r/BreakupSurvival

My ex (M23) and I (F22) broke up about a month ago. We started dating 4 years ago but broke up 3 years ago for 10 months and then got back together up until a month ago. He said he needed time to think but ultimately decided he felt better apart and is moving out.

It ended amicably, he was very sweet but I wish we could’ve worked on it. We never fought. He said he didn’t feel comfortable saying he was unhappy about something because he was scared I would be sad. And he felt he already told me he needed space but after a couple months we would get in the same habits.

I keep seeing posts like go no contact and they always come back, but he said he wouldn’t want to try another time since we’ve already broken up.

Can someone tell me how to actually heal from a breakup? i’ve had 3 girlfriends. I got cheated on every single time. Every relationship I would get progressively worse and worse as a boyfriend. I think it might have something to do with my experience from relationships.

First girl got treated like a princess. she cheated on me and i instantly jumped into another relationship. Second girl got treated okay. Nothing like the first girl. I ended up cheating on her with the “just in case she cheats on me” mindset. It worked out because it turned out she was cheating on me too. Not saying I was right for cheating and I know not to repeat that mistake again

But then I got with the 3rd girl which made it my 3rd back to back relationship since freshmen year of high school. I started dating this girl beginning of my junior year and we dated up until she went to college. I genuinely loved that girl to death but I never showed it. I was a complete piece of shit this time around.

Towards the end of our relationship I started maturing and learning from my mistakes so I started changing how I treated her and just tried my best to be the person she deserves but by then the damage was already done. She cheated on me too which i forgave her for because I genuinely wanted to be with her forever but she left me for the guy she cheated with.

That was back in December. It has been 6 months since then. This time I thought it would be best if I didn’t jump right into another relationship. I wanted to take some time to heal which i’ve been doing for the last 6 months

I guess I don’t really know how to actually heal since I never tried this before. I thought just waiting it out would do the trick but it’s been half a year and I still can’t get rid of our pictures. I still catch myself stalking her social media from time to time or even texting her sometimes. She cheated on the guy she’s with now with me in the beginning but for the most part she’s just been ignoring me which kind of makes me look pathetic in a way but for some reason it doesn’t stop me from checking up on her still

Can someone tell me what to do in order to actually heal from this relationship? Clearly just thugging it out doesn’t work. What do I gotta do? I’m stationed in a whole different country now so I don’t get why this is so hard for me but it is. I want to be at my best whenever the next girl comes into my life because I never want to ruin another poor girl like that again.

Someone please help because i’ve been so depressed and suicidal for the last 6 months it’s not even funny. I’m also recovering from a motorcycle accident and I’ve been on recovery leave for the last 30 days so I have just been stuck in the barracks all month which is not helping at all.

