AITA for ...

AITA for dedicating love poems originally written for my ex to my current girlfriend? 

Throwaway account because she knows my main. 

During our situationship, I (M18) regularly wrote love poems dedicated to my current girlfriend (F18), which she enjoyed very much because of how personal they are. She likes to print them out and put them into a notebook for her keepsake. 

Recently, I have been stuck in a horrible writer's block, but our 8 month anniversary is coming up. She has hinted to me about wanting to read some more of my poetry, but I already told her I lack the inspiration. She got somewhat upset at this, and expressed a concern that our relationship no longer excites me, and that I’ll dump her. I tried my best to explain to her that my love cannot simply be contained within a page. That it transcends it; it manifests in ways more than just poetry… but she said that she still appreciated having some  romantic poetry written about her. 

In an attempt to revitalise my writing spark, I found some old drafts of poems in my Google Docs originally dedicated to my ex-girlfriend (F19). She broke up with me last year over “religious and moral differences” (her words, not mine). It was an ugly breakup. However, I never deleted the anthology I planned to give her for our 1 year anniversary because I thought it’d be a waste. My current girlfriend shares a lot of physical and personality similarities with my ex, so I thought that it would be fitting to use the old poems for her, and just change a few details to make it more personal for her. And the removal of all the embarrassingly disagreeable religious aspects I attempted to pander to. After all, these poems were never read by my ex.

At first, she was quite happy to receive my poems and was glad that I got out of my writer's block. I just sheepishly said I found old inspiration but I never explicitly said it was poems for my ex-girlfriend. However, after a few poems, she questioned that the details of the poems were somewhat unlike her, and that it seemed to mirror my old writing style. (eg. sonnets, whereas I usually write prose poetry or calligram) Again, I was in too deep and didn’t want to tell her the truth lest I make her insecure. 

Eventually, however, I made the colossal fuck-up of mixing up an old and new poem to her, and I accidentally sent her an unedited version of a poem. Before I realised, it was too late. She confronted me about it and I had to confess everything to her. I told her that only the last 4 poems to her were from old drafts, but she says that she can’t trust me anymore. She even accused me that all the poems I’ve ever written about her were originally dedicated to some other girl. I had no idea what to even say to that. 

It has been about a week since this has happened and she has been giving me the silent treatment. I’ve tried to ask for time to talk about it, both in person or over text, but she just keeps saying she’s either busy or outright ignores me. 

I apologised but I still feel like I did nothing wrong. AITA?

UPDATE: she found this post

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u/???

ESH. u lied and she is needs to grow a pair

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YTA. i saved every poem you wrote me– and you tell the whole world of your grievances?????? fuck you alex seriously 

u/???

YTA. you should kys for this ngl

u/???

NTA. Your girlfriend is an overreacting bitch. Maybe consider actually dumping her lol cuz you 100% deserve better than that. 

28 May 2024