Hope the LW doesn't get back with her.

Darn. I was hoping that the story was leading to a full-blown hockey brawl. Well, here's hoping that Undercut bounces back quickly.

So basically, LW's girlfriend decided the relationship was over, picked a stupid fight, and then gave LW a bogus reason for the breakup. LW's girlfriend can be faulted for not being able to gracefully and maturely end their relationship, but even that seems par for the end a lot of 20-something year-olds' relationships.

She's not ready for a relationship

In other words, being intimate seems to bring out the crazy in her. She knows she overreacted, fears she'll continue to overreact, and doesn't want to put herself or you through all of that over and over again. Take her word for it, LW, she's not ready for a relationship.

I had to look up who Cameron Esposito is. I'd probably break up with someone over that haircut too.

I'm a terrible lesbian, I know.

Aw sounds to me that she just got ahead of herself and felt scared. Agreed the reaction was out of scale, but big scary feelings do that sometimes. I wouldn't hold out hope, but I would have some compassion if she comes around head hanging.

Hey U- Dan’s advice was right, no need for you to go back as you are more than likely to be hurt again, especially if you do have codependency issues like you mentioned.

That said, sometimes small things trigger people in different ways, make them see patterns regardless if right or wrong.
No need to analyze it too much- I know, easy to say, I wouldn’t be sleeping for a week had I been dumped this way - yet let go, declare it to be “a very valuable learning experience,” and go on with your life.

Really different view on this. I would not be happily married to this husband (perhaps a different one?) Had I tossed him out after a panicked moment or two. He did call it quits when our relationship barreled into serious territory that scared him senseless. It didn't frighten me but I had substantially more experience in the serious relationship area. I didn't chase him down. I said "ok, not putting my life on hold. See ya."

Big emotions are scary. I have big emotions. It took me a long time to understand they couldn't hurt me even if they did. That I wouldn't lose myself even if I rode them where they go. So did my husband. When he processed it, he came back asking for me. Didn't hurt that he already knew I was on to others. Not that I didn't love him. Not that it didn't ache when he dumped me. But I wanted to and will continue to live my life and I always enjoyed the fun of getting to know someone.

I won't say LW's lady wont come back. And yes a proxy war over a haircut is childish. But no one is perfect or acts perfectly rationally. Let her see what her girlfriend has to say for herself. These ladies seem young.

Arg... will!! Come back. Kill the triple negative.

What is this with students saying they're "busy". they have WAYYY more free time than people working a 9-5.

"that I always copy her."

That's a big accusation, which was building for some time. And she had stewed about it, without talking it out. I agree with the others, you're better off apart.

I'm with EP @ 12, this copying thing must have been brewed for some time and came out in a not-so-healthy way.
Learning experience.

So the LW had a side mullet first and was trying to grow it out, and the girlfriend was about to get a side mullet but hadn't yet, and it's the LW who was accused of "copying"? I don't care how dumb the fight was, I'd have had to debate that one.

@6: "I would have some compassion if she comes around head hanging"

Sure, but you don't take some things back.

"I went into the conversation expecting an apology"
I hate when people do this. I know in this case, LW was right to expect that, but I find people who ask your opinion about something or demand you talk to them and then get pissed when you don't say what they want to hear to be completely insane. I know I'm taking this too far, but as someone whose mother always does this, few things unnerve me more than someone getting mad when I fail to recite the script they already wrote for me in their minds.

About LW and ex: let her go, she's clearly too unstable right now. Seriously, someone who all of a sudden blows up for something as silly as a haircut reeks of control freak. Be grateful you didn't actually go on vacation with such a volatile person. Can you imagine being on a trip with her and having to deal with an outburst like this one when you're already miles away from home?

Mid twenty-somethings & you're dabbling in what is probably one of your first "serious" relationships...it's new territory and not unusual for one or more of the people involved to feel overwhelmed by the possibilities/responsibilities. Common reaction is to bail and reassess. That sucks if you're the bail-ee and sucks in a different way if you're the bail-er, but unfortunately it's not unusual. Your girlfriend will probably regret her actions. In the future when time, experience send hindsight will illuminate her mistake. Or not. Life goes on, so try to keep this in perspective and take whatever you may have learned about potential lovers (and yourself) into your next relationship. Everybody has to kiss a few frogs before they find the "happily ever-after" and even then life never goes according to the story. Try. Fail. Improvise. Fail. Learn.

Most of all, learn.

I've gone back and forth from graduate school to regular jobs for most of my adult life, and I have to say that "just" having a job is like a vacation. Graduate school is way more time consuming and way WAY more stressful. And, the lack of money is really hard. Most schools don't allow outside work. So, yeah. No.

@18 was for @11.

Slog is so wonky today.

@9, I've found that approach works pretty well too. Nice story.

@11: None of my friends in grad school have any time, you may be confusing this for undergrad schedules.

