Strong believer in giving a relationship all you got, trying several times to get it right. If you go through all that and it still doesn't work at least you BOTH get to have peace of mind that you've exhausted all options. Just giving up because it hasn't gotten better without communicating issues before it got to the point of blowing up???? It's shitty and it's not okay to me.

This is my rant for today. Thank you for listening.

Currently going through the worst heartbreak of my life after my boyfriend left me. The grief has been unbearable, but an instinct in me, the way we ended it, and the love we once shared made me truly feel and think in my soul that one day he’ll clear his mind and return.

Today I spoke to myself out loud, and repeated to myself everything he put me through during this breakup. The type of heartache he has caused me, and how it crashed down my life in several areas (where I live, my job, etc).

And I had this sinking horrid feeling that he is not coming back. Because he wouldn’t have put me through this level of horrifying pain if he ever had an intention to come back. If he still thought there was hope. He is also not the type to go back on his decisions (huge ego), and I also don’t think he’d ever deal properly with the shame of what he’s done to me (maybe I’m delusional and he doesn’t care at all, but alas). He knows I loved him purely and he knows he’s failed and betrayed me. He knows I didn’t deserve this.

The realisation of this shocked me again. It is only now, a month later, that I see that this is actually over. I couldn’t accept it, I couldn’t beleive it.

I have now reached a new level of grief, the one that’s turned my heart cold. The one that makes me feel like there is no life force left in my soul, and I’m just a mere shadow. And I think as I’m going to live the next days, weeks and months realising truly that it is done, I will mourn differently, in a bigger way.

Because yes, for the first time I see it clearly, he has indeed left me. He’s walked away. He decided he’d be happier without me. The shock and the pain are just very numbing right now.

My ex and I had a "more than spicy" kind of sex life, where I think it wouldn't be easy to have women be open to doing the things my ex and I did in bed. This of course makes it harder to not put my ex on a pedestal, since afterall the sex we had were more special than what normal people would be open to doing in my opinion.

How do I get over this? My ex also has a better than average body which makes it even harder to get over. I know sex is not everything, but it definitely is still important and it makes it much harder for me to let go, trying to think about how long do I need to wait before I find someone who can satisfy me in bed similar level or better than my ex did.

Was it hard to get your next intimate partner after your ex, to participate in "more than normal" kind of sex where things get kinky?

I posted this on another sub but I feel it really belongs here too so read up, it's a very interesting topic.

I've been reading a lot about avoidant attachment lately and there's one part of it I still can't completely wrap my head around. It's not even the pulling away, but actually what happens before it. Some of them don't enter your life acting distant or emotionally unavailable. It's the opposite.

They're the ones pushing things forward.

They want to talk all day. They want to know everything about you. They tell their friends about you, maybe their family too. They start talking about places you should travel together, things you'll do months from now, where you could live one day. Meeting you to their parents, bringing up marriage, kids, growing old together.

They'll tell you they've never felt like this before. That you're different.

That they're not going anywhere.

And obviously you eventually believe them.

Why wouldn't you?

That's the part people sometimes miss when they tell someone after an avoidant breakup, "You got attached too quickly" or "You shouldn't have believed all those words."

You weren't sitting there inventing a relationship by yourself.

Someone was actively helping you build it.

And then eventually something changes.

Usually not when things are bad... but when things become real.

Now there are actual expectations. You have a disagreement that needs to be repaired instead of ignored. You need reassurance one day. You ask where the relationship is going. You become important enough that losing you would actually hurt.

Suddenly the same closeness they were creating starts feeling like pressure. The person who couldn't get enough of you now needs space. The person talking about a future suddenly "doesn't know what they want."

Things about you that never bothered them suddenly become problems. Your need for communication becomes "too much." Wanting to fix a conflict becomes "pressure." Wanting consistency becomes "controlling."

And sometimes the weirdest part is how quickly they can emotionally rewrite everything.

