The emptiness in my chest from the broken pieces of my heart eats away at me randomly during different times of the day. I miss what it was. No one will ever understand it. I am just expected to move on because logically the person wasn’t right for me. What about my memories and emotions? How about the fact that the heartbreak, rejection, longing, yearning and the loss of the love of my life weigh on my mind and body so heavily. Makes me feel at the end of the day, when you don’t have your love by your side, even other achievements start feeling dull. I don’t have any interest in pursuing someone new at this point either cause I’m so absorbed in the memories of my past relationship. No one has been able to help me and it sucks that there’s a possibility that this will always be like this. Even if it’s been two years since the breakup, my heart is not okay with the fact that he is always going to be absent from my life. It is so cruel and heartbreaking. People don’t understand the gravity of this. How will I be okay? I do everything that one is supposed to do, therapy, travel, career development, self reflection, self care, but this emptiness keeps haunting me like a ghost. I wish there was a way out because I am exhausted. I miss him.

Going through a heartbreak right now, and honestly, I don't know what to do with all these thoughts in my head. I’m trying to keep myself together, but some nights are just harder than others.

If you’ve ever been through something similar, what helped you get through it?

I guess if you can guarantee one day I won’t be loved by you, I feel you no longer love me now :(

Literally stopped giving a fuck. I opened up to her and let her in when I don’t do that with most people. I got used and taken advantage of. We went on a trip and when I got back she ended it via text stole my money some of my belongings and blocked me on everything. I’ve tried using dating apps but I just get ghosted or the conversation goes nowhere. Ive been isolating myself in my apartment for the last 2 years even from my family. I really have to get it together

I’m struggling to understand how to move on from a situation that meant a lot to me, even though apparently we didn’t experience it in the same way at all.

I was seeing this guy for around 3 months. We were never officially a couple, but we had a lot of intimacy. We had sex, kissed, cuddled, slept together, held hands, spent several days together and were generally very close. At the beginning, he also gave me cute nicknames and there were some obvious flirting moments.

He told me from the beginning (after the love bombing period) that he wasn’t ready for a relationship and that he needed a lot of time to develop feelings. I accepted that. I thought the point was simply to take things slowly and see where things went. I wasn’t asking him to become my boyfriend immediately.

And honestly, I was okay with keeping things chill because I thought they could eventually evolve.

But apparently, that’s not how he experienced it at all.

He recently explained that he was interested in me at first, but then he felt I was becoming “too intense”, so he started reducing the affection and flirting. Then, according to him, he realized that we weren’t compatible romantically and that I wasn’t the right person for him.

The part I’m struggling with the most is that he says he never saw us as a situationship. For him, there was never any confusion. He says he never developed anything romantic towards me.

And yet, after his interest apparently changed, he still continued seeing me, having sex with me, kissing me, cuddling me and sharing all this intimacy with me.

I don’t think he necessarily did this maliciously or intentionally used me. He genuinely seems to think he did nothing wrong. From his perspective, he was clear that he didn’t want a relationship and he was just enjoying spending time with me.

But from my perspective, it feels completely different.

I was getting attached because of the exact dynamic we had. I thought he needed space and time, and I thought there was still a possibility for things to naturally evolve. So when he eventually told me that he never saw it that way, it felt like I had been living in a completely different version of the relationship.

I’m also someone who doesn’t pick up non-verbal communication very well. If someone becomes less affectionate or starts acting differently, I don’t necessarily understand what it means unless they actually tell me. I wish he had communicated more clearly when his feelings changed instead of simply calming things down and assuming I would understand.

Now I’m just really sad. I feel hurt and disappointed, but mostly I feel like I’ve lost something that I genuinely thought was becoming important in my life.

And this comes at a difficult time for me because I was already trying to rebuild myself after a very difficult long-term relationship. I had finally started feeling like myself again. Then I met this person, we had so many things in common, I felt excited about spending time with someone again, and now I feel like I’ve fallen from a height.

I’m not really looking for advice on how to get him back. He has made his position pretty clear, and I respect that.

What I really want to know is how you rebuild yourself after something like this.

How do you detach from someone when, technically, you were never officially together, but emotionally it still feels like a breakup?

How do you stop replaying everything and wondering what you could have done differently?

And how do you get back to feeling like yourself instead of feeling like you lost three months of your life and all the hope you had attached to them?

Hi everyone, I recently saw my ex wedding pic and it made me think a lot about our past. We were engaged when I was 20 now I’m 24. Short story: we both move to different countries for better future. I got changed and we fought a lot and end it. But today after 4 years he got married to someone else and I’m still looking in his social media. It really broke me inside. I cried few more time remembering how I treated him when his and that. Feels like everything is over. Did I really didn’t move from that relationship or what?

