I had to break up with him, and it’s killing me now that we have separated

[warabimochi]

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting in loveshack

 

I am currently in pain and confused. And I need all the advice I could get.

 

Background:

I dated this guy I met in college for 5 years. We were good together, we even talked about marriage and kids, you name it. And so last year both of us graduated, and we started with our jobs. Everything was fine until last year’s christmas.

 

Problem:

Last year’s christmas, he began ghosting me. He hung out with his friends without telling me, hanging out with his coworker without telling me, he even did not spen the holidays (christmas & new year) with me. Furious, I confronted him about it. We argued, but never reconciled. After this, our relationship’s going downhill. We would have big fights, him threatening us to break up, and I would beg and plead him not to break up with me. This problem lasted for the whole 2 months, and with each passing time he became indifferent, cold, and unable to show affection to me anymore. Every time passes, I am dying because he doesn’t love me anymore.

 

Climax:

Feb 25th, I made my last effort. I talked him through, I controlled my emotion, I carefully picked my words, but he kept being cold towards me. One last time, I asked him “Do you still love me?” He answered “I don’t know, I can’t answer that” and that was the last straw. I know I had to end this, because I just could not take it anymore. And so, with heart shattered, I said to him gently, “I am letting you go, goodbye”. Our last fight happened in my room. After my parting words, I left the room and minding my own thing. I can’t handle it anymore, for two months I was depressed (literally), and in the end he made no effort for our relationship.

 

Before he came home, he suddenly gone silent. He asked me to sit beside him, which I agreed to, then he hugged me and burst out crying on my shoulders. I was shocked, I did not expect this from him. He kept saying sorry while crying, and all I can do was patting his back. I told him “maybe we need some time apart, right now you are too busy to think about me” gosh I was holding my tears so bad, but I don’t regret anything. After then he talked nicely to me just like when we were dating (annoying tho! because he was so cold to me for two months!) and I just responded normally, like there was nothing. But then, he kissed me, he made out with me (which surprised me again, because he hasn’t touched me since our fight) at first I agreed to it, then I resisted. “What do you want from me now? I tried so hard to fix our relationship and you are the one who kept avoiding me, now you want to hold me?” he was shocked and surprised. I continued “Don’t get me wrong, I want to hold you, but I want your heart too... I can’t do this when I knew we are not together anymore”. Then he cried again, and said sorry numerous times.

 

Not long after, he left my place. Before going out, we kissed and hugged just like when we were dating. And then he was gone.

 

Feb 26th

Monday morning he texted me that he did not expect this to happen. He said that the moment I said I let him go, his chest hurts. He also think maybe we need our time apart, and it is a good thing for us, shall we be together or not in the future. And said his parting words. I did not replied to his text.

 

March 6th

For the past few days, I don’t feel so good. I keep missing him, thinking about him non stop, and would cry suddenly. I texted him (stupid me for breaking NC!) talking about our last moment (the climax), why I did it, and saying I have to move forward even though I don’t want to. To which he hasn’t replied yet.

 

March 7th

My anxiety grows, and I panicked. I couldn’t do anything about it and then I decided to block him from my social media (I noticed he kept watching my instagram stories, and it bugged me each time). I also plan to change numbers, etc. because I kept thinking about him. Even though I was the dumper, I keep feeling like I was the dumpee due to his behaviour towards me.

 

At the moment, both me & him are 25 years old. I kept thinking about him, reconciling, but I’m afraid of his indifferent side. What should I do?

 

Sorry for the long post!

Edited March 8, 2018 by warabimochi
Adding a little bit

[ExpatInItaly]

So did he ever explain why he has turned so distant?

 

I think you did the right thing by ending this. He wasn't leaving you with another option, given that he appeared to avoid you and wasn't interested in fixing it. Something similar happened to me several years ago, and I too felt I was left with no other choice but to end it. My ex had been slowing growing more and more distant and indifferent and while it was very hard to end it, there really wasn't anything more I could have done.

 

You said he had hung out with a coworker without telling you - why do you mention it? Was this a woman?

[basil67]

Don't let yourself feel like a dumpee. You were the dumper, and this shows that you have the power to look after yourself even if the journey is painful.