Cannibal

Why did you say things about the relationship that aren't true? And why do you want to leave it how it is? Do you not want to know how I feel? What I was thinking? What I've been thinking? How do you go from "the most important connection in my life" to discarding me? And how can you stand this feeling of me being scared to even talk to you? Why, with all I have said and shared, do you just let it sit there? Nothing happened and has ever happened that is anywhere near equal to how you've done this. I've never ignored you. I may have missed things, but I have never ignored you.
How are you okay with what you've done and how you've done it? How have you not returned to apologize, or take accountability for one single thing? You pinned everything on me, including things that were equally YOU.
I was not disappearing. I was not ever *not* showing up as your partner. I don't know how you ever got around to feeling these ways, and I don't remember you ever telling me. You may have said something similar, and then immediately retracted it - like you did pretty much every time I would want to know if you cared about me coming over or not, or me going and doing something or not. You would do the same thing: I would ask if you want me to come over, and you would be like, "Well, I'm too tired," or, "Well, I'm working," or, "I'm not in the best mood." So why is it all on me? Why is it just my fault?
Scheduling issues? I go back to the texts and I see both of us talking about times and timeframes. Or, you know something is gonna be coming up and you don't know the time yet, so I set alarms for myself to wake up so that I can ask you, just in case the time is earlier than we might've even thought it was. And then you're like, "Well, it sounds good, but also I kinda just wanna stay home." So then how am I supposed to take that, if you're not being serious about it either? The things you pinned on me are either nowhere near the extent to which you made it seem, or it was something we both shared in.
And then you want to say that they became the norm. Those are your words: that me disappearing became the norm because I was either sleeping too much or doing my music. How are those legitimate reasons for ending the relationship? You sleep too. We all sleep, we're all tired. The difference is I actually take naps, and I never asked you to match my schedule. Why do I have to match to yours? Obviously you're the one with the 9-to-5, so by default I understand, but regardless. I don't understand how you're looking at everything you said to me and feel like it genuinely holds up.
And the things that I did do - how are you saying that they're performative? And since when have you felt that way? I've never once heard you say anything about that, so how are you okay with this? How do you feel okay? Are you *not* feeling okay? I feel like I don't know who I was in a relationship with. Everything that you were saying on that couch... isn't the truth. And you either know that, or something is very wrong.
Then you also say all of these things are fixable, but that you just don't want to fix them because you're too exhausted and you just want your independence. But you never define independence. The only things that you define it by happen to be the negatives of the relationship, so really you're saying that the relationship - or the negatives of the relationship - are the same thing as independence. I don't see how you're not seeing what you're saying, what it's doing to me, and how it's distorting the story of us that we have both been building. It makes it sound like I've been a shitty partner. I don't feel like you feel that way, but I need to tell you that that's what is going on. This "not talking" thing while things are as they are... did I just have a wildly distorted perception of us? Were we that bad?
There's no way to consolidate this into a message that won't be long, that will just be five or six sentences and not look crazy to whoever you might show it to. I hate that I imagine you showing this to K and just laughing at how long it. He tokes, blows it out, hands you the bong, and asks, "Does he NOT understand you broke up with him literally like a month ago?" It's to the point where I imagine your friends hate me, and it was already to that point before you even broke up with me. That's something that I wanna talk about and clarify, but it doesn't seem like you're around for that.
There's really only one thing that I found going back through our messages and through my memories that I didn't really want to get into - because to me it already seemed closed, and that there was no further movement nor conversation necessary for it - which is the C thing. I already asked my questions. You were the one that didn't know, so what more is there to talk of it if I already tried and you didn't have any more to say? In the messages you are saying, "Do you wanna talk about it? Like, I know that you're upset, is there something you wanna say?" And it's like, there's nothing more about it to say until you know more. I can't think of any single other point of conversation that I wouldn't be so excited to talk about, because we never really talk, and I wanna know what's going on inside you as well.
I don't understand how I can be half of this relationship and have so many things to talk about and to say, and have such an urge to just sit down with you and go back in our messages to like three years ago and just scroll through it until one of us is like, "Oh yeah, I wanted to say something here," or, "Oh yeah, this actually made me feel this way." I feel like you have an entirely different map than I do. And it kills me to feel that way. I just wanna go back through it with you, but not in a way to cause pain or to judge or be critical or to blame. I just want to... if we really weren't walking together, I at least wanna walk together now. Hearing the way that you feel and felt, the things that you said about me and about the relationship... it will kill me if we leave this the way that it's left right now. It's already killing me. Not to be dramatic, but that is really the truth of it.
