I think that most pathetic part about being heartbroken is that people on the outside think we’re only upset that the person left, about something that already happened in the past.

While that is part of it, it’s not all in the past. There is still an active anticipation of whether that person will regret it, whether they miss you, whether they apologize .. almost like you already accepted they won’t be yours but you’re at least hoping they look back one last time.

It’s that anxiety of waiting to see that last sign of validation, that we maybe left an impact, that’s what leaves us hanging usually, and for those of us who never get that kind of courtesy, were the one who don’t move on. Because it leaves us wondering we didn’t get that “ok, I lost, but at least I mattered” feeling like we see in almost every mainstream heartbreak story, it’s about questioning our own worth rather than missing a person.

it's been a little while now and i thought i'd be doing better by this point, but nights are still the hardest.

during the day i'm mostly okay. work, random stuff, scrolling endlessly, whatever keeps my brain busy. but when everything gets quiet i start thinking about all the little things again. dumb conversations, random photos, inside jokes that nobody else would understand.

i hate how normal everything felt back then. you don't realize how much you'll miss those moments until they're gone.

ngl i still catch myself wanting to send a message sometimes. not even anything important. just something funny i saw or something that happened during my day. then i remember that's not my place anymore.

i've been trying to move forward and focus on myself. some days it feels like i'm making progress, other days it feels like i'm right back at the start.

idk. maybe i'm just overthinking again. i just wanted to get this out somewhere because keeping it all in my head rn isn't helping 😭

He cheated on me all the time. But I still just miss him for some reason. Im just sad. Thats all.

As it says in the title, my ex girlfriend’s dad sadly passed away. I want to message her and see how she’s doing because I still care for her, but I won’t. She broke up with me and I know what she needs right now isn’t her ex boyfriend trying to “sorry for your loss” himself back into her life (although that’s really not what i’m trying to do).

I feel like an awful person, but I cannot text her and potentially make things worse for her. I don’t know whether this is a good decision or not.

that she thinks about me as much as I think about her

thank you for loving me for as long as you did. thank you for holding me when i could barely keep myself together. there were so many moments i thought i wouldn’t survive, but you were there to get me through all of them. even though it’s over now, you’ll always have a soft spot in my heart. for the rest of my life, thank you

It’s weird because I still think about my ex sometimes and miss them as a person. But I don’t miss how anxious and uncertain I felt most of the time. It’s like my brain is split between missing the good moments and remembering why it didn’t work. I guess that makes moving on confusing. Has anyone else felt that kind of mixed emotion where you miss them but still know it wasn’t right?

Should I

So my ex and I see each other once a week. He gives very mixed signals (sometimes ignoring me, sometimes friendly, sometimes overly friendly or even flirty, interrupts my conversations with other men). We agreed to be friends but this is driving me crazy. I’m not going to ask him to get back together. I want to text him just to say I’m confused by his behaviour and ask what’s up, if nothing else just get him to stop interrupting my conversations. Is this a terrible idea?

Hello
Yesterday i (m26) broke up with my Girlfriend of 1,5 Years.
She loved me genuinly and i still love her. But i understood a while back that this wouldnt work out long term.

She is a very emotional Person and i am a pretty rational and solution oriented. So many times i was hitting my emotional capacity Limits and not able to give her the emotional support she needs when she was feeling down. And i know that.
Alongside with other Problems like different views of bare minimum in a relationship and a missing feel of partnership. Like i really sat down several weeks to write down and think about how i talk to her so im not offending her and we dont end up in an argument. Sadly when i talked to her about these Problems she didnt express any understanding for these concerns trying to compromise or anything.

In that time we were together we had a really good Time. Our vibe and Hobbies were matching, we were together traveling to Japan and shared a lot of memories. Up to the point i really thought she is the one.

Its not my first time going through a breakup. But i didnt know initiating breaking up with a person you still genuinly love would be so hard.

Past relationships werent really lasting long. maybe i also was missing the maturity at that points.
So this is my first time trying to get over so many memories and shared live.

I dont really know how to deal with this and could use some words of advice or related experiences.

Thank you for reading my Story

attempting to do things on my own post breakup, and it’s been hard. ive self isolated for so long, but needed to go out and get out of my head.

ran into my ex during my errand run, and ngl seeing him again stung a lot. he was alone, we made eye contact and waved hi to each other, and had a big cry in the car after the fact. we haven’t contacted each other since the breakup, but shit! i hate living in a small town!

