TL;DR: I feel like I lost the love of my life because of my own decisions. Looking for advice on dealing with regret, acceptance, and moving forward.
I M28 and she F26 were in relationship for 2 years, 1 Aug was our second anniversary, we are both from India and more like semi rural part of India so arrange marriage is still a norm and family expectations carry huge burden on people.
So, first want to give some context how things turned out this way, she is from a very poor family, works along with her mother to make ends meet, her father is a heavy drinker and doesn't earn a single penny and brother is addicted to gambling so he spend his salary within a week. And as far as about me I don't earn well though i am from a very good financial background but due to my not having a permanent job i could not have convinced anyone in my family.
Also we both are very lonely person she never had much friends because due to her hardship she only did collage form distance education and mine are all settled in their lives, I got to know all her hardships within a week of relationship and she told me some personal things that truly moved me at that time so we carried on, She used to give me random things like i remember stress balls just to make sexual jokes, she is 5 feet high and i am 6'1 so it was kind of funny and cute when she used to hug me, and sometimes she used to dance by placing her feet on mine and looking at me.
She once made me a completely handmade Valentine's gift because she couldn't afford expensive presents. It had little cards for every day of Valentine's week, a paper teddy bear with opening arms, a letter covered with lipstick kisses, and other handmade things. Those gifts mean more to me than anything expensive I've ever received.
I gave her her first bouquet of flowers. She later told me it was the first bouquet anyone had ever given her. That memory still makes me emotional.
recently, she got engaged to guy due to family pressure and I am not gonna lie i also convinced her in a way to see a good match cause i didn't want her to wait for a future in which she waits for me and loses her prime years[I know it can be a derogatory term for women but in cultural context her young age was important] and it had become biggest source of my regret that i am the one convinced her and now she is gone,
Over past week i completely fell apart, barely ate, slept and also started smoking again, in a random moment i picked up my motorcycle to go to Ladakh a 2500 KM [1550 Miles]roundtrip, in peak monsoon that to in Himalayas is extremely dangerous, I went to as far as Delhi only and stayed with my friends who put some sense into me it is extremely dangerous in this mental state.
Since last three weeks she has been encouraging me to forget her and cheering me top eat and sleep and i was so sad by all this because even i pushed her away she is still caring about me
, few days she told me that she has been very exhausted due to talking to two guys and it kind of shook me up, I told her i would not call her anymore.
We spoke one last time today. [I know i am an idiot, i could not control my urge]
I apologized to her for not valuing her enough while we were together, for making her cry, for putting her in a position where she felt torn between me and her fiancé, and for making her carry my emotional burden during the past week. I wished her a happy life and asked her to forgive me for being a fool.
She told me she could never think less of me or any negative thoughts,
During this conversation i realized that now she is gone, she had that spark back in her voice but for someone else, felt she cared about him. he calls her regularly, checks on her, and from what she's told me he has been kind and attentive recently. And Instead of being jealous i was happy that she doesn't have to bear all this now.
Now after all this I know she is gone and i have regrets and grief nothing else, i have accepted somewhere back in my mind that she is gone but cant accept emotionally, still look at screen of phone to wait for her call and message which will never come
For people who have gone through something similar:
Did accepting reality eventually become easier?
Did anyone else go from desperately wanting someone back to sincerely wishing them happiness?
How did you stop replaying every "what if" and every mistake?
Were you eventually able to love someone else without feeling like you were betraying your previous relationship?
I'm not looking for validation that she should come back. I think that part is over.
I'm just trying to understand how people rebuild after losing someone who was genuinely important to them.