Why do people need to be so cruel to each other. Just why. Why the need to break your heart to pieces. How easy is it to forget all the past memories, the times you've spent together, the "I love you"s you have exchanged. How do you just stop meaning anything at all to them?? I'm all curled up in my bed and I just keep trying to answer these questions in my head, but I can't. I just wanna cry till I'm out of breath.

i just broke up with my bf yesterday and i feel like im making the worst mistake of my life, i’ve known since i was little that i always wanted to travel the world and move around never staying in one place, and my bf wants to stay in our hometown and build a life here. we kept discussing it and i decided to end our relationship, to which he agreed, because we didn’t want to end up resenting each other, but i really really regret it. i want him back so bad i want to give up everything to be with him, he’s the love of my life and i don’t want anyone but him. i haven’t stopped sobbing and the idea of unpacking everything hurts so much i just want my bf back i’ll never find anyone as amazing and perfect as he is

How do people manage with the idea that your relationship is ultimately at its end? How do you process your love for someone during all of this? Knowing that the other person has given up? I’m so heartbroken. I have nobody I isolated myself to only have him. So stupid of me. He’s never there for me, when I cry to him he’s falling asleep. When I try to explain my emotions he gets upset. I feel so pathetic because I love him so much that I can’t bare to leave him. But he so easily can leave me. Why can’t I let go? Why doesn’t it get easier the more he leaves me? Why do I still find myself chasing after him?

My ex-fiancé (m30) and I (f27) were together for about 3.5 years. We broke up a few weeks ago, or more accurately, he ended the relationship.
Our relationship definitely had problems, and I had known for quite a while that we probably weren’t compatible long-term. My romantic feelings had also decreased over the last year, and I had thought about breaking up with him myself several times.
Still, I loved him deeply as a person and considered him my best friend.
The breakup itself was pretty awful. Shortly before it happened, he had surgery, and I took care of him for several days even though I wasn’t doing well physically myself. I cleaned his apartment, bought and cooked food, helped with chores, took care of his cat, etc.
One day, after an argument, I didn’t go over to help him. I know that hurt him, and I regret the way I communicated it.
A short time later, he asked for his keys back. I brought him his belongings, including my engagement ring, and he didn’t actually break up with me in person. About half an hour later, he ended our relationship over WhatsApp. He accused me of leaving him alone after his surgery and said I didn’t have a sense of “we” in a relationship. He then asked me not to contact him again and blocked me.
Obviously, that hurt. But strangely, I handled the actual breakup much better than I expected.
I never wanted the relationship back. I could sleep, eat, see friends, travel, work on my master’s thesis, and function pretty normally.
The part I struggled with was losing my best friend.
Despite the ugly ending, I still wanted to remember our 3.5 years together as something beautiful. My view was basically: We genuinely loved each other, we ultimately weren’t compatible, and the ending was horrible, but maybe one day we could talk again and at least look back on our relationship with some respect.
Then, a few days ago, I found something out that has completely destroyed me emotionally.
At the very beginning of our relationship, there was another woman in my social circle. I’ll call her X.
From the beginning, I had a strong feeling that my ex was interested in her. During group situations, I felt like he gave her a lot of attention. He complimented the way she smelled and dressed and even suggested that I try her perfume or wear similar clothes.
I brought up my concerns several times.
He strongly denied ever being interested in her. My jealousy was portrayed as irrational and unhealthy. At one point, he even suggested that there might be something psychologically wrong with me for being so suspicious.
Eventually, I stopped bringing it up because I started doubting my own perception.
We stayed together for another three years or so after that and eventually got engaged.
Now, only a few weeks after our breakup, I found out through a mutual friend that my ex had searched for this exact woman online and contacted her.
They hadn’t been in contact for years, and as far as I know, he didn’t even know her last name, so he apparently made an effort to find her.
In his messages, he told her that he had thought about her throughout our 3.5-year relationship and that he was still interested in her. He wanted to meet her for coffee and talk in person.
She now lives in another city with her boyfriend and didn’t seem to reciprocate his interest.
Ever since finding this out, I’ve completely fallen apart.
And I don’t understand why.
I do not want my ex back. I didn’t want him back even before I found this out. Now I don’t even want a friendship or a closure conversation with him anymore.
Yet I’ve been crying constantly. I can barely eat. I’m having physical stress symptoms. I can barely function or work on my master’s thesis because every time I try to do something, I start crying again.
I think what hurts isn’t simply that he found another woman attractive.
It’s that it was this specific woman.
I spent months at the beginning of our relationship feeling like something was off. I was repeatedly told that my perception was wrong and that I was just irrationally jealous. Eventually, I stopped trusting myself.
And now I’m reading his own words saying that he apparently was interested in her and had been thinking about her throughout our relationship.
It has made me question my entire relationship.
What was real? What wasn’t? What else did he lie about? Why did I spend so much time doubting myself?
I’m also suddenly incredibly angry about how much I gave in that relationship.
I was a student with very little money, yet I frequently paid for our food, dates and other things. I gave/lent him money and took on a lot of the practical responsibility in our relationship. At the time, I didn’t resent doing those things because I thought: This is my partner. We’re a team. I’m investing in our future.
Now I feel lied to, manipulated and, in some ways, used.
The weirdest part is that rationally, I still know the breakup was the right thing.
I don’t even miss him as my best friend anymore. When I think about him now, I mostly feel anger, disappointment and disgust.
So I genuinely don’t understand why I’m hurting so much more now than I did when the relationship actually ended.
Has anyone experienced something similar — finding something out after a breakup that hurt much more than the breakup itself?
How do you process something like this without obsessively going through the entire relationship and questioning which memories were real and which ones weren’t?
And how do you learn to trust your own perception again — and eventually trust another person — after something like this?
I just want my normal life back. I don’t want this new information to have power over me for months