Sport @11: Yeah, most grad students (and many undergrad students) ALSO work. School costs money, as does rent.

To quote a very wise friend when I had experience a similar blindsiding about-face: "Maybe [s]he just plain bolted." She has some growing up to do. Move on.

#16 - Both disagree and agree w/you.
Sure, sometimes people call you to a meeting and feel that when you’re there, you owe them an apology, but sometimes they’re very much right. Calling that meeting as the aggrieved party can be a way to lance the boil and not be walking around mad at your partner. I’ve fucked up, as have we all, and when I did I needed to admit it and apologize.
Being able to do it in a meeting like this is vs how hidden issues often come out (at inopportune times, in public, when alcohol has been added to the mix), is to my mind like doing surgery in a nice sterile OR vs a battlefield amputation in a trench under fire.

Fully agree with you on the sudden blow-up thing (though not to read too much in, we can’t be sure this is a pattern.) People in their 20’s often hang onto some bratty mannerisms, often having to do with temper, because they feel it’s part of their identity, gives them character, and they haven’t yet paid a big enough price to knock that immature shit off.
When I did the Europe Tour after graduating college, one of the girls I travelled with would talk almost pressingly about how she was hot-tempered; small surprise I struck off on my own after about 10 days.
If this is an ongoing thing with the GF, experience (should ought to) teach her that in relationships, grown-ass adults, at least ones you want to relation with, have an increasingly low tolerance for hassle. As my martial arts instructor once told me, Rocks and Weeds, man. You don’t need to put extra in your life, as Life gives that shit to you au-to-ma-ti-cally.

@26 Cat,
like I said, in this case, I fully believe ex-GF owes LW an apology. However, it's most likely she won't get it, and the fact that she keeps on hoping the ex will eventually ask for forgiveness means she's giving her a power to hold over her head. This is what's really poisonous about the "I want/need to talk to x, and want/need to hear x say this particular thing" mindset: that it sets x up for failure (by not fulfilling your needs) and sets you up for disappointment that won't go away until x says what you want to hear or you finally stop expecting things that hold you down and keep you tied to x. The more LW keeps expecting things from her ex, the more power the ex GF will have over her, which prevents LW from moving on. I mean, whether she likes it or not, she's already been dumped. She can't undo it, she needs to accept it and hanging on this "I didn't get an apology/ get dumped for a reason I believe is fair" is only setting her back.

Also, even if ex GF would want to revise her position, maybe the LW's expectations are petrifying her. I know that when I'm confronted with someone of the "say what I want to hear" persuasion, I tend to disengage completely, because I know saying the "wrong" thing may cause an explosion.

@25, it sounds like we have the same mother.

You'd be getting a haircut like one she'd been planning to get = You're always copying her = You like her more than she likes you = She's feeling chased = Time to break up.

Also: You've been accepted to grad schools and have gotten a promotion at work whereas she's merely quit smoking and is doing great in school but has an unsure financial situation = more insecurity as per her relationship with you.

Also: She said from the get-go that she wasn't able to commit to a full relationship = didn't want to commit to a full relationship.

So you saw what you wanted to see when you looked at the situation. You saw that things had changed and a full committed relationship was now possible/likely. She saw things progressing too fast, too well, which added to her initial insecurity and desire to hold back which for her meant a need to break up.

Of course, all of the above is speculation. There could be another reason besides cold feet that made her break it off with you. But let's say my reason is the real one. You're still broken up. Does knowing make you feel any better?

Whenever I've known or think I've known the reason for a break-up, I've thought it would be better if I didn't know. Whenever I haven't known the reason for a break-up, I've wished I had. I've always thought I'd feel better if only one thing or another thing were tweaked or changed, if only something could have been changed. But the truth is that getting dumped sucks. All I can offer is sympathy.

Or as Colin Singleton learns: "Breaking up isn't something that gets done to you; it's something that happens WITH you." Carry on.

@24 Part of 'adulting' is learning how to eat crow. No one knows everything, everyone gets something wrong sometimes, and learning to apologize sincerely when you're wrong is a talent I think everyone should try to cultivate.

There's another side though, the simple fact that even if you deserve an apology, you may not get it. And doing your best to accept that, and to not set your life and happiness on words you may never hear is also a talent we all should try to cultivate.

I dated a boy named Scott three times. The first time we broke up, it was at St. Mark's, and over the Episcopalian "Book of Common Prayer" (long story). The second time was because he thought that I was inferring that he was fat (another long story, but I wasn't saying anything about anyone's weight). The third time was because I got up early on a Saturday morning to go look at a really fantastic 50's sectional that someone was offering to give me. (Actually, that wasn't a fight, he said that he wanted to "cuddle", but I wanted to see that sectional, and I left). He then left a note on our (unmade!) bed that said that if a sofa was more important to me than he was, we didn't belong together. I agreed with him. And I still have the sectional, so there you go).

