And I felt a wave of... Relief. Sure, I was a little sad to see it over, but I feel relieved. This girl was very high-maintenance, and she got me into that state where I cared about her enough that I saw past the things that she needed to improve about herself. As romantic as that may be for a woman, it is problematic for me. This past summer, I've hung out with her almost every night and had to deal with her anxiety literally every day. In retrospect, the relationship was toxic and not good for me.

The final straw happened last weekend. We are both going back to school, and our schools are 7 hours apart. She wanted to see me once a month on weekends, and she made that into an ultimatum. With my busy schedule, I couldn't promise that, and I broke up with her. I had been trying to think of a reasonable out for quite some time already, so this breakup left me relieved rather than heartbroken.

Now, I can focus on the things I really care about: my career, hobbies, and doing exciting things I couldn't do with her: drinking (she didn't like when I drank when with her), travel to downtown Chicago for fun (she always wanted to just do local dates), hang out with my best friends without feeling a pang of guilt, work out more often, and go back to playing vidya. I feel so free. I no longer need to worry about getting somebody pregnant or worry about someone else's mental health.

I think the moral of my story is this: MGTOWs were right all along, but it takes having a girlfriend to really figure that out. Thank you, /r/MGTOW