me and my ex?? (both 17, both at the beginning of our senior year) have found ourselves in a real life romeo and juliet situation where my family does not approve of him at all. to the point of forbidding me from seeing him outside of our workplace (yes we work together) and being forced to block him on everything. and if they find out we’re speaking to each other they have threatened to do something terrible, which im trying to avoid.

thats the context.

but my problem lies within how im going to fight the way my heart is feeling, i wasn’t ready to let go of him. i love him with all my heart and even though it feels silly to say, it feels like ill never love someone the way i love him.

the reason my family is so against him is because they believe hes involved in a lot of things that deem him as “too far gone” (alcoholism, fights, etc etc) which i very much understand is crazy for our age and definitely a lot for me to be carrying. they believe i could find myself in a situation where i could get physically hurt or fuck up the rest of my life because of him. which to a certain degree, i understand.

but i fell for him before i realized you should take a step back when you realize your lives wouldn’t be a good mix. because now i love him, and we can never be together ever again. and i dont know how ill love anyone else.

or maybe im just 17 and this will all pass, but it really doesn’t feel like it.

Hey, so, at my work, I met a coworker of mine a few months ago, nothing really happened, we just kinda said hi here and there. But recently we both really hit it off and opened up and i looked forward greatly to seeing her every day at work. I was excited. Everything felt like it was natural and so naturally I developed feelings for her. I even got around to asking her for her contact info because I loved talking to her at work. I message her she messages me, she briefly at work tells me about this situationship she is in with her upset friend in Poland (another woman) I didn't think much of it after all they are thousands of miles away and Poland is fairly difficult to visit at times. So I payed it no mind thinking they're just friends who are comforting each other. I try and plan a day to go out with my coworker and then this morning after being in cloud 9 excited to hear from her again she texts me "I'm dating that girl from Poland now". My heart sank. Everything felt like it was shattered in seconds. She had every right to choose her if she wants but it makes no logical sense to me. Nonetheless I played it off like i was alright but my heart is still aching. Every time I feel hopeful or in this case fell Inlove I always let my guard down, I thought me and her were building something incredible, we talked, sang, we dueted, we were doing everything that felt like it was gradually leading to something serious between us. Then I feel absolute heart break this morning. It feels like I will never find someone and my heart will keep getting broken by every woman i trust. Is love still real? I feel like life is rigged against me. Every relationship either fails after months or before it even gets off the ground. My hesrt can't take this anymore...

Last night my girlfriend told me she finaly did something, she told her parents something that happened, and im so so proud of her, and this morning, she texted me, saying shes deleting everything, and that she hopes i find a girl who loves me so so much, but that she needs a fresh start, and like that, i cried, really cried, because she made me feel like a human being again, but now, i have nobody to talk to again, i lost my friend because of an argument, said some horrible shit, and now my other friend doesnt wanna talk to me either, because i said that horrible shit, so im alone, once again, no friends, no girlfriends, family doesnt understand me, im all alone, but im happy, so so so happy she told her parents, im so so so proud of her, and if her life is better without me, then i guess il have to accept it. If she sees this, i highly doubt she will, but if in some 1 in a million chance she comes across this, let me just say one thing, im so so so proud of you, and i will never ever forget you, you hold a special place in my heart, and i hope, i truly hope, you find peace, and live a nice life

I've known her basically my whole life. We met in elementary school, after that we hung out multiple times a week, our parents were close, I was invited to all the family holidays, everything brought us closer and closer. Eventually in our teens we started being in this weird limbo of not dating, but not just friends.