He was a beautiful boy. He really was. And we got along well. And the sex as good, but the relationship was wrong. Years later, I ran into him, and we went for a few beers and made peace. He apologized for being dramatic, I apologized for being me (which I sometimes have to do) and we parted friends. Sometimes it works out that way.

Two sentences leapt out at me:
"I have had a bad habit of putting my relationships first, and myself second"
and
"I just can't help but over analyze where I might have gone wrong."

I don't think U did anything wrong. I've been her before: falling in love but trying to keep it casual; trying to feel casual and certainly trying hard not to show how much you care, for fear that it will drive the other person away. Hoping that if you are the world's greatest girlfriend, then they will come around to loving you like you love them and like you want them to love you, even though they've told you explicitly that they don't want you in the way you want them to ("she said that while she liked me and wanted to continue seeing me, as a masters student (and someone dealing with a lot of personal/family problems in the last two years) she wasn't able to commit to a full on relationship, and had to prioritize school and herself").

I think we should listen to what people say when they tell us they're "not ready," or "aren't able to commit," or whatever the reason is that they won't fully be invested. I think it's true that if the person were really in love, if we knocked their socks off, they'd be "ready," no matter how soon after their last relationship it was. If they loved us, the timing would be right. So rather than focusing on the reason ("too soon,""too busy/stressed"), we should focus on the "no" part of the message. People say that actions speak louder than words, and sometimes that's true, too, but I've dated men who in action were all in, even as they used their words to tell me that they never would be. I chose to believe the actions, hoping that the words were old defense mechanisms that would fade, because the actions--going away for weekends and fancy dinners, asking to see me frequently, wanting me to meet old/best friends, taking me as his date to an important event, telling the story of how we met, sending/giving little gifts--were in line with what I wanted our relationship to be, and and because "actions speak louder than words."

But I have finally learned that if someone tells you that they don't want you in the way you want them to want you, you should listen to them. It doesn't matter what they seem to be doing. I have learned that if someone is sending mixed signals, the takeaway from that is never, ever going to be good. It's never going to lead to what you want and it's going to make you anxious and insecure and self-doubting, and self-checking, and those are not good ways to be.

It isn't you--or at least, it isn't anything you could have changed. It is you, but it's you for them, not you in a universal, immutable way. You did nothing wrong; you two were just wrong for each other, no matter how much the other person seemed right for you to you.

In this case, the girlfriend was clumsy and the haircut seems a particularly absurd reason to break up, but when one person wants more than the other and the other finally feels pushed to break things off, the reason always seems silly and petty. Maybe it's the straw that broke the camel's back, maybe it's just a convenient excuse grabbed in a moment of courage mixed with the impetus of panic or conscience.
But all we can do in those circumstances, is accept it. You can't make someone love you.

Seems to me (as a totally codependent person) that you have continued your codependent patterns in this relationship. You arranged your schedule around hers, you kept seeing her even as you've been actually more successful, and made excuses for all her behavior, you are always the one trying harder here. Control and doing everything yourself don't force people to stick around. You have to find somebody who actually wants to be with you. Which is actually a lot more fun in the long run, too. But if you don't work on yourself, your next relationship will be a lot like this one.

@11: I agree with Sandiai@18; 40 hours a week is a LOT less time I have to be doing something than when I was a student. If you don't have to work as a student, it might be a little less, but a full (undergrad - grad is a lower credit count so less class time but more demanding for out-of-class work from what I've seen) credit load at my university is an expectation of 12-16 hours (class time is roughly 1 hour per credit per week) per week in class, an additional 24-32 hours of reading (expectation is 2 hours of reading for every hour of class time), and some additional amount of time for papers, projects, quizzes, etc. The expectation is a minimum of 36 to 48 hours of schoolwork a week, which is right in the range of a full time job.

I disagree with 32. Good job taking it slow. The weekend tends to be when adults have time to hang out, so not much dependency there. You went with the flow, had some good times, practiced meeting parents and sound like a supportive and loving girlfriend. She treated your relationship like an experiment, but you learned more than her. I hope your hair turns out better than hers, and you have the best summer of your life.

Am I the only one that wants to see the before and after haircut?

Is Mr Savage actually endorsing Lesbian Hair?

"At the beginning of the relationship, she said that while she liked me and wanted to continue seeing me...she wasn't able to commit to a full on relationship, and had to prioritize school and herself."

In the relationship psychology of the "avoidant personality" and the "attached personality," this statement would be referred to as "reading you her Miranda Rights." In other words, she lays out that she is not serious from the beginning -- typical avoidant personality tactic meant to keep you at arms length. Run, don't walk, away and be glad you are free. Work on your issues of co-dependence (look to your childhood dynamics for clues). learn to truly love and respect yourself first and foremost, and look for an authentic person who has also done the work of self-awareness. Good luck!

P.S. I recommend reading:
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment... by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.