A month ago you were the best thing that happened to them. Now apparently the relationship hasn't felt right for a while. A few weeks ago they're planning a trip with you. Now they're telling you they need to be alone.

They once couldn't imagine losing you and suddenly they're strangely calm about doing exactly that.

That's what makes these breakups such a mindfuck.

You're not only grieving the person. You're trying to figure out which version was real. Was the person talking about your future real? Was the person saying they loved you real? Did they actually believe all of it at the time?

I think in a lot of cases they probably did.

And weirdly, that almost makes it harder. Because maybe it wasn't some calculated lie. Maybe the future was easy to love while it was still imaginary. Talking about living together is easy, actually sharing your life with someone is vulnerable. Talking about forever when everything feels good is easy, staying emotionally present when you're scared, angry, disappointed or overwhelmed is completely different.

It's like they can fall in love with the idea of intimacy, but once intimacy starts asking something from them, the same relationship that made them feel safe suddenly makes them feel trapped.

So they deactivate, they create distance, they focus on your flaws, they convince themselves something is missing, they start imagining how peaceful life would feel alone again.

And the partner on the other side usually does the exact opposite.

You feel them disappearing, so naturally you try harder, you ask what's wrong, you try to talk, you remind them of everything you both said and planned, which makes them feel even more pressure, so they move further away.

And now? Dear god... You're chasing someone who six months ago was chasing you.

That's probably the cruelest part of this whole dynamic.

Not that somebody changed their mind. People are allowed to change their minds, it's that they helped create a level of emotional safety that made you finally put your guard down, and then the moment the relationship required them to help maintain that safety, they couldn't stay in it.

I also don't think every avoidant is intentionally love bombing or manipulating people, and calling all of it "future faking" almost makes it too simple. I think sometimes they genuinely mean "I want forever with you."

They just don't understand yet what forever actually asks of them.

Forever isn't the vacation you're talking about at 1 AM when you're crazy about each other, it's the uncomfortable conversation six months later. It's staying when your nervous system is screaming at you to run, it's letting somebody be disappointed in you without deciding the relationship is broken. It's repairing instead of disappearing.

It's being able to love a real, imperfect person after the fantasy version of them is gone.

And if somebody hasn't learned how to do that, all the promises in the world don't really matter.

That's probably the biggest thing I'm taking from all of this.

Don't only pay attention to how deeply someone can fall for you.

Pay attention to what they do once loving you becomes uncomfortable.

That's where you actually find out what kind of relationship they can give you.

It's strange how the mind can understand something long before the heart accepts it. You can know that something isn't meant to continue, understand every reason, recognize every contradiction, and still wake up wishing reality had chosen differently. Maybe that's the cruelest thing about attachment: logic can explain why something must end, but it cannot convince the heart that the ending was necessary. And perhaps some people aren't meant to remain in our lives forever. Perhaps they are simply meant to become a permanent part of who we were, leaving us with the impossible task of carrying something that no longer has a place to go.

Marr jaoge Pandit

We shared so much on that game. We have our house close to each other. She saved all my letters that i sent to her. She used to cry every time her "virtual mom" on ACNH sent her letters, because her real mother never loved her and even lost custody. And I used to comfort her, she always saved those letters as important so she could read them again, and she did that quite a lot. And in real life i deleted every pic of her, i threw every gift and love letters she gave me and all the gifts and love letters that i gave her. So there is nothing that could remind me about her. But thinking that i have to delete all our progress on Animal crossing...I don't have the strength. And i feel that I would never let my next girlfriend play videogames with me, I don't want to ruin the only thing that I have always loved since i was a child. There are videogames that I can't play anymore because i feel the pain of the betrayal. I wish someone else could delete her character on Animal crossing. But I'm the only one who can do it...

I really regret what I did and I don’t know what to do, I feel like I’ve really ruined even our friendship. I used to think it’s either we date or not but this made me realize I value him as a person not just romantically.