[d0nnivain]

Unfortunately your relationship ran it's course. You made it through college together but out here in the real world after 5 years your BF at least subconsciously realized that it was either time to get serious or end things. Change is scary for most people so he didn't deal with this well. He knew he wasn't ready for happily ever after so he pulled back -- doing things without telling you & being cold. You understandably got upset. He couldn't bring himself to go back to the way things were. When you had the good sense to end things, he was probably relieved but also unsettled because things were changing. He didn't want to deepen your relationship but given your lengthy history the idea of never talking to you again was overwhelming.

 

It's not that he doesn't care. He does but not enough. He hates being in pain & causing your pain but deep down he knows you two are not each other's futures.

 

Take some time. Self soothe. Grieve. Figure out who you are in this world as an adult. Go from there on to the next part of your life.

[warabimochi]

So did he ever explain why he has turned so distant?

 

I think you did the right thing by ending this. He wasn't leaving you with another option, given that he appeared to avoid you and wasn't interested in fixing it. Something similar happened to me several years ago, and I too felt I was left with no other choice but to end it. My ex had been slowing growing more and more distant and indifferent and while it was very hard to end it, there really wasn't anything more I could have done.

 

You said he had hung out with a coworker without telling you - why do you mention it? Was this a woman?

 

I asked him a lot about this, and he said that he was kind of bored with his life. He expected his career to be good, but I mean we just started working. He also said that suddenly he just couldn’t act the way he was before. Gosh even I myself don’t know what’s going on with him.

 

I asked his bestfriend and they thought he might be having quarter life crisis or something. As for the coworker... I do not know the details, but I have pressed him numerous times if he was cheating, and he said he never cheated on me.

 

I think he’s just bored with his life generally and I was in the mix of it and got dragged...

[warabimochi]

Don't let yourself feel like a dumpee. You were the dumper, and this shows that you have the power to look after yourself even if the journey is painful.

 

Thank you very much, I am currently still recovering and looking forward to what future might hold

[warabimochi]

Unfortunately your relationship ran it's course. You made it through college together but out here in the real world after 5 years your BF at least subconsciously realized that it was either time to get serious or end things. Change is scary for most people so he didn't deal with this well. He knew he wasn't ready for happily ever after so he pulled back -- doing things without telling you & being cold. You understandably got upset. He couldn't bring himself to go back to the way things were. When you had the good sense to end things, he was probably relieved but also unsettled because things were changing. He didn't want to deepen your relationship but given your lengthy history the idea of never talking to you again was overwhelming.

 

It's not that he doesn't care. He does but not enough. He hates being in pain & causing your pain but deep down he knows you two are not each other's futures.

 

Take some time. Self soothe. Grieve. Figure out who you are in this world as an adult. Go from there on to the next part of your life.

 

Thank you very much. I am now currently still healing and it gets better each day. It’s just some days are so hard...

[SpecialJ]

Don't discount how long of a time 5 years is and how it's hard to respond to just the day to day change of not having someone in your life that you're very used to having around in a big way. You're going to go up and down missing his presence, whether you did the right thing or not, so just be ready for that, feel your feelings at the time, and then let them pass. Because the worst of it will, and you'll get used to him not being around.

 

You did the right thing, and I don't know if he'll be back or not. What I do know is, if you've been together since you were 20, then he has zero experience handling an adult breakup maturely. He probably does care and feels off and new feelings about his life that he hasn't had before and has zero idea what to do with them. That's far more likely the reason he got cold rather than he just didn't care enough to do it differently. However, the reason you still did the right thing is you can't work through long term with a partner who can't communicate and is unwilling at this time to man up (for lack of a better term) and get himself together to address the issues in his life.

 

If he is having a personality / growing up crisis, you'll eventually find out because he probably will come back to find out how you're doing at some point. If there's more to it, he'll let you know. But if there was an issue that he just didn't know how to communicate, you may never know. You're approaching it the right way, with assuming nothing and moving on.

 

This is really painful and I'm sorry you're going through it. You haven't really been single in your adult life, so try to use this time to do things you're interested in but never got to try before... maybe because he didn't want to, maybe because you'd been too busy with the relationship previously. It's a great chance for you to just focus on you and learn more about yourself, which will help you keep moving forward even though you're hurting a lot.