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My ex (27M) and I (26M) met while I was in my freshman year of high school. He was a sophomore at the time. We had a science class together, and were assigned as lab partners. Obviously this meant that we’d be doing a lot of work together for the year. At first I thought he was going to make me do everything, and honestly it kind of seemed like that would be the case early in the year. I was already used to doing that in prior classes anyways, so I didn’t really care. Towards the end of the first quarter though, he actually started to pitch in. I wasn’t expecting that, but I wasn’t going to stop him especially since it seemed like he actually understood what was going on in class. Since it was the end of the quarter, we were assigned a larger group project and had to work on it at home. I didn’t want him to come over to my place because I wasn’t used to having people over, so we went to his house to work on our project. We got it done pretty quick, but I couldn’t go home yet because I told my parents a specific time to pick me up and it wasn’t that time yet, so to pass the time, we ended up playing the new Call of Duty game that had been released earlier that month. Turned out he was pretty good at the game already even though it had only been out for such a short time, and he helped me learn how to play until I had to go home. Eventually I just started going over to his house more often and we would play together, and my parents were happy about this because I rarely ever spent time with friends. I’ll admit it was pretty nice of him to let me hang out so often, and he also started to actively pitch in more during group work after we started to become friends. The school year continued, and we just ended up getting closer until we were practically inseparable by the end of it. I even remember us trying to enroll in the same classes for the next school year in hopes that we would share some. It just ended up in us having mostly the same classes, but at different periods. Which was pretty funny. We got the same lunch period though.
I know none of this sounds interesting yet at all, but just bear with me.
Back when I was a sophomore, there was a big name chain store within walking distance of the school that we decided to go to so we could pass time (because his dad wasn’t going to be able to pick us up from school for a bit). We were just talking and stuff, but when his dad came and we got in the car he showed me that he stole a pack of gum by the registers on our way out. It was just a pack of gum, so I wasn’t really bothered by it. In retrospect, I feel like I probably should have said something to stop him then, because it ended up developing into a bad habit of his. It stayed as just small things for a while, but later into the year he was starting to get bolder. He stole a skateboard at the end of his junior year (which was my sophomore year) from that same chain store I mentioned earlier. It was a pretty ugly skateboard, but he wanted it. So he got it. I guess. Once the school year ended, he decided to start up a summer job. He worked at Wendy’s at the drive-through register. I remember because he used to complain all the time about two of his other friends who would go through the drive through (at some point they even went multiple times a day at separate times of day) just to harass him because they knew he would have to use a customer service voice regardless of what they said to him. This isn’t related but I started working at a Waffle House at the same time. For a while it looked like he had broken his stealing habit, but then he told me about stealing from the drive through register. I’ll admit that crossed a line to me, but by that point we had been friends for a while (and he was also kind of my first close friend) so I didn’t want to cause too much of a rift between us because I didn’t want our friendship to end. I did make sure he knew I didn’t approve of it though, and he promised me that he would stop. So I thought that after that, it would be over.
Fast forwarding a couple of years, he graduated and I was still in my last year of school. He decided to take a gap year so that we would head into community college at the same time, so that meant he was still working at Wendy’s until the next school year. He assured me that he had stopped stealing from the register, and as far as I know, that’s completely true. I was pretty happy about it. He seemed to be doing pretty good and we were both on track to start college the next year together in the fall semester. He went in undeclared and I went in for food science, and we moved in together for the sake of convenience. We also sort of ended up… getting together. Or whatever. I kind of had feelings for a couple years, but I wasn’t really sure what they were because I’d never really been close with anyone before. Uh… Anyways. It was a one bedroom apartment and he slept on the couch. I said he could have the bed, but he insisted that I should instead. So he took the couch. And a blanket. And for some reason did not take a pillow even though we could afford one. He just used his arm. Don’t bother asking why we didn’t share the bed. It was twin size and we were two grown men. For a while everything seemed to be relatively normal. We still played video games together in our off time (as much as you can get off time in college with different schedules), and he cleaned while I cooked. Since we were living together though we also argued a bit more frequently. Mostly over petty stuff like forgetting to do the dishes and leaving stuff out. He had a really annoying habit of bringing those friends I mentioned earlier in the post (during the whole Wendy’s bit) over without telling me in advance, and expecting me to accommodate and cook for them. It was annoying but they were also sort of my friends by association too since we all went to the same school, so I didn’t not cook for them or anything like that.
