She didn't know that he was unhappy with her. She hadn't exactly been pleased with him lately either, but she still loved him. How could he, after three years, suddenly not love her anymore? How could he, after not having tried once, be tired of making things work? When did they start having to try? Was it when she moved in? Or was it when he got a new job? They had changed their lives to be with each other, and now he wanted to change again, this time without her. She didn't know how to fix them anymore.
She wasn't sure if she wanted to either. A large part of her did, but there was another part that just wanted to give up. His new job was stressing him beyond what his old one had. Now, when he came home, all he wanted to do was sleep. Even on date nights he split his attention between taking calls and 'maintaining' her. She was tired of being 'maintained'. He made her feel like a burden, as though she was weighing him down. Before he used to tell her she was beautiful, now she was lucky if he looked away from his phone long enough to say she looked "nice". He had become the one thing he said he would never be; a workaholic. When she brought it up, he laughed her off, like she was a child begging for attention from both parents when she already had the one. But she still remembered the good times they had had and that was what she wanted to salvage.
When he told her he didn't feel the same way for her anymore, she wasn't too surprised. He never payed attention to her, how could he feel anything for her? Unlike him, though, she felt that if he would just make some concessions to be with her sometimes, they could be fixed. But he believed that by staying he would make it worse. He loved his job more than he loved her. It was a truth he had realized when he spent more time on the phone than with his girlfriend. Given the choice, he knew what he would choose, but he didn't want to hurt her that way. He wanted to ignore her enough for her to give up. To leave him. And yet, she persisted in trying to make them better. In the beginning, that had been what he had loved about her. Her persistence. Now it was the bane of his existence.
He had wanted her to be the one to go, to save them from a messy breakup, but now he felt that he might have to do it himself. She wanted to patch things up, but he knew they were a lost cause. It was just too difficult to be with her and remember how they had fallen apart. He had liked her in perspective, but when she had moved in, things had changed. They had changed their lives to be with each other, and now those changes were tearing them apart.
