Post break-up confusion

[Juliann]

I had been with my boyfriend for ten months, which had been great. The both of us always talked about how easy our relationship was because we just got each other. Loved one another friends and families as well, and even went on two trips together. Fast forward to two months back, he was preparing to leave for a six week training and ended up leaving unexpectedly quick. We had a rocky time during this, something that was new to both of us because we had never had so much as a disagreement. He was stressed, worried about leaving for 6 months after, and I was lonely, just wanting to talk to him when we could. 

That quickly turned hostile towards me. He didn't want to talk about how his day was, or what was going on new with his life. This was hot and cold for a couple of weeks as sometimes he was really wonderful. Telling me how much he missed me, sending me flirty pics and wanting to plan a trip for when covid became less of a problem as we would both be vaccinated by then. Right before he came home to leave for the six months, things turned hostile again and we ended up in a big fight for really the first time ever. I was left in utter shock as for the last two months all I asked was that he communicate with me if he needed space or anything as I knew he was under a lot of stress. Which he never did. This fight included a lot of low blows, calling me completely needy and requiring a need for constant affirmation because I liked to hear goodnight I love you every night. Things that just to be honest did not make any sense as I backed off a lot during the time he had been gone. The weekend he came home for we spent Friday night together. Had at the beginning an awkward dinner, things started to feel more normal and we had sex and spent the night watching movies and laughing. The following morning he showed a lot of irritation, something that was just confusing to me. I left to go walk the beach and clear my head and in turn asked if we could clear the air on everything that had been bothering me from the time that he was gone. 

We met up the following day and I was left with a broken heart. He told me he didn't feel the same way, and after our honeymoon phase had ended months before that the feelings died. I was crushed as I pictured spending the rest of my life with this man. He didn't have any answers to the questions I was asking and just repeatedly told me I deserved better than him, that he had been unsure and that wasn't fair to me as he was leaving for the next six months. 

The confusing part is that while I was sitting there crying trying to wrap my brain around what just came about, all he wanted to do was console me. He put his hand on my thigh, talked about all the good times we had, hugged me tighter than ever and just kept apologizing. Saying that I was a total catch, an amazing girlfriend and how he just didn't treat me like I had deserved. He sat there with me for over an hour as he didn't want me leaving so upset. We talked some more, joked and even laughed a bit. I stood up and he just hugged me tighter and didn't want to let go. He ended up kissing me multiple times as well. I just know this may be denial talking, but things just did not feel right about the whole thing. He never showed signs of this until he left, I even asked him flat out if there was someone else to which he even showed me his phone to prove there wasn't. I was just left feeling like it wasn't completely what he wanted, as he mentioned how angry his friends and family would even be for letting me go. He just kept telling me it wasn't fair to string me along for six months. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Juliann
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[d0nnivain]

No need to be confused.  His feelings changed but he's a fundamentally nice person so he tried to console you when you were upset.  He didn't like being the source of your pain. 

He gave you a version of the it's not you, it's me speech.  It boils down to it's over.  He's looking forward to whatever his next adventure is & wants to be single to explore possibilities.  You have to let him go. 

The humanitarian kindness he showed you is because he's a good person not because he wants to reconcile.  

Sorry.  Go NC & focus on your own healing.  

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

Yeah this sort of attempt at kindness is understandable and common but actually doesn't serve to protect you in a breakup. Instead what it does is it attaches you to him, which is definitely not what you want. People do this all the time; the old saying "there's no such thing as a good breakup" applies here.

Instead of focusing on the kind and positive things he said, focus on the negative ones which speak a very clear language. In particular, he said the feelings had died. This is excruciatingly hard to hear, but you need to believe that because that's actually the relevant part of what he said. Better yet, focus on what he did, which was break up with you.

That's what you need to know. The rest is just the usual breakup stuff. Clean break and NC like @d0nnivain said.

Edited March 22, 2021 by StoryOfMyLifeYes

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

BTW, IMO wanting to hear "goodnight I love you" every night is hardly a sign of great neediness. This sounds like him already wanting out of the relationship, but not knowing how to utter it yet and (sub- or half-consciously) looking for excuses to create issues. As much as it's an ugly behavioral pattern, I think I recognize it (I believe it's more common among men). That's only conjecture, of course.

Edited March 22, 2021 by StoryOfMyLifeYes

[Juliann]

At the time of him first leaving, we spoke on the phone shortly after. Talked about the things we both needed from one another and agreed to work on ourselves. Mine was being a bit more attentive by just a good morning/good night, his was to not communicate as much such as the snapchats we would send throughout the day. I agreed and we followed suit, which is when things went ok. He agreed he needed to be better for me, and things had been going well up until our first fight. Which is why I was so blindsided by our breakup. The last night we spent together felt good and normal and I know many people don't agree, but the whole break up felt so strange to me. He never actually said he didn't love me anymore, just that his feelings weren't the same as the honeymoon phase. Up until he left, he never showed any indication of this. He was obviously still physically attracted to me given Friday, so I guess im just having a hard time understanding it all.  