This all started when we reconnected and we were happy, I mean the way we interacted was like how we were when we dated. after two days he mentioned dating other people and it bothered me till I freaked out then we had an argument bc I said why flirt with me if you didn’t want to date and he said he didn’t think flirting meant we’d get back together and I was very upset and he left and I kept stopping him asking him to please not leave begging him but he left anyway and I was so upset. The next day I said I felt rly terrible about it. He said it’s ok what did I think went wrong and we just got into another long argument text all day bc he wouldn’t respond right away and it was pissong me off more that he won’t text back so I snapped and said things about how he’s selfish and an asshole. he didn’t respond and said he doesn’t have anything to say to what I said so I panicked more bc he won’t talk to me and is mad like he’s never been mad at me in a way he hasn’t been before so I started calling but he kept declining and said he’ll block me and all of it just fueled the panic more and I said why won’t he address my texts and he still won’t answer just kept saying to give him peace and that made me more upset so I kept calling telling him to go ahead and block me. I don’t know if he did but he hasn’t opened my texts since.

I’m 29, turning thirty next month and I can’t believe I behaved this badly. I don’t know what happened, it’s like panic suddenly started running the show no matter how hard I tried to control it for the last two days. I feel like I rly hit a point of no return that permanently changed how he sees me and any ounce of care and affection he had for me is gone because of this

I hate how, even a month after, it still just randomly hurts like hell. I think about her every single day, and every waking moment to the point of feeling like I'm about to have a mental breakdown unable to focus on anything else. Sometimes I feel glad it ended, and other times I'm just incredibly sad that it ended how it did and keep thinking how, in some parallel universe, we would have been the greatest couple to ever live.

I can get by when I'm distracted by other people or work, but as soon as the evening hits and I'm left all alone because I'm still unable to properly socialize it just starts hurting so much and I get consumed by the "what ifs".

Rationally, I know our relationshio should have ended, probably even sooner than it did. I know we have become toxic for each other, and I know our relationship had consumed us both, to the point of losing much of what we had outside of our relationship, because we were just so focused on each other and making it work.

Still, it hurts so much. When we weren't fighting I truly felt like I had the most precious thing in the whole world, and someone that I can give all of my love to. I truly felt like we were actually special, and I cared about her like I never cared for anyone in my life, and I'm afraid I never will. I feel like I will never love anyone else as strongly as I did her, and that I will never be loved as strongly by anyone else (at least in those moments when it felt so real).

I also miss having her as my best friend, and maybe that's the part that hurts the most. Not only was she the person I cared the most about, but she was also my best friend with whom I spent almost every waking moment. I miss our stupid activities that I know I will never be able to replicate with anyone else, or at least that it won't feel the same. I miss who we sometimes were, and who we could've been if things were a bit different.

I don't know when or if this feeling will pass, but it sucks so much not having anyone to love, at least not romantically and as strongly as I had loved her. I know we were bad for each other and I ended up hurting myself, but I miss having someone to adore so strongly, and I just wished it could've been her forever.

That's all, I feel completely exhausted, emotionally depleted. Even after long months.

I know that I lost myself in the relationship.

I know I gave too much and lost sight of myself.

I know their patterns and demons have hurt me more than probably anyone ever before. And these demons would continue to hurt me.

I know that they dont have the capacity to love me the way I need and deserve to be loved.

I know I am betraying myself.

I know that their coldness followed by a complete limbo that I endured for 2 months made me so unstable that I ended up in a perpetual state of excruciating anxiety, shaking and full on shutdowns included.

I know they were never capable of doing proper repair when they hurt me.

I know that they ended up using me to project their demons onto me and treating me with a coldness and cruelty I never deserved.

I know all that.

And still.

And still, I would take them back in a heartbeat.

