual “friend,” who I’ve had a history with, starts says shit in our gc to stop being controlling and even goes so far as to call her a bitch. No one acknowledges this or seems to care, so I pass it off as him being toxic because we have beef and he’s just doing it for the hell of it. I don’t volunteer to leave the group or anything because by that point her friends have already had their plans made and I thought it would be unfair to expect them to be accommodating to me and my ex. I also didn’t want to stir the pot this close to homecoming either. 

I get a call from her later in the day, and she’s crying her eyes out asking why I didn’t say anything to the toxic guy. I saw where she was coming from, and I realize that maybe I was being an ass by not showing anyone there that I had a spine. The next day, she bows out of the group herself and tells me to have fun with my friends, and she gets a group going with some other of her girlfriends who weren’t in the group that we initially could have gone with. After school that day, I get an angry text from her mom, who is extremely close with my ex and are basically best friends. She accused me of letting people think that my ex was crazy, controlling, and manipulative. 

I ask one of my closer friends about the situation, and he says that even though he respects my decision he says he’s seen red flags. Mind you I’ve known this guy since 2nd grade and he’s never done me dirty. I ask another one of my close friends and he says that he notices parts of our relationship that aren’t all that healthy, and his opinion is that he thinks I would be better off without her. 

Nevertheless, I still feel bad that I was being the reason all this drama was happening. I go and ask my mom for advice, and so since she doesn’t know much about my friends and what we do I think she has an inflated image of me in her mind and doesn’t know how trashy we can be. She says that my ex is being manipulative and that she doesn’t deserve me, but I hang out with a bunch of potheads so I really can’t see how I would be deserving of a girl who is definitely out of my league both physically and socially. 

I still feel bad that she’s hurt by this, and at this time I hear from my ex that her dad knows. I freak out. He gave me the dad talk when we first started dating, and I feel like I broke that implied trust that I would protect her no matter what. I tweak and literally write an apology letter to him, much to the dismay of everyone else in my life. I hear from her mom again a few hours after I put it in their mailbox, and she says she appreciates the gesture and whatever my ex and I decide to do with the relationship her and her dad would both support us. At this point I really can’t blame her for bringing out the mama bear claws, it’s only natural for a mom to want to protect her daughter. 

Things are tense and we don’t really talk until the day of homecoming. On the day we discuss what to do, I’ll still go to dinner with my friends, and she goes to dinner with her group, but I meet up with her for pictures after and we go to the dance together. We go our separate ways to different afterparties after the dance. That night, we meet up for pictures after dinner and everything seems to be going smoothly, until an hour after we pull up to the dance. We’re in a big mosh pit with a mix of my friends and hers, until she pulls me out and starts begging me to go back to her house instead of the afterparty I’m planning to go to. I said ok, but I’m gonna go to the afterparty around midnight. She starts literally yelling at me, making a scene to choose one and that it’s her or my friends. I told her I don’t have to choose because I can be both. She then accuses me of wanting to take the easy way out and that I don’t have a choice but to choose. I go back to her house, and she won’t even touch me (disclaimer: I don’t think I’m entitled to anything sexual, that’s a dick move), but it hurt me how she wouldn’t even let me get close to cuddle with her. In the car on the way to her place I ask her dad to just take me home because there’s been too much drama and I need to just call it a night. My ex gives me the dirtiest look and I tell him never mind. Once we get to her house, she starts yelling at me and I told her I can’t be with someone who’s gonna put me on the spot, disrespect me, and make shit awkward for me. I call my friend to take me to the afterparty, and she blocks the door for 7 MINUTES crying to get me to stay. I just tell her goodbye and I go with my friend to the afterparty, where I just go and get fucked to get my mind off this situation. 

The next day, I wake up to a text from my ex, saying that I’m never welcome back at their house and that both her parents feel lied to and taken advantage of. In the apology letter I asked him if I could still take her to homecoming and that I would be as accommodating as possible to make it as great a night for her as possible. This didn’t make sense, because for her to demand me not to follow the plan we had originally agreed on was unreasonable and I felt I had been accommodating to her the entire night. I sat her down and said the way she was acting was unreasonable, and she said I didn’t deserve her respect anymore so I called it off. 

I think I’m the mostly the asshole here, I really just had this burning inside and I want the court of public opinion’s opinion.  I probably shouldn’t be in a relationship again until I grow up some more. 

And r/niceguys beat you to it 