Broke up with my long distance boyfriend on new years eve because we had radically different ideas of what we wanted to do in the future. I feel like I broke his heart and I hate myself for it. He was my first boyfriend ever. I have moments where I’m ok and then I’m just sobbing missing him. I feel like I did the right thing because if he wants to persue a future how he envisioned, then I needed to let him go.
Today is new years day. I messaged him because I missed him and wanted to make sure he was ok. He said he was okay but I don’t believe it and I feel like shit. This morning I woke up with leg pain and it slowly transitioned to body aches and now it feels like I’m coming down with a fever. Idk if this is all mental from the break up (that’s what I think it is). But idk, I feel hopeless. He was the first decent man I found in my life and I had to let him go and it hurts. I broke his heart and it kills me to think about that.
I’m trying to be positive and think that he might hate me for a bit but it’s a new year and hoping he gets over me to find someone who can give him the life he wants and deserves but from our messages last night, he lost all hope of him having his future dreams becoming a reality. Everything I see online makes me sad and reminds me of him.
I’m the bad guy in the story. I deserve no sympathy
this sort of thinking takes away the reasons why you did what you did and it’s unnecessarily harsh towards yourself. It;s also a lie, and it will contribute to negative self-talk, it’'d be a healthy step to not go down that road!
You know what’s heartbreaking? Couples who stay together when they know they won’t work out, when they know they have goals and pathways that are never gonna meet again, and yet they hold on. Hold on until all the love the thought would be enough to bridge the divide turns into resentment, and worse to regret. It’s sad when a “noble” yet unrealistic idea that you can love each other and it’ll somehow keep you together is finally shown to be not enough, when the brave sacrifices suddenly feel like burdens and shackles.
What does all this mean? It’s better to end things if there is no shared happy future ahead. It’s bad to lead someone on, and it’s painful to not face the reality of where you’re heading as individuals.
He’s the first decent man you found, but that’s not to say he’s the last or the only. It sucks to be broken up with, but it’s a part of life, and it’s always a possibility in a romantic relationship.
I’d say it would be best if you give him space to feel and process it, and also use the time to do your own selfcare because you also just lost an important relationship. You just broke up, so there will be social media and text messages etc all going off tagging you two together, wishing you two jointly, etc.
It’ll get easier with time, but it is a process of grief and loss first. We’re here for you during it.
Oh @Stuck, I am so sorry that you had to make that decision. It’s not even a decision in such circumstances. It is something that has to be done, but not something that we necessarily want. It’s so hard to be in this position. I wish I could give you a giant hug right now.
You deserve sympathy and support as well as your boyfriend does - relationships involve two individuals, break ups too. You are both hurting, and there is no shame to say it, regardless of who had to take this decision. Situations like these are made of so many complex feelings. There is no bad or good person in this situation really, only two human beings trying to do their best between what they know rationally and what their heart feels.
I think it takes a lot of courage to acknowledge that different routes might need to be taken at some point, because of differences of expectations and just how each of you envisioned your future. Would you like to talk about these differences and what didn’t seem to match regarding your future expectations?
On a different note, have you decided to stay friends/stay in touch anyway? Or is it something that has yet to be figured out?
Take your time to breathe. Let the tears come as necessary. You are hurting right now, and there is no shame for feeling how you feel. I’m sending love your way.
All I can ever say to myself is how much I hate myself. I’ve probably texted my therapist variations of “I hate myself” four times in the past two days. I hate that it had to fall on his birthday and new years and a time of happiness for most people. It wasn’t intentional. We argued a bit about it on the 30th and it got me thinking.
This is not what I want and now that he’s explicitly told me what he wants, I can’t string him along because I can’t give him what he wants. My biggest regret is the time everything happen but at the same time, it felt wrong to string him along pretending everything is fine and then break his heart when all the celebrating was over.
All I want him to do is move on from me and find someone else that can give him his happy future with everything he wants because he really is a great person and deserves it
Idk if we’re staying on friendly terms. Idk if he hates me for my decision. He did try to understand what my goals were and I told him. he wished me well that I get what I want out of life and I did the same to him but he sounded discouraged and said that he doesn’t have much hope for it anymore and that broke me. I want him to keep chasing for what he wants but idk if he will anymore. I felt like I just shattered everything he’d hoped for
Your expectations are undestandable - you want the best for him. You wish him happiness and a good life. However, having feelings for you, a break up won’t be a nice time to experience. It is a loss, grief to go through. A time to accept what is not going to be and to adjust our expectations to the present. It takes time. And, for now, what he said to you is absolutely normal. He will learn, little by little, to heal these wounds too. But you won’t be the person who will have the possibility to help for that. He will need to find the support he needs outside of your relationship for now, even as a friendship.
I’m not in his mind of course, but only based on what you have shared here, it doesn’t seem that he hates you for your decision - on the contrary, he seems willing to understand and respect it. It’s just objectively hard, for both of you. It is a shock to process. You, on your end, will also need to take care of yourself. None of this make you a bad person.
you took responsibility for what you were in control of. if he decides to pursue his dream and goals, etc, that’s solely on him. You didnt shatter his hopes, you showed him what the reality is for the future.
It’s up to him how he deals with this new situation, as long as it takes, if he decides to date again or not.
Dont regret a choice you made for the best. It’ll get better, give it some time.
Just wanted to dump my thoughts:
I feel so lonely. He was the first guy I met that didn’t play games. Always looked forward to spending time together. We had a spreadsheet filled with movies that we watched together whenever we had time together. His time zone is 6 hours ahead of me so anytime we spent together was precious. My co-workers told me we were practically married because we had a shared movie spreadsheet. No one I know does that. I have thoughts about texting him that I miss him and I still love him and I resist the urge as hard as it is.
