She’s leaving me and it’s my fault

It finally happened and I kinda saw it coming. Honestly, we’re probably not compatible, but it’s also like, the reasons we’re not compatible are mostly because I’m just not really that great.

I’m 32M. She’s 29F. We’ve been dating 3.5 years. Engaged to be married. And well, she sounds like a dream when I describe her. She’s beautiful, exotic looking being born outside the US. She speaks 8 languages. She’s a tested certified genius. She’s adventurous (moved out at 16) and has been to 80 countries. She has held down so many jobs and just lived a nomad life. She questions authority and doesn’t accept no for an answer. She just finished a degree where she knew more than every rotation supervisor she worked for. She spent 3 years working 80+ hours at a tech company while also holding down an internship, taking online classes, traveling at least once a month, and dating people. She has friendships you could make Netflix shows out of. But despite how many people love her, she keeps a really small circle. She wants to start a business, move abroad, and live a remote nomad life. Since she graduated her program, she’s gotten called by 8 different companies asking if she’s ready to work for them and she hasn’t submitted a single application. She doesn’t actually want to work for someone. Oh also, her family are billionaires… I would love to say that she has all the luck but she has created a lot of her luck too. She’s just amazing in so many ways.

I on the other hand match her on paper. What people see:
32M, decent build, shorter side in US but average worldwide, 2 Ivy League stem degrees and can presumably speak 3 languages making 300k and traveling the world with a beautiful woman who adores him. What the reality is, she realized long ago that I stopped learning and growing. I haven’t climbed a mountain in over a decade and instead walk around them. I never traveled before I met her and I’m not curious. I speak only 1 language (the rest is bullshit). I have shit memory and I’m a bad storyteller. I’m also high functioning heavy masking autistic so I don’t do well connecting with people. I’m in sales because it’s low skill job but I’m not very good and I hate it. I have a mortgage for a house that gives me nothing but problems and all my money goes to the debt on the house I don’t even live in because I pay for our apartment, healthcare, bills, everything. Because she wanted a provider. I don’t challenge authority. I have no wild young stories. My friendships are shallow. My family loves me but doesn’t particularly like me. I only look good because I can grow a decent beard but otherwise I look like a thumb. The list goes on. She values creativity, curiosity, freedom, and flexibility. But I’m static, rigid, stuck in my career, and distract myself with recreation I make no attempt at getting better at just to waste and pass the time.

But the thing is, I’m extremely kind. And I genuinely love this woman. And that has been the thing that has kept us together for years. Because even though I check few boxes, she knows my love is genuine and I’d be always loyal. So she agreed to marry me. Until I proved I don’t really know her. Until I had nothing to contribute to the wedding she didn’t even want but that I asked for because I wanted a big wedding (for the optics if I’m being honest). She has a low social battery but was willing to deal with it for a night to make me happy, but I didn’t concede on anything, even the guest list or the location. And finally, she gave me years to get a remote job. But I have no remote skills. I’ve been doing this bullshit hybrid in person sales monkey role in a niche field for near 10 years at only startups. So I have no big corporate experience. Few people to vouch for my work. And every connection I own has no power.

I don’t know what I want in my life. And I stopped being curious or trying new things. I stopped learning. I never listened to podcasts, tried to put myself in uncomfortable situations. I never explored YouTube or Spotify or learned why it’s Bosnia and Herzegovina by myself. Nearly everything I know from the last couple years is because she taught me. But I haven’t taught her anything new since we’ve been together. She helped me get ahead in my job. She’s so fucking smart she nearly predicts the future. And she says there’s like 30 remote jobs I can create at my job she could do. But I need to propose it and do it even if it’s outside of my scope and then prove it’s necessary and then we can live together. But I’ve been lazy and I made myself stupid.

She’s coming back to live with me next month (she’s abroad right now) to take the boards. But she’s over me. Shes giving me the chance to chase her and prove I can be different, or I can tell her not to come back and we can be done done. She says many women will be lucky to have me because I have to offer a lot. But the things she wants in a partner, I just don’t have that. I’m not commanding, leading, curious. I can’t speak to staff in another country. I can’t make friends anywhere. And most of all, right now, I can’t simply live where she lives. So I have until November to prove it, but I’m going to fail. I know that. And I’m just in my fucking feelings because I simply don’t know how to just lock in and get it done.

There’s no reason to pity me. It’s my fault. She was willing to compromise and help me in my career and teach me things in life. But all I had to do was listen to her needs, be open minded, and to learn new skills and teach her things. She wanted me to be proactive and helpful. And I just haven’t been. I ruined things with an absolutely amazing person because of abject laziness. And I hate myself for it.