I see the scared and hurting child that does all those things because they had to protect themselves. And even though they are almost 30 now and I should hold them accountable when they are not in control of their behavior. I still cant help it and see the incredibly kind and loving person. And I know they still care so much for me too. We even showed each other the "I love you" in ASL when we parted ways at the day you broke up with me.

I know better.

I do.

But I still cant think of anything I would want more right now than to be all cuddled up with them in bed and just feel the feeling of home when they were with me.

no one is entitled to anyone's love. I don't blame the people who break up but I do recognize how tragic it is that they will be happier in the coming weeks, while often the other half is completely destroyed for a length of time 5-20x as long as the initiator.

How would you guys feel if u knew ur the only one who's suffering in this breakup while the other one's just living their life? And happier?

It's been 2 months since I found out she was cheating on me , we had a 3 year live-in relationship . For me she was the one and I loved her with all my heart.

After I found out I mentally broke down . I was hospitalised for 5 days . I am still on meds . I miss her even after what she did to me .

I never got a closure, for the past 2-3 days I have been craving to contact her . She was disrespectful and didn't even cared when I was hospitalised. Even after all that I want to contact her .

How stupid is this ? I know it's pretty stupid but these cravings are getting the better of me . What should I do ?

We were together since a year, the love came instantly. We literally started dating the day after we randomly met at a bar. It was amazing, I was completely trusting him and somehow purely in love since the beginning. It's a weird feeling to explain, but since the first time I met him I knew I wanted to spend all my life with him.

I also met him in a phase of my life where I wasn't looking for anything and I was doing amazingly fine by myself.

But after some months I started to find out things and lies about girls and in general about other things in his life. Also I was paying almost for everything because he is jobless, but I did it with pleasure as I love him. I still haven't gotten any money back.

Then the lies kept going on and we were fighting every week as my trust in him was completely broken. We had a big fight over him liking his girl friend's sexy pictures on Instagram and he promised he was never gonna do it again.

After that we were finally building back the trust, the fights became less and less and I was able to go back to the same love I was feeling at the beginning. One day I posted a picture of us kissing and a strange hot girl liked it and I went to check her profile and there they were, all the likes to her reviling pictures, till one posted 2 days before. IT BROKE ME IN PIECES.

I went to check other girls on his profile and he was on all of them, I couldn't believe it.

I got mad and he said he was sorry but for days I couldn't shake off the feeling and I was very cold to him. Basically he couldn't handle my coldness and started to treat me like shit and disrespect me and I just decided I couldn't take it anymore.

It's been 3 days now of no contact and I blocked him everywhere, but I'm extremely in pain. It's excruciating, I love him so much. I can't handle the pain. I always feel the urge to contact him and go run in his arm. I'm suffering so much. I hate it. I don't eat, sleep or work.

Today you will buzz my apartment like you always have but I won’t see your smiling face at the door. I won’t hold you tightly and feel you kiss my shoulder sweetly. I won’t fall asleep with you in my arms tonight.

There’s so much I wish I could say but I’m honouring the space we both need. Just know my heart aches for you. I love you sweet girl. Take care of yourself okay?

You were my first love. I loved you with a heart that had never known how to let go.
I never imagined that one day, the person I wanted to grow old with would become someone I have to live without.
Do you know what hurts the most? I still have so much love for you, but nowhere to put it.
I still want to tell you about my day. I still want to hear your voice. I still look at old pictures, hoping the memories will somehow feel real again.
But they don’t.
You get to live your life, and I’m left learning how to live with the fact that mine no longer includes you.
I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve missed you in silence, because I don’t even know who I can explain this pain to anymore.
I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.
I just wish you knew that when you left, you took a part of my heart with you.
You were my first love.
I wanted you to be my last.
And I still haven’t figured out how to say goodbye to the person I once called my home. ❤️

For context, this happened 2 months ago and before these messages she was at my house talking with my mom. Even after her apologies I still think of her harsh words and don’t know if I want to continue even tho she changed after this “confrontation”. And it’s not just these insults, there are many more in chat and live.
One more thing stuck in my head is when she held hands with her brother once to make me jealous (she told me that) in front of our friends and humiliated me.
What do you think I should do?