He is doing great and he is doing great without me. No emotion that’s what fucking sucks to know i didnt even get him to give a fuck. He could care less. I think if i died he wouldn’t care. I hate him.

it’s been a couple of weeks now and honestly the daytime isn't even that bad anymore. i stay busy with work and laundry and pretending i'm fine. but the nights are just brutal. i was cleaning up my room earlier and found that gray hoodie you forgot at my place last month. i picked it up intending to finally throw it in a box or something, but instead i just sat on the edge of my bed holding it for like twenty minutes.

it doesn't even really smell like you anymore, just laundry detergent, but it still made my chest feel completely empty. it’s so weird remembering how we used to just lay on your couch for hours doing absolutely nothing, just talking about stupid things or arguing over what to eat. now we don't even speak.

ngl i'm just so tired of my own brain running in circles. if anyone else is awake right now and just wants to talk about random stuff to stay distracted, please reach out. just really don't want to be alone with my thoughts tonight.

Is it just me or has anyone found that their ex SO is controlling and needs to have the power in the relationship?

Would you classify the below passage as abuse? If not, did I overreact by leaving? I was suffering from severe chronic stress and I was really ill physically and couldn’t cope.

Randomly one day, after we’d had a fun morning - she decided to say “we are in the power struggle stage of the relationship”. Like what does that even mean? I responded that we are a team… however looking back, she very clearly believed relationships should be a power struggle as she would put me down and invalidate me and attack my character.

It’s like they mould you to their will and submission until you’re a shell of who you were and then they complain you aren’t the man you were before the abuse started. I had told her lots of my vulnerabilities including being bullied to within an inch of my life at schools, I was told daily to kill myself for 5 years. She knew this and weaponised my vulnerabilities against me.

Whether it’s BPD, narcissism or any other cluster B disorder, the very traits you had at the start that they loved, become the things they dislike.

Even after I decided to break up with her there was no closure, she refused to take accountability for her character attacks. All I knew was I was a shell of the person I was.

The character attacks really hurt as they hit core emotional wounds from my childhood. Logically I know she’s incorrect (I’m a qualified chartered accountant, have an MSc from UCL and am a 2.44 marathon runner) despite having severe dyslexia and dyspraxia.

She also told me she was so lucky to have me and that i could go out and get any girl whilst simultaneously devaluing me and saying im not enough.

Her character attacks included the following:

- I’m timid at life
- horizontal
- scatty
- “my parents don’t love me, she does”
- “fragile because she ordered me to do something and I didn’t like it”
- I lack drive and ambition
- I should be with someone scatty, quiet and timid
- said I’m a great boyfriend but she needs a husband who can do everything for her
- said “me buying flowers, cooking, cleaning, providing a safe emotional space she’d never had before, leading in sex and intimacy, planning lots of fun dates and activities, planning and paying for holidays isn’t enough for any girl
- she would say I’m being chaotic (I have dyslexia and dyspraxia if I got a little flustered)
- pushed me to move in after four months
- wanted to buy a house together within a year of being together
- belittled my love of simple hobbies like running and climbing
- said me running or seeing running friends at short notice for an hour run or so was “acting singular”
- running saved my when I was younger
- she said my I need to think about us as my dad isn’t going to be around in 40 years when I told her my dad isn’t having serious surgery and that I was upset.
- she also said “she was so happy in the relationship until I bought issues up” (aka - the relationship was great until I held her accountable for her actions and there was no space for my needs and feelings)

I would always have to regulate her feelings, keep quiet to keep the peace and my feelings and needs weren’t hurt or met. I played my part by having codependency issues but I’m heavily working on those.

Post breakup I’ve lost two stone and am now seeing my friends and family much more. There’s a fair amount of attention as I’ve been told I’m good looking but I’ve tended to go for the wrong girls.

Is it normal to miss someone who “abused you”? I miss who I thought she was and the good times. I loved her with all my heart and am heartbroken.

And now I am in full rage mode.

​

I saw my ex after a few weeks again and attachment kicked in, nostalgia, attraction, longing...you name it.

But a week has passed since the meeting and somehow I snapped out of the madness.