He needs to find someone else who’s goals are similar in life so he can be happy. I know this would happen with us eventually regardless but it’s a really tough thing to go through
This was my first relationship and it lasted one year, one month and 19 days
I feel so annoying. Idk people are gonna tell me I shouldn’t feel this way but I feel like garbage. There hasn’t been a day where I don’t cry multiple times and miss him. It’s Monday tomorrow and work is going to be so difficult. I always talked to him on my lunch breaks and throughout work. I feel like I lost my best friend, the person I could complain to and tell everything to. I wanna hear about his day and how he’s doing. I feel so lonely without him
you’re feeling guilt and possibly regret?
those are two powerful feelings. You took a logical step for what was the best thing for you both. But your feelings and emotions do not work on pure logic. It’s not that you stopped caring or that something went disastrously wrong.
It’s going to hurt, it’s going to be a readjustment. It’ll be extra hard when you can’t comfort him through this, or have him comfort you either.
It’s going to be hard, but it was gonna happen sooner or later, due to the differences you mentioned before. You don’t have to tell anyone any details that you are uncomfortable with.
We’re here for you, and please know that you meant well by making this hard decision. It is always better to make this decision early on rather than let things progress when you know better.
Have you got any hobbies or pastimes that can distract you a bit?
You were being fair with him. Stringing him along would have been unfair.
Do you think it would be helpful for you to write something to him that acknowledges all the good things you see in him, and the good times you enjoyed. Then explain how you came to realize that there was no future in the relationship. That might be a good way to have gentle closure.
Ending a relationship is very hard, and upsetting. As time passes, it will hurt less, and although you may regret having made the decision, it will be easier to accept that it was necessary.
Not really. At a point in my life, before I met him, I was and am still so depressed that I don’t feel much joy in hobbies. I used to Play video games a lot but it stopped bringing me joy and after playing a game, it felt like I just wasted my time. I’m not consistently crying, it hits me randomly. One moment I’m fine and in another moment I start feeling everything at once. And yeah I feel guilt and regret. Guilt because I pulled the trigger and regret because I can’t imagine a life without him. I thought I met my person, and now I lost him and all my brain says to me is that it’s all my fault. The reason we broke up over was the fact that he wanted a family with children and that is something I did not want. It didn’t feel right for me to agree to having children because then I would have made a promise that I’m not sure I would have been able to keep. I have personal reasons why I don’t want children and I’ve explained that to him. I really just hope he understands why I made the decision I did and I would rather him be with someone that wants a family like he does because in the end, all I want is for him to be happy. I hope he doesn’t give up on becoming a parent. He would make a good dad
I’d like to do that but I have no way of knowing how he would respond to that now after we’ve already broken up. I did try to be as clear as I could why I didn’t see a happy future in this relationship before we broke up. I feel like it would be selfish of me to keep messaging him if he’s grieving. As much as I wanna message him, I feel like I need to give him space
that sort of issue is a huge deal and you did well to take this step. It may hurt now, but for sure you have saved yourself and him a lot more grief. If this had gone along and things got even more serious, this difference in what you want? That would not just hurt in the future, but feel like someone was lying or pretending.
And those you’re feeling right now? That’s what you want to happen. The progress of grief and loss and pain goes from alll the time hurt to waves of pain with a few moments of peace in between. Eventually there will be days when the pain just comes to once or twice a day and it stops being paralyzed.
If he knows the reasons for the breakup, then he has all the info he needs to understand why you made this decision.
You did your part. It’s up to him to address his pain and decide what he wants for the future.
I am still struggling to get over this break up. People are work ask “hey is he still coming to visit”? And I have to tell them we broke up.
Before that situation happen, I thought that either I really got over him or I was suppressing my emotions.
When my coworker asked if he was still coming to visit, it triggered me because then I had to not break down and try to keep a straight face and tell her that we broke up.
That’s when I realized that I am still not over him and I was still not ok.
Since that incident I’ve told two other people and I don’t know it haunts me everyday. I can’t imagine how he feels but I feel tormented all the time. There’s a lot of crap happening in my personal life that doesn’t relate to him and I’m going through a lot all the time.
I can’t sleep tonight because I’m nearing a panic attack, and I needed to get this out of my head but as I’m typing this I’m just holding back tears because I still feel depressed ab the break up and everything else that’s been going on in my life
I used to watch the same thing, eat the same thing, play the same video games and he introduced me to a lot of new things and I don’t feel like I could enjoy those new things because it reminds me of him. The band I like is a band that he introduced me to, I can’t watch anything in our movie list. I miss watching things with him.
I really don’t know if I could find someone like him, ever. He had his flaws but there were unique traits to him that no one I know of has. It’s been a month since I broke up with him and I feel alone. I’m exhausted. My body is not meant to handle so much crap. My personal life isn’t that great either. It’s been an extremely shitty month and idk what to do with myself. I feel so much pain
I don’t know if it’ll ever get any easier. I’m still in a bad shape. He introduced me to a bunch of new things and now it seems that I can’t enjoy anything because it’s all attached to him. Even doing things that I used to like before I met him reminds me of him because it was stuff I wanted to show and share with him. It feels like it’s never gonna end. He’s on my mind all the time and I wish he was with me right now.
We never got to meet each other. In a way that’s good because I don’t have those memories to remember but at the same time, I wish I could be with him
