we met on a language learning app. I help speak the local language (she is Chinese, I’m from North Africa but I’m born here and otherwise very “western”). After half a year of just being friends I asked her out. She studied piano (master degree) and I work full time as IT support.

The first 3 months of the relationship were utter chaos. We were both immature and emotional. We had lots of intimate moments and lots of arguments. The main issue always seemed to be, she has great emotional needs. She needs constant affection and attention and I sure slipped up A LOT (she was my first so I guess mistakes were unavoidable).

The 6-7 months after this rocky start were very peaceful. We rarely fought and if we did we made up an hour later. I felt like she less “needy” and generally speaking felt more comfortable around her, almost as if she was part of the family. I also spent a lot on vacations, gifts, flowers etc.

About two weeks ago, right on our 11 month anniversary, I woke up to a wall of text where she explained why she doesn’t like me anymore. According to her:

  • we don’t see each other enough (outside of going on vacations together, we meet 2-3 times a week and speak on phone every day)
  • we don’t have common topics (I’m not sure what she means. Maybe she thinks communication with me is hard)
  • I didn’t make efforts to learn Chinese
  • I didn’t make efforts to learn cooking (I can do only basic meals, she hoped I learn chinese cooking but it’s easy for me)
  • I don’t have my own Appartement (I share an Appartement with my sister, she lives with her room mate)
  • I have too much free time after I come from work, she says I game too much (about two hours a day, we used to game together but she got busy with her graduation lately)
  • I don’t make her my priority, I forget to do things I said I’d do for her (small things like collecting 50 cent coins for her washing mashine) or that I see my friends too often (I’m very much confused about this one because this entire year I almost exclusively spent time with her and her friends in her city, she lives an hour by train from me)

After much begging and crying and giving her suggestions on how I could try to change things she blocked me (roughly two weeks). Suddenly she unblocked me and sent me picture of her hugging her new boyfriend and a video of him driving her around while she is teaching him chinese. She said “leave me alone, I will marry him”. After much confusion I asked her “Did you cheat on me?” She said “yes.” I told her “okay I wish you good luck with your new boyfriend” and deleted her number.

How could I not notice she was so unhappy? Why didn’t she tell me before? I feel like most of these things we could have worked on if she wanted to.