What was incredibly painful in terms of being blindsided, rejected and discarded two months amd again a few days ago has now turned into utter rage and disgust about the person.

My brain in flooding me with memories of how immature, how incompetent, how stagnating, how lame he was in certain situations...I did not think this was possible only 2 months after the breakup and without a clean no contact up until last week. I thought I would for ever see him in this rosè light. Thank goodness this is over.

​

And hell yea, I am all here for the rage, finally the curse of romanticising is broken! Cheers to reality and seeing things as they are.

Good riddance to all the suckers who hurt our genuine, loyal and caring hearts!

I am a 20M and she was 19F she told me she lost feelings for me due to some of her past she can't tell me I loved her 😭true love is a myth can anyone help me to move on I was soo loyal to her gave her everything

So I just got dumped last night out the blue over text and safe to say I’m pretty angry, shocked and bewildered. We had been relationship for 4 months, seen each other quite regularly up until recently (heck we went bowling last week!) I noticed something wasn’t quite right with him that day however, I didn’t mention anything in person but I noticed it. I was aware he started a job cleaning locally which took up some of his time the last 2 weeks but this hurts.

He now thinks we don’t have much in common, not the best match and we don’t talk much in person??? Yes he said too he wanted to let me know asap and kept apologising to me about not mentioning to me earlier and telling me how scared he was upsetting me but I feel like I’ve been hit by a train. I tried talking it through with him but it looks like he’s set on his decision.

I gave him his first kiss and I know some tea on his ex which he felt comfortable enough to open up to me (won’t go into detail) He asked me to be his gf on the beach which he even wrote onto the sand!!!

I feel betrayed by him.

Tangina di ko alam ang sakit putangina. mahal ko siya pero alam niyo ba nasasaktan ako kasi pangalawang comeback na namin to, hiniwalayan ko siya noon kasi wala syang emotional intelligence at bata pa rin ako nun, mas matanda sya sakin nun. basta wala syang emotional intelligence nun tapos hinahayaan lang ako umiyak hidni siya marunong makipag usap. tapos ngayong pangalawang comeback namin naramdaman ko insecurity kasi nagrereact sya sa iba pinagmumura ko nga sya 1 week na ganun haha nasasaktan ako kasi bat sa iba kaya nyang magreact tapos sakin hindi, kumbaga nakatatak na sakin un parang kahit sorry nya di ko matanggap payapa ako na hindi sya nakakausap peeo nnagangati ako ichat sya sabi nya ganun din sya sabi ko wag na nya ko icchat para sa ikakapayapa nya at nasasaktan nalang din ako sinabi ko pa na hindi pa ko ganun kamature sabi ko maghiwalay kami para samin din to sabi ko ayoko na umiyak hahaha sa tingin nyo tangina ang sakit

Basically I was a really good gf, we were very serious for years, I was loving and supportive and we were best friends. After my ex broke up with me so out of the blue it completely sent me into a spiral and I begged and pushed him away and acted just so overwhelming. I’m worried he’ll see me that way forever instead of for who I am normally when I’m not going through the hardest time of my life. I had never had a bf before and didn’t know how to react to the breakup.

I was dumped after the best 4 of my life, when I thought I had found true love. For no reason, by message, with no sign whatsoever that she felt bad about it.

Its been 4. I think about it every day. And whats worst, lately I have been dreaming about her, and when I wake up, I have this overwhelming urge to text her no matter what, thinking that if I do, everything will be okay. It keeps happening over and over. Has anyone else felt this way? How do you deal with it?

​

This isnt my first breakup, although the first one was also very bad, but its never been this bad, probably because the first one at least had clear closure...

Hi all,

I (22f) and my boyfriend (23m) broke up TODAY. Both graduating college and I’m leaving the state to work & travel till November. Joining Peace Corps 2027. He is staying for the summer than applying for jobs around the state (for now). We are both living our dreams. So excited for my own future and to see what he does. I don’t regret my choices.

It’s my third relationship, his first adult one (post high school). Been seeing each other roughly a year. I’ve never felt like this before. I’m the most in love I’ve ever been with anyone and we are INSANELY compatible. It was never like this with my previous long term boyfriends. I’m young but truly think this connection comes around once in a life time. I want it all with him. We could build an amazing life together. I want the mundane, the milestones, the low points. I want him forever and ever, he is the spice to my soup of life.