I feel like a crazy person. I feel like the reality I was living isn't even close to the reality that my partner, who I thought we were fine with, lived right beside me. Do you not feel that way? Do you not have any curiosity or lingering concern or questions or anything, or am I just dead to you? Are we just dead? Is this real? This is not like any other past breakup whatsoever. This is completely different. I don't know if this is just like a cooldown that you're wanting, hoping that if you come back, I'll just be better, clearer, have gone through things and be prepared to continue like I have been the last times. That is not at all the situation as of current. I am ragdolled to smithereens.
And the person who claimed to feel I am the most important connection and person in their life either doesn't see that, doesn't want to see it, simply doesn't care, or all of the above. I am so confused about what it is that you're doing. I am so confused by how you've outlined me in our relationship. I am so confused about how three weeks ago we had what I felt was the most connected, perfect night we've had in a very, very long time - that was an indication that all it would take was speaking honestly with each other to reach the comfort that had been a little difficult to reach. And then three weeks later, you're hating me on the couch. The same couch. You seemed, literally I am telling you, to me, like you hate me. That's how I feel. That I disgust you, that I make your space uncomfortable to be in, that you don't wanna touch me in front of your friends, that you don't even want me around on Sunday nights so you can prepare for work for Monday morning. What is that? What did I do to make you hate me?
Do you love me and you hate me? Because that would explain the last time I stayed over and the last conversation we had in person, but I don't see how those can coexist. I feel like I am a ghost to you now. I wonder if I was a ghost to you before, and for how long. I wonder if this is like the others, where you know that I'm just gonna stick around and be fine and ready to take you back so that you're okay sitting in its little confabulations, because upon your return simply saying "Oh, I was just lying because I didn't wanna hurt you" or whatever... a thing that made sense before when it was about you not being able to come out. But you haven't given me anything this time around.
You've made me look like the enemy. An asshole who doesn't care, who can just leave you in the dust and not show up to important events. When I told my mom about this the first time, the first thing she said was, "Oh, well I heard that you weren't showing up... like you were missing things you guys are supposed to do together." One thing I missed was Valentine's Day, and all I asked was if we could push it to later in the day, and I offered to go somewhere different or do something entirely different. And a big part of that was predicated on my recognizing that it was Valentine's Day at Chakra, realizing just how busy it was probably gonna be, and knowing that you don't like to be in busy, crowded situations. So again, it was *for you*. Just like in our last fight, how you got so upset that I require detail and information to understand concepts I was trying to understand *for you*.
And the one and only other thing I can think of was the Halloween anniversary, which I apologize for, which is what facilitated the great, perfect night we had the last time I stayed over. But the reason that I wasn't exactly present during that occasion is because I was literally having a panic attack. A whole, full-blown panic attack, and you didn't even ask me why or what it was about. I went back to our texts and I even asked you, "Why haven't you asked me about what my panic attack was about?" And you were like, "Oh, I just thought that you would talk to me about it in your own time." Why would I do that? Why would I be like, "Oh yeah, so my panic attack was about XYZ." Clearly, I was having an issue that was related to the day and the event. That's not my job to push myself into revealing, that is entirely yours to be concerned about.
And because you don't act like you act with me when you're around your friends. You pull your hand away at the beach. You won't let me lean my head on your shoulder at the choir concert. You won't let me even low-key snuggle up next to you on the couch, even though K and R are all snuggled up. I literally rush over to the apartment because you couldn't get inside, and halfway there you're like, "Oh, I got in," or "Oh, we're inside." And then I get there and you're like, "Oh yeah, we finally got up." And I'm like okay, you're not even gonna invite me up? Even though I'm your partner that you love, and I literally just rushed over here to try to save you? And so then I'm thinking it's probably because you guys are gonna get into things and you just wanna be alone, but you're like, "No, we're not planning anything." And then I'm up there, and I'm being my warmest self and trying to put on a good face even though I just rushed my ass off, and then all he's doing is sitting on the floor eating vegetables and you guys are gonna like watch TV or something. I get through casual greetings and make myself comfortable on the couch, and then immediately you're like, "So what do you have going on? Did you need to get back to DoorDash?" Could you make it more obvious that you didn't want me there? And even if you did, how do you not recognize what you're saying? Are you just deaf to what's coming out of your mouth nowadays?