Edited March 22, 2021 by Juliann

[d0nnivain]

43 minutes ago, StoryOfMyLifeYes said:

BTW, IMO wanting to hear "goodnight I love you" every night is hardly a sign of great neediness. 

Opinions vary.  At 10 months this would be over the top for me & feel smothering if a partner needed this from me.   I am very slow to ease into daily contact at the beginning.  

Especially when combined with snap chats & other touch points throughout the day it would be too much & I would resent the interruption during the day.   I just sent a rare day time work interrupting text to my husband to remind him that a landscaper is coming over to give an estimate later today.  Unless there is a specific concrete reason to reach out, we don't talk all day; we have work to do.  When he did travel for work or if I went on a girls' trip there would be a good morning text & an evening phone call but that came after we married.  I never did something like that with a BF.  

Edited March 22, 2021 by d0nnivain

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

Yeah that's how it often goes though. You can have a really good conversation about what you two can do better and then break up anyway. It's futile at this point to try to figure out when exactly it went wrong (that's not a question that can actually be answered) - what matters is the situation you are now. In time, yes, you will understand more deeply what made the relationship fail, but you won't understand it until you've moved on.

That's in the nature of things - it sounds like right now you're at the stage where you are trying to solve this like it was a riddle, which nobody before you on this planet has ever solved.

In my opinion, there are several reasons for this:

• People are often in the dark when it comes to the true reasons for their own decisions. As a consequence, even if they do try to explain things to you, they will give you misleading explanations which will only serve to confuse you further
• People try to protect other people out of kindness (and, in equal measure, self-protection). The consequence is the same.
• Your own brain goes into panic mode, which is never good when you are trying to see clearly. You will blow some (positive) aspects out of proportion and diminish others (the negative ones).
• Breakups, as a rule, have complex and multifaceted reasons. Boiling them down to simple ones never works. Trying to figure out the entire complexity by frantically going over the relationship history in your mind doesn't either.

Only time and distance will help you understand the true reasons why it didn't work out, and the understanding will come naturally and gradually. As frustrating as it is, it's simply impossible to see the big picture now.

With my most recent breakup, I was in a way lucky - our relationship was fraught with so many obvious problems that as much as I was hurting I simply had to accept that there were good reasons for it (and still my brain managed to paint quite an unrealistic picture of the relationship for me!) The one before, on the other hand... I was fully convinced that we had been made for each other! I convinced myself of that for so long that it was a long, long time before it dawned on me that the relationship had been entirely dysfunctional. I'm not saying this is the case with you; I'm just trying to illustrate the power of the aching mind to present to you something that might make perfect sense to you in the moment, but is far from a balanced picture.

Edited March 22, 2021 by StoryOfMyLifeYes

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

2 minutes ago, d0nnivain said:

Opinions vary.  At 10 months this would be over the top for me & feel smothering if a partner needed this from me.   I am very slow to ease into daily contact at the beginning.  

They vary indeed! I guess I was speaking from the perspective of someone who easily feels smothered by perceived neediness and is reevaluating lots of things atm. Understand your perspective, though.

[Juliann]

the goodnight I love you began when we went long distance and weren't seeing each other the 1-2 times a week we had been. I guess the more I think things over the confusion lies with the whole the romance was lost after the honeymoon phase, which we both agreed was over come October-ish. end of December early January, he told me he had never had a doubt about me, suddenly come February he had so many doubts that he decided to end it. I saw him one week in February. 

[d0nnivain]

37 minutes ago, Juliann said:

the goodnight I love you began when we went long distance and weren't seeing each other the 1-2 times a week we had been. I guess the more I think things over the confusion lies with the whole the romance was lost after the honeymoon phase, which we both agreed was over come October-ish. end of December early January, he told me he had never had a doubt about me, suddenly come February he had so many doubts that he decided to end it. I saw him one week in February. 

OK.  I misunderstood & thought you were doing the ILY good night since the beginning, which IMO would have been too much too soon. 

I suspect something or somebody  happened on that 6 week training trip or at least that he realized he can't hack long distance.  Your relationship didn't really have any difficulties.  It wasn't tested.  As soon as this 1st stumbling block came along he learned he wasn't made of sterner stuff.  He only wants a relationship when it's easy.  

[Juliann]

3 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

OK.  I misunderstood & thought you were doing the ILY good night since the beginning, which IMO would have been too much too soon. 