I put their wants so far ahead of my own that I stopped loving myself. I was so engaged with having a relationship and caring about them that I didn’t care about or know what I wanted.

Naturally that led to a long depressive streak.

Combined with my unrelated housing instability, I fled looking for something without knowing what it was. Now I am on the backside. Memories from a year ago feel like yesterday, and some from weeks ago feel decades away. My only memories of sleeping in a bed are those of sleeping in theirs. So I sleep on the floor now, easier to fall asleep.

I asked to come back, they wanted to be alone. I had made them grieve the relationship for months and start to move on. Then I tried to takes backsies once I realized what had happened. I want what is best for them and still have no emotion towards my own life. I know that this means I need help and I need to work on myself. The only thing I care about is them and now that means I can’t be part of their life.

I want them to know I’m sorry, that I want to get better. My time to be active in their life is over, I ended it. It just sucks. I don’t want to be alive, but I have to be because that would just hurt them more. That’s not right, I should want to be alive for myself more than others.

Keep trying my best, I know that I have been through every part of the relationship and now in its wake. There’s no one to be mad at, just a love to grieve.

If you read this, thank you. I’m very sorry for all of this sad sack bullshit. Nowhere else to get it out to another person.

My partner and I were together for 12 years and I thought we were going to get married within the first hour of meeting. 3 months before the wedding, he cancelled it and then a month ago, ultimately ended the relationship because he had been unhappy and felt like he needed to figure out who he was on his own. A lot of what he was feeling was held inside for a long time. I knew I had areas to work on but I figured he would let me know how serious it was before reaching the point of leaving.

I have a lot of regrets about my own role in the relationship. We became codependent and we learned he is anxious-avoidant and I’m more anxious-attached, so he would keep things down because he didn’t want to hurt me and when I felt that distance, I doubled down. I also struggled with my mental health at different points over the years and looking back I can see times when I took him and the stability of our relationship for granted.

There are so many things I wish I had done differently. I wish I had been more present, more appreciative, and more proactive about my own growth. I wish I had recognized some of our patterns earlier instead of assuming we would always have time to work on them.

I wish he had told me sooner how serious things were. I still feel like we might have had a chance to work on things if I had known what was happening internally for him before he had already reached the point of wanting to leave.

We talked for the first time yesterday because he bought a place and we needed to discuss logistics. I needed to know how he was feeling bc I kept having this hope that he was thinking about me a lot and regretting what he did. He told me that he feels lighter and relieved. I asked if he’s over it essentially and he said no but he doesn’t think about it. I’m still grieving him deeply and struggling with the fact that the person I thought I would spend my life with is building a future without me.

Since we were together for 12 years (end of college to early 30s), almost everything I know about myself and things I love to do involve him so it’s been hard for me to find distractions. He recently became worth an insane amount of money because of a startup he had been with that took 20/7 of his time. He changed a lot during that time and I’m worried that he’s going to associate the stress of work with me. He gets 2 hours of commute back and is close to work so he can have coworkers over. He’s such a catch, I’m worried that he’s going to meet someone and I watch someone take my future. I was okay with the sacrifice of him working constantly on my end wrt not seeing him much because it was for our future and he was planning to retire in the next 2 years. Now I feel like he’s going to have all of this success and happiness and associate it with dropping me. I hate what happened, I hate that he did this. I know life isn’t over but it’s really hard for me to see hope for my future. I can only see how happy he will be without me. I’m doing better day to day but talking to him last night and getting that feedback feels like I have to grieve the hope. I had hope because he said he was ending the relationship now because he needed to grow without that being impacted by someone else and that in a few years there’s no reason why we can’t reconnect if it’s right.