And then whatever event it was when everybody was over... everybody's on the couch. I come into the room as your fiancé with the fucking ring on my finger, and no one even thought - and your best friend himself didn't even think - to offer me the spot next to you? On *our* couch? In the apartment that was always the plan for me to move into? That you sent me a picture of a half-cleaned-out room six days before you broke up with me? That you explained you wanted to make the new bedroom, with no words toward myself other than at the end, saying that you thought about how I would be functioning in the apartment too, with some sweet emoji. Clearly there must've been a moment of cognition, recognizing that I am still unsure if you want me to move in or not, so how did you think that picture was gonna make me feel? And then I told you how it made me feel, and you bypassed it and started talking about something else.
My point is your hands are not clean in this relationship. But everything that you've said makes my hands absolutely filthy. That is not the case. And if you never plan to actually walk through this or have a real conversation about it, to leave it the way that it is - completely my fault, my fault to a grand exaggeration - there's no integrity in that. You don't get to get away with the way that you've painted this. You have my mom, dude. My mother, absolutely convinced that you've not contributed any form of anything notably poor in this dynamic. I've sent her so much and showed her so much to give her a full picture - not incriminating, not blaming, just so she can understand there's depth to this and layers - and all she's returned to me is, "Just give him time." Time for what? To keep making me sound like I'm a piece of shit? That I didn't show up enough? That I wasn't committed? That's not the story.
What is the reason why you've made this what it is, and that you're okay with it? As it stands, I could never forgive it. You can be tired and you can be exhausted. You can even actually break up with me, but you gotta fix this, dude. You cannot leave a memory like this. You can't be okay with me thinking this is who you are. This is so bad right now. It's not a break about me not drinking and being allowed back into your graces by a particular amount of time and effort to do so. This is you absolutely discarding me, saying it's about independence, and then saying it's about the relationship, and then saying it's about all these things you claim I haven't done that aren't even true, and/or are equal to and carried along with you as well. I don't know if you even remember the things that you said on the couch and the way that you said them, but the picture right now that I had no hand in painting is very ugly.
I feel I am and have been an understanding person with a keen sense of reality. And I feel as though you trust that, the fact that I'm here, even though I feel like a crazy person because I don't understand how you've got me here like this. I don't even know if this is you wanting a break to determine whether or not you personally feel you want to continue with the relationship. I don't know if this is an observation period of sorts, similar to the structure of when I was drinking. I don't know if this is you firmly deciding to be separated forever. It's insane that you've not even outlined that. To sort of break us up after 11 years and not even give words to what is actually going on... and then I try to find out and you still won't do it, even after everything you said and even after the character you painted over me.
I have felt every single which way across the full stretch of the spectrum about this. I have felt intense longing and consideration that everything is my fault and you're a perfect angel. I have felt absolutely the most anger and pain I've ever felt in my life, yelled the loudest scream, shook the hardest. I've been so numb after going to messages or getting to the end of a thought that I literally just fall asleep. You just took the ground out from under me without anything. There's no closure. There's no options of paths. There's no anything... just complete and utter deletion, paired with sharing the most perfect night one week and acting like you hate my guts three weeks later. But aside from that, all I've tried to do is understand. That's it. Nothing more or less than that. That's the only input I have given since you've broken up with me, and I can only understand so much.
So to make it clear where I am at right now, I am sending you this. I'm not gonna clean it up or edit it. It's a voice note, so there might be shit wrong with it, but whatever. If you can sit there on your brand new couch, in the apartment that I believed was ours - at least enough to fall in love with the kittens and fold your clothes and help do dishes and vacuum and spend half my time there and deal with your mom and help you through each and every little complaint you had about her and the large ones, so yeah, *our* apartment - if you can sit there and exaggerate to my face about my part in our relationship, compare it to returning a Blockbuster VHS so the next person can rent it, ask me what I want for my life with the nastiest scowl on your face I've ever seen, offend my current place of living, and then ask me, "Why don't you just get an apartment?"... How dare you. Because I was under the impression - clearly I was under a lot of false impressions - that the plan was for me to move in with you.

Clearly not the case. Clearly, there is no case.