I suspect something or somebody  happened on that 6 week training trip or at least that he realized he can't hack long distance.  Your relationship didn't really have any difficulties.  It wasn't tested.  As soon as this 1st stumbling block came along he learned he wasn't made of sterner stuff.  He only wants a relationship when it's easy.  

yeah that thought came to my head to so I asked straight up if there was someone else.  he showed me his phone and said no one else. I guess the part that upsets me which I know is something I will never fully know the answer to is I don't believe he stopped loving me, he never actually even said he stopped just that it wasn't as much as during the honeymoon phase. I truly believe the long distance thing frightened him as last time he went long distance in a relationship he was cheated on. and instead of admitting that to me and talking it out he got in his own head and clearly needs to work on himself. 

[d0nnivain]

26 minutes ago, Juliann said:

I truly believe the long distance thing frightened him as last time he went long distance in a relationship he was cheated on. 

there you have it.  You are being punished for somebody else's mistakes.  

[Juliann]

17 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

there you have it.  You are being punished for somebody else's mistakes.  

I am convinced there's more to it than just "my feelings changed" as it sounded like he was almost doing me a favor. I of course want him back, but im not going to live on thinking and hoping that will happen. For now im doing no contact, other than the one time I had to ask for something back. Its hard for me but I just know that its what is best for now. 

[Sun Seeker]

Yes it is really over.

I did a similar thing to an ex, we had a great 1.5 years together, when something inside of me was just telling me she was not the one. I could not explain it, but I felt it. She never did anything wrong. Just my feelings changed, and I had no answer as to why. I told her I needed time to think. I admit I was being a coward as I could not break up with her properly as I knew I would be breaking her heart. In the end I ended up hurting her even more as she always had hope that we would get back together. It wasn't until many months later when we had a very tearful phone conversation as she kept calling me, when she realised it was over for good.

It was the right decision as now I am in a new relationship with the woman of my dreams who I will be marrying soon.

Sounds like the same thing, he knows you are not the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and is finding it very hard to properly end things as he knows you don't deserve to get a broken heart. Unfortunately that is life.

Wishing you all the best moving on from him.

[Eternal Sunshine]

9 hours ago, Punterxx said:

Yes it is really over.

I did a similar thing to an ex, we had a great 1.5 years together, when something inside of me was just telling me she was not the one. I could not explain it, but I felt it. She never did anything wrong. Just my feelings changed, and I had no answer as to why. I told her I needed time to think. I admit I was being a coward as I could not break up with her properly as I knew I would be breaking her heart. In the end I ended up hurting her even more as she always had hope that we would get back together. It wasn't until many months later when we had a very tearful phone conversation as she kept calling me, when she realised it was over for good.

It was the right decision as now I am in a new relationship with the woman of my dreams who I will be marrying soon.

Sounds like the same thing, he knows you are not the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and is finding it very hard to properly end things as he knows you don't deserve to get a broken heart. Unfortunately that is life.

Wishing you all the best moving on from him.

I am curious what woman of your dreams has that your ex doesn't. Is it looks/body? Is it some personality trait?

I don't think feelings change just like that. There had to be an aspect of your ex that never was "quite right".

Edited March 24, 2021 by Eternal Sunshine

[Wiseman2]

16 hours ago, Juliann said:

 it sounded like he was almost doing me a favor.

Sorry this happened. Unfortunately it's a variation of the "it's me, not you" exit strategy. Good you are no contact.

[Juliann]

My boyfriend broke up with me a few days back and has been non stop posting Snapchat stories, something he never did in the year and a half I knew him. He’s a very laid back social media poster as in it is literally once in a blue moon. 
 

im curious if anyone else noticed things like this after their break up? I haven’t opened the stories, as I’m trying my hardest for no contact but can obviously see the gist of them in the preview. The most recent one is him using a gift I gave him for his birthday this year. Is he trying to get my attention or show me he’s doing better?

[trident_2020]

He dumped you, therefore it doesn't make sense that he wants to get your attention or show you he's doing better.

 

[Juliann]

6 minutes ago, trident_2020 said:

He dumped you, therefore it doesn't make sense that he wants to get your attention or show you he's doing better.

 

He dumped me because he was going long distance for four months and wasn’t sure if he could give me what I needed and had been doubting himself. Mentioned maybe 50 times in the process that if he could change what was going on with him he would. Now all of a sudden he is all over social media 

[trident_2020]

4 months long distance and he isn't sure if he could give you what he needed?

2 BS reasons right there.

That's ok, most dumpees never get the truth.

 

[basil67]

I’m sorry he broke up with you.  We can only guess at his motives, so I’d suggest you unfriend him on Snapchat so that you don’t see his stuff at all.