Did I react in the right way?

Question:

Greetings!

I have been reading articles on your website for some time, and I recently discovered the question-and-answer section, which encouraged me to write. I need some advice.

I have been going through a tough breakup for a few weeks now.

I am a Christian, and I was in a relationship with someone from the church, who is also a Christian. We're in our 20s, and he's a few years older than I. We also attended the same church of Christ at one time, but I'm now attending one closer to where I now live.

He seemed to be a good guy, and he had a good reputation. People in the church speak well of him. He made efforts to talk to me and get to know me. He would even regularly call me, and before we started going out, we would also talk after church. After a few months, we began going on dates and getting to know each other. We began dating, and the relationship lasted about a year.

During the relationship, we went on dates maybe once or twice every two months, but we saw each other at church. I really loved him, and I believed he loved me too. We had many good moments in the relationship, and I was deeply invested in it. I really wanted it to work.

But a few months into the relationship, I started to notice that in public, after church or at church events, he wouldn't make time to talk to me as often as he had in the past. When he did, he seemed to be in a hurry to leave. We would exchange greetings, and immediately afterward, he would be quick to say he needed to go and talk to others. At first, I brushed it off, but this happened a lot. This upset me, and it made me feel as if he didn't want to be seen in public with me. I talked to him about it, and he said it wasn't proper to be seen together all the time at church, and he was doing it out of respect, and it would be better if we mostly spoke in group settings at church, or we wait to speak on the phone or when we went on dates. He would also say that he wanted to enjoy his time with others, not just with me all the time. This went on regularly, but at some point, we stopped attending the same congregation. So this continued when we attended the same church events.

Later on, he began pointing out that he wanted me to gain weight. We are both slim (not skinny), and I have a healthy weight, but he wanted me to be chubbier. He planned for me to gain 22-33 pounds. He told me he was also planning on gaining, so we had to gain together, so our weight would match. I expressed that I was uncomfortable gaining weight, as I like my weight. He was persistent, so I gained about 11lb (I later lost all the weight I gained after we split). He never gained weight, and when I mentioned it, he would say he was working on it.

Then he started asking for inappropriate pictures from me, wanting us to have inappropriate conversations over the phone. He started asking for sex, too. I told him several times that it was not right in God's eyes to do all that, and I wanted to wait until marriage. I did not want to do it, but he said that waiting was in the past and he intended to marry me anyway. I never gave in to his requests, and I always tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. When he persisted, I would tell him that I wanted to wait for marriage. I always hoped that he would change. At other times, he would even tell me that I wasn't satisfying his needs.

He started being distant, and when I asked, he brushed it off, saying I was overthinking. But the acting distant continued. One day, I decided to discuss this with him. I sent him a message asking why he was being distant, and he stopped responding to me altogether. Not that he was unavailable or busy, he regularly posted. I was extremely hurt by him treating me the way he did. I just felt like I was nothing in his eyes. Considering everything that was going on, from the growing demands for sex to his acting like a spoiled child when I said no, I saw that this was going nowhere, and I decided to end the relationship. However, since this happened when he was ignoring me, I only cited his ignoring me when I ended things. He apologised for ignoring me on that day and wished me well. I didn't think mentioning everything else was necessary, as I had told him how I felt about it several times.

I was extremely heartbroken. I really did love him, and sometimes I blamed myself for not trying hard enough to make things work.

We ran into each other at an event while I was with friends. He initially attempted to avoid us. I got very emotional. We later crossed paths, he greeted us, and I just walked away, as I was almost in tears.

Was it right to react the way I did? How should I act when we inevitably cross paths? I feel as though I should have been strong and greeted him back, and I shouldn't have walked off the way I did. And for a future relationship, how should I approach issues I faced, like talking in public and changing weight, to the inappropriate demands? Apart from the inappropriate demands, I'm beginning to think that maybe the other things were not problems, and I was overthinking it all.