I’ve started growing a group chat of all of the nerdy ambitious women I meet. One of them reached out to the group chat and asked if she could stay with any of us because she had a fight with her BF and needed space ASAP.

A few of us dropped our addresses directly to her, but she came over to my apartment. After some board games and her getting to know us she started explaining what had happen.

Her boyfriend of a few years is a messy depressed alcoholic who doesn’t pay into groceries or contribute to house work. She has spent years in therapy (for other reasons) so she had the language needed to explain the value of emotional labor and how she is doing all the heavy lifting. He does not, even though he is supposed to be finding a therapist ( his insurance covers it)

They had gotten into a fight because she had a bad day and he brought home a bottle of wine to “help her unwind” even though she has asked him multiple times to cut back and she doesn’t really drink.

They start fighting and eventually he does something that triggered her PTSD and based on the text conversation she asked us to read. She: 1) apologized for being triggered in the moment 2) tried to explain what had triggered her and how it made her feel. He then in his own words said “and I explained that you were wrong” WHAT! This is where I flipped out cause I was trying to go in with a benefit of the doubt situation for her sake, but you can’t tell people their PTSD triggers are wrong they are the body’s physical response to remembering trauma!!

She then explained that she knew for a fact that he couldn’t afford his own place and that she had already tried to break up with him a few months ago but he “didn’t accept it” my roommate and I were super confused cause that’s now relationships work in our brain.

We talked it out for hours, assured her that her expectations weren’t to high, that what she was asking him for was reasonable and that the way she was being treated wasn’t.

After breakfast she told us that she was going to withdrawal the application she had for a new place with him and get her own place. She updated me and said they are “taking a break” for a year while he works on himself. We will see.