This is sadgirl's Purple Wedding!

C. and I had been dating for seven and a half years. Over this time, it was not exactly easy, ever.

We were long distance for years. C. also has always had a "grass is greener" philosophy. Even when he was happy with me, he wasn't, not really, because of all that he was missing. As a result, it was a very hard seven and a half years filled with 13 break-ups.

Once occurred a day after Valentine's Day. We had gone skiing for the first time (for me), and he had given me Vera Wang's perfume, and made a big deal about how he wanted to get that one for me since the bottle was in the shape of a wedding dress. (These were his words.) The next day we were back from skiing, watching a movie on the couch...anyway. the movie (some self-indulgent docu-drama) was bad and depressing, and suddenly he just said that he didn't want to be together. I was visiting him at the time, and had to wait until the next morning to catch a flight home. It was an awful night. He preceded to watch An Officer and a Gentleman (which was on TV) and I was stuck, listening to it, heartbroken. I still hate that movie.

The break-ups were pretty much always like this. We would be having a great time, and it would seem like we were really close (it seemed to happen at times when we were exceptionally close, oddly enough), and then he'd turn on me. Sometimes he'd say he was just done with me, and had gotten all he could out of this relationship. Sometimes he'd say he never had loved me in the first place. It was always awful.

Once he left me for someone else. More on that later. It was devastating, though. Ultimately he regretted it. When we got back together he would say things like " A girl with your body and her personality would be unstoppable" (meaning, that such a girl could get any guy she wanted). Which actually was not only a really mean thing to say, but also not even accurate because he ended up leaving her and coming back to me because she was kind of picky and mean.

That was the last of the 13 break-ups and I can honestly say I will never go through that again. The taking-him-back part has been so destructive to my heart, and has ruined so many things. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't. But I really really loved him. And I had been so taken aback by him leaving me for another girl. My confidence in myself being a good, worthy person just crumbled. And I had no idea how much innocence and joy in the relationship would be ruined by all of this.