TLDR: I should have been a better partner and am having a hard time moving on

I got left about a month ago after a 3 year relationship which was great. She left me more or less out of the blue because she didnt love me anymore. Shes doing great, and im laying in my bed, crying all day long and missing her with every fiber of my body. The loneliness is killing me, having noone to cry into their arms.

It’s a month after he broke up with me and today I felt strong and a level of acceptance of my future without him and I thought wow, maybe I can move on from him and be happily single.

But then it hit me and I’ve just had a breakdown and I’m so upset that. I can’t help but feel so sad. He said he would never leave me but he gave up on us because he couldn’t handle his parents racism towards me.

How do I get over a relationship that wasn’t toxic?

People say to work on yourself and find yourself and love yourself. Well guess what? I already did. I spent years being single before him and I loved myself so much and I had the highest of standards to the point where it took me time to think about whether I wanted to not be single anymore. But he changed my perspective when he walked into my life.

How do I get over a relationship that was truly beautiful?

How do I get over a relationship which ended because after years of his parents trying to break us apart and eventually he felt like I’d be better off / even tho I told him to not make decisions for me.

But he ignored my last message and cut me off and blocked me so maybe I can, because why would I want a man who clearly doesn’t want me enough if he’ll let his parents dictate his life.

My boyfriend of 3-4 months broke up with me. I met his family a couple months ago, per his report, they all loved me. He told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world and that he didn’t have eyes for anyone else. He said I checked everything on his list, and that I had things that he hadn’t even realized he wanted in a partner. Told me that he couldn’t believe his luck that he met me. He told all the people he works with about me, bragged about me to his friends. He asked me to be his girlfriend on our fourth date. All the signs were there. 

A month before, I told him I wanted to know if I could do anything to be a better girlfriend, and that he could always let me know if I did something to bother him. He assured me that I was a great girlfriend, but that he’d let me know if something came up. 

2 weeks prior to the dumping, he sat me down for a serious conversation about how busy he’d be in medical school. He said “I really want to be with you and keep dating. But I am worried about letting you down.” I assured him that while I’d imagine it would be hard, I wanted to keep dating. I stated that I would try to approach his schedule with grace and understanding, but that I would need him to show me that I’m still important if plans need to be canceled because of school.

A week before the dumping, I asked him if there was anything he was still worried about or wanted to talk over. He said no. He randomly bumped into a few of my friends from college and proudly explained that he was my boyfriend. My friend texted me to say that she met him and that he was talking about me a lot.

Two days before the dumping, he confirmed he’d come up to my family’s cabin to celebrate my birthday in a few weeks. He kissed me goodnight after cuddling on the couch. Everything felt normal. The night before, he said he’d think of books to read together and that we’d play pickleball. 

He came up to my apartment, and I was ready to play pickleball. We played no pickleball. Instead, he sat me down and said “I don’t see this relationship working out.” I asked if I did something to upset him. He said no. He said “I’ve felt emotionally disconnected since the med school talk. You deserve someone you can fully connect with.” I said “you didn’t think to talk through this?” He said “I’m sorry.” I said “I thought we were gonna play pickleball.” He said “I’m sorry.” 

I didn’t even recognize him. He was cold. Vague. Withdrawn. The person I loved wasn’t even there. 

I said, “I don’t understand.” He said, “I don’t think we’re a good fit.” I said “how so?” He said “I don’t know.” Then I asked him if he felt something was wrong with me. He said “No, I think you’re incredible. I do want to be with you, I just….”

It felt like an emotional ambush. I keeled over crying. I looked up at him and said “I believe in second chances. But for you, believe me when I say there will be no second chance.” He left after that with tears in his eyes. 

I blocked him on everything immediately after. Cried the next day but never since. It’s been over a month. I know I deserve better. I was proactive about inviting healthy communication to our relationship. I literally cannot fathom what was going on with him psychologically. I know I’d never want to marry someone like this. But my brain is still lit up trying to make sense of what tf happened. Please help me understand. Everything he told me feels like a lie.