So one night he came home pretty late, around 3am, because he went to hang out at his friend’s place and fell asleep there. He had to get driven back to our apartment by that friend because he was drinking earlier with some of their other friends. He came home barely coherent after not responding to any of my messages or calls that night, and I was worried as hell. He had done this a few times before, and I would still always be worried when he wasn’t home around the same time as usual. That night was the latest time he got back, and I woke up when I heard him opening the door. I told him off for coming home that late especially since he had a morning class the next day, and he told me he’d be fine. Eventually things escalated, and I’ll admit I got really confrontational about it all since this wasn’t the first time. After each time, he would say he was sorry and that he would respond to me next time he was out, but he still didn’t and I would still worry. I got so mad after that fight that I left the apartment and went knocking at another of my high school friends’ door, since I knew he would still be awake at that time (he had afternoon classes). This kind of stuff kept happening for our first year in college, and I stuck with him because we were friends. Boyfriends. Whatever.
One day during our second year of college I was at our room alone because he was (presumably) in class. A knock came at our door and I waited for whoever was there to go away. They didn’t go away. They actually announced through the door that they had a search warrant. And they were cops. Great. I had no idea what they could be searching for because I was literally just cooking dinner so obviously I let them in because I had nothing to hide and I assumed he had nothing to hide. I was pretty anxious about the whole thing (I should have mentioned earlier that I’ve had general anxiety since around 2010), so I just kind of let them in and go through whatever they wanted. I texted him, but since he was in class he couldn’t respond. The cops were there for a while and it was getting kind of awkward because I was still cooking dinner and they were just looking all over the place. I think I asked them if they wanted me to make extra portions since it looked like they’d be there for a while. They said no. I probably should have guessed that that would be the answer but seriously it was starting to get dark (granted it was already late) and they were just there. When it finally looked like they were about to leave (it had been maybe a little over half an hour), one of them yelled from one of the back closets of our apartment. A cop said he found a gun. And I was like “What”. I took the food off the stove so it wouldn’t burn, and headed towards the closet where he was. And I don’t know what I expected but that sure was a gun. Hidden inside a bin beside the washing machine, apparently. And I just had no idea it was ever there until that moment. I guess it made sense though because my ex was usually the one who handled cleaning and laundry and stuff like that, so I wouldn’t really be checking there. It wasn’t the fact that he had a hidden gun that pissed me off, it was the fact that he didn’t tell me. If he had told me I would have understood. But now I looked like a pretty suspicious guy to the cops because I had no license to own a gun, and as far as I knew, my friend didn’t either. I don’t even know where he got the gun. It was a pistol. Great. And now the cops were all looking at me and I had food going cold on the counter and he was still in class. Not a great situation at all.
I ended up spending the night in fucking jail. I was supposed to take a final the next day. Apparently they went over to my ex's class and got him as he was leaving. Then he spent the night in fucking jail too. I gave him an earful for it because I was pretty upset that he got us in jail. For a night. The night. Before my final. He was pretty apologetic, and told me that he had it for self defense in case something happened to us, and didn’t tell me because he hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it. I tried asking where he got it, but he wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t want to say anything further in case the cops were listening to us (they definitely were), so I left it at that. I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night in jail but we were still sitting next to each other. Quietly. Since we were both legally adults, we were pretty much on our own. The next day they took him in for questioning, and that was the last time I saw him. This was about 6 years ago. I was taken in for questioning at the same time, and they told me we could be on the hook for illegal possession of a firearm and possible relation to a burglary in the area. Great. I was pretty much a nervous wreck about the whole thing because I knew just as much about the situation as the cops did (as in I knew nothing). I kind of fucked up big time though.
Basically, they brought me to the interrogation room and asked if I knew anything about the pistol, and I told them no. Because I didn’t. They asked if my roommate might have known anything about the pistol, and that's where I screwed up. I started panicking a bit and said that he was the only person who was ever really in that area of the apartment, so he probably would know more than I did. They took it as evidence that he for sure knew, and things just went from there. It turned out that he actually was associated with the burglary, and it was part of some stupid dare. The police got a search warrant to check if anything stolen was at our apartment (there wasn’t), and ended up finding the gun. It also turned out that my ex didn’t have a permit, so it was illegal possession of a firearm. He ended up in jail for a year and had two years of parole. During that time he tried contacting me, but I didn’t really know what to say to him, so I ended up ghosting him… and kind of still am ghosting him. At one point it started to become too long of a time ghosting him that I thought it would be awkward to reach out, and so now I’m stuck in this loop of ghosting him because I don’t know how to approach him after ghosting him for so long. Like would I just go “Hey, sorry for not talking to you at all for 6 years and transferring schools and moving, how are you?” That would just be really… awkward. So I’m not doing that. He still tries to contact me every so often though, and our parents also still talk to each other so it’s just really, really awkward. Because I have not spoken a word to him in six years. We never even officially broke up, but I think after six years of not talking you don’t really get to call each other partners anymore. I don’t know how I could, especially since I think I’m pretty much the reason he got arrested.
So, to sum it up, am I the asshole for ghosting my ex for six years after inadvertently getting him sent to jail for burglary after letting cops into our apartment for a warranted search where they found an illegal firearm that I had no idea he had?
Sorry about how long all of this is. It’s just been weighing on my mind for a couple years.