How We Met (Additional Backstory)

Hey guys, 

There are tons of details and things I kinda feel I need to omit on YouTube, but maybe I can add some of that here.

The issue my (now ex) girlfriend was having was with her mom. Her mom had an unfortunate disorder which made her very controlling and also put her health at risk, and sometimes she'd use her sickness as a way of controlling my ex. Like, "do what I want or I'll die" kinda manipulation. 

Her mom loved me at first, but as we got more serious, I became a threat. Her mom didn't want us getting married and running off to California. If her daughter was gone, who would take care of her? And her mom certainly wasn't going to move to California, so, she wanted her daughter to live near her forever, in New Jersey. Her plan for her daughter was she could work as a gym teacher at the school up the block, and live at home, caring for her.

Summer going into senior year, ex and her grandparents were able to force her mom into a hospital. Evidently a doctor told the mom "it's a good thing you came when you did, you might not have lived another year." The mom then told this to my ex. And then a week later said she didn't like being in the hospital, so she'd just come home anyway and take her chances. My ex (understandably) didn't handle this well.

I certainly didn't want to be a bad boyfriend, but, you can imagine how something like that could complicate a relationship.

When we first started dating the whole family seemed incredibly nice and her mom loved me. My ex was also very close with my parents, especially my mom. They did a lot of mother-daughter things that my ex was never really able to do with her mom (and that was not appreciated by my ex's mom, to say the least). It was my parents who took my ex to look at colleges. Ex's mom didn't want her to leave home. Ever. 

And then Mia's ex, "Pooh" ... his parents weren't the warmest people. "Pooh" was kinda raised to not feel any emotion other than happy. That may sound nice, but it can also complicate a relationship. Mia's freshman year was pretty awful with him and his family. Pooh's family didn't like how Mia was shy/quiet. And she is, but she'll warm up if you don't sit there judging her and making her uncomfortable. Pooh's mom sent Mia's mom a packet on social anxiety disorder and some numbers for a therapist. Mia did go to therapy. The therapist thought it was more Pooh than her. When Mia talked to Pooh about that, he kinda agreed but admitted he had no intention of making any changes himself. 

And as much as Mia and I were starting to like each other our last year at Pratt, we knew how that ended. I would go back to NJ, and she would go back to Oregon, and eventually move to California to look for work as an animator. I wanted to stay on the east coast, maybe find work in NY (but everywhere I looked for work said, "ya gotta go to California!") 

So, there's a little more backstory on the backstory. There's still a good deal I'm omitting, but maybe that helps a little.