I broke up with my boyfriend over Heated Rivalry

I know how that sounds, but just listen. I had been with my boyfriend for nearly a year and a half when I broke up with him. About a week before that, I watched Heated Rivalry for the first time. My ex was the type of partner who would make fun of me for really small stuff, and I didn’t feel comfortable telling him that I was watching it because I was worried he would make fun of me for watching a show like that (another reason to break up, yeah, I know. In hindsight, it definitely looks worse than it felt at the time). As a small sidenote, I am bisexual. I’ve faced a lot of backlash in my past over my queerness, and almost every friend I’ve had in my life has also faced the same (since most of them have been queer). When I watched HR, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But as the story went on and tugged at my heartstrings, I came to a sudden realization. I realized that my ex would never understand it. I realized that if he ever watched it, he would cringe so outwardly at all the steamy scenes to the point where the rest of the story wouldn’t really mean anything to him. I think it would have taken a large sum of money, as a bare minimum, for him to even watch the show in the first place. The more I thought about it, the more it irritated me. I started realizing that, despite how much he always claimed to support me, he seemed to always show small signs of being inwardly homophobic (whether he realized it or not). It made me realize, too, that he would never completely understand me and my experiences in the ways I needed him to. At the end of the day, there were many more reasons I should have broken up with him, but this was the thing that finally made me realize it. Since breaking up with him, I’ve felt sad that he’s gone, since I really loved and cared about him. But I’ve also felt such a wave of relief and freedom that I haven’t felt in a long time. He was the kind of partner who made my world smaller rather than opening it up. A weight has been lifted off my chest. I could have settled and spent the rest of my life with him, as I know he cared deeply for me and probably would have never broken up with me, at least for a long time. I’m really proud of myself for choosing a future where I put myself first. I’m so excited to see what my future holds and who will end up being there through it all. So, I really owe it to Heated Rivalry for being the straw that broke the camel’s back in forcing me to see what I had missing all this time. Thanks for reading :)