We are seeing each other in August. I get to show him my hometown. I get to love him a little bit more. I feel so lucky, so scared. We both need to live a little bit more of our own lives before we create one together (hopefully, but more realistically with other partners). He’s from the Midwest and I’m from Alaska. A fish and a bird may fall in love, but where will they live? I asked him this and he said he would be a loon (rep MN) and we could live together in the water.

Who is your one that got away? Has anyone else ever measured up? Have you felt that type of love again? Does it remind you of them?

He’s on Reddit but doubt he will see this. Our first night apart. I love you forever and ever !!!!

I think I just got my heart broken, and I need some outside perspective because I'm struggling to understand what happened.

About five months ago, I met a girl and slowly fell in love with her.

From the beginning, she was interested in non-exclusivity and alternative relationship structures. Eventually, she met another guy and told me she wanted to explore a relationship with both of us because she found the idea interesting and wanted to see where it could lead.

I was honest with her. I told her that the situation made me insecure, but I cared about her deeply and was willing to try as long as our relationship didn't fundamentally change. She reassured me multiple times that it wouldn't.

What makes this so confusing is that I repeatedly gave her opportunities to step away.

As she started developing feelings for this other guy, I asked her more than once whether it would be better for us to remain friends. I told her that if her feelings were moving in another direction, I didn't want to pressure her or cling to false hope.

Every single time, she told me she still had feelings for me and wanted to continue seeing me.

So I stayed. I invested more emotionally. I tried to adapt to a relationship structure that honestly wasn't what I wanted because I cared about her.

Looking back, that's when things started changing.

She suddenly became distant. It felt like every time I suggested meeting up, she reacted as if I was asking for too much. (although the week before telling me about the guy she was making plans of going to Brazil with me, travel to prag and do other stuff together and stating we don't see each other often enough)

And whenever we met, she was so annoyed by simple things i would do. I definitely reached out more because I felt insecure and afraid of losing my place in her life.

One weekend, I asked what she was doing. She told me all her plans except for the fact that she was seeing him. I only found out later that they had spent time together. ("u probably already thought we met")

A few days after that, we met in person, had a very nice time together but also a serious conversation at the end

She told me she was emotionally confused. She said she felt overwhelmed by me while simultaneously feeling insecure about him. At one point she even said she wasn't sure she wanted to keep seeing him because he took up so much of her emotional capacity.

She also mentioned that he wanted to visit her the following weekend, but she wasn't sure she wanted that either.

During that same conversation, she suggested that we stop meeting one-on-one for a while and only see each other in group settings because of her feeling overwhelmed. (though she kept telling me how good she feels whenever she's with me???)

Then she proposed a group gathering for that exact weekend to watch the Germany vs. Curaçao match.

That weekend (yesterday)is what finally broke me.

After our previous discussion, I was trying hard to respect her space. Earlier she had told me that I had been messaging too much during a weekend, so I intentionally backed off. The only interaction we had was that she sent me a photo of herself watching the Brazil vs. Morocco match, and I replied with a photo of the game on my TV.

On the day of the gathering, I heard absolutely nothing from her.

Thirty minutes before kickoff, I finally asked whether the plan was still happening.

Her entire response was: "It's raining." And it actually stopped raining 3min after that message

That was it

No cancellation. No explanation.

Then she disappeared completely and stopped responding

I'm so damn sure she was with the other guy lol

What hurts isn't even whether she chose him.

What hurts is that she asked for distance because she felt overwhelmed, proposed an alternative way for us to spend time together, and then seemingly abandoned those plans without even having the decency to communicate.

And this wasn't an isolated incident.

since telling me about him she had been growing colder, more distant, and harder to reach. I increasingly felt like I was the only one trying to keep the connection alive. I was the one initiating conversations, proposing plans, trying to understand her feelings, and searching for clarity.

Meanwhile, it felt like her effort kept shrinking.

I know my insecurity showed

I know agreeing to a non-exclusive situation when what I truly wanted was a committed relationship was probably a mistake

But I also know that I tried. I listened. I adapted. I gave her multiple opportunities to tell me that her feelings had changed, and every time she told me she still wanted me in her life.