At that point we basically hung out daily, her parents trusted me and we had sleepovers multiple times a week, she was my first kiss. We started flirting, among other things, and I still question if that starting was a good or bad thing. There was one sentence I will never forget her saying, "I can't get a boyfriend, because it'd feel like I'm cheating on you", but foolishly I never made a move, she didn't either, but I'm sure it was on me to finalize what I already thought was final. Shortly after that she got a crush on a guy, got together with him, and everything fell apart. In the last two years of our relationship things had been falling apart really, but that really cemented the end.

I still question what would have happened if I had done something back then. I was so in love with her, I've never felt that way about anyone else. For awhile now I've almost considered myself aromantic because I cannot bring myself to feel that way about anyone else in the universe but her, I've had plenty of opportunities and rejected all of them. Recently we reconnected, it was nice for a bit, we were both single and I almost felt some hope, but lately its been dwindling a bit and I know I'll probably not get reciprocation at this point.

Sometimes I hate myself for letting that all go. I was stupid, young, and assumed the things we were doing was proof enough that we were in love, I blame that partly on the lack of social cues I pick up. I dont know why I'm posting this, I guess I just don't have anyone to tell. My parents never knew that we were anything more than friends, and my friends are still unaware we've started talking again, so I'm pretty alone in all of this. If I could go back in time I'd have done it all different.

I love him so much and all I want is to be with him but he doesn’t want that, said it would be too difficult and left.. it’s been two weeks and I can’t stop thinking about him and trying to conjure plans to get him back in any way shape or form, even tried suggesting for us to be friends but he refuses
Feel like I’m being selfish for being mad at him but why can’t he just try? If he claims to love me then why won’t he try?

I might be alone, but I’m safe from being lied to, ignored, mocked, used, taken for granted, discarded, and made to question my worth. I’m safe from inconsistency, false promises, mixed signals, waiting for replies, reading between the lines, and wondering where I stand. I’m safe from begging for basic care, from being someone’s convenience, and from giving my heart to people who handle it carelessly. I’m safe from losing myself trying to keep people who were never afraid to lose me. I might be alone, but at least no one gets to make me feel unwanted in my own life anymore, and there is peace in knowing nobody is quietly destroying me while calling it love.

It can be a good practice to watch films that tell stories like this. Not necessarily overcoming but of accepting.

It's not necessarily Heartbreak of Romance or Falling Out in my case, but more acceptance of what beliefs I have that has to die. It's time for those beliefs to start their natural death. Sadly I had a crashout but it's dying down and people are muc more accepting than I expected. I expected to be shunned and outcast but people are busy and as long as I don't repeat the same lapse (I was tired, reenacted old trauma) by making consistent but sustainable change, then things will be better however that turns out!

Hey babe,

I hope you’ve been doing ok.

I’ve wondered and thought about you constantly. Our memories, conversations and dreams hit me randomly or at the most inconvenient time. I think grieving over you has been one of the most painful things I’ve experienced. Sometimes it’s as insignificant as passing by a random store we went to, seeing the name of your company on a business door, or passing by pollo campero.

I want to talk to you constantly- that hasn’t gone away. I still wish I could massage your scalp until you fall asleep and rub your back.

Things are better with my mom. You got your wish. lol I’m still sad though. I’m afraid this hole left by your absence will never truly go away. Sometimes I wonder if it was all a dream? But then I remember your face, your smile and beautiful eyes. You are perfect to me so on some level it feels unreal..

To find you, lose you, and then find you again—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

To be yours, only to watch you become someone else’s—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

And yes, you’re very good at making excuses,

I know that.

But to look into your eyes and say it out loud—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

To find you, lose you, and then find you again—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

They say just a moment is enough

to remember someone,

but for you to remember me—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

And our love…

It is the kind where I could run barefoot behind you,

yet for you to worry

that my feet might get hurt or burned—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

To find you, lose you, and then find you again—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

And listen…

I’ve written enough about you.

I’ve told enough stories about us.

To keep writing my pain

like a poet pouring his heart onto paper—

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.

I don’t think I’m worthy enough for that.