Fiancé ended our engagement due to parental pressure. Struggling to figure out if I'm grieving him or the future I imagined.
Hi everyone. Long time lurker, first time posting. I need to get this out somewhere.
My engagement was called off two weeks ago. My (now ex) fiancé told me his parents have never truly accepted me. Apparently there were concerns about my background, my career, things I didn't even know were "issues," and he said he couldn't move forward knowing they disapproved.
Here's what's messing with my head: I'm not sure if I'm heartbroken over him or over the idea of us. Because now that I look back, there were signs. He'd go quiet after family dinners. He'd avoid certain conversations. Was I ignoring red flags because I wanted it to work so badly?
I'm 34. I won't pretend that number doesn't scare me a little right now. The "what ifs" are loud tonight.
For anyone who's been through something similar, how did you separate the grief from the relief? Because somewhere under all this hurt, I think there might be a little relief too, and that's confusing me even more.