‘I wanted him to find those words himself’: Singapore woman ends 4-year relationship after ChatGPT apology

SINGAPORE: After four years together and 1.5 years of trying to salvage their relationship, one Singaporean woman finally decided she had had enough.

The final straw? Not another fight, another broken promise, or even another disagreement about his behaviour.

Her boyfriend used ChatGPT to write his apology to her.

In a post on the NUSWhispers Facebook page on Wednesday (Sept 30), the woman, who is in her mid-20s, said she had spent the past 1.5 years trying to figure out whether her relationship was worth saving.

She and her boyfriend had been together for four years, but their relationship had been plagued by recurring conflicts.

One of the biggest issues was his habit of watching explicit content and secretly stalking women on Instagram.

She said she repeatedly asked him to stop and even suggested that he distance himself from some of his close friends who had influenced his behaviour. 

However, he refused and told her he could not do that because they “had known each other since they were young.”

Eventually, his parents learned of the problems and asked him to end the relationship, reasoning that if she were truly enough for him, or if he genuinely loved her, he wouldn't have behaved that way in the first place.

Despite everything, she decided to stay and give the relationship another chance. The couple attended therapy together, and her boyfriend later went overseas on exchange, giving them some time apart. 

When he returned, he told her that the experience had made him realise he should have treated her better, and she initially believed that he genuinely wanted to change. At the same time, though, she had started worrying about whether his parents would ever accept her, especially if their relationship eventually progressed to marriage.

“I couldn’t bring myself to meet his parents anymore because I started thinking about the bigger picture—if I were to marry him, could I really be okay not knowing whether his family would ever accept me?”

Then came the apology that changed everything. Her boyfriend used ChatGPT to help write an apology for everything he had done, and although she recognised that getting help with wording did not necessarily make an apology meaningless, the gesture hit differently after four years together. 

“I think I wanted to feel like he cared enough to find those words himself.”

Seeking perspectives, she asked the online community: “If someone repeatedly fails you, but eventually realises what they did wrong, takes accountability and genuinely wants to change, does the history still matter? How many chances is too many?”

“And if you’ve already spent years waiting for someone to change, are you supposed to stay once they finally do—just because you asked for that change in the first place? Or are we allowed to leave even when the person is finally becoming better because the damage to the relationship has already changed how we feel about them?”

She also asked readers what they would do in her position: “I’m curious—if you were me, would you have stayed to see whether his change was real, or would you have accepted that sometimes people change too late? I don’t think he’s a bad person. I don’t think I’m a perfect partner either. And maybe people in their mid-20s really are still figuring out how to love someone properly. I also went to therapy myself because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just making a decision out of anger or resentment. I really wanted to know whether I was giving up too easily.”

‘Just move on’

The post drew plenty of attention, with netizens weighing in on the relationship in the comments.

Several said her fundamental mistake was believing she could change her boyfriend. One remarked, “Men marry women hoping she wouldn't change. Women marry men hoping he would. Both end up unhappy. That's your answer right there.”

Another agreed, “Never enter a relationship thinking you can change the other.”

A third shared, “The issue is that many women want to change their men to the type of men they wanted. My ex-colleague and another colleague were in a relationship; he loved playing mahjong with friends and singing karaoke. She demanded that 'for his own good' he should come to her house every day to watch TV drama with her after work.”

A fourth reminded her, "If he wanted to, he would. You don't have to remind him countless times about boundaries if he was sincere about this relationship."

Meanwhile, some commenters focused on his parents, arguing that their response to the couple's problems was more concerning than the boyfriend's attempts to change.

For them, this was a deal-breaker. Rather than wasting her youth on this relationship, they urged her to walk away. “Don't waste your time anymore. How many ‘4 years’ do you have? Just move on,